After the Pause: Winter 2014

After the Pause Volume 1, Issue 1 Winter 2014

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About After the Pause is an online literary journal based in Wisconsin, featuring poetry, flash fiction, and artwork, published quarterly.

We look to feature the best poetry and flash fiction from new, emerging, and veteran writers.

Find us here: afterthepause.com or @afterthepause

Purpose We believe art is a product of life experiences, from the joyful to the heartbreaking to the absolutely mundane. Life throws pauses at us. Art follows the pause. We want to share the best art we can find and bring hope through those artworks.

Founding Editor Michael Prihoda. He lives, blogs, tweets, writes poems, drinks coffee and runs this journal. Not necessarily in that order.

Special Thanks, for assistance and support, to: Steven Prihoda Katherine Prihoda Patricia Prihoda Jenna Meadows Linda Taylor Aaron Housholder

Additional Thanks To everyone who sent us work for consideration, whether or not your submissions made it into this issue, we are thankful for everything we had the chance to read.

Cover Art An X-70 Going Down

by W. Jack Savage

Copyright 2014 All rights of the material within belong to the authors.

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…In This Issue…

Poetry from: Nate Aeilts—“Is There So Much”, “The Crook and the Unrealist”, and “The Initiative” S. Babin—“Bared” Charles Bane Jr.—“In Paris” R.L. Black—“Longing” Rich Boucher—“The Day He Decides to Leave” Jeff Burt—“Roof” Joyce Chong—“to dust”, “Atlantic”, and “weeds” JD DeHart—“Clawfoot Tub” William Doreski—“A Vegetable Detachment” and “Beginning with a Line by John Ashbery” Robin Dunn—“(What do you got)” and “Some storm is coming” Sarah Edwards—“common place” Daniel von der Embse—“Alone” Ryan Favata—“That Poem”, “Closer”, and “Comments Overheard at a Funeral” John Grey—“Wintered” Roberto Gross—“End of the Rainbow” Kevin Heaton—“In This Place Where Life Returns” A.N. Irvano—“Dolorous” Mark Jackley—“When My Father Died” and “Fatalism” Michael Lee Johnson—“If You Find No Poem” Steven Kapela—“Meditations at Equinox” Hedaya Kelani—“Hourglass” Nolan Liebert—“Spectrum Bridge Crossing” and “Altared” Corey Mesler—“Diane Wakoski, Where are You?” Neila Mezynski—“Performer” Christina Murphy—“In the Sky’s Heaven” Rodney Nelson—“St. Giles and the Morrow” and “Standing Clover in Fall” Richard King Perkins II—“After Three Years” and “The Art of Utility” Kayla Pongrac—“Whistling” Anton Rose—“Victoria” A`nji Sarumi—“Undone” Hazem Tagiuri—“Jacket” Norfalia Thompson—“pulse” Jeffrey Zable—“The Art Collector”

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Fiction from: Russ Bickerstaff—“A Rising Deity of Humility” Bob Carlton—“Happy Hour Ending” Mitchell Grabois—“Ms. Hendrix” Georgene Smith Goodin—“Tuna Fish Casserole” Mark McKee—“Seafaring” Anand Prakash—“Animadversion” and “Barmecide Dinner” Steven Prihoda—“The Red Bicycle” and “Just An Average Story…”

Ashley Wilda—“Revenge”

Art From: W. Jack Savage—“Fashionista Out-of-Season”, “Gallant”, “Jimenez vs Silver”, and “The Gacy Show”

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Editor’s Note Running this magazine has been a blast. I am amazed and humbled at the number of submissions we received and the quality in each of them. If your work did not make it into this issue, I sincerely hope you try again. If not here, then somewhere else. Everyone deserves a chance at having readers.

It’s an honor to feature the work of such talented artists.

Editor’s Note Part 2 By choice, no index exists and multiple works from the same author are scattered throughout. I hope you will take the time to read the entire issue. The organization behind this document is intentional.

Enjoy the flow and happy reading.

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by Daniel von der Embse

Alone She says you come into this world alone you leave this world alone And I think, no, my mother, she was there But then she was gone before I could remember how it felt to be loved We leave this world it doesn’t matter who is there We leave them alone To remember how it feels to have been loved

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by Ryan Favata

That Poem 1.

Is stuck between the seats of the train station I sat in last January, found two weeks later by a custodian, I’m sure, and used to peel gum from under an arm rest.

2.

Or that poem found its way to your hands, maybe; or, no, his hands—the one I mentioned by name, a trail of unflattering adjectives following like ants.

3.

That poem, you said, was indicative of that Christmas three years ago, The one with the hair in the ham, the racist uncle and the inability to Keep my mouth shut.

4.

That poem, I said, was a different poem. It’s somewhere in Biloxi, where we spent the following week, left by a slot machine and weighted down by a full ashtray.

5.

No no no, I remember that poem, you said—you thought I didn’t read it. But I did. I’ll never forgive you. And it wasn’t by a slot machine, it was under the phone in the room.

6.

I took the phone off the hook that night, I said.

7.

Yes, you did. I remember that.

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by Richard King Perkins II

After Three Years After three years she sits in front of me topless, eating cornflakes, and all I can think is— why is she eating all my cornflakes?

The Art of Utility I sketched a portrait of you entitled “The Little Bohemian” but the meter reader thought my drawing of you looked more like Miley Cyrus so I renamed it “Wreckage in Flesh” sold it for $900 bucks on eBay and got you a traveling umbrella for your birthday instead.

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by Steven Prihoda

just an average story where boy meets girl, falls in love, loses girl, gets girl back, marries girl, has three children (Mark, Tom and Laura), works an average job for most of his life, retires, stops smoking for the sake of his grandkids and lives a happy, fairly average life (That’s pretty much the whole story. There; in the title. Except Tom mysteriously had red hair.)

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by Robin Wyatt Dunn

(What do you got) What do you got What do you got, So Cal You aint no ancient Rome You aint no special belly button of da whirl You just that new kid on the block.

Arrogant little shit What do you got What do you got What do you got What do you got (me)

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by Anand Prakash

Animadversion Hint of caramel, butterscotch, nuts, and rum on her lips and tongue. Oh! Blissful Highlander Grogg?

She doesn’t come back. I don’t want to fight with her in dreams.

Is there anything wrong if: -

I’m a protagonist of one-sided love stories?

I suffer from phantom vibration syndrome?

I relish a random conversation about butt sex?

I re-check humiliating emails?

The chubby girl with proud eyes pleads in my dream, “I’m so alone. Please come back.” I grin until Uncle Freud forces some sense into me: dreams are nothing but repressed needs and desires.

After drinking the coffee, a rabid expectation becomes the focus of my attention: email account and cell phone. Such dehydration, I haven’t felt before.

I believed in you. You disposable cup!

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by Robin Wyatt Dunn

Some storm is coming And though I will not remember when, I will remember who, And I will look through to you My old god, If god is the word, To know just who you were too, When you were looking at me, And I was looking at you, Just two birds on a stone, Wondering what to do (about all of this) this grief

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A.N. Irvano

Dolorous The lines on your wrist are like rivers on a map you are nothing that makes sense a winter snow in a desert plain present but not apparent a blank stare wrinkled with crow’s feet a clashing of right for you wrong for me I need to forget getting broken by you feels more like sniffing the glue that would mend me than drowning in the rivers on your arm I can still find those I’ll find those but they may be scars by now

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by Rodney Nelson

Standing Clover in Fall I had to go outside of town meaning self-preoccupation to evaluate October and the prairie had taken on all the colors of resigning I had expected the clover becoming a memory of its own purple and ready to get on a wind and I was too if only for now

we both are perennial I might have thought imagining the taste of an April to come the antedawn but a man and a legume were not the same we and I would blow to earth one time and not come up again to reinvent the greens of prairie the dun browns in fall

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by William Doreski

A Vegetable Detachment On Decoration Day the graves of strangers cough up excuses we could apply to ourselves if the FBI should question us.

Parades saunter along main streets of villages too shy to convict themselves of their favorite crimes.

Driving home we encounter gases emitted by local meth labs and mistake them for the ghosts of people who haven’t died yet.

Gunfire reminds us that statues erect themselves in memory of the great sins of history, those for which bronze and granite are hardly adequate metaphors.

Should we go public or pubic with our daily bricolage?

You should decide whether stones weeping in riverbeds mean what they can never say. Maybe the house with the elegant woodpile stays cold all winter. Maybe Parson Herbert’s “Outlandish Proverbs” all came true while we slept.

The stink of backyard cookout riles the horizon. Will the blue surrender all prerogatives and reverse the Civil War? Not today. Cloudbanks roil and snore but retain their vapors. The cries of turkey vultures hover at heights we can’t attain, and the wreaths and flower arrangements favoring AFTER THE PAUSE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 1

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the oldest plots have wilted.

Driving home deploys our senses like pollen, and the fresh trees nod to acknowledge our efforts to embrace a vegetable detachment that will enshrine us in the dust.

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by W. Jack Savage

Fashionista Out-of-Season

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by John Grey

Wintered We're sealed, the ground outside like the pastures of Nepal, a big white snowy envelope but without the stamp to mail us somewhere warm.

Rubbing hands, you make coffee like you're concocting Spring.

I wrap a lazy early morning arm around you.

If we're to freeze, then we freeze together.

The heat pipes begin to cough but who wants coughing heat pipes.

I start the fire.

That's how I do Spring.

Maybe today, we ski cross-country.

Or we brave the winds, with heavy boots, put the unmarked beach on notice.

Or is this a time for leaving it all to windows, an overview of the ice-pocked bay, pine chandeliers and frosted oaken spines.

And then, as night falls, the Dipper in ascendancy, a lighthouse rounding its own curve.

We could make love though I won't mention this until our blood is back on course, the thaw extends its reach to all of us.

For now, it's sizzling coffee and boisterous fire.

And they can't keep their hands off each other.

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by Nate Aeilts

The crook and the unrealist With a smile, a smirk, and a nod, And a degree of absolute realism, As if addicted to cynicism, I’ll point out to you The schism between us Is less real and more tangible Than any dry dream of hope we’ve shared.

Wet with those schemes And covered in the staining silt of sin, You became a prism Reflecting all its light within itself.

The clock says to listenless hearers Who ignore what an ear ought, “tick.”

And it’s no small wonder that tick tick tick Scares the bejeezes out of me, Because every missing tock Adds up my friend. Oh yes, it adds.

And soon the tick tock talking in my ear Becomes a drone—I’m listenless, too And, I must say, listless.

I forget the tocking—I’m too busy talking— And the clock keeps right on stalking Me straight into such dreadful relativism…

No. I have not forgotten this most obstinate ism (please don’t be wagged off by my escapism) And the way I’ve only made the schism wider.

It’s a chasm now. How cataclysmic.

I worry so much (too much) That I worry too much (not nearly enough) About you, dear crook… my friend.

And I laugh and cry and laugh and cry And I try to remember my isms— That we’re touching the world as it is.

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by Steven Prihoda

Red Bicycle Happy Birthday; it’s your birthday; how old are you; you’ve grown; I can tell you have your father’s genes; here’s your gift; don’t spend it all at once; hahaha.

You learned very early on that birthdays are contracts. Your father’s sister’s husband, Uncle Bernie (the one with the graying beard), hands you a gift and with it a question of some sort—about height, actual age, girlfriends—and if, one year from today, you want to receive a gift from Aunt Cybil and Uncle Bernie, you answer the questions in a pleasant manner and with a smile.

The contractual component of the birthday comes with the realization, usually around five or six, that different people expect different responses. Although you are only five or six, intuitively you realize that when mommy and her friend drink that smelly juice and talk about Uncle Sylvester, his deep pockets really refer to the ability he has to pull big toys out of said pockets, like the magician who purportedly pulled a rabbit out of his giant hat at Tommy Miller’s 7thbirthday party.

And, even though you weren’t at Tommy Miller’s 7th birthday party, you know it to be true: certain gift givers expect more in return for their gift; a 2nd cousin who gives you $10 and a stupid pet-themed birthday card one year can be coaxed into a $20 gift card inside of an Optimus Prime card that shouts “Transformers! Robots in disguise!” when the front is opened.

You know that to get the bike you want you need to tell your father’s father that he is your favorite grandpa; you need to tell your mother’s brother that you love him; and! you need to tell your parents that you wish you could enjoy time with them while riding bikes.

You thought it out and remembered to remind your relatives that you still exist.

You went the extra mile this year, hopefully ensuring that the bike you get is anything but a Huffy, hopefully colored red—the fastest of colors—, by sending your aunts and uncles Valentines. You have played their game all year in the anticipatory contract of receiving a bike.

You wake up and put on clothes; you put on the sweater your great-grandmother made for you even though the temperature is sitting on its haunches at 85 and will slowly rise up until it reaches the mid-90s. The baseball hat your cousins gave you: check. The coloring pages you’ve worked so hard coloring and which you plan to greet your relatives with at the front door: check. The partially-empty-set-of-teeth smile: check.

You go about your day cleaning your room, which consists of rearranging the coloring pages based on whom you think will arrive first and flashing your gapped dentistry at the mirror. You hear the doorbell; you rush to the front door, coloring page in hand: your grandparents. You give them the spiel; you field their questions: yes; no; nope; hahaha; maybe; just like my dad; no, not too warm to wear greatgrandma Urna’s sweater.

You peak into the garage to see if they brought you a bike-shaped package.

Nothing.

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Someone else has just arrived. You rush to the bedroom, sprint back to the door, hand the uncle/aunt/cousin/relative/neighbor/pastor a coloring page and play sweet.

You check the garage for bike-shaped presents. You eat lunch; you eat cake; you play games; you drink orange Kool-Aid; you slide down the plastic slide; you hug your baby sister; you greet the late-coming relatives. You check the garage for the one present you want. You check the rafters of the garage hoping that bikes are like bats and perhaps hang upside down from the rafters of buildings. Still nothing. You wonder where exactly your bike is hiding.

Finally, you make it to the presents. Presents, cards, money, the blue or black ink of words you can’t quite read yet. Mommy reads for you. Present after card after card after present.

There are no more presents.

You are bike-less and you cry. Mommy says you have enough money you can buy a bike, a bike that isn’t a Huffy, but all you know is that you don’t have a bike right now.

You are sad for the rest of the day. You don't drink more Kool-Aid. You don’t go down the slide in the backyard. Your little sister cries a lot so you don’t hug her. You tear up the leftover coloring pages. You still want a red bicycle.

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by Corey Mesler

Diane Wakoski, Where are You? I was sitting in J. C. Penney’s snack bar reading Diane Wakoski. I must have been around 23. All I wanted at the time was to understand Diane Wakoski and to find a woman who might be impressed by that. The griddle hamburger was nearly good enough to make me forget women or women poets.

Later I would go home and scratch out my own little poems, lines like bird tracks on ice, finding their way or not, trying to leave the page, to, you know, fly.

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by Sarah Edwards

common place the soil in a cordial home the bloom of a lacking mirth upheld, decided by a mask of ceils, cloaked in mastery of a beseeched fawn, engraved with old A’s & B’s more wither & so autumn forges, & wilts.

Symmetry of most fossils in &of opaque hilarity. * A borrowed compass in weaved envelope resting in palms adverse dreamer, you stare, in condensed interludes,

of an

rims overlap in quiver, & you sound in utmost AFTER THE PAUSE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 1

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a vex in

blanks.

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by Joyce Chong

Atlantic I found you in the water, knee deep in your own self destruction; eyes asunder, as if I was looking at you from the bottom of the sea. a stone chip, a brittle star, the plankton woven into your hair. the ocean is envy, & it longs to consume you, and spit you out all sanded bones and sun-bleached dried.

If we stopped running, would our molecules tangle together & pull us under?

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by Mark Jackley

When My Father Died all who hovered were like men back in the day who paced the room for expectant fathers smoking as the work got done behind closed doors which opened the other way now

Fatalism The garden toad, grave as Sitting Bull I’d guess Says it’s all okay I thought there might be more, but he seemed pretty sure, and I blinked first

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by Mark McKee

Seafaring I want to ask you a question. Pretend you're the Man on the Street and I'm interviewing you with one of those old microphones with the box around it and "Channel 10" is written inside the box. And your hair's greased back because it's 1978 and before we do this interview you and I are disco-dancing to the Bee-Gees and you point your fingers and say, "Gadzooks, I hear abortion is a hot issue. Hey, you want some horse?" and I say, "Don't touch the stuff, makes me spazz. But if you have some blow, I wouldn't mind," and you have no blow because this is the disco era and I'm not Lou Reed.

Now. With these facts in mind, can I ask you this question? Are you ready? Here goes: Have you seen my albatross?

I left it lying beside me. Here where I keep my peanut butter and crackers. I never leave home without it. The albatross. It's been with me so long I think of it as my kin. We throw parties together. I sleep with it. It is my security blanket. My fine feathered friend. The only time I take it off is to take a bath. But here I sit and my albatross has flown the coop and I don't know what to do without its weight upon my shoulders.

You're familiar with the albatross? White body, gray wings. The way it stumbles into flight. I find its weight very dear. The way it pulls my collar out of shape. The feathers it leaves inside my pants pockets. These are precious things to me.

Collected without shame or remorse. Used as the lining inside my mattress. I sleep upon this albatross.

Did I mention I've had this albatross since I was nine? A tattered albatross now, to be sure, but none the worse for wear.

I once proposed to a woman while performing the mating dance of the Wandering Albatross. Have you seen it? Let me demonstrate. My arms go out like this, ninety degrees from my torso. See? My nose - though certainly not the proboscis of the Diomedea epomophora - flicks straight up, searching the sky for its waiting love. Notice my nostrils. How they flare. This is not accidental. My proposal was five minutes long, having failed to breed with this woman during our previous mating season. My albatross provided the mating call. Unfortunately the woman and I broke up some hours later. But my albatross was there to comfort me.

My albatross brings me warmth. Did you know? No sweaters needed. The way it hugs my body, I know I am never alone. Through cold winter nights, I sit in front of the fire, naked but for my albatross. I read to it and sing to it and bring it calamari when it's been good (which is always—I love it so!).

You'll forgive me my distractions, my reminiscence of a fowl now lost. The last I saw it, it wore a bright red cummerbund and a top hat. It clutched a white-tipped walking cane under one wing. It reeked of eau de cologne and pheromones. I fear it has flown the coop!

Without its weight I feel exposed. A clumsy avis stumbling into flight.

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by Kevin Heaton

In This Place Where Life Returns Alone, at my end, on the fog-sky island of an absentee mountain, mourning in my teeth; weathering in a bulwark of balding dolmen and thirsty sermons.

Where lichen-labeled whorls of time assume interred positions, and sacrilegious pilgrimages to self come full circle.

Many were the roots shed styling this I am: this trillium with it’s swollen sepal, this cloven palm-chalice of low-hanging fruit parted from it’s slake. More fit for source, than nearer the divine.

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by W. Jack Savage

Gallant

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by Jeffrey Zable

The Art Collector Tell Dali to come by next Thursday, and not bring along his friend Garcia Lorca.

All that ‘charm stuff’ is just an act to get into your behind.

He may be a great poet, but there are limits. . .

Tell Sal that I’m looking over the photos he sent me of his new paintings.

I like the ones best that have landscapes that go on forever, but I don’t think he’s quite the genius he thinks he is.

I mean, he’s not Pablo or that other guy Magritte.

I could be wrong but I think he’s a notch or two below them even though that one of his, Persistence of Memory, really caught my attention: I’ve never seen a melting clock on a dead fish, or ants on a hand-held watch!

Tell him I’ll eventually buy one of his paintings, but he’ll have to be patient.

I’ve got Miro coming over tonight with a batch of his new stuff to show me.

We’ll see. . .

Remember to tell him not to bring that Lorca with him. . .

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by Nate Aeilts

The Initiative The holler, Blood red with the pt pt pt...

And here I sit worried sick the skeletons in my closet have a bone to pick With me, what you see is what you get unless like me you must forget On less than a penny a day The sun is shining on all this grief and joy and pining and Humble Fingers tying The clouds and embers of a past in a glass house, an ecstatic and dour cast, together with an exquisite taste for wrath, forgiveness, patience, and haste...

This is gonna be good

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by Ryan Favata

Closer1 On the news, white flags of surrender fleck the country side to mark the bodies; metal, soft fabric in equal amounts bent and woven through foreign flora: charged green shoots, blossoms at the tips like blue-bulbed street lamps.

I had just hung up the phone, a friend calling to talk, but with forced topics, not a breath in between, avoiding all she wanted to say, as I’ve done many times before; as, I think, we’ve all done. I felt that crick of regret and changed the channel: a scientist began explaining microscopic level, that mysterious plane where, as he stated, nothing ever touches.

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previously appeared in Synchronized Chaos Magazine AFTER THE PAUSE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 1

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by Nolan Liebert

Spectrum Bridge Crossing I speak for my son, reasons beyond his need because I understand his slang of ratchets and cogs. Rise up, thrust his swaying skeleton support, his brilliant window, Johari translated to Morse: Schematics overwhelming a planet, a cosmos through body, brain, drawn up the wellspring throat, spilling out the mouth in jargon and echoes.

I hammer the speech on my tongue of fear his language is my own.

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by Joyce Chong

weeds i. the street corners of his neck where it meets the shoulder, follows down the rocky collarbone cliffside where pulse thuds, a broken streetlight blinking red stops like a beacon, or some warning. ii. the landslide eyes, mud and dirt and suffocation; maybe you could build a supernova from the debris. iii. the weeds; roots clambering out from the edge of his jawiv. fluffs across your stomach, sink in flesh until you are a field, a vista hidden behind handprints: the mark of his skin along yours.

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by Charles Bane Jr.

In Paris2 In Paris, all the streets were rained and magpies in the shadows of Notre Dame poured tunes. The cafes dripped and all the city was wet that afternoon; you said, look at the long haired Seine; do you want to walk in the Jardins des Plantes ?

No, I said, let's hold Mass in your room.

You lay and I heard bells at the lifting of the moon. A thousand souls somewhere in the dark of France flew.

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“In Paris� is from his newest release: Love Poems (Kelsay Books, 2014) AFTER THE PAUSE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 1

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by Anton Rose

Victoria The brush of a stranger, the walk to the barrier, and the fumble for card in pocket, calls out the remembrance of youthful running to catch the last train: forgotten ticket and reprimand.

Then it was a starry night, excited chatter and the ring of feedback, then it was just the few of us, but not now.

Now the geological rumble and groan of brakes, but most of all the clear realization that there are just so many people.

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by Georgene Smith Goodin

Tuna Fish Casserole with Potato Chip Crust   

Two cans tuna Two cans Campbell’s cream of chicken One bag Lay’s potato chips

That’s right, Philly girl. Lay’s, not Herr’s. Don’t get any Wise ideas.

Bake however long at whatever temperature, until the top is crispy and brown.

Tastes like the commissaries on the air force bases where your mother-in-law conceived it.

Tastes like industrial bloat. And sodium, but not in an infused, finishing salt sort of way.

Serve with a side of spinach, the frozen kind shaped like its box. Substitute organic from the farmer’s market and your husband will know something’s different.

He’ll eat it anyway.

Try to health it up. Use no salt added tuna, Healthy Choice soup, and lightly salted chips. But not the baked ones. They disintegrate into mush and reveal themselves as powdered food stuff.

Cook while wearing a crocheted beer can hat, made without irony in the 70’s, a gift from your mother-in-law to your father-in-law long before the divorce.

Leftovers turn nasty gray when microwaved. Best eaten fresh.

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by JD DeHart

Clawfoot Tub The realtor took us through a series of houses, cramped rooms with other people’s odors, photos, and lives.

The small green bathroom contained a tub, the feet like some legs of a creature.

I could not bathe for fear of being consumed.

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by S. Babin

Bared lay me bared, along the hard corporeal floor, facing the looking glass.

Take me out of my plaid pants with cool checkers that cast crisscrossed shadows patterned to please my member; removed from my slacks I’ve allowed myself to go further, past the straw man, deeper than proud manicured designer fabric, with blues, grays, and hints of yellow, encaged a pure white base.

Those patterns become rivers, flowing into oceans, where the white whale roams, engulfed in a tank with live coral.

I look through the glass at the coral and the whale.

The two have drifted through the ethos of eternity in the flourishing sea, and only ask if I have enough grit.

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by Jeff Burt

Roof I bleach back moss, seal cracks with tar, palms chalk-white, tips of fingers black.

It’s ninety in the air, one hundred on shingles, and when I sweat the amulets sizzle like oil on a griddle, diddle, and are gone, not a wisp of vapor.

Thoughts amass like thunderclouds but wisp like cumulus, evaporate into the immense blue sky.

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by Christina Murphy

In the Sky’s Heaven those might be shadows or bandages in the sky’s heavens; little is known of what everything becomes in transcendence or in loss the eternal seeming of water flows over stones that once were mountains claiming forces from lotus flowers as multi-colored branches frame a crystal sky ginger and sweet rain, the flowing gold of evening clouds—time, too, gets old and sadness freezes into a very long fall of the heart into knotted lilacs in an orchid night red blossoms and the river is bright with the mountain’s image the thick amber of a broken dream is the candle’s yellow flower use the gentle light in joy, in melancholy

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by Rodney Nelson

Saint Giles’ and the Morrow ONE the south wind moving heat into town and through had field dust and dirt to it but what kept on that night no weaker no less dry turned cool and brought a scent of live ragweed and a memory of ivy patches with it

the wind would go to an end out there or come begin again nothing is over

TWO I had been at the première of the wind in cottonwoods and had listened to the tape but I would not need to get the remastered version after sitting on the river bank where I had first heard it and attending the première all over again the very crackle and waver of light on leaf I had taken in whenever it was and where I needed to be and am

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by Neila Mezynski

Performer To get her hand on some word, say them quiet sweet strong in a dancy kind of way.

Eyebrow inflect cheek click smile. Say word together, dance together, them, to be looked at. Undress, in a dancy sort of way.

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by Kayla Pongrac

Whistling The train's whistling somewhere far away, somewhere quite far away, and it reminds me of the time you pulled my hair back and whispered into my ear— your loud whistle of a voice, the comfort I felt looking out the window of your thoughts wherever you were going, I felt as if I had gone.

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by Nolan Liebert

Altared My parents told me too soon they weren't real, weren't really kidnappers, either, I was just their baby Moses.

I made my summer home in the hay beneath corrugated aluminum, nuzzling cats like a mother's breast I never knew.

We went out hunting frogs and snakes in the waterlogged field, armed with claws and bitter steel, we put our prey in buckets to play with.

Momma cat, fat with the next litter, dropped her garter snake gift on the porch for her masters, feeding hands hung it on the fence for luck.

I made my own luck, in my prayers I placed dead frogs prostrate on the fading white aluminum, hot enough to burn them black, like offerings.

The god that brought the rain was not my god, instead of Canaan, mother's milk and honey hair, I kept crying the Red Sea, alone.

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by A`nji Sarumi

Undone The whole day spent trying to hold yourself together Remy Martin evening shadow the solvent blue soft and safe you come unglued undone do you know what it takes for you to be you drunken laughter explodes in sea of joy anger skepticism ripples in quiet confusion rumble approaches screeching tires garbage truck crew collects wilted greens brown cabbages splintered cups Finds you damaged goods neatly folded on the curb

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by W. Jack Savage

Jimenez vs Silver

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by Russ Bickerstaff

A Rising Deity of Humility I said that it was not my place to judge. What I meant was that I'm a very humble person. It's not something I like to talk about on account of the fact that I’m just so cripplingly modest about everything. This being said, my altruistically humble nature is something that I'm very, very proud of. Sometimes I lie awake at night absolutely spinning from the intensity of my own humility. I can’t stress enough that I take a tremendous amount of pride in my total lack of vanity. To mention directly how proud I am of my humility would kind of be against my own basic nature so I won't. I won't mention how very humble I am. I won’t even hint at how intensely powerful my humility is. There's really no need to ever mention that directly. So I won’t.

And anyway I don't have to even bother mentioning it directly to anyone. People just look at me and they know. They know I'm a very humble person. And I can tell that there's jealousy there. People are very jealous of my humility. This is something I noticed particularly strong in my coworkers. They pass me by in the halls and they look at me. They make eye contact with me. I can tell they’re just burning with jealousy over how humble I am. As strong as I feel their jealousy is, I can't help but notice how very, very upset it makes my supervisors feel. Obviously, they wouldn't have gotten to the place that they've gotten to without a certain amount of their own humility. But they can see it in me and they know that it is much stronger with me than it is with them.

It’s not like these people have anything to worry about though. Really, it's not like the people I work with aren't getting some positive effect from it. There's a certain amount of humility by contact that comes from being in my presence. They are really privileged to have me working there. My level of humility is large enough that it coats the entire block. Everyone in my building is coated with the sheer sense of humbleness.

Clients and deliverymen and vendors walk into the building and they just sense the sheer awesome intensity to the humility in the building. Anyone casually passing through the building would think that the humble cloud could be coming from any one of us. People casually passing by wouldn't notice the true origin of this modesty unless they actually laid eyes on me. They wouldn’t recognize it was me unless they were actually in my presence. I can only be in so many places at so many times, a casual observer could think that it was coming from any one of us.

Honestly, I can scarcely blame my coworkers for their jealousy. But as I say, it's really nothing to bother them too much. I like to make a point of being as conciliatory as I can possibly be toward them. It's not their fault they're simply not capable of the intense level of humbleness that I have. And anyway I'm not really after their jobs.

(Though I will get them all.) I'm not really after the company either, though I know I will get it as well. Someone with my level of humility can't possibly help but completely overturn and take control of the company. At this stage it cannot help but come to pass.

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Even more than simply taking over the company, my humility has the kind of pull and intensity that would ultimately destroy the company anyway. The building itself can only stand so much. It's about to collapse in on itself. And it will collapse in on itself. The building. The whole block.

Naturally, the calamity of an entire city block collapsing under the weight of my humbleness will attract the attention of the authorities. Police, SWAT and National Guard will be called in. Of course, they are ill equipped to handle the irresistible intensity of my humility. This will be quite tragic, but unavoidable in the long run. It's not like I chose to do this. It's not like I wanted to cause this kind of commotion. It simply will happen. It's as certain as anything else that is clearly coming to me due to the truly epic level of my modesty. I'll be at work in the building of the office of doing something very, very important. This will happen sometime after I've gained control of the company. It's only natural. When all the security forces combined are incapable of containing the sheer awesome force of my very, very modest and humble nature, it's only a matter of time before ownership of the government and all its major branches will be handed over to me willingly, happily and eagerly. I will graciously accept them because, of course, I am a very modest individual.

Foreign nations will, of course, come to understand what is going on in the nation now ruled by my modesty. And they will attempt to make some sort of action against the force of my humility. Of course, it's only a matter of time before they all fall before the crushing intensity of my mighty humbleness. They will all soon be under my control--not that it’s anything that I’d ever pursue. With all of the governments of the world at my disposal, my humility will burn with the intensity of one trillion suns.

Stars will go supernova. Black holes will cease to be. The loss of real-life physics will make them realize they never existed in the first place.

The sheer grandiosity of my humility will come to extend across all the stars and the entire firmament of heaven. Angels will quake and fall to earth. God himself will be brought to his knees. He will be openly weeping at the overwhelming intensity of my humility.

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by Ryan Favata

Comments Overheard at a Funeral 1. “I’m done taking things for granted.”

2. “The living are kind; the dead are kind souls.”

3. “She once sent a valentine’s day card on my birthday.”

4. “She’s at peace. If only we were so lucky.”

5. “Inner child and ice cream have the same initials.”

6. “She was never the same after losing the dog.”

7. “Can you please remind me of her husband’s name?”

8. “Was it sudden? No? Good.”

9. “Eye contact is the toughest part. I’d rather die.”

10. “Does this place have A/C?” 11. “This July has been unbearable.”

12. “I can’t even…”

13. “You know, I dated her daughter once. What an awful night.”

14. “Her husband donated the books she wanted to be buried with.”

15. “She loved life—a veracious reader.”

16. “I don’t read much.”

17. “I don’t think she did, either.”

18. “She was a kind soul.”

19. “So I hear…”

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by Hedaya Kelani

Hourglass Meddling laughter and an ancient Japanese pocket Watch; slipping through The hole of another leather trench coat. I only wished.

Wished that I could be like Sherlock Holmes. Unlock.

Rewind. discover.

Perhaps I’ll know the mysteries of this life; those beyond the secrets of the gardeners who cut bushes in fantastical shapes, or my sister who always has something swept up in the bottom chamber of her thoughts. Perhaps, the sand in this hourglass will reach its final capacity, and I will have no secrets left to learn— Down I go; Falling through the abyss of ambition.

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by Steven Kapela

Meditations at Equinox 1 We’ve been watching the garden grow every year, before the heat ghosts of summer thrive and flicker, distorting what our distance distorts on its own.

The trees blur under a clear, lit sky.

2 There is too little space between each seedling, too close for the sun to haunt with its heated query— centimeter-size mistakes burgeoning like the space in the cracks of our hands— the fissures of our own flesh.

We are filled with these undernourished, unexplored landscapes.

3 Arranged in rows there— headless sunflower stalks, gossamer-stricken tomatoes, and weeds choking the chlorophyll out of every pea-shoot.

4 We are who we want to forget and cannot.

5 Black-eyed Susan pedals folding back like little heads of long hair wet with rain.

We will always be caught in eternity’s storm with our mortal wind chime trembling out AFTER THE PAUSE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 1

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a quiet song.

6 There are little plots in our body where we forgot to cultivate, some hidden bloom of unruliness and willfulness like kudzu or wild dandelions nearly breaking into blossom on its own, It’s part of us. We nourish it from our own hunger.

7 the end of summer is the time to burn the end of blighted harvests— compost if possible— rotted soil, stalks, buds, shoots, vines, even the wood that made the fence to keep out rabbits and white-tailed deer.

We want to make sure they are hungry so that they will eat the grass above our graves so we can better feel the warm, lit sky on our face.

8 Under the bat-speckled harvest moon we search for what may be left in the garden.

The heat has sunk into the soil.

And its ghosts have not forgiven us.

9 An apple tree’s gaunt and snarled branches meet the moon to form a shadow like death’s hand extending to greet us again.

10 Our inadvertent fossils will determine who we used to be.

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Our boot-prints remain invisibly petrified into the sodden soil, blurred into its brown grit.

Even on windless, heatless, and breathless days, we must fall further.

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by Hazem Tagiuri

Jacket A man's jacket, left at the bar.

She tries it on for size, pats down the shoulders, runs fingers along its tweed.

She sweeps back her hair, makes the composed face people use in dressing rooms; a visual grammar, the language of mirrors.

She looks at herself, watches me watching her.

How does it look?

You make it work.

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by William Doreski

Beginning with a Line by John Ashbery Law hasn’t happened yet, the light along the highway near Milford shaped by the sifting of trees rather than the flicker of speeding traffic.

A river chuffs along, bloated with narrative. I want to stop and cup a palm of water to baptize a bit of roadkill that might have been a mouse or toad.

But our speed enhances us so we can’t surrender it even for a moment’s ritual.

The shopping centers pile up, rectangles self-defined. Good deals whisper along party lines. Shoppers, not people, earn points and credit by parking money here and there.

We will expose the final layer of our skins to fluorescent bulbs scored in ranks to flatter stuff we need or don’t need according to the Rorschach of our income.

You’re good at spending, but I fall into a lower percentile due mainly to lack of courage.

The woods will hoot tonight. A pair of nesting barred owls startling mice and rabbits for prey. A red light stalls us throbbing in a queue.

You believe the law will happen.

You drive with dogged purpose, while I’ve left myself three miles back on the riverbank, paddling the lukewarm current and hoping to evolve into a bear.

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by Michael Lee Johnson

If You Find No Poem If you find no poem on your doorstep in the morning, no paper, no knock on your door, your life poorly edited but no broken dashes or injured meterif you do not wear white satin dresses late in life embroidered with violet flowers on the collar; nor do you have burials daily across main streetif no one whispers in your ear, Emily Dickinsonyou feel alonebut not reclusivethe sand child still sleeping in your eyeswiping your tears awayif you find no poem on your doorstepyou know you are not from New England.

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by Mitchell Grabois

Ms. Hendrix Jimi Hendrix was reincarnated as a lesbian, my lesbian friend Emma tells me, and we can go see her at a local bar this weekend.

All Sartre’s volumes boil down to one line: Hell is other people.

I’m out of here, I tell Emma. Recession be damned. Am I a fool? Yes, always have been. Should I be glad to have any job at all? Don’t think so.

Shiny objects float in space. Antique vacuum cleaners hang from the ceiling, and fruit hangs low in the orchards. There’s a massive glitter spill somewhere, and I’m going to find it.

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by W. Jack Savage

The Gacy Show

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by Joyce Chong

to dust in the afterlife, i collect the shards of my bones from the gold dusted desert, sifting my hands through the grains & catching antiques from a past life in my fingernails. i fill my pockets with marrow, and they spill out in the night while i sleep, eyes on the moon, drowsy-drunk on the lunar light sometimes i catch signs of you in the sun-scarred palms of my handsbroken pieces from your dad's wristwatch you always wore after he died, the sound of your voice in the desert wind, pushing me, scalding me with familiarity. i find myself buried sometimes, skin pattered with sand & glass, windows for eyes; i melt to rock, dream of oceans battering my soul into a new body, into this multitude of forms. in it, the water's surge could not wrench you from me, even while my bones sank & again, i lost myself. when i wash upon the shore, the ocean fades & i collect myself once more, gathering sea-salt bones in sodden pockets, while even in the afterlife, your memory still mars AFTER THE PAUSE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 1

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my hands.

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by Nate Aeilts

Is there so much? Can such a thing be?

The hollow force working on my brain, With such a vicious grip as only the naked mind can have, Sucks and pulls between the synapse and the soul The essence of the conflict, the rise and fall.

That is, plastic hands rising from the buggy.

And with as much breath, the warm wet vacuum, That fine breadth of mystery, tragedy, and hope, Issues whispers, echoes, shhh…

So much layered—the adjective, the noun, thing and promise— In the vault beneath the sky. Open.

The cool dawn air on the dewy green, And in the sun I breathe.

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by Anand Prakash

Barmecide Dinner In the Café, she talked to the girl with a yellow frock, the boy with wide-rimmed specs, and the lady in her sixties, one by one, barely changing a word.

Aww… so nice to see you.

Wow! You did that?

Awesome!

What a busy weekend.

Me? Have been here since 7 AM. Working on my homework.

Now I am doing bible study.

Miss you too.

Let’s meet up for dinner.

And that’s how she invited them to imaginary dinner, like the one wealthy Barmecide did in Arabian Nights.

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by Norfalia Foster

Pulse I had one task to guard you against hurt It worked for a while, it worked Now you’re bloody I failed the one assignment given me...

I look to you tearfully The sorrow I feel at letting you down is profound I will never forgive myself To you I am always bound Let me help you Hold you Carry and caress you In all my life you have never let me down My promise to you once more Is to protect you, with my crown You are my most amazing part I will keep you safe My Heart

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by R.L. Black

Longing

In the beginning of us there was longing.

One. Loneliness.

Out of emptiness, I reach into infinity.

Wishing, hoping, exploring.

Pause, calm, surprise.

Cold black warms to gray.

Light emerging.

Changing muddy to mauve.

Matter mind meld.

Consciousness.

My breath infuses spirit, soul.

Seeking, asking for love.

Crawling, standing, reaching.

No more longing.

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by Ashley Wilda

Revenge Sometimes we don't understand why we come here.

Under the glaring lights, amid the thrumming chatter, rumbling rolls, clunking gutter balls.

Why we drag ourselves back, at least once a week. The boy at the counter waves us in, go on, go on. We've come to expect that wave.

We cling tight to each other. We don't know why.

We sit near the middle lane, settling down, waiting until everyone ignores us.

We hate it, this clashing, clanging, cracking noise-- hate it with an irresistible attraction.

It draws us.

Taunts us.

Teases us.

And we come.

The squeaking, squealing of tennis shoe rubber, the shaking thrrumble of the heavy leady balls, the laughter, chitter-chatter blending, spinning, whirling.

Why do we come here?

For a safe place to let the beast off its chain.

It slinks from our hearts, the cages where it's kept constant captive.

Stops its tearing, grraring, foaming.

Instead, it slinks.

Sllllithering.

Arching.

Raking its invisible claws down the wooden ball dispenser, leaving splintering streaks, Breathing down oblivious ordinary necks, Sipping from a man’s beer bottle even as his white fingers grip tight, Staring into eyes glinting golden, The nothingness only we can see.

The partiers shudder, and squirm, and peek over their shoulders, Feeling the misplacement in the room.

But we just slump.

And sigh.

And relax.

Even as we watch our monster stalk, freakily free, among them.

Because we finally find relief.

As the blinding lights are shut off, one by one, We yank hard on the creature's chain.

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Hissingly, Meant to ravage and pounce and shred the world.

We lock our hearts, Watch our twin shadows disappear, as the last light winks through the darkening door, The neon sign flickering to shadow, And every time, It's like the snuffing of our hope.

And the beast rustles its wings, Rattles its claws, And whispers its name in the darkness.

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by Robert Gross

End of the Rainbow i’m told you can’t get blood out of a rainbow i saw a stunner once when i held him waiting the hospice nurse said it won’t be long now but it took five days across the hall they threw a party balloons and noisemakers for a guy with pancreatic cancer his brothers insisted he’d beat the wrap he was thirty-four someone had a friend come in to play danny boy on her harp someone wrapped a pint of gin in a comforter and snuck it in said it would help me sleep i hid it in the closet it didn’t Rainbows don’t last long they never do they never last as long as you want and never take anything along but leave you waiting

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by Rich Boucher

The Day He Decides to Leave Eleven in the morning is the last hour he has before the Sun really begins to burn.

This is the largest, brightest thought cometing through the hornet buzz universe of his mind. For so long he’s watched how the people do it, how they move their bodies, how they rise with a cry and fall with a laugh and leap and jump. Though he only has hay and feathers for brains, he has finally reasoned all of it out and he is done with the years of agony coursing through the straw of him. You know him; he is empty but still has a soul and that soul has come to a place where he knows that he cannot live one minute longer like this and his face is the face of every epiphany you’ve ever seen. See the fabric of his face crease with determination. See him strain to reach behind and lift himself off the stake in his back. See him do it. See him win and land roughly on the ground. See him reaching down, brushing himself off. See him tilt his head back, craning the potato-sack burlap of his neck, squinting his black magic marker X’s up into the sky, hoping, thinking, following the flight of a large, dark bird. See him look this way and that; see him search for any people around. See him come to know he is alone. See him break into a run; see the tears drying on the yellowed cloth of his face in the wind. See his floppy gray hat fly off his crooked head as he runs as fast as he can through the corn, running through the green and gold to the heat lines of the horizon, to the beginning and the ending of the world.

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by Bob Carlton

Happy Hour Ending The long dry days wound their calendrical way, while the high drone of ceiling fans belied the impotence of their most energetic exertions. The sun had ceased being the father of all earthly life, opting instead for the role of cruel stepmother. The effervescence of beer, served too cold in the non-necessity of a frosted mug, spoke to my thirst in ways that rainwater had forsaken. It was only my formalities, the tiny courtesies I observed when dealing with people who clearly despised me, that I was able to maintain a perpetrated lie that I chose to name “Dignity.” The rows of bottled liquors slowly eroticized, and every casual gesture or hacking cough of the bartender, in low-cut shirt and high-cut shorts, became unbearably sexual. This could perhaps be explained by a recent personal loss or some bizarre, unfounded expectation. One second followed the next like a non-sequitur. I found this sensation disappeared once I demolished the notion of linear time. In fact, I had come to the realization that all events do indeed happen simultaneously, that, in fact, the concept of event is as unfounded and arbitrary as the concept of time. The inescapable conclusion I reached was that nothing happened for the duration of my presence in this place. No revelation, no epiphany, no story—a narrative arc of immeasurable fluxions, a series of discriminations too minute for me to calculate or even recognize.

So I left before going at all.

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…Contributors…

The Poets…

Nate Aeilts Nate Aeilts hopes, wishes, and loves a lot of the same things most people do. He has a BA in English, and has gone back to school for a BA in Computer Science. He has ridden an elephant.

S. Babin Steven holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from the Ohio State University, and a Law Degree from the University of Pennsylvania. One in each hand. He carries them everywhere. Steven lives with his family, and works in Columbus, Ohio. His work will be featured in Spark: A Creative Anthology; Boston Literary Magazine; Rust & Nail; 34th Parallel; Bop Dead City; Decades Review and Star 82 Review.

Charles Bane Jr. Charles Bane, Jr. is the American author of The Chapbook (Curbside Splendor, 2011) and Love Poems (Kelsay Books, 2014). His work was described by the Huffington Post as "not only standing on the shoulders of giants, but shrinking them." Creator of The Meaning Of Poetry series for The Gutenberg Project, he is a current nominee as Poet Laureate of Florida. "In Paris" is from his new release.

R.L. Black R.L. Black lives in Tennessee and enjoys writing poetry, flash fiction, and short stories. You can find out more about the author and her publications at rlblack.weebly.com.

Rich Boucher Rich Boucher loves to look at panties and pocketknives, and also he served two terms as a member of the Albuquerque Poet Laureate Program’s Selection Committee. His poems have appeared in Visceral Uterus, Gargoyle, The Nervous Breakdown, Apeiron Review, Menacing Hedge and The Legendary, among others, and he has work forthcoming in Cultural Weekly, Chaos Poetry Review, The Ditch Rider, and the Write Bloody Publishing anthology MultiVerse, due out in the fall of 2014.

Jeff Burt Jeff Burt lives in Santa Cruz County, California. He has works in Thrice Fiction, Treehouse, Windfall, and Digital Papercut, as well as others. He won the 2011 SuRaa short fiction award.

Joyce Chong Joyce Chong is an undergraduate student living in Ontario, Canada. Recent publications include Black Heart Magazine, Wyvern Lit, and Gone Lawn, among others which can be found at joyceemily.weebly.com. She tweets at @JoyceEmilyC. JD DeHart JD DeHart is the author of the chapbook, The Truth About Snails. He is a staff writer for Verse-Virtual and his blog is jddehart.blogspot.com.

William Doreski William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and teaches at Keene State College. His most recent book of poetry is The Suburbs of Atlantis (2013). He has published three critical studies, including Robert Lowell’s Shifting Colors. His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in many journals.

Robin Wyatt Dunn Robin Wyatt Dunn was born in Wyoming in the Carter Administration. He lives in Los Angeles.

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Sarah Edwards Sarah Edwards is a writer and/or a poet. Her work is experimental and based on some truths and inner heart. Recently her work is published or forthcoming in Electric Cereal, Sun Lit, Otoliths, Thick Jam, etc. Her tumblr: http://sarahscribbled.tumblr.com/ Daniel von der Embse Daniel von der Embse began writing poetry after a four-decade career as a copywriter for advertising agencies in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, and San Francisco. His poems appear in Vine Leaves Literary Journal, The Missing Slate, Across the Margin, Decanto, Poetry Pacific, and Poetry Quarterly.

Ryan Favata Ryan Favata is a recent graduate of Rollins College where he majored in English and Creative Writing.

He was the 2013 recipient of the Laura van den Berg Writing Scholarship. He currently resides in Winter Park, Florida. His publications include One Throne, Synchronized Chaos, Ricochet, and 94 Creations.

John Grey John Grey is an Australian born poet. Recently published in Paterson Literary Review, Southern California Review and Natural Bridge with work upcoming in New Plains Review, Leading Edge and Louisiana Literature.

Robert Gross Robert F. Gross is a poet, theatrical director and performer on the road; this weekend he calls Manhattan 'home.' He last appeared in escape clause with Julius Ferraro in Philadelphia, and has had poems appear recently in Carcinogenic Poetry, Purple Pig Lit, Dead Snakes, and The Camel Saloon.

Kevin Heaton Kevin Heaton is originally from Kansas and Oklahoma, and now lives and writes in South Carolina. His work has appeared in a number of publications including: Guernica, Rattle, Raleigh Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Adroit Journal, and The Monarch Review. He is a Best of the Net, Best New Poets, and three-time Pushcart Prize nominee.

Hedaya Kelani Hedaya Kelani is a high school senior attending Westchester Academy for International Studies in Houston, Texas. She is a Libyan art-lover who is currently taking a creative writing course and a higher level English class.

A.N. Irvano A. N. Irvano has forgotten why becoming a writer seemed like a better career than anything else out there, but still holds to the idea that good writing that is both shocking and true can change the world.

When not writing she can be found sitting in the same place at the same cafe or going for morning runs.

Mark Jackley Mark Jackley's latest chapbook is Appalachian Night. A free copy is available from the author at chineseplums@gmail.com. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Tampa Review, Sugar House Review, Talking River, Fifth Wednesday and other journals.

Michael Lee Johnson Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era. Today he is a poet, freelance writer, photographer, and small business owner in Itasca, Illinois. He has been published in more than 875 small press magazines in twenty-seven countries, and he edits 9 poetry sites.

Steven Kapela

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Steven Kapela is a poet and writer from Toledo, Ohio. He recently finished his MA in Poetry at Ohio University. He has won multiple awards from the Toledo City Paper and Toledo Art Museum for his work. He has also published poetry in Rascal Magazine online.

Nolan Liebert Nolan Liebert hails from the Black Hills of South Dakota. He enjoys bicycling, playing piano, and cooking. He lives with his wife and kids in a house that is not a covered wagon and has indoor plumbing. His pets are named after brutally murdered historical figures. Sometimes he writes.

Corey Mesler Corey Mesler has published in numerous anthologies and journals including Poetry, Good Poems American Places, andEsquire/Narrative. He has published 8 novels, 4 short story collections, chapbooks, and 4 full-length poetry collections. He’s been nominated for many Pushcarts, and 2 of his poems were chosen for Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. He runs a bookstore in Memphis.

Neila Mezynski Neila Mezynski is author of 6 books from Scrambler Books, Folded Word Press, Nap, and Deadly Chap Press, echap books from Patasola Press and Radioactive Moat Press; pamphlets from Greying Ghost Press, Mud Luscious Press and Mondo Bummer.

Christina Murphy Christina Murphy's poems have appeared in a range of journals and anthologies, most recently in Hermeneutic Chaos Literary Journal and the anthology Remaking Moby-Dick published by EU Art Line.

Her work has been nominated multiple times for a Pushcart Prize and for the Best of the Net anthology.

Rodney Nelson See Rodney Nelson's page in the Poets & Writers directory http://www.pw.org/content/rodney_nelson for a notion of the publishing history. He is a copy editor and lives in the northern Great Plains. His chapbook Fargo in Winter took second place in the 2013 Cathlamet Prize competition at Ravenna Press, Spokane. Directions From Enloe won third in the Turtle Island Quarterly contest. The full-length Felton Prairie will be appearing this fall.

Richard King Perkins II Richard King Perkins II is a state-sponsored advocate for residents in long-term care facilities. He has a wife, Vickie and a daughter, Sage. He is a three-time Pushcart nominee and a Best of the Net nominee whose work has appeared in hundreds of publications including The Louisiana Review, Bluestem, Emrys Journal, Sierra Nevada Review, Two Thirds North, The Red Cedar Review and The William and Mary Review. He has poems forthcoming in the Roanoke Review, The Alembic and Milkfist.

Kayla Pongrac Kayla Pongrac is an avid writer, reader, tea drinker, and record spinner. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Vinyl Poetry, Split Lip Magazine, KYSO Flash, Right Hand Pointing, and Nat. Brut, among others. To read more of Kayla's work, visit www.kaylapongrac.com or follow her on Twitter @KP_the_Promisee.

Anton Rose Anton lives in Durham, U.K. He writes fiction and poetry while trying to finish a PhD in Theology, all fueled by numerous cups of tea. Find him at antonrose.com A`nji Sarumi A`nji Sarumi, originally from Chicago, IL is an award winning poet, writer who resides in the metro Atlanta, GA area. She has received Poets & Writer grants and shares poetry at workshops and private events nationally. Her favorite forms are free verse, jazz poetry and haiku.

Hazem Tagiuri Hazem Tagiuri is a writer, editor, and all-around word fancier, based in London. He edits and publishes Whisker, a pocket-sized magazine of new poetry and short fiction.

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Norfalia Thompson Norfalia Thompson lives in Brooklyn, NY. She is a Graduate of DeVry University and holds a Bachelors of Science Degree in Technical Management. Norfalia Thompson currently writes with the Majestik writers.

Jeffrey Zable Jeffrey Zable is a teacher and conga drummer who plays Afro-Cuban folkloric music for dance classes and Rumbas around the San Francisco Bay Area. He's published five chapbooks, including Zable's Fables with an introduction by the late great Beat poet Harold Norse. Present or upcoming work in Toad Suck Review, Clarion, Serving House Journal, Futures Trading, Dreginald, Ishaan Literary Review, Z-Composition, Chaos Poetry Review (featured poet), and many others.

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The Fictioners‌ Russ Bickerstaff Russ Bickerstaff is a professional theatre critic and aspiring author living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with his wife and two daughters. His short fictions have appeared in Hypertext Magazine, Pulp Metal Magazine, Sein und Werden, and Beyond Imagination, among other places. His Internarrational Where Port can be found at: http://ru3935.wix.com/russ-bickerstaff.

Bob Carlton Bob Carlton (www.bobcarlton3.weebly.com) lives and works in Leander, TX. Mitchell Grabois Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois has had over six hundred of his poems and fictions appear in literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. He has been nominated several times for the Pushcart Prize. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, based on his work as a clinical psychologist in a state hospital, is available for Kindle and Nook, or as a print edition. He lives in Denver.

Georgene Smith Goodin Georgene Smith Goodin's work has appeared in Alligator Juniper. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, the cartoonist Robert Goodin, and their two dogs Toaster and Idget.

Mark McKee Mark McKee is from the American south. In his spare time he collects nervous breakdowns. His work has appeared in theNewerYork, decomP, and others. Find him at goodreads.com/markmckeejr.

Anand Prakash Anand Prakash is researcher by profession and writer by passion. He writes experimental fiction. Some of his fictions have appeared in z-composition, Crack the Spine, Fictitious magazine, the Delinquent issue 20, Miser magazine issue VII. His writing can be found at http://gradstudentwriter.blogspot.com/.

Steven Prihoda Steven Prihoda was born in Medford, Wisconsin. He studied English Literature at the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse before moving to Minneapolis, MN. He has been heavily influenced by Milan Kundera, Haruki Murakami and David Foster Wallace.

Ashley Wilda Ashley Wilda is a writer and college student living in eastern Virginia. She particularly enjoys writing action-packed young adult fiction but loves reading any work whose words sing and whisper magic to the reader. In addition to writing, she loves rock climbing, being outside, and watching movies with her Dad.

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The Artist‌ W. Jack Savage W. Jack Savage is a retired broadcaster and educator (wjacksavage.com). Jack and his wife Kathy live in Monrovia, California.

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Editor’s Note Part 3 Thank you for reading Winter 2014. Until next time…

Sincerely, Michael Prihoda

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