October 2015 | back-issues, poetry
rails ascend into gray pneumonic sky
but infinity is not allowed,
cars rush to fall off the edge of sight,
the wind chants with keening gulls
above the bay slap, chopping, cutting at the base,
rip my head clear,
carve yesterday on a stone thrown
to plunge down half seen
and then gone in the sea-haze
before the concrete ribbon hits the hills
I peer seeing sky sheets tossed used and wet
and her skin rising, falling,
her Judas breath trapped by the rhythm
of the pillars stiff over the green estuary,
the thrall broken by sun’s late-day fire
as the nav commands
turn to Paradise Drive,
there the white tablecloth is gilded,
the blooded wine arrives for fugue-rites,
I drink, trading masters,
I swallow to cross to another land.
by Bruce Bagnell
After Bruce Bagnell received his bachelor’s in English from Fairleigh Dickinson University, he went on to earn his master’s from John F. Kennedy University. Throughout the years Bruce has worked as a cook, mechanic, and college professor; held various management positions; and was a USAF captain in Vietnam. Now retired, he focuses wholeheartedly on his writing and has been published in Zone 3, Westview, OmniVerse, The Scribbler, The Round, Blue Lake Review, Crack the Spine, The Griffin, Oxford Magazine, The Alembic, Studio One, and several online magazines. Bruce is a member of the Bay Area Poets Coalition and has twice been awarded honorable mention in their Maggi H. Meyer Memorial Poetry Contest.
October 2015 | back-issues, poetry
And down the road I look
at Winchester on the Severn, the setting
star glaring amber as ochre-sweet
honey spoils with jaundiced age
in November. I stand on the hill
quietly knowing my life
will be unusual, different from how
(and now) it was then. Déjà vu―
my wood-shingled boyhood
home, the mint patch and Pines Park,
ghosts of the elm trees which met
overhead when Rt. 2 was B&A.
When dusk enfolds the arbor, mourning
doves sense the mist thinning. No
significance or scaffold in mind:
just a fouling wood and winter
looming in labor, heaped on planks
of limp, listless light.
by Zane Anthony
Zane is a senior at Middlebury College, studying architecture and biology. Zane’s writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Star Democrat, Middlebury Magazine, Sweatervest, and Zenith Magazine, and is forthcoming in other journals.
October 2015 | poetry
I wanted the ghostliness of Fall,
the thrill of fresh masks
and hard candy
I wanted the romance of arguing,
the depression of school nights
and dim lamp lights
I wanted the abuse of painful side affects,
the fascination of my shadow
within a crowd,
the excitement of loneliness
I wanted the pleasure of demons,
the euphoria of erotic bonding,
the exhaustion of sadness
I wanted the love of parents,
the horror of sour nails,
the joy of intentionally sore skin
I wanted the relief of exhaling,
the weakness of flu season,
the peace of floating away
I fell asleep on black hair
and woke up inside a blonde tea pot
I was served to the earth unsweetened,
every ounce of me disgusting
by Ashlie Allen
Ashlie Allen writes fiction and poetry. She is also a photographer. Her work has appeared in the Tipton Poetry Journal, Gone Lawn, Spelk and others. She loves the Victorian era.
October 2015 | back-issues, fiction
He was my summertime fairytale prince, cigarette pressed between his slim piano playing fingers. The smell of smoke mixing with the scent of that tangerine tree where he first pressed his exquisitely shaped lips to my neck and where we intertwined grandeur dreams of forever. We played dumb, like we forgot I had a scholarship to a mid-western university with decent academics and a stellar basketball team. Like he didn’t have a demo tape and a bus ticket to L.A. I surrendered my virginity to him under that stuffed elk head in your grandfather’s study one Sunday afternoon when everyone was at the church picnic. I weaved my fingers through that glorious hair he was too cool to comb, looked him right in the eyes and told him it was perfect. He believed me.
The last time I saw him, he drew on his cigarette long and hard and didn’t say much. I could tell he wanted to drag out our goodbye. His eyes shadowed under that newsboy hat he wore. Silence built up and closed us in a beautiful dream. We didn’t need words or promises. I could have woken us both up, but there was no need for him to know I was late. He would have offered to help. Maybe even offered to marry me. But I loved him too much to stop him from getting on that bus.
At least, that’s the way I remember it.
by Diane D. Gillette
Diane D. Gillette has a couple master degrees, two demanding cats, and lives with the love of her life in Chicago. When she isn’t too busy reading, writing, or appeasing her cats, she blogs about writing at www.digillette.com. You can find more of her published work there.
October 2015 | back-issues, poetry
a promise and a secret
written in stone
clutched like a dying heart
a life untethered
in the loveless ether
neither held
nor hoped for
too painful to remember
too impossible to forget
an anomaly of dark matter
gone supernova
between the rock of truth
and the hard place of hurt
nerves exposed in stars’ ignition
transmissions muted
space at a standstill
for it is
both now…
and never again.
by Edward Canavan
Edward L. Canavan (January 19, 1971 – ) is an American poet whose work has been published in such underground and revolutionary journals as Bleeding Hearts, Vice and Verse, Eagle’s Flight, and Oxford Comma. He currently resides in a small room by the freeway in North Hollywood, Ca.
