January 2024 | poetry
I attended a party hosted by one of my university
English professors. The party was timid. Everyone
in a house full of friendless people. Soon, I see
my professor is flirting on my date. I am across the patio
talking to a stoned lonely classmate near the nacho
salsa station, and my prof, swinging jigging away,
making my date giggle, smile, move, bob and sway.
The world is glorious and cruel. Full of voids
impossible to fill and so hard to ignore.
My professor was working hard to diminish
his middle-age pansa: running his hand through his hair,
leaning forward, holding that cigarette but not lighting it.
Does this really work? When does his ex step in? And I wonder
if this is me in twenty years. Drifting to bad jazz, citing Derrida,
considering busted summers in Prague, then back to all this,
hosting a house of students and colleagues
without anyone causing a lucha, because no one thinks anything
is worth throwing a punch. Nada happens.
I had this friend who launched off a table
in a crowded bar because he saw his novia
dancing with a gringo. Did my friend think she really
had a Sancho? (Remember this: action is often a good
remedy for grief). He flew into the dancers,
a super-villain returning to earth. His cape a flash
of cursing. A big fight, the boogying couples scattering
off the dancefloor. After the incident, and him
banished from the club, I spied him and la novia, seated
on a curb in the parking lot. She cupping his face
in tenderness insisting, she loved him, loved
him. Chanting it. The night sky believing all
of her. My friend looking down into the alley,
discovering his bruises, adjusting his ripped
camisa, her words all shadow and dusk.
Christopher Rubio-Goldsmith
Christopher Rubio-Goldsmith was born in Merida, Yucatan, grew up in Tucson, Arizona and taught English at Tucson High School for 27 years. Much of his work explores growing up near the border, being raised biracial/bilingual, and teaching in a large urban school where 70% of the students are American/Mexican. A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, his writings will appear in Drunk Monkeys, Inverted Syntax and have been published in Sky Island Journal, Muse, Discretionary Love and other places too. His wife, Kelly, sometimes edits his work, and the two cats seem happy.
January 2024 | visual art
Barn on a Stormy Day 4
Barn on a Stormy Day 5
Jim Ross
Jim Ross jumped into creative pursuits in 2015 after rewarding career in public health research. With graduate degree from Howard University, in eight years he’s published nonfiction, fiction, poetry, photography, hybrid, interviews, and plays in nearly 200 journals on five continents. Photo publications include Alchemy Spoon, Barnstorm, Burningword, Camas, Feral, Phoebe, and Stonecoast. Photo-essays include DASH, Kestrel, Litro, NWW, Paperbark, Pilgrimage Magazine, Sweet, and Typehouse. Recently nominated for Best of the Net in Nonfiction and Art, he also wrote/acted in a one-act play and appeared in a documentary limited series broadcast internationally. Jim’s family splits time between city and mountains.
January 2024 | poetry
ankle-winged Word Thief flutters ~
orbiting The Muse
wicker creel on shoulder
stealing words off succumbing tongue, from depraved pink lips
collecting manifestos, dispatches, commands, lexeme-threads for unborn poems.
deliciously spilled onto insatiable empty page
deciphering their tangled satisfying meaning
blustery afternoons, elven queens, entangled roots, deep set red brick walls, swim in halo eyes outside time and space, float and dream, bask in caressing warmth, a vision, possibility, sensuality. Mythological building blocks held down on the table ~
kaleidoscopic paper spun round
allowing entry inside
to new worlds.
Gleipnir bindings hold winged ankles fast to Little Deaths.
faultless weapons handling in niche darkness.
stiff bow
arrow loosed
raining towards purposed destination
crossing through streaks of bright light
fleshed out totemic monument pierces orienting Dionysian-natured North Star
drowning inspirational beacon in gratification
seeking simultaneous orgasmic release of the lore-neuron
greedy minds shine with mythic legend veneer
wandering the halls around midnight
for satisfying heights of pleasure
organic and ever-changing panoply of wonders and sensations
lingering into daylight-crippling twilight delight
intent on breaking prey
the beast is afoot, baiting; heavily armed with unpredictable body language.
safe, at a distance
summoning strategic Sun Tzu’s ancient wisdom
the way, the weather, the terrain, the leadership, the discipline
coding memories of my nightmares, my fantasies.
verklempt knight walks seven unlit blocks to doors that can’t be closed after opening.
tectonic plates shifting under pace-worn leather boots.
Paineater stills the chaos
disarms the shadows
guards the spiraling-wanderer.
J. M. Platts-Fanning
J. M. Platts-Fanning is an award-winning writer nestled within the woodlands of the wave-tousled coastline of Prince Edward Island. Recipient of a PEI Writers’ Guild2022Island Literary Poetry Award, 2020 Island Literary Short Story Award, the 2022 Battle Tales VII Champion and 2nd place winner in the Humans of the World 2022 Summer Poetry Challenge. Publications include, The Dalhousie Review 2024, Burningword Literary Journal 2024, Pownal Street Press’ 2023 anthology, Fiona: Prince Edward Island Accounts from Canada’s Biggest Storm, Toronto Metropolitan University’s White Wall Review 2023/03, 2022/11, The Write Launch literary magazine 2023/08, 2022/08, 2022/06, Prometheus Dreaming cultural magazine 2022/11, Artistic Warrior’s 2022 Dribbles, Drabbles and Postcards anthology, Common Ground 2020/03 and GIFt Horse anthologies Vol 1 through 5. Her plays have appeared on various theatrical stages, including her dystopian fable, “Apple Bones” performed at the 2021 PEI Community Theatre Festival, “An Answer to the Question on Death” staged at Fridays with Fringe in 2019 and “Held to the Fire” chosen for Watermark Theatre’s 2018 Play Reading Series.
