Lise Colas - Private Reflections of a Silhouette Artist / Holy Pelican

Private Reflections of a Silhouette Artist

Close the shutters,
exclude the bright day,
let darkness consume the form
to reveal a royal contour
in the spill of the lamp
and with soft pencil, commence to trace
her shadow'd face,
taking care to leave the margin clear--
then usher the subject to the finishing chair,
pick up the scissors
and with one eye on the map,
navigate an exquisite line along her forehead,
nose and lips where blades dip,
around the chin at journey’s end--
don’t attempt to hack
or meddle with thoughts of alteration,
but press on,
the scissor’s mouth working left to right
unimpeded, acknowledging every cleft--
as slivers curl away from petal skin
daubed with lampblack--
and to finish, sculpt an eyelash
by teasing out sweet morsels.

Holy Pelican

A heraldic offering
blazoned,
involuntary,
broods on a field sinister
of stark gules and rusted argent--
hope an abandoned crest,
sacrificed--
the leaden flux coats
something angels dare not
not look upon--
wings clipped,
I remain ensconced in that sterile nest
mortified,
pecking at my breast.

Lise Colas writes poetry and short fiction and lives on the south coast of England. She has a BA (Hons) in Fine Art and used to work in the archive of Punch Magazine. In the summer months she often wishes she had a pet raven to scare off noisy seagulls.

Donal Mahoney - Lemon Underwear

The New Morse Hotel

Chicago, circa 1970

What if after Browne has gone

one of us discovers who Browne was,

leads the rally to his room before

the maid has time to broom the webs,

retrieve from underneath the bed

the sweat-stiff socks, the lemon underwear?

What if before he leaves Browne scrawls

across the dresser’s dust: “I have leased

new quarters and have gone to them.

Don’t give the clothes you find here to the poor.

Don’t burn the books. Beware the next

who rents this room, who leaves it only after dark,

who screams if the maid knocks once

to ask if she may clean. When he arrives

have four men bear him, belly down, downstairs.

Tell them: 'Pitch him out across the lawn!

Let him land in a lake of sun.

Let him drown there.' ”

Nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart prizes, Donal Mahoney has had work published in various publications in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.  Some of his earliest work can be found at http://booksonblog12.blogspot.com/.

Rose Mary Boehm - Hag of the Mist - Bean Sidhe / There are things in ditches

Hag of the Mist – Bean Sidhe

During the darkest months of the year,
overhanging the wild Atlantic waves,
the old ruined castle of Dunluce,
sitting on its rock above the green sea water
of the Antrim coast. Wail of the Banshee,
sound of the hollow wind, mourning
Ireland's want through her bitter loss
the scattered Chieftains of the Gael.

Her thin scream is caoine, is ‘keening’.
Long, red frizz and very pale skin.
Old woman with stringy, gray hair,
rotten teeth and fiery red eyes.
Shapeshifter. The washer woman
cleans bloody rags on a river shore.

King James I of Scotland
murdered soon after he met
a strange Irish seer.

Aware of a human’s watching,
the banshee disappears into the mist
with a fluttering sound
and the cry of the barn owl.

There are things in ditches

The storm springs upon us with sudden
ferocity. Branches lash the air, tree trunks sigh.
Pears from the trees by the road
splutter onto asphalt, and into ditches
which will soon be running rivers.

The first heavy drops of rain.
We count the seconds between lightning and thunder.
I am soaked through.
My skin contracts in fear and excitement.

We wade barefoot into the ditches
in the full knowledge that we’ll be devoured
by whatever lives and squishes up from the bottom
between our toes, those soft round bodies
we know hide under the mud because
we tread on their wet-grass-like feelers,
and—Sir Galahads all–collect as many
of the squashed pears as we can carry.






A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm lives and works in Lima, Peru. Author of TANGENTS, a poetry collection published in the UK in 2010/2011, her recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in a good two dozen US poetry reviews (online and print).

G.E. Schwartz - Initiate / Water Spell

Initiate



Sealed with perfumed oil upon your forehead,

having dedicated knife, cup, cord, all working

implements, do not presume the power a servant

at your beck and call believing you must then

pay lip-service only, casually keeping festivals

by rote and not within the heart; it is a burden

we must bear in love and pride through darkness. 











Water Spell



When water trembles beneath you hand held poised

above the still silver bowl that you have placed

in a place of sunlight, do not touch, but wait;

the silent message is the one that washes through

our bones, cleansing with all the waters of Will

that mantle our births and move the moon-lit tides

and carve the land and draw green up to light from

roots more deep than any mind may know, and bow

your head until the water stills and mirrors your

own eyes. Then close your eyes.















G. E. Schwartz, born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, 1958, is the author of Only Others Are: Poems (Legible Press), WORLD (Furniture Press), and SPEAKING IN TONGUES (Hank's Loose Gravel Press). He is a simple bell-ringer.

Michael Keshigian - Mirrors

Approach them 

when they least expect it,

sneak up on an angle

in a sun filled room

and look into their depths,

to view a shallow pretense of reality

on a flat blank wall, but make sure 

they don’t catch your image.

Witness the burden they bear,

carrying the weight of the room

upon their shoulders,

the queen size bed

with its matching night stand,

adjacent to the windows

between which lingers the dresser

upon a thickly carpeted floor.

All day, every day, 

the images never change,

except at night when mirrors 

crave the company of darkness,

once sunlight has released its grip

to allow respite

and a vacant, dead stare 

into timelessness and eternity,

neither of which demand reflection

in a tactile sense,

though they stand there in absentia, 

admiring themselves in the dark,

your reflection upon them,

making you sweat.







Michael Keshigian’s ninth poetry book, Dark Edges was recently released this September, 2014 by Flutter Press.  He has been widely published in numerous national and international journals and appeared as feature writer in over a dozen publications with 5 Pushcart Prize and 2 Best Of The Net nominations. (michaelkeshigian.com)

Lu Pierro - It's Nothing

A doctor’s visit delayed

until nothing was 3 centimeters round,

the diagnosis: the C word.

A word we couldn’t say,

a word that caught in our throat

filling us with phlegm-like dread.

And so we entered a new country

with a new language.   

Words like carcinoma, hematology

and dysplasia became as common as say,

hair, and blood, and nausea.

We became a cluster,

a coterie shrouded in scarves.

We joined the Church of  Miracles

taking our plastic Lazy Boy seats

with our fellow supplicants

in the oncology ward.

Each had her own bottle of salvation

that dripped hope and despair

in the same vein.

For you, there was no redemption.

When flesh loosened from your bones

and your teeth shone like alabaster tombs,

I knew the time had come

for you to shatter

into nothing and into everything.

           

Lu Pierro is a Creative Writing Major at Warren Community College. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Ars Poetica, Natural Awakenings, US1, Blast Furnace, If and Only If, and Threeandahalfpoint9, East Fork among other journals.  She is the recipient of both the Dodge Foundation Scholarship and the Dorothy E. Laurence Scholarship from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Mass.

Gary Priest - This Quiet Life

Perhaps I should crack my skull against something beautiful
but the wrong angle may cripple rather than kill
and epic fails are so banal.
I think impaling on Buckingham Palace railings
might be a way to ensure a noble demise.
But then the Queen would get all the headlines.

I want to kick it uniquely, poetic;
maybe involving a Nobel laureate.
Pulverised by a particle physicist, with my corpse
dissolved by an obliging prize winning chemist.
I want to get terminally fucked up
by the great and the good.

But perhaps I am being a tad selfish
and start thinking of ways to excellently expunge
my family, friends and hard to lose Facebook chums.
We could be shot and chopped by the Academy
of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
or hunted for sport by Olympic Gold winning medallists.

Still that would take a lot of organisation
and frankly my dear I am itching for my own damnation.
So maybe it won’t be remembered
or become a trending topic
but this quiet life is killing time and the hour has come
to stop it.

Gary Priest writes poetry, short stories and novels. He was recently published in the print anthology of The Blue Hour Magazine.  Twitter:  @GaryPriest

Richard Schnap - Last Gasp

I see a realm of ghosts
Longing to find out
Who they were in real life

If they were captains of industry
Or only bitter slaves
Held beneath their sway

For the indifferent wind
Has erased their names
From the cold garden of stones

Leaving them to wonder
If they won life’s gamble
Or lost in a fool’s wager

And now they look back
As the next world beckons
To bestow its amnesia

Where they will be the same
Shadows without faces
Left to haunt each other







Richard Schnap is a poet, songwriter and collagist living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His poems have most recently appeared locally, nationally and overseas in a variety of print and online publications.

Natalie Shau - Photo Art

Black Widow

Carmine

Desolation

Metamorphosis

Natalie Shau is a mixed media artist and photographer based in Lithuania (Vilnius). She found interest in fashion and portrait photography as well as digital illustration and photo art. 

Despite her personal work, Natalie also creates artwork and photography for musicians, theater, fashion magazines, writers and advertisement.

She also worked as an art director for a short 3d movie of Kamel Ouali's musical "Dracula"

Jimmy Pappas - Edgar

Edgar seduced her with a cask of Pinot Grigio. 
It was Mardi Gras time, so he hid behind his mask 
and the black cape of his roquelaure. He praised 

her costume and purchased her new ones, 
glimmering with shiny baubles. She followed him 
into the catacomb of his bedroom where the bones 

of his past conquests lay in a pile. She smashed 
the head off a flagon of Johnnie Walker 
with a gesture he did not understand. 

The next morning, she found herself chained
within a niche in the kitchen. Edgar walled her 
in there with non-stick pots and pans. 

Never complaining, she smiled out at him, 
even as the last opening was closed up. 
Thirty years later, he heard a scream. 

He tore down the wall and freed her, 
while an enormous black cat 
screeched from the top of her head.


*This poem uses images from two Poe stories: "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Black Cat." 



Jimmy Pappas received an MA in English Literature from Rivier University. His poems have been published in such journals as Atticus Review, Kentucky Review, Poppy Road Review, and War, Literature and the Arts. He is a first prize winner of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire's National Contest.

Terri Simon - The Creeping Things

Are you happy now, my darling,

the sun has risen up?

The creeping things that stretch and groan,

they do not like the light.

They played with you

in darker hours,

their scratchy laughter

rumbled through the night.

Were you running from them, darling,

hiding in fear,

or playing tag

in mock delight?

And now the sun is shining

upon your territory of day,

is it you who does the taunting,

ripping, shredding, causing fright?

The creeping things are hollow,

they know not right from wrong.

Do you and I have the same excuse, love?

Or are we stained with septic blight?

Terri Simon is a writer, drummer, and a techie. Her work has appeared in “Aberration Labyrinth,” “Three Line Poetry,” “Black Mirror Magazine,” and the anthologies “A Mantle of Stars: A Queen of Heaven Devotional,” “Bright Stars: An Organic Tanka Journal (Volume 1),” and “Switch (The Difference).”