Vampire Mother by Yash Seyedbagheri

When Nick’s eight, Mama dresses up as a vampire, replete with long black gown, thick fangs. 

            “Mama’s a good vampire,” she promises. “No one will hurt you.”

 Eight years later, Halloween. Nick’s father tries to bust their door down, demands his son. She’s a crazy artist, depraved.

Mama, still a vampire, sinks fangs into Nick’s father. Such precision, Nick thinks.

Nick can’t bite or fight.

He tries to shove his father, but arms flail. Mama keeps biting, until Dad collapses. Nutty bitch, he mutters, slinking away, blood coursing like sickly rivers.

Mama smiles. Nick smiles back, hopes smile conveys love. Gratitude.

Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University's MFA program in fiction.  Yash's work is forthcoming or has been published in journals such as 50 Word Stories, Silent Auctions, City. River. Tree. and Ariel Chart. 

Poetry in a Wintry Ravine by Carol Louise Moon

Noir poet brings me to this place.

She takes me down deeper into

this ravine, where rocks soak in cold

shadow.  Withered grass blades have

given up hope of damp, now waiting

in non-listening.

Birds don’t come here, preferring

the sunny tops of trees up on the

frosty ridge.

But I am here today, down under

and alone, dark book in hand.

My cool fingers flip the pages,

fearful eyes fixate on dark words.

The cold boulder on which I sit

hides a snake hole. And there,

even deeper underground are

coiled fangs in hibernation,

dreaming of those tiny tender

skittering tidbits of spring.

Carol Louise Moon’s poetry has appeared in many print journals in several states, including Sacramento Voices (X3) and Song of the San Joaquin (X5), also online journals including Peeking Cat Poetry (X10), Poppy Road Review (X4) and the Orchards. She is a monthly contributor to Medusa’s Kitchen for Poetry, and also her photography. 

The Warning by Michael Keshigian

He saw the of crows, hundreds of crows,

rising from across the countryside,

traversing above the massive lake

against a brilliant, blue sky

sheeted with sun’s yellow streaks,

distracting the clouds with unnerving cries,

blotting the light with ebony feathers.

Sitting dockside upon splintered planks

of a rented lakeside cottage,

he thought of invasive birds in movie plots

as he watched the crows descend

upon the neighbors house,

at once, blanketing trees, the manicured lawn,

and in their garden, upon the corn stalks

and designed vegetation,

becoming random punctuation marks,

various collections of periods,

commas, colons, and such

errantly dropped across the blossoming page

in the sudden stark whiteness of the day,

looming scavengers, emerging from the sky

to invade the calm, distinct summer mood.

And it was because of their penchant for darkness

that he retreated indoors

when a single, black crow,

an alpha avian, it seemed,

wandered into his yard

and curdled an ungodly caw

that drifted through the metallic sunlight,

severing the bird from those others

that inexplicably ravaged the neighbors effects

in the subtle, decaying aura of daylight.

Michael Keshigian’s thirteenth poetry collection, The Garden Of Summer was released April, 2019 by Flutter Press. He has been widely published in numerous national and international journals, recently including Red River Review, Sierra Nevada Review, Oyez Review, Bluepepper, Muddy River Review, Smoky Quartz and has appeared as feature writer in over twenty publications with 7 Pushcart Prize and 2 Best Of The Net nominations. (michaelkeshigian.com)

Burying My Cat by Linda Imbler

The storm raged and left,

so the forest ground is soft.

I imagine all the bones

to be found in five year’s time.

I always knew 

he did not want to be dead,

and as his haunting meows

echo through the air,

I am called to follow him 

to our mutual end.

Linda Imbler has five published poetry collections and one hybrid ebook of short fiction and poetry. She is a Kansas-based Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Nominee. More information can be found at lindaspoetryblog.blogspot.com.

Raven Says by Laurinda Lind

Want to talk about
a dreary midnight? How
about Eddy, parsing 
Paracelsus, threadbare 
drunk and mooning about
the dark? Actions have
consequences, if you go
gloomy you get me 
and my deadpan word 
that wows them in 
their drawing rooms 
with their death wishes,
their love of laudanum. 
 
Some people aren’t 
pleased to live anymore, 
give or take a Lenore, 
or Eddy with four more 
years of his bad living to go. 
I could stay, enjoy the show 
perched here on a statue. 
Pity the person who comes 
to clean his study once Eddy 
stumbles off over the edge 
of the earth, searching 
for all his gone girls.

Laurinda Lind lives in New York’s North Country. Some publications/acceptances are in Blue Earth Review, Midwest Quarterly, New American Writing, Paterson Literary Review, and Spillway; also anthologies Visiting Bob: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Bob Dylan (New Rivers) and AFTERMATH: Explorations of Loss and Grief(Radix).

Confluence by John C. Mannone

He sits on the banks of the Danube just beyond the confluence of the Brigach and Breg. The Black Forest is tinged purple by the morning. An east wind chills his heart. He pulls a tattered blanket around him, the one he had found on the outskirts of the village.

His haggard face, with four days growth and scarred from the fall, reflects a portrait of his past in the mirror stillness of the blue river. The sun blazing crimson, shimmers the water.

Flames had scoured the upstairs when he jumped. All his body parts were on fire. Even as he hurtled through the night air and plunged into the river, he was thinking about her, and why he had left her alone with him—that monster.

Guilt and rage now course through his veins in torrents; asceticism does not assuage that singeing guilt. He wonders in the lonely hours what he had done wrong. He had worked so hard on his research. His assistant, who perished in the flames, was always kind, though a little bit stupid. He didn’t have the criminal mind, or did he? And what about her? She was just a little girl, a frightened little girl who shouldn’t have screamed. His eyes burning, you can hear him cry out loud, “I am no monster. I was just a doctor trying to help. Just a doctor, like my father, and his.”

His face dissolves into distorted ripples in the stream, merging with haunting legacies for him, and all the Frankensteins.

* First appeared in Insomnia Press, October 2012

John C. Mannone has poetry in Artemis Journal, Poetry South, Blue Fifth Review, Baltimore Review, Pedestal, Pirene’s Fountain, and others. An HWA Horror Scholarship winner (2017), he edits poetry for Abyss & Apex, Silver Blade, and other venues. He’s a retired physics professor living near Chattanooga, TN.  http://jcmannone.wordpress.com.

Sleepwalking in the Season of Wind by M.J. Iuppa

A mind unwinds in sleep, unwinds in this

wind’s howl of affliction, of drawn-out

anguish that extinguishes one’s candle-

light under its tongue— without speaking, 

it’s sung—like the rise & dip of oars 

pulling through water—little gasps

of air, of not breathing— then, a hitch 

of one’s undoing—confessing 

everything to darkness and a far-flung sea.

M.J. Iuppa ‘s fourth poetry collection is This Thirst (Kelsay Books, 2017).  For the past 30 years, she has lived on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. Check out her blog: mjiuppa.blogspot.com for her musings on writing, sustainability & life’s stew.