A poet friend once told
me that Inspiration sometimes
interrupts her in the shower,
provoking a panicked, lathered,
toweled sprint to a notepad
to record her next masterpiece.
How rude of Inspiration, I thought,
before realizing my envy.

Inspiration strikes me, too,
like a boxer’s taped knuckles
on a speedbag—
I’m the speedbag in
this metaphor.
I rapidly recoil
repeatedly, too dizzy to
know what is happening.
My thoughts ricochet,
transfigure each time
my tormentor’s knuckles hit.

Nothing ever comes of these sparring sessions.

Instead, I plod noisily, though
unaware of my footsteps, crouching,
waiting outside Inspiration’s door.

I end up with a sore
jaw and pounding head.

Even now,
each word I squeak out
is uninspired,
heavily wrought, but written,
nonetheless.

Shelby Wilson is a high school AP English teacher from Amarillo, Texas. He holds a BA in English from Texas A&M University and an MA in English from West Texas A&M University.  His work has appeared in Ink & Nebula and Madness Muse Press.

When Henry Heimlich of the Jewish Hospital of Cincinnati
published his famous procedure in Emergency Medicine in 1974,
who knew he’d become a household name?
Or at least his Maneuver, approved by the AMA in 1975
and included in most CPR and First Aid classes,
and that deaths from choking on food,
the sixth leading cause of accidental death,
would plummet as a result?
Henry would become a national hero.

Just so we wonder about death and its causes.
Cancer, heart disease, diabetes, AIDS, car wrecks, gun violence….
(Who by fire and who by water?
Who by sword and who by beast?
Who by hunger and who by thirst?
Who by, etc. as the Unetaneh Tokef tells us on Yom Kippur.)

And underlying those, what are the reasons?
Smoking, drinking, drugs, promiscuous sex, carelessness, diet.
Genetic predisposition.
Anger, jealousy, rage, grief.

Is the ideal death from old age?
Passing away painlessly in your sleep
(and how peacefully passive “passing away”)?
Or is there something beneath this, too?
Heart, lungs, liver. Genes. DNA.

What about being struck by lightning?
Pure dumb luck or carelessness?
(He shouldn’t have been standing
under that tree during a thunderstorm!)

The subtext seems to be it could have been prevented.
But can it really be postponed in perpetuity?
Dodge death forever, cryogenics be damned?
Ain’t no such maneuver, Henry.

Charles Rammelkamp is Prose Editor for BrickHouse Books in Baltimore and Reviews Editor for The Adirondack Review. A chapbook of poems, Jack Tar’s Lady Parts, is available from Main Street Rag Publishing. Another poetry chapbook, Me and Sal Paradise, was recently published by FutureCycle Press. An e-chapbook has also recently been published online: Time Is on My Side (yes it is). Another chapbook, Mortal Coil, is forthcoming from Clare Songbirds Publishing.

The dipper, rocking on his bolder watch,
alert, in crowded camouflage, discreet,
magnetic hands at ten to two, scarf smoothed
with charm, the smile and words to reassure,
observed by none, a gesture, token, trove
to join the piling posts in fencing shed.

Grandfather’s own from warring fields,
the wallet slipped, worn-leather shine,
is soon binned skip, of no account,
what worth that life-held photo snap?
It sandwiched with paninis, wraps
pork chops and pȃté, jumbled food.

Surveying bins for easy trash,
amongst pre-packed day-before date,
she saw pigskin beneath the tripe,
patina pointing to her Dad –
before the crush about her life –
and needed it before the scraps.

Her whorled prints scraped the bacon fat,
and there the image, pipe in mouth,
for grandparent she never knew
became the pin-up she withdrew.
Between the paper sheets and card,
it tucked, her corrugated love.

Stephen Kingsnorth, retired to Wales from ministry in the Methodist Church, has had pieces accepted by Nine Muses Poetry; Voices Poetry; Eunoia Review; Runcible Spoon; Ink Sweat and Tears; The Poetry Village; The Seventh Quarry; Gold Dust; From the Edge Poetry Magazine and Allegro Poetry Magazine.

A smooth straight road
Remains visible
For miles
But the unknown
Only happens
Around blind curves
Around the bends
And turns
We need crises
On our path
To grow
Where fear
Is the catharsis
That molds us
Into shapes
Beyond our bounds
Our binds
And the shackles
Of our shelter

John Drudge is from Caledon, Ontario, Canada. He is a social worker working in the field of disability management and holds degrees in social work, rehabilitation services, and psychology. John has appeared in the Arlington Literary Journal, The Rye Whiskey Review, Poetica Review, Literary Yard, Drinkers Only, The Alien Buddah Press, Montreal Writes, Mad Swirl, Avocet, and Harbinger Asylum.  He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and his book, March, is available in independent book stores across Canada and on Amazon.com.

Mia says the name of the place,
l’Auberge-in, is a play on words.
She’ll tell in time, prix fix is 43 francs.
It’s empty and candle lit yet grotto dim.
Antique labor trappings adorn the walls.
Mia sits under a yoke. A couple from our hotel enters.
Their table’s by a sickle, a hammer not far off.
“They’re commies,” whispers Mia, out the side
of her mouth. “We are struggling farmers.”
She reveals the French for “eggplant” is the answer and we order
a dish featuring it with couscous that’s abundant and delicious.
As if constipated old field hand, I choose a prune yogurt dessert.
It’s a hit but doesn’t measure up to Mia’s vanilla flan.
As we are leaving, one of our neighbors is running his finger
over the sickle blade. His girlfriend is laughing.
Mia hopes they dream tonight of wheat not chaff.
We cross the Seine near la Tour d’Argent to the Ile St. Louis.
Strolling narrow streets we window shop
stop at a cozy restaurant that’s appealing.
Letters and book pages grace its walls.
“Tomorrow,” says Mia. “I’ll translate a couple
while we dine.”
Back across the river, a tipsy fellow bumps into her.
She punches him hard in the arm. He laughs and salutes her.
She’s the featherweight champ of la rue des Ecoles.
Next day, we stop for a drink at Harry’s
New York Bar where heavyweight Primo
Carnera’s boxing gloves hang on a wall.
Mia says they resemble mutant eggplants.
“Aubergine,” I brag.
She punches my arm, but softly.

Thomas M. McDade is a former programmer / analyst living in Fredericksburg, VA, previously CT & RI. He is a graduate of Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT. McDade is twice a U.S. Navy Veteran, serving ashore at the Fleet Anti-Air Warfare Training Center, Virginia Beach, VA, and at sea aboard the USS Mullinnix (DD-944) and USS Miller (DE / FF 1091). His poetry has most recently been published by The World of Myth, Local Train, Ariel Chart and Pinnacle Anthology. He also writes short fiction that has appeared in: Punk-Lit, Close To The Bone, Between These Shores Arts Anthology and Spank The Carp.

Hold your bones against the wash
All your currents open
Chest deep, northern waters
Cold lake waves numb
Sunburned shoulders
& Black fly bites

Pebbles under toes
Painlessly smooth
Sparkle when wet
Gloomy once dried
Disappointingly so

The silent appearance of a loon
Come to claim the bream
Darting past your knees
Impossibly long she submerges
Reappearing beyond the dock

To the Iroquois she was a witch
Off limits to hunt
& besides,
They never had much of a taste
For gamey loon meat

Fearless of you
She shares her lake
Not that you gave her a choice
After sundown
She’ll share her voice
Beckoning her mate

Now is the silence
Before that long, forlorn note
That transforms sounds into music

Cold lake waves receive your bones
All your channels open

Jason O’Toole is the author of two collections of poetry, Soulless Heavens (2019) and Spear of Stars (2018), both from The Red Salon. His poems are included in An Anthology of Poems from The Red Salon (2018) and We’ve Seen the Same Horizon (2019). He has also been featured in Nixes Mate Review, The Scriblerus, Tigershark and countless underground fanzines dating back to the 1980s. He performs with Providence based composer-musician, Alec K. Redfearn.

The terrain shimmers in a patriotic poltergeist.
Freedom’s arid limbo drives them
into this afterlife of yearning.
In wraith-like pulses they loom
like a searing hot mirage.
But this heat is not without its purpose.
Nothing left to do but to rejoice at this sight of
the freedom fighters storming the mind’s terrain.
The self-triggering rifle that is HISTORY
stands rooted in eternal aim at them.
Watch this nebulous multitude morph into shapes of
inspiration as history fires its wax bullets at them.

Nilotpal Sarmah resides in the city of Guwahati in Assam, India. Inspired by his home state’s landscapes, he turned poetry into his passion and hopes to have a published volume of his works some day.