Two Pieces by Wanda Campbell

Illinois Traveler

When I see Kentucky sunrise,
when fog rises over hills or
rain falls on the knobs,

when I see an out-of-state license plate,
when the moon is full and clear
or the wind blows from the north,

I long to hear your voice,
soft like prairie breezes and
I wish to hold your hand,

weathered by years of
farm boy days. I think
maybe, we could drink
a simple cup of coffee,

but even then I fear the world
would end.

_________________________________________

The Jungle is no Place for a Fairy

I knew a word weaver
who wandered away

from her woodland home
in search of shiny tokens.

Lost and disheveled,
foolish and floundering,

she walked alien beaches
and bleak city streets, begging

for foreign bread crumbs
and strangers’ appraisals,

Barbarians stole her wings
while cannibals ripped her dress.

Vampires lurked in shadows,
waiting to taste her blood.

She fled beneath a rock
where she dreamed of home.

In dawn’s light she scattered
tainted tokens in the dust

and left only her footprints
for the vampires to drink.


Wanda D. Campbell, alias Nochipa Pablio, is an elementary school teacher, award winning poet, novelist and freelance artist who makes her home in the Appalachian foothills. Her work has appeared in various publications such as StorySouth, New Madrid, Mid-South Review, Pegasus, Other Voices International, Coal: An Anthology of Poetry by Blair Mountain Press, Instructor Magazine and many others. Preserving a heritage for future generations is to Wanda, therefore, proceeds from any sales made on her poetry go to help fight mountain top removal and to enrich the lives of the peoples of Southern Appalachia.

Two Pieces by Ray Succre

The Talk


The Talk arrived late, six months in,

and the question I dreaded rode in on fairly pure wings.

"How many?" she asked in a squint of chaste suspicion,

whereafter I was expected to profess a certain something

near virginity, my own chaste integrity with the past.


I had moved about in some horrid shade, however.

Woods of shade-makers. No denying it.

So I stated.

She winced.

"I had no idea you were like that." she said.

"I wasn't. They were."

"It's disgusting."


A freeborn man knows once is once again,

shade outstretched to roll in his flames,

until he considers but one, holding this tightly,

the great one after all the once-more ones, a finality.


The official proposal came later, and to great tolerability,

marriage, and all throughout it, other sorts of talk.

_____________________________________________________________


Eventually I Stopped Believing in Myself



Naps aren't my thing, but I had one. When I woke in the afternoon,

there was fruit rotting in the mesh basket in my kitchen,

the air was horrid hot and reeked of pits in the earth,

and I found an eel twisting about in my bathtub—

you know, horrific imagery to welcome my new self.

Perhaps most upsetting was that my clothes no longer fit,

for my legs were covered in goat hair and my feet had transformed

into hooves.


"Oh hell. People will think I'm sinister, now. There'll be no more

trust to be had, no parties, no coffee shops, no cheer. I'll seem evil

because of this, and up to no good."


My wife returned home and shrieked.

"You're the Beast!" she shouted, leaving me.

"I didn't mean it." I muttered, alone in my apartment, the new Hell.


I decided to be a social beast, then.

Devil or not, alone or not, I still wanted to hang out in town.

Perhaps I might be able to change the general view of me.


They ran all directions, terrified.

This made me a terrorist, one who caused terror,

and some brimstone piddled down.

I didn't feel as if I'd done this, invoking brimstone,

but supposed I must have. Who else?


The first person to try and follow me was an entertainer.

He told me he was a poet, would serve me with wicked rhymes.

I kicked his khaki sack high onto a roof.


Had the world made me a great foe,

or had it ignored me so much I had grown to work against it?

My hooves clopped the streets, my breath rotted the air.

History had built my form from pagan gods,

to convert people religiously, and the name of my home

was stolen from the Norse.


I didn't do any of that; they did. I chose to abandon evil, then.

Becoming human again, and thought good, turned out to be

simple enough:


I just started believing there was a devil for me, as well.




Ray Succre currently lives on the southern Oregon coast with his wife and son, as a stay-at-home dad. He has been published in Aesthetica, Gloom Cupboard, and Pank, as well as in numerous others across as many countries. His novel Tatterdemalion (Cauliay Publishing) was recently released in print and is available most places. He tries hard.

For inquiry, publication history, and information, visit me online: http://raysuccre.blogspot.com

The Wrath of Provincialism by Colin James

The Wrath of Provincialism

Take two pens
and hold them in your left hand.
Let the ink lines
move lightly over the page.
Pretend you are in a village
in the north of England,
and pray that fat gentleman you created
buggering anything that moves,
is accepted here
as one of the locals.


Colin James has had poems published recently in the following magazines, Ditch, Waterlogged August, The and Snow Monkey. He works in Energy Conservation in Massachusetts having migrated from the north of England which he revisits whenever the Scottish landscape painter, John Mackenzie, has an exhibition of paintings.

Two Pieces by Harry Calhoun

Fireplace


The first few fires upon the hearth

beneath our belt in our warm winter

comfort-food belly


the coffee ready in the morning-timed

pot ready to please us again

the warmth we know is arising


planned, set or just ready

for some warmth, fire in the evening

coffee in the morning


we need this and want this

a planet cannot go around without

somebody chopping, working,


setting fire to something

maybe something we hadn’t seen before

and noticing what warmth


arises
____________________________________

Sing

or, what keeps me writing



the only security is in security

is in keeping yourself sane and happy

with your security blanket poems


keep bangin’ ‘em out

again and again and if

it’s the same thing over and over


well isn’t life like that anyway

except if you don’t

speak up you have no voice


and that’s how it is

when you die, they tell me

and I can’t remember but I’ll bet


it was that way before I was born

Harry Calhoun’s articles, literary essays, book reviews and poems have been published in magazines including Writer’s Digest and The National Enquirer. He has had recent publications in Abbey, Chiron Review, Still Crazy, SNReview, Abandoned Towers, Dante’s Heart, Yippee! and Word Catalyst, for whom he writes a monthly column. He also has poetry forthcoming in LiteraryMary, The Dead Mule, Nefarious Ballerina, &c, A Common Thread, Buk Scene, Neonbeam and others. Harry writes an online wine column about quality affordable wines called Ten Dollar Tastings.

Featured Writer: Audrey Victoria Day 3

Thoughts of the overworked

Whatever reason aside,
I am tired of pulling the wagon of everyone else's skeletons, still.
The goats escaped from the ropes but one must still be around, somewhere.
One day, as I lower my stick into the wet, weakening ground below,
I will dress the goats up in satin! The skeletons will rightly be placed underground,
next to their erupted, blossomed
skin bag brothers and sisters.
Skeletons are only material but yet some continue
to carry them, afraid to leap into the abyss that which they
pray upon and think about continually. That invisible post
which has all of the answers yet none at all.
As virtual reality overtakes your senses and it becomes more normal
to be stabbed in the chest, I continue to eat apples in the morning.
Bodies, desperately trying to stay alive, soak up the liquid from
coffee filters. The bleeding caffeine is trying to run the heart again.

Featured Writer: Audrey Victoria Day 2

Seeing red

today i am red. i am a bull's target
a charging ram, a walking witch's brew
bubbling with charm and interpose and
calm, quiet shuffling, light rose
fragrance and the docile demeanor of
a fantasy-ridden dandelion.

hark! the light has gasped and the clank of the hooves
comes with a waddle and a yellow-beaked version
of fly me to the moon while running out of gin

sold! the last of my patience, my temper, to the wind
it goes through the red rocked cliffs
tobacco smoke rings and love from
my living room.

wherever you go, my dear, my love
my honey, brown-sugar
a trail of empty red hooves will follow you.
the last of the mirrors will meet you
along the way. your reflection will be
entirely too vile for your own, inflated ways

for the bull who forgets he is alive
is a child cowering the midst of a
crisis in slavery where all of humanity's treasures
were born. sloughing, pain and suffering
of your animal siblings has brought
you memories of your perceived freedom.

do you feel like a cave now? you were not free.
turn off your fucking phone before the charge.

if emptiness for emptiness sake
makes you feel alive
then the dawn, the mist of rising
primrose will beckon any last rounds of
forgiveness.

Featured Writer: Audrey Victoria Day 1

Twins

if i could watch the sun rise pavement
on your rested pores

if i could meditate on these words instead
of brilliance coming while sitting on a toilet

if i could make sense out of finger waves
and a myriad of choices in the movie aisle

i would dump this life smelling of my
mother's bad, coffee in the morning breath

i would settle in the lush white of
missouri winter's dappling skin in the morning

i would quiet the guilt of spending my life
separating from my reflection's responsibility

(because i know what's good for me)

i'd watch heaven instead
i'd drink less
because i made up a lie

if i could find solace

i would dunk my white lies in horseradish

if i could watch you undress
because of me, on repeat
then i wouldn't wait for the grass to get greener
to grow, to feed the birds in the winter

i'd sit maiming my hair
in born satisfaction to break open
a small, new leaf in this mid-location
of dreams, never fulfilled for normalcy

if my feet touched the ground and my skin
wasn't still contracting hives from this new paper
i'd brush my hair with winter grass instead

(all awful, this trembles me to the bone
as the last of us receive our awards to flood out into a new world
gasping like infants, we pray we receive enough to
even favor someone with a minute of advice)

i would quiet the guilt.
i'd separate from my reflection's responsibility