The Bear’s Back Last night I dreamt of a bear who carries us through the forest on his back. He goes through the mud, we cling to his fur, he wants to bury us in a storyteller’s throat. Julia Travers is a poet, author, artist and journalist. Her creative writing appears with OnBeing, The Mindfulness Bell and Heron Tree Poetry Journal, among other publications. She holds a BA in Literary and Cultural Studies from The College of William and Mary and a BFA in Art Education from Virginia Commonwealth University. She is on Twitter … Continue reading 2 Poems by Tom Montag & Julia Travers→
She was a bully, a backer, a stinker, a treasure. She was a finder of fault and forte, folly and facility. She was the picture of rigor and push and impeccability, her visage stern and stately and a dead-ringer for the man on the one-dollar bill. The first time I saw her standing on stage in her blue satin suit and snow-white hair delivering a rule-laced welcome to school, I felt wings of butterflies and tips of prayers brushing my soul in a nervous wish for her retirement to sync with my grade six arrival. … Continue reading Miss Madden by Rich H. Kenney, Jr.→
Who knew milk cartons had gables? ‘Embossed on gable’ said the fine print, explaining where to find the identifying information, in case of what, a recall? Dottie wondered. Does half-and-half get recalled? The children were running, seemingly mindlessly, through the backyard and around to the side yard. Was it a bad thing that she couldn’t see them or hear them when they were on the side? She put her face close to the wire screen, straining to catch a sound through the open window. Faint shouts and laughter bounced off her ear. Satisfied, she hung … Continue reading Gables by Sherri Perry→
Full Snow Moon Fat and slow, she climbs the eastern sky like an old woman climbs stairs, holding onto tree branches and stars to make her way to February’s zenith. She rises on time, a beacon fully seen. A passing comet with a green head tips his hat and is gone. Look. The Sea of Tranquility is next to the Sea of Crises. Wolves howl, but she persists. Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, seminar leader, and has been a Pushcart Prize nominee. Author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real … Continue reading Full Snow Moon by Joan Mazza→
I understood the world around me on Promise Road. I felt at home on the edge of the rolling valley, looking out at the distant mountain range. I learned to fight creeping Charlie, pigweed and cheat grass with soil enhancement, rotational grazing and early weeding. I recognized the arrival of summer as the swallows began daubing their mud nests above my windows, swooping through the evening sky to clear the air of mosquitos. I named the bats that flew in my open doors on warm summer evenings, searching corners and hallways for moths. Over time, … Continue reading Leaving Promise Road by Amelia Zahm→
In a northern portion of the Midwest, on a night of light snow, during the few minutes just before and after ten o’clock, some things happened. They occurred along a route on which a southbound train traveled through fields that bracketed a town. The train carried few passengers. The conductor sat in the back of a nearly empty car working on a crossword puzzle. He was having trouble thinking of a six-letter word for “spotted, mottled, multi-colored”. He looked outside where the wisps of snow blew sideways in the darkness, but found himself staring at … Continue reading Calico Cat by William Cass→
Agnostic In the bath a spider crawls along the ledge. It’s tiny enough that it doesn’t scare this arachnophobe. Isn’t that the way fear works, the smaller the threat the less a reason to run? Unlike the huge, or maybe average wolf spider that cornered me in the kitchen. In a panic I reached for Easy Off, sprayed the hirsute carapace into an igloo of chemical foam. Drenched, seemingly undaunted, the fizzy white dome skittered across the linoleum toward me, and I fled, as if from Godzilla. But here in my tub this little … Continue reading Two Poems by Diane DeCillis→
The city’s Central district is different in the early morning, just after sunlight usually appears: near empty streets, no black skirt suits, few voices. Today, damp bundles just delivered to the newspaper vendors cover the sidewalk and tobacco smoke hovers heavily in a steady monsoon drizzle. My old dimming eyesight smooths out the vendors’ features—softer noses, subtler chins. Flaws fade into blurs. Down two flights of stairs, I descend into an almost empty Central Station, bathing in one of Mozart’s perky piano melodies. A human din will soon drown out the pleasant music. Hong … Continue reading Late-August Mass Transit Railway (MTR) by James Ellis→
Common Stingray Dasyatis pastinaca In the infinite silence of her velvety skin, she roams through moon water at night, scours coastal shallows, glides around the Mediterranean, Norway, Canary Islands— fluid creature soaring, foraging chink snails, snapper biscuits, spiny shrimp, undulating in and out of waves. She is a wave— primordial, flexing spine and filament, overlapping, ruffling her flexible body— a pectoral fin disk, graceful as gull wings in watery air. Diamond-shaped, she resembles a stealth fighter, almost alien, yet magical— all flesh, fiber, cartilage, onyx eyes peering through sand when she buries herself in … Continue reading Common Stingray by Carol Was→
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