Three Poems by April Salzano

Advice from a Stranger

Sizzle at the wedding,
she said.  It's sweet talk and flora,
like three Junes & a monk
in mountains, but separate.
We are demons in a survivor's club,
a long way from either
home or redemption.  Broken
language is our harbor,
losing is our storm.



Dead Last & Counting

We are determined, clever girls
in red houses, running damage
control.  We are going dark,
riding on nothing but night
roads.  We are windows of quiet,
keepers of truth.



Following the Dog Star

My sister the moon will be hard-
going like desire.
There is a code.  It takes
eleven days and sixty-one dares
to reach no man's land by midnight.
A secret waits at the front door
& ghosts are at work like fractures
we are dying to seal.
I will tell the bees I am a basket
case, skinny dip in a dune.
South of blood is beach, old
women in a knitting circle are darning time
like socks, wearing death like shoes.



April Salzano teaches college writing in Pennsylvania where she lives with her husband and two sons.  She is currently working on a memoir on raising a child with autism and several collections of poetry.  Her work has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in journals such as Convergence, Ascent Aspirations, The Camel Saloon, Centrifugal Eye, DeadSnakes, Visceral Uterus, Salome, Poetry Quarterly, Writing Tomorrow and Rattle.  Her first chapbook, The Girl of My Dreams, is forthcoming in spring, 2015 from Dancing Girl Press.  The author serves as co-editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press (www.kindofahurricanepress.com).

A Poem by Rony Nair

Conk

the moon looks like the eyes
turned,
against the grain.
a nomad passing the buck,
she calls time
on the game.

the loony bin upturned;
draws a final breath,
between the first fire and the next,
plastered across the training school;
and the next young thing.

Redemption is charity.
A game.

the moon looks like the eyes
tilted
at the rain.
of you brooding over
the steps.

we began the climb.

While you called time,
on the game.

the cretins lie in
refuse bins crated.
the alligator bags
and the brocades that pass
for fashion.
for sport.
There's the small alley way
and the next
big thing

the moon looks like
your eyes-no way around it

while you called time;
on the game.

Rony Nair slogs as an oil and gas Risk Management "expert/director/Vice President/consultant" up on the greasy pole!  He's been 20 years in the industry since starting off as an Industrial engineer a long time ago.  Extensively traveled.  Dangers fronted often.  But that's his day job.  The one that pays for bread and bills.

A Poem by Norman J. Olson

in the winter of oz there will be fewer flying monkeys

monkeys shake their fists
at
the movie screen
where 2014 is no longer playing.

yes there is a mystery here that
monkey brains cannot
comprehend
and

monkey greed will destroy
what monkey ingenuity built




Norman J. Olson is an internationally published poet and artist.