A house drawn by a child.
Purple and crooked windows.
A big yellow sun smiling at a cloud,
a single sad and silvery cloud.
And what I think might be a tree
in a yard with a broken fence,
with a pathway winding nowhere.

And little m’s flitting here and there,
black and fretful, like bats or birds.
Like harpies battling storms and winds.
Demons in confederacy with witches.
Souls escaping their earthly bonds.
Penciled phoenixes rising in the unseen
airs of a crayon’s ashes.

Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician currently residing on Salt Spring Island BC, is a multiple Pushcart nominee with over 1,600 poems published internationally in magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. His books are The So-Called Sonnets (Silenced Press); An Unbecoming Fit Of Frenzy (Cawing Crow Press); Like As If (Pski’s Porch); Hearsay (The Poet’s Haven).

i stop at a road-house
fill up my car with petrol and go inside
to the tingle of a door-bell

i pay a green haired woman for petrol
and order a strong black coffee
looks like you need an extra shot in it mate she says and laughs
an old woman in a pink cardigan sitting on a lounge chair
echoes you need an extra shot in it mate and laughs

the road-house feels like a home

a chubby bald bloke in ripped jeans enters
to the tingle of the door-bell
stained t-shirt covering half his belly
hi fatty the women say together
hi ladies fatty replies
he orders fish and chips

green hair goes out the back of the shop
calls i’ll nip down the river and catch you a cod
old woman echoes nip down the river and catch him a cod
both women laugh
i laugh and fatty laughs

old woman throws me and fatty a tooth gap grin
fatty says hi to me and i say hi to him

green hair comes out with my strong black coffee
i take it and turn to leave
fatty and the two women say bye to me
i say bye to them and exit the road-house
to the tingle of the door-bell

i pat a skinny black dog with three legs

get in my car and drive along an empty road
not sure how far i’ll travel today
or where i’ll sleep tonight

i stop the car
drink the strong black coffee on the side of the empty road
and think about driving back to the road-house

to ask the two women how they know fatty
why the dog has only got three legs
and if the road-house is actually their home

first published in Panoplyzine

Stephen House is an award winning Australian playwright, poet and actor. He’s won two Awgie Awards (Australian Writer’s Guild), Adelaide Fringe Award, Rhonda Jancovich Poetry Award for Social Justice, Goolwa Poetry Cup, Feast Short Story Prize, and more. He’s been shortlisted for Lane Cove Literary Award, Overland’s Fair Australia Fiction Prize, Patrick White Playwright and Queensland Premier Drama Awards, Greenroom Best Actor Award and more. He’s received Australia Council literature residencies to Ireland and Canada, and an India Asialink.  His chapbook real and unreal was published by ICOE Press. He is published often and performs his work widely.

Enough! The cacophony of barks rolling
from yard to yard to yard is reprehensible
and my only–dogs-can-hear whistle
from Amazon can’t silence the din.

You abandon them – chew on that! –
when you’re off to work or browsing
in the mall and I’m left with Antonia
howling her anxiety, Beauregard
taunting errant squirrels, and Percy
running amok beneath parked cars.

Don’t tell me you love your dogs
more than the mother who brushed your hair
or the lover who cuddles you in bed.
And forget the bunk that it’s unconditional.
Admit what it is: an addiction
to dopamine from non-judgmental welcomings
every time you mosey through the door.

There must be a 12-step group you could join –
I’ll even drive you there – or a therapist
who’ll help you fill your dog-size void.
Maybe training in mindfulness? I’ve read
it can relieve cravings for any fix.

Yet … I admit when you post videos
of a lab mothering kittens abandoned in a barn
or a mutt pushing a child out of harm’s way,
there might be something to this best-friend stuff.

Perhaps I’ll buy some Quiet Please Ear Plugs,
turn up my Homedics noise machine,
and re-evaluate. After death I may request
to reincarnate as a non-shedding,
non-yapping, small-pile-pooping pup.
What breed would you suggest?

first published in The San Antonio Review.

From associate professor of English to management trainer to retiree, Carolyn Martin is a lover of gardening and snorkeling, writing and photography. Her fourth poetry collection, A Penchant for Masquerades, was released by Unsolicited Press in 2019. She is currently the poetry editor of Kosmos Quarterly: journal for global transformation. Find out more at www.carolynmartinpoet.com.

sudden, she stands in her grave
eyes overflowing with grace,
awed by the power
in her angelic shoulders,
and instead of wings
two harps unfold from her back,
spread wide, reach high –
with one almighty stroke
she mounts the sky
with whistling speed,
sky after sky,
wind through strings
making deep music, arpeggios
bursting with every beat
of her rippling wings,
and she sings;

how she sings…

and, hard by earth,
we stand in respect

as this heavenly girl
fades from our sight,

listening as her last,
precious notes

drift slowly down
and away,

like dandelion seeds
blown for a wish.

John Wiley started as a ballet dancer and turned to poetry when his knees finally gave out for good.  His work has appeared in Terror House Magazine, grand little things, and The Writing Disorder among other publications.  He lives in a California beach town, teaches English online, and is the editor of Unpublishable Poetry, a new online magazine coming out soon.

she doesn’t bother putting her head
out the window, or stepping onto the porch
just looks at the trees in the wind
the ones that are waving a wild hello
doesn’t check the temperature
or any online forecast, except to see
how hard the wind is blowing
in case she wants to kayak later
no, she simply says it might get hot
and just in case, she closes up the house
windows, shades, anything that might allow
a hint of warming sun to sneak inside
this is her summer routine since she moved here
this old house with no air conditioning
she keeps it shut by day, open at night
a never ending game, fueled by nothing more
than her own daily anxiety that it might,
just might, get hot

j.lewis is an internationally published poet, musician, and nurse practitioner. His poetry and music reflect the complexity of human interactions, drawing inspiration from his experience in healthcare. When he is not otherwise occupied, he is often on a kayak, exploring and photographing the waterways and wildlife near his home in California.