It's Been a While
by Kara Astrouski

 

Three Sides of tehe Fence

Lonely Painting
by Monica Barrameda

 

Natalie Parker

The Price You Pay
by Clayton Beach

 
The Tale of the Queen of Endor
by Clayton Beach

 
All three sides of the fence dance red in the shadows and sun, and the relief of green is beautiful in the center of the backyard, creating an instant resemblance to the colors of Christmas time. Yet, the grass is fake, implanted by my uncle Ruben when he owned Forever Lawn. Of synthetic makeup, eternally the same shade unless the sun fades it otherwise, the grass is probably the same plastic fiber that some fake Christmas trees are made of. Never dying. There are the scattered pots with plants sprouted with anxious arms skyward, or earth un-tempted by the sun, unyielding to the air, sitting still and ancient inside clay molds. Only a few flowers gently wave their petal crowns to me this season. The queen, the rose, an enduring ancestor of timeless beauty, owns parched and fading skeins of color, like she might have once been dipped in the offered blushes of a paling dusk, or baptized with a rich wine by careful fingertips. A pair of birds continue their electric warble, like static jumping, their legs like fearless twine, traveling within the safe and crooked bones of the tree. Their feathers mingle with the dusty mouse-field heat, jesting with the yellow boughs, reminding me that they are ageless to themselves.
Well above me, in incomplete phrases,
I can faintly hear the fork scrape the dish,
the cry of a trust-wounded child,
the haunted sounds of crows,
a composition of neighbors: laughter and carnal reactions,
groaning pavement beneath a wheel,
the din of industrial lions, tired of the prowl,
and somewhere, a cricket is chanting.
I meditate on this and see that the shadows have moved. Like dark planets lost in circles, the shadows cast by the array of plants orbit faithfully around each other. I watch the ants scrawl little pathways to a future. Pin pricks of light glow on chosen surfaces, like the over-grown palm with leaves half mast, which has charmed its roots out of the wooden planks caging the soil in. The flies propel themselves noisily, subsequently being everyone’s business and being the carriers of everyone’s business. The canal makes minute comments on its journey, suggesting a land elsewhere when I close my eyes on the evening’s last burning blush.

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