On a blustery February morning; the dagger wind

blowing down the desolate highway,

a man, old and alone, meets his best friend in the

usual spot.  His friend, the only constant in his life;

the only unchanging feature in his perpetually

shaken Etch-a-Sketch of existence, is a metal pole,

50 feet tall.

He wraps his withered, ungloved hand around it.

Holding steadfastly, striving aggressively to maintain

his position against the wind.

His position against the world.

This man, in a tattered coat and stained overalls,

speaks to the pole, gesturing feebly with his free

hand.  He speaks of times long past and forgotten

by everyone except him,

and the pole.

He sees the village for what it is—a fading apparition—

and for what it was, only when connected to the

center point of his recollection.  The pole stands

as a conduit transmitting memory for the worn

and world-beaten.

A modern metallic messiah.

The man, reluctant to release his grip on his

only friend, speaks a few somber words and leaves

the pole, as the swollen, wet snow begins to

fall from the cold, gray sky.

___

Dustin T. Witte was born in 1983 inKearney,Nebraska.  After graduating fromKearney Catholic High School in 2001, he attended Doane College in Crete, NE, where he studied English and theatre.  While in college, Dustin became very interested in the writing and analysis of poetry, and was published numerous times in the school’s literary publication.  He also became a company member at the Theatre of the American West inRepublican City,Nebraska, where he moved upon graduating from Doane in 2005.

While at the theatre, Dustin performed in over 100 productions, as well as building and painting scenery, creating props, writing scenes, and making ice cream. 

He left the theatre in 2008 and moved to Lincoln, where he currently resides.  Dustin now works as a scene designer and painter, craftsperson, performer and teacher.  He has recently formed his own production company with husband, Daniel Kubert, called OmniArts nebraska.  This company seeks to create original, interdisciplinary performance pieces.  Through the use of many artistic disciplines, working toward a unified purpose or theme, a greater effect can be achieved.

A number of red and white painted,

wooden signs, aged by sunflowers

and rain drops, littered the northern

side of the truck-beaten road.

Of all of the weathered,

paint-pealing placards, one struck

my vision; not immediately because

of what was written upon it,

but because of something perched

atop of it.  A golden hawk—I

say that because of its color; my

knowledge of hawk species is less

than adequate—majestically waited,

as if it had been in that spot

long before the sign was ever

built.  When a towering maple or

ponderosa pine stood in its place.

Or perhaps the hawk merely hovered

there waiting; waiting for its monument

to be built—I now say monument

because I remember the words

ever so carefully lettered, on

the warped, plywood sign:

SEE

One of the first

Flying Machines

PioneerVillage,

Minden,Nebraska

See one of the first flying

machines?  I already had.

___

Dustin T. Witte was born in 1983 inKearney,Nebraska.  After graduating fromKearneyCatholicHigh School in 2001, he attendedDoaneCollege inCrete,NE, where he studied English and theatre.  While in college, Dustin became very interested in the writing and analysis of poetry, and was published numerous times in the school’s literary publication.  He also became a company member at the Theatre of the American West inRepublican City,Nebraska, where he moved upon graduating from Doane in 2005.

While at the theatre, Dustin performed in over 100 productions, as well as building and painting scenery, creating props, writing scenes, and making ice cream. 

He left the theatre in 2008 and moved to Lincoln, where he currently resides.  Dustin now works as a scene designer and painter, craftsperson, performer and teacher.  He has recently formed his own production company with husband, Daniel Kubert, called OmniArts nebraska.  This company seeks to create original, interdisciplinary performance pieces.  Through the use of many artistic disciplines, working toward a unified purpose or theme, a greater effect can be achieved.

Here’s a fresh moon rock for sale

it’s original, someone worked hard

to obtain it and will freely provide,

its papers, its pedigree—if you will—

as well as a brief, but striking video.

I can get it for you cheap and easy,

plus, I’ve got feathers from the wing

of an angel, tulip bulbs from the Garden

ofEden, I have the only thought plucked

from the brow, below the auburn tresses,

from within the alabaster skin of the only

Virgin Mary. I can post it on eBay, I can

e-mail you, Facebook you, can like you,

tweet you, can text you, so tell me what

you want, I will deliver, I always do, even

precious sunbeams, either distilled

or fermented, in exquisite jars. I’ll sell you

anything, I’ve got joy for sale, so much joy.

*First published by Visions International, #85, Fall 2011

___

Helen Wickes lives in Oakland, California, and worked for many years as a psychotherapist. In 2002 she received an M.F.A. from Bennington College. Her first book of poems, In Search of Landscape, was published in 2007 by Sixteen Rivers Press. Her poems can be read and heard online at From The Fishouse. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in AGNI Online, Atlanta Review, Confrontation, Eclipse, Evansville Review, RiverSedge, Sanskrit, South Dakota Review, Stand, Runes, ZYZZYVA, Zone 3, Chicago Quarterly Review, The Collagist, Natural Bridge, Santa Clara Review, Limestone, The Spoon River Poetry Review, Bryant Literary Review, Eclectica, Ellipsis, Southwestern American Literature, Soundings East, Verdad, The Coe Review, Crucible, The Jabberwock Review, Kaleidoscope, Pleiades, PMS poemmemoirstory, SLAB, The Griffin, Salamander, Epicenter, Barnstorm, Poetry Flash, In the Grove, CQ, CSPS, Freshwater, Schuylkill Valley Journal of the Arts, Softblow, 5 AM, the Bennington Review, and the anthology Best of the Web 2009.

He’d been Simon

who swaggered down

Byzantium’s back roads

in his silk taxman’s robe,

who lost control & hurled

a loaf of bread at a beggar,

finding no stone. Felled

by illness, he saw three

Moors weighing his deeds

on an enormous scale,

erring in his favor,

the thrown bread

in the good pan,

counted as alms.

___ 

Hilary Sideris lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she studies Italian and teaches nontraditional college students. She has her M.F.A. from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as Arts & Letters, Cimarron Review, Confrontation, Connecticut Review, The Evansville Review, Green Mountains Review, Grey Sparrow, Gulf Coast, Mid-American Review, The Normal School Magazine, Poet Lore, Tar River Poetry, Willow Review, and Women’s Studies Quarterly, among many others. Her first and third chapbooks, The Orange Juice is Over and Gold & Other Fish, have been published by Finishing Line Press, and her second chapbook, Baby, was published by Pudding House Press.

Four cylinders in a solid

block, suspended by

semielliptic springs,

800 dollars in 1908

Detroit, driving the un-

skilled worker’s wage

against the customer’s

right always, so long

as he wants his Model

T black—the fastest

color, by seven

seconds, to dry.

___ 

Hilary Sideris lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she studies Italian and teaches nontraditional college students. She has her M.F.A. from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as Arts & Letters, Cimarron Review, Confrontation, Connecticut Review, The Evansville Review, Green Mountains Review, Grey Sparrow, Gulf Coast, Mid-American Review, The Normal School Magazine, Poet Lore, Tar River Poetry, Willow Review, and Women’s Studies Quarterly, among many others. Her first and third chapbooks, The Orange Juice is Over and Gold & Other Fish, have been published by Finishing Line Press, and her second chapbook, Baby, was published by Pudding House Press.

Shy by day, tightly furled,

heeding nightly call to bloom.

How much the same,

my love demure till waning light.

So joy is sown in garden’s bed

as well our own.

Yet passion’s not by season bound—

lilies will be gone by fall.

___

Alan Meyrowitz received his Doctorate in Computer Science from the George Washington University in 1980, and retired from the federal government in 2005 after a varied career in artificial intelligence and robotics research. His literary activities include creative writing and collecting rare books. His poetry is forthcoming or has appeared in California Quarterly, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Eclectica, Folly, Front Range Review, Lucid Rhythms, River Oak Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and Shroud.

the bowl doesn’t fill itself

the ball doesn’t throw itself

take no unnecessary risks

show your enthusiasm

stepping in poop is no big deal

one ball is good, two balls are better

always leave a message

if you’re not sure, taste it.

___

At seventeen, Timothy P. McLafferty began working full time as a cook, then as a concrete laborer in the New York City Teamsters Union. At twenty-eight, he became a full-time drummer. He has played drums in over a dozen shows on Broadway, in jazz clubs all over New York City, and toured throughout the U.S. and around the world. Also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Bridgeport, he spends his free time reading, painting, drawing, and studying Greek, Roman, Chinese, and Japanese literature and culture.

Bury me.

Burn me

then bury me.

Find a willow that will weep for me

for eternity

or as long as a willow might weep

Find a flower that will grow out of me

Forever

Or as long as a stalk might bloom

A woody wisteria,

an acorn oak—or

A birch— Yes!

A birch

Find a birch

with peeling paper bark

write my name on a curly sliver

place me in the ground

at its root

That fertile place

where moss and lichen live

where squiggly sperm

meet stable eggs

where stamen and pistil

meet their makers—

care-takers

the original stork

transporters

to an immediate

future

of weeping

and blooming

But please,

I ask you

Bury me.

Burn me first,

then bury my naked ash

Don’t take me on a boat

Don’t scatter what is left of me

Don’t splatter what you hold of me

or whatever might remain of me

on the day that I might die

Please don’t cast me to the wind

from some cliff over chasm

I was never ever meant to fly

—this time

My mind and spirit are

won

I was whole

But only one

I never offered cells

for the pure benefit of another

never a multiplication

never a division of growth

No marrow, no organ…

a drop of blood here and there

but what is a drop of blood?

I am all that is left of my line

A lone species of deep

alone,

a culture of one

I ask to be buried

To cycle a new life

To replenish the ground

With rich, dark ashes—

As that carbon is all

I am able to offer now.

___

Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Bleuzette La Feir is a graduate of the University of New Mexico with a bachelor of fine arts in theater. She has written for the theater, creating and performing several one-woman shows. Through world travel she has gained inspiration from other cultures, foods, landscapes, architecture, people, and the general sights and sounds. She writes poetry, short stories, creative nonfiction, and biographical works. Although their permanent home is in the Chesapeake Bay region of Maryland, she will be accompanying her partner on a three year tour in Italy. Her work is forthcoming in Diverse Voices Quarterly.

         (For Robert Morgan Howard)

This pour of copper,

molten with clouds,

melts across January,

whose platinum stokes

its great fire.

It is as this day, last year,

that we inched you down

into the coal heart

of the earth

as sun celebrated

above,

And small clouds gathered

to watch

and learn your ways,

so they, too, could go

out, in blazes.

*Originally published by Gemini Magazine

___

Born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, performance poet, Jean Howard, resided in Chicago from 1979 to 1999. She has since returned to Salt Lake City. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Off The Coast, Clackamas Literary Review, Harper’s Magazine, Eclectica Magazine, Eclipse, Folio, Fugue, Fulcrum, Crucible, Gargoyle, Green Hills Literary Lantern, Painted Bride Quarterly, The Burning World, The Distillery, Pinch, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Pisgah Review, Pinch, ken*again, The Cape Rock, Quiddity Literary Journal, Grasslimb, Rattlesnake Review, Concho River Review, Spillway, Spoon River Review, Willard & Maple, Wisconsin Review, Chicago Tribune, among seventy other literary publications. Featured on network and public television and radio, she has combined her poetry with theater, art, dance, video, and photography.

A participant in the original development of the nationally acclaimed “Poetry Slam,” at the Green Mill, she has been awarded two grants for the publication of her book, Dancing In Your Mother’s Skin (Tia Chucha Press), a collaborative work with photographer, Alice Hargrave. She has been organizing the annual National Poetry Video Festival since 1992, with her own award-winning video poems, airing on PBS, cable TV, and festivals around the nation.

Healing the heartache

of winter,

running in mummers

down the hill,

Falling, great chunks,

like globs from the rooftop,

Agitated and shifting,

moaning and trickling,

dropping off of corners,

all glue to shoe soles,

all groaning of crocus

and snipping through snow

by blades of sharp iris,

It is water whose poem

grows restless from under,

now ticking,

small droplets of adjectives

and verbs,

Aching to surface

in warm stabs of sunlight,

to the shock of chartreuse

floating above ground.

It is water that pours

its veil of forgiveness.

It’s glistening baptism,

icy pools by the road,

and seeks us out—

That we might be

redeemed.

___

Born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, performance poet, Jean Howard, resided in Chicago from 1979 to 1999. She has since returned to Salt Lake City. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Off The Coast, Clackamas Literary Review, Harper’s Magazine, Eclectica Magazine, Eclipse, Folio, Fugue, Fulcrum, Crucible, Gargoyle, Green Hills Literary Lantern, Painted Bride Quarterly, The Burning World, The Distillery, Pinch, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Pisgah Review, Pinch, ken*again, The Cape Rock, Quiddity Literary Journal, Grasslimb, Rattlesnake Review, Concho River Review, Spillway, Spoon River Review, Willard & Maple, Wisconsin Review, Chicago Tribune, among seventy other literary publications. Featured on network and public television and radio, she has combined her poetry with theater, art, dance, video, and photography.

A participant in the original development of the nationally acclaimed “Poetry Slam,” at the Green Mill, she has been awarded two grants for the publication of her book, Dancing In Your Mother’s Skin (Tia Chucha Press), a collaborative work with photographer, Alice Hargrave. She has been organizing the annual National Poetry Video Festival since 1992, with her own award-winning video poems, airing on PBS, cable TV, and festivals around the nation.