Gifts For The Residents by Paul Murray

Human Noise by Bruce Harris

Best Brewed Plans by Lydia Fazio Theys

Fable of the Fortieth Sheep by Rumjhum Biswas

Early Thoughts On The Oedipus Complex by Rebecca Coffey

Dancing All The Steps I Know by Pepe Nero

No Such Thing as a Free Tea by Jennifer Stakes

Hearing Dogs by Liz Haig

Fear and Loathing in Southwark by Bill West

Gingerbread, An Everyday Poem

Armstrong by Martin Heavisides

"I was tellin’ about the time when I was a little bitty boy in my mother’s hometown of Boutte, Louisiana. I was about five years old, cute little ol’ thing, too. Mayann, my mother you know, she said to me one morning, “Son, run down to the pond and get a bucket of water for your mama." And I cut out for that water, and Mayann dug me when I come back without the water and poooh, boy! She said, “Boy, where is that water?" I said, “Well, mama, there’s a big old rusty alligator in that pond and I didn’t get that water." She said, “Oh, boy, go get that water. Don’t you know that alligator is scared of you as you are of him?" I told her, “Mama, if he’s scared of me as I am of him, that water ain’t fit to drink."
As quoted in Gary Giddins, Satchmo

“Roses are red
Violets are blue
Lucille’s are pink
I saw them on the clothesline"

The Ethos of Capital-isthmus By Russell Bittner

What pay is this? Some chit now
long past due to get us roundly up
and out the door,
to squeeze a measly buck, redound a score,
then shuck, to gutted towns, our shell-
shocked crew? Like hell you'll clear us
out and push us through, demanding,
time-cards swiped, we quit the floor
and not-like peevish children-
scream for more, but take our bul-
lied selves elsewhere for brew! I
tell you, China's coast is far from
clear;
and China's sum of us is no less dim.
So go now-take your cash where
it may still win hearts and minds
not scarified by beer and will, no
doubt, find skillful hands to trim
the scrim of your next threadbare, off-shore thrill.

The Irritating Stiffie by Dennis Leppanen

I wouldn't have considered Harley Burgess as a matrimonial conquest. Not even a slightly remote possibility. You see, Pa hung himself the morning before Harley came around. My brother, Russell, two years my junior, built the casket while I dug the hole. Wished he would a found him, though. Pa’s face was purple hanging there, almost black. The move to the west had been especially cruel on Pa. A gentleman he was, a western farmer, he wasn’t.

I had turned nineteen, in the middle of the prairie, a randy woman in the middle of nowhere. Harley Burgess was pushing thirty, if not over the brink. Russell and I were busy packing up our meager belongings. Meager? After years living out east in near royalty. What we had become. The old farm in the middle of nowhere killed Pa. We decided to get, while the getting was good.

Head and Shoulders

The Naked Line

Putting the Real in the Virtual

Forecast For Interstate 81
by P. W. Murray

South, U.S. Highway 11, 1960.
Duff’s Rebel Restaurant,
breakfast in Winchester and supper -
if all goes on schedule - near Pulaski.
Hills to our right -
“… jingle bell, jingle bell,
jingle bell rock,"

wipers click and wipers clock.
Ears to the radio, eyes to the
billboards, a signs calls out
for a diner - “Listen there - if we were
still up in Carlisle, Hagerstown or
Martinsburg we’d be butt-deep in
snow." Pop knows. Here it’s just
cold slop, a little sleet but cold
assaulting rain, mostly. A diner
with dingy motel's light glows ahead.
"Rockin' around the Christmas tree
at the Christmas party hop… ."

Childhood Portrait
by Howie Good

When the old mare collapsed
between the shafts of the milk wagon

and the wagon driver leaped
to the ground cursing

the tallest trees leaned forward
as if to better see

my teachers call the house
your son they said

too young to wonder
what’s worse as I was punched

in the head and slapped
the anger of the man slashing at it

with a whip or its wish
to get up again and go on

i picked at a scab today
by Casey Quinn

an old wound
long forgotten

it was just there,
healing

nature,
taking its course

but i
didn't let it.


i picked at the scab
and it bled

and the process was forced
to start over again.

Water Cycle
by Oonah V. Joslin

Wood
waterlogged,
slippy with ice and moss
the fence
frozen this morning,
stream of steam swirls
clawing upwards
vaporous cloud
cools, cascades
flows back to
ground, soggy
beneath berried yew
to be sucked up
brackish again by
wood.

my niece by Casey Quinn

"i had not

seen her in years i told her ..."

Feeding Ducks by Jim Hatfield

As I tore and cast upon the water half a
loaf of Mothers Pride, he advised that feed-
ing ducks was now a crime, punishable by a
statutory fine.

Snails on the Road by Rebecca Burns

THERE WERE SNAILS ON THE ROAD to the tapas bar. They had oozed over from a scrub of undeveloped land beside the main street into town. Grandma shouted a warning from up ahead, shading her eyes as she turned back to face us, squinting into the sun. But Mum didn’t swerve to avoid the little creatures littering the road. Instead they were crushed under the wheels of Toby’s buggy as Mum pushed him straight on; their shells disintegrated with tiny pops that reminded me of the gravel on our drive at home, churned up into a sharp spray by spinning wheels.

Mum’s jaw was set, and I couldn’t see her eyes behind the dark glasses she’ d worn all week. I tried not to think of the snails’ soft bodies being pulped into the concrete.


It was early evening but the heat was still stifling. We’ d sat around the pool for most of the morning with Grandma whilst Mum slept in the villa. Grandma was strong and had easily held Toby in the shallow end, letting his twisted legs float to the surface in a way that delighted him. He squealed and drooled, thrashing his head from side to side, soaking us both. But we didn’t mind. It felt good to see him so happy.