Three Poems by Christopher Hivner

One Morning, After it was Over

 

Stop asking me questions,

the lies will float

until dusk,

other worlds in other words.

The sun is shining

but it's still gloomy here,

the sun is shining

through the plastic over the windows

on the hand outstretched

touching the third finger

illuminating the ring.

Stop asking me questions, please,

I'm tired.        

 

 

 

Early Morning Gray

 

Twenty different trips

enclosed in a metal box,

close enough

to smell the soap

in your hair

and to steal a kiss

or a private touch.

Rolling down the highway

through tunnels

of early morning gray,

getting slapped open-handed

by the wind

to keep us awake.

Songs from the radio

play as backdrop

to our silly prattle

of a week alone

amidst 100,000 others

and love

in the time of youth

and revelations.

 

Easing into

the ocean city

with the sun's eyes

just opening,

each time

became rote,

until it

wasn't quite the same.

We talked the talk

and walked

hand in hand

not noticing

the sand shifting

beneath our feet.

 

At first,

it was swimming

in water that felt like a cocoon,

greeting each day

like Centurions,

making love

when the spirit moved

and floating

with the rhythm

of the time and place.

From the start

we suckled

to one another

feeding from

the same breast.

 

The fade began

as we tread

in water that

bit but never

drew blood.

We wouldn't

open our mouths

to talk about it

for fear

of swallowing

ourselves.

So we stayed out

drying up

in the sun,

letting our shades behind

to wander

the boardwalk.

 

Twenty trips

down the coast,

each one

meaning less

than the one before

and we're too lost

to figure out why.

In the end

there were no kisses

stolen or given,

the smell

of your hair

only left me longing

and the songs

on the radio played

to eat up

the empty space

between us.

  

 

 

Another Last Night

  

Drink down

the wine of the day

and let the thickness

coat your tongue,

a jacket for

a better night.

Now the moon

kisses your cheek,

a flirtation,

before dancing commences

along sidewalks

dirty for their art,

around buildings

that try to cut in,

and cross-town traffic

laughing into dangerous curves.

You're drunk

and lost

in a city

of drunks and losers,

trying to stop the sun

from rising

and the day

from calling you home.

Where are my friends

and that last bottle of wine

you wonder into sleep

as the taxi driver

starts your fare.

 

 

 

 

Christopher Hivner lives in Pennsylvania, usually writes while listening to music and enjoys an occasional cigar outside on a star-filled night. He has recently been published in Eye on Life Magazine, Dead Snakes and Illumen. A book of horror short stories, "The Spaces between Your Screams" was published by eTreasures Publishing. You can connect with him here: website, facebook, twitter: @your_screams, Goodreads.

A Poem by Jon Bennet

The Things

 

Between the two of us

you'd think

we'd leave less behind

but there are baskets

in the hallway

full of  phrases left in their wrapping

suppressed advice

compliments of course.

There was the time

I didn't tell you

that I loved you

and the time you didn't say

“I wish you’d die”

along with the fern and goldfish.

It doesn't matter now

in that hallway

with its

opposing doors

we each took one

and simply

walked away.

 

 

 

 

Jon Bennet has  also been published in Red Fez, Zygote in My Coffee, and others.

Two Poems by A.g. Synclair

I Was Just Thinking

 

it's better to write alone
in a dark room
with a full bottle
and a heavy chest

 

even when it’s all too much
the rain
the dark
the solitary thump of the heart

 

all of that
is better than suffering
her

 

because, clearly
she wanted me
dead

 

 

 

Aftermath

 

sitting all day

in a chair
banging out fragments of myself
the ones lodged in the bones
of a bird

failing victorious

 

 

 

A.g. Synclair is an unapologetic pessimist, rule breaker, and rebel without a clue. When he isn't editing The Montucky Review and serving on the editorial staff of The Bookends Review, he is drinking from glasses that are perpetually half empty and hiding from the sun, which is clearly trying to kill him. Despite being extensively published around the globe, he flies under the radar. Deftly.

 

Three Poems by M.J. Iuppa

Feeding a Fire

 

Wedged beneath a pile of papers

waiting to be burned, I

find rumpled sheet music

 

Words pressed against notes,

a tune like the sudden sweep

of snow in late March air . . .

 

A perfection of our labor that’s

difficult to give up, like this song’s

devotion as if anyone pays attention

 

Still nothing is the same and this

song’s refrain, wistful at best, not

love or blues, half-truths said

 

in low light, waiting for embers

to shift in the stove . . . 

I close my eyes, knowing

 

I will sing this without you

 

 

 

 

Household

 

Where can a blind man live

who is pursued by bees?

 

                      ~Neruda

 

Uncomfortable skin, incessant

itch to jump, to twitch, to hum

 

constant noise that gives him

hives–makes madness come

 

alive– a thousand wings fanning

figure eights until cells ignite

 

into fiery flight that burns

his eyes–tearless cries be-

 

come disguise, dodging

all that occupies his mind.

 

 

 

 

Temptation in Standard Time

 

A fish hook moon skims

a dark city sky, promising

to return morning

without being caught

 

in a corridor between lives,

tempting those who love

the stolen split-second kiss

to linger in the doorway

that’s damp with fallen leaves–

hard to forget, but

can’t be remembered

 

Who were you, really?

 

And I, in spite of

purity, claimed your

unexpected embrace

long enough

to let it go

 

 

 

 

M. J. Iuppa lives on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario.  Her most recent poems have appeared in Poetry East, The Chariton Review, Tar River Poetry, Blueline, The Prose Poem Project, and The Centrifugal Eye, among other publications.  Her most recent poetry chapbook is As the Crow Flies (Foothills Publishing, 2008), and her second full-length collection is Within Reach (Cherry Grove Collections, 2010).  Between Worlds, a prose chapbook, was published by Foothills Publishing in May 2013.  She is Writer-in-Residence and Director of the Visual and Performing Arts Minor program at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York.

A Poem by J.K. Durick

Custody

I’m not talking about the dog -- he stays,

Fetch was never my game anyway, but

I’m talking about the few dishes I brought,

Those things my grandmother left and

I brought along to play house, to play home,

There are the bookcases that fit the shape

Of rooms so well but are empty without me,

And there are a few other details I left:

My hours, my efforts, the things I thought,

And the things I assumed. I want my ghosts

To come along, to pack up all they can and

Follow me out to the car, down the road,

Follow me like the children we never had,

Children who now choose to live with me.

 

 

 

J. K. Durick is a writing teacher at the Community College of Vermont and an online writing tutor. His recent poems have appeared in Decades Review, Jellyfish Whispers, Third Wednesday, and Up the River.

A Poem by Kelley White

Too late

 

you call

you remember a body

twenty-two years old

no visible scars

 

and I’d give you my heart

but in lives in a sausage

stuffed with anger and sewn

with despair

 

like a pit bull pup

it nuzzles and wheezes

for a hand on the muzzle

a pat on the back

 

you see

its hope-ugly visage

suspect the danger:

this one

might bite back

 

 

 

Pediatrician Kelley White worked in inner-city Philadelphia and now works in rural New Hampshire. Her poems have appeared in journals including Exquisite Corpse, Rattle and JAMA.  Her most recent books are TOXIC ENVIRONMENT (Boston Poet Press) and TWO BIRDS IN FLAME (Beech River Books.) She received a 2008 PCA grant.