Issue #14

Loneliness
Mike Meraz

loneliness comes to me
late at night
and wakes me up
in the morning.
it passes by my door.
it opens its mouth.
it speaks to me.
it says, "I don't drink
but I need a beer."
loneliness does not come from
a lack of people
but from an inability
to connect with them.
look out your door.
open your window.
you will see me
walking alone
in beige shorts
and black sneakers
looking up at the sky
wondering
why?


Biography Note:

Mike Meraz is a poet from Los Angeles who currently lives in New Orleans. He is the author of two books of poetry Black-Listed Poems and All Beautiful Things Travel Alone. Both are available at Lulu.com and Amazon.com. He is also the editor of Black-Listed Magazine.


lost souls,‭ ‬all of us
Ross Vassilev

there’s the cleaning lady
working
after everyone else
goes home

there’s the kid sitting
in his room
listening to his parents
screaming through
the door

or walking alone at night
cuz there’s something
about the purple
dark and the way
it breathes

there’s the men and women
locked up in prison
or lunatic asylums
dreaming of better days

there’s the hungry
and the people living
in war zones

just think about all
those people the next time
you go for a coffee
at Starbucks.


Biography Note:

Ross Vassilev was born in Bulgaria and now lives in Ohio. He's a poet some of the time and the editor of Opium Poetry 2.0 and Asphodel Madness blogzines. He's been published here and there.


INSPIRATION
Stephen Jarrell Williams

No notes on the side of the page,
this is it...
going crazy
all over you,

you are everything
opposite the world,

roughing me up with your dress,
smoothing me down with a whisper,

giving me words
straight
on your back spread on the bed,

apartment walls lit in the dark,
electric candles on your chest,
you control
with a slap of your hands,

and to think you leave...
the writing to me.


Biography Note:

Stephen Jarrell Williams loves to write, listen to his music, and dance late into the night. He was born in Fort Belvoir, Virginia. His parents are native Texans. He has lived most of his life in California. His poetry has appeared here and there and in-between...


Pain of Larks
Chris Lawrence

i have written to the lark
expressing my concern,
his voice a poignant song
from atop the lofty elm,
its a memory of a day
and a place i would rather forget,
being a bird of course
he cannot read,
so continues his incriminating
song,
tearing open another
wound..


Biography Note:

Chris Lawrence lives in West Kirby, with his family and their fish, has written poems published in Troubadour21, amphibi.us and Deuce Coupe, and also can be contacted on Twitter @clawfish.


Night Blue Twilight
Serena Tome

A chill from the open window
awakens me. Beckons me. Come.
Look. There. A blue aura cycles moon’s
ova, painted ivory.
Distant cloud measurements
coupled with sound’s sweetness deferred
converts obscure skepticism into
undefiled religion


Biography Note:

Serena Tome launched an international reading series for African children to connect, learn and participate in literary activity with students from around the world via video conferencing. She has literary work published and/or forthcoming in The Legendary, Breadcrumb Scabs, Word Riot, Calliope Nerve, Counterexample Poetics, Full of Crow, Boston Literary Magazine, The Stray Branch, and other publications. She is currently working on her first chapbook. You can find out more about Serena at http://www.serenatome.blogspot.com/.


Visage
Eric Harris

an ass emerged
from beneath
the setting sun
tired and needing
of my arrival

I took him
and led him
around behind
a dense growth
of bushes

so that he
might sleep

I turned
then found
my way again
back down
the washboard road

that wound
around a
slaughter
of mobile homes

a girl
and her older sister
or maybe it was
her mother

sat smoking
and dropping
their ashes
on one another
as they disappeared
into the night's
squalid harbor

I took out a
mechanic's rag
from my pocket
and absorbed
the scent
in order
to resurrect
my strength
for reprisal

when the sky
reproached
me
for it
with
cloud-to-cloud
lightning



Biography Note:

Eric Harris has spent most of his adult life working nights at a factory in North Alabama County. In his free time he enjoys traveling down Sand Mountain (his hometown) to the Tennessee River Valley. You can find out more about Eric at http://theblissofloneliness.blogspot.com/