About the author: Alexis Bates, 18, is an upstart poet and writer living in Baltimore, MD. Her poems force us to reflect on how we relate to topics such as self-perception, feminism, and mental illness. Her work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Doll Hospital, White Ash, Rising Phoenix, and others.

Sling Shot Summer

By Eve Paradise-Gallardo

My brother
Use to assemble
Sling shots
From Y- shaped branches 
Of Ash trees

Chinaberries we’d
Gather for ammo
And each hot day 
We all became 
More Skillful at hitting
Tin can targets,
And later, August chicharras

My baby sister who had neither 
The heart, nor aim, 
Would, instead, collect the 
The silent arthropods
Inside emptied matchboxes 

Later to be
Ceremoniously lowered
Into shadowed graves
Dug beneath the trees
From which
They had fallen 

I use to watch 
As she would
Gather their 
Cellophane carapaces
Slipped free from
Twigs and blades of grass 

And in a final tribute
Crumble the nymph remains 
Between her baby fingers
Like  chicharrones
Over the mounds of tiny graves 



Enough

I use to help you
Load the shopping cart
With black garbage bags
Stuffed with laundry

Walk in the cold night
Cross the highway

It was enough, though,
To hear you say, along 
The way, “Pull that cap 
Over your ears.”

And it meant
Everything to me 
To worry with you

About our cat “twinkle toes”,
Turning dollars into quick
Quarters and staking claim
To enough adjacent
Washing machines




Childhood

When I think of my childhood
My memories are like photographs
That safely frame us

The noble rocking horse
I rode upon

While my Mom sang
“She will have music where ever she goes . . .”
In her light cloud voice

Standing beside 
The wading pool 
In white training pants
The dark water 
Frightening and alluring

Wearing a dull
Easter dress while 
Swinging a bright white
Wicker purse
With the matching 
Gloves my sister adored

The grey garden hose
Carefully held as we splash
In silvery joy

I am frozen
Ante Polaroid and scalloped edged
Tucked securely between the ridges
Of my prefrontal cortex




​About the Author: Eve Paradise-Gallardo. A poet who lives on the tip of Texas. She has had a few of her poems published in a couple of chap books. She enjoys reading and writing poetry. 

​Distanced

Icy logic
Forked, snake tongue
 
Edged mind
 
Emotion gone,
pitiless attitude;
 
Darkened soul
 
What is this?
 
What have I
become?



Inception in Ice

My mind drifts like an
iceberg in the 
northern sea.
Ice chills my veins, as 
waves tumultuously
barrage my senses. 
Parts of me are frostbitten with
the hopes of a new dawn.
My heart, as cold as the arctic,
longs for romance and new adventures.
One question lingers in my brain;
Will I ever be rescued from
this iceberg that is isolation?
I look to the moon and
stars in desperation.
I cry out to the sky in 
my loneliness and 
declare the world as my enemy.



The Warmest Blizzard

Vivid Vibrations
free inside
and out.

The avalanche
of elation
overcomes
even the deepest
of scars.

Mountains shake
and trees uproot
at the pulsation
of my heart.

Buried underneath
lie my insecurities
and fear.


​

 About the author: Adam Levon Brown is a poet residing in Eugene, Oregon.. He started writing in Winter of 2014 to express his thoughts and emotions as a way of finding catharsis. He has two collections of poetry published with the independent publishing group Creative Talents Unleashed. He has been published in several places including Section 8 Magazine, Leaves of Ink, and Bitchin’ Kitsch.
Blog: http://www.AdamLevonBrown.com
Author Page: http://www.ctupublishinggroup.com/adam-levon-brown-.html
Twitter: https://twitter.com/adamlevonbrown

Self-Portrait with Wretched Snow Angel

By Samuel J. Fox

The birds alight through the downfall and onto the powdered sidewalk.
Their talons leave marks, calligraphy of poems, printed on 
the blankness of a cold-pressed world. I stumble through its door,
winter’s leavings and beatitudes, scaring feathers to break open.
 
The first severe snow brings with it a cold so bright it cleanses the air
into glass. Grey as dovetails. Clear as holiness, near transparent.
I lay down in the perfectly untouched fallen sky. I flap my arms as if 
I could migrate to a warmer, simpler world. My flesh burns in its freezing.
 
Standing, my imprint is a shallow dent in the page of my front yard.
I will not call it a poem. It is a wretched shadow’s negative. But, I love
the way it lies beneath my house on the hill, a dazzled character 
in nobody’s mythology. A protagonist in a gospel enrobed with sleet. 




Self Portrait with Rain

The windowpane isn’t the only body
made of glass. My girlfriend of late
discovered my tendency to stare at men
like most men stare at women. We sit
inside a suave coffee shop, where jazz
doesn’t help to drown out the dejection
in her voice when she asks why I bother
to still sleep with her. I watch the water
condense on the tall panes of glass, roll
down and cohere to other globules of water.
The water doesn’t mind other water.
It easily mingles and doesn’t reject itself.
 
I walk her out to the car, holding her
loosely: too much so. She takes her umbrella,
folds it, and, without a word, leaves.
I stand in the rain. The rain is an embrace
I neither want nor deserve. In Spanish,
rain is a she; in French, it can be a he. I too
am rain, my body a reservoir filling
to the brim of all that it can bear to hold,
my lack of words a surface rippling.



​

 About the author: Samuel J. Fox holds a B.A. in Literature from Western Carolina University. Samuel is published in Iodine Poetry Journal, Rat's Ass Review, and Broad River Review where Samuel was a finalist for the Ron Rash Award. ​Samuel lives in the Piedmont of North Carolina.

his truth slithers into her

By Bridget Eileen

stabs her repeatedly in her car
leaves an icy shell 

the lights of the parking lot are blurry from fog 
she knows she'll be dead for a while

Not worthy 
Not special

blackened resin and disappointment
fill the lulls and snuff out hope
hail claps the windshield

the appetite of 
loneliness
catching up with her




machine cuts

She doesn’t know why she likes to make herself bleed
Pulling the skin around her fingernails so violently
With her teeth seeing a little blood rise to the surface
Sucking the red away going back in for more

Hardly anyone is ever romantic nowadays
One man did say he was distracted by her beauty
That was flattering but mostly everyone is solicitous without
A modicum of sweetness. It's painful.




the grey days

scandal, you'd know it if you looked for it
clad in polka dots with a dash of blood on the side

the madness and wild laughter kills happiness
you only have to sneeze in that village for someone to

think about the grey days, where the sky is nothing
inside the man's study is a vase with a flower in it
the able woman watches it wobble then bang
the brutality, the portrait, who chooses not to discuss it




fantastical feminine 

women with bulging breasts, oh and
mouths, round, red, wet and ready
to paint, to gloss, to touch with the
tip of a brush, a finger, a

thing to think of. So long ago, a
lifetime of occurrences since those 
bold strokes what's left is solitude and
a reverence for monsters made of paint



​

 About the author: Bridget Eileen lives in Boston. She grew up in the South Shore suburbs of the city. She received her undergraduate and graduate degrees in the great state of Maine. Along with writing poetry, journals, & picture books, she runs a style website showcasing her bargain hunter adventures in artsy, pinup, foodie, travel, nature and style stuff. Her work has been published in various publications, inlcuding most recently in Summerstock Journal and Let the Bucket Down. Her role model in life is Maude, of Harold and Maude. 

 http://www.bridget-eileen.com/

http://www.vintagebridgestyle.com/

WHITECHAPEL

I.

BUCK’S ROW

-MARY ANN “POLLY” NICHOLS –

AUGUST 31, 1888



I were ‘is first yer know. 
 
It were the bleedin’ doss brass I were after. 
‘ad it free times that day and drunk it away.  
But I like me gin yer know. 
 
The deputy 'e told me ter leave out the kitchen at Wilmott's
on account I couldn't produce me doss brass.
But I weren’t worried.
 
I 'ad me brand new black stror bonnet, trimmed it was,  
wiv black velvet and I were wearin' me new linsey frock 
and me red brown ulster wiv seven brass buttons, 
do wot guvnor! The chuffin' one wiv the picture
of the man and tart on 'orseback. 
 
I were 'ave a lookin' right pretty that night.
Surely I could cop us a payin' gent. 
I told Emily 'olland I'll be right back.
It shouldn't take long. 
 
But I didn’t come back, do wot guvnor! 
I should've slept rough maybe in Trafalgar Square. 
But I were right drunk. And the rains. And the sky.
All red wiv the bleedin' dock fires and 'e came 
sharp dressed and I fought I knew 'im. 
I didn’t come back.
 
I were tidy yer know. 
The carman Cross 'e were the one that found me.
He were kind, tried ter make me decent, right,
pulled me underskirts hammer and tack dahn.
And the bloomin' coroner 'e said 
there weren't much blood and 
me fighs were right tidy.
 
I were 'is first yer know. 
 
 
 II.

29 HANBURY STREET, SPITALFIELDS

-ANNIE CHAPMAN-

SEPTEMBER 8, 1888

 
Sometimes they called me Dark Annie.
I made me lodgin' wiv crochet work and sellin' fake flowers
and me two regulars , right, Harry the Horker 
and the chuffin' bricklayer 'oose name were Ted Stanley. 
The bleedin' one they called the bleedin' Pensioner.
 
I got along good wiv the bleedin' deputy keeper Donovon,
got along wiv evry geezer except that bitch Eliza Cooper
'oo were after me Pensioner making 
such a fuss over a boozer of soap.
Yer know I tossed the bloomin' 'oore an 'alf penny 
onto the chuffin' lodgin' 'ouse kitchen table,  
told 'er go and cop an 'alfpenny of soap.
 
And later I slapped 'er at the Britannia 
and we got into it. The bleedin' fuckin' slut,
she punched me fine an' th' co'oner foun' th' bruises
right along wif all the slices Mister Jack put on me.
 
Nearly cut me loaf of bread off 'e did
and it were that John Evans' fault. 
Yer can't 'ave a knees-up wivout a joanna. 
It were 'im made Donovon turn me out ter the street 
ter hustle up me rent brass, init?
 
I were quite 'appy eatin' me potatoes in the kitchen 
and I weren't drunk only tipsy.
I tried tro cop John Evans ter let me stay but 'e said
yer can find brass for beer but yer can't find brass for yor bed.
I told 'im keep me bed I’ll be not long and off I went walkin'
over ter Ten Bells and and that's where the foreigner found me there, init?
He were short yer know wiv a deerstalker 'at 
and wen 'e were done wiv me 'e arranged me legs 
like a midole lady would, do wot guvnor. 

 


III.

"THE DOUBLE EVENT"

DUTFIELD'S YARD: 36 BERNER STREET-

-ELIZABETH STRIDE-

ALDGATE HIGH STREET

-CATHERINE EDDOWES-

-SEPTEMBER 30, 1888

 
It were just in the cards that night yer know. 
It were right Lizzy 'e were after. It were 'er that were first.
But they were interrupted, come upon
by that jewelry salesman and 'is pony 
before Jack could cop his satisfaction.
Cor blimey guy! And that pony knew.
Knew evil Jack were there in the yard in the bloomin’ shadows 
wiv the fog and the evil. And the pony 'e shied, wouldn't go no furffer, init? 
Until Jack slipped oray 
leavin' Long Liz wiv 'er froat fresh cut still gurglin' warm.
 
I'll get out me spoons. 
 
I don't know why they call 'er Long Liz.
Cor blimey guv, would I lie to you? 
Maybe because 'er last name's Stride or because she's tall
or because of the bleedin' shape of 'er Nanny Goat Race. 
 
Kate and Lizzy, we were the keen ones. 
Me mates, me chinas, me muckers always said that Kate 
she's the intelligent one and scholary,  
fough she 'as i fierce temper, and that's a direct quote. 
And Liz-she 'ad the gift of 'am sandwich, 
spoke Yiddish and the Kin''s English she did,
learned it in Sweden. There weren't no Cockney 
comin' out of that girl's North and South. 
 
O'course she 'ad a bit of a wistle wen she went on. 
On account of 'avin' no teeff in 'er lower jor. 
Got them kicked out wen the Princess Alice 
ran into the bloody Bywell Castle. 
Lost 'er kids and 'er ole man and 'er teeff 
wen the bloody ship went dahn. 
 
And if she says it's true then it's true, do wot guvnor! 
She ain't lyin' no matter wot the bloody Ripperologists say.
Fuckin' wankers wot do they know! 
Oi! Some of them even say 
Lizzy's not one of us, 
not one of the five, init?
But I know. 
 
Jack made us sisters that night. 
Killed us boff the same night. 
He didn't cop to finish wiv Long Liz like 'e did wiv me. 
Oh yeah, he made some nasty work of me. 
Cut out me female parts, right, 
pulled me guts over me loaf of bread 
and got shit all over me.
Cut out me kidney and even ate 'alf of it. 
Sent the uvver 'alf ter Lusk yer know. 
Yeah yer Rippers know about that. 
Signed that letter From Hell,  'e did. 
And yer fink yer know 'im. Got all yor fancy theories 
of royal cousins and doctors and butchers and skinners. 
 
But yer don't know 'im. 
Me and Lizzy and the uvvers - we know 'im. 
We seen 'is Nanny Goat Race- we seen 'im burn. 
 
They 'ad me in the bloody sot tank that night 
and put me out wen I sobered up. 
Bloody Jack couldn't cop no satisfaction wiv Liz so 'e got it wiv me. 
 
It were just in the cards. 
 
 



IV.

13 MILLER'S COURT

-MARY JANE KELLY-

NOVEMBER 9, 1888

 
 Me mince pies were blue, right, 
me complexion fair and me breasts were full. 
I 'ad considerable personal attractions. 
Cor blimey guv! 
Yer can't 'ave a knees-up wivout a joanna.
I were a blonde, a redhead, right, a brunette. 
I were the yungest, the bloody prettiest,
I 'ad considerable personal attractions. 
Cor blimey guv! I were the last.  
 
Some called me Mary Jane. Some called me Marie Jeanette. 
Some called me Fair Emma or Ginger.  
Some called me Black Mary and some even say I were Jack. 
And some say I weren't 'er. Say I were anuvver. 
It's a mestery forever except ter me, right, my sisters, and Jack. 
 
He took me apart yer know, that Gentleman Jack did.
Oh he opened me up, opened me up 
like no man ever did. 
 
After 'e killed me, right, I were
like a spirit Jesus
floatin' over meself, wotchin' meself. 
Oh 'e were rock 'ard 'e were at 'is work on me he were. 
Like the chuffin' bog eyes's fang 'e were.  
Razorin' up me Nanny Goat Race. 
Dear God I were the yungest!
I were the prettiest!
He cut off me nose, me cheeks, right, me eyebrows,
me ears, do wot guvnor! 
I were the bleedin' yungest. 
I were the chuffin' prettiest. 
He cut off me tits and put one under me loaf of bread 
like a pillow. He cut out me lung and me liver and 'e cut out me womb. 
He split me wide open, pulled me apart and took me 'eart out.
Took it wiv 'im! Honest guv! 
 
He 'urt me that nasty Jack did. 
And no geezer knows. 
Even 'e can only know 'alf. 
 
And 'oo seen me 
at the chuffin' Brittania 
drinkin' wiv the man, then, eh?
 
And 'oo seen me at the Ten Bells 
drinkin' wiv the man, then, eh?
 
And  'oo 'eard me singgin' 
'oo 'eard the rain, 
heard the bloomin' cry 
 
of murder, 
 
'oo 'eard heard me singgin' 
 
 A Violet I Plucked from Muvver's Grave...
 
                                         ...Wen A Boy,
 
singgin’ me song forever.
 
I were the yungest, the prettiest, the bloodiest. 
I were the last.






About the author: Marc Lengfield lives in Florida where he teaches mathematics at a local university. His previous publications include a short story titled 'Diary of Blind Love' dedicated to the post punk, sex positive literary pioneer Kathy Acker, which first appeared in Dogzplot some years ago.  

Mercurial 

By Marianne Szlyk

She imagines being the one left behind
as she gazes past the empty pond.

The not yet frozen surface hides
mud and murk that remain from fall.
 
She throbs as if with the ache that won’t
change as snow sticks to matted grass 

then melts as grass springs up spiky
flowers bloom and then snow blows in.  

She prefers to be mercurial, shifting not 
staying, not writing from stillness
 
as sun and seasons, wind and weather
move on from the mud and murk

like the one who is always leaving.




Ms. Hawthorn
 
dreams of standing on a ridge in Britain, 
looking down on cathedrals and car parks, 
on pubs and Morris dancers ,
albums she knew from 
used record stores and 
long-lost friends’ collections.  
 
Dirty blonde hair 
streaming in the wind,
she would be barefoot, 
wear white, in spite 
of mud and wet grass.
 
At fifty, she sits in traffic.  
Through mousy- brown bangs,
she blinks at mist 
falling on her windshield, 
the line of cars 
snaking on past the exit.
 
As violins on the CD swell, 
a young man sings 
about growing older
on a morning like this one.  
He has just arrived in town;
she has lived in this state 
for a dozen years
or more.


​

 About the author: Marianne Szlyk is a professor at Montgomery College and the editor of The Song Is... Recently, she published her second chapbook, I Dream of Empathy, with Flutter Press. Her first (Listening to Electric Cambodia, Looking Up at Trees of Heaven) is available for free here: http://barometricpressures.blogspot.com/2014/10/listening-to-electric-cambodia-looking.html . Her poems have appeared in Long Exposure, Poppy Road Review, Of/with, bird's thumb, Cacti Fur, Five2One Magazine's #thesideshow, Contemporary American Voices, Jellyfish Whispers, Napalm and Novocaine, Silver Birch Press, and other online and print venues including Kind of a Hurricane Press' anthologies.  She hopes that you will stop by The Song Is... at http://thesongis.blogspot.com/ .

65  MILLION  YEARS  AGO:
                                                            Mais ou sont les neiges d’antan?
                                                                                           –François Villon, Le Testament, 336
Only bones remain
& petrified forests 
& black seas in our automobiles

Today is a day of sacred ignorance
                 a day of jejune decadence
                 a day of blind ruination

We each & every one of us is lost 
                                                                 in forests of ruins

                                                                     forests of decay
                                                                     forests of sand & ashes
                                                                     forests where we are weeping
                              and know not why

Millennia are grinding to dust all around us
worlds disintegrating in the acid of our unbelief
universes torn to tatters through our crass indifference
& there will be no redemption or reparation or reawakening.










AIRY  ANECDOTE

—Did you hear about the balloon
        that got away?
It had a tether
                   I don’t know why
     & wherever it went
                            it wrecked.
         The power lines it wrecked.
         the telephone wires it wrecked
         the t.v. towers it wrecked
Many
thousands of people
were without electricity
& I think finally
they shot it down



​

 About the author: G. M. H. Thompson was born on February 15, 1990, in about 12 in the morning, in a hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, United States of America. G. M. H. Thompson received a B.A. in History from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on the twelfth of May, 2013. His poetry either has or will shortly appear in Old Red Kimono, Shemom, Bear Creek Haiku, Scifaikuest, among others. Let Us Go, a poem of his, has received the Winter 2016 Heart & Mind Zine Judge's Choice Award in the category of poetry. This poem will be published on February 28th, 2016, along with the rest of the Winter 2016 edition of Heart & Mind Zine (http://www.heartandmindzine.com).

​

 About the artist: Aria Riding is a name once used by my sister. I started using it, to change how people thought of the stories when I performed them. Then several people began to perform stories, saying they were Aria Riding. I then started using the name to help publish the stories of friends of mine who have various forms of madness, who cannot handle the horrible grind of submitting stories themselves. Aria Riding is now being used by several writers of different genders, persuasions, mental health states, and ethnic backgrounds as a solidarity project. Through this experiment, she is trying to write a more complete author. Recent publications include Gargoyle Magazine, Atticus Books, The Adirondack Review, etc.

A. Riding is the author of "The Exhibitionists," a series of interconnected triggers, or stories about the unspeakable present: the things we suppress, and continue to do while denying that we do them.

Riding never goes out, is never seen, but her emissaries run Psychomachia Theater, a fringe space showcasing underrepresented/innovative arts/performance/letters (Seattle) and the dissident art/performance/butoh group Danse Perdue: website: www.lostdance.com. ​

Accident

If only it had not rained
the sky black and wet as
we hurried across streets.
 
Perhaps had he worn a
light coat it would have
been easier to spot.
 
Maybe if the cab driver
were not so tired, if
headlights shone brighter.
 
How many hundreds of things
lead him to that corner.
For instance staying late
to check computer printouts.
 
The cab driver had felt like
going home at six but had
a recent rent increase.
 
Everything lead to the cab
slipping along 3rd Avenue.
Him in front of his office
and then lunging out to
avoid a puddle.
 
There was no one to blame
nothing to blame really
not the rain
or the dark coat
not the dim lights
nor the cab driver
who would remember this always
and sometimes blame himself.
 
It was part of a series
of events of time and place
leading to this conclusion.
 
An ambulance screamed
down the avenue.  His eyes
wide open as he lay
facing the black night.
 
His time finished
eyes opened as if
staring at something
quite different now.




I planted my garden

on the wrong side
of moon forgetting
tides of ocean
lunar wax wane
 
only madness
was cultivated
there underground
tubular roots
corpulent veins
 
flowers called
despair gave off
a single fruit...
 
I ate it
my laughter
becoming harsh
my eyes grew
oblique.




"A" train

brassy blue
electric
 
close eyes
watch points
like stars
 
think now
how insignificant
compared to train
speaking for itself
 
stars known
in no language
burn shoot
thru
tiger's eyes
 
brain in
constant action
reaction
 
to what we do not know
plans of distant stars
galaxies floating as
 
"A" train
silver worm
slides under
big belly
of city.



​

 About the author: Joan McNerney’s poetry has been included in numerous literary zines such as Camel Saloon, Seven Circle Press, Dinner with the Muse, Blueline, Missing of the Birds, and included in Bright Hills Press, Kind of A Hurricane Press and Poppy Road Review anthologies. She has been nominated three times for Best of the Net.