It's Been a While
by Kara Astrouski

 

The Tale of the Queen of Endor

Lonely Painting
by Monica Barrameda

 

Clayton Beach

The Price You Pay
by Clayton Beach

 
The Tale of the Queen of Endor
by Clayton Beach

  To the far away land of faeries and fable
came a stubborn young prince who was willing and able
to build four large palaces, three of great splendor,
to win the white hand of the fair Princess Endor.

Sweet Endor the beauty was widely renowned
for her hair like limp moonbeams that flowed from her crown
and her eyes that were two pools of glistening ice
for which men lost their minds and would pay any price.

The first of the castles Prince Wren deftly spun
was a tower of glass that reflected the sun
and its myriad spires rose and pierced the blue sky
in a luminous grandeur that could please any eye.

But the jealous old Viceroy was not to be bested;
He convinced the naïve girl that each gift must be tested.
While this tower was splendid and every spire shone,
it toppled right down when she cast just one stone.

So a palace prince Wren built from silk and fine wood.
Under high vaulted ceilings, oaken caryatids stood,
and the walls flowed with carvings of roses and ferns,
but the wicked old Viceroy made sure it all burned.

By these tests, the poor prince, he was stung to the bone,
so his next gorgeous castle he cut from rare stone.
The finest of minerals were mined from the land.
Surely this solid building would forever stand.

The vile Viceroy felt threatened, so he gathered the forces
of the King’s mighty army, thirty thousand strong horses,
and they pulled and they strained with their steel coated ropes
‘til the castle did crumble, and with it Wren’s hopes.

Thrice defeated, the deft prince chose then not to settle
for anything less than a structure of metal.
Cold and bare, it was empty of anything fragile;
the furnishings welded, not a single thing vagile.

It could take any boulders that the catapults threw,
it withstood all the fire that the dragons could spew
and the horses fell down after hours, exhausted,
so the Viceroy gave up ‘cause he knew he had lost it.

When Queen Endor now walks through the halls of her home,
she wanders through rooms that are barer than bones,
and they pale to the splendors her tests pulverized
so each night she lies cold in her steel bed and cries.

Wintersong
by Clayton Beach
 
Mad Dogs Bite
by Janet Berend

 
Desert Firefly
by Taen Bounthapanya
Third Place Winner, Poetry
 
Virtual Reality
by Taen Bounthapanya

 
Early morning staring at an ugly fountain by Breelyn Burns
 
Ten Year Old Militia
by Breelyn Burns
Editor's Choice Award, Poetry
 
Arrogance Unplugged
by Rachel Busnardo

 
Goodbye My Best Friend
by Rachel Busnardo

 
At a Small-Town Club
by Jessica Conaway

 
Red Stiletto Heels
by Jessica Conaway

 
Naked and Perfect
T.C. Cook

Second Place Winner, Poetry

 
Too Far
by T.C. Cook

 
Someday
by Jermane Cooper

 
The Girl Who Wrote This Stands at
5’ 2” (on a Good Day)
by Shayna Coplan
 
Pontificating Drunks
by Dennis Dorsey
 
The Symptom
by Dennis Dorsey
 
Saturday Night Pick-Up
by Tanya Duer

 
Lost in a Moment
by Jamie Dykstra

 
Denizens of Brilliance
by Holland Elder
 
Between His Futon and the Bedroom Wall by Rachel Jones
 
Getting Lost in National City Trying to Find Acapulco
by Rachel Jones

Angelo Carli Poetry Prize
 
Having to Hide
by Rachel Jones

 
I Used To Take My Anger Out On Plants by Rachel Jones  
The Piano
by Rachel Jones
 
Words Like Clay
by Rachel Jones
 
Begetting Tragedy
by Chris Joy

 
My First Last
by Chris Joy
 
There's No Problem Officer
by Brittney Krier

 

No More Rainbows
by Emit Levart

 
Ernest Hemingway (My Cat):
A Villanelle
by Melanie Maheu
 
The Small Beauties of Marriage
by Melanie Maheu
 
Do The Punks Still Raise Their High Pumping Fists in the Air?
by Brendan Mitchell
 
Love
by Natalie Parker
 

Three Sides of the Fence
by Natalie Parker

 
Watching TV While Having Sex
by Jessee Pugliese

 

freedom
by Ruth Rice

 
partner
by Ruth Rice
 

six weeks
by Ruth Rice

 
Blood
by Rachelle Shull
 
Fall
by Jacob Triffo
 
Time Served
by Matt Tweedie
 
Romance to Reality
by Aga-Marie Wehrly
 
Solicitude
by Matt Whitney
 
Why We Write
by Karen Wooton