Explosives, by Howie Good

That night anything could have happened. It’s not often that you hear the blast of explosives in a place where children are sleeping. Either a bomb was planted or someone blew himself up. The cops are at the door right now looking for him. People should be concerned over what will disappear next. It’s like you’ve lost your car keys at night in your backyard and you’re searching for them through a toilet paper roll with a flashlight.

*
br> The open eye is very human. I saw swarms of people running away and my first reaction was “gun,” so I ran, too. The important thing was to go into another world. I would be a lot less afraid if I just knew what it was called. The scariest are the ones that stop right behind your heart.

*

Buildings are always crime scenes. The dress code is trench coats and fedoras. I heard him load his gun. And then I saw his gun was black. I’m going to leave flowers at the place where it happened. There was blood everywhere, and a sound like flies buzzing against the glass. Everybody was crying—should I join them? It was hard to hold back those tears.

Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of The Loser's Guide to Street Fighting, winner of the 2017 Lorien Prize from ThoughtCrime Press, and Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements, winner of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry. He co-edits White Knuckle Press with Dale Wisely.

Richard Merrill

Living without gps

Travel up the common

femoral artery

to the junction of walk

and don't walk. Leave latitude

for the heart, its sextant lost

in the remains of route 66, or plot

a solution;

I've got my spine I've got my Orange crush.

Broken mirrors vivisect the man, all roads lead

to Polaris, scattered bearings.  

Find some other track side

noodling in the dark, people

losing time, lost being

lost between the Crux and nebulas.

Steer into the long way home, find

where found is hidden in the magnetic

resonance, images of small intestine

and appendix, the parallax of travel where

no one can run to, or from.

Richard Merrill is an unrealized poet. As well as an unrealized farmer, architect, Lego artist, and ultracyclist. It took him a while to accept the term; trucker. Lately he has realized he is very much that. He hopes the reader finds some merit in his work.

Hillary Leftwich

I’m calling you out.

You’re a dream

but never a reality.

You’re everywhere

on the streets and in my sheets.

I work all day and catch

the Colfax bus home at night.

You’re everywhere on the bus;

your smells, your faces, your rage.

There is a woman

twitching in her seat

from withdrawals.

I’m too scared

to sit next to her.

I see the face

of the man who tried

to kill me every day

in my son’s face.

How can I love this boy

with all my heart when

he looks like the one person

I hate the most?

I can’t wake up.

I can’t move.

The psychiatrist tells me

it’s sleep paralysis but

I think it’s you.

I can solve Algebra equations

in my dreams

but I can’t figure out

how to live

off $2300 bucks a month

with three jobs

and a son to raise.

Soon he will lose

his Medicaid because

of a man who cares more

about the size of his hands

than the size of his heart.

There’s no equation that solves

how I can save my son

from the seizures

that are going to kill him.

My eyes aren’t brown

they’re hazel

but who gives a fuck

when no one looks you

in the eye anymore?

Men tell me it’s so cute

when I try to write poetry

and read in front of people.

This is how the world is, honey.

Put your big girl panties on.

You’re prettier when you smile.

Swallow next time, will ya?

I can’t get the smell

of bleach

out of my nostrils

that I use to scrub

the black mold

off my son’s bedroom walls.

It’s killing us.

My credit sucks

and I can’t afford to move.

You have me in a choke hold.

What happened to the bed

I slept in when I was five?

What happened to my baby blanket

that protected me

from the hands

of strange men and women

trying to touch me?

My dad threw it away

like you’re throwing us away.

I can’t scrub everything clean.

The bleach makes it look

like the mold is gone

and the walls are clean

when they’re really not.

Some of us can see it

but too many of us can’t.

It was never gone.

It’s still here,

Growing.

Killing us

with every single breath that we take.

Hillary Leftwich is co-host for At the Inkwell, a NYC based reading series and organizes/hosts other reading events around Denver. Her writing can be found in print and online. 

Matthew Borczon

Souls

(1)

hard

to dispute

the logic

of a

5 year old

Eliza wakes

up shaking

crying she

calls my

name

she is

afraid of

dying again

this feeling

swallows her

like a

hand inside

a pocket.

(2)

As I

hug her I

stroke her

hair and

give her

the Catholic

answers my

parents gave

me at

her age

don’t worry

it’s a

long long

way off

and when

it does

happen I

will be

waiting with

grandpa and

all your

family

Eliza’s voice

breaks

“Daddy

I’m the

youngest

so I

will have

to be

alone for

so long”

I think

she cries

her weight

in tears.

(3)

I can

only hold her

feel scared

I know

alone

it has

ridden

my shoulder

daily since

the war

I know

fear

of death

I have

held a

dead child’s

body and

handed it

back to

its father

I know

fear of life

after war

fear for

men without

legs or arms

fear of

my own life

without faith

with almost

no soul left

fear of

crowds and

the feeling

that no

matter how

many people

are around

I am still

dying alone

by minutes

and inches.

(4)

I say

nothing

just pull

her close

cry with her

in silence

as I

promise

to her

to me

to the universe

and every

religions God

that I

will get

some of

my soul

back

buy it

steal it

reclaim it

rebuild it

out of

something

or out

of nothing

some how

some way

I will

have it

so I

can leave

it with

her when

I go.

Matthew Borczon is a nurse and Navy sailor. He is the author of a Clock of Human Bones from Yellow Chair Review Press, and Battle Lines from Epic Rites Press. His next book, Ghost Train, will be out in June 2017 from Weasel Press.  Sleepless Nights and Ghost Soldiers is set for a release in 2017 from Grey Boarders Press as well. He publishes widely in the small press. 

Sheldon Lee Compton

Bakadewin (Hunger)

The Wendigo stood to be seen in its full form, the emaciated body, skin so flecked and brittle it could peel open in a breeze, the ribs a resting canopy across its middle, its legs little more than a jutting tangle of pulsing veins. In its hand was the swirling ball of the earth. Its eyes were sad, a vivid green against the stygian backdrop of the universe. And though its eyes shined sadness, the mouth was a horrible circle of tongue and teeth, the insides slickened wet. Yawning, it stretched its boney jawline to breaking and revealed the depths of its throat throbbing with life, anticipation. It was as if the mouth cried separately to be nourished, like an infant trapped inside the face of a monster. In one blurring gesture, the Wendigo cupped its meal with shredded fingers and gave a long, sepulchral wheeze.

The earth did spray like

stardust resplendent light from

its mouth and was gone.

Sheldon Lee Compton is the author of three books, most recently the novel Brown Bottle (Bottom Dog Press, 2016). His stories can be found in Unbroken Journal, Gravel, New World Writing, PANK, Monkeybicycle, DOGZPLOT, Spelk, WhiskeyPaper, and elsewhere. He was cited in Best Small Fictions 2015 and Best Small Fictions 2016.

Paul Brookes

She is Forgetting Him

Steve says his wife often

comes into their bedroom

and says "Where's Steve?"

And he says to her.

"I'm here love. We've

been married forty years."

And she says,

"Of course you are. We have."

And she laughs.

"How did we first

get together?"

At the end of the next day,

when they've been out

to the shops and visiting

old friends she'll say,

"What have we done today,

Steve?" And she remembers

none of it.

At mealtimes she picks

up her knife and fork

and holds them very close

to her glazed eyes.

Holds them

like javelins to eat

her meal.

(II)

You've stolen them.

Haven't you?"

"Stolen what, love?"

"You know what.

Look?"

She shows him her

fingers, and he sees

they are no longer fat

but thin to the bone.

"Come on,love.

They must have dropped off.

I'll help you look for them."

He offers.

"In the place you've hid

them. I bet. I know

your game, Steve.

I'm wise to you."

Paul Brookes was poetry performer with "Rats for Love" and his work included in "Rats for Love: The Book", Bristol Broadsides, 1990. His first chapbook was "The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley", Dearne Community Arts, 1993. He has read his work on BBC Radio Bristol and had a creative writing workshop for sixth formers broadcast on BBC Radio Five Live.

Gordon Taulbee

Sulfur Water

The sulfur water stains

the children’s clothes when their

parents try to wash them.

The water man said it’s

actually iron --

elemental problem --

but people think sulfur

because that is what they

have been told for ages.

That doesn’t cause the smell.

He says the filter will

fix the problem and make

the water softer too.

It will be better for

cooking and cleaning soon

and that smell will work its

way out of the homestead.

The well will need venting

The hydrogen sulfide

Is the cause of the smell

But does not cause the stains.

This will fix the problems.

It sounds like a great plan

for now, or at least till

they run city water.

Then water man’s widow

can soon be forgotten.

Ernest Gordon Taulbee grew up in Salyersville, KY – a rural town in Eastern Kentucky. He holds a BA and an MA in English from Eastern Kentucky University. He lives in Louisville, KY with his wife and daughters. His novel A Sibling in Always can be purchased on Amazon.