Safe?

The train came to a halt, and the platform filled with German police. They entered, and people quieted while my heart pounded.

“Papers!”

I handed my identification to the Nazi, and he scanned them, eyeing me at the same time as I sweated profusely. He tossed them on my lap and moved on, not noticing the forgery.

Screams ensued as the woman behind me beseeched the officer to let her husband go, and then I heard a thud. The Man had collapsed, presumably dead and the woman in hysterics was taken away.

A few more stops and I’ll be safe.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Hermitage

Harvest missed, starlings busy with unworked seed, overripe corn, a laugh with the scarecrow - leave toward evening. Leaves of fall turn red like the blood fingering across the green linoleum kitchen floor after the thud of the back of your head, split like a too-ripe pumpkin. A widower falls in the kitchen, no one hears it, did it make a sound? The trees in the yard mourn the wood you stacked anticipating winter, as it dries, rots, quietly decays. Equinoxes later it splinters, skips off across tan, fallow fields in a cold wind, wet with the rustle of black wings.

From Guest Contributor Craig Kirchner

Craig thinks of poetry as hobo art. He loves storytelling and the aesthetics of the paper and pen. He was nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize, and has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels. After a writing hiatus is being published and has work forthcoming in a dozen or so journals.

Chaos

George fires his rifle, and the bullet hits the enemy in the gut. The man lands with a thud, and blood drips from his mouth. George seeks cover in a nearby ditch, men screaming and dying all around. The sun is fading, and the firing hasn’t stopped. He can’t stay there any longer. One of his comrades jumps in.

“Charles, we need to get out soon or we’ll be sitting ducks.”

They wait until the firing slows and run.

George gets to the other side, but Charles gets fatally shot in the chaos.

George continues running and never looks back.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

The Black Figures

He rested on the soft surface, observing one among the many roses surrounding him, the white petals layering atop each other. Whimpering from piercing screams, trembling from blaring sirens, shutting his ears tightly with his hands couldn’t help. Two black figures stood over him. One leaned closer, tenderly stroking the boy’s forehead. ‘You love flowers, don’t you?’ it whispered. He smiled, and the other handed him a bouquet. ‘Let’s leave him some peace now, shall we? And I’m quite certain he does—loved them since birth.’ It nodded, and with a thud, blocking the perceivable, the velvet lid slid over him.

From Guest Contributor Lo Xing Le