Last Breath by John Grey

Her breath

died like the wind,

one moment blowing,

the next totally still –

no, more like a joke,

a burst of laughter,

then silence,

when the joke

didn’t seem so funny

after all -

no, like people

at an airport,

one leaving,

the rest staying –

no, make that

one staying behind,

the rest moving on

like the wind.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Hawaii Pacific Review, Dalhousie Review and Qwerty with work upcoming in Blueline, Willard and Maple and Clade Song.

Johnny Campbell by David Gross

always wore black biker's garb, Brando-style,

except for once when he tied a dirty pink tutu

he'd found at the dump around his greasy jeans

and followed behind the Halloween parade

until the chief of police had to pull him from two

zealous Baptists who dragged him down an alley

to beat the shit out of the queer.

Our mothers warned us to avoid him.

Dirty, Brillo pads erupting from nostrils,

ears, Groucho eyebrows, Harpo behavior.

In the sixties, at a wild party 

near the graveyard where he was sexton,

someone gave him a dose of L.S.D.

and grinning from ear to ear he disappeared

into the woods for three days.

Years later, punks broke into his ramshackle hut,

ransacked it, and finding nothing of value

stabbed him, doused it with gasoline,

and burned it to the ground.

Unclaimed by family or friend,

too poor to leave many memories.

Only an unmarked grave

behind a nearly forgotten cemetery

where honeysuckle is taking over.





David Gross' most recent collection is Little Egypt (Flutter Press, 2017), recent work in Contemporary Haibun Online, Haibun Today, and Otata. He and his wife Linda, live near the center of the Big Muddy watershed in southern Illinois where they enjoy grandchildren, gardening, birding, and hiking.

Sierra to the Extreme! by Zach Murphy

Sierra liked to eat ice cream during blizzards. She’d make snow angels and draw funny faces on them. 

In the Spring, she liked to bask in the grass for hours and hours, as if the insects were her friends. She’d talk to trees and will rainbows into the sky. 

In the Summer, she’d run to the edges of town and party until the morning sun greeted the horizon.

In the Fall, she’d dance through whirlwinds of leaves, watch horror films on rainy nights, and read scary stories in the dark.

When the worst Spring came, the doctors found something growing inside of her body. Sierra thought it looked like a tulip.

When the worst Summer came, Sierra couldn’t spend much time outside, and she could only dream of being in a different place.

When the worst Fall came, Sierra lost all of her hair. She dressed up in a different Halloween costume every single day of the month. And the next month, too.

During that last Winter, Sierra went into the hospital and never came home. The weight of silence was strong enough to shatter mountains. 

Every time I see a snowflake, I think of her. Every time a flower blooms, I think of her. Every time the heat swelters, I think of her. Every time a leaf falls, I think of her. 

My name is Stella and I miss my twin sister so goddamn much.  

Zach Murphy is a Hawaii-born, multi-faceted writer who somehow ended up in the charming but often chilly land of St. Paul, Minnesota. His stories have appeared in Haute Dish, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, WINK, and the Wayne Literary Review. He lives with his wonderful wife Kelly and loves cats and movies. 

The Storm Walker by Ed Ahern

There is a man, or what was a man

Who walks our storms in darkness.

On sleepless nights I see him striding

All wrapped in sheets of summer lightning

Or flushed with the sodden rain of fall.

The gentle nights are spent without him

Who rouses for the wind howl and snow

That consume his passage.

I think to join him in his trek

But fear that he will tell me

Of why he steps within this violence

Or worse, for whom he seeks.

Ed Ahern resumed writing after forty odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He’s had over two hundred fifty stories and poems published so far, and six books. Ed works the other side of writing at Bewildering Stories, where he sits on the review board and manages a posse of six review editors.

For Dylan Thomas's Death by Alan Yount

                dylan, after reading a biography of you

          I’m afraid I understand

your life way too well.

                   how at the end,

          you threw back that whiskey

“neat” as they say:

                   and as you said:

          “… eighteen straight whiskies,

I think that’s a record.”

                   yet your death, still hangs

          in the chill of a glass

some nights.

                   and drinking late,

          the whiskey calling, how I’ve felt

mistakenly immortal with you too:

                   knowing that burning in your mouth

          from whiskey, as if some words

were still coming alive.

                   was that leaded taste

          still heating an alchemy

into your well chosen words? 

                   or was your esophagus burning

          needing ice water

instead of those golden syllables.

                   who understands all this, in the end?

          where did such words come from

and why did they leave you so badly:

                   like a ship in a bottle lost off laugharne,

          dreaming, with one last false sailing, and a song too long

at the white horse tavern.

Alan Yount has published 136 poems, over the span of 50 years. He has published several poems in: “JerryJazzMusician,” over the last few years. The same journal Michael L. Newell has published many poems. This fall, he had two poems in “Big Scream,” the journal of the well known poet David Cope. For the summer issue, 2018, of WestWard Quarterly, he was the featured writer and poet. They published four of his poems. The issue had 50 poets.

On A Foot Bridge Too Narrow by M.J. Iuppa

We knew, at once, this meeting would end in impasse.

We walked towards each other on a rough-edged plank.          

Below the icy river raged, too dark to gauge; too swift

for safety. I won’t dive in. You can’t fly off. What to do?

Stand here, face to face, looking into each other’s dark

eyes, waiting for the first move? Stalemate, standoff,

deadlock— which one of us will turn our backs & slip

away? Which one of us will follow two steps behind,

like a crouching shadow? We could be stalled here for-

ever, not ready to shift forward or back.





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.

Radio Tavern by Jan Darrow

No one knew how the tavern got its name.  Perhaps during the war people went there to listen to swing music – Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, and Cab Calloway.  Maybe some went to forget, but it now stood crumbling, decrepit, and utterly desolate on an abandoned road high above Lake Michigan.  The only new thing there was a tower - and people said the cell phone service was great.

  

Someone said they saw John Makati’s cows near the abandoned road.

Maude, who always had a sweeping hairdo, asked Howard not to go up there, but he didn’t listen.  He never listened, and John Makati’s cows were always missing.

“John Makati needs to learn how to fix his fences,” she said to Howard a little while later.

 

Howard was up on that steep hill watching the lake.

 

“There’s a big freighter on the water Maudie. Probably going to Mackinaw!”

 

“What about the cows?”

Howard didn’t really care about the cows.

  

“No cows.  I’m coming home,” he said disgusted and hung up. Maude never could recognize a magical moment unless it was in a beauty shop.

At home Maude waited and waited, but Howard never arrived.

She tried calling him back and when there was no answer, she took their Labrador in her SUV and headed up the steep dead road. 

When she got to the top, she saw Howard’s empty truck. Great, she thought, now we’re going to miss the fish fry.

By the time the sun was getting low in the sky she was sufficiently irritated and called the police.

The sheriff and his men searched the hillside that night and into the next day.  They searched the surrounding area for the next couple of weeks, but Howard was never found.

Maude was grief stricken.  She couldn’t believe that her Howard was dead.

 

A few months later she took her dog and drove up the overgrown road and sat by the old lodge which for some reason gave her comfort.  She counted herself lucky to have had twenty-five happy years with Howard. 

 

Then, to her surprise, her phone rang.  It was Howard.

 

Maude could hardly contain herself. The cell phone service on the hill really was great. 

Jan Darrow is a poet from Michigan who connected with the natural world at an early age.  She has been published online and in print and finds abandoned places utterly beautiful.  You can see more of her work at jandarrow.blogspot.com.