The Secret

By SK Thompson


He slipped his foot into her stiletto
Breathless pleasure
Purr of delicious ecstasy
His milky white skin
sapphire veins
Cutting the surface of a clever arch
He stood taller
Back arched into a feline curl
He felt his hips turn to molasses
Dripping slowly to the left
And slyly to the right
His broad shoulders melting into 
A quiet whisper
Come hither
Her long black wig 
Silk drizzling down 
Grazing the small of his back
And his heart broke with
The beauty of the woman
He hid in her shoes.
The fire of shame
Of his secret pleasure
Consumed his light
As he stood in the mirror
Watching hot tears cut 
His blush into a blood river.


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 About the author: SK Thompson is a scribbler, painter, whiskey connoisseur, and lover of pink starburst. IG: @moonrosegypsy

 About the photographer: Nick Romeo is a multidisciplinary artist, musician and writer.  His writings have been published in “The Brentwood Anthology, by Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange,” Uppagus, Rune, StreetCake Magazine, Eye Contact, Syzygy, and others.  He was interviewed for Pankhearst's Fresh Featured poet of December 2015.  Nick lives in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania with his wife and cat, Megatron.
 
www.pittsburghartistregistry.org/accounts/view/nickromeo

Emotional Passage

By Archana Kapoor Nagpal

My chest feels tight,
And I gibber in hysteria,
Unfailing memory of our love,
Four decades of this togetherness,
The gentle wind surrounds me,
Rustling through these leaves,
The poignant epitaph,
And these white flowers on your grave,
 
I walk around impatiently,
But you shall rest in peace,
I still remember your smile,
That never-ending shine in your eyes,
Tears roll down my cheeks,
My heartbeat goes up, and then down
All eyes are set on me,
As I read your eulogy.
 
I wrote this last night,
I turn, and unfold it,
Thinking why I wrote,
Though I carry your heart in me,
I keep the eulogy aside,
And close my eyes,
To feel the feeling,
That holds us together, so tight.
 
Words flow from the heart,
And I can hear my sigh,
I am numb to things around me,
But your soul still resides in me,
People smile as I finish,
Understanding this emotional passage,
Where I don’t walk alone,
As we still hold hand in hand.



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 About the author: Archana Kapoor Nagpal is an internationally published author of four books – '14 Pearls of Inspiration', 'The Road to a Positive Life', ‘A Haiku Per Day’ and 'The Fragrance of a Beautiful Life'. She often participates in the short story competitions, and her winning stories are now part of international anthologies - 'New Love: Anthology of Short Stories' and the ’12 Facets of a Crystal’. She has seen her short stories, poems and Haiku published in other anthologies as well – ‘A Pinch of Love, Peace and Humanity ’, ‘Atoms of Haiku’, and the ‘Ripples of Love’. She has also been actively involved in the editing, proofreading and book designing of these three anthologies.
 
She has also seen her poems published in numerous other literary journals, blogs, websites and anthologies including Friday Gurgaon, Whispers, Writers Asylum, VerseWrights, The Bamboo Hut, Frogpond (Issue 37-2) – The Journal of the Haiku Society of America, Under the Basho, Asahi Haikuist Network, HOO-Knows Home & Family Magazine, Harvests of New Millennium (Art & Poetry), Gems (An Anthology of haiku, senryu and sedoka), Taj Mahal Review (An International Literary Journal ), Frameless Sky, Tamarind Magazine, A Hundred Gourds 4.1, DailyHaiga, brass bell: a haiku journal, UHTS (United Haiku and Tanka Society) Cattails, Tulip, Paper Wasp, Prune Juice (Journal of Senryu Kyoka & Haiga), Gnarled Oak, Faces and Places – Haiku Anthology, The Mustard Grain, Ershik #9, Modern Haiku (45:3 Issue), Issa’s Untidy Hut, hedgerow: a journal of small poems, NeverEnding Story (Butterfly Dream Haiku), Chrysanthemum 17 and many others. Her haiku and senryu are translated into Chinese, German and Russian as well. Her two poems – ‘God on Facebook’ and ‘Circle of Life’ are highly acknowledged by other poets, and her readers as well. She has written poems around empowerment of women in India, and eradication of the social evils – dowry, female foeticide, et al.
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 About the author: A Pushcart nominee, Lana has had her poetry and fiction featured or forthcoming with over 180 journals, including a chapbook with Crisis Chronicles Press (Winter 2016), Abyss & Apex, Chiron Review, Coe Review, Columbia Journal, Elohi Gadugi, Foundling Review, Fourth & Sycamore, Galway Review, Harbinger Asylum, Literary Orphans, Lost Coast Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, Poetry Quarterly, Roanoke Review, William Jessup University, and elsewhere, among others. She divides her time between the US and the coastal town of Nha Trang, Vietnam, where she is a mom of two far-too-clever-frolicsome imps. https://www.facebook.com/niaallanpoe

Change of Address

By Trista Hurley-Waxali


I remember the day I moved out of one home and into the next, when I still danced on the hope of having first and last month- desperately trying not to obsess over the days in-between. This afternoon, my old landlord called said he can help with his truck and trailer, that his son’s would join to help carry out my possessions. Manhandling out of his house, where I called home and shuffling me into the recently vacant room. I had the key to the new spot already by sheer luck with work hours and agreed that Sunday was perfect.

I lied, it wasn’t. There was a Saturday night with my name on it. Scribbled along the barstool and left behind later along the walls. Shots of Canadian Rye mixed with coke, lime wedges cut to perfection to be balanced along the rim. I thought I was so hot then, even as I was in a disgusting state- searching for repair.  I don’t know how I woke up at home, voicemails from my friend that he just got home too and that I was to shower and get ready for my move. That was as much of the night I needed to remember. 

I lifted my head and reached for my half full glass of rum to sip on while I searched for my faded blue vintage Vans to slip on, feeling a little bit more secure when I walked around my room. Maybe I thought I was fancy in my kicks or maybe I just didn’t want anyone to see I was a drunk.

I got a call from my old landlord to confirm we were ‘still on for today,’ not really having a choice I said ‘yes.’ I had no truck, no trailer, just boxes of possessions- items that I kept to sell online for money to cover a meal. A meal from my local pizza place, where they always snuck in a 2-piece meal to my order.
“A couple hours, yeah I’ll be ready.” I ended call and got some ice from the freezer, letting the clinking together in liquid to freshen me up.
When 3pm came around I was half way through a fifth and taping up the last box. Maybe it was the dust or May blooming pollen but when I opened the door to let them in, I stepped out and puked in the bushes. I turned around and dropped my hair to my shoulders, thanking them again for coming over. The older son was a couple years older and stood silent when he saw the blocks of ice melting in the rum. The sides were condensing on the glass shining like puddles along the window sill. He thought for a moment he was better than me, and in that moment, he was.

The trailer had more than enough space for all my stuff and they promised me nothing will get damaged. I trusted them, I had no reason not to, his whole family has been really kind to me during this time. When they first told me about how they wanted to sell the house, they never hesitated to give me the time I needed to find a new spot. I took advantage of their lax nature until his wife called to wish me luck on finals. Pinched with sudden guilt, I promised her I’d be out at the end of the month. 

I sipped on my drink after they started lifting box after box, a train of light brown toppling down the stairs and onto the trailer.
    “Are you going to help?” the other son asks while I was putting my clothes in garbage bags.
    “Leave her alone, she needs to finish packing.” My old landlord says, “she’s got enough on her plate…”
    “More like in her glass.” The boy looks over waiting for a reaction. I don’t give it to him because I’ve heard it all before. He picks up a box labelled shoes and nearly toss it on the trailer. I watch him through my window, deep down I want to flip him off but he’s too fucking right. 
I walked outside and thank them again, I tell them how I’ll be at the new place with the front doors propped open. They asked how I was getting there as I walked to the back porch to retrieve my bike. Drunk or numb at this point, I wasn’t quite sure. I just knew I couldn’t be around the brothers.

I rode the back streets to avoid traffic noise from E.C. Row, I rode on the sidewalk and maneuvered around children on tricycles and hoses left across by dad’s. Was I even going the right way? Was this really where I should be heading?

When I reached the house, I opened the door. Maybe it was the smell of cleaning supplies, or the sun reflecting off the hallway floor that made me dizzy but I puked in the dried up bushes. Like a dog to a tree stump, I marked my territory. But this time I couldn’t stop, I was shaking and my hands went clammy. I grabbed a brick and put it by the screen door and left the door unlocked. I then crawled to a tree and threw down my scarf on the lawn. I just laid there waiting until I heard my old landlords truck coming around the corner. I waited to hear the boys get out of the truck and comment. I braced myself for all of that, the noise, the silence the whispering questions and even the flyer for AA to be left on the table. So when it was over I went inside to my new room. I looked at the boxes marked clothes, kitchen and heavy. I opened my laptop and called up Craigslist and started to browse: rental spots downtown Windsor.



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About the author: Trista Hurley-Waxali is a transplant from Toronto, now perched on barstools in West Hollywood. She has performed at Avenue 50, Stories Bookstore and internationally at O’bheal Poetry Series in Cork, Ireland and a TransLate Night show from Helsinki Poetry Connection. She is currently working on her novel, At This Juncture. 

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 About the artist/author, Ella Russell: The poems I write are taken from personal experiences or those of people that I am close to. That is often how it goes though. I value people's understandings of things, the differences in these understandings and the origins of these understandings. This is important and is often the subject of the short films that I make and write; the focus of the last being the housing crisis and London's spawning of unaffordable housing developments that choker local communities. I am a student of visual art at present, and have been a student of film and performance in the past. 

 About the author: Nicholas Sollitto grew up in the small town of Mount Airy, Maryland. After attending one year at a small college near Mount Airy Nicholas moved to Corpus Christi, Texas. Nicholas currently attends the University of Texas A&M - Corpus Christi. At the University he is continuing to further his knowledge in the areas of English and Marine Biology.

Rite of Passage

The power of you
in the grueling dark places
that demand your mastery.
Summer has left, but the sky
is still beautiful
emerging, gaining soft feathers.
The will to blow mighty at
the insects of anxiety, insects
building nests of dread
inside the pocket holes of
your once most-trusted security.
Relax in the wave that takes away your footing,
teaching you the ways of
sharks and minnows,
pulling you out into a place where
oxygen must be drawn in differently,
slicing smooth skin into gills,
salting your eyes, tastebuds and
all of you that previously glowed.
 
Treehouse by the fence
fall over and know like it
you can, either fly or swing
or place yourself, steeping slow,
renew yourself, know yourself capable
of maneuvering any journey.
 
Deciding is hard, you must shed your shell
of childhood, majestic and marvelous
as it was, keep the good
that formed, transforming as you bless it,
incorporate it, and then,
let go.
 
 
 
 
 

I have been born

a thousand times over,
flaked into existence by
force, by will and by desire.
I have had my days
under the siege of physical limitations,
of bloodlines burned and bloodlines
mended. There is no more
time for this rotating scheme,
no space for waiting
or for continuing. I stop here. Unplugging the
flow, breathing only because
I want to, because
this skin that is mine is
the last skin I will ever claim
as the landscapes I drop, drop, then
drop me.







Make the wind

Make the wind like blood.
Blood is darker than the wind,
more brutal in its espionage.
Wild, brooding, master of the game-plan, game-spin, darting
in and out of extremes, be for me the last-call,
the ump-degree, send my inhibitions
to the highest octave plateau where untold desires are invented,
then rip through the ceiling by their unbearable brilliance.
Send me into the peace that comes with such intensity.
Send me salt, flavours of forbidden scents
where the wind is blood
and blood is savouring safe,
more risky than being on edge.
Bury the small of my back, my tippy-toes, realizing
all I have lost is the same as what
has made me whole.

 About the author: Allison Grayhurst is a member of the League of Canadian Poets. Three of her poems have been nominated for Sundress Publications “Best of the Net” 2015, and she has over 825 poems published in more than 365 international journals and anthologies. Her book Somewhere Falling was published by Beach Holme Publishers in 1995. Since then she has published eleven other books of poetry and six collections with Edge Unlimited Publishing. Prior to the publication of Somewhere Falling she had a poetry book published, Common Dream, and four chapbooks published by The Plowman. Her poetry chapbook The River is Blind was published by Ottawa publisher above/ground press in December 2012. In 2014 her chapbook Surrogate Dharma was published by Kind of a Hurricane Press, Barometric Pressures Author Series in October 2014. More recently, her chapbook No Raft – No Ocean was published in October 2015 by Scars Publications. She also has a chapbook Currentspending publication this Fall/Winter with Pink.Girl.Ink. Press. She lives in Toronto with her family. She also sculpts, working with clay;www.allisongrayhurst.com A few of her publication credits include: Literary Orphans; Blue Fifth Review; The American Aesthetic; Agave Magazine;JuxtaProse Literary Magazine, The Brooklyn Voice,  The Toronto Quarterly; Fogged Clarity, Boston Poetry Magazine, Ayris, Decanto and White Wall Review.

 About the author: John Lowther’s work appears in The Lattice Inside and Another South and Held to the Letter (with Dana Lisa Young) is forthcoming. He works in video, photography, paint and performance. His dissertation seeks to reimagine psychoanalysis with intersex and transgender lives as foundational.

                                                                                                          Spaghettio Capone

                                                                                                          By Catfish McDaris

The farmer’s market was filled with sounds of different people, languages, and accents selling their harvest. Hmong families with radishes, Bok choy, and long red curling Thai peppers. Amish ladies with white bonnets and men with shovel shaped beards and round hats selling jellies, cheese, and wooden toys. Germans with organic eggs, chickens, and beef. Polish with kielbasa sausage and czernina duck blood soup with prunes, cloves, and allspice. Old ladies with big straw sunhats and fans selling apples and peaches. Beekeepers with honey, comb, and candies. Children running and laughing. People haggling and filling their bags with fresh vegetables and fruit. Quick and I were people watching and listening to the sheer joy of being alive. He asked me if I was hungry and I said I could eat. On one side of the market all the food vendors were set up. The grills were sending up clouds of intoxicating odors. Most of the people were in line at a cart with an Italian sounding name. I told Quick they must know the best place to eat. It looked like five college kids were running the grill turning sausages and flipping burgers, one was placing the meat on buns, another was adding condiments, another was passing out sodas, another was working the cash register. The line was moving swiftly in a cloud of delicious sizzling meat. Quick was eyeballing this greasy haired Simon Legree that was yelling at the sweating workers. He had a pit bull on a chain and he would lift the dog off the ground, strangling it almost to death. I looked around for cops, I could see Quick gritting his teeth. We got to the cash register, Quick said, “Four bite dogs and two cokes.” The order man looked at us like we’d just stepped off a Martian spaceship. “Four bite dogs, the ones you bite and they don’t bite back, especially your asshole.” The boss stepped forward, “Hey douchebag, did you call someone an asshole? Do you know who I am?” He pointed at a little sign on the cart that read Spaghettio Capone. Then he unleashed his dog, Quick had a way with animals. He petted it, spoke soothingly, and calmed it down. Before anyone could spit, he had Capone’s nuts in a vise like grip. He put the leash around Capone’s neck and tightened it until his tongue was hanging out and he was gasping for air.  “Never be rude to your workers or hurt your dog. If you look mean at them or mistreat your animal, I’ll return and I won’t go so easy on you. Is that clear?” Spaghettio vomited and peed his pants. We left the market to much applause. Quick said, “Let’s go amigo. I need to wash my hands.”


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 About the author: Catfish McDaris is a New Mexican living near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He has four walls, a ceiling, heat, food, a woman, a daughter, and two cats.His 25 years of published material is in the Special Archives Collection at Marquette University. He’s listed in Wikipedia. His ancestors are from the Aniwaya Clan of the Cherokee Nation. Catfish McDaris won the Thelonius Monk Award in 2015.