You are a wallet photo, unseen,
 Dusty atoms of carbon,
Clinging to the plastic strand of a hand brush,
Returned to its place after all was undone
beneath the sinks

You remained, an oil print on my birthday glass,
Whose pleasing shape you drank from,
Had I cleansed myself of you, almost,
A fingertip would reveal itself weeks later,
Uniquely yours, apparently

The dining room rug rolled up, but
Only at the corner, from slipping feet
Retained a trace of flawless skin,
A single hair strayed there too,
The morning trickle of the light made it less visible,
Refusing to be extinguished

I discovered these memories of you,
an infinite desiccation, evidentially
To always be there, with our treasured last words
an indelible truth, typed in hard print,
In the forensic report

Gavin Turner is a writer of dark fiction and poetry. Some of his work is published  via his website gtpoems.wordpress.com

Время - это круг. 
Мы в центре, марионетки из плоти.
Ваша мысль как воздуху, 
ваш череп полон облаков.
Вчера я нарисовал твой мозг зеленым, 
а сегодня он снова красный.
Я окунаю в нее ручку 
и пишу красными чернилами слова, 
которые не имеют смысла.


Time is a circle. 
We’re in the center, puppets of flesh.
Your thoughts are  like air, your skull is full of clouds.
Yesterday I painted your brain in green, and today it’s red again.
I dip my pen into it 
and write with red ink 
words which don’t make any sense.

Открытый угол забвения.
Тишина в кармане.
Тень скользит по стене и льется в бокал, как черное вино.
Я пью этот бокал.
Тень входит в меня как мысль.
Завтра я пойду идти всю ночь, 
чтобы увидеть, как звезды одна за другой 
падают в море и медленно тонут.


An open corner of oblivion.
Silence in your pocket.
The shadow slides along the wall 
and pours into a glass like black wine.
I drink this glass.
A shadow goes inside me like a thought.
Tomorrow I will go all night to see the stars 
fall one by one into the sea and slowly sink.

Небо - зеркало.
Кто-то говорит.
Это не ты.
Ваша открытая рука пуста. 
Внутри есть дыра, из которой вылезают мухи.
Ваш мозг потный, 
он много работает.
Он похоже на мясо, которое вам дают на обед.
 


The sky is a mirror.
Someone speaks. 
That’s not you.
Your open hand is empty.
There is a hole inside, from which flies crawl out.
Your brain is sweaty
It works a lot.
It looks like the meat that you get for your lunch.

Ivan de Monbrison is a poet, novelist and artist born in 1969 in Paris. He has studied oriental languages in Paris, and then worked for the Picasso Museum, before dedicating himself to his own creativity. He has been published in literary magazines globally. His last poetry book in English and Russian без лица / Faceless has just been released in Canada. He does not believe that his art is of any real significance. He does it as some kind of a tribal ritual. He is fully aware that vanity is one of the worse enemy of most poets and artists, and tries to stay away from it as much as possible. 

https://sites.google.com/view/ivan-de-monbrison/home

I dream a tree is moving
six feet closer to my window,
a great heave and skid
of spirits encased in bark.
 
before, dipping over the garden,
it didn’t seem to be mine,
now leaves scuff against pane,
branches sneak through gaps,
curl and sprout into bedrooms
like lost loves.
 
a tumbling wave of breeze
crashes in my ears,
turns vision green.
 
I don’t know what this means.
six feet is a man standing up straight,
toes on a coffin’s polished wood,
the curve of his skull woven into turf.
 
each day speeds me closer
to the moment when
I’m in the ground,
punched clean by roots
like handouts in a student’s file.
 
I won’t think about that now.
just stare out of my window,
contemplate the tree from a distance,
pace out six slow feet
where life and death meet.
first thing, when I wake.

Will Griffith is a secondary school teacher and poet. He has been published in Reach Poetry and Last Stanza, and has work forthcoming in Sledgehammer Lit, Amethyst Review, and Blood Moon Rising. In his spare time he enjoys walking by the sea and playing the blues.

Shatter at Sand Pond

That strange night, the last Sunday of September
Halloween in the cool air, the candle burning in the freshly carved pumpkin
the campfire wild with wood
while the night animals journeyed by on their paths behind the trees.

How dare you choose the peace of this place
move here, move in, move us--
only to shatter that peace and scatter our thoughts
hold them captive, wondering why, over and over
involuntarily while washing the dishes 
walking the dog, trying to work
unable to think of anything else but you.

What about the refrigerator full of food, the calendar full of things to do?
You must have had some hope somewhere.
The early morning walks to the pond, stopping in to chat about how lovely it is here
how happy you are here.
You’re a liar, or a coward
or both, or neither
and we’ll never know.

How dare you cast your shade across my peace, where I too
chose this place--moved here and moved in, arms open to the magic of the Maine woods--
and I am not forgetting the pain you must have been feeling, the deep despair
the complete absence of hope for you to neatly pack up and label the boxes of your life
what would go to who, write a detailed note of instruction, and obligatory vague apology
and then do that deed, no mistakes this time
inexplicably altering the lives of us all.

Shatter at Sand Pond on a Sunday night in September
the glass that fell and scattered its shards at the moment your light closed out up the hill
your shadow passing through and across us all, until we find our individual ways out from under
to take back our peace and this place from the darkness that won
Until I ask Who were you? Until I say How dare you??
Until I yell Fuck you! 
Until I cry I’m so sorry.

Until I let go of ever understanding anything
and just hope, with all my heart
that the friend I’ll never know 
is finally where you wanted to go.

The Root Cellar

Deep in the dirt are the veins of my family tree
winding their way through the cool of the earth--
reaching long for the occupied shore
traveling north to seed the rich New England soil.

My eventual grandfather, the first step of his buckled boot
onto the land his sons would steal--
the sick of the journey still piercing his nostrils
and the thirst for drink, deep in his dry throat.
 
So small on that big sea he came, carried forward 
upon the waves sloshing across the bow--
to infect this new world with rule and riches, and scabs 
of his own rejection to sire the birth of the new oppressors.
  
Tied tight in the tangle of these inherited roots
are the blessing and the curse--
as acrid as the fermented cider beneath the stair
and as serious as the potatoes sitting silent in their bin.
 
I breathe deep against the pull and pain
with the strain across my small back--
carrying the burden of the beast in my blood
and my heart too heavy on my pounding head.
 
The three oldest professions have helped my people survive:
the farmers, the carpenters and the courtesan--
working the rolling fields, measuring and building their barns
reciting verse to her suitors in the city.
 
Sweet Dory Doyen still took the helm from the arrogance
of the owners and the privilege of their wealth--
pleasuring them with words and wit and more
until The Murder of Helen Jewett took her tongue.
 
Her truth washes high upon my shore 
and into my seaside home--
underneath the door and down the worn wooden stairs
to the hard cool floor of the root cellar.
 
Her blood seeps dark into the dirt, carrying her young death 
into my veins while I lay quiet with her--
delivering these words
like babies.

Autopsy of a Mistake

The sound of sharpening still in my ear,
with this scalpel I will cut
as deeply, as precisely as necessary to find the cause--
the root of this weed,
this vine that grew quickly between us, without warning
to strangle us from within
squeezing the life suddenly from our future.
  
The point of my scalpel breaks the skin
as I cut carefully into my memory
of that Saturday night conversation,
those words that sped our pulse into slowing
into the retreat and full stop of the ache, the anger--
our airways now constricted
with this obstacle lodged tight to block our voice.
  
The blood gently seeps to either side of the slice
as I reveal the invasive vine that has spread alongside the veins
from its entry point of our mouths and down our throats
winding its way into Wednesday, having continued its squeeze and shaped itself
into the whip that would ultimately lash us with words--
both of us crying, Stop! Please no more
both oppressed, mistaking whose hand was holding the whip.
 
Carefully and with skill I extract the weed from the body
strangely extricated with ease, all in one piece, intact.
The blood fills the cavity it created, alleviating the pressure
caused by this foreign body, this destructive force that has invaded the wrong host.
Gently I sew the incision with neat black stitches to ensure closure,
protection against other contaminants, further damage--
while the whip, long since dusted for prints, returned results inconclusive.

My final determination: the source of truth is not contained in these remains
as I pull the sheet up over the still being, this innocent casualty
at rest perhaps but not at peace, with answers still outstanding
but at least, its integrity now restored.
The origin of the weed, the exact path of its seed like many invasive species, impossible to track--
prevention seems the only defense against its spread
while the more persistent seed of hope germinates on the horizon.

L. Meredith Chandler is a native New Englander who grew up in Maine and now splits her time between the Maine woods and the Massachusetts coast. She holds a BA in English from Adelphi University and an MA in English from the University of Rhode Island. L. Meredith has been writing poems since age 10, with themes ranging on the darker side of life around family roots to addiction to the complexities of freedom and human emotion. Her first chapbook, The Human Heart and Other Chambers, will be completed this autumn.

Forever Haunt

my body welcomes
your unholy spirit 
remodel my heart
into a tiny house of horror

explore the library
erected in my spine
vertebrate shelves
overflow with grief

tour the temple 
in my cranium
dedicated to you
my dark deity 

hear my desperate prayers
witness blood sacrifices
breathe the hope 
amongst incense smoke

visit the panic room
that toxic chamber in my gut
where caustic chemicals
dissolve my resolve to quit you

despite the damage
fractured foundation
cholesterol-clogged pipes
wonky wiring

this house of flesh
awaits your haunting
dare to make me
your forever home

Heart Heavy

unbalanced scales make
my empty chest cavity ache
on one side a feather floats
the other holds my too-heavy heart

the organ’s chambers
festering with regret
carry a history of hurt
both given and received

Ammit’s leathery lips shine
with devourer demon drool
yet the monstrous chimera
sends my heart skittering 

any hope that the rejection
means a happy ever afterlife
vanishes as the organ tumbles 
into the lake of fire’s lava

before I can salvage the cinders
my essence becomes unmade
finally lighter than a feather
but too late to pass the test

Born under the sun sign of Leo, Serena Jayne is naturally a cat person. Her short fiction has appeared in the Arcanist, Space and Time Magazine, Unnerving Magazine, and other publications. She tweets @SJ_Writer.

I’m Still Here

When the violent wind howls
And the shutters slam against
The tightly locked windows
- who do you call out to?
 
When the lights flicker
And the floorboards creak
With every step, or just old age
- why do you close your eyes?
 
When the temperature drops
And the air seems frigid,
Even though the fire is roaring
- who do you pray to?
 
When the shadows dance
And shift about so quickly
Your eyes second guessing
- why do you whisper my name?

Hug Your Mother

When I was little and upset
My mother would always say
To not forget to hug her for
A mother’s love cured everything.

And so, over the years
Even if I didn’t need one
I often hugged my mother.

I hugged her – no matter what – 
Through good times and bad
Our family always did seem happy
From the outside looking in.

And so, over the years
I always hugged my mother
Up until the day we buried her.

A mother’s love cured everything
Echoed faintly in my mind
As the doctor explained the diagnosis
And gave me a set of days left.

And so that night I dug her up
And made sure to hug her lovingly,
For a mother’s love cures everything.

Brianna Malotke’s most recent work can be found online at The Crypt, Witch House Amateur Magazine, and Dark Entries Journal. She has poems in the anthologies Beneath, Cosmos, The Deep, and Beautiful Tragedies 2. Looking ahead to 2022, she has two poems in the Women in Horror Poetry Showcase, “Under Her Skin,” published by Black Spot Books. 

My website: https://brimalotke.wixsite.com/malotkewrites

Before Another Midnight of Mindless Work

Standing before the mirror
Before another midnight of mindless work
For meager pay
I find my legs pasty and ridiculous
In my boxers;
My hair a mess,
My body rumpled,
This unshaven face a patchwork of middle aged lumps
And crags.
Red eyed, I creak and groan as I put on my pants,
Sipping another cup of coffee,
Still cold to my bones.
I have to get used to being alone again
And finding that my ugliness is endearing
To no one,
Certainly not me and
Not even you
Anymore.

I Think about Death All the Time

I think about death all the time:
Yours, mine, hers, his,
Ours.
When I am at work
Or at the supermarket
Or sitting and drinking
As I listen to country, folk and rock n roll
Music
I fill in the spaces of my thoughts
Imagining my death
And yours
And theirs.
The room grows dark
And my heart grows dark
And I think about my impending death
And fill with curiosity.
When I die
Will you honor me, will you cry for me?
Will you still deny me like Peter denied Jesus,
Like a child unwilling to repent?
As the years pass after I am gone, will you be washing dishes
And looking out the window,
Seeing the clouds passing over the tempestuous bay
Before a summer storm,
Think of me suddenly and shudder with loss?
Will you even remember me?
When I die and then you die
Will we meet in the valley 
Under a crescent moon
And finally hold hands as we make a vow
Or will my energy just wallow aimlessly
With the ashes of my spent useless body?

I think of everyone and I think of their deaths:
Anne Sexton breathing in poison, rowing away from God.
Adams and Jefferson holding hands and dying together
And hundreds of miles apart.
The death of Christ
In agony on the cross.
The death of my mother
And the death of your mother.
The death of Gram Parsons and Gene Clark,
Drunk no more, singing no more.
The death of Augustine of Hippo
Who said “Wipe your tears and do not cry,
If you love me.

Death is nothing.”

Life is everything.
 

We, the Many

We, the many
Who will not live beyond decay,
Who memorize the words of others,
Who worry about our oil changes,
Who live with little or no love,
Who scribble paeans and suicide notes
All over the bathrooms of our madhouses
While the days become nights become days
As quickly as the flicking of a switch;

We salute you –
You, the few
Who have made the lives of us 
Who will not live beyond decay,
Somewhat bearable
With your words and your deeds
That will not, cannot,
Shall not rot.

John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals since 2009. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.

Whereupon the great tradition found itself,
Floundering in muck, the flagellating sea foam
And ragged, unmerciful depravity: a lungfish;
The lurid miscreant with the abandon of
A top-heavy star, or photon. It crawls, or maybe
Distills a warrantless idea straight from the cosmos
Borne, it’s rumored, of necessity for capital. 
The gasps for breaths are inimical and costly, 
But the slime-assuaging wind, forsworn 
And shapely, congeals around the bubbly, 
Piscine no-name. For so many true-believers,
A dawn is clapping out of latency, something like
Garages open to the day without people. There is,
To the lobular fins, a tender hedonism and upright
Sense of atavistic colors, like bloodless red and
Red-less rage; benumbing synesthesia worth
The fall from ease and scrumptious days without
Quizzes, teaching lessons to the echoes. Curling
Around the moment, the lungfish harps
A ditty taking shots at deities abstaining once
Again. The greenery beyond the banks are
Preening for the nascent forms rebellion strikes
At unexpected times and places, always free
But doomed to catching on. And what strange
Bedfellows the lungfish makes with structure,
Laid out on sand like a blueprint for amassing;
But still, the quiet touch of harsher tones
Summoning themselves for the occasion is
Imperceptibly housed somewhere the lungfish
Is not privy to, where destiny is daylight. Gone
Are the nights where nomenclature’s blue
Pariah wipes the slate as clean as shuttles;
The lungfish absorbs its newest memories into
Absolute refinement, takes a stuttering stipulation
Toward the avant-garde unknown to fate, until
A club is brought, by differing opinion, to its head 
That cracks, opposable as hominoid deliverance. 

Jake Sheff is a pediatrician and veteran of the US Air Force. He’s married with a daughter and six pets. Poems and short stories of Jake’s have been published widely. Some have even been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology and the Pushcart Prize. His chapbook is “Looting Versailles” (Alabaster Leaves Publishing). A full-length collection of formal poetry, “A Kiss to Betray the Universe,” is available from White Violet Press.

Little Room

the stillness in the air
only seems to amplify these
fading dreams accumulated
 
like dead flower petals
on the windowsill that no one 
bothers to dust anymore
 
you wilt in this room of whitewash
and shadows, your face ashen — 
a faded ragdoll from a bygone era
 
drifts of dandelion tufts float up
from the garden below, as if
suspended in mid-thought
 
then snatched away, blown off 
course through cruel passages 
and forgotten

An inopportune time for

another heaping portion of critique   

         doled out on a Thursday morning devoid of any 
         filament of warmth — boss-man dons his fedora, 
         leaves as tiny figure makes final trek up a fire escape   
 
rain-slicked potholed pavements below that still carry

         transgressions, long-forgotten, as sleepy
        onlookers crane rubber necks and bulge  
        eager eyes so they don’t miss a second
 
tiny figure now atop a cold roof who paces:  

         an agitated bird in the winds of fleeting
         youth. A collective breath is held as if it could
         somehow prevent a stain that would soon be forgotten
 
the grey silence as I tear my eyes from the morning paper’s

        tragedy, my mind filling in gaps in a stranger’s life story
        to avoid my own. At times I think I deserve this absence.
        The cruel way nature takes away what it deems unviable —
 
grieving what never was

Melody Wang currently resides in sunny Southern California with her dear husband and wishes it were autumn all year ‘round. She is a reader for Sledgehammer Lit and can be found on Twitter @MelodyOfMusings. Her debut chapbook “Night-blooming Cereus” is coming out on December 17, 2021 with Alien Buddha Press. 

Waxing Crescent Illumination

Moon-eye
third eye
tonight you are a slit in my side
I desire my fortunes told 
through the shapes of the clouds
that cloak you

Faint murmurs of moon-glow 
spread around your belly
I feel you pulling me
I feel your moon-man
eclipse my moonlight
shield me from hocus pocus
I want to step out of these killing fields
pull myself into you

Make no mistake 
I may cut a piece of you
carve out your core 
dance naked for you
shimmy into your gulleys and dips
enchantresses have come before me

Whisper moon-spells
sway left and right
under your illuminating smirk
beckon a howl
to set free the beasts
that sleep dormant
within us 

When Satan was my Lover

the day strolls on
while I smolder in a corner
there’s that song again
in my head
dead thoughts 
then the song
madly in anger with you
and then it’s gone

on the road again
drive by that innocuous lake
the sun strobes the water
glints and speckled rainbows float across
the oily bed
I want in 
as the words leak out of the void
I realize I am this road
rolled over
the path gutted and tracked within me

for one second I feel light and airy
almost free
then I feel Satan’s hand
hot as Dis
madly in anger with you
he fists my heart
just before it bursts
I remember all the things
awful and right
is it me is it fear
all my earthly actions
hard to see clear

those deeds locked
never chatted about
then it’s black
I go back to a smoldering corpse
with the want of a death
so great
my body shivers into a mound of ash

The Wind Blows

Separates me into pieces 
I fall into myself with wonder 
I fall apart with madness 
glue me 
I crack apart 
hang my front tooth on a string 
a Christmas ornament 
our conversation piece 

There’s a gold chunk in it for you 
for your troubles 
pay the pied piper for me 
I missed him at birth

Gone

By the grace of God I re-open my life and seal my death
in a flame of sins burning through me
light a candle and beg forgiveness
for the nothings I’ve carried through again and again
and the everythings I’ve committed over and over……
I watch the wax ooze down
(I watch my life slip through)
in a grain of sand stuck in my fingernail
that gets carried along air and dropped onto the sidewalk 
and that is a lifetime in one thought (in one breath)
It is me gone (again)

Snow Chant

Silent snow void of 
laughter 
fire 
ice-blood
meshed with dirt

melt into me
mix cold & skin
to prolong this
patch of snow-ice
left in some small pure white
aggressive plea
I’m here you fools
stubbornly stays until
someone smashes a boot into it
melt molecule into mother earth

come again
for the weary
come again
with ice

Donna Dallas studied Creative Writing and Philosophy at NYU’s Gallatin School and was lucky enough to study under William Packard, founder and editor of the New York Quarterly.  Lately, she is found in Horror Sleaze Trash, Beatnik Cowboy and The Opiate among many other publications. She recently published her first novel, Death Sisters, with Alien Buddha Press. Her first chapbook, Smoke & Mirrors, will launch this fall with New York Quarterly. She currently serves on the editorial team for Red Fez and New York Quarterly.

The Silence of a Wood

Burned forest unraveling, 
One branch sparks and snaps, 
Nighttime thunderclouds tucked underneath 
The wings of crows, 
Cackling and cawing, 
Their blurry shadows contort into 
Monsters over the cornstalks. 
One by one, 
They dropped out of the sky
Wings bent onto the frozen ground. 
Feathers snapped, bones decayed
Bodies rot in heaps around me 
In an unburied mass grave of soared dreams. 
Dirt crusted fingernails,
Bare feet slipping over wood, wet and heavy,
Stumbling and shivering, tumbling 
Down into the frozen mud.  
Ice cuts into pale exposed skin, the wind 
Whispers, speaks, but she doesn’t understand.
Coldness seeps under her skin and burrows into
Her bones, and all that is left is 
Ice and dirt and loss and silence. 

Tree Nymph Unraveling

A tree is just a tree until it isn’t,
Until it is a girl 
With grief slipping off her
Like a second skin decomposed,
shredded away the dimness
Of the daylight. 
Pine needles stick out 
From underneath her skin,
Moss choked down her throat,
Crawling towards sunlight
She can never touch no matter
How far she reaches.

A tree is just a tree until it isn’t, 
Until it is a girl with 
Moonlight oozing through her veins,
Clumping up around the stars 
Jutting out of her heart.
A weak breeze trickles like blood
Out of her nose, out of her ears 
As the branches scratch at her eyes.
The forest is eating her alive, one
Heartbeat at a time. 

A tree is just a tree waiting until it isn’t,
Until a girl came along and  
Reimagined it into something else 
When her brothers told her 
To go play hide and seek. 
Another season, another year, another time, 
But no one remembers to dream under her bows 
And free the girl curled up inside. 
 

Anxiety

guilt-gnawing 
crawl-creeping 
down into a Summarization of piped-up thoughts
Spider-Skulking into my throat
ink Scrawling 
groping
Smattering my Spit with
laced-up ankle weights ballooning around my neck
Sloshing 
assimilating into a comfort of 
Self-hate as they marvel me 
Spider-Silking into my bones 
Sticky-Skeleton turning inside out 
Soft-Skin flaking and raw 
mauling
Strip-Shriveling in the dark
around the Shadow of my 
Sacrilege-clotted heart
 

Pumpkin Faces

a time for laughter
and freshly burnt cider,
apple bobbing—
biting, 
rich caramel to eat.

a time for hay bales,
corn mazes 
and carved out faces 
behind skeletal masks
while the actual skeletons dance
in their graves
as they suffocate
screaming to be let out 
shout, shout
ten feet 
underneath.

dulled orange and smoldering red, 
a time for death
running out the blessed,
haunting something sweet
children, please, 
no trespassing,
leaves drifting to and fro,
adults poisoned candy sweets,
he-he,
trick or treat,
and all the kitties drop dead

boo,
too late to hide,
the children locked in the morgue still alive
in their crypts screaming
oh, it’s halloween

Faded

You watch the woman weep 
Behind peeling strips of yellow
Wallpaper,
Curling, tearing, screaming—
Plastered in, 
Tightening, suffocating, drowning in the 
Splattered pigments bleached by her putrefying skin. 
Creaking, scratching, she tries fruitlessly 
To get out, to breathe.
You tuck your head with your 
Pillow, try to stifle her screams,
Pleading, begging, raging, seething with 
Unquenched revenge.
Her outline braces out of the walls
But is quickly swept back in,
Again and again. 
When everything dies back into silence,
You hesitantly walk over to the paper,
Reach out to touch the faded print.
Too late, recognition is all she needs. She
Free of her prison and writhes on the 
Floor. She whimpers, curls into a ball,
Chest heaving, breathing, free.
When you gently lift her face up 
To look into her eyes,
Your own face 
Stares back at you. 

Emma Deimling currently works as a writing tutor at the Ohio State University’s writing center. She has been published in numerous magazines, the most recent being in With Confetti. She lives in Columbus, Ohio. You can find her on Twitter @EmmaDeimling. 

Door

In my nightmare, in the hallway,
there's a door. It is large,
wooden, locked.

There are keys. In the basement.
It is dark. The light's burnt out.
I cannot leave the hall.

Silence. Ghosts touch my shoulder.
Stillness. A hole
in the carpet.

The door. I watch it.
Wait for it to move.
It doesn't. 

In the Field After Dark

The heart
was in Bobby's jacket pocket
as he played ball
with his friends.

Now,
they've all gone home,
and Bobby, walking
from the field,
feels for the heart

it's gone
he turns, scampers
in sunset back
to the field, looking
for the heart

no luck,
and the sun's almost
down
he'll never find it now

he looks up
above a patch
of tall grass
barely five feet away

a pare of garnets
stare unblinking at him

he knows
somehow
just knows
the heart
is underneath them

he walks over,
looks up:
he thinks
he's seen those eyes before. 

	You're old miss Solebury, aren't you?


The eyes bob slowly.

	Do you want me
	to have your heart?

Bob.

He picks up the heart,
turns, walks
toward home.
All the way,
he feels a chill
on his shoulder,
as if a hand
were draped there.

That night, instead
of putting the heart
under his pillow as usual,
he clutches it tight
as he sleeps, smiling.

Is that a red gleam at the window?

Not Our Brother

“The demon,”
she said,
as she caressed my chest
with four-inch nails
as if she wanted
to even out the fertile furrows
she'd left before,
“we call him 'not our brother',
for he comes
in the form of woman
and steals the souls
of our men
leaves them hollow husks
who take no pride
in the fields they till.”

My plane, a week
from then, flashed
through my mind.
“Not our brother.”

She pulled me tighter to her
asked with an embrace
for the warmth
of a soul
however temporary.

“I must go back,” I said.

“I know,” she said.
“But for now
just hold me, brother,
love me
so your memory
can keep me warm.” 

I thought of her husband
dead these four months
victim of the demon
the death certificate read.

Not our brother.

Robert Beveridge (he/him) makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry in Akron, OH. Recent/upcoming appearances in cattails, Ellipsis…, and Ample Remains, among others.

continue to stare at shadows
curse the intrusive light
that grows them faint to die
leaving sharp shape and form

come to the dark kingdom
there your true self find
worlds immortal waiting
in silent shadows pulsing

peer into the abyss
unlike the skies
here there is cold fire
to warm your frozen soul

time has no dominion
in darkness no seasons turn
no bells toll mourning
here live without depth

silence within silence
where only you are sound
no longer voices baiting
like in the bitter light

Joseph A Farina is a retired lawyer and award winning poet, in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada.His  poems have appeared in Philedelphia Poets,Tower Poetry, The Windsor Review, and Tamaracks: Canadian Poetry for the 21st Century. He has two books of poetry published ,The Cancer Chronicles and The Ghosts of Water Street.

Children of Titans, 
we eat our young, 
we eat our dead, 
but neither prove 
nourishing. 

The young— 
too ephemeral, 
flimsy, 
incapable of supporting 
the demands of bodies 
long ago transformed 
into monsters.

But they taste 
like forgotten dreams 
soaked in the wine 
of half-remembered tears. 

The dead 
are made of tougher stuff, 
rugged and grizzled, 
like us; 
rusted through 
—vast cyclopean husks 
dotting the ashy terrain, 
seeping chlorine 
and formaldehyde 
into the pus-stained air 
of midlife.

We eat our dead 
and we eat our young, 
and in our madness forget 
that we ourselves, 
in Dionysian fashion, 
were twice born.

About the author: Victor T. Cypert is a writer of short stories, poetry, and speculative nonfiction. His work has appeared in Lamplight Magazine, Illumen, and Wild Musette Journal. He is the second place winner of the 2017 Parsec Ink short story contest. He lives in Alabama.

Whereas last night the full moon made the night resemble a cold day
Today clouds give the night its old shrouded, crowding demeanor.
Ghosts stalk the forest gleaming (at me) from just beyond the circle
      of light thrown by the fire.
You, old night, I wish to make my peace with.
Eventually I know even I (I think, I’m told) must enter naked, a cold
      north wind in winter or a gentle September breeze instructing my
      sole spirit . . . . 

There exist powers overwhelming for the human body and mind.
The aborigine’s untold night of meditation on the mountain, coming
      away with his life-long totem and power.
The mountains tonight are alive with benevolence that could (for one
      lacking humility and respect or the hunter’s perspicacity) flame up
      into insane malevolence.
You, old complete night, I wish to make my peace with
Being utterly a creature of the water and the light.

Night on the mountain, the human animal alone, without cohorts,
      speech and music inane without other ears to listen
Yet blasting, blasting against the night
Even after fire dies, its skin still the halo beacon to nothing in nothing,
Mind pouring on the electricity, outward to friends back in the cities
Receiving in return only strange sounds.

The ear must differentiate and protect.
Just as fluids within keep the body balanced so must the ear when the
      eyes are blinded by night
Balance the mind. Eyes, heroes of the day, enjoying orgiastically
      autumnal delights
Are now slaves to every primeval passion of the mind.
But the ears:  it is a sound they have heard before and can identify.

Night, old strange night (were we once acquainted?), I wish to be at
      peace with you by becoming  knowledgeable.
Fear like fire clings to its fuel.
I wish to dampen passionate fears by attuning the five senses to all
      that is normal dark and day.
To know the habits and cycles of everything I live beside
And my inner spirit become a silent tide attuned to nature’s lunacy.

Robert Ronnow’s most recent poetry collections are New & Selected Poems: 1975-2005 (Barnwood Press, 2007) and Communicating the Bird (Broken Publications, 2012). Visit his web site at www.ronnowpoetry.com.