Issue 35: The Five Senses Issue

Fiction/Memoir
Fran Davis | June Smith Jeffries

Poetry
Liliane Roy Anders | Maxine Combs
Jean L. Connor | Julian Crowell | Alexander Dreier | Morgan Farley
Shahzad Kavoossi Farzad | Karin Hoffecker | Barbara Hurd | Nikia Leopold Margaret Muirhead | Connie Sanderson | Gwen Stone | Virgil Suarez
Gail Thomas | Mike Traber | Elizabeth Volpe | Allen West | Joseph Zaccardi Fredrick Zydek

Editors for Issue 35
Mary Azrael
Rebecca Childers
Kendra Kopelke
Ebby Malmgren
Kathleen Fantom Shemer

Graphic Design
Ingrid Ankerson

This issue is dedicated to Maxine Combs, writer, teacher and friend (1937-2002).

I Reach for the Darkness

I reach for the darkness
and wonder:
&nbsp Is it soft like roses
or the mists that roll in in the mornings?
&nbsp Is it sweet like black plums?
Warm like a little camp fire?
Does it conceal a treasure
like the mysterious oyster?

Or is it hungry like the great owl
that waits in the locust tree
steadily scanning for prey
eyes focused like headlights
on a road I can't see.

Maxine Combs

back to top

Something to Say

From the moment I open my eyes
and see the dawn silently landing on my house
and the temperature slowly rolling up
and kids all in one line for school
with heavy books to digest
and the dogs rattle their tails
and the city is run over by hundreds of cars,
and the restaurant in the corner puts
a new tablecloth and fresh flowers on
as if to say "hurry up,"
and the radio announces another plane went down,
and the day spins and spins and throws
morning, afternoon, and night out,
I count every second until the moon comes up
to write on its round face
"I cannot compromise with pain."

Shahzad Kavoossi Farzad

back to top

Conception

What if, when a man
ejaculates,
he cannot stop?

Something goes wrong.
The penis's thrusting force
draws along his groin,

hips, even legs—
all absorbed by the petaled vagina.

Gone are his torso,
head, arm, one hand,
the other arm

until only one hand is left
frantically waving
hello or goodbye

before it sinks upward:
a multiple orgasm
that rocks the world.

Connie Sanderson

back to top

As a Bat

One does not need eyes
feet will feel earth
hard as ironed stone.

One does not need feet
ears will hear no birds
sing, no animals scurry.

One does not need ears
the nose will scent
air sour with smoke.

One does not need sight
to know a forest was.

Mike Traber

back to top

continue to Issue 34: 2001 Poetry Contest