THIEVES
by Kim Hazelwood Haley
They took my trees,
In the middle of the night,
The bushes and birds
Thieves with no masks,
No eyes.
Thieves,
Scarlet fever and cigarettes
A mother’s life too young,
Wished questions and real closeness
Had been ensued,
One always thinks there’s time.
Numerous lunars from
A long ago fairy tale.
On board a long, rambling train.
Sad, scammy corporate greed,
Thieves with no masks,
No souls,
No heartful empathy,
Leaving trash everywhere they go,
Now tents, sheltering homeless.
Thieves
Killing millions in the name of health,
Creeping commercials doctoring our subconscious,
In the backroom, squashing nature’s answers,
Thieves with no masks,
Among us, walking
Maybe running someday.
Thieves that bully,
Verbally batter
Steal most precious innocence, distort and sicken love,
If there exists a hell, there it is,
The poison sent to children.
Stunted a young girl’s spirit, her trust,
Violent Violation, trashed her self-esteem,
Sabotaged her self worth.
Thief with no mask,
Lurking, waiting-
ANIMAL.
There was only one glorious chance to be an innocent fool
And he stole that,
No roses, no sweetness.
In the middle of the night,
On board a long, rambling train.
Bio: Kim Hazelwood Haley has been editing this litzine for 14 years! One of her poems is to be included in the upcoming Earth Poetry Anthology next year by Foothills Publishing. Her poetry has appeared in When Women Awaken (2016) as well as Green Silk and others also featuring short stories. Her poem, A Geisha in Winter won third place in a poetry contest, and she is also the author of CoyoteBat! Lately, she has been performing as a singer-musician with her husband in their duo Cats With Matches around the Shenandoah valley.
Sweat Lodge
by Richard Weaver
Each heated stone yields
its life to our bodies.
We glisten with darkness,
we forget our bodies
in the heat of its chant,
and in the drum that tones its beat
as it quickens our hearts.
If this were a dream
we might wake
to recognize ourselves
as saints or fools
or lovers without shame.
But dream-like it changes
as we listen to the prayers
of those who've come before.
Their steam rises to embrace us.
A litany of love lifting
the songs beyond hearing,
beyond chance
until the winter moon
dances closer still,
dancing into your full heart,
and then mine.
What the Mirror Sees
by Richard Weaver
What draws me to you
beyond this light that hungers
for another light not itself;
an image that circles
the distant moon in majesty,
in miracle and forgiveness;
the silvery moments without you;
the faith that the sun of us
is greater than the square root
of I; a constant unknown
we accept as each other.
Bio: The author lives in Baltimore City where he volunteers with the Maryland Book Bank, CityLit, the Baltimore Book Festival, acts as the Archivist-at-large for a Jesuit college, and is the Official poet-in-residence at the James Joyce Pub. He’s the author of The Stars Undone (Duende Press). His poems have appeared in Loch Raven Review, Little Patuxent, Southern Quarterly, Crazyhorse, North American Review, Adelaide, BWR, Conjunctions, and Dead Mule.
MUDSLIDE
by Robert Beveridge
I see the earth move
and my belly with it
headed below to fill
the valley or the ocean
even out the landscape.
And it never works
for all the mud
that fills the valleys
is still little
of what makes the mountains.
Bio:Robert Beveridge (he/him) makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry in Akron, OH. Recent/upcoming appearances in The Virginia Normal, Credo Espoir, and Chiron Review, among others.
The burglar
by DS Maolalai
just about to drift
and she grabs at my shoulder, like rocks
capsizing a raft. there's someone outside,
she says - someone
is trying to get in. I push off the mattress
in my boxers,
and go to the window.
a cat looks at me, glaring eyes
from the top of the wheelie
bin. it's a cat
I tell her, just a cat, and she asks me
if I'm sure. I turn back
and yell
and it scrambles - the bin
is empty; it flips
like a heavy flower
in wind on a weak stem. night crawls
up the gutters, taps the glass,
chooses rocks
and throws them. I close the window
against sudden terror,
telling her quietly
yes.
We both know lending books is lending books for keeps sometimes
by DS Maolalai
and still,
two years to the day
since the day
you decided
today was the day you were done
and swept all your books
with one arm
off my shelf and into your backpack,
(though we both know that lending books
is lending books for keeps sometimes)
I still find myself noticing strangers
on the bus and on the train
and waiting for the moment
when they turn their heads again
in the way that caught my eye at first
because something in the way they look
looks something
like you looked
for a moment there
and I need
to see it
again.
and I guess it helps
that I don't have a great memory for faces
and that there are a lot of pretty women
with waistlength white-blond hair
and small mouths and sadness curling
but the bitch of it is
I know you're somewhere else
and not likely to leave
and probably in love again
because you know
I know
you don't like
to be lonely.
and I still haven't read the books you recommended
and I haven't watched the films
or gone to see any of your plays
so what would we even have to talk about
even if the woman on
this bus
had your nose too
and your mouth
and a mind that was even slightly like yours
jittery and with all kinds of importances,
fancies falling
and flying
all over the place
like flaws in a white diamond
which they say is what's hardest
to get right
in imitation.
Bio: DS Maolalai has been nominated for Best of the Web and twice for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry has been release in two collections, "Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden" (Encircle Press, 2016) and "Sad Havoc Among the Birds"(Turas Press, 2019)
