Category: Poetry

She laughs too loudly, her cackles

dimming the light towers. Her sighs

send back the tides. She opens

her hands and sapphires turn

to berries that fall into his bowl.

She covers him with her feathered

cloak, and he sleeps a forest slumber.

When he awakes, she takes him

to her bed and he weeps silver tears

of joy and wonder that fill the ocean.

When his enemies come, she ties them

to arrows and shoots them into a denim sky.

He wails that this is too good, that she

is too much. But Paul, she tells him,

she cannot daisy chain her days into easy,

weave shrouds or cast nets for only three fish.

Someone who can turn petals into golden

topaz to spit at the moon cannot be told

to turn them into glass. That Paul, she says,

is like unbreathing the air or unseeing

the sun, unfeeling a moon crater

of heartbreak. And this Paul, she tells

him, is what it would be like to be small.

Jessica Gregg is a Baltimore-based poet, former journalist, and proud rowhouse dweller. Her work has appeared in Broadkill Review, Delmarva Review, Global Poemic, Rise Up Review, and the Under Review, among other publications.

And so nourish the walls with your pictures or portraits,

Raise up your statues to overthrow the air,

That gallery sweeps right off the map’s face,

Dinosaurs inherit the dead years,

History is a lover who returns to be kissed.

Jason Visconti has attended both group and private poetry workshops. His work has appeared in various journals, including “Literary Yard”, “Valley Voices”, “California Quartely”, “Allegro Magazine” and “The American Journal of Poetry”. He especially enjoys the poetry of Pablo Neruda and Billy Collins.

We are bigger when we’re born,

but the past is not a prologue.

When we first get into the world,

every last thing is otherworldly.

Makes you wonder where we came from.

But then, maybe before we get to the middle of our allotted time,

with our hair in knots and the wash on our hip,

and a permanent ache in our joints, this all becomes it all:

it’s our kids turn to momentarily wild-eye the world.

Makes us begrudge where we are.

We get to the point where our future 

is present, where we can see the future 

as forming and reforming 

(washing and rewashing) the past.

And yet, we cannot help but grieve where our kids will be.

Megan Wildhood is a neurodiverse writer from Colorado who believes that freedom of expression is necessary for a society that is not only safe but flourishing. She helps her readers feel seen in her poetry chapbook Long Division (Finishing Line Press, 2017) as well as Yes! Magazine, Mad in America, The Sun and, increasingly, less captured media outlets. You can learn more at meganwildhood.com.

She grasps her wife’s wedding bouquet,

a teardrop glistens in the day.

The masses of black merely stare,

they recite the final prayer.

She flails her arms in agony, 

flowers upon mahogany.

Into the ground the box must go,and all her love to depths below.

Alex Gibson is a full time student at Hagerstown Community College. They enjoy writing poetry and short stories. They currently have no published work. 

The warm embrace and languid touch of love,

dim lights that glow and drip their melted wax,

their shapes that dance on darkened paint above,

she flips a tattered page, a simple act, 

yet full of hearty joy, and passion pure, 

the love of other things persists to wane, 

the water’s echo brings a blissful lure,

to stay, to keep the tranquil peace maintained, 

to keep the water still,  to make no wave, 

for warmth and ease are lovely pleasant things, 

and leisure’s marriage ought to be saved,

it’s come together, save eternal rings,

her parting time has come, she stands despaired,

a wish for one more breath in calming air.

Alex Gibson is a full time student at Hagerstown Community College. They enjoy writing poetry and short stories. They currently have no published work. 

He grips the door handle.

His woolen coat absorbing the stained

glass light.

She had loved that glass window, 

the way the evening sun set

the birds and flowers alight.

The greens and browns reflected

on the aged carpet.

The way when he sat on the sofa, 

reading the paper the dying light

struck his thin framed glasses. 

Set his eyes on fire.

It was beautiful.

Now it’s not. 

He grips the door handle. 

She stands in the kitchen, holding her 

lasagna, the heat seeping through

her worn pot holders.

She used to love making her mother’s 

lasagna.

How he would devour it and sing

her praises.

She loved the way that after every meal he’d 

rise and take care of the dishes, 

letting her sit and relax.

It was wonderful.

Now it’s not. 

He opens the door, 

with one last look at her.

A burdened sigh and he steps out, 

the door gently shut behind him.

The lights have dimmed. 

The lasagna cooled. 

She sets the pan down and retires

to their bedroom.

Well, to her bedroom. 

Alex Gibson is a full time student at Hagerstown Community College. They enjoy writing poetry and short stories. They currently have no published work. 

I’m no longer in North Carolina,

and it’s so different; the

trees are 

Different the grass is

Different.

I can smell that the air is

Different.

Is this even the same sky?

It can’t be, but when does something become different?

When I first see it? 

Or is it when I plant my feet onto it; caress it with all that’s in me, 

and finally, let go and tell myself:

“Everything’s changing, and you won’t ever be the same.”

Each finger knows, however,

unknowingly

the shape of all that fills this world.

The molecules that make me up will soon grow tired and self 

destruct, yet here I lie, touching dirt on my floor,

surrounded by my crumbling skin, I’ve noticed I shed more now.

This crumbling half-life has always been over,

yet as it becomes what I call Different

I find my breath will flow and ebb.

Growing weight, sloughing off.

It’s so hard to quantify, just like how I half love myself and three quarters love everyone around me.

But only five sixteenths believe that everything is different.

Joshua Faith is practically an adult. He is currently deciding what he likes to write and lives in Hagerstown, MD, where he was born and raised. His works have yet to be published, but will still be produced regardless.

My mind swims in pools of eventuality.

To escape there is no remedy, save one.

Save one person a day, other than myself.

If I am not in one pool I must be in another.

There are hardly any hands reaching in to drag me back home

But I only think that because I am selfish and heartless.

A daymare squirms out from under a paper-thin rock to proclaim me heartless.

I scramble out of my head, avoiding that word, that eventuality,

and find myself in my too-warm home.

But I cannot change a thing about my surroundings, not one

degree lower or higher, and when it comes to my choice of home, it’s not like I have another.

The floor is hidden beneath dirt and debris, and everyone is too busy to clean. Including myself.

Can you blame me for retreating back into myself?

Please don’t look at me like I’m heartless,

I’d do anything, take you anywhere you want, if you keep me and not another.

But with self-absorbed bargains like that, your departure is an eventuality.

I think, “I can move on if I beat this thought and start to love myself for once. If I beat this one.”

But how can I do that if I’m home?

Because I’m home,

And nothing ever changes, not even myself.

Why do I try to be the only one

who’s heartless?

It has to be an eventuality

that I’ll meet another.

I have to connect with another, 

I must find my Home Away from Home.

Everyone does it, right? It’s an eventuality.

I can’t always be by myself,

even though nothing changes, I don’t feel as heartless

anymore. Because I don’t feel like I’m the only one.

If we cherish one

another 

I don’t think we’ll be heartless.

We can shape ourselves into a new home,

and I won’t have to be by myself.

Can I stay in this eventuality?

But what if there’s only one home.

What if there is no another, only myself?

What is this heartless existence? The most selfish eventuality.

Joshua Faith is practically an adult. He is currently deciding what he likes to write and lives in Hagerstown, MD, where he was born and raised. His works have yet to be published, but will still be produced regardless.

By now, love feels like the rusted over 

handlebars of a bicycle. 

A familiar place of unpretty age

and the resistance to touch. 

It is the years gone by 

and the times you were told to leave 

your heart at the door, 

(along with your coat, sensibility and handbag) 

and to enter this house 

without wondering why the counters are so polished. 

By now, love is so forgettable 

it is the smooth scent of September. 

It is a funny accent on an untrained tongue. 

It is a match doused in sink water 

that is put to a candle and told to make fire. 

You have felt love in so many ways 

with so many ruthless endlings 

that you have started to peel apart your own brain. 

You have started to ask yourself 

why rosebuds must wait for rain 

in order to grow into something with thorns. 

And when the thought of love creeps 

its way back into your room at night, 

you ponder the way you are good at molding 

your clay body into something for others 

to use and stick on a shelf. 

And the way you are good at giving 

your heart away in full sentences 

at 100 miles per hour in a school zone;

and by now, you are wondering if maybe your ooey-gooey, 

glue and glitter, craft paper love is unable to be received and reciprocated. 

But know this:

Love will arrive when love is meant to. 

And when it does, it will come crashing into you 

like a tidal wave from somewhere you’ve never been. 

It will rain into your skin with the texture of salt water taffy– 

waxy and heavy and delicious. 

And it will bring you Grand Canyon air, 

and when it does, you will fear how far the fall is 

from the sedimentary rocks. You will fear the drop 

and the way your heart once climbed out of your own chest 

and forfeited itself onto your beaten up shoes.  

But this time, when love plants a kiss upon your forehead, 

know it is the truth. 

Mina Foutch is a writer and college student from Hagerstown, Maryland, that enjoys expressing her mind in stories, poems and songs by diving into the grime of reality. She has also been previously published in magazines such as HeARTbreaker Mag and Suburban Rose Mag and is in the process of crafting a poetry chapbook. Known for her raw emotions and nitty gritty details, she flourishes in the art, and hopes you are left with an aftertaste of her work. 

As if these sleeves are cooled

and that slow roll

you’re still not used to

left one arm in the open

struggling, almost holds on –the tattoo

helps, smells from flowers

kept cold though it’s an old shirt

given your bare skin

for its years, months, minutes

and the exact place held close

licking the ice from your shoulders

your breasts and the flowers.

Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poetry has appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, The New Yorker and elsewhere.  His latest book is titled “Family of Man” (Cholla Needles Library 2021).