by Jeffrey Zable

“The headline of the E-mail read, ‘Get bigger, harder, faster.’”

by Sam Cavnar-Johnson

“Visions of mystic messiahs abound in the heat of the desert. / Spiritual apathy seizes the witness of fallow landscapes, / displaying ridiculous trophies upon the shelves, and the silence / pokes its relentless expressions above their dripping foreheads.”

by Ken Haas

“She woke. No assist. No strings / attached. Won’t even nap now. / Which has nothing to do with the pea. / Though she’s done with / that nightmare about the frog. “

by Chris Cooper

“Searing emotions, / perpetual motion. / Brown bear, two ducks, / a mermaid in the ocean. / No concept of the future, / no recollection of a past.”

by Craig Cotter

“Open changing room / open urinals, no stall walls / hottest 17 surfer… / peeing on his leg / jellyfish”

by Craig Kirchner

“Forget that I’m young and pretty, / fuck me with those angry words.”

by Ernest Williamson III

“Charlie makes sweet mumbles of the ghetto, / ghostly smoke from his horn knows my street. / his tunes walk rightly only when crooked cops arrests their crimes.”

by Michael T. Smith

“I sit on the porch, unseasonably warm / October weather -- and I’m wasting time. / Although that may be “wasting.”  I don’t know / How every word we use isn’t in quotation marks…”

by Hayden Winston

“Save your prayers, we might need them after all”

by Jonathan Humble

“Selflessness, stoicism and stamina / against the tides of household air movement / are the qualities expected / of the blind mole-rat draught excluder.”

by Riam Griswold

“…you’ve shut tight all your windows / without breaking them (their clarity / a barrier) but light / outside has broken / you so surgically…”

by Geoffrey Detrani

“Sugar on the walkway with glimpse / hereditary tassels / wetted / Overmorning / exonerate an arc…”

by Timothy Pilgrim

“No wind whirls in my dream world / no gust stirs darkness at dusk. Nothing / slices this stillness. No cosmos bend / no lilies sway, no aspen shake.”

by Sammy Bellin

“Indecent shapes struggle under the force of non-movement: / mollusk-like leaves cluster in stasis, chained / to their icy void like Sampson shorn bald, / his glistening pate reflecting the spout of his deep pain.”

by Mike McHone

“as it seeps in / every worry dies / they say it’ll kill you /  please / while there’s still time.”

by Diana Raab

“I have always loved sake… / …With first sip, / a soft glow, / like Christmas tree lights / in my chest.”

by Amy Shore

“I’m up; so are the birds. / They know their song. / I’m uncertain of mine.

by Brandon Shane

“After a drunk night emailing / a close friend / I learned there was a dead / Japanese poet / among the plum blossoms / named Nishiyama Sōin…”

by Marc Meierkort

“I think I left the coffee pot / on. It won’t shut itself off. / I built my house to burn / to the ground. I believe / nothing lasts forever.”

by Philip Venzke

“‘Seagulls, go back, go back to your grave./ I don’t need you, you are too loyal.’ / Auf Weidersehen, you angel of great fright; / you always slash at the night’s veil / with an exuding foil.”