Two Poems by Nicholas Abanavas

Room Service

I was born an orphan

Horn and Hardart’s coin-a-rama
toward the back, but in a booth.

The waitress raised me

double-napkin diaper
and hot pastrami sandwiches
when I grew a tooth.

I was born an orphan

the stainless steel in my hand
yearned to wash the dishes
pour the soup
learn the plan.

The waitress, she raised me

taught me right
then, left me like free delivery
at the home for wayward light.

Losing It

My body began to bend

last week.
Yesterday
I noticed a hump.
The friendly one
her kewpie doll face
always asks
"How come you never smile?"
I know the tensed muscles
aren't from that.
What and what and
what did you say?
You can read on matchbook covers.
I slobbered twice at lunch.
Please, tell my mother
Quasimodo won't be home
Easter.
Nicholas Abanavas received his M. Ed. in Teaching At-Risk Students in 2008. He recently
retired from a career in public education. He has written two books: Scissors, Cardboard &
Paint-The Art of At-Risk Teaching and Lemnos-An Artist and His Island. He is currently working
on a book about gargoyles and grotesques. Born and raised in New York City and he is an avid
fan of jazz music. His work has recently appeared in The Basil O'Flaherty, Wayne Literary
Review and Lime Hawkmagazines. His poetry has appeared as Poet of the Week on the Poetry
Super Highway.

Four Poems by Daginne Aignend

My Little Shelter

I like to build a small tent,

a blanket over the desk in my bedroom
I sit here for hours and hide
together with my favorite doll Bella
Hide in my shelter of
comfort and little dreams
I tell Bella I want to be a mother
of many, many children but
she, as my first born, will always
be my favorite child
I tell her, she already is
a very big girl and color her
daisy tiny doll's mouth
pink with the lipstick
I nicked from my mother
While I wallow
in my own world of snugness
I am the happiest girl on earth

I Don't Belong

A Sunday afternoon and

I have to go with my mom and dad
for a walk in the park
A family activity, every Sunday
What if some of my classmates
would see me, having a stroll
with my parents
I think I'll die of embarrassment
Because I'm a rebel, the underground girl
Me and my leather jacket, biker boots
and worn out jeans are one
With my smart mouth I
tell everyone my opinion
my teachers, my girlfriends
the woman at the bakery
accept my parents
So, I walk through the park
six feet behind them
pretending I don't belong

Deprivation

I hate my body, my behavior

everything
Insecurity rules my thoughts
Every decision I make seems
to be a total disaster
I'm afraid to go to work,
perhaps I make mistakes
Afraid to go out, I might
make a total fool of myself
Since you violently took
what wasn't yours,
you didn't only forcibly arrogate
my body to yourself,
you also deprived me of my
self-esteem

Gift of Life

The morning sun peaks through

my window as I slowly awake
'Another lovely day my little Zora'
I say to my cat who approves
by purring pleasantly
Every day is a present of life
after I survived a cardiac arrest
Grateful, for the little things
around me
Blessed, I found new love and
most of all
I appreciate my regained
courage and inner peace
Daginne Aignend is a pseudonym for the Dutch poetess and photographic artist Inge
Wesdijk. She likes hard rock music and fantasy books. She is a vegetarian and spends a lot of
time with her animals. Daginne posted some of her poems on her Facebook page and on her fun
project website www.daginne.com, She's also the co-editor of Degenerate Literature, a poetry,
flash fiction, and arts E-zine.

She has been published in several Poetry Review Magazines, in the bilingual anthology
(English/Farsi), Where Are You From? and in the Contemporary Poet's Group
anthology Dandelion in a Vase of Roses.

Three Poems by Glen Armstrong

Access

Last night I enjoyed.

Water made strange.
By the way it was accessed.
As we walked the path and held.
Back branches.
You told stories about growing.
Up near the shore.
And launching your prom shoes.
Into Lake Huron.
After stuffing them with tuna.

Salad.
And cantaloupe smiles.
That weren’t ripe enough.
It was a tough town.
For anyone who could imagine.
A town downright savage.
With ghost lore and edible.
Berries.
A town content to grow hair.
And stare the other towns down.

Another Year

We continue to click.
We continue to listen.
To “Epistrophy” while bathing.
And bake cakes to celebrate.
Another year.
It’s fine to see deer.
From a distance and ancient.
Pottery decorated in deer motifs.
Up close.
We still admire those who pose.

Nude for the figure.

Drawing class at the junior college.
Not so much for their bodies.
But for what we perceive.
As a disconnect.
From the whole hullabaloo.
Of having a body and caring.
And opening a window.
We continue to fill the canvas.
We continue to see what we see.

Love Story

It is the first love story.

Ever told.
Rain goes crazy and the animals.
Drink it from puddles.
I screw up.
While buttoning my shirt.
In the dark again.
It’s going to be one.
Of those days.
Nothing of importance falls.

From the sky.

So I worry and make phone calls.
I ask for a glass of water.
And draw all-seeing eyes.
On the menu while I wait.
For my oatmeal.
Like a bell that rings forever.
And gets mistaken for silence.
The story gets told so often.
That no one can hear it.

Glen Armstrong holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and
teaches writing at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He edits a poetry journal
called Cruel Garters and has three recent chapbooks: Set List (Bitchin Kitsch,) In Stone and The
Most Awkward Silence of All (both Cruel Garters Press.) His work has appeared in Poetry
Northwest, Conduit and Cloudbank.

One Poem by Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto

The Teenager Who Became My Mother
This poem has appeared on Gnarled Oak, an online magazine

The teenager who became my mother

had a way of feeling, seeing and hoping.
It was her hope that
rafted us through the war.

She was not one-eyed,

her hairs were strands
of broken happiness and loneliness.
Each of the scars at her back was a memory.
Her inside was patient as hope.
She had a black painted skin
that shimmers as coal and ruin.

When I asked if she had

seen anyone die during the war,
she moved her head up and down.
She said that she saw five, twenty, even more;
that most of them drowned inside of her.

I looked into her eyes

after she had exhausted her dying tales before me,
I saw the teenager who became my mother:
she was a graveyard of those who drowned
inside of her to see us crawl through the war.

Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto (@ChinuaEzenwa) is a Nigerian and a lover of literature. His works

have won the Association Of Nigerian Author’s Literary Award for Mazariyya Ana Teen Poetry
Prize, 2009; National Association Of Students Of English Language and Literary Studies
Certificate of Honour as the Best Student Poet, 2012, Delsu Chapter. He became a runner-up in
Etisalat Prize For Literature, Flash fiction, 2014 with I Saved My Marriage. He also has
contributed his works in Of Minstrelsy and Mask, Matatu, Germany; Awka Journal Of English
Language and Literature; Lunaris Review; AFREADA; KALAHARI REVIEW and elsewhere.
 Three Poems by Tamsen Grace
Nothing There

a drop of water repeated

over and over
will eventually fill an ocean

emptiness vacillates

if there is nothing there do you count the air

breathe in breathe out

over and over
softly repeated
fills the lungs

the mechanism drives the heart

empty chamber

if there is nothing there do you count the air

heart beats
in rapid rhythm

ebb and flow

ebb and flow

drops of blood fill

the empty chamber...

if there is nothing there do you count the air

a drop of water repeated...

over and over
will eventually fill an ocean

Unfinished Life

Bright lights fade

stars burn out ...
I won't stop for you.
Energy slows,
 dreams fades
Heartbeat away from death,
I can be or not be, there is no question
, you may court death
but I will make love to life,
and explode in the night sky,
a cascade of fiery brilliance...
and I won't stop for you.

The Zombie King

Previously published in my book Skeletons in my Closet published by Creative Talents Unleashed

I buried you,
under layers of my flesh.
Pulled out my heart,
held it in my hands,
whispered soft words
to comfort it,
in it's death throes.

Yet you resurface,

refuse to stay buried,
Zombie king,
hungry for the feast.

I burned and burned,

in fatal love,
my sin....
loving you.
I fought free
through,
hell fire,
rose from the grave...

Phoenix,
reborn from flames,
flying free...
far from the reach of
the zombie king

Tamsen Grace is a published poet, inspirational speaker, martial artist, a Ford Model of Courage
and a cancer survivor. She has been published in many literary sites, magazines and anthologies.
She has her own poetry book "Skeletons in My Closet" published by Creative Talents
Unleashed.
Tamsen Grace lives in the Midwest with her children. She enjoys reading, writing, biking and
teaching children Martial Arts.

Three Poems by John Grey

There's a Party Going On

The natives are restless.

All feet, music, voices, in the flat above.
The occupants send out messages.
We're having a good time. You're not.

Instead, we're deep in our forties,

more interested in where we are as people
than what happiness wants of us, what joy
comes naturally to our middle aged bones.

They used to invite us to their parties.

But we have settled in some place
where parties fear to travel.
Our days are not so much numbered

as expressed in symbols: the ampersand

with growing gut, the asterisk,
glum earthbound star.
I struggle with the bathroom faucet.

You thumb through the wedding album.

No point asking us in.
We'd only struggle and thumb.
It's how these things work.

Cocktails are served. People dance

or laugh or get high as cloud-tops.
There's a guest list out there somewhere.
We're not on it.

Tigers at the Zoo

whither your courage child?

nothing can make heaven of trembling;
here's a scrawny creature
clad only in black and yellow cloth
stretched by the claw
held up to the intervening glass,
paws chunking the ground,
every three harsh breaths;
your fright's conceived in one timid gasp,
one hand burrowing in my palm,
the other righting back your eyes;
it hasn't even growled yet,
can't lunge,
can only stare at your five year old flesh
and salivate;
do you think I'd let the beast have at you?
do you think I'd take the risk
with something that could
rip the very substance
out of being with me?
ask your mother;
you're her cub

Staring in the Men's Department Mirror

I've no monopoly on this life.

I could be replaced at any moment.
The truth starts with a mirror

and a pain between the eyes.

Does this hair really belong to me?
Does my soul have the lock on this body?

Poor reflection - I wanted you to be rare,

an endangered species of one.
But the commonness won't stop repeating itself.

Someone passes by but they could

just as easily pass through.
Or maybe even stop inside -

evict who 1 think I am.

Unique be damned.
I'm just one among many.

Among billions maybe.

And who knows what the universe
has in store.
One more ordinary life -
but at least the pants fit
even if the dreams don't.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in the Tau, Studio
One and Columbia Review with work upcoming in Naugatuck River Review, Examined Life
Journal and Midwest Quarterly.

Three Poems by David M. Harris

Dead Letter Office: Jennie Mershon

Dear Grandma:

We were sitting in your kitchen

in Borough Park, your only home
that I ever knew, and it must have been
not long after some small, rare, early
success of mine. You said, "I used to write, too.
When I was young."

I thought you were ancient

then, when you were ten years
older than I am now, two decades before
the unfiltered Camels caught up with you.
I'd seen that Yiddish typewriter--
Hebrew letters on the round, manual keys--
on a shelf in the dining room
but never thought: whose? Why?

"For the theaters, on Second Avenue.

I wrote comedy sketches."
The Jewish Broadway.
Tomashevsky, the Adlers, the great names
who interpreted Shakespeare in Yiddish
for immigrants. Some of them performed
your work, too.

Those theaters are gone --

Jews go to the regular Broadway now--
and Borough Park has been captured by Chabad,
only a few of the old socialist Jews
hanging on amid the kosher butchers, wig stores,
streets full of black hats. The black hats never
go to the theaters, those engines
of Americanization.

All my life, you had been

an old lady, loved and loving, infinite source
of roast chicken and matzoh balls, but now
you had a past. You were a girl, a writer before me,
pounding the Yiddish manual,
speaking through actors to make crowds laugh.
I imagine you, young and cute, charming producers
as you must have charmed Grandpa.

Who was that fifteen-year-old --

the age my daughter is now --
literate in two alphabets
who came alone from the Russian Pale
to a world whose language was written
in letters you could not yet read.

I still have, on a shelf in my office,

the typewriter you used, part of your escape
from the Old World, to end in Borough Park.
I don't use it, its system
as distant from me as your young life,
which, unknown, touches me now,
when it hides itself in the heart
of my late blooming.

Tinkerbell

Dear Tinkie:

Every morning we cover the same route,

and every morning you look for news,
nose down. The lead that binds us
keeps you from the wild. How much
has happened since you last sniffed around? Who
has been through? Those two Pekes, the beagle,
the Saint Bernard? Dogs you've never seen,
but have smelled every morning
and every afternoon. A rich social life
that doesn't require any meetings, a world
that is new for you every morning.
The Internet of smells. Peebook.
No wonder you get so excited
at the jingle of the leash. It's a link
to pleasure and discovery, a renewal
of your covenant with humanity, with this family,
the payoff for accepting the limitations
of our love.

Three haiku

I give up my house
and move to a new state for
the better house: ours.

options unconstrained
then compromises bind me
set in concrete love

retired, little gold

chickens give us golden eggs
we are rich in love

Until 2003, David M. Harris had never lived more than fifty miles from New York City. Since
then he has moved to Tennessee, acquired a daughter and a classic MG, and gotten serious about
poetry. All these projects seem to be working out pretty well. His work has appeared in Pirene's
Fountain (and in First Water, the Best of Pirene's Fountain anthology), Gargoyle, The
Labletter, The Pedestal, and other places. His first collection of poetry, The Review Mirror, was
published by Unsolicited Press in 2013.

Four Poems by Michael Lee Johnson

Heaven is My Horse Fly (V2)

A common horse fly

peripatetic traveler
vacationing in my world
into my bathroom,
(ride me cowboy, fly)
it’s summer time-
lands on my toilet seat
pit stops at Nikki’s Bar & Grill,
kitty litter box, refuels.
Thirteen round trips
buzzing my skin and skull-
he calls them “short runs.”
Steady pilot, good mileage,
frequent flier credits.
I swat his war journey,
splat, downed, then, an abrupt end.

Alexandra David-Neel

She edits her life from a room made dark

against a desert dropping summer sun.
A daring travelling Parisian adventurer
ultimate princess turning toad with age-
snow drops of white in her hair, tiny fingers
thumb joints osteoarthritis
corrects proofs at 100, pours whiskey,
pours over what she wrote
scribbles notes directed to the future,
applies for a new passport.
With this mount of macular degeneration,
near, monster of writers' approach.
She wears no spectacles.
Her mind teeters between Himalayas,
distant Gobi Desert, but subjectively warm.
Running reason through her head for living,
yet dancing with the youthful word of Cinderella,
she plunges deeper near death into Tibetan mysticism,
trekking across snow covered mountains to Lhasa, Tibet.
Nighttime rest, sleepy face, peeking out that window crack
into the nest, those quiet villages below
tasting that reality beyond all her years'
vastness of dreams.

Painted Cat (V2)

This painted cat

on my balcony
hangs in this sun,
bleaches out
it's wooden
survival kit,
cut short-
then rots
chips
paint
cracks
widen in joints,
no infant sparrow wings
nestled in this hole
beneath its neck-
then falls down.
No longer a swinger
in latter days, August wind.

Oh Carol, Poem

You treat me like soiled underwear.

I work my way through.
I gave up jitterbug dancing, that cha-cha-chá,
all my eccentric moves, theatric acting, poetry slams.
I seek refuge away old films, nightmares
you jumping from my raspberry Geo Chevy Tracker
repeat you stunt from my black 2002 S-10 Chevy truck, Schaumburg, IL.
I toss tarnished photographs out windows of hell
seek new selfies, myself.
I’m a rock-in-roll Jesus, a damn good poetry man,
talent alone is not enough storage space to strip
you away from my skin, distant myself from your
ridicule, those harsh words you can’t take back
once they are out like Gorilla Glue, as Carl Sandburg spoke about.
I’m no John Lennon want to be;
body sculptured David Garrett, German violin masterpiece,
nor Ace Hardware, Midwest, CEO.
All I want to be respected in heart of my bright sun,
engaging these shadows endorsing these gray spots in my life.
Send me away from these drum beats that break me in half,
jungle thunder jolts dislodging my heart
popping my earlobes over the years,
scream out goodbye.
No more stepping on me cockroach style,
swatting me, a captured fly.

Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era. Today he is a poet,
freelance writer, amateur photographer, and small business owner in Itasca, Illinois. Mr.
Johnson published in more than 989 publications, his poems have appeared in 34 countries, he
edits, publishes 10 different poetry sites. He has been nominated 2 Pushcart Prize awards for
poetry 2015 and 2 nominations Best of the Net 2016 and 2017. He also has 136 poetry videos on
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/poetrymanusa/videos. He is the Editor-in-chief of the
anthology, Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1530456762 and
Editor-in-chief of a second poetry anthology, Dandelion in a Vase of Roses, which is now
available
here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1545352089
 Four Poems by Steve Klepetar
Look Away

Look away from sunset and you will see

the sun nestling in the womb of night.
Look away and the magician’s hand
slows down.
Look away and you will know which cup
hides the little ball.
When you wake, the world appears
to flow and blur.
Borders merge and disappear.
Your third eye opens slowly and sees
a mermaid beneath the waves,
an angel tangled in the curtains in your room.
A door thumps in the wind.
Open it and you understand the language
of birds.
Last night you ate a dragon’s heart,
and now the stones have eyes, pine trees
smile with the mystery of roots.
You dress slowly in the cold,
enjoying the chill along your naked back.
Your shoes feel leaden and strange;
every step brings sensation and surprise.
You have learned to look away, and now
your eyes grasp wonders hidden in the heart of the world.

Tea Time

I remembered how you dropped that glass,

how it shattered, large shards and tiny
fragments everywhere, and us on the floor
picking up the pieces, trying not to slice
our fingers bloody. I recalled that scene
when the storm hit, wind and rain, thunder
deep in the throat of sky. I remembered
the room where I sat, waiting for you
to call, as if your voice could silence all
that fury. In the morning, puddles spread
like small lakes through the park, drowning
grass, making paths impenetrable. The sun
rose bright, but cold, and I shivered in that
locked room, with white wallpaper peeling
and the ceiling scored with cracks. And
now the news is terrible: a plane has gone
down and there are gunshots along the river
near the school. Someone is making a speech,
but the words sound old, rubbed raw by fear
and repetition. You left a note about water
and kindness and the therapeutic value of tea.
I remembered the sound it made, kettle on
the stove shrieking as light drained from empty sky.

Winter Aches

All morning we emerge from caves

of night. We clutch our blankets
in the cold. Frost scores our windows,

but the air is bright and sharp.

It stings our eyes.
We have forgotten how to talk,

so we make signs, scratch

messages in the space between us.
Like wet dogs, we shake ourselves,

and fragments of darkness fall

in a black slurry on our faces and hair.
Pain returns, the usual winter aches,

as we push through to the language

of touch, awaken in our bodies,
animal breath heaving in new-made lungs.

Watersnakes

The watersnakes slipped down the bankslike green hooks and floated away.

Mary Oliver

I’ll tell you a story of leaving,

how snakes turned away
from the language of dreams.
It began with thirst, that dry
brother waiting in reeds
with his tickling fingers and dust.

Frogs rose, little mounds

covered with mud. Their voices
lingered through wisps of mist.

Then it was hunger, whose

first kiss tastes sweet
as she hollows marrowbones,

carving empty spaces with her nails.

And with them went stones,
white and black and gray, tumbled

in the tea-brown lake. And also

ferns, feather green, swaying
in their ancient dance. Darkness

followed, a trail of smoke

behind the writhing tails, black
alphabet marking the underside of leaves.

Steve Klepetar lives in Saint Cloud, Minnesota. His work has appeared worldwide in such
journals as Boston Literary Magazine, Chiron, Deep Water, Expound, Muddy River Poetry, Red
River Review, Snakeskin, Voices Israel, Ygdrasil, and many others. Several of his poems have
been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize (including four in 2016). New
collections include A Landscape in Hell (Flutter Press), Family Reunion (Big Table Publishing),
and How Fascism Comes to America (Locofo Chaps).

Two Poems by Rajnish Mishra

I'm Eight

I’m eight; I’m stuck here.

I want to grow, grow fast.
I hate it when my ears hear:
I’m eight. I’m stuck here
forever, sometimes I fear,
like during my French test last.
I’m eight, I’m stuck here,
I want to grow - grow fast.

The Cat/Woman

Salami, sausage and sandwich –

(Ah, heavenly!) -
breakfast again like olden days.

I sit and watch a woman walk

her cat on leash. A cat on leash!
Cats dig leash she thinks!
Can be tamed like dogs!

They call the woman a scholar -

the woman who lazes away her day,
not the woman who walks her cat -
of ‘literature in cultural colonization’.

Tomorrow
is the day of deliverance.
Two months without my
salami, sausage and sandwich breakfast.
Two months!
Since I left my apartment, rented,
for my husband’s house on lease,
(dig the house).

Two months
of silent space in the stomach.
Now I know of a store that sells
salami, sausage and sandwich.

Rajnish Mishra is a poet, writer, translator and blogger born and brought up in Varanasi, India.
He is the editor of PPP Ezine, a poetry ezine. He has a blog on poetry, poetics and aesthetic
pleasure: https:/poetrypoeticspleasure.wordpress.com.

Two Poems by Sergio A. Ortiz

An Animal Resembling Desire

Under an undecided bird

the day whines about orphanhoods,
clouds of absence hurt
a dark, putrid silence.

One by one the city awakens

its dead under a tired sky
to offer the waters
of its most recent words.

An animal resembling desire

extends laborious wings to petrify
the only tree standing.
Under fear's silhouette

infancy picks up its waist

and places it on a stone blind wall.
Under desperation leaves
a god made of solitudes

forces the clouds

to rain punishments
and transform boulders
into jaguars.

Application for Canonization

I hereby request to be canonized

in the Holy Church of Love.

A man swore me eternal love,

but his love was hell on earth.
I have more stigmata on my body
than those required by your Church,
greater tears than those expressed in cubic centimeters
by any of the aspirants to be canonized,
greater number of hours of insomnia,
& on my knees so many eloquent calluses
that my friends call me:
Adela the genuflect.

One night
he made me walk like a bitch,
meow like a cat,
cry like a teenage girl
and sing like an old woman.
Another night
he forced me to kiss the portrait of his beloved.
I thought that maybe
he forced his beloved to kiss mine.
That same night ―you do not know
how sorry I am to write this,
he screamed & called me a degenerate whore.

As for the requirement demanded by the Church:

You will love even if they grind you with rocks,
I can assure you that my love is immeasurable.
That man is my Greatest Good.

So, having been humiliated,

offended, vilified, set aside, & vexed;
having been confined to that strange latitude
which is: dead in life.

I, Adela Sobá, in full measure of my mental faculties,

humbly ask to be canonized as a lay saint
with the right to appear on the altars of horror.

Sergio A. Ortiz is a two-time Pushcart nominee, a four-time Best of the Web nominee, and 2016
Best of the Net nominee. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Valparaiso Poetry
Review, Loch Raven Review, Drunk Monkeys, Algebra Of Owls, Free State Review, and The
Paragon Journal. He is currently working on his first full-length collection of poems, Elephant
Graveyard.

Three Poems by Wafula p’Khisa

A Great Harvest

You found us saner, sober and serious

With dreams, debts and damsels to attend to;
Then blew your trumpet
and the village suddenly broke into
an ecstatic, violent dance.

We threw stones;
and called names
We drank dead;
and twisted necks
To follow the rhythm
The eyeball of the sky had just retired behind the curtains of clouds,
Leaving the sky screaming its bowels out, and sweeping off the map desolate homesteads
The beastly army worms had reduced the miserable crop;
Threatening unga and sugar to withdraw their pretty faces from shelves
But you didn't want to address this!

Nobody sang of the scandalous storms

Blowing our granaries atop the hills beyond
Nobody sang of the swelling tumbocracy
Ailing our graduates, and drawing many into darkness
Even the muted voices of dissent were traded in shallow whispers
Truth, with its weird, puzzled look; is a strange guest at a feast of lies!

You'd only come to offer earth children a sacramental taste of milk and honey
Lying abundantly in the world you dream for us
We thus lined up-- on markets and village footpaths
like a silly hen dancing to a cock's seduction song
for a Christmas cocktail!

I Can't Love You Enough (... for Tamara)

The song I sing for you, may be punctuated by occasional pauses

But it will never kiss its dead end--
Nobody stops singing love songs
unless the bird he sings for (and its drummer) flies away
Or some evil thing eats into his soul.

In the grip of this evil age

where one's ability to stay afloat the waters of romance
with the laugh of his life
dangles loosely on how deep his pockets are
I'm a miserable bird, bereft of the energy to fly atop the palm tree
But dying for the sweet scented nectary flowers yonder.

I'm a miserable bird, bereft of the energy to carry you around the universe
As if aimless wanderings render love more delicious!
Though I keep boredom at bay with enchanting sing-songs
Though I offer you my umbrella; and walk in rain naked
with your little weight on my back
Though I've planted thorns of jealousy around you
to keep off prying eyes of evil men
I fall short of what it takes to love an angel like you.

I desire to stay around you at all times--

Count stars at night; as we appreciate the moon's romantic gesture with love
Dance in the rain, and chorus the refreshing songs of the sea
I desire to move the world, creating space thence
for a home to Marius & other pregnant dreams
But duty steals my time, dearest; and life holds me in debt
Thus I appear and disappear from your sight like ripples on water.

Man Must Live

Sabina left the aggravation of my mat

for the warmth of another man's bed on the hill

But I'll not go home

and put a bullet in my head

I'll not caress the bottle all day;

worshipping it for comfort
to drown my stress

I'll not grease a sorcerer's hands again

to rush my lover's latest lover
to early grave

I'll not lock up myself and weep for eternity

It'll gladden Madame's heart to drop me

Everywhere, hearts are torn into pieces

but they gather themselves and move, slowly move
for man must live.

Wafula p'Khisa is a poet, writer and teacher from Kenya. He studied English, Literature &
Education at Moi University. His work has been published in The Seattle Star, The
Legendary (issue 48), The Beacon, Scarlet Leaf Review, Antarctica Journal, Aubade
Magazine (issue 1), NYSAI Press, AfricanWriter.com, Best 'New' African Poets 2015 Anthology,
VoicesNet.com, The Pendulum, Mgv2 Magazine, Lunaris Review and Best 'New' African Poets
2016 Anthology.

Four Poems by Eliza Segiet

Shroud
To Professor
Krzysztof Tomasz Witczak

Stripped from the remnants of hope

she understood that the shroud of time
covers with patina
not only the ridges of books,
but sometimes their contents.

Heather

Summer went away

in the mist
over the heather,
senses lead on
by the aroma of autumn.

I
engrossed
in the silence,
staring
at the dim green grass,
whispered:

the garden
now gets ready to sleep,
but the long days will return,
at dawn
the trees will sing.

Painted Lips

At the gate,
on the atoll of happiness
with lips
painted in a smile,
sits
Youth.

In a closed space
of its own pleasure,
it quietly departs.

Although power and impotence

is always with it,
it loses priceless time
- life.
Scattered Thoughts
To Wlodzimierz Szpinger

In the gap of an old floor

she found a picture.
On the easel she has set
not her memories.
Painted
probably a poet.

Pencil, paper,
scattered thoughts
that cannot be heard, but can be seen.
He thought about parting? Or about...
She lied.

She did not know what he was thinking,

she did not even know if it was...?
How to paint a poet?
How to paint not your thoughts?

Translated by Artur Komoter

Eliza Segiet – graduate with a Master's Degree in Philosophy, completed postgraduate studies in
Cultural Knowledge, Philosophy, Arts and Literature at Jagiellonian University, as well as Film
and Television Production in Lodz.

Torn between poetry and drama. Likes to look into the clouds, but keeps both feet on the ground.
Her heart is close to the thought of Schopenhauer: "Ordinary people merely think how they shall
'spend' their time; a man of talent tries to 'use' it".

Publications:
Poetry Collections:
"Love Affair with Oneself" [pol. "Romans z sobą"] (Sowello 2013),
"Mental Mirages" [pol. "Myślne miraże"] (Miniatura 2014 , II Edition: Sowello 2017),
"Cloudiness" [pol. "Chmurność"] (Signo 2016),
including
Monodrama "Clearances" [pol. "Prześwity"] (Signo 2015),
Farce "Tandem" (Signo 2017).

Three Poems by Hibah Shabkhez

Ash-Born Freedom

Raw soul wrung out from the squeezed dishcloth of the pain
Breaks me free of love-life-sorrow-wonder - even of the pain

Strips off French, Urdu, English, Punjabi - leaves fragments

Of language floating upon the rim of the blood and the pain

One full-throated laugh in drizzling grey-dragon winter skies

Weights the soul-scales over knowledge, liberty, over even the pain

She walks in beauty upon the razor edge of solitude's knife

Devouring eyes willing her to wilt, demeaning even the pain

Merge memory and longing into the morning mist, Fairy

Let us gloat over this ash-born freedom even through the pain

Bone Chopsticks

Lightning bolt shot through with gold

Then a heart worn on a chain
A trailer of cotton stacked to be sold
Then drenched in the summer rain

A cold set of bone chopsticks

Five. All alone, all useless
The chill by the brake. The deer licks
They add up to my own Loch Ness

A world of flies and sun-flecked earth-song

Of dreams and Sunday painters
Of ice and mango-demons dancing along
Of screams and shooting strangers

Marginal Voices

"We like marginal voices" He reassures me

"Women writers and poets of every nation -"
'Marginal' voices? But that would be
Over one half of the world's population.

"All people of colour, handicapped, LGBT -"

I look at him in some consternation.
"Just who is left in your 'centre' then?"
"Why - white, hetero, cisgendered men."

Hibah Shabkhez is a writer of the half-yo literary tradition, an erratic language-learning

enthusiast, a teacher of French as a foreign language and a happily eccentric blogger from
Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has appeared online and in several literary magazines, including The
Ravi and The Pen. Studying life, languages and literature from a comparative perspective across
linguistic and cultural boundaries holds a particular fascination for her.

One Poem by Sajal Suneja

Memories

She is beautiful
In those memories,
Hidden in a corner of my heart
Waiting
To be forgotten
And fade away,
Just like her
But
I managed to keep her alive
With an unchanged calendar
With a broken watch
And a jammed door
Locking me
In her memories
At a corner of my heart
Waiting
To be forgotten

Sajal Suneja is undergoing his Masters in Literature from Delhi University (India). His work has
been published in few local magazines and a online journals like Carcinogenic
Poetry and Anapest Journal. And Yes, he lives alone with his two cats.

Five Poems by Ann Christine Tabaka

The Forest Calls
Eerie, yet calm and peaceful
The forest at night calls to me
It draws me in

The quiet surrounds me

It is as if I can hear the trees breathe

I use touch to find my way

Feeling the bark becomes my braille
It shares its stories

How many have walked this way before

Will the trees give up their secrets

The silver moonlight trickles

Down between the leaves
Like rays of glory

Breaking through the darkness

I become one with the woods

Same Old Same Old …

We never catch any fish

yet we keep going fishing
We never sell any books
yet we continue to write
We never lose any weight
yet we keep on dieting
We never give up fighting
the perceived good fight

We never win any games

yet we keep on playing
We never get very far
yet we keep on walking
Our prayers are never answered
yet we keep on praying
No one ever listens
yet we keep on talking

We continue to do the same things

over and over again
Even though we get the same outcome
we never seem to change
We keep loving the same people
 who do not love us back
We need to learn life’s lesson
and our actions rearrange

Creation Story

Tell me a tale
How the world began
How earth was born
Long before man

Each culture has

Its creation story
A myth or song
Filled with glory

A fiery battle
In the heavens above
Or an act of valor
Bestowed with love

A giant tortoise
On his back the earth
A star-woman
To life gives birth

The trickster raven

And sun gods
Juggling planets
Against all odds

The epic sagas

Of ancient ones
Passed on in fable
From fathers to sons

As images form
Before my eyes
Filled with wonder
Worlds crystallize

Pilgrimage

A pilgrimage I make
A walk to the sea
Beyond fields and mountains
Across the wide valley

I am a stranger to
What lies beyond my sight
So I take up my torch
Traveling into the night

A dangerous journey
A most sacred quest
Many trials to undertake
I have no time to rest

Timelines begin to shift

All along the way
As I find myself thrown
Into another day

Destiny is at hand
The path becomes clear
I see beyond my fate
As truth draws me near

Tea Time

You and me
Drinking tea
Black, oolong
Bold and strong
Green or white
A mild delight
Inhale the scent
Of sheer content
Close your eyes
And realize
Each warm sip
A delicious trip
A faraway land
Is close at hand
Comforts abound
So come sit down

Ann Christine Tabaka was born and lives in Delaware. She is a published poet, an artist, a
chemist, and a personal trainer. She loves gardening, cooking, and the ocean. Chris lives with
her husband and two cats. Her poems have been published in numerous national and
international poetry journals, reviews, and anthologies. Chris has been selected as the resident
Haiku poet for Stanzaic Stylings.