April 2016 | poetry
Whispering echoes
remind me of a
time of joy
Picking through
old toys of
translucent
neurons
The synapses
snap like lightning
inside of an acoustic,
closed off Super Dome
Electrocuting
the flesh of
negativity
within
Adam Brown
He has been published/accepted in Dead Snakes, Anti-Heroin Chic, Leaves of Ink, Writing Raw, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Indiana Voice Journal, The Stray Branch Magazine, First Literary Review – East, Section 8 Magazine, The Poet Community, Setting Forth- On a Literary Itinerary, Cavalcade of Stars, Red Rising Magazine, Social Justice Poetry, High Coupe, Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine.
April 2016 | poetry
Thoughts and prayers
The emptiest of gestures
Just a collection of letters posted for the world to see
A world so far from your thoughts
You’ve never prayed for
Really
Doing nothing never looked so useful
Click post
Move on
Feel good
The ring of notifications solidify your conscience
Your good deed done
Without wiping up one ounce of blood
Brushing away one tear
Circling one brass casing
The incendiary and screams are too far away to even silence you to attention
Your thoughts and prayers will have to suffice
They just have to
They must
For what am I to do with this horrific sight?
Held in my hands
Glowing on this tiny screen
Louis Raio
Louis Raio is a Poet, Photographer, Artist and class Clown. He’s a 32-year-old man-child living in his parent’s house. He takes pride in finding beauty in the absurdity of the world around him and takes part most times. He’s a top contender for The Heavy Weight Championship of Procrastinators and isn’t afraid of an entire pizza. He has self-published two books of original poetry and defies anyone to buy a copy! Coming from a large family he understands the importance of finding a good place to sit. He has a terrible fear of flying and death, two horrifying things that are not mutually exclusive. His OCD and Anxiety are fuel for his creative mind and will either make him the life of the party or the reason it ended early. Love him, because he loves you.
April 2016 | poetry
At low tide, they write words
in the dark, damp sand
pledging their love forever.
Later that evening,
while enjoying each other’s company
over a candlelight dinner,
high tide quietly relieves them of the commitments
of those sandy etchings.
The following morning,
without much ado,
they murmur good-byes;
each moving on to new beaches.
Roy Dorman
Roy Dorman is retired from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Benefits Office and has been a voracious reader for over 60 years. At the prompting of an old high school friend, himself a retired English teacher, Roy is now a voracious writer. He has had poetry and flash fiction published over the last couple of years in Mulberry Fork Review, Burningword Literary Journal, Cease Cows, Birds Piled Loosely, Drunk Monkeys, Crack The Spine, Gap-Toothed Madness, Gravel, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, One Sentence Poems, Theme of Absence, Yellow Mama, Black Petals, Near To The Knuckle, Flash Fiction Magazine, Flash Fiction Press, Cheapjack Pulp, Shotgun Honey, and other online literary sites.
April 2016 | poetry
Life is a museum of light and
Darkness, and we are all mere
Exhibits, stored in clear glass
Boxes, with labels describing our
Identities in short-hand, and
Vintage Latin phrases chronicling our
Insecurities, and life is a museum of
Light and darkness, and we
All exist in its corridors and
Alleyways, waiting to be noticed, so
That we can make the mark for the
Next and final curation.
Noor Dhingra
Noor Dhingra is a 17-year old high-school student from New Delhi, India. An avid reader and writer, she often loses herself amidst the beauty and strangeness of words. She hopes to someday author books of her own. Apart from her love for literature, she is also extremely passionate about art and enjoys sketching and painting.
April 2016 | fiction
It was her parents dying in a tragic accident downstate. It was being sent off to live with a grandfather she’d never known existed. It was working at his funeral parlor in an old Victorian house by a lake the color of desert glass. It was assisting the grandfather in a softly lit basement room of tiled walls and shining metal tables with round black drains. It was being ten years old and manipulating blue-tinted flesh and pliant muscle. It was peering into faces that had been rendered void, it was fitting small plastic cups under the lids of dehydrated eyes. It was inserting needles into veins and replacing syrupy blood with fine clean embalming fluid. It was applying makeup to silent women and shaving greasy five-o’clock shadow from the men who no longer cared about being nicked. It was combing little boys’ matted hair and knitting cheery bows into the tresses of little girls. It was repairing bullet holes and stab marks and burned flesh and flayed flesh and flesh that had gone missing.
It was the grandfather’s unswerving presence. It was how he sipped from a silver flask after a long day of reassembling human puzzles and stared at his protégé as though searching for something neither of them could see. It was the way he fed her powdered donuts and murmured what a good good student she was. And stroking her cheek and lightly fingering the cleft in her chin.
Joel Best
Joel Best has published in venues such as Atticus, decomP, Autumn Sky and Carcinogenic Poetry. He lives in upstate New York with his wife and son.
