2017      $10.00      96 pages      "The Road" Theme   Home Page     New Releases     Poetry Chapbook Contest     Back Issues     Video   Poets featured in this Issue: Claire T. Feild, Tony Magistrale, Trevor Tingle, Judson Evans, Miranda Haney, Peter Marcus, Judith Roney, Belinda Subraman, Suzanne Iuppa, Michael Salcman, Robert Beveridge, Matt Zambito, Rikki Santer, Jeff Alfier, William Godbey, Michael Vander Does, David Denny, Jennifer Weber, Michael David Roberts, Judi Rypma, Dennis Maloney, Devon Balwit, Holly Day, Carl Boon, Gail DiMaggio, John Stupp, Nick Conrad, Willam C. Blome, Grant Clauser, Ed Taylor, Stephen Roger Powers, Nicole Santalucia, David Chorlton, Charles Rammelkamp, Riley Ward, Casey Clague, Doug South, Lana Dean Highfill, Seth Garcia, Richard O'Brien, Justin Hyde, Carol A. Amato, Armin Tolentino, Anna Monardo, Jim Zola, Patricia Fargnoli, Allen C. Jones, K.D. Rose, Mike Jurkovic, Alan Catlin, Donna Davis, Sharon Lask Munson, Joan E. Bauer, Matthew W. Schmeer, John Schneider, Helga Kidder, Frank J Dunbar, Kennth Feltges, Serena Fusek, Mather Schneider, Robert Cooperman, Stephanie Botelho, Rebekah Keaton, Joe Cottonwood, Dan Jacoby, Dianalee Velie, Alexis Rhone Fancher, Sara Fetherolf, Kathleen Gunton, Diane Martin, and others. Cover Artist: Ted Vasin Ted Vasin is a San Francisco-based artist who works in painting and sound. His work attacks the phenomenon of the psychological spectrum and its possibilities of expansion and transcendence. On the canvas a collision of hyper-realism and technologically produced abstractions proposes an intersection where the organic self and the physical world must come to terms. Visit Ted's website at: tedvasin.com   Sample Poems from Issue 37 Teachable Moment  by Tony Magistrale Oasis  by William Godbey I Am Not Your Future, Mapped  by Jennifer Weber Roadside Fantasies  by Doug South   Teachable Moment by Tony Magistrale That first glorious convertible-worthy, top-down day my buddy and I pull up alongside a yellow bus packed with high school students on their journey home. At a red light everyone inside rushes to our side of the bus, mud-streaked half windows descend, comments fly: Way cool car, Dudes. You guys are awesome, can we get a ride? I catch the eye of one kid sitting alone in the back next to a window. He’s the only one not glad to make our acquaintance, wrinkling his face in a grimace of displeasure. Before the light changes, my buddy offers some ancient advice: Stay in school; you’ll be cruising in your own car with the top down. The kid in the back sticks up his middle finger to remind us high school’s always a prison especially on fine spring afternoons. © 2017 Tony Magistrale Back to top Oasis by William Godbey Off the I-40, someway between Barstow and Havasu Where the dust will sit under fingertips and dance in the back of throats There is the statue No hue to its figure and no architect to claim it With an arm clutching the baby to its chest The other arm extended out, palm stretching up Brambles lace through the feet, carving unplanned seams in the shade Its eyes, its eyes are blank The last statue for miles Where the dust looms over the landscape But still they flock to it They will crawl to it Clutching their beads and their gin and their poker chips and their bones With knees as bruised as their hearts Thumping the ground as if doing so will turn the statue gold Shuddering in awe as they feel their guilt perish Whimpering with ecstasy to find their journey worthwhile Dancing figure eights in the dirt while triumph erupts from the back of their throats Their eyes, their eyes are foolish They can’t see the dust on its fingertips They can’t see the cracks in its frame They can’t see the dust laughing © 2017 William Godbey Back to top I Am Not Your Future, Mapped by Jennifer Weber On stormy nights you conquer the gap between our bodies and your fingers measure the distance between my hip and knee. When I turn away you plot new adventures into the valleys of my collarbones. Acknowledging the ends of my fingertips, exploring all sides of my scalp, you think you’ve reached my edges. But I am not so easily contained or carried. The pattern of my veins will not reveal a shortcut. Freckles on my cheek do not suggest an easier path. Cast off the gridlines you’ve imagined across my body, the mile markers you dropped to remember your way back to my heart. I am not a map to flatten and read with a compass rose. I spin, a solitary weather vane. You cannot rely on my wind. © 2017 Jennifer Weber Back to top Roadside Fantasies by Doug South You like the way she touches everything with her mouth, licks the salt on your shoulder, rips a plastic bag with her teeth, catches snowflakes on her tongue, bites her nails, nibbles on babies’ fingertips. But none of that matters. It’s all voyeuristic fantasy, memories of interactions that never happened, never will. You’re on a fuel break at a pit stop beside a highway of strangers heading to different destinations. Alone on a motorcycle with no radio, no companion, your eyes rest on whoever crosses your line of sight, contemplate this random, almost meeting, reinvent the un- remarkable as a means to pass the time. © 2017 Doug South Back to top