Theme 06: "Bucolia"
Contributors
Jason Ryberg
Three Poems
Poetry by Tukur Ridwan
“the fertile land and dense forests bestow fruition with food and fruits. here, coals and firewood make our kitchens—to farm is to fulfil each day, and hunting blurs the poverty line among households.”
On the Night in Question
Fiction by Patrick Johnston
“It was in the hours of darkness under the clear gibbous moon, that the old barn owl took for its prey a young mouse that scurried across the yard between the stables and the potting shed.”
But for the Nettles
by Marshall Moore
“[Nettles] thrive in nitrogen-rich soil, leftover from human and animal waste. Not to put too fine a point on it, our shit outlasts our civilizations.”
Six Poems
Poetry by Keith Melton
“Now far lies horizon, slender and ever stoic, / tall pines trembling, live oaks, heroic / while buzzards fly on traces of wind, / to warn death comes, again; and again.”
Overseeing
Digital Art by Rachel Turney
Three Micros
by Mikki Aronoff
“The man with no eyes and ears who tunes pianos tap-tap-taps at our door at the creaky-crack of dawn and plunks his satchel of tools down next to the spinet.”
A Lucky House
by Penny Nolte
“On the day of our visit everything had been removed…Much like the horseshoes, pointed up for luck, that he hung above doors to guard the house from other dangers.”
The Lobstermen
CNF by Thomas Belton
“The lobsterman, like his prey, is no less changeable and predatory in his behavior.”
Digital Art by Terry Brinkman
Four Poems
Poetry by Bob McAfee
“Vines cover my body / over and under. / We are one and the same / as we inch along branches, / bear my weight upward / seeking the sunlight, / sinuous, sensuous.”
The Woods
Creative Nonfiction by Hazel McCorriston
“The air is crisp wet on my hair. My little dog zig zags beneath the trees, and I like to think he leaves a trail behind him as he forages across the world so much vaster and more real to him than it is to me. Richer, more at peace, something he walks within rather than past.“
The Fern that Fell
by John RC Potter
“Grandma had a green thumb and lovingly tended to her plants and flowers in the house…Grandma no doubt gave the same kind of devoted attention to all her greenery (both in the house and in her garden) as she did to her six children.”
Five Poems
Poetry by Millicent Borges Accardi
“Bobcats prowl, leaves froth and cook, / Like eggs in a skillet. The residents / Skulk in the new chilled and buttered mornings, / a flame here, a creek wavering there.”
Eden in the Ozarks
Poetry by Andrew Careaga
“If God had put the Garden of Eden / in the Missouri Ozarks, would the serpent / have been a copperhead? A water moccasin? / Would a pawpaw have been the forbidden fruit?”
Hayfields
by Tom Wade
“As we drove into a hayfield, I surrendered to the imminent undertaking. I climbed onto the truck bed, aware that the dirt and heat would soon enshroud me.”
Three Poems
Poetry by Justin Karcher
“So I sing of her the way / any Rust Belt boy should: full of regret / and sweating through another century.”
Two CNF Poems
by Reed Venrick
“ How to interpret four doves fluttering, / Growing not feathers but leaves from trees? / What is the intention? Signification? Do we witness / The fantasy of an artist remembering his ayahuasca / Trip? The memory of an psilocybin hallucination?”
Six Poems
Poetry by Rachel Burrows
“Because you are part of this community, / you must not be wild / and scream on this two-way street / of give and take…”
Five Poems
Poetry by Austin Alexis
“Where oh where did all the water go? We stare at the disappearance, the lack of bubbly motion, the absence of twinkling foam.”
Room 5 (September 1995)
Micro-fiction by Chris Gerboth
“He was kind and he worked hard...He was a good man, just not the right man.”