How I Wanted to be Beautiful

By Emilie Lygren

Leaping with arms raised
to save a goal.
Standing firm and tall 
at first base.
Moving a cleat through
the red infield dirt.
Pressing the spiked sole into 
soft soil and seeing
divots look back at me.
Proof I could make a mark.

I didn’t want to be a boy
but I wanted to be 
treated like one.
Bolt of thunder 
free from hairclips, 
dresses and dolls. 
Pride for what I did
and not how I looked. 

I didn’t feel like a girl either.
I felt like one of the murky-rooted
cottonwoods at the edge of the creek,
a lake shining in sunrise,
air just above an oak at the crest of a hill.

Shimmering, I pulled up my roots 
every morning. Put on t-shirts 
and went to school where I 
prismed into a thousand veins of light. 

Later came the trying to fit in. 
Slicked-back hair and 
low cut shirts. Wanting to be
beautiful and chosen.

But early on I knew the best
beauty came among
trees and green rivers
and no need to be
perceived as anything
but a body among bodies,
no thought towards 
what I wore or who saw.

---

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Emilie Lygren is a nonbinary poet and outdoor educator whose work emerges from the intersections between scientific observation and poetic wonder. Her first book of poetry, What We Were Born For, was chosen by the Young People’s Poet Laureate as the February 2022 Book Pick for the Poetry Foundation. She lives in California, where she wonders about oaks and teaches poetry in local classrooms.

GATHERING STONES

BY EMILIE LYGREN

Gathering stones

 I.

As a child I gathered stones.
Black-flecked granite grown
orb-like in a stream under cottonwoods,
their durable stories, 
shoved into the pockets
of my jean shorts or overalls.

When the other kids 
looked at me sideways,
asked me why I didn’t like
wearing dresses
I could touch the stone
remember the trees,
who never asked me to 
explain myself 
who understood 
my silence perfectly.

I felt more like rock 
than girl or boy, 
more like sand than child,
something shaped slowly over years,
rubbed softly until smooth,
companion of tree roots,
young dragonflies, 
the shimmer of fish.

When raised brows
hinted at disdain
I wanted to stare back
solid as the stones.
Eyes winking like flakes
of mica lodged between quartz.
Just as sure of myself
as something millions 
of years old, just as
unconfused.

II.

My friends’ four-year-old 
looks down at her new dress and says
“This dress doesn’t have pockets…yet.”
She wants her mother to sew pockets
onto any garment that doesn’t have them
so she can gather stones and feathers,
acorns, tiny bird skeletons, leaves,
things she might find along a forest path.

“Yet” works like that: 
a waiting pocket. 
Placeholder for the number to be solved.
Orange flags to show the line of an unbuilt roof.

And gathering works like that, too:
looking around for what shines.
How everything I have ever picked up 
helped me know myself a little better.

Like the stones I held tight,
not yet knowing how sure 
I would someday become. 

---

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Emilie Lygren is a nonbinary poet and outdoor educator whose work emerges from the intersections between scientific observation and poetic wonder. Her first book of poetry, What We Were Born For, was chosen by the Young People’s Poet Laureate as the February 2022 Book Pick for the Poetry Foundation. She lives in California, where she wonders about oaks and teaches poetry in local classrooms.

LOST SAILORS OF ODYSSEUS

BY RP VERLAINE

I steered the ship
away from course
the captain cried
who dares?

The mermaids
laughter still
in my ears

A fools errand
the ship had sailed
uncharted waters

The Captain fully
mad kept staring
out to sea.

Where Poseidon
awaited us
laughing

In leg irons
my only hope
her voice in my ear.

Lost sailors
of Odysseus
useless all

They strapped me
to the mast/the blood from
the whip was hers.

Forsaken to a raft
I was sure the mermaid
would save me

But loving a mermaid
is like chasing a dragon
spouting fire

softer/more wet
my mermaid
my love
clutching at air

I went under
the waves

Woke up on sand
to hear her 
laughter

salt dried lips
gasping

for help
but I was alone again.

---

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rp Verlaine lives in New York City. 
He has an MFA in creative writing from City College. 
He taught in New York Public schools for many years. 
His first volume of poetry- Damaged by Dames
& Drinking was published in 2017 and another – Femme Fatales
Movie Starlets & Rockers in 2018. A set of three e-books
titled Lies From The Autobiography vol 1-3 were published from
2018 to 2020. His newest book, Imagined Indecencies, 
was published in February of 2022. He was nominated for a
pushcart prize in poetry in 2021 and 2022.

Joseph Gelosi is a lifelong newsman, writing and producing network and local news programs in and around New York City since 1986. He is also a poet and performer whose work has appeared in various anthologies.

It Gets Better

BY JOHN GREY

I’m adjusting doom,
instructing self-pity,
demystifying the curt ballet
of guilt.
Maybe when I’m done,
gloom will be glamour.

Looks like
within the dark shape
is a bright shape,
that, with enough manipulation,
the hodge-podge
of death, anxiety, recrimination
and sheer loneliness
can massage into faith or dream at least,
concern can freeze into a smile.

It’s the test of the Saturday night
by the side of the silent phone
with refrigerator humming
the national abandoned anthem
in the background.

Look out.
Languid is really a laugh.
Solitaire is serendipity for two.
And the man is here
to fix the leaking tap.
I’m the man.
Now show me where I leak.

---

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Stand, Washington Square Review and Floyd County Moonshine. Latest books, “Covert” “Memory Outside The Head” and “Guest Of Myself” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the McNeese Review, Santa Fe Literary Review and Open Ceilings.

The Voice of Grace

BY JOHN GREY

How wonderful your phonetic grace –

did you really say “mellifluous”

or was that just the wind through

the cinquefoil (another word with your imprint).

It’s not so much the number of syllables

but the way some words are not spoken

but float atop your tongue…

beleaguer, dissemble, demure.

And not forgetting ephemeral,

lagniappe, penumbra and pastiche.

Your voice is a treasure trove

of wherewithal and lithe.

It’s a banquet where opulent and panoply

are choices on the menu.

And what you say, in turn,

says much about you.

From serendipity,

the path’s cleared to your precious heart.

Out of vestigial,

an inner loveliness emerges

I could listen to you talk for hours.

Your honeyed vowels, your flowing consonants,

sure shake up my flat and limited vocabulary.

I would call it an epiphany, a cynosure,

but I’m not there yet.

---

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Stand, Washington Square Review and Floyd County Moonshine. Latest books, “Covert” “Memory Outside The Head” and “Guest Of Myself” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the McNeese Review, Santa Fe Literary Review and Open Ceilings.

OKLAHOMA TORNADO, BROKEN HOOP

BY AMANDA HAYDEN

Ripped up oaks, roofless houses, upturned trucks, fences in trees
a handful of buildings still stand, more crushed to pulp, buried under debris

sundry handfuls of history books continue to call massacres “battles”
hide manifest destiny’s countless faces: deliberate-starvation-long face

spread-of-incurable-disease-spotted face, forced-removals-stone face
broken-treaties-betrayal face, The Trail Where They Cried survivors

discards on Oklahoma dumping grounds, where tear-children-out-of-mothers’-arms face waits

steal kids to “residential schools” where mouths are taped shut, Native tongues silenced

hair sliced with assimilation guillotines
prayers beaten from tiny threadbare bodies, no burial for names

tossed in the mass grave of civilize, white-man-ize, identity genocide
generational trauma like funnel clouds of rolling thunder and Hitler 

who loved a cowboy, wrote his valentine for the Long Walk
admired its “blueprint” for concentration camps, reservations for ghettos

and mass graves duplicates of Wounded Knee
where half a century before, U.S. soldiers rolled and stacked bodies

the same bodies whose spirits Ghost Danced in prayer hours earlier,
before the massacre, or “battle” if battles involve women and children

---

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hayden is the current Poet Laureate for Sinclair College and Professor of Humanities (Philosophy, Environmental Ethics, and World Religions). She has received several pedagogy awards, including the SOCHE Teaching Award and the prestigious League for Innovation Teaching Excellence Award (2020). 

In addition to her children’s book, Windy Chicken Farm Animal Rescue, she wrote Saunter Like Muir for Eco-pedagogies: Practical Approaches to Experiential Learning (Routledge, 2022). She just finished her debut poetry collection, American Saunter, inspired by her time living, camping, and backpacking across the U.S. She lives on a farm with her partner, three daughters, three dogs, two cats, two goats, seven pigs, chickens, and Dorothy the duck.

AFTER THE STORM

THREE POEMS BY ANDREA VASILE

After the Storm

Weight too much to hold
the great oak has no choice
but to shed its icy burden
and orchestrates the release

Tiny cymbals sound a warning
as twigs begin to fall 
Skimming across 
the ice-covered ground     

Wind signals the snare of a branch
to give in to its affliction
spearing the snow below 

Suddenly the pound
of the bass drums
long rolling thunder sends

Shards to spike the earth
And the conductor
heaves its wintery load
smashing its limb to the ground

The sun irradiant
through the encrusted tree
bows to a hope of warmth

Achieving stillness
Finding peace in the silence
After the storm

---

Safe

Underneath the pillars of steel and glass 
We stand 
Watching the encroaching fog
Blind our view of the evening sky

darker and heavier 
Attempting to dampen the warmth
We share
Powerless to see through the thick clouds
They release the storm as promised

Furious and harsh overhead
We watch 
Safe in wonderment 
Underneath the pillars of steel and glass

---

Shades of Blue

The gatepost wears the season
like a helmet 

and guards the untrodden path.
Snow covered branches hold heavily, 
the cold ground piles up.

One last berry entrenched awkwardly
In the ice, a forgotten ornament,

missed its opportunity to escape.

A moment in time between day and night,

before the winds
begin their ardent charge,

everything alights all shades of blue.
A sea of anticipation

from earth to sky, eerie illumination
captured by the giant oak

for a fleeting second,

intensifies the brilliance,
electrifies the air

and is released 
to the world
beyond the hedges.

---

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Growing up in Ottawa and New Jersey, Andrea is inspired by nature and the ever-changing city.
Andrea found success in Clevermag, Turbula, Jones Ave and Ascent Aspirations. Recently in The Basil O’Flaherty Feminist Voice, Event Horizon Literary Magazine Issue 9, Oddball Ezine, Mocking Owl Roost and receiving third prize from the poet laureate of Ottawa for I Am a Human Being. Work in Analogies& Allegories Literary Magazine and Panoplyzine, Ottawa’s Flo Literary Magainze and upcoming work in Block Party Magazine.
She finds our world changing in puzzling and curious ways and feels the need to speak out.

SAUDADE

BY STEVEN BRUCE

If I had known to rage
against doubt’s tempest.

If I had known courage
helms the righteous way.

If I had known tomorrow
often becomes too late,

I would have said I love you
yesterday.

---

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steven Bruce is a poet, writer, and award-winning author. His poetry and short stories have appeared in magazines, webzines, and anthologies worldwide. In 2018, he graduated from Teesside University with a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing. He is the recipient of the Literary Titan Golden Book Award and the Indies Today Five-star Recommendation Badge. Born in the North of England, he now lives and writes full-time out of an apartment in Barcelona.

Night Sailors

BY KAREN KILBRIDE

The dawn of autumn brings cold in the night
And so dreary the damp, drizzly day
That the light in your eyes was fading fast
And you begged me to sail away

I’m always up for a trip with you
But this was a much farther ride
To sail through the darkness of heaviest hearts
With Hope on the other side

And so I made a little boat
Just big enough for two
Built with courage, strength, and love
But the magic was all you.

The sea upon which these journeys are made
Is deep, and long, and wide
With wild winds and wicked waves
Whirlpools, storms, and tides

The largest ships were the first to start off
With their motors and horns and commotion
Their violent wakes nearly capsized our boat
As we struggled toward the ocean

The sky was already beginning to cloud
And it darkened before our eyes
The waves grew choppy, then whitecaps appeared
And started to swell in size

Hurricane winds pushed our boat through the waves
But we held hands as we steered
The rain stung our faces and blinded our eyes
And then… what did we hear?

The roar of a funnel cloud ripping the sky!
It sucked up half the sea!
And away all ships were swept
…except…
…the one little boat of we.

The sea raged on, but our boat fairly danced
On the crests of the waves that she swam
While we steered her together, your hand over mine,
And sailed forth bravely on

Hope was still a long way off
And the waves still wild and steep
But I held you close as the water rose
And rocked you right to sleep

For love protects the craft we build
If we care for each other first
Let it rain, let it hail, for we’ve learned how to sail
Through life’s storms at their very worst

The storm did guide us toward Hope after all
No matter how bad it would seem
And now, here we are, with the moon and the stars,
On our fine little boat named Dream.

---

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kilbride is an author and an English Professor. She lives in Ontario with a family and some cats.

SILENT STORM

BY MIA SALAZAR

My mother is a silent storm
a cold shoulder
a closing door
a walking away

She is the near-miss kiss
the side cheek instead of lips
the silence of unrequited love

My mother is a broken clock
and I am the last kid at daycare
sitting at the window as the sky goes out 
headlights passing by that are never hers
while the grown-ups sneak glances at their watches

She is an empty cup
an empty fridge
my empty belly 
whose rumbling kept me awake at night 
and had me waiting in lunch lines for leftovers 
in first grade

My mother is the letter returned to sender
the dial tone on a rotary phone
and I am the operator 
trying to put another call through

She is the Titanic sinking 
and I am the violin on deck 
crying out one last hymn of hope

My mother is the iceberg’s answer 
to my notes.

---

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mia Salazar is a loving wife, former teacher, and doting mom to a charming eight-year-old wrecking ball, a fluffy dog, and an antisocial cat. After a decade of sitting through her husband’s tedious poetry open mics as the biggest cheerleader/critic in the audience, she has chosen to take a stab at it herself. While not terribly prolific, her intense self-analysis guarantees that what few poems she writes are pretty damn good.