Writers I Have Known

By Michael Barrington As a shy fifteen-year-old schoolboy, I was often the unfortunate victim of having to stand before the class and read my short stories out loud. At that time I was living in a boys only boarding school in the Lake District- not the fun loving Hogwart’s School of Harry Potter- where the focus was on academics and turning men into boys. This included regular three mile runs at…

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No Different Than a Frog

By Christine Benton Criswell Originally published in Jimson Weeds. Has also appeared in Down in the Dirt and Impspired In front of me were two heavy, ancient-looking, wooden doors, and beyond them—the thing I dreaded most about becoming a doctor. My heart was pounding so hard I could hardly hear the voices around me. I’d wished desperately that I could skip over this part of medical training,…

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Please Put Me in the Sunlight

By De’Anne Roy The top lid holds on tight To the bottom lid And darkness covers my eyes Silence so beautiful Moments without thoughts Meditating, and my mind rests And recharge. The sun rays on my skin Soak so deep in The light permeates my soul Light as a feather Where worries flutter away And happiness comes to stay Near the California poppies In orange, yellow, and red White honeysuckle and…

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A Patch of Green

By Ebony Haywood Previously published in Five on the Fifth When my student, Cristina, told me that she lived next door to a cemetery, my ears perked.  “A cemetery?” “Yeah. Sometimes it feels creepy.” Cristina is fifteen with eyes that are always alert and a ponytail that sweeps the air like a pendulum. She is one of those students who believes in the vastness of her future as she invests in…

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After Bushfire

By Julie Holland Bushfire came through Evil as devil may be No thing, nor thought, spared Just a trail of black Shapes rising to ether To sapphire sky, to smoke and sour Young and tender wind, a calling to Green, that pulls life from ash Look at that Dad, said the child A rescue helicopter flies over Winter sun burn, sea wind chills blistering back Motorbikes arrive, fit in, colourful jackets…

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The Landing Day

By J. P. Rizo Richard Cadmen, professor of Holistoric Reconstruction, Third Year, guided his class through the sandy trail leading to the beach. Now and then he had to stop, annoyed, to reprehend the lingerers who were picking little shell pieces.  “Focus, gentlemen. We are not on a beach day with grandma. Henry, where the hell are your shoes? By God! This is not a holiday! Mind the hats, would…

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Writers Block

By Pat Spencer As a life-long author of both fiction and nonfiction, I would never admit to suffering from writer’s block. But it’s fair to say I’m stymied. It’s not that my words are cumbersome or clumsy, falling short of what my story deserves. It is that I simply have no words. I sit so long before my laptop, staring at the blinking, but otherwise paralyzed cursor, that my eyes feel as if…

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To My Hero and Other Poems

By Roselainie Panginuma Saidamin To My Hero To the woman who is worthy of my respect, You are the color of the garden of my paradise. A mother of five with a soft-enduring heart, Your love is wary and so is your sacrifice. To the woman who gives comfort and solace, You are the luminous light of my constellation. Your smile is warm and is my safe place, Oh! To have you guide me is unparalleled…

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Animated and Other Poems

By Susan Shea Animated Every week, at the library you filled shopping bags high with children's picture story books for me to drive home for you so we could go innocently grow up together in full color, away from the cemented melancholy I crawled through away from the parent-centered place where I wasn't seen or heard too much you gave me a second chance to be what children see your life let…

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Cold Dark Ironies

By Brenda Mox He was born with something at odds inside a knot of vague darkness where he hides, cleared eyed as a wolf on the hunt. Brow dark and disturbed, a thunder headed runt with a raw reedy voice of outraged revenge which he spews forth from greyhound limbs. Sharp as a chip of flint, his hard heart strikes with pulsing glints of hot white light reflecting cold dark ironies from the…

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I Remember You

By Gretchen Keefer Officer Hayes watched the young man as Officer Krall relayed the news. He was just a kid, really, this boy who had so confidently invited the officers in out of the August heat and admitted there was no one else at home.  Hayes saw disbelief, comprehension and grief cross the youth’s face in rapid succession. Krall had carefully ascertained that Elizbeth Burke, as the driver’s…

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Reflection

By Adam Ostaszewski The gentle hum of turbines lulled the passengers of the CW-48 space lift to sleep. One of them, Robert Smart, struggled with fatigue. He spent the first part of the journey to the Finesia space station studying the report prepared by the investigators. Torn from his comfortable bed at half past five, he drove straight to Europol headquarters in The Hague, where his immediate…

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The Last Day I Saw Mother

By Chinelo Synclaire The journey home felt insufferably long. I sat by the window inside the bus examining the landscape and the buildings, trying hard to suppress my anger each time the driver stopped to pick a new passenger. My school bag sat huddled between my legs and inside it was the A4 paper that summarized my semester’s results. I had not slept the previous night due to my excitement.…

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Why Do I Always Have to be on Time? My Obsession with Punctuality

By Phyllis Bordo My stomach does somersaults, and my palms become sweaty. My heart rockets in my chest and my cheeks go cherry red. It’s crazy; I get anxious even if I think I’ll be only a few minutes late. I don’t know why I have this obsession with being punctual. If I have a doctor’s appointment, I sit down with my dear friend, the Waze app on my i- phone.   I check out the route and   plan…

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Table Talk

By Ed Walsh It was after his wife was killed that my father’s brother visited us. I was thirteen at the time and from what I understood she was driving their car when she came off a straight stretch of road out in the sticks and hit a telegraph pole. There was nobody else in the car and no witnesses, no explanation for what happened beyond her just losing control of the thing. As an incidental,…

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Platonic Love and Other Poems

By Jess Whetsel Platonic Love Previously published in The Amazine There is a room in my heart that only you can enter. You forged a key from curiosity and devotion, tied it ‘round your neck with fishing line, but still you knock first, let me open the door. I welcome you in with a checkerboard grin. Once inside, time rewinds, smooths the lines on your face. Adulthood is a heavy wool coat you…

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Dead Poets Society: An Epilogue Interpretation

By Andrew Nickerson Following the termination of John Keating, his alma mater continued to be rocked by the scandalous death of Neil Perry, as well as the rampant accusations of his dad. It took the better part of a year for the anguish to cool, but there was no question the lives of those involved in the 1959 school term were changed forever. This is an account of what happened to the biggest…

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