​THE ACTION HERO TAKES ON TEN
 
if only it were so easy
to get them to obey
to disappear
when we scream at ourselves
 
“i will not be ashamed!
“I will not be afraid!”
“i will not be angry!”
 
it’s like pounding the pillow
on a restless night
and shouting
“go to sleep goddamnit!”
 
they may run and hide for awhile
scurry into their holes like field mice
under the hawk’s growing shadow
 
only to gather underground
in some dark chamber
whispering conspiratorially
and defiantly
 
but we will yet
defeat them
with this same strategy
that has failed
a thousand times
 
we’ll clear the room
like the action hero
taking on ten
in a barroom brawl
 
a whirlwind of fists
and back spin kicks
 
 
THERE IS NO NEED
 
gentle waves kiss the shore
where i huddled without shelter
for three or four days
as the biggest breakers
came and went
 
now the sand is swept clean
of tangled lines and broken shells
splinters of shipwrecks
and crucifixes tightly held
 
all buried deep in the blue
 
and as i sit here drying out
looking at the sunrise
the robin’s egg sky
i wonder what the chaos
was all about
 
what lesson the voice
of the storm
was screaming in my ears
 
but there is no answer to that
 
i only know that today
there are others again
they walk on my beach
without trespass
and i am grateful
for their footprints
their laughter
and the sandcastles they build
 
though their declarations of love
haloed by hearts
are inscribed below the high tide mark
 
i mustn’t peer toward the flatline horizon
squinting storms into existence
conjuring them with dreadful eyes
 
there is no need
 
 
PACHYDERM GODS
 
grow thicker skin
like us
they say
 
also...
calm down
snap out of it
and let it go
 
advice
from friends
who seem to think
I'm someone else
 
they love him
this someone else
they've painted
this potential me
created in their image
 
while the flesh me
fails to explain
the experience
of this pulsing
straightjacketed
brain
 
the drop of errant blood
that pollutes the rest
 
what it's like
treading water with
concrete shoes
 
and how I tiptoe
like a cat burglar
around double helix
spiral staircases
trying to avoid
the mischievous child
who hides in dark corners
lobbing sticks of dynamite
in my path
 
I explain all this
but they are not appeased
 
they trumpet laughter
through their scaly trunks
 
I turn and walk
out the door into
my daily hailstorm
unprotected
 
 
 
(Brian Rihlmann was born in NJ, and currently lives in Reno, NV. He writes mostly semi autobiographical, confessional free verse. He has been published in Constellate Magazine, Poppy Road Review,  The Rye Whiskey Review, Cajun Mutt Press, Alien Buddha and The American Journal Of Poetry.)

First Real Spring Day without You
 
It’s sunny but son-less, birdsong and blossoms, and I remember how
you loved the row of blooming crab-apples in front of the Cardella’s house
and the different flowers in our yard whose names you
wanted to be reminded of each year. 
 
You loved having the side deck to sit on with your pant legs rolled up
so the sun could heal your psoriatic legs
as you watched the boisterous birds, scampering squirrels and chipmunks--
and to stand on at night to stare up at the stars, scanning for meteors.
 
Even in the rain you’d stand there in the dark and converse with yourself--
your racing brain a churning treasure trove of data and imagined adventures,
sleep merely an exhausted state to fall into on the couch in the middle of the night,
as if you knew how little time you had in the body that would betray you.
 
*
 
Lox and bagels or bacon and croissants for Saturday breakfasts,
And roller-coaster amusement parks: 
I’m trying to remember the things you found to love after moving north
so I can comfort myself when I think how you never seemed as happy
            after we moved from your childhood home.
 
You delighted in discussing different religions
and observing how they all boiled down to the same thing--
but sometimes you worried about Revelations and people who might go to hell,
because one of your strangest friends kept insisting both were real and imminent; but
 
your God was love, and you loved your friends, though they were few and,
inevitably, unusual.
The more fragile ones you always took under your big wing, my sweet child,
as the mother cardinal in the old maple does now for her babies.
 
*
 
Today the dog found a baby robin blown out of its nest by last night’s storm,
but you weren’t here.
Tonight a friend described a subspecies of salamander she’d seen on TV
but she couldn’t remember the name, and you weren’t here to ask.
 
You were an old soul
and you still are,
as I sense you come to remind me every night at bedtime.
I never had to worry about your light shining on so brightly--
 
only about its brevity here on earth,
where it seems so dark now, even in the spring.
 
​
(Denise Thompson-Slaughter was born in Washington, D.C. and currently lives in Western New York.  She received a B.A. in English from Rutgers University and worked many years as an academic editor.  Her literary publications include two books of poetry, a mystery novella, two short stories, and brief memoir pieces.)

Sighting
 
The raccoon and I
see each other,
eyes channeling
souls as animal
eyes do, dark
space to dark
space, in a
recognition of
fur and claw,
skin and bone.

 
When Depression Steps Out
 
It feels, sometimes, like
a taboo to be happy, to
breathe in the morning,
glad to be alive, to pet
a cat’s belly and delight
in its impossible softness,
to listen to the endless
chirping of hopeful birds,
to believe that tomorrow
will come and the day
after that, to not give
up despite frantic
calls to do so,
to shower and dress
and stride through
the many doors that--
such luck!—always
present themselves.
 
 
(Vivian Wagner lives in the village of New Concord, Ohio, where she's an associate professor of English at Muskingum University.)

​Survivor
 
I am not sure how I did it,
how I survived
a lucky chance
maybe,
but here I am
still
standing
straight
against the wind,
the hot, hot wind
which has turned the soil
into rippling sand
the rippling sand
of the unwashed desert.
I am not sure how I did it
and I am not sure how long
I can stay here
standing
alone
in the rippling sand
of the unwashed desert.
 
(Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality and writes hoping to find an audience for her musings. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Peach Velvet, Light Journal and So It Goes.)

Fragrant and Amaranthine for Thousands of Years
 
One day I will come back by a red cloud and bring giant's picture scroll.
My lines of lightning songs will flutter gold greetings of prehistoric huge city.
The mountains that have been sleeping for hundreds of millions of years
will be transparent in an instant and the lights will be brilliant, like five-coloured gems;
And the songs of my soul in the skeleton will be in full bloom,
like the fairyland flowers of the Kingdom of Heaven,
that will be fragrant and amaranthine for thousands of years.

 
The Soul is Invisible Muse
 
Open the eyes of your soul you'll see countless yourself.
No time goes by,which as if the sun and the moon never set and rise.
The world is only a book of phantom and the soul is invisible Muse.
Before the words hadn't beent born yet, you have been a giant
of the the kingdom of gold, that know not what is meant by myself.
 
(Hongri Yuan, born in China in 1962, is a poet and philosopher interested particularly in creation. Representative works include Platinum City, The City of Gold, Golden Paradise , Gold Sun and Golden Giant. His poetry has been published in the UK, USA ,India ,New Zealand, Canada and Nigeria.)