From Now And Here
 
This time next year
some of us will have surrendered
to the weakness of the flesh.
This time next year
you’ll feel twelve months heavier.
Your pockets, and head, lighter.
 
One of us will be missing a finger.
One will dare risk looking
into the smelted core of the divine.
Another will have forsaken emotion.
 
Three hundred and sixty odd
days and nights from now and here.
The X minutes and Y seconds.
An algebra of living mass.
A fatty math of bloodied tissues.
 
Which means this time next year
we’ll all be farther along the crooked path.
New scars will have formed.
Choices will have proved themselves
to be neither right nor wrong.
We’ll have made some big decisions,
the repercussions only then apparent.
 
Some will have had their molecules shattered,
their ashes scattered in a green river.
Some of us will carry a child
they’d never guessed would have existed.
Next year at this time –
the same stars in the same sky,
but everything will seem different.
 
I’ve heard how time changes everything.
I’m learning that change matters.

Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician, is a multiple Pushcart nominee with poems published in hundreds of magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. His books are ‘The So-Called Sonnets (Silenced Press); ‘An Unbecoming Fit Of Frenzy; (Cawing Crow Press) and ‘Like As If” (Pski’s Porch), Hearsay (The Poet’s Haven).

Styx & Stones

The heartbeat is an ashtray of blazes,
Kindling smoke and collecting dust on lips –
Blooming in the cold, forgotten places:
Smelling of city stench and old outstrips.
A failed rewrite of caskets and cases,
The heart is a sea-morgue of wayward ships.
Wrapped in cotton whites and ghostly laces:
Blackened out, a sun during the eclipse.
An immortal organ, rhythm of ages,
Human devotion seeps out red and drips:
The stain of dark mahogany angels,
Washed away down the long black river Styx.
 
(Angelina Chartrand is a student at Lindenwood University, pursuing a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English Studies with an emphasis in Creative Writing. Having developed a passion for writing ever since she was very young, Angelina has found a love and admiration of short stories to convey her creative ideas.)

Path of Wisdom 

The tempest of heat in full swing
Has yet to dampen my aspirations.
Since I learned to live in hot and cold,
I imbibe the pleasures of both.
 
Life is not a cakewalk for most,
But mined with splinters of glass.
Though it encounters harm and afflictions, 
Still, the brave spirit never perishes.
 
The paths converging and diverging
Are passages intrinsic to a man’s life.
If he cannot reconcile the twists,
The battle is lost before even waged.
 
Life does not stream the same way.
Outlooks to life mature as a tree grows –
Tenderness blooms into strength
That no passing wind can sway.
 
Tormented are the minds of many men.
Equanimity is present in men of wisdom. 
Compassion is the path to embark on
To revive contentment in heat and cold.
 
(Pramod Rastogi is an Emeritus Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is a Member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences. He is the 2014 recipient of the SPIE Dennis Gabor Award. He is also a guest Professor at the IIT Gandhinagar, India.)

In Trauma
 
To the child hiding in your heart:
 
I know you are burnt and broken
You are torn and tethered
You fear when the leaf flutters
You fear the first rain-drop
It makes too much noise
And then the whole sky seems like
A terrible plot to pull you down
You fear the grown-ups when they say hello
You fear your play-mates
Whether on your team on theirs
But friend, you are not alone
Your voice is with you to guide you
Through the clouds, one by one
And bring you right here
In the sunlight
 
 
(Dr. Shailja Sharma (Ph.D.) is a psychologist and an author, practicing in Texas, USA. Apart from her scholarly publication, Dr. Sharma’s poetry has been nationally and internationally published in peer-reviewed journals, literary magazines, and radio shows. Some of her recently published work appeared in Setu: Bilingual Journal of Arts from Pittsburgh, Spillwords, Literary Heist, Piker Press (forthcoming), Life in 10 Literary Mag, Literary Yard, The Indian Periodical, Inkspire, and elsewhere. She was awarded a special literary honor for her poetry featured in an anthology of foreign language poems).

Dark, Light, Mind, Thought

We are too late for the darkness, 
Too early for the light, 
Too late for it to mind, 
And too early for thought 
Darkening never reaches the light 
As the mind never reaches thoughts 
Thoughts come to mind
 
(Anthony David Vernon, is a Cuban-American writer and a master's level philosophy student at the University of New Mexico. Some his publishing credits include A Great Fire (2020 Cabinet of Heed), 

The Fall
 
He didn't see it coming
The wholeness of his life
would be irrevocably shattered
in one split second
The stairs were old and steep
He signaled to his wife to wait
Descending first with a box
In a frightening flash he flew to the floor
As his head smashed the concrete
it felt like a thousand boulders
crushed and pinned his body
He was conscious, he could speak
Instant awareness flooded his mind
with horror and disbelief
His body felt like a frozen block
The ensuing moments
were a dark agonizing blur
as though the stars had fallen
extinguishing the light
The future became a kaleidoscope
of medical misery and mental anguish
 causing him to obsess about death
rather than live out his crippled sentence
He was a prisoner, jailed in his body
Shackled to a bed or wheelchair
His perfect mind was an isolated entity
Directing a corporal self without effect
Existing like an immobile statue
A tribute to what was and could never be
The days dragged to months, then years
With formidable emotional and physical endurance
minute movements returned to his battered body
He gradually achieved unexpected progress
But not enough to set him free
There was hope, always hope
New advances in treatments arose daily
It was vital to focus on the present
to let the past drift away
when he was active, strong, happy,
memories which inflicted exquisite pain
A spark in him burned like glowing embers
Adding fuel to his inborn fighting nature
He powered his body through tunnels of torture
Small rewards reinforced his will to live
Inner strength pushed him up the high road
Still, there were moments when
in the depths of depression and despair
Death beckoned as a welcomed release
 
(Jane H Fitzgerald writes poetry with clarity and compassion. Her four books including, Notes From the Undaunted , can be found on Amazon. Jane has been published in many journals including Dreamers Creative Writing, Open Door Poetry Magazine, and others. Jane hopes that her words will bring diverse peoples together).

The Compromise
 
It would be easier,
so much easier when she
was going to die after the transplant.
I’d wake sweating out pills booze panic.
So sure her broken form would
be a found puddle of blood in fox print sheets.
Our apartment porch’s thin bars smashed in,
the window becomes shrouds
of glass covering her red
hair, as the invisible tendrils
of elder fungus reach down her throat
and snuff her breath into a final phlegm-less
cough, that imagined week where
the donated cells revolt, rise fire, and lava
across her face, down her back,
pull intestine down the toilet’s
hell face. Love becomes screams
through a dry burning mouth. But
 
I held her hand, thin and cold,
no fire, no choking, just long
drives to the hospital, new cell
civilization the turned winter
terror to spring, and time clogged
rivers, birds born, and worry
died in mouths. She was miracle
flesh, poisoned into life, quoting
books, crying over friends missed.
Then quiet across the room, 
and the normal stab and haunt
of alcohol wipes in my nose. 
 
 
The Things Dads Do
 
We pray. Our hands rudderless,
floppy, numb and burning,
skin ripped as red oak leaves,
the dying smell of a hospital.
The long steps up, the slow
steps down into a dinner
of tears and crackers and
dry hamburger meat. We pray
with greasy hands in the chapel,
lonely as the winter that strangles
and chokes the glass. The
cold moment with a god we
don’t know. Never felt. Don’t
feel now, same tendrils of sickness,
cannibal fingers interlaced,
pointers crossed as horns.
And yes, that thought is understood.
The sulfur wings, the comfortable
grip of the pen, the scrawled
name the only believable holy word,
the understanding of the decades
past of
fevered babies, broken lungs,
the rot behind the eyes,
the look in desperate beds
of straw, of oak,
of steel. What father would
not eat the fire, choke back
the charred decision,
tear arm from arm, any
arm. We would murder
the moon, make piles of halos
of angels and birds,
knees mashing in faces,
kid-noses, lovers, and devils.
What would dads do?
Anyfuckingthing.
 

BMT Day # 890
 
The long net of a storm
pulled the length of the sky,
tight and unwelcoming as
we trekked towards the end
of our new street and into
patch of trunks and underbrush.
 
My brown boots, the cuff
of dirt, around the midsole,
laces tighten and prepared.
Tread holds the pollen,
broken limbs of figwort
and sweet gum. The ankle
leather scraped from overgrowth,
as our shortcut dips into a deer trail.
 
It’s that moment when woods
become a forest I find comfort.
I have stood under darker trees,
under darker clouds
laden in spears, each bolt with its
own name, its own unique touch of death.
I have hiked through this before
running does not make it easier.
You learn to wait - through,
over, at, the hard decision of spring.
 
We look ahead, as the brush and branches
open, brown spring limbs spread
              into rebirth of buttercup.
Yellow caps spark in the layer of green,
next to the lone oak, strong and stable,
rocks jut as a mountain range, alone
among the invasive blossom of suns.
 
(C.L. Liedekev is a writer/propagandist who lives in Conshohocken, PA with his real name, wife, and children. He attended most of his life in the Southern part of New Jersey. His work has been published in such places as Humana Obscura, Red Fez, Open Skies Quarterly, River Heron Review, and Vita Brevis. Many of my recent poems have dealt with my 10-year-old daughter’s bone marrow transplant and recovery).
 
 

Pressing Three 

*To erase and try again press three.
 
Hey there. It’s me. I’ve been kind of sad lately.
You know how it is. Anyway, thanks for calling.
Leave a message and I’ll try to get back to you.
 
*To erase and try again press three.
 
Hello. I’m fucking depressed. I’m making
a conscious effort to be completely honest with
myself. With others. That’s why I’ve decided
not to answer the phone. Please, don’t be mad.
I’m tired of pretending happiness to be polite. This
waltz of well-mannered untruths makes me
even more miserable. Ya know?
You can leave a message at the tone
but I probably won’t respond.
 
*To erase and try again press three.
 
Hi! I don’t feel like talking to anyone.
I’ve also been really lonely lately? Please,
leave a message if you’ve got some time.
Actually, no. I’d just feel bad for not calling back.
Just. Forget it.
 
*To erase and try again press three.
 
I think I’ve fallen in love with my cellphone.
An unorthodox affair. Who are you to judge?
What else do I own more enabling for my anxiety
and ambiversion at once? No. I can’t use this one.
 
*To erase and try again press three.
 
FUCK.

To erase and try again press three.
 
*I’m sorry. The person you are trying to reach
has a voicemail box that has not been setup yet.
 
(Monica Mills is a Jamaican-American writer and poet. She is from Maplewood, New Jersey and has a bachelor’s degree in political science and English from Rutgers University. Monica’s work appears in journals such as The West Trade Review, The Anthologist, The Normal Review, and The Quiver Review among others. She enjoys rainy days and ginger tea.)

Hiding My Truth
 
A sinister energy somehow returns,
and it carries excitement and doubt.
It blossoms inside like an old parasite
and draws out my vulnerable thoughts.
This poisonous leech disguised as truth
tempts me toward sparkling journeys.
But I can’t give in and risk jail again,
so I hide behind logic and safety.
Now my insecure smiles and appropriate speech
protect me from dubious stares.
As God is my witness, I’m not really odd,
I’m just hiding my truth till the end.
 
(John Zurn has been faced with the challenges of bipolar disorder and anxiety disorder for his entire adult life.  He gradually learned that: medication, exercise, meditation and creative writing were vital for his long term recovery. Despite this challenge, he still worked as a teacher and counselor for thirty-five years.)