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Atlanta – A Sonnet by Kristin Garth

Atlanta

Sometimes it takes a six-hour drive to meet
another villain to understand why
you became one, too. Girl he used to beat,
consensually, becomes the one you cry
to, discrete, IM introduction: “I know
what it feels like to be his orphan.” Week
commiserating online while you grow
more sure your tenure, little one, is done. Weak
enough to say yes when she suggests you
should take a holiday, Atlanta — there’s
sex clubs. She knows what looks like love — your view
opened door, her pompadour, dark suit,
stare before she zips you in an obscene dress —
feel what remains of his latest princess.

Kristin Garth is a Pushcart, Best of the Net & Rhysling nominated sonnet stalker from Pensacola.  Her sonnets have appeared in journals like Glass, Yes, Five: 2: One, Isacoustic* and many more.  She is the author of twelve books of poetry including Pink Plastic House (Maverick Duck Press), Candy Cigarette Womanchild Noir (The Hedgehog Poetry Press) and the forthcoming Flutter: Southern Gothic Fever Dream (TwistiT Press) and The Meadow (Apep Publications, 2020).  Follow her on Twitter:  (@lolaandjolie) and her website http://kristingarth.com

Banner Image “Pink Bouquet” by Robert Frede Kenter. Tweets at @frede_kenter

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Three Poems by Moira Saucer

The Red Shutters

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A Poem by Tara Skurtu

RECONCILIATION

I broke you
out of solitary—

I did it because
I could

because it was
a dream.

Tara Skurtu @TaraSkurtu is a two-time Fulbright grantee and recipient of two Academy of American Poets prizes and a Robert Pinsky Global Fellowship in Poetry. Her poems appear in magazines such as Salmagundi, The Kenyon Review, Plume, Poetry Wales, and Poetry Review. She is the author of The Amoeba Game. Tara teaches creative writing in Bucharest.

Banner Image “Dream #4” by Robert Frede Kenter. Tweets at @frede_kenter

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Three — A Hybrid Project By Ankh Spice

Gullible eggs (reprise)

My mother lied with tenderness, sweet
aplomb, and range;
she’d seen a century, our crooked sea-swelled house
cost a million, and all babies were born with feathers
that softened the world’s edges

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Three Poems by Clara Burghelea

In the suburbs

At night, bodies unfold their pretty scars
and souls start rattling their cages.
Morning, always fresh and unhurried.
Midday is to be lived within itself,
good food, tempered laughter,
a bottle of Amarone.
There is an aristocratic cadence
in the way time punctures the day.

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Two Poems by Bryan Borland

Electricity

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Three Poems by Carolyn Oulton with Two Images by Guest Artist Robynne Limoges

How to Love Not Loving

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Three Poems and Three Images: Anna Saunders and Robynne Limoges

Silk Robe Spectres

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Three Poems by Emma Bolden w/a Drawing by Guest Artist Cathy Daley

CONTINUOUS MEMORY

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Two Poems by Guy Elston

Jennifer’s Wish

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Three Poems by Ben Gallagher

Shadowdad

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Two Poems by stephanie roberts

JULY UNDER THE BRIDGE

on the shore the mock orange turned brown spent;
ochre heads of yarrow replaced them;

almost the way a man
swaps out one wife for another.

a protest, not my ex-husband!
but a husband.

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Three Poems & Three Art Works by Kushal Poddar

Tim’s Amnesia

Tim writes a stork down, the gulls,
and -‘I met a woman by the littoral line.
She played throwing with her dog, claimed,
“I hate everything except cats.”
I saw the waves revealed a skeleton.
Whose spirit did empty it there?

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Before Sunday Dinner – A Poem by Niall M. Oliver

Before Sunday Dinner

My brother scrubs hard
the yellow

from his two smoking fingers
until they blush

like mortified teenagers
who scream, don’t look at us!

Niall M Oliver @NMOliverPoetry is an Irish born writer who lives in London with his wife and two boys. He takes inspiration from his roots and everyday life, and has previously been published in The Lake Poetry, as well as a couple of anthologies but has yet to meet anyone who claims to have read them.

Banner Image “Siblings” by Robert Frede Kenter. Tweets at @frede_kenter.

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Three Poems by Chelsea Dingman

Several Truths and a Lie


I lost my name.

I lost my name in the mouths
of children. I lost

my name in the briars
with wolves, their teeth
like mower blades. I lost my name

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Conflation — A Poem by Jack Bedell

Conflation

1.

Yesterday at the riverfront, the water
            rose so high a man washed
his socks from the rubble placed along the bank
            to guard the walking path. His socks
were filthy from slogging through the Quarter
            during the morning’s flood. As hot
as it was, those socks must have felt
            divine on his feet, like a river of cool breeze
carrying him to his next shady spot. He did not
            rush the washing. He had no need
to leave any of the river behind.

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ajinde – A poem by Adedayo Agaru

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From where the birch takes the sun — A short story by Stephen Orr

From where the birch takes the sun

      Peter Maier waits in his back yard. He paces the patchy lawn, from where the birch takes the sun; from where he sits in summer to read. Or in the crook of the linden, further back, behind the vegetables. He follows the brick path, and remembers every time he’s helped his father turn the soil, plant the carrots, the potatoes. Just like this, wandering, unsure where to stand, where to go, what to think about what his mother calls the ending. He can hear the artillery a few kilometres away. They’ve been warned – later today, or tomorrow.

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OTHER THAN DESIRE – A Prose Poem by Courtney LeBlanc

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Rare Treats, a Flash Fiction by Angelo Lorenzo

Rare Treats

      When my grandfather asked me to buy cigarettes at a local convenience store in front of our house one Saturday afternoon, I remembered what Teacher Gladys taught us in school that week.

      She said cigarette smoking is bad – for the health and for the environment. I was eight when I couldn’t weigh which was worse. I didn’t want anything bad happening to my family, most especially to my grandparents.

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