A Poem by Ken L. Jones

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Once while swigging barefooted wine near an ancient cherry blossom temple
Where sea life played upon traditional instruments
Until in the tranquil gardens there I became a marathon of sensations
In its savory sauce where I've always returned for seconds
Whenever I can migrate away from my perch of electronic waste
To enjoy its harvest of liquid gold pelicans
Above the waterfront where I watched them soar
Through the palace of the trees as they carved out the history of over the hills
Then above dry lakes and salt marshes where they disappear
And then like the shepherds on a Bethlehem hillside
I sleep out in the open by the starlight of my TV screen dreaming of a lush birdsong garden
That spoils so quickly leaving behind only the aroma of ironwork courtyards
That gives me the redemption of being used by a higher authority
During my slices of sleeping alone on that beach of innumerable roses
That fell from the sky while sea nymphs drifted across the frame
Until I moved well beyond Betty or Veronica and became a Barry White ballad instead
That fractured into amber hues upon the surface of the moon



For the past thirty-five years Ken L. Jones has been a professionally published author who has done everything from writing Donald Duck Comic books to creating things for Freddy Krueger to say in some of his movies.  In the last six years he has concentrated on his lifelong ambition of becoming a published poet and he has published widely in all genres of that discipline in books, online, in chapbooks and in several solo collections of poetry.  

A Poem by John W. Sexton

Discontinued

squid gods
ink our dreams . . .
we wake thoughtless

          the nailing ships
          pierce the depths . . . holds full
          of mermeat

a nosebag of oats
his snuffled meal . . . the sky's beyond
clipped Pegasus

          the palimpsest house . . .
          our host swings a cat
          into many fornevers

telepath murderer . . .
who would
have thought it?

          the new range of
          omnivorous leather suites . . .
          discontinued

John W. Sexton lives in the Republic of Ireland and is the author of five poetry collections, the most recent being The Offspring of the Moon, (Salmon Poetry, 2013).  He also created and wrote The Ivory Tower for RTE radio, which ran to over one hundred half-hour episodes from 1999 to 2002.  Two novels based on the characters from this series have been published by the O'Brien Press:  The Johnny Coffin Diaries and Johnny Coffin School-Dazed, which have been translated into both Italian and Serbian.  He is a past nominee for The Hennessy Literary Award and his poem "The Green Owl" won the Listowel Poetry Prize in 2007.  Also in 2007, he was awarded a Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship in Poetry.

A Poem by Cathleen Chambless

Pick a Card

We practice
Egyptian
Fairy
Voodoo

with kisses beneath
the eclipsed
blood moon

and mouthfuls
of hieroglyphic
birthday cake
on the roof.

We painted the sky
with frosting
and that's why the clouds
are blue.

Let's play with
pyromancy,
hydromancy,
aeromancy,
geomancy,
necromancy.

Let's brush
up on your
divination.
Pick a card,
but not
any card.
Pick the one
that pulls your fingertips
like the metal
of the bridle
in a horse's
mouth.

Cathleen Chambless is a Miami native.  She is an MFA candidate in poetry at FIU, and also a visual artist and activist.  Her work has appeared in MPC's 10 Cent Journal, the anthology A Touch of Saccharine, and she was a poetry finalist for the Bellingham Review's 2014 Parallel Award for poetry.  She co-authors a queer/feminist zine called Phallacies.

A Poem by Jeanetta Calhoun Mish

differential

1.

they say madness is the recognition
there is no one to recognize
the cure is homeopathic
one must become cognizant of the lack
make decenteredness a mantra
refuse all intimations of objective subjectivity

the dialogic model more satisfying than the dialectic

2.

warning:  the surgeon general has determined
that a purely performative dialogic subjectivity
is harmful to those who love you

proceed with caution

objects in the mirror may appear . . .

Jeanetta Calhoun Mish is a poet, writer and literary scholar.  Mish has recently published poetry and essays in The Fiddleback, This Land, Naugatuck River Review, Concho River Review, LABOR:  Studies in Working Class History of the Americans, San Pedro River Review, Blast Furnace, Sugar Mule and  ProtestPoems.org, among others.  She is also editor of award-winning Mongrel Empire Press.  Dr. Mish is the Director of The Red Earth Creative Writing MFA program at Oklahoma City University where she also serves as a faculty mentor in literary magazine editing and the craft of poetry.  For more information, visit www.tonguetiedwoman.com

A Poem by Shloka Shankar

Growing Up

i wonder
if i was birthed
as a cross-breed
between nostalgia
and oblivion;

fumbling thro
ugh childhood -
a rigmarole,
dis
jointed
happenings, iso
lated moments
of happ
iness that

jostle between
becoming an adult
or remaining
an adolescent;

my foolhar
diness wears off
along with my masks.



Shloka Shankar is a freelance writer residing in India.  A contributing poet in over two dozen international anthologies, she has also seen her poems published in The Literary Yard, VerseWrights, Emanations, Ofi Press Mexico, Wicked Banshee Press, Otoliths, Calliope Magazine, Poetry WTF?!, Visual Verse, and Jaggery among numerous others.  She is the founder & editor of the literary and arts journal, Sonic Boom.

Three Poems by Ken L. Jones

In Stillness

This winter which is built mostly of stone and brine melts away
Soon toucans and tikis will rule it all but for now they hide beneath the bowler caps
Of vineyards near where my true love bathes herself in a tub of masks
That is near the cheap little taco stand where I first met her
Under skies so like a red velvet cloak draped over clouds of jellyfish
Even as she gave unto me all that was left of her ruby slippers
In the secluded minutes that were like a blur whose name I did not catch
As we flew under the data beyond all time with a brain in a bottle's swagger
And there were no shove off points for such as we
Buttermilk birds who were created by Hieronymus Bosch with a winepress of a golden hue
Whose silhouette was descending a staircase at the time
Just two migrating sea turtles who with a sigh became luminous sleepwalkers by and by



The Pain of a Puppet

The peppermint snowflakes dream of Bond Girls
And are a blue fossilized time machine
There is sea salt in the moonlight's barrage of data
As I go to visit a Picasso goddess on a contorted beach
Where all that crushes grapes is encouraged
To hide its identity from several horses with skull painted faces
Sent forth by that which is know as Pennywise
As I took a vow of incredible shrinking down
Through all the ticking decades that can communicate with ants
And are feather light in their brandied candles
Even as they unleash the shadowed baptism of the reptile clock at long last



The Mad Tea Party is Like Keith Haring Hallucinating Chocolate

Sleeping alone in unwanted bygone thoughts
Something blurry and staccato retyped the meat
A handful of theme songs collected all the scissored paintings
While Edgar Allan Poe blossomed into the Red Queen
And all of this of course took place nowhere else
But in the footsteps of my brain
While the White Rabbit talking on a police call box
Torn to shreds about how someone shot a Mexico City library in the head
Then was sliced to ribbons on a technicality
That throbbed like a cobra on the Headless Horseman frequency



For the past thirty-five years Ken L. Jones has been a professionally published author who has done everything from writing Donald Duck Comic books to creating things for Freddy Krueger to say in some of his movies.  In the last six years he has concentrated on his lifelong ambition of becoming a published poet and he has published widely in all genres of that discipline in books, online, in chapbooks and in several solo collections of poetry.  

A Poem by Joan McNerney

an executive

showed me in
i, shy
as an orphan

her charming face
thru sewing room
viewing beige cabinets
bolts of silk
tactical prints
her life in threads
swatches impressive
floral

discerning glances
make me hurry
out the rear
but she invited
me only to see
her material things
& feel them
unattainable

all handsome houses
have well guarded gardens
lush chrysanthemums
smothering me
dog-faced.

Joan McNerney's poetry has been included in numerous literary magazines such as Camel Saloon, Seven Circles Press, Dinner with the Muse, Blueline, Spectrum, and included in Bright Hills Press, Kind of a Hurricane Press and Poppy Road anthologies.  She has been nominated three times for Best of the Net, Poet and Geek recognized her work as their best poem of 2013.  Four of her books have been published by fine small literary presses and she has four ebook titles.