issue 01
released july 1, 2024 | edited by jaylee marchese
featuring works by
Diane Funston, Julie Allyn Johnson, William Doreski, Jeffrey Zable, Joan Lerman, Cheryl Rebello, Juanita Rey, Kenneth Pobo, A.M Potter, Diane Webster, Sean J. Mahoney, Tara Zafft, Corey Mesler, Burt Rashbaum, Anthony Ward, Gloria Bromberg, Chris Wardle, Nancy Machlis Rechtman, Noah Walters, Konrad Ehresman, Mercedes Lawry, Rachael Isabella Zeelie, Elias Acquista, David McCorkindale, Charlene Pierce, Susan Kolon, Ruth Towne, John Dorroh, Liz Abrams-Morley, DJ Murphy, James Kowalczyk, Nina Richard, Maya Cheav, Treasa Nealon, Arvilla Fee, Micheal Robert Gordon, Eric Fisher Stone, C.W. Bryan, & Heather Sager.
chartres
Diane Funston
The cathedral windows catch Spring sunlight,
a kaleidoscope of colors
in diminutive glass.
Spirograph designs, spinning circles
of fractured light
play upon ancient stone walls
as statues come to life.
Illuminated from above,
marble faces enraptured,
frozen in repose---
the saints stare down upon us,
so small amidst the grandeur
we stand upon the labyrinth of centuries
tilting our heads upward,
past the soaring frescoes,
man-made altars,
wrought-iron majesty
above the winged gargoyles
above, still
to the very beginning
of light.
Diane Funston, recent Poet-in-Residence for Yuba Sutter Arts and Culture for two years, created online “Poetry Square” bringing together poets worldwide. She has been published in F(r)iction, Lake Affect Magazine, Synkronicity and Still Points Quarterly among many others. Her chapbook “Over the Falls” was published by Foothills Publishing.
everglades
Julie Allyn Johnson
I remain agnostic
when I speak of the vigors
of familial harmony
though I’m not even sure
what that means.
grey feathers encircle my waist,
they breathe in and out, often out of flux
with the meanderings of swollen creek beds
or turkey vultures that soar, expectantly,
above dying, fire-suppressed forests.
the red mangroves that sometimes flounder
in the Florida wetlands continue to creep,
teeming clear waters flush with crocodiles
and alligators, countless heron and cormorants,
the red-shouldered hawk, the pileated woodpecker.
lichen and bromeliads weigh me down,
they tangle and shred my boat’s propeller—
would that my draft allowed more leeway
so I might better navigate these boggy waters
Julie Allyn Johnson is a sawyer's daughter from the American Midwest whose current obsession is tackling the rough and tumble sport of quilting and the accumulation of fabric. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, her poetry can be found in Star*Line, The Briar Cliff Review, Phantom Kangaroo, Lyrical Iowa, Cream Scene Carnival, Coffin Bell, The Lake, Haikuniverse, Chestnut Review and other journals.
the light of the sea
William Doreski
Although the light of the sea
creeps seventy miles inland
it fails to illuminate this page.
But it brings news of tidepools
flushed by unnatural warming,
stocks of herring and haddock
depleted and too small to eat.
Plastic waste drifts from China
around the horn to wash ashore
on Copacabana Beach where
Madonna drew one and a half
million for a public concert.
I wish I had been there to gawk
at the overwhelming landscape
lush with music and luxury.
Trying to read about the crowd
and its response to that aging star
I can barely make out the words.
The light of the sea doesn’t cast
the lanky shadows I need
so I turn my face to the sun,
which denies the allegation
that it presides over a planet
too ignorant to know it’s dying.
William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. He has taught at several colleges and universities. His most recent book of poetry is Cloud Mountain (2024). His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in many journals.
ghosthood
Kenneth Pobo
When I earn ghosthood,
I’ll be twilight
at someone’s picnic. Or
dawn when Bernie
the milk man rattles up
in his truck and puts
two bottles on
my back step. I won’t
haunt anyone,
just say Boo
to get a rise out of
busy ants.
​Kenneth Pobo has a new chapbook forthcoming from Wolfson Press called Raylene And Skip. Last year Ethel Press published his collection called Gold Bracelet in a Cave: Aunt Stokesia.
while i continue to remain
Jeffrey Zable
The thing about missing people is that I miss too many people:
people I cared about and who cared about me—not all of the time,
but a good deal of the time.
​
The people who seemed to care the most were relatives, which is no
surprise since I grew up knowing these people and had the most
important connection with them. I’m speaking of my parents, a few aunts,
and a couple of cousins— but there were also friends and teachers
with whom I worked and knew for many years.
​
I guess the main reason why I’m writing this is because I’m feeling sad
at the moment thinking of these people, including a fellow poet friend
that I knew for over forty years--who just passed the other day.
​
All I can say is that it’s hard to keep losing people, while I continue
to remain . . .
Jeffrey Zable is a teacher, conga drummer/percussionist who plays for dance classes and rumbas around the San Francisco Bay Area, and a writer of poetry, flash-fiction, and non-fiction. He’s published five chapbooks and his writing has appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and anthologies, more recently in Chewers & Masticadores, Linked Verse, Ranger, Cacti Fur, Uppagus, Midsummer Dream House and many others. . .
near loveland, colorado
Kenneth Pobo
I sing along
with Marianne Faithfull,
songs like walking
into a spider web
at nightfall. When
the road curves,
Marianne and I
curve with it—
at the end
of the bend:
aspens! The road
flashes flame
against mountains.
poetry without poetry
Joan Lerman
I don’t know
if he ever wrote her a poem.
But he was a poet,
one of the most well known
of any era.
Magda wrote him a fan letter:
I’ve never wished to become
anyone else, but now I wish I were
Ellen Key, she penned,
because the dedication of “Stories of God”
is to her; but I am convinced
that my appreciation for this work
is greater than anyone else’s!
And before they met,
indeed after the first receipt,
Rilke began to write in response to Magda,
reams of letters a day. Day after day,
he wrote and shared his life
though first it was just a simple,
polite reply, good that you cannot become
Ellen, and thank you!
But it became lyrical pages upon pages
each day greeting her as a long- lost friend,
whom he renamed Benvenuta, and he reached
for what he felt was a balm and cure
for his misshapen real life
while he told her
my art, Benvenuta, my art is pure:
I know that. I have worked and worked
for the truth of my writing
but my life
is in shreds now.
And you were surely sent to me,
O my dear Benvenuta,
and to think we can meet,
and you will play for me!
The Bach-Busoni, pure angelic notes
of music! Do we not always thirst for music!
Magda toured widely across Europe,
performing solo piano.
Just think, he would muse,
I must live alone,
because if it were otherwise,
when I wish to immerse myself in a subject
that I see outdoors
so fully to become it - - one would first have to ask permission
of that other individual to ‘immerse oneself’ let us say
in the dog …
Daily letters reminiscing about his childhood,
misery in a military school,
but before that, the anticipation
of greeting his little playmates
for afternoon tea,
“At four o’clock, or rather, a little earlier”
the comforting phrase to keep in mind
that day.
He mourned his broken life,
marriage, one child, quickly dissolved
into an agreed separation.
He probably did not write a poem
to Benvenuta, yet as a poet
his daily outpouring of autobiographical letters,
paces one by one, confiding in a never-met stranger
as a heart companion right from the start:
they did meet, and she later recounted the friendship
in a published diary.
She wrote that after his death
she walked amongst the townspeople of Muzot
where Rainer Maria Rilke had lived,
and they all seemed to carry a remembrance of him
as they greeted her with a gentle nod:
“Bon jour, ma soeur.”
He would say to Magda:
You were playing for me
at the concert?
I felt you were playing straight to me, even to me
alone!
She affirmed that yes she had played for him,
right to him.
Indeed I’ve played for you
ever since knowing you. Yes.
In the end they parted,
not to continue their friendship,
as it had lasted for a span of time
giving ineffable gifts
and then as if suddenly folded in
upon itself,
like a book
of poetry,
closed.
​Joan Lerman is a writer and musician living in Southern California. Semi-retired from the field of speech-language pathology, she now works as a freelance editor. Her poetry has appeared in Emmanuel Magazine, Academy of the Heart and Mind, and forthcoming in both New Croton Review and 300 Days of Sun.
and that owl
Chris Wardle
Six degrees Celsius,
and we're celebrating
the Eclipse,
with ice-cream,
and gratitude blooming,
for synchronicities,
small and large,
spoonfully swirling
through a knowing mouth,
aligning every sense, like
Earth,
Moon,
Sun,
and that Owl
calling like an Azan,
to worship, to worship, to-woo.
​
===
​
20240408: Bayswater Mill Stream, Oxford, UK.
​Chris Wardle (Hamza) works at being happy and grateful, while writing with an eye for wonder, a taste for questions, and a sense of proximity to the Sacred. His publication record includes: Blue Minaret; Pandemonium; Green Ink; Amethyst Review; Nowhere Girl; Suburban Witchcraft; and hs work is forthcoming in Anomaly; Aureation; and Sublimation.
a comedy
Juanita Rey
I am the pregnant woman
sitting alone
in the cinema.
The screen crackles awake.
A light ray shines above me.
Real life ends,
thank God.
Vicarious begins.
I emerge from
the swill of my day to day
into another’s script.
No wonder my face glows
with expectation.
But behind me,
some guy is talking on his cellphone.
A couple in front
get all close and sultry.
And down in my guts,
new life shocks me like a current.
One lone popcorn
on my tongue
struggles to break free.
One gulp.
Swallowed.
Unlike me,
the movie comes and goes
I don’t think it even breaks a sweat.
​Juanita Rey is a Dominican poet, US resident. Her work has been published in Mixed Mag, The Mantle and Lion and Lilac amongst others..
maverick cat
Diane Webster
Evening, as dusk darkens,
sparrows, finches, then doves
fly in for their last meal of the day.
One cat sits in his backyard;
his back pretends nonchalance,
but his eyes analyze
flight patterns of come and go.
​
His fur smears gray over his back
while white wraps his chest and shoulders.
Last light or first dusk plays in his coat –
white shoulder blades sprout full-moon white
like tiny wings if he had had them,
he would have soared into the air,
chased a dove on flight level,
and grasped his prey in killer fangs.
But the optical illusion of wings
disappears as the cat sashays away
to his home offering chicken-flavored kibbles
and the birds tuck close together
in between nighttime branches.
​Diane Webster's work has appeared in Studio One, North Dakota Quarterly, New English Review, Verdad and other literary magazines. She had micro-chaps published by Origami Poetry Press in 2022, 2023 and 2024. One of Diane's poems was nominated for Best of the Net in 2022. Diane retired in 2022 after 40 years in the newspaper industry.
passing time at your funeral
Sean J. Mahoney
The drama of the 2nd movement,
Possibility,
A sense of discovery, energy,
A feeling that all is in spiral,
That I am losing control of senses.
Music folds back upon itself, asserting
Loss and hunger, of course vulnerability.
A treasure of sorrow, of longing,
Of letting the world go as if but
A hammer toss. You spiral, recover
Balance, recall a competency, a lick
Of time, another taste of memory as if
In a balloon, as if in a bath full, hot
Soapy water, and beneath one film
Plays another, one frame after
Another and here now we must
Kiss, and here we create beast marks
Upon the breast of the other, locked
In as if a destined target of the other…
Sean J Mahoney lives in Santa Ana, California with Dianne, her mother, 4 dogs, and 4 renters. He believes Judas a way better singer than Jesus and dark chocolate extraordinarily good for people. His chapbook...Politics or Disease, please…is available from Finishing Line Press.
story of lost things
Tara Zafft
​
The oatmeal, the kasha that day
was watery, sweet, pools of
butter reflected my tired eyes
it was 1990, it was Russia
I didn’t mind the watery breakfast
or dry rolls, I loved the sharp-up-your-sinuses
smell of the bread, chorny khleb,
that would break a toe
if dropped, the bread I would eat
every day ten years later
covered in honey, morning-sickness-survival
even now bread and honey
feel like becoming a mama, but that morning
of watery kasha I was fuzzy-headed tired
too late staying up with sweet tea and Pushkin
and I left my coin purse on my cafeteria tray
the coin purse I was given by Thadie
the summer I lived with her and her family
​
in Soweto, the summer I went to a church
without hymn books, a church with
dancing and harmonies and joy
and tears
Siya humba kukan yeni kwinko
We are walking in the light of God
Thadie sang and took my hand and we danced
and I felt in my bones a God I had thought
had forgotten me, that coin purse had been
hers as a child and she gave it to me and said,
remember me, and when I remembered
and returned to the cafeteria
it was lost, and Thadie was lost, and that summer
was lost and God in my bones was lost
and the mealy meal we ate with our hands
the way she would pound her chest
and laugh, lost, but
is anything ever lost? thirty-three years later
my chest hot from coffee
with a small drop of honey, the sun rising
a new day.
Tara Zafft has a BA from UC San Diego and Ph.D in Russian literature from the University of Bath, UK. She began writing poetry when she was thirteen, and only recently began submitting her work for publication. She has poems published in the anthology, Rumors Secrets and Lies, Poems about Abortion, Pregnancy and Choice, Write-Haus, Aether Avenue Press, The San Diego Poetry Annual, Vita and the Woolf Literary Journal, and Dumbo Press.
fishing on the little salmon river
A.M Potter
​
It is springtime on the Little Salmon River.
Grandmother and I fish together and
together we wish the fish
would come when we call.
But they are stubborn fish, deaf
to hungry voices, blind to our best tied flies.
Fishless, we eat potatoes for supper.
Baked in the campfire, steaming hot,
they chase the evening chill
back down the Sawtooth Mountains.
Grandmother sighs, smiles, speaks to me:
the promise of rainbows on our morning lines,
the memories that wander an old woman’s mind.
“I was born right here on Blue Bunch Ridge.”
Her stubby grandma finger points to the
blackening blue, where mountain meets sky.
“I fished this river beside my father, my husband,
my son, and his son, which is you.”
For just a minute, her voice was sad
and I knew she was thinking of Grandpa.
Then she laughed. “I’ve eaten a lot
of potatoes sitting in this spot.”
Ann Marie Potter recently graduated from a PhD program in fiction at Oklahoma State University while enjoying her first year in the beautiful state of Wyoming. Her poetry has been published in The Storyteller, Thirteen Myna Birds and Velvet Antler.
Ann Marie Potter recently graduated from a PhD program in fiction at Oklahoma State University while enjoying her first year in the beautiful state of Wyoming. Her poetry has been published in The Storyteller, Thirteen Myna Birds and Velvet Antler.
the dog, older
Corey Mesler
​
Saskia has gone deaf.
No more the call of
the wild. It falls on
stone. She can still
sing, loud enough to
disturb the quidnunc
neighbor, her song of
being, which I love,
which she herself hears
only in her heart. It’s
rough growing old,
so much dropping away,
lost. I move as gingerly
as she does. She gets
up slowly from her outdoor
mat. I hold the door for
her like a gentleman, just
as someone holds it for me.
​Corey Mesler has been published in numerous anthologies and journals including Poetry, Gargoyle, Lunch Ticket, Five Points, Good Poems American Places, and New Stories from the South. He has published over 45 books of fiction and poetry. With his wife he runs Burke’s Book Store (est. 1875) in Memphis.
somewhere
Burt Rashbaum
​
Somewhere in the
deepest recesses of time:
some unknowable place
where even now and then
confuse each other,
where darkness dances
with light so that day is night
and night is a
flavor on the tongue;
where someone's son
can be someone's mother,
and someone old becomes
someone young;
where light is a thing
only known and not seen,
and sound can be
wrapped around
and around itself
so the utterance
of a name
can go on forever
in a blink
never sound the same
flow like a river and
sink like a stone;
in this place
souls dance and collide,
become one and split off
beyond physical dimensions,
in this place
barely a sound, hardly a voice,
echoes inside my head: rejoice.
rejoice in the day, the light, the breath!
dance and spin before the day begins!
make love to the moon,
walk with laughter,
cry in the arms of someone you love,
sing in a chorus
and thank the stars
and thank each other,
and dream the light so bright
it'll carry us all the way to aquarius,
and dream this,
this moment, this present,
this sound of a singular vow:
a kiss.
dream it all while we're awake,
take it home tonight,
connect the dots and
make new constellations.
we have two gifts
given at birth
ours to cherish til
we leave this earth:
inhalation and exhalation.
take in the breath
and we stave off death:
a dance, a chance
to bring hope and light and love and
whatever we want into our lives,
the exhale is our opportunity to shed,
clear our head,
cleanse and expel
our private hell;
extinguish the karmic
conflagration:
these are our weapons
of creation
of this life, this life, this fine life,
this wine life, this living breathing thing that surrounds us,
comforts and tears us and clears us and wears us down
and brings us up and leaves us lonely and
takes us into the hearts of strangers and connects us,
and loves us and breathes us, and fills us,
and fills us, and fills us.
Burt Rashbaum’s poems have appeared in American Writers Review: Turmoil and Recovery (San Fedele Press, 2021), The Antonym, The Seventh Quarry, Storms of the Inland Sea (Shanti Arts Press, 2022), Boats Against the Current, The Ravens Perch, Valiant Scribe, The Bluebird Word, and The Seraphic Review.
addiction counselor's lament
Gloria Bromberg
​
My afternoon and evening spent
at the treatment center, listening to addicts
​
who fear they missed the last bus
long ago. They’re hoping
I’ll give them hope. I’m praying
they’ll accept it. Praying we won’t get
yet another call from the coroner: Tenderloin hotel,
dirty syringes, pipes. Tonight, even I’ve heard enough
to miss the fast and familiar detour of a joint,
hit of heroin, bottle of wine. I flash my pass
as I board; the driver barely glances at me
and I walk to the back of the bus, dump my pack
on the seat, distance myself from other passengers
nodding out, drunk & flatulent. Happy Hour’s
way over. I look out the window, watch stuff go by
the way I watch my thoughts go by: holding on
. . . to nothing. There goes the dealer on Fillmore
& McAllister, stuffing his pockets; there goes
a Day-Glo orange cab, Big Dog City
stenciled on the doors, cutting off
a blue Volvo; there’s the crowd
outside the Lutheran church—some 12-step meeting;
here comes the panhandler, sitting on a crate
in front of the health food store,
palms up—all of us, alone
together, trying to get home.
Gloria Bromberg is happily retired after a varied work life as a bookstore clerk, artists’ model, literacy tutor, sex educator, addiction counselor and psychotherapist. Their poetry can be found in Hobo Camp Review, Orenaug Mountain Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. They live in Berkeley.
asphyxiation
Anthony Ward
​
I’m suffocated by time,
It travels so fast
That my life is consumed-
Thus, marooned by it.
There’s too much space,
I can’t breathe,
Incapacitated from my life,
Serving my time to society,
All prepared for my consumption,
Whether appetizing or not.
I add condiments to compliment it,
Spice it up even,
For they say that life is what you make it.
Yet at times,
You may bake something,
And it doesn’t always turn out the way you would have hoped,
Or expected,
For, if you find the victuals disagreeable
Then it becomes a waste of time,
For life isn’t so much what you make it,
As to what you make of it.
Anthony tends to fidget with his thoughts in the hope of laying them to rest. He has managed to lay them in a
number of establishments, including Shot Glass Journal, Jerry Jazz Musician, Cold Moon Journal, Highland Park Poetry, and CommuterLit.
dancing my song
Nancy Machlis Rechtman
​
When I was young
I wanted to taste life
Let the ruby juices run down my face in rivulets
And paint pictures in the sand
Even if the tides washed them away.
I wanted to dance my song across oceans
And find love in every swell
And see my dreams in the clouds as I soared through them
Sprinkling moondust through my hair
So that wishes could come true.
And as the veil of time has attempted to settle over my eyes
And my song is harder to hear
It’s still there
And I won’t shrink into the darkness
That tries to convince me I should take up less space now
And stop hoping dreams can be real.
I believe there is at least one more act to play out
Despite how crushing life can be
But to stop striving is oblivion
And just because it’s closer to the end than the beginning
Doesn’t mean that dazzling flashes of brilliance
Still can’t blaze across the horizon
Before the sun gradually sinks into the night.
Anthony tends to fidget with his thoughts in the hope of laying them to rest. He has managed to lay them in aNancy Machlis Rechtman has had poetry and short stories published in Your Daily Poem, miniMAG, Young Ravens, The Bluebird Word, Discretionary Love, and more. She wrote freelance Lifestyle stories for a local newspaper, and was the copy editor for another paper. She writes a blog called Inanities at https://nancywriteon.wordpress.com.
all animal
Tara Zafft
​
I find the sliver, slant of light
coming through the morning air. Fall
heavy onto the dance floor, like I imagine
dancers do. On stage. How they make
falling look so easy. Painless. I pretend a soft
surrender. Falling into warm sand. Like
​
the sea lions of my San Diego
childhood, who would beach themselves
in La Jolla. Fall like they belonged. Protected
by a cove, my little-girl-self
envied. And today, grabbing the first
bits of pre-Spring sunshine, I am all animal.
Bony flesh, basking in the sun. Falling
like I belong.
cavities
Noah Walters
​
I said, “I’m sorry, do I know you?”
to the woman in the dentist’s office
who lifted the People mag back up
like I hadn't just asked her if she
knew me, like she hadn’t just stared.
I’m bad with faces; looks like she is
too. But it made me think that maybe
she did know me, not who I really am but
who I am to her: a dead husband?
lost son? a romance ended for a new one?
At the very least: a cavity, a hole in a life
where a filling is now, a smooth white
porcelain crown. Where the soul has
gone there may yet be whispers of
the vanished physicality, like a foreign body
attached to a friendly face in the dentist’s office.
…
The dentist said my teeth were healthy,
I just need to start flossing more often.
​Noah Walters is originally from Marion, Illinois. He is pursuing degrees in economics and accounting and is the 2023-2024 recipient of the Evans Harrington Creative Writing Award at the University of Mississippi.
tinder
Konrad Ehresman
​
I want to hear the story of the first time you felt yourself cracking
tell me how tightly you had to be held to stop from breaking
tell me how you were lost
how you managed to become both search party and the found
tell me the dark scares you
that every night you worry you’ll never see the sun
then confess the sun is your father
that you haven’t seen the light since you were six
and do not feel embarrassed
I know too, fear in the absence of warmth.
Reassure me it is not all bad;
name for me the little joys that turn your ribs from cage to runway
how the sky feels to a soaring heart.
Tell me how despite it all you taught yourself to garden,
planted honeysuckle under your tongue
filled your mouth with gracious ground
how kissing you will tase of cold earth and growth.
I am no good at small talk, so tell me only the
things too big to fit on this first date table
let me hold them with you
if just for the night.
Konrad Ehresman is a poet and creative living on the central coast of California. His work has been published or is forthcoming in BarBar, You Might Need to Hear This, Bluebird Word, and The Racket among others. When he isn't writing, or reading anything he can get his hands on, you can find him baking far too much bread and being a general nuisance.
stalemate
Mercedes Lawry
​
roots in a simple tangle
the desiccated apples hang limp
among silvered moss
such a weft of clouds
a wind ever lightly, a whiskered breath
this February morning aches
of gray and a strange beauty
even plunging into language,
prayer or story,
does not allay absence
here, in this bruised winter
Mercedes Lawry is the author of three chapbooks. Her collection, Vestiges, was published in late 2022 by Kelsay Books. Her new collection, Small Measures, is available from ELJ Editions. She’s been a Jack Straw Writer and held a residency at Hedgebrook. She’s also published short fiction in numerous magazines.
thumbs by lucy dacus
Rachael Isabella Zeelie
​
her radio-wave remedy held me down,
floodlights flatlining along the oncoming road.
both our hands itching to embrace steel beast to soft limb, to be pulled, metallic, bloodied, esoterically etched into eternity - but fingers kept vigil on the Wheel.
(which is to say that you had tried this once
and I would try it soon)
your eyes front-facing, preyed on animal.
I closed mine and opened yours,
hand-me-downs from your mother,
but both reassuring as deer to concrete bed
that looks likened to her were the sole look-a-likes a soul severed ties, we both promised.
(which is to say that our bond was based in bane)
this is the first time.
a thousand white windmills glitching in summer heat chase after us, a child racing cars.
you can’t outrun home, but god we did try.
stars stab scars in our skulls, space helmet strainers, Lucy the soundtrack to our great escape.
(which is to say that only one of us would truly make it out)
you assumed I had heard the song before.
(which is to say that you vowed to do good,
this time.
spiting the several preceding stems
who failed reaching sunlight.
who is to say you’ll grow farther than them?)
I, silent in my response,
like some locked dialogue video game character.
(which is to say that I felled the tree by the roots.
this is the last time, my intentions were set;
we both needed someone to hold.)
Rachael Isabella Zeelie is a young UK-based poet with a penchant for the strange and unsettling. They use poetry as a medium to explore queer identity, religion and individualism and have been previously published online at Nowhere Girl Collective and Discretionary Love.
tenor
Elias Acquista
​
She always reminded me of a wind chime, belting in her room, pitches ordered like iridescent koi scales and eye whites, flooding the room with the hum of a thousand fairies. Her guitars whispered their accompaniment,
peeling off the walls to drip onto the floor
and coat the room in corn syrup. She sang louder while I sank into her bed, sank into the aggregate, drank her voice like limeade and I wish I could be her guitar so I grasped for her and exhaled
and she’s gone, the room is dark,
the violins weep the songs of each other
carried through plush curtains
they cry, my face burns, the room fills
with ocean water but I can’t swim,
and the cellos are loud and the strings
are braided while the conductor tries
to raise his arms and it’s loud when
I’m alone, trying to figure out
the sour pitch the chipped tile
the instrument begging me
they’re screaming. I’m drowning.
I inhale.
Elias Acquista (she/he) is an artist from San Diego, California. He loves all things contemporary: art, poetry, dance. She hopes that one day her status as an eternally hopeful romantic will pay off.
beast
David McCorkindale
​
In the long grass of my life
something is moving,
I hear it circle around,
feel its presence
coming ever closer.
It means to do me harm,
I know.
I do not recall when I first
became aware
of the air of menace,
of being watched.
There is certainly no recollection
from my younger years,
but then,
perhaps I was simply heedless,
or, more likely,
with youthful bravado,
I just didn't care.
But one becomes more attentive,
one's senses more attuned,
with each passing year,
as one finds the future shortening,
and the day
coming ever closer
when the beast will pounce.
​David took up writing poetry as a hobby after retiring. He would never claim to be a poet, he just likes writing the stuff. To his surprise he has had some works published in journals such as Acumen, Reach Poetry, and Dawn Treader.
pile of leaves
Charlene Pierce
​​
Over and over, Dad raked all the dried leaves
into a pile in the front lawn
just for my brother and I to jump in.
We jumped feet first, and backwards,
belly flopped, buried each other in them,
gathered them in our arms
and threw them into the air
tried to catch them as they fluttered down.
Dad kept raking and piling,
sweat soaked through
his short-sleeved shirt with pearl buttons,
leaf dust coated his cowboy boots.
Then he stood with one work-worn hand over the other
at the top of the rake, leaning into it
with his chin on his hands
like a camera on a pedestal
the golden lens of his eyes watching us.
After he moved away,
after we were grown
how many times
did he close his eyes and summon
the September sun,
the rake in his hands,
watching his children crumble leaves
just to feel the crunch of it, watching
the leaves poof into the air when
his children plopped into the pile.
I wish I would have known to thank my father
for creating a make-shift playground
for letting us make a mess
of the lawn, get dirty
for not caring when we splashed
water out of the tub that night,
for not caring when the neighbors complained
about the crushed leaves never bagged,
how every fall when the leaves turn
to rust and gold I can close my eyes
and feel the weightless freedom
of falling.
​Charlene Pierce is founder and President of the non-profit Nebraska Poetry Society. Her work has been published in "Misbehaving Nebraskans," "The Good Life Review," and forthcoming in "Quarter(ly)," among others. She is a Copyeditor for the "Raleigh Review" and a freelance writer studying for her MFA at Pacific University.
at the ford dealership
Charlene Pierce
​
Like a Bally Girl, I’m leaping hoops
of changing budgets
dazzling clients with PowerPoint slides,
for my take.
The Ringleader told me to
wear a dress
for these men who own
dealerships like women.
I watched one of these men,
one of these Very Important Clients
with lots of money to spend,
slap
my colleague
on the ass
in front of everyone.
The sound whipped
through their laughter.
She’s a minister on Sundays, but today,
like me, she was selling
ads for the newspaper
who told her to wear a dress.
At the circus,
when the tigers come out,
sleek and strong and powerful
the Ringleader cracks his whip.
Children cry, afraid
the whip will hurt.
It’s ok. It doesn’t hurt.
Why do we tell such lies?
sound bites
Susan Kolon
​
My mother, the first person I love
who hurts with a spoon full of scorn.
What I hate most I got from her
— tongue, acid as horseradish, lying
on the belly of beef tenderloin.
Her salty scramble of maternal wisdom
tying my words into wounded silence.
What I love most is her opposite,
spectacular women who dared to go
to college when most got married
at nineteen, their love language
aroused by an awakened mind
rather than a smiley face fashioned
on a chocolate chip pancake.
My mother came close,
braving a path as Michigan's first female
sportswriter, her words a grand slam
of competition and comebacks.
Detoured by a ring, chooses
confetti frosting, finds herself
in the kitchen during the Superbowl.
Her score of self-losses too sharp to stay silent,
she aims her regret toward daughters
she said she wanted, sends us to college,
then spits on our liberated dreams.
I get the grades, get published, buy the house,
stay single. Not one to want more for me
than what she could have had, her scald turns
to seethe. Coaxed by success, I come back at her
with the bitter of words so well taught.
Susan Kolon works as a health educator and writes from Chicago. She likes to commingle perspectives in her poetry, showing moments of wrestle and worth. She is currently at work on her first book of poems.
extinguishing lies
Susan Kolon
​
My forever marriage was a starter marriage
and I have told half-truths about it for an
eternity. I didn’t end my marriage after he
nearly burned our house down with an oven
mitt. But that’s how I told it.
Fueled with turned-in anger, picket fence denied
by my pick of a life partner, I cried, I married
a drunk! Soaked in Jack Daniels, flames torching,
he simmered, You don’t have permission to save
me, and I broke free from the inferno. Broke
my vows, broke his heart, took the blame.
Who leaves someone with an addiction?
asked law school friends. His crusade a clever
blueprint of manipulation. He got the house, the
401K. In court, lawyers lie; marry one at your
own risk. I cleaved my own campaign with veiled
contempt, the drunk’s wife wronged. I was corked
tight, on a decided pilgrimage of work promises not to
be waylaid by hangovers, headaches, or dulled wits.
Once on the partner track, he chased after it.
Heinekens during Monday Night Football, Bacardi
shots at Happy Hour, jelly jars of bourbon on a rainy
Saturday. Boring to me, numbing to him. So I rekindle,
tempt, attempt with a foundation of fortitude. Run,
read, sex together. The better half, be better, be more
than a working wife. A ring of smoke and fumes leaves
an echo reverberating on the unsteady bottle of my
poor choice. I used the fire to tell the story, exchanging
a life I wouldn’t have for one I thought I deserved.
Years on, my self-gaslighting sparks a truth, a flint
of wedded responsibility, I let go. Today, I almost never
think of him. It has taken me longer than the five years I
was married to forget the person in the marriage I have
now left behind. Well, that’s tidy. Still half-truthing, still
exercising ghosts. What I really did was sing a hymn of
devout hypocrisy. Measuring the alcohol consumption on
every date, weighting an indifferent response as equal
to ill temperament, not saving him(s) – even when asked.
What hasn’t left is me as judge in a court room of forgiveness,
yet to grant relief, to love despite firestorms, warts, and all.
sweets to the sweet
Ruth Towne
​
In a far lane, a capped swimmer slaps
water, lap after lap, two cupped hands
clap in cavernous room, the steady
beat of a vena cava. I wade deeper
than my knees. Chlorine circumvents
the scent of lavender I used in a room
in a distant life. Three drips of herbal oil
to one drinking glass produces this—
memory of ammonia, chloramines trapped
in black nylon swimwear, against skin,
deep in damp hair. I wade here, past thigh
to hip until I begin to swim. How strange,
to fail the diving board leap and swimming
school, then to use the public pool to soothe
one’s self. Slight the measure—one second
in twelve days span, one drop in eighteen
gallons—the scent of chlorine floods
my senses, water against me presses
on all sides. As I move, water smooths
me. I am the stones I carry. I reach out
for laps ever toward the deep end. Calm,
the deeper water I tread inside my mind.
Ruth Towne is the author of Resurrection of the Mannequins, (Kelsay Books 2025). Her poetry has recently been published by Holy Gossip, The Lily Poetry Review, and Anodyne Magazine. She was a co-editor of poetry for the Stonecoast Literary Review, Summer 2024.
drought summer
Liz Abrams-Morley
​​
in Chanticleer Garden
Saturation, heavy air. You think rain, but it’s only
sprinklers spitting drops, no water falling over rock,
no water music, only the low hum of cicada. Even the bees
are languishing, even the fountain-fed pond so low
the sunken stone girl’s head lifts almost high enough to break
the cloudy surface of water, as if she will open her mouth for one
sharp inhale before summer closes. Last spring,
large hungry carp mouths gaped as I passed their pond,
my shadow on its clean, high waters a signal: the possibility
of crumbs. Today only one tiny goldfish, the sort a child might win
tossing ping-pong balls into buckets at the end-of-the-school-year fair.
We flushed so many when my children, now parents,
brought us the prize fish in plastic baggies, water just enough
to keep them alive the five long blocks home.
In a Five-and-Dime store bowl of tap water we never filtered,
one by one they let go life then received burial at sea via
waste pipes of Dorset Lane. Call it a classless funeral,
an act of faith or superstition. I’ve always honored the power
of ritual—I’m thinking that today as I toss a lucky penny
into a fountain and listen for the plink.
Raised by a mother who tossed every school photo, poem,
handmade Mother’s Day card crafted of construction paper,
her face pointed toward winter long before the last leaf
drifted from the oak across our street, my wish today
roots me in today and in memory, settles onto
the fountain’s glassy surface as the tired goldfish
swims down, as the penny floats down, floats down.
Liz Abrams-Morley’s collection, Because Time, is due out from Finishing Line Press in 2024. Other collections include Beholder, 2018, Inventory, 2014 and Necessary Turns, published by Word Poetry in 2010 and which won an Eric Hoffer Award for Excellence in Small Press Publishing that year. In 2020 she was named the Passager Poet of the year in Passager Journal’s annual contest. Liz’s poems and short stories have been published in a variety of nationally distributed anthologies, journals and ezines, and have been read on NPR. A semi-retired faculty member in the Rosemont College MFA program, Liz is co-founder of Around the Block Writers’ Collaborative. Poet, professor, gramma and activist, Liz wades knee deep in the flow of everyday life from which she draws inspiration and, occasionally, exasperation.
trending
Treasa Nealon
​​​
In the aftermath
there are thousands of poems
and prose and passionate
spoken word viral videos
that clog the feed
that condemn and protest
and mourn and
enlighten the masses.
And we share them on our Instagram stories
and we say
‘Read this’ and ‘Listen to this’
and ‘they capture it so well’
and ‘how is another woman or girl dead!?’ and
‘I am so sick of this, I am so tired.
When does this end?’
and dragging myself to bed and
knowing it doesn’t.
And I sit and I stare at the little line flashing
on this word document as other women
scream and sob and crawl and bury their daughters.
Treasa Nealon is a writer, playwright and theatre maker from Ireland. She has had work published in Saving DA, Thimble Literary Journal and Free the Verse. She has had several plays produced in Ireland and the UK. She is currently a participant of Irish Theatre Institute’s Six in the Virtual Attic Artists Supports Programme.
summer's upon us
John Dorroh
​​​
My first snake of summer. A garter, striped
like its mother. Stretched its length
in mid-morning sun. Waiting.
We are all waiting. For something.
Tax refund. Lab results. For next week.
My mother always said that when you see
the first snake of the year, summer’s upon you.
And definitely when you eat your first BLT.
My father cranked the lawn mower
next to my bedroom at 7 AM. He
felt the need to make things happen.
I like to wait. Drink a cup of coffee and watch
the world news. It’s a mess. I’m a mess. We’re
all a mess. Coffee helps me forget.
My mother called me every July 5th.
I need some help shelling peas and
beans. I’ll feed you lunch first. It’s sooo hot.
On the drive to her house I saw my first snake
crossing the asphalt road. It was in a hurry
on its belly. It should drink coffee to help forget.
John Dorroh has never fallen into an active volcano, nor has he caught a hummingbird. However, he did manage to bake bread with Austrian monks and drink a healthy portion of their beer. Five of his poems were nominated for Best of the Net. Others have appeared in over 100 journals, including Feral, North of Oxford, River Heron, Wisconsin Review, Kissing Dynamite, and El Portal. He had two chapbooks published in 2022.
concussive distortion
James Kowalczyk
​
we were baptized in the thorny
river of slaughtered souls as Saint Stephen
launched thousands of screaming angels
crucified with piety
through inverted exile
they can see
but cannot be
one self
James Kowalczyk was born and raised in Brooklyn but now lives in Northern California with his wife, two daughters, and four cats. His poetry and flash fiction has appeared in numerous publications both in print and online. He teaches English at the high school and college levels.
revolution DIVA
Micheal Robert Gordon
​
my revolution Diva parades in Patchogue on Sunday nights before midnight
because all the mischievous queens need imagined beauty before encountering the mirror and their percolating insecurities - blanket the misery – instill confidence and strut and sway
She stands tall in a wig and a tight outfit
I watch from the bar drinking my beer
there she goes, so proud, once my son and
now my emboldened heroine
​Michael Robert Gordon is a native New Yorker living in the Bethlehem, PA with his wife and two cats. They live next to a busy highway that keeps them awake at night. He has worked as a Merchant Marine, salesman, and freelance journalist. His poems have appeared both online and in print in small literary magazines. He is currently working on a biography of Charles Plymell.
the light of being
DJ Murphy
​
Every star in the sky will die
unaware they no longer shine,
confusing the reflection in our
eyes with the light of their being.
​
As will the swan,
plumed in white meringue,
gliding on the lake
like feathers stroking silk.
​
As will the palm tree,
its fronds echoing the breeze,
recalling lazy days of dragon-fruit
mojitos in Belize.
​
So will my Yellow Lab,
stealing a nap so soon after
breakfast, the reward for a hard day’s
work better reserved for afternoon.
​
We do not need a telescope to know
we are specks within infinity,
here for a nanosecond, a flash
that does not matter,
​
until we see the knowing smile
of our oldest friend, taste the juice of a
freshly plucked orange, inhale spring to
replace what winter stole, feel loved for
the first time,
​
and realize nothing in the
universe matters more.
DJ Murphy is an emerging poet who received his first credit in 2023 from Ariel Chart for “The Book of They” and the People's Choice Award from the Art Alliance of Idyllwild at its Imagery of Words festival for “Hope and Joy”. He lives and writes in the California desert.
what will my dog return as?
DJ Murphy
​
My witchy friend,
a good witch, an avowed vessel
through which energy flows,
chats with my mother, one year deceased
yet still bending a stranger’s ear.
​
My Buddhist-curious friend
recites the cycle of cloud to rain
to cloud, and so on,
how the cumulonimbus returns
to balance on the head of a woman in Benin.
​
Yet the space behind my eyes
conjures nothing,
my past life memory an unplugged TV
unable to air a new episode,
let alone a rerun.
​
My writer friend sympathizes
in his writerly way, suggesting
he and I suffer from vuja de —
that strange feeling we’ve never been here.
​
He lives life as though
it was the only cup of coffee
he will ever sip, savoring every layer of
its sweetly roasted caramel aroma —
no refill.
While that sounds delicious,
if given a choice, I would like to
return as my dog who delights in this
life, splashing about in the lake like a
child reuniting with a long, lost
puddle.
i figured a friend is one that fights
Maya Cheav​
​
when we were six,
kitty’s older brother showed her iron maiden,
and we strode around to the ides of march
in our pajamas, heaving and hoeing about.
we raised our fists to the skies, dappled in snow,
treading carefully on the ground in our boots.
the snow went waist-high
and I could soften my skin with it
till my bone marrow changed color.
we built a treehouse in the center of the woods,
in a place perfectly triangulated between our three favorite places; the record shop off second and rockefeller,
the ice cream truck stationed out by walter’s house, and lolwe park.
our kindling collected by the campsite,
the wrung-out wood, soggy
like kitty’s eyes after her dad beat her.
she never talked about the bruises.
reese’s mom was always on the liquid venom,
stiff as an icicle, staring into the static of her tv.
after every soccer game,
walter went on waiting in the cold dark
for parents who would never come.
and I lived with mr. and mrs. dellbottom,
who got all the praise for adopting the orphan girl whose parents were killed in a car crash,
but none of the flack for letting her starve most dinners. we swore that when we got older and taller
we’d escape to new york
and live in an apartment where we’d sing showtunes and drink apple cider like it was whiskey.
then we turned eighteen
and kitty had no life savings
and I didn’t know how to drive
and walter was dead
so we were in no state for moving.
reese got into a university out of state,
emerson college in big ole boston, massachusetts. he was the one to make it out.
on his big day, kitty and I gave reese a hug
and chased after his train
like they do in old, cheesy movies.
so walter was gone
and reese was gone
and it was just me and kitty.
we went back to her house,
slinging beers and making pillow forts,
while we danced to bebop and blues,
scratched up on the radio.
then we got to kissing
and we were skin-to-skin,
but in he came, kitty’s dad,
home from the bar,
and when he realized what was going on,
his fists came down like heavy rain.
it was not like the other times
when he was pushing and shoving,
no, there were daggers in his arms.
and though he had gained some muscle since puberty, the sight of the abyss in his father’s eyes
made kitty turn into a little girl again.
and before I knew it,
my body went jumping out of my skin,
I found my knuckles licking, legs kicking, along to the rhythm of sinatra’s double-time swing. I shoved my foot into his bladder
and drove my fist under his chin.
our blood mixed,
a delightful vermillion concoction with a tangy scent. we took all the money from under kitty’s dad’s mattress while he lay there on the living room floor, as stiff as my mother in the rearview mirror. then kitty and I were gone like her too.
Maya Cheav is the author of LYKAIA (Bottlecap Press). Her writing is found in ALOCASIA, Scapegoat Review, and elsewhere. She was a top 10 finalist for the 2023 Palette Poetry Chapbook Prize, guest judged by Danez Smith, and a Tin House Workshop alum, under the mentorship of Roy G. Guzmán.
the virgin mary on blood
Nina Richard​
​
Lingering drops of blood make pilgrimages down your feet.
I recapture the tears you left on my flower petals
When fate whispered confessed truths
And anointed your death
With red apple wine and filthy rags
Just as the rusted blood drips onto
My enclosed palms.
I imagine Eve
Crouching like prey
Smelling iron and rot
And feeling the red, tarred milk escape
Her spread thighs
Marveling at the stained grass
Did she gaze at her reflection
And instead of desire
Glimpse death
Murky and Sincere
And forever fear the color red?
Nina Richard is a master's degree student and a writer. She is a part of the LGBTQ+ community. Living in Knoxville, Tennessee, Nina spends nights working on her craft so in the day she can take her beloved naps. She enjoys reading and convincing her analytical brain that creativity is not scary.
when you call me momma
Arvilla Fee​
​
The days turned into weeks;
weeks turned into months.
Surely there must be an aunt,
a sister, a cousin…
some maternal figure to lay
biological claim to a child
delivered to our door
at just two days old.
But no one came—except
exhausted social workers,
tangled up in red tape
and court dockets,
and the months
turned into years.
You don’t understand time;
you don’t realize
the difference in skin tone
or bloodlines.
You just press your nose
against mine,
touch your hand to my cheek
and say “Momma.”
It’s then I know everything
will be okay—in spite of my age,
when I should be empty nesting,
there is a reason I was chosen
to take you under my wings.
Arvilla Fee loves her family, traveling, and her dog, Max. She has published poems in numerous presses, and her two poetry books: The Human Side & This is Life are available on Amazon. For more info, visit her page: https://www.soulpoetry.com
kadosh
Eric Fisher Stone​
​
The process of creating a trail begins with a scout ant finding food. After it has fed, it deposits a trail of chemicals as it returns to the nest.
–E. David Morgan, Physiological Entomology, 2009
Sugar-manic ants
heft Pop-Tart crumbs
back to their mound,
reading lines made of taste.
A boy drowns them
in orange soda, antennae
sopping like sad twigs
whisked through acid dew.
He washes their prayers
down clay cracks that murmur
musky mantras, hymns
of worms glugging earth,
snails knocking dirt churches
with nacred dragging,
pill bugs’ egg-round monks
chanting words silent
to the child’s ears: holy
our secret song, holy the world.
Eric Fisher Stone is a poet from Fort Worth, Texas. His publications include three full-length collections of
poems: The Providence of Grass, from Chatter House Press, Animal Joy, from WordTech Editions, and Bear Lexicon, from Clare Songbirds Publishing House.
apple season
C.W. Bryan​
​
I think there is a man striking matches in your bathroom. This house is filled with sulfur & friction. I can hear the staccato death of flames as he drops each lit match in the bathtub. The water blackens hue by hue as the burnt bodies curl in their death throes. I have seen you pare an apple, the thin knife perched snuggly between your thumb and forefinger. The apple, deep red, disrobed. The skin falling all at once like a dress at your feet.
C.W. Bryan is the author of two collections of poetry, Celine: An Elegy and No Bird Lives in my Heart. He writes
everyday at poetryispretentious.com with his writing partner, Sam Kilkenny and is a board member of the Writers Circle of Atlanta.
crashing tide
Heather Sager​
​
In the taxi,
in the pause,
I find fears locked
in my heart’s pulse
People rush
on the city street
in clothes of gray
and black
A glare
reds my eyes
A clammy shadow
falls on
an outstretched hand
A woman walks
on the rainy beach,
her head bent down
like a spiking dove
Heather Sager lives in Illinois where she writes poetry and fiction. Most recently, she has contributed poetry to The Dawntreader, Wilderness House Literary Review, Bending Genres, Does It Have Pockets?, The Stray Branch, The Nature of Things (Lone Mountain Literary Society), and more journals.
note from the editor​
​
Dear orange juice readers & contributors,
Thank you all from the bottom of my heart for making something like this possible. When I started this journal only a few months ago, I envisioned a project that compiled work from people of all backgrounds, from every corner of the world. With the help of my very talented authors, I’m proud to say that we’ve achieved not only that goal, but astoundingly more. This issue encompasses a whole lot - the full range of the human experience - and I’m extremely proud to share it with everyone.
This being the first issue, the editing process, technicalities, and behind the scenes were all very new, uncharted territories for me as an editor. I am very thankful for this experience, and I know that orange juice will continue to go above and beyond. I have never created a project quite like this, and to say the least, I am very pleased with the product of these last few months.
I want to extend my thank yous not only to all of my wonderful authors, but also to those who have sent congratulations on opening a new poetry journal. You have no idea the impact you’ve made on orange juice.
During this first reading period, I had the pleasure of reading some of the most phenomenal, beautifully crafted works from authors everywhere. At times, the decision making process was very difficult, and choosing works I wanted to include here was no easy task. I can say, though, that I have confidence in my authors today. You all are an extremely gifted group of people, and I’m so grateful that I’ve been able to handle your work as a publisher. Thank you all so much for keeping this journal juicy!
It’s also important to me that I thank all of you who submitted, whether your work is here today or not, for not only your vulnerability, but your perseverance. It’s a terribly difficult task to bare your soul to the world, to expose yourself to criticism on your work without knowing what the outcome will be, and for that alone, you should be very proud of yourself.
I am proud to call this issue of orange juice a success. It’s been the most wonderful experience and I can’t wait to do it all over again.
Jaylee Marchese
Editor at orange juice