Magazine
Jason Baldinger: “a time capsule of dust”
Stephen Barile: “Cedar Crest Cove”
Jane-Rebecca Cannarella: “Quilted Rainbows”
Lorraine Caputo: “And That Wind Twirls”
Rick Christiansen: “Borrowed Blood”
John Dorsey: “Jerry Garcia & German Root Beer”
Howie Good: “Uketopia”
John Grey: “Flower People”
Judy Lorenzen: “Anyway”
Tim Peeler: “Untitled”
LB Sedlacek: “Art vs Life (Dream 09/19/15)”
Nadia Arioli: “Sam Insists Only Oak”
Jon Bennet: “Petty Dreams”
Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozábal: “Thoughts”
Sarah Carleton: “No, I would not like to ride”
Bart Edelman: “What Happens Here”
Marc Janssen: “Dog Days”
Linda Lerner: “Twenty-Four Hour Non-Stop News”
Anita Lerek: “Song for Blood Vibrato”
Jim Murdoch: “The Great Ledger in the Sky”
Timothy Tarkelly: “Long Night”
Robin Wright: “Nesting”
Funereal Geometry: The Evangelical Congregation Concludes the Funeral by Singing “In Christ, There is No East or West / No North or South,” while Outside the Church and Midway Up, a Steeplejack Tests to See the Steeple’s True
If a plumbline’s run from Heaven’s door bell
to the red baize on Satan’s pool table;
and if such a line bisects their steeple;
and if the steeple’s perpendicular—
perpendicular, foursquare, ever true--
to the church’s temporal foundation,
the workman’s spirit level always rules
theology and recalibration.
Lacking such, the skewed will keep on skewing,
will mime secular drift–anathema
to the faith and the faithful, those who cleave
to the steeple's cleft, crowd a receding
circumference, and create a holy
right angle to the vertical axis.
That’s why the steeplejack’s climbed the steeple
even as the funeral rumbles, smacks
around his calibrations. He’s allowed
no room for error in the elders’ view:
the journeyman’s warrant is the last word
in church doctrine. The steeple must be true,
must aim straight up. The soul shoots for a pole
implied by the steeple. Off-plumb slivers
of a bubble, who knows where the launched soul
might end up. Heaven's the point of a pin.
About the Author: Samuel Prestridge lives and works in Athens, Georgia. He has published work in numerous publications, including Literary Imagination, Style, The Arkansas Review, As It Ought To Be, Poetry Quarterly, Appalachian Quarterly, Paideuma, The Lullwater Review, Poem, Juke Joint, and The Southern Humanities Review.
He is a post-aspirational man whose first book A Dog’s Job of Work is seeking publication. He is currently an Associate Professor of English at the University of North Georgia. His children concede that he is, generally, an adequate father.
Image Credit: John Vachon “Zell, South Dakota. Church buildings” (1942) Public domain image courtesy of the Library of Congress
funeral arrangements in the crawlspace
the floor peels
to reveal the plots
where a son’s memories
were buried
& the son
months later
laid himself
to rest.
//
in the dark room
i hear sobbing.
from the corner
of my eye
a mother
on hands & knees
clawing the boards,
trying to dig open
the wood,
trying to dig open
her son.
About the Author: john compton (he/him) is a gay poet who lives with his husband josh and their dogs and cats. his latest book: my husband holds my hand because i may drift away & be lost forever in the vortex of a crowded store (Flowersong Press; dec 2024) and latest chapbook: melancholy arcadia (Harbor Editions; april 2024)
Image Credit: “Interior view, looking up toward project west at the heavy timber joists and center beam supporting the wood water tank” Public domain image courtesy of the Library of Congress
Wardenclyffe
The present is theirs. The future, for which I really worked, is mine.
-Nicola Tesla
Is what I imagined tangible—
this motor, powered by fireflies,
streamer arc threads of phosphorescent light
discharging from the center coil.
I go from idea to reality,
a star among the stars.
I do not think there is any thrill
like the inventor seeing a creation come to success,
the exhilarating sense of the future.
Sometimes we feel so lonely.
Someday we will know who we really are.
If my current can travel distances,
my work is immortal—
resurrecting my vision, broadcasting to Mars.
Thought is electrical energy.
Why can’t we photograph it?
The primary circuits of us all,
high-speed alternators—
many colors, myriad frequencies.
Sometimes we feel so lonely.
Someday we will know who we really are.
My tower dream ran out of funds—
demolished to scrap,
the property sold to the highest bidder.
I live on credit at the Waldorf,
along with spark-excited ghosts.
My only friends are pigeons in Bryant Park—
My favorite is a female.
As long as she lives,
There is light in my life.
Sometimes we feel so lonely.
Someday we will know who we really are.
About the Author: Susan Cossette lives and writes in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Author of Peggy Sue Messed Up, she is a recipient of the University of Connecticut’s Wallace Stevens Poetry Prize. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rust and Moth, The New York Quarterly, ONE ART, As it Ought to Be, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Amethyst Review, Crow & Cross Keys, Loch Raven Review, and in the anthologies Fast Fallen Women (Woodhall Press) and Tuesdays at Curley’s (Yuganta Press).
Image Credit: “Tesla sits with his “magnifying transmitter” in Colorado Springs in 1899″ Image courtesy of Wikipedia. CC BY 4.0
What We’re Here for
for bart solarczyk & bob phillips
your whole generation
seemed to know
how to swat away a compliment
kind words tossed
into a river
full of mud & rust
born out of houses
with tin roofs & tar paper hearts
by men & women
who knew the weight
of factory gloves
after so many years
their fingers piercing
the very edges of time
even poems are just about
doing the job
like pushing a mop
or wiping sweat
away from your heart
after the loss of a friend or a spouse or your sanity
knowing that’s just what time does
knowing you just have to keep putting the work in
because that’s what we’re here for.
About the Author: John Dorsey is the former Poet Laureate of Belle, MO. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Which Way to the River: Selected Poems: 2016-2020 (OAC Books, 2020), Sundown at the Redneck Carnival, (Spartan Press, 2022, and Pocatello Wildflower, (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2023). He may be reached at archerevans@yahoo.com.
Image Credit: Carol M. Highsmith “Historic house with tin roof in Eutaw, Alabama” (2010) Public domain image courtesy of The Library of Congress
Tears
Skin once taut over muscle and bone
grows soft and softer still, as age moves on
and may bring sadness unknown before,
or a kind of thrill to mark the passage
on a map of being in this place, this age.
Adventures are remembered in crinkling folds.
Sitting or standing will require slower motion.
No matter the pain that is now no small matter.
An old drum at rest for a while needs the essential oil
of caring hands, each touch and each beat deepening
into warm inviting sounds, smelling of vanilla rain.
Pitter patter, falling softly. Softly enfolded in loved arms.
Hush and listen, safe and dear one, ever close to heart,
where ear is at the center, just as art is in the earth,
and ripples continue beyond the edge of the pond.
About the Author: Geraldine Cannon is a poet, scholar, and editor, also working as a Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Maine at Fort Kent, under her married name–Becker. She has been published in various journals and anthologies. She published Glad Wilderness (Plain View Press, 2008).. She has been helping others publish, and had stopped sending her own material out, but she was encouraged to do so again, and most recently has a new poem in the Winter issue, Gate of Dawn (Monroe House Press, 2024).
Image Credit: Jan Ciągliński “Rain – impressions from the train” Public domain image courtesy of Artvee
Motel Room Without a Night Light
I open doors in the middle of the night,
like a game show where I have to choose
which of the three—bulb-shaped doorknobs,
no difference, but what can I do
except stub my toe? My husband and I arrived
to follow birds, hike coastal trails, eat local bread,
but the real reason—to escape our friend
taken to the ICU and his wife's detailed recaps
of each new protocol. A few years ago
he helped curate the Summer of Love exhibit.
We followed him through galleries—
heard about Better Living Through Chemistry,
a poster on psychedelics. Heard how he met Ben
who videoed Winterland concerts, visual-acid footage
covering the audience, the walls, the band on stage
as we filed through, color and image left on our skin.
Heard about the March to End the Vietnam War poster,
when my father in the VW squareback drove John
to Kezar stadium, up and down San Francisco hills
along with his mother because he wasn't old enough.
Heard about the poster—Help, the Oracle Needs You Today,
the Haight Ashbury underground paper. And this week,
John's installed in a new cancer center, harboring
tumors so plentiful there's no middle back left.
On our hike today in Pt. Reyes,
down to the sea, I didn't know John received
his first chemo drip, told by the nurses he could
hallucinate, found an aura in the room,
flashes of color, found Oneness because he knows
how to love. And here I am, awake in the middle
of the night, trying to find my own way,
standing still for a minute,
realize there's a full moon coming through the skylight.
If I could find an issue of The Oracle, I'd read
the Loving Insertion, an extra sheet tucked in,
and because I have to imagine the script,
because I know so little about loving,
I would pay special attention when the writer appeals
to a culture of tenderness, explains how love
can save someone. And I'll go further, for it will include
a drawing for how to repair the spine, help John walk.
Yet all I can do is open doors, choose the middle door,
groping hangers and blankets,
feeling for a light and finding none.
About the Author: Laurel Benjamin is a Cider Press Review Book Award finalist. She is active with the Bay Area Women’s Poetry Salon, curates Ekphrastic Writers, and is a reader for Common Ground Review. Current and upcoming publication: Pirene’s Fountain, Lily Poetry Review, Cider Press Review, Taos Journal of Poetry, Gone Lawn, Nixes Mate. Pushcart Prize nominee, Laurel holds an MFA from Mills College. She invented a secret language with her brother.
Image Credit: Carol M. Highsmith “Colorful Historic Motel, Wildwood, New Jersey” (2006) Public domain image courtesy of the Library of Congress
Malverns
We start from the north end,
hearts and lungs weighted down
as we climb hard between scree,
emerge above low cloud
that smudges the backdrop
and recasts the landscape.
The curves of the hills
snake onwards in stately
perspective through the fog.
East, England’s farms
lie flat. Light mist rolls
like smoke on battlefields.
West, old mountains
are lost in fresh swirling
ranges built in the air.
Our footsteps skip
through the sky but two heavy
transport planes from Brize Norton
give bone perspective,
disturb birds. The tops of rooks’
heads and wings glide beneath us.
This new world – its fake mountains,
upside-down birds and smeared views –
thins our blood, drains our thoughts.
About the Author: Michael Hurst’s writing has been published by The Fiction Desk, Ellipsis Zine, Gemini, GWN and Stroud Short Stories. He lives in Gloucestershire with his wife and daughter.
Image Credit: Detroit Publishing Co. “Ivy Scar Rock, Malvern, England” Public domain image courtesy of the Library of Congress
Bird-banding at Camp
The counselors had no bands
that fit a hummingbird,
but should one get
caught in the mist net,
you rattled it between cupped hands
until it lay in your palm
(unhurt, we were assured)
with a quiet that seemed, except for its heartbeat, calm.
Then everyone who might
admired its smallness, red
enamel throat,
wings a green suitcoat,
but suddenly it took flight,
slid steeply up a ramp of air
full-powered, pivoted
in the leaves to a hopeful gap and sped out of there.
God! to feel
my head clear
for good, to recognize
the windy or waiting skies
are real,
to get out of here.
About the Author: Gerald Friedman grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, and now teaches physics and math in northern New Mexico. He has published poetry in various magazines, recently Rat’s Ass Review, The Daughter’s Grimoire, W-Poesis, and Cattails. You can read more of his work at https://jerryfriedman.wixsite.com/my-site-2
Image Credit: Public domain image originally from Histoire naturelle des oiseaux-mouches, ou, Colibris constituant la famille des trochilidés. Lyon: Au Bureau de la Société Linnéenne,1874-1877. Courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
As It Ought To Be 
