Mother Bird

I dreamt my mother’s voice became a flood in the hallway, walls bowing to her words. I held a paper bird to shield myself, and it tore in my hands, scattering wings across the shallow floors. Waves of her lullabies chased me through rooms that stretched into the sky, where I ran barefoot over glass clouds, each step echoing familiar fear. When the storm softened, I found a small window of light, where I could breathe without drowning. I reached out, and it grew until it swallowed the echoes, leaving only the warmth of my own hand on my chest.

From Guest Contributor Taylor Brann

Taylor studies sociology at Pikes Peak State College and writes poetry that traces the landscapes of memory, family, and the human heart.

While At AL'S Counter

“Otto, look at that.”

Stan and Otto were at AL'S DINER, side by side at the uneven linoleum counter. Stan pointed with his spoon.

“Is that a fly in my soup?”

Both studied the chipped bowl and the small thing squirming in it.

“Seems more like an ant, Stan.”

“With wings?”

“Sure...Lots of ants have them. Is that the chicken soup?”

“No, clam chowder”

All soups looked alike at AL'S.

“Clam, huh?”

They stopped eating. Otto decided against dipping his fingers in the bowl to see.

“I'm pretty sure it's an ant, Stan...The flies don't seem to enjoy Al's chowder.”

From Guest Contributor David Sydney

Rental Agreement

They were only pygmy hippos, she said, and she was planning to have them fixed. They were emotional support animals, one for each of her personalities, so there was nothing we could do about it. The pond became unspeakable, even though it was still below freezing. They floated there in the muck like ominous little storm clouds forming over smog. Trucks delivering their crates of fruit and greens continually blocked the driveway. Then one day their gauzy pink wings emerged. Angels, someone whispered, despite the aerial bombardment of neighboring gardens that now commenced. Then the local population began leaving offerings.

From Guest Contributor F. J. Bergmann

First Time

I have waited for this moment since childhood. Now as an adult in my car with the engine running, I’m thinking of excuses to put my foot to the accelerator.

I remove my sunglasses and shut the radio in the middle of “You are the Wind Beneath My Wings,” and turn the car off. This song brings back memories of my wedding. I wish Melinda were still alive.

As I approach the porch and knock on the door, I hear footsteps stomping down the stairs.

Would it be my mother or father who’d I’d be meeting for the first time?

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.

Repose

The warmth of the spring sun filled my body with repose. I laid back and looked up at the sky. The blueness bright and cheery awakened my eyes to ebullience.

I let the small rowboat drift on its own while the sound of ducks quacked and flapped their wings bathing in the lake. Nature was all around me. Birds chirped, on the shore frogs hopped, crabs crawled on the sand, and tree leaves quietly blew in the slight breeze.

I closed my eyes and soaked it all in, storing every sound and image in my mind.

Tomorrow, I start anew.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Orange Sky

The sky has turned a hazy orange from wildfires capable of creating their own weather. Pages are torn out of books to further feed the fires. Birds wildly flap their wings to escape, only to go round and round in circles. Everything that isn’t predator is prey. Sisters of Mercy are forced to strip naked on the edge of a burial pit, folding their arms over their breasts in misplaced concern for modesty. Today is without a tomorrow. The roof burns, and we let it. My eyes fill with tears from the smoke, but I have never seen more clearly.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie's newest poetry collection, Heart-Shaped Hole, which also includes examples of his handmade collages, is available from Laughing Ronin Press.

Splayed And Displayed

I went to a market of oddities and curios. One hundred vendors and their jars of preservation liquids, mounted heads, spell jars, and crystal towers. Shoppers passed me with arms full of worn antlers and venomous plants. I weaved my way through the crowds until I stood in front of a glittering wall. Iridescent wings pinned in shadow boxes lined up like soldiers against black stock paper. I never knew something could be beautiful and sad at once. The stage lights did not do justice to the splayed things. Floating over flowers in the sun is a much better sight.

From Guest Contributor Madeline van Batum

Madeline lives in Colorado with her cat and hopes that one day she can go back to her home country of the Netherlands to finally meet the Flying Dutchman.

Dying Hearts

A nest formed at some point over thousands of years as eggs drift into the sea, carried by currents and tides. Birds with broken feet but wings spread wide, fleeing in flight from dying hearts filled with the blackness of obsidian inhabitants and their unforgiven. They mutate and break down within the lethal darkness from which it grows, blinded by ignorance.

Mothers must be on their guard in the warm calm of dawn, similar to the nights when they sense the fragile awakening of what is. And sometimes they forget the one thing they should never forget: everything is hungry.

From Guest Contributor J. Iner Souster

Sparks

I lit a fire in the garden brazier and threw in all my notebooks. If books are shut they burn slowly but if you fan them out they may catch; soon the blaze was roaring sparks up into the arms of Orion, poised with his great stellar fire-blanket. Passport, driving licence, certificates: orange heat, a feeling of rage and an aftertaste of rubber and almonds. Then I jumped, arms turning into wings, I took the fire into myself. Then I was the stars, then I knew, I was the burning. Singed feathers, and now I could be the morning mist.

From Guest Contributor Geoff Sawers