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Baby Beer
By Sandra S Jewell - Contributing Poet
The baby's crying.
We don't care.
Get me another beer.
Sheriff came.
I told him a lie.
He went away.
Get me another beer.
The baby's crying.
I hit his mother. I'll hit him again, too.
Neighbors should mind their own business.
The baby's crying.
Get me another beer.
The window's still broken,
Where I put my fist thru it.
I hit my boss, and lost my job.
The baby's crying.
Get me another beer.
Can't afford diapers.
I need cigarettes and beer.
Shut that kid up or I will.
You do what I say.
Or I'll hit you again.
The baby's crying.
Get me another beer.
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Inexplicable Recurring Turtle Journeys
By Gene Ford Runnels - Contributing Poet
My occasional turtle
knocking at my door. Once again.
Lonely creature, so lonely it seeks me out.
Encased ever within its defensive burden.
Silent on its purpose
these occasional visits.
In some unknown way overcoming the small stoop at the door sill
my friend bangs its shell against my door.
Each time, I answer the knock,
look down and find my friend.
And each time as I open the door
The little shelled creature retreats within its living walls.
I pick it up and walk with it to the nearby pond.
My silent friend always seems eager to return to the water.
‘Till next time.
Why these recurring turtle trips to my front stoop?
Might my small, silent friend be sending a simple message?
Here we are and there is no difference between us.
I live encased
within my own living shell
once so inventive, now just stale,
my defensive burden;
knocking on unknown doors,
looking for someone to pick me up
and take me back to my pond.
Come again soon dear friend.
Let us be present together
and not fear to stick our necks out.
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Parallax
By Neurosine - Contributing Poet
Broken little Analogies
you think yourself
conceited in a mirror
broken on a shelf
Distended pretension
to think we can know ourselves
through the eyes of someone else
no matter how great our empathy
or empty our infinite compassion
like tiny pieces of gravity
every square inch of our face is a mystery
every crevice and strangely angled hollow
we are inexplicable to ourselves
as we are to anyone else
beautiful and just ugly as anything
we are
and we become
whatever sustenance
or poison we drink in
and we are not allowed to imagine
so well as to separate
the map from the terrain
Especially lost as to the plot
no nothing makes sense whenever I follow whatever
down paths I imagine would culminate conclusions
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The Light Stealer
By Dawnell Harrison - Contributing Poet
You were a grand light stealer.
You followed shadows that
Were steeped in blackness
In the deep hours of the night.
You robbed me of my tender
Smiles -- you found my mouth
Absurd and frowned upon
My sources of happiness
As if they were sinful.
How can one explain
The muck and mire
That you waded in everyday
As if it was a common thing --
Mud just as typical as
Your nasty moods steeped
In red. I cut my stings
From you like letting go
Of a kite as it soared off
To discover something new,
Something pure and beautiful.
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Going It Alone
By Mike Berger - Contributing Poet
Her face is stone; hands hang down.
She faces the dreary journey alone.
The light in her eyes has fled.
She hates the sound of the alarm clock.
It signals the start of another endless day.
She would like to curl up in a fetal ball and
pull the blanket over her head.
She has to get the kids off to school then
she will look for work. She's been alone for
nearly two years. The light of her life left;
he just disappeared.
She takes a mouthful of cold cereal; then
pushes it away. She goes through the motions
of getting dressed. She sits at the table and
looks through the want ads. She looks at the
coupons from the grocery store to see if they
expire before her welfare check comes in.
It's been two years since she had her nails
done and a perm in her hair. She bought the
dress she has on for three dollars at the
thrift store. It was more than she could afford.
When the kids are fed and off to bed she will
cry herself to sleep again.
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Saturday After Missing the Cable Guy
By Zach Fishel - Contributing Poet
Three hours without the web,
Nothing to read
Say
Or make people listen to.
Living ceased.
Silent I sit,
Hearing the growl of a gas oven,
Outside locust
Battle cop sirens for a chance
To be king.
The whirring noises
Come into my ears
And I sit quiet waiting for another video
To load
Missing all the action.
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Angelic Illusion
By ZM Wise - Contributing Poet
Perfect hair,
perfect smile,
perfect laugh
right in front of me.
Her footsteps cause flowers to bloom.
Her presence makes rain dissipate.
Her multitude of traits is beyond lovely.
Her physique . . . from head to toe: saintly and beautiful.
I see her . . .
but can she hear a loving heartbeat nearby?
I feel her charisma . . .
but where, oh, where, are my courageous words?
Disappear'd into nothingness.
Vanish'd into a coward's gulp.
O' Faraway Angel,
come away with me down to Earth.
Touch palms and embrace lips
so that we may experience love's new birth.
Kiss me, heavenly soul.
You have just made my heart whole.
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Uncle
By Clinton Van Inman - Contributing Poet
I thought you died
In the last war but I
See you are up to your
Old tricks again
Pointing your finger
Bullying boys to join
Your cause of killing
People
O say can you see the
Fields filling with those
Who believed your old lie
That freedom means fighting
Now more clownish than ever
In those striped pants and hat,
Yet not as real as rocking children
Waiting, waiting to follow you, Sam
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