January 2014 | back-issues, poetry
In the twilight the rain
is like silk threads.
Its beauty is deceptive.
Snow has piled up
like mounds of salt.
My bed is suddenly cold.
I’m unable to sleep.
All night I hear ice crack
on the roof and in the eaves.
Wind chaotically blows
the last of fall’s leaves.
The birds have long
since departed. Alone,
I reach for the light.
But I can no longer write.
Who writes poetry anyway?
Young men with
unreal dreams and old
fools like me,
with nothing left to say.
by George Freek
George Freek is a poet/playwright living in Illinois. His poems have recently appeared in ‘The Missing Slate’; ‘Torrid Literature’; ‘Bone Parade’; ‘Hamilton Stone Review’; ‘The Oklahoma Review’; ‘The Poydras Review’; and ‘The Empirical Review’. His plays are published by Playscripts, Inc.; Havescripts; Independent Playwrights; and Lazy Bee Scripts (UK).
January 2014 | back-issues, fiction
The fish is staring at me from the plate, its blackened skin and brittle tail spread between rice pilaf and sautéed mushrooms. A foot of omega-3 fatty acids, which my mother, who set the plate before me, said helps with depression.
I wasn’t depressed last winter when I hugged the possibility I might be pregnant, wrapping my heart around the secret, envisioning my baby tadpole-size clinging to the side of my uterus, our blood intermingling. Brian’s baby. There was a bridal shop down the street from my apartment; I already knew the dress I wanted. But then I wasn’t pregnant after all and Brian told me he’d met someone else.
At night I drank and wept, working up a Camille-like tragic image. During the day, I sniffled at my desk until co-workers rolled their eyes when I reached for another tissue. Then, in early April, a bunch of us got let go.
When I couldn’t find a job, my mother said she’d moved her sewing stuff out of my old room and I was welcome to it. So, I’m back home with this damn fish, my mother eyeing me across the table, and my father hunched over his food like a wolf with a fresh kill. Who wouldn’t be depressed?
The fish doesn’t want to be here. Once it shimmered in fast moving water. It might have been pregnant with hundreds of luminous eggs. How can I eat it when, like me, all it wanted was to have babies? I try to explain this to my mother, but she can’t get past the sex part.
by Anna Peerbolt
Anna Peerbolt’s flash and short stories have appeared in Drunken Boat, Prick of the Spindle, Apollo’s Lyre, The Legendary, Long Story Short, DOGZPLOT, and elsewhere online.
January 2014 | back-issues, poetry
An Unknown Prophet’s Complaint Regarding
the Tardiness of the Messiah (c. 200 B.C.)
The milk has soured. The honey? Gone.
The widow’s oil has all run out.
The glory that you promised us
left in the night like Pharaoh’s son
while we ate bitter herbs.
When we took wives and lay with them
you punished us because their blood
Was Philistine, but what grave sin
Did we commit that you would send
This storm of hollow rain?
You carved your name into our hearts,
Like boys will do in sycamore,
But wood is scarce, and that tree limb
And all our swords became the tools
We use to scratch the earth.
If sacrifice began again
And blood and flesh were placed upon
The holy fire, would all that smoke
Climb Jacob’s stairs to only find
That you had locked the door?
“How long, O Lord?” the prophets ask,
But we have lost all track of time.
Instead of days, we measure life
By promises left unfulfilled
And wounds that cannot heal.
So take your time deciding how
You’ll save us all—a flood, a fire,
A brimstone rain—and while we wait
Perhaps we’ll find just what it is
That we need saving from.
by Jason Leslie Rogers
Woodpecker
I stand with an unfocused stare
at the ground and the bleeding bird,
surprised by my aim and the weight
of the gun pulling down my right arm,
surprised by the woman who runs
from the porch at the front of her house.
I saw you she says through the tears
in her throat as she points at my feet
where the woodpecker lies.
I saw you she says looking down
at her wrinkled bare feet
through a gap in her pale spotted hands.
I saw you she says looking up
at the hole in the pine tree
the red-crested father had bored
while she listened and watched and
smiled through the first weeks of spring.
I retreat to a home full of ignorant faces,
to a lunch of sweet tea and the cold
meat of birds, while deep in some pastoral
hell the bleats of unseen lambs echo
and King David remembers Bathsheba.
by Jason Leslie Rogers
The Rain Comes
Inside your four walls,
the first rumble sounds
and you ask those nearby
if they heard it too.
Out of doors, if you have the gift,
there’s a smell, a thickness
in the air, just before
it hits the ground around you.
Inside, alone, the white noise
pulls words from your mouth,
“Here it comes,”
you say in hindsight.
Outside, the cold droplets
move toward your planted feet.
Like locusts, they’ll bring change
To everything they touch.
by Jason Leslie Rogers
Jason Leslie Rogers lives in southeast Tennessee with his wife and daughter. He will graduate in December 2013 with a B.S. in Liberal Studies, writing and literature emphasis, from Lee University. He has not previously been unpublished.
January 2014 | back-issues, fiction
Lucy strolled into my life twenty years ago. Short and heavyset, trailing a couple of unruly dogs, she welcomed me to the neighbourhood. Most mornings Lucy wound her way through the community with her dogs in tow, and their leisurely pace always invited the opportunity to chat.
On warm evenings Lucy walked with her husband Leo, a tall thin navy veteran. It made people smile to see the elderly couple hand in hand. When Lucy stopped to admire gardens and dispense dubious dog training advice, Leo waited patiently, content to let his wife weave her hospitality through the neighbourhood.
An ambulance came for Leo one bright afternoon and for a few months Lucy’s walks took a different path. Neighbours respected the urgency in her step as she hurried back and forth on her way to the hospital. No time for chats and even the dogs curtailed their usual exuberance.
One morning, a thinner and frailer Lucy stopped to admire my fall asters. Leo was gone, but Lucy was back. I joined her as she retraced a familiar path through the community and gathered condolences like a grand bouquet of sunflowers. Lucy’s daily walks continued until the day she got confused – inexplicably lost on her own street – and well-meaning family intervened. Recently, a young couple bought Lucy’s old house.
I often stroll by at a leisurely pace that invites the opportunity to chat.
by Hermine Robinson
Hermine loves writing short fiction in many genres and her publication credits include Readers’ Digest, Postcard Shorts and Vine Leaves Literary Journal. She lives with her husband and children in Calgary, Alberta where the winters are long and the inspiration is plentiful. Her nickname Minkee was chosen at the age of five and it is still the name she answers to when it is shouted across a crowded room.
