A poem for my loss

by Sam Rose

Tell me, is it normal to feel jealous of someone

else’s grief and to wish I could share

in it? Because what I think is a

memory is really just an

old photograph with a

wish attached to

it and a grave

is just stone

driven into

the earth.

* * * * *

Sam Rose is a writer and editor from Northamptonshire, England. She is the editor of Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine and The Creative Truth. Her work has appeared in Scarlet Leaf Review, Rat’s Ass Review, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Haiku Journal, In Between Hangovers, and others. Sam is a cancer survivor and primarily uses her experiences with this to write poetry and memoir. In her spare time, she enjoys listening to rock music and eating too much chocolate. Find her at her website https://www.writersam.co.uk and on Twitter @writersamr

Baby

by Sam Rose

Splash!

Baby blue

Second soon due -

one month to

wait, to source

enough love.

Baby babbles

bath time,

wrapped in soft hood

examines his own

curled downy

tufts of hair with

uncoordinated hands

and creased folds

of skin

ready to begin

brotherhood.

* * * * *

Sam Rose is a writer and editor from Northamptonshire, England. She is the editor of Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine and The Creative Truth. Her work has appeared in Scarlet Leaf Review, Rat’s Ass Review, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Haiku Journal, In Between Hangovers, and others. Sam is a cancer survivor and primarily uses her experiences with this to write poetry and memoir. In her spare time, she enjoys listening to rock music and eating too much chocolate. Find her at her website https://www.writersam.co.uk and on Twitter @writersamr

When I asked him to turn me on he said:

by Alexis Rhone Fancher

1. Turn yourself on.

His voice had that flat affect lovers get

when they’re done with you.

2. You’re burning through men, my mother warned.

Like there was a limit.

Every day, a fresh opportunity

to ruin some poor man's life.

I was on fire.

3. I’d take a bullet for you, he told me once.

And meant it.

I didn’t answer.

I tasted loneliness at last.

4. And he, behind me,

palms on my ass, riding.

5. (That night) I fell asleep with the TV remote

between my legs.

When I awoke, he was gone.

6. If he knew what I would write about him,

he’d have hated me sooner.

7. Sometimes, the person you’d take a bullet for

is the one behind the gun.

* * * * *

Author's Note: "for Michael Cohen"

"When I asked him to turn me on he said:" was first published in The American Journal of Poetry (2017)

Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in The Best American Poetry 2016, Verse Daily, Plume, 

Rattle, Literary Mama, Diode, Pirene’s Fountain, Tinderbox, Nashville Review, and elsewhere. 

She’s the author of four poetry collections; How I Lost My Virginity To Michael Cohen and 

other heart stab poems, (2014), State of Grace: The Joshua Elegies, (2015), Enter Here, (2017), 

and Junkie Wife, (2018). A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Alexis is poetry editor of Cultural Weekly. www.alexisrhonefancher.com 

When your stepdaughter warns you not to let her roommate’s cat escape…

by Alexis Rhone Fancher

it’s like she has a premonition.

After she leaves you’ll explore her off-campus apartment,

snoop in her drawers, try on her graduation cap.

You will smoke her dope & drink her last Bud Light.

The two of you have never been close.

You’ll read the roommate’s diary, take notes.

The cat, a tom of indeterminate age,

will rub his thin, orange body against your ankles.

You’ll walk into the bathroom to pee,

gag at the litter box teeming with hardened turds,

avoiding the ones on the floor.

The ammonia of cat piss mixed with

the unmistakable scent of used Kotex pads

will leak into the hall

where it will mingle with four-day old Mexican food

and pizza stuck on plates in the kitchen.

You’ll recall your stepdaughter’s slovenly ways,

how badly she treated you,

how relieved you were when she left home.

The cat will pace, yowling at the bathroom door like Tom Petty.

But when you put him in the litter box, he’ll balk, stare up at you

with marmalade eyes, nudge you toward the front door.

It will be an act of mercy.

Later, you will sit on the stained couch

where you’ll watch reruns of Forensic Files in the fading light,

and wait for your stepdaughter’s return.

Then you will deny everything.

* * * * *

"When your stepdaughter warns you not to let her roommate’s cat escape…" was first published in Tinderbox Poetry Journal (2018)

Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in The Best American Poetry 2016, Verse Daily, Plume, 

Rattle, Literary Mama, Diode, Pirene’s Fountain, Tinderbox, Nashville Review, and elsewhere. 

She’s the author of four poetry collections; How I Lost My Virginity To Michael Cohen and 

other heart stab poems, (2014), State of Grace: The Joshua Elegies, (2015), Enter Here, (2017), 

and Junkie Wife, (2018). A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Alexis is poetry editor of Cultural Weekly. www.alexisrhonefancher.com 

Gunland

by Kathleen Murphey

What is it about the American obsession with guns?

Did growing up playing Cowboys and Indians and

Cops and Robbers distort us to the core?

Bang! Bang! You’re dead!

The American frontiersman and the Wild Wild West,

central images to American myth, like Shane and High Noon

and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,

and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Move away from the Western, and action movies

continue the gun-slinging tradition, from Die Hard

to Lethal Weapon to Pulp Fiction to Zombieland.

Rat-a-tat-tat-tat and Pow, Crack, Pop.

Hand guns and long guns,

Benellis, Knights, Glocks, Rugers, Remingtons, Uzis,

Smith & Wessons, Walthers, Marlins, Winchesters;

they all kill the same.

Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook,

Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and it’s not just the schools,

Thousand Oaks, Tree of Life, Texas First Baptist,

the Las Vegas Strip, The Pulse, San Bernardino,

Bang! Bang! You’re dead!

The National Rifle Association’s power is so great,

it got the Dickey Amendment in 1996 to stop the CDC

from looking at gun violence as a public health issue, even though

between 2012-2016, 35,000 Americans died each year from gun violence.

67% of Americans want stricter gun laws

and 97% support universal background checks,

but the NRA isn’t having that, paying House Republicans

over half a million dollars in 2018 to avoid gun legislation.

Rat-a-tat-tat-tat and Pow, Crack, Pop.

When major medical organizations spoke up against guns, the NRA said,

“self-important anti-gun doctors should stay in their lane,”

and those doctors took to Twitter with #ThisIsOurLane;

how many senseless deaths to they or we need to see?

But the Second Amendment, the gun lovers cry: “A well regulated

Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right

of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Bang! Bang! You’re dead!

But what if the emphasis is on the necessity of the State

to have a Militia and not on individuals to have guns?

After all, in 1790, the young nation had struggled to win

its independence with make-shift Militias.

Today, the U.S. doesn’t rely on make-shift Militias;

we have the strongest Armed Forces in the world with a

$647 Billion Defense Budget and 2,083,100 military personnel.

Rat-a-tat-tat-tat and Pow, Crack, Pop.

Revolvers, pistols, rifles, carbines, shotguns, submachine guns,

assault rifles, and light machine guns.

There are some guns civilians just shouldn’t have.

How many senseless deaths do we need to see?

Brrrrrrttt, Brrrrrrppp, Bang, Bop, Boom!

* * * * *

Kathleen Murphey is an Associate Professor at Community College of Philadelphia. She had her first play performed as part the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, P Pan and Beyondland, with performances at the German Society of Pennsylvania on Saturday September 15^th and Sunday September 16^th, 2018. More information about her and the play can be found at her Website, www.kathleenmurphey.com. 

THE BOY WHO COULD FLY

by Jean Blasiar

The trees on the hillside above St. Michael’s were in full blossom as young Tim Sanders, age nine, rode his bike to Alton with an important letter from his mom to his Aunt Fran. Tim had stayed with his aunt long enough to have a glass of milk and several of her home made ginger snaps. Two more of the warm cookies were in Tim’s pocket as he headed the bike down the steep grade through the meadowland back to St. Michael’s.

Aunt Fran had warned Tim not to dawdle. “You’re late as it is, Mister Timothy Sanders, and your mother will be needing your help with the bazaar. Don’t dally going back down like you did coming here. Whatever took you so long from Alton?”

“The flowers,” young Tim replied. “The little white flowers. They smell so sweet.”

“That’s the jasmine along the road that you smell.”

“I thought it was in the trees.”

“It’s the jasmine. Now get on with you. I never saw a lad so interested in flowers. You’re your mother’s youngun all right.”

It was those same white blossoms and that lovely jasmine aroma that distracted Tim again on his way down the hill. If he hadn’t been taken with the flowers, he would have seen the large boulder in the path which he had managed to avoid on his way up the hill earlier.

Before Tim had a chance to swerve or jump off his bike, he hit the boulder with a terrible jolt, propelling him through the air and onto the hard ground. The front wheel of the bike lay twisted over the boy. After several unconscious minutes, he opened his eyes.

The sun was high in the sky when Tim finally remembered where he was and where he was headed before hitting the boulder in the road and being thrown off his bike. Now the dazed boy shoved the bike off his legs and stood up on wobbly legs, his head pounding from the fall.

At the bottom of the steep grade loomed the town of St. Michael’s straight as the crow flies. But the bike path was a winding course, miles longer than the straight line as he saw it now. 

Tim carried the bike to the grass, out of the path leading down the hill. From the top of the hill he could see St. Michael’s church, the church spire a clear shot from where he stood. If only he were somehow able to lift his feet off the ground, he thought, spread his arms and float down the hill like a leaf wafting in the warm wind, like the white blossoms caught up in the sweet smelling breeze, he could make St. Michael’s in time for the bazaar, but to walk it would take two hours in the hot sun, if he made it at all with his pounding head.

The boy closed his eyes and concentrated on lifting off from the ground, slowly pushing himself up, his hands and arms lifting, lifting, his body weightless, rising, gently sailing, soaring up over the trees, the white blossoms below him now, his body heading down, slowly, effortlessly down to the church below. And when Tim opened his eyes, that’s exactly where he was. He looked back at the hill and relived the sensation of floating, soaring over the tree tops, the breeze wafting over his arms like the wings of a plane, cutting the air, moving the air, gently, gently, then his feet and legs descending slowly until he touched the ground and began walking, arriving in town with the other fairgoers to St. Michael’s.

“Your mum’s looking for you, Tim,” Adrian Bell called over her shoulder as she ran to her family’s car in the parking lot. Apparently, Tim thought, Adrain and those around her did not realize that he had just flown down the hill, landed on his feet and was now walking among them.

The sun was scorching hot, the churchyard filled with holiday tourists when Tim arrived at the booth where his mother volunteered every year. The smells of cotton candy, caramel apples, hot dogs and pretzels dipped in frosting overpowered the sweet aroma of the jasmine once strong in the boy’s nostrils.

Mrs. Sanders was working the cake booth, busily setting out cakes for the winners. Tim stood back, waiting for a chance to interrupt her. He stood in line in the hot sun until the wheel stopped spinning. No one landed on number three, the winning number on the wheel, and Mrs. Sanders began immediately to sell tickets for the next spin.

Tim edged over to the front. “Mum…” he whispered.

“Timothy! How did you get here so fast, lad?”

“I flew, mum,” Tim said proudly.

“You certainly did. Well, they want you over at the fish tank. Here’s some coins for your lunch. Don’t dawdle now. And don’t be going off with those Reilly twins. You’re here to work. Go on with you. Try to stay out of the hot sun.”

“But Mum…”

“Get a soda, son. You’re beet red.” Mrs. Sanders turned her attention to the next townspeople in line to buy tickets.

More than once during that hot Saturday afternoon, Timothy Sanders glanced up the hill to where he had fallen off his bike, shocked to realize what a long way down he had flown. Not sure now if he dreamt it or if the hard knock on his head caused him to imagine the whole thing, he was too busy that afternoon to wonder if it had happened at all. When his mother collected him at six o’clock and walked with him to the bike stall, Timothy remembered exactly where his bike was and how he’d managed to get to St. Michael’s that afternoon.

“Get your bike, Tim.”

He had to tell her. “It isn’t here, mum.”

“What? You mean while we were inside slaving away in the hot sun to make money for St. Michael’s, some scoundrel stole your bike?”

Tim started to tell his mother the truth, but she wasn’t listening to him. Instead, she grabbed Mister Rigby by the arm and proceeded to tell the man in charge of the entire fair about somebody stealing Tim’s bike and what was he going to do about it. Tim was certainly not going to tell the Mr. Rigby, a very busy man, how earlier that day he had closed his eyes, raised his arms and flown down the big hill to St. Michael’s.

Too proud to accept Mister Rigby’s offer of a ride home, Mrs. Sanders said that her boy, though exhausted, would walk and offer it up to the Lord. She also said that she hoped that whoever took it upon himself to take what wasn’t his, needed it worse than her son.

There never was a moment after that, having been joined on their walk home by Mrs. Francis, a neighbor, to tell Tim’s mother the true story. She was too busy telling Mrs. Francis all about it, going back to how things were when she was a girl riding a bike to school with God fearing people who would never dream of taking anything that belonged to someone else. And where was she going to get the money to buy Tim another bike to ride to school come September, she’d like to know. It just didn’t seem to be the appropriate time for Tim to tell her, nor later that evening when Aunt Fran called to see if Tim was all right. A neighbor of Aunt Fran’s had run across a twisted and broken bike on the road to St. Michael’s, she said, and wondered if by any horrible happenstance it might be Tim’s.

“It was stolen,” Mrs. Sanders told her sister. “The scoundrel who stole it was probably knocked off the bike by God himself, like St. Paul, and a good thing too for now he might repent and sin no more.”

Mrs. Sanders told that story and believed it with all her heart, but not Tim. Forever after, when the steep hillside above St. Michael’s was in bloom with the jasmine, he would close his eyes and recall that afternoon when he lifted his arms, the warm breeze on his face with the wafting, sweet smelling blossoms below, and floated gently, gently down, down, down till his feet touched the ground and he praised God.

* * * * *

"The Boy Who Could Fly" was first published in Wild Violet (2008).

Jean Blasiar is a published author (Charles River Press), playwright (Off The Wall Plays), short story writer and theatrical producer. See www.jeanblasiar.com for a listing of her work. One of Jean's plays was optioned by 20th Century Fox for a pilot.

A Finish to Race

by deb y felio

It’s time to

slow down,

to look, to breathe,

there’s enough

for everyone

let go of your greed

dispute, debates

on lives

and whose matter

yours, mine

theirs

still bullets scatter

What if indeed

there’s no

color defined

no box to check

difference

no longer assigned

No color

of race 

no race at all

that demands

a winner

at the cost of a fall

It’s not

a race 

for some to finish

but community

in which

no one is diminished

Slow down

be quiet

to each other listen

and maybe

together

a new day we’ll christen.

The thirty-fifth Moon Prize for the March 20, 2019 full moon goes to Shikhandin's gorgeous poem "March."

MARCH

by Shikhandin

This is not the season to be alone.

Elements in the air react against skin and heart.

Those soft inner parts that you hid all winter.

It is dangerous to be alone in March.

You can never tell what your eyes will reveal

to a complete stranger at the bus stop or bazaar. Or up the stairs

on your way to the solicitors’ office – what were you doing there

in the first place? This is not the season for lawsuits.

March is not even a season.

March is a licentious beast.

A surreptitious and stealthy time

in the name of such wild feasts

of colours and scents that within your heart

a frantic dove beats its wings and outside

the boney serrated walls, unchained ones caterwaul.

Calling out to all the unclenched spirits

rising up to kiss the full March Moon.

Intellect is brought down to its knobby knees.

Sagacity, caught brooding

between newly un-muffed ears, is doused.

There is much mischief afoot.

For who really knows what spirits will rule
over this flesh that lies fallen, like an over-ripe autumnal fruit?
Madness marches on scattering tidings as yellow as pollen.

Beware! Should you sniff that heady snuff, you will go

wandering. That timid dove within you will,

to your surprise, let out a lusty cry.

Satin sheens of sunlit air will tear

scattering lucent dementia everywhere,

beating wild bacchanalian rhythm. Oh no!

Nothing does or ever will makes sense in March!

Nothing at all, except the moth balls

that you have begun to tuck

inside quilts still smelling of eggnog and cake crumbs

and a whiff of that something that you

had promised yourself at the end of the year.

But even that is not enough for March

in whose unrelenting grasp

your body becomes a chalice, overflowing.

Oh, so sweetly overflowing, in March!

* * * * *

Shikhandin is the nom de plume of an award winning Indian writer, who writes for both adults

and children. Books include among others, Immoderate Men: Stories published by Speaking Tiger, India and Vibhuti Cat an illustrated book for children, published by Duckbill. For more on Shikhandin you can visit her Amazon page: https://www.amazon.com/author/shikhandin and her Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorShikhandin/