A Few Good Rules for Living from My Aunt Ouida

John Dorroh

 

Dragon bellies are for rubbing,
and artifacts and fossils are for arguing:
which came first-- the chicken or the egg?
Who gives a shit? None of that matters
anyway. It’s how you treat your dragons
that matter. It’s how you clean up a mess
in the store that perhaps you didn’t make
that defines your degree of dignity.

Roses are for smelling and sharing
and respecting the fact that their thorns
could be used to win a fight. Beautiful
things often carry a cost.

Patches of fog are for driving into, for
helping you juggle imagination with
theological sobriety. We breathe fog
every time we open our mouths. Don’t
be afraid as much as you are cautious.

Grease fires are for extinguishing. Never
laugh at those running around in the kitchen
with a red fire extinguisher for they may have
a family at home that looks better without
melted skin.

And bourbon is for drinking on the rocks
with friends around a fire pit on a chilly
October night. It makes the other stuff
seem so petty.

 

Whether John Dorroh taught any secondary science is still being discussed. However, he managed to show up every morning at 6:45 for a couple of decades with at least two lesson plans and a thermos of robust Colombian. His poetry has appeared in about 75 journals, including Dime Show Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Os Pressan, Feral, Selcouth Station, and Red Dirt Forum/Press. He also writes short fiction and the occasional rant.

 

 

Fire Scar

Terri Drake

 

Following the fire road to fairy rings
locket of scars pocket of fog
going to meet my ghost love – meet my muse
in the fire scar the redwood’s blackened cavity
Tell me muse how do we live with such damage 

going to the scorched church where I commune
with you with fog with god
where I write my way
back from the unmoored night  

Inside the redwood apses, hardened candlewax
some ritual where I tried to wish you
back to life. O fairy rings O sacred grove
where the soft light softens the surround

close the windows my muse has already flown
the stain of redwood leaves like rust
like old spilled blood like ancient history

the woodpecker’s incessant rapping
I imagine you longing to get in
wild nights in the cathedral
sacraments of flesh

going down to sleep in the fire scar
disturb the bats am disturbed
could carve our initials in the trunk
but would rather ink you
in the private places of my skin
keep you a secret not graffiti

heading to the fire scar
heading ceaselessly back to our fire scar
passing our love skiff unmoored on the riverbank
going to write you back to life
there’s a book of light
that has us in it
no matter how unsightly
we may seem
sleeping in our mortal skin.
on our backs in the fairy circle
the blue sky dome its blue
eye gazing directly upon god
the early morning light
outlines our bodies
where there were scars
now a smooth translucent skin
you are venerable
I am divine 

 

Terri Drake is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her collection of poems, At the Seams, was published by Bear Star Press. Her poems have appeared in Quarry West, Perihelion, Online Journal of Arts and Letters, Fearsome Critters, and From Whispers to Roars, among others. She is a practicing psychoanalyst living in Santa Cruz, California.

 

 

Ephemeris

Amy L. Fair

 

A faded galaxy of planets
or tight constellation of stars,
the pale birthmark
on your neck casts spells.

I am not one for ceremony,
but this nebula rises above me,
and pulls prayer
from my mouth like jewels,
or teeth.

 

That Long, Vacant Room

Amy L. Fair

 

She was a raven
from an old man's story,
but I saw a witch
with heavy pendants in her ears
and a box full of beads
and tarnished charms.

She sat down on the ground near me
and her knees interrupted her,
confessed her transgressions.
She brought strange dreams
or visions
like frosted bundles of sage.

I didn't ask,
but she said
love isn't always possible.

With both hands,
she slipped
into that old man's mouth,
made up a bed
in that long, vacant room
and rested her head
there, on his teeth,
and pulled his words
up, out of his throat
in her dreams.

 

Amy L. Fair, a West Virginia native, makes her home in rural Oregon, where she teaches at a small community college and plans to grow old without any grace whatsoever.

 

 

Eucharist

Andrew Gibson

 

just as the morning envisioned itself
with a wet slap
a knife in hand
and jelly leaking from both ends
the communion wafer
was so satisfying
while all the candles melted
into blue soap
around our four feet
Mary
Madonna
my blue flame, my tugboat
you stole my heart from the panther’s jaws
dragged it up a tree
and I heard you thank God for every part of me

 

Andrew Gibson studied creative writing at North Carolina Central University. He works as an educator.

 

 

The Soil of Edmonson County

Megan Hutchinson

 

is as red as a newborn’s blood
and filled with enough clay
to make an earthside sculpture
of baby Sylvie.

She, like the fallen babies
beside her, was practically born
into death.

No one knows why,
during that thirty-year span,
the babies of Edmonson County
died within a year of their birth,

or why they were buried,
one beside the other
like a cluster of oyster
mushrooms after the rain—

baby Sylvie at the head
like the patron saint of small,
fleeting souls, with not even
a moldering flower to her name—

but there they lie, little lambs
and doves and angels resting
in that soil, tight and warm
as a mother’s womb.

 

Megan Hutchinson is a fiction writer and poet from the foothills of southern Ohio whose writing has appeared/is forthcoming in Gravitas and the Kentucky Philological Review among others. She also won first place in the 2020 KSPS Grand Prix Poetry Contest. Currently, she is pursuing her fiction MFA at Western Kentucky University and is working on a novella.

 

 

Southern Gothic Shopping Spree

Gene Hyde

 

Mom went in there a
Week ago. Smiling, she said
Kudzu was on sale,

And they have Green Stamps!
She musta got lost in that
Leafy verdant vale,

Dodging sprightly vines,
Snagging stamps, adrift on the
Cut-rate kudzu trail. 

 

Gene Hyde lives near Asheville, North Carolina where he works as an Appalachian archivist. His writing and photography have appeared in Valley Voices, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, The Goose: A Journal of Arts, Environment, and Culture, Light: A Journal of Photography and Poetry, Canary: A Literary Journal of the Environmental Crisis, and Mountains Piled Upon Mountains: Appalachian Nature Writing in the Anthropocene.

 

 

Chef's Kiss

Daniel Romo & Steve Castro

 

My mortality is on the menu, though I’m only a sous-chef from Kenosha. When I was hired at this bistro, I never imagined the special of the day would be my life. Will the diners send back my fear of dying alone and say, "This trepidation is overcooked and lacks creativity. I want a concern with more kick." The Crème Brûlée on the other hand was to die for. While heating up my coffee in the microwave, I saw the most beautiful of sunrises inside of said microwave. When I told the pastry chef about it, he opened up the microwave, saw nothing, and said, "It's a sugar high from the three Crème Brûlées you've ate this past hour alone." The pastry chef was probably correct. I wonder what I was high on when I stirred my coffee, and my sugar cubes morphed into talking translucent minnows? Our Headwaiter told me that our most loyal customer just came in with a coupon that read, "If you buy the daily special consisting of the sous-chef from Kenosha's mortality, we'll throw in a front row seat to his funeral."  

 

Throwing Salt Over Both Shoulders

Daniel Romo & Steve Castro

 

That potato soup was so heavily impregnated with salt, it could have given birth to Lot’s wife. I crossed my arms in protest, but then I thought better of it and crossed myself before eating my meal in penitent silence. On another continent across the pond, a homeless cross-eyed young man crossed the street on his way to take vengeance on his enemy. He had no place to live ‘cause he was double-crossed by his former business associate, who was aptly surnamed Du Cros. Du Cros loved to over salt his food. Du Cros’s wife was never a biblical cliché, but her sodium levels were higher than Jericho’s walls. But this really isn’t about diet, or revenge, or well-known Bible references. This is about a man whose taste buds are so sensitive, each bite he takes reminds him of the lives he’s lived, the women he’s (un)loved, and the distance from heathen to Heaven.

 

Daniel Romo is the author of Apologies in Reverse (FutureCycle Press 2019), When Kerosene’s Involved (Mojave River Press 2014), and Romancing Gravity (Silver Birch Press 2013). His poetry and photography can be found in The Los Angeles Review, PANK, Gargoyle, Yemassee, and elsewhere. He has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte, and he lives and teaches in Long Beach, CA. More at danielromo.wordpress.com.

Steve Castro's debut poetry collection, Blue Whale Phenomena, was published by Otis Books, 2019 (Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA). Poetry forthcoming in SLICE Magazine; PALABRITAS: a Latinx literary publication (Harvard College); Hotel Amerika (w/ Daniel Romo) & Speculative Fiction for Dreamers: A Latinx Anthology (The Ohio State University Press). Maura Stanton wrote, 'Steve Castro is a contemporary surrealist in the spirit of James Tate and Russell Edson and Charles Simic.' Birthplace: Costa Rica.

 

 

It rained last night

Peter Shaver

 

Under the strawberry moon,
it’s all empty
and nothing moves.

I sell my soul
for a twelve-hour shift
with shit pay.

Clock in and out
without a word,
and leave.

In the gold light
of the morning, 

storm clouds explode.

Cats wander over stone fences,
into the woods

where everything is alive.

A rain puddle stills
to pure brown eyes.

 

Peter Shaver has published poetry in various publications, including Aperion Review, Catfish Creek, and Connecticut River Review. He is a 2018 graduate of the University of Scranton and resides in Pennsylvania, where he works as a substitute and EMT.

 

 

Life and Death at the Castle

Shyla Shehan

 

This place heals me
and wounds me.
I face west on castle grounds,
execute salutations to the sunset
stretching through up-dog and down.
Enchanting ivy grows lush
and wild over thresholds 
and across archways. It climbs 
the outside of the towers and creeps 
into windows and door frames.
Finches build their own castle nest 
inside the aviary. They lay eggs 
and have offspring that can’t survive—
voices lost in the middle of a song.
Three levels below, termites feast,
hollow the bones of this beast,
gather their numbers
and plan to ascend. This place
heals and wounds, though...

Won’t it be fascinating to witness
the chew through?
Hounds released, 
the topple of the towers,
ivy burned to its roots, 
and the un-caged birds 
set free.

 

Shyla Shehan is an analytical Virgo who has spent the majority of her life in the midwest. She holds an MFA in Writing from the University of Nebraska where she received an American Academy of Poets Prize in 2020. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Gyroscope Review, Wild Roof Journal, The Raw Art Review, and her chapbook, “Unsuspecting Cinderella,” will be released later this year. Shyla is the co-founder and EIC of The Good Life Review and currently lives in Omaha, Nebraska with her husband, children, and four cats. All this and more at shylashehan.com.

 

 

Hallowed

Karla Van Vliet

 

The girl prays, her hands the form of a wolf
as if to reconstruct the shape of him,
her face in his pelt, his scent the wet earth
of den, of sanctum; prays holy, holy,
his body’s wild offering, its mystery a fire set
in her belly, such raging flames, candescence,
curling licks consuming the dry tinder –
what grows, from ash, the heat cracked shell,
her voice rises both desolate and according;
cast alms in the mountain’s bowl.

 

Karla Van Vliet newest book is Fluency: A Collection of Asemic Writings. Her book She Speaks in Tongues, a collection of poems and asemic writings, is forthcoming from Anhinga Press. She has two other collections from Shanti Arts and a chapbook from Folded Word. She is a Forward Prize, a three-time Pushcart Prize, and Best of the Net, nominee. Her poems have appeared in Acumen, Poet Lore, Green Mountains Review, Crannog Magazine and others.