Time Slip

where colors unmoored

are raining

 

viridian / flame

you can’t go back

 

there again

 

*

 

a former self calls, and the cells

rearrange her voice

 

an alternate future

 

dials back

the line crackling

 

*

 

a lapse of time

the space between two crows

 

flying west

the gray air and red air

 

fall through

 

by Adele Frances Wegner

Jason Leslie Rogers

An Unknown Prophet’s Complaint Regarding

the Tardiness of the Messiah (c. 200 B.C.)

 

The milk has soured. The honey? Gone.

The widow’s oil has all run out.

The glory that you promised us

left in the night like Pharaoh’s son

while we ate bitter herbs.

 

When we took wives and lay with them

you punished us because their blood

Was Philistine, but what grave sin

Did we commit that you would send

This storm of hollow rain?

 

You carved your name into our hearts,

Like boys will do in sycamore,

But wood is scarce, and that tree limb

And all our swords became the tools

We use to scratch the earth.

 

If sacrifice began again

And blood and flesh were placed upon

The holy fire, would all that smoke

Climb Jacob’s stairs to only find

That you had locked the door?

 

“How long, O Lord?” the prophets ask,

But we have lost all track of time.

Instead of days, we measure life

By promises left unfulfilled

And wounds that cannot heal.

 

So take your time deciding how

You’ll save us all—a flood, a fire,

A brimstone rain—and while we wait

Perhaps we’ll find just what it is

That we need saving from.

 

by Jason Leslie Rogers

 

 

Woodpecker

 

I stand with an unfocused stare

at the ground and the bleeding bird,

surprised by my aim and the weight

of the gun pulling down my right arm,

surprised by the woman who runs

from the porch at the front of her house.

 

I saw you she says through the tears

in her throat as she points at my feet

where the woodpecker lies.

 

I saw you she says looking down

at her wrinkled bare feet

through a gap in her pale spotted hands.

 

I saw you she says looking up

at the hole in the pine tree

the red-crested father had bored

while she listened and watched and

smiled through the first weeks of spring.

 

I retreat to a home full of ignorant faces,

to a lunch of sweet tea and the cold

meat of birds, while deep in some pastoral

hell the bleats of unseen lambs echo

and King David remembers Bathsheba.

 

by Jason Leslie Rogers

 

 

 

The Rain Comes

 

Inside your four walls,

the first rumble sounds

and you ask those nearby

if they heard it too.

 

Out of doors, if you have the gift,

there’s a smell, a thickness

in the air, just before

it hits the ground around you.

 

Inside, alone, the white noise

pulls words from your mouth,

“Here it comes,”

you say in hindsight.

 

Outside, the cold droplets

move toward your planted feet.

Like locusts, they’ll bring change

To everything they touch.

 

by Jason Leslie Rogers 

 

 

Jason Leslie Rogers lives in southeast Tennessee with his wife and daughter. He will graduate in December 2013 with a B.S. in Liberal Studies, writing and literature emphasis, from Lee University. He has not previously been unpublished.

Lucy’s Walk

Lucy strolled into my life twenty years ago. Short and heavyset, trailing a couple of unruly dogs, she welcomed me to the neighbourhood. Most mornings Lucy wound her way through the community with her dogs in tow, and their leisurely pace always invited the opportunity to chat.

On warm evenings Lucy walked with her husband Leo, a tall thin navy veteran. It made people smile to see the elderly couple hand in hand. When Lucy stopped to admire gardens and dispense dubious dog training advice, Leo waited patiently, content to let his wife weave her hospitality through the neighbourhood.

An ambulance came for Leo one bright afternoon and for a few months Lucy’s walks took a different path. Neighbours respected the urgency in her step as she hurried back and forth on her way to the hospital. No time for chats and even the dogs curtailed their usual exuberance.

One morning, a thinner and frailer Lucy stopped to admire my fall asters. Leo was gone, but Lucy was back. I joined her as she retraced a familiar path through the community and gathered condolences like a grand bouquet of sunflowers. Lucy’s daily walks continued until the day she got confused – inexplicably lost on her own street – and well-meaning family intervened. Recently, a young couple bought Lucy’s old house.

I often stroll by at a leisurely pace that invites the opportunity to chat. 

by Hermine Robinson

  

Hermine loves writing short fiction in many genres and her publication credits include Readers’ Digest, Postcard Shorts and Vine Leaves Literary Journal. She lives with her husband and children in Calgary, Alberta where the winters are long and the inspiration is plentiful. Her nickname Minkee was chosen at the age of five and it is still the name she answers to when it is shouted across a crowded room.

Krista Kurisaki

cœur de pirate

 

do not fall for a boy with a pirate heart, even if he will
cross five thousand miles of sand and ocean to be with you,
carrying nothing more than loneliness and longing in his cargo hold.
those things will bond you both together like an oath, but
blood is thicker than water and soon, the promises will weigh you down
like rocks in your pocket, keeping your lungs and heart empty.
he will not stay, something will always call him away in the morning,
even after you’ve spent the night wrapped in his strong arms,
counting the stars from the undersides of the highest sail.
you will listen to his stories, for they will stretch beyond the decks
of his ship and make you feel both empty and full at once,
but you cannot rely on a tattooed smile to forge you a key to the world.
eventually, he will leave you on stranger shores, soaking and breathless,
wondering when the next tide will bring him close to you again.
but you are not a wench he found bar-side, never call yourself that.
you must be unpredictable and wild as the sea itself, bottling storms
into your heartbeat and braiding a barrier reef into your hair.
you are calypso, dangerous and beautiful and unyielding,
and if he comes back ten years from now to set foot on the shore,
you will not be waiting. you cannot always be waiting
he might tell you he loves you. but even then, he is only speaking
about the seventy percent he is familiar with, the part that is pulled into
rises and falls by the moon, a dna sequence patterned by the earth itself.
do not answer him. steal his ship by sunrise instead and plan to follow
the treasure map that you’ve long since forgotten. never come back.
leave him with a seashell at his side and he will remember at last
that the reason he loved the ocean was because it sounded like you.

 

by krista kurisaki

 

  

dancing on fault lines

i am not the girl your mother warned you about.
you know, the one with the pierced lip and a glare
that could start a fire during the monsoon season.
the girl whose arms are inky wings entwined with
weeds and paper chain reminders of past loves.
the girl whose name tastes like smoke on your lips
and whose report cards are littered with the one
letter that begins her most favorite swear word.

i am not the girl your mother warned you about.
the only relics that i carry on my body are scars
from playgrounds that kissed me back too hard.
my lungs consist of both words and silences,
neither of which i have found a way to control.
i am a few inches short of dangerous and about
nineteen years wiser than a pack of cigarettes.

your mother warned you about the girls who
are hurricanes, that will see your body as a stone
they can toss across the oceans without a second
glance. hearts going seventy miles an hour have
no time for regret. but there is always a sign
or a season that brings them; each one you meet
will be mapped out on a list of broken promises;
hazel, audrey, katrina. they won’t let you forget.

but i am not a hurricane; i am a california earthquake
with a 7.8 on the richter scale of volatile personalities.
i will come without warning and dissolve the earth
into dust under your feet. there will be nowhere for
you to hide; your body will unravel into war with itself,
and your mother, wide-eyed, will wonder why you
let me in. but i know better. she taught you to train
your eyes to the sky when not even a seismograph
could pick out a heartbeat buried 1800 miles deep.

 

by krista kurisaki 

 

  

Krista Kurisaki is a nineteen-year-old California native, currently falling in love with the world and wishing she could see more of it. she spends her days singing Beatles songs and facing reality, but keeps a pen close to her bed by night. find her across the universe at http://flythevinyl.tumblr.com

Britt Melewski

I don’t sleep anymore.

 

And when I’m on the train

I look up the tall woman’s

skirt and find an outlet

I don’t have the correct

connection to plug into.

Man stares at something

long enough to kill it;

he hunts for things not his

own, and, underserving,

greedy for their teeth—

their particular song, a luster—

spoils just about everything

along his way.  And the car

goes dark, jingles a little bit

before it goes silent, before

the recorded announcer

announces to be careful,

that it might begin to rain.

  

by Britt Melewski

 

  

Girl #275

 

I will run my car

For eleven years straight

Into a concrete abutment

To keep you inside me

For another minute I will

I will do anything

You ask me so please

Ask me what colors make up

My love ask me

Which is my favorite flavor

Of whip my obsession

Is ketchup please

Not you you are different

when you call me

Baby I melt into a paste

That you can spread

I am somebody not only

Some body but the one

You swallowed skinned

Strawberry the one

Who held your fist

And cracked your knuckles

While I kissed you

I did I kissed

You your shoulder

With its wealth of muscle

And salt I replay it

Now I replay it to

Your song replay

Repose our mouths

Our bodies coming

Together bones flesh

Secrets creaking in song

  

by Britt Melewski

 

  

Inmate #386426

 

When they first brought you to jail,

you were bound to the black chair on wheels

with its sheen straps—the squeak it makes

while it glides across the bleached linoleum

at intake.

  When they tied the mask clasps

around your neck, they bore witness

to your chalky breath—the knot wound

tightly across your pulse. 

But in your torn Nirvana

T-shirt, and beekeeper eyes, you shrugged

and allowed them each their job.

  

by Britt Melewski

Weathered

At the end of the beach

where rocks are impassible

and sea unswimmable.

I am the passively standing stone

points extended into the waves.

Weathered in daily battle

knowing stoically the war is lost with time.

The ocean is immortal

but sand is boulders defeated.

The water swirls and shakes me.

At the end of the beach

with dead pelicans pealed open.

Crows and seagulls gleeful

dripping citrusy flesh fruit.

 

by Josh Bliek

  

Joshua Bliek is a literature student in his local community college. Although previously unpublished, Joshua is optimistic about his future as a poet and a critic and works daily towards developing his own unique voice.

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