Winston Plowes

The Dark Side of the Street

She says one day she’ll put a sail up and swap sides,
shoulder her way into our terrace and get more sun.

Winston Plowes is a Yorkshire boatman who scribbles in the margins of life with his cat.

Natasha Kafka

The Curse of a Mirror

I looked at the mirror
and saw hundreds
of you.

Natasha Kafka is a large small creature living under the sea and writing poetry to make her father Triton joyful as Santa Claus.

 

Nadia Wolnisty

I Left

There were too many clocks,
and no one ever said anything at dinner.

Nadia Wolnisty has chapbooks from Cringe-Worthy Poetry Collective, Dancing Girl Press, and from Finishing Line Press and a full-length from Spartan.

 

Jeanie Tomasko

Craigslist

Because no matter the weather, the work of the birds
is to shine, like this morning’s five rusty gray sparrows
huddled in the overnight snow on the horn and handlebars
and along the horizon of the gleaming exhaust pipe
of the blue motorcycle that won’t start, $800 OBO, as is.

Jeanie Tomasko lives in Wisconsin with two overstuffed cats and a forthcoming dog.

 

Kim Ellingson

Untitled #9

His voice changes when
he talks to you.

Kim Ellingson, poet and activist, whose work has appeared in FIVE:2:ONE, is a writer in residence at Var Gallery in Milwaukee.

Peter C. Venable

In Blue Robe

In blue robe, fuzzy slippers, you sip coffee
wet hair hanging from morning sunbeams.

Peter C. Venable serves a life sentence, condemned to write poetry and hopes to flavor his with wit on wry.

 

J. R. Solonche

The House to Myself This Afternoon

The house to myself this afternoon,
I could go upstairs and lie on my back
in the spare room, on the sofa, my head
on two or three pillows, my legs folded up
with somebody’s book on my knees,
in the sun from my chest up, the book
between the sun and the window shadow,
turning the pages from dark to light,
from light to dark again, the poems passing
thus between my hands from light to dark,
from dark to light, and I could lie there
for two hours or for three hours until the sun
passed altogether out of the window and I was
chest up in cold shadow, but I have done that
already, and it served its purpose,
which was to ease the pain of life, which was
to make death, for two hours or for three hours,
seem no more than a passing of one page
into another page, an easing from light into dark,
from dark into light, a leaving, so I must think
of something else I could do, something other
than this that will likewise serve its purpose,
that will likewise be a passing of a page into a page,
that will likewise be an easing from light to dark
to light, that will likewise be a leaving, a leaving.

J. R. Solonche has been publishing in magazines, journals, and anthologies since the early 70s and is the author of six poetry collections.