In our chapel at Golden Pines,
Amber light through stained glass,
Across the burgundy cushions,
Greying heads, hip and knee replacements,
A new organ fills the room:
Bach, Widor’s toccata,
Three manuals, hundreds of stops.
Digital, no pipes, which means to some
It is not real. Oh, but is it—
The swells, crescendos,
The noble trumpet of the Prince of Denmark’s March.
It replaces the kind of organ
You used to hear in cafeterias,
Playing for the Civitans.
Our friend explains, improvises for us;
Keys change.
How many would be so bold
As to put on display the skills
Of a life’s work, now
Compromised by time.
It is marvellous, we think, in every way.
At last we have at Golden Pines
An instrument fit for a sanctuary,
For a service of last rites.

Robert Demaree is the author of four book-length collections of poems, including Other Ladders, published in 2017 by Beech River Books. His poems have received first place in competitions sponsored by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire and the Burlington Writers Club. He is a retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. Bob’s poems have appeared in over 150 periodicals including Cold Mountain Review and Louisville Review.

Must be my lucky day.
Look what I found on the sidewalk
in a small Midwestern town
at the turn of the 21st century.
It’s almost midnight.
The one street light
is swinging like a pendulum.
I saw it gleaming through the cracks.
I just had to kneel down and pick it up.

Well so what.
My find is not helping my car any.
It’s as dead as a pair of twos in a poker game.
And a mile back there on the road some place.
And I can’t afford to pay for a roof over my head.
But that’s my worry, not yours.

Have you guessed it yet?
Red roses in a white wine bottle?
Iron Maiden CD in a medicine cabinet?
Scheherazade on a shingle?
Shakespeare, vestal virgins or leopards?
Take my advice and forget about it.

Is it a gleam, a glitter,
in an otherwise dead block of cement?
Does it remind me of someone?
Do I break into a little song?
And dance with my own shadow?

And now it’s starting to rain.
It dribbles down my chin.
The wind is brisk and repulsive.
The people are all indoors,
in bed, with the lights out.

So I’m under an awning,
with my coat wrapped around me,
head on a stoop.
body curled up like a snail’s.

Have you guessed it yet?
It’s nothing really.
But you knew that all along.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in the Homestead Review, Poetry East and Columbia Review with work upcoming in the Roanoke Review, the Hawaii Review and North Dakota Quarterly.

A roller of fat cigars,
the hefty guy
whose arms are inked
with devils and angels,
short-skirted women
showing enough leg
to start the dogs barking,
and an old lady selling flowers –
I have ignored them all
just to be with you.

A shop window
advertising 47 ice-cream flavors,
a pig with two heads
or maybe two pigs
with a head apiece,
blind kids playing baseball,
a construction site,
a barbershop quartet –
I was in such a hurry,
I noticed none of these.

Then you have to ask me
how my never-wavering concentration
on the matter in hand
enabled me to include,
for poetic purposes,
all these things I bypassed,
took no notice of.

That’s a good question.
Luckily, on my journey,
I avoided all good questions.
That’s why I’m here.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in the Homestead Review, Poetry East and Columbia Review with work upcoming in the Roanoke Review, the Hawaii Review and North Dakota Quarterly.

The first two arrows that pierce my orbs
through fluttering lashes, too loath to unfold,
are cerulean fragments that, unhampered, probe
my naked window every cloudless morn.

My wavelengths, attuned, respond with a flow
of rippling images that W. James had called
the stream of consciousness, but in a non-literary world:
a bluebell basking in the shade of a blade,
a petal floating on the sapphire of a lake,
a ripple or two agitating my boat,
whose oars are drunk with foam and salt,
a cyan mist inhabiting a myth,
a pair of eyes whose blueness persists
to compete with skies’, bluebells’, and mists’

Susie Gharib is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde with a Ph.D. on the work of D.H. Lawrence. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in multiple venues including Adelaide Literary Magazine, Green Hills Literary Lantern, A New Ulster, Crossways, The Curlew, The Pennsylvania Literary Journal, The Ink Pantry, Mad Swirl, Miller’s Pond Poetry Magazine, and Down in the Dirt.

The light has gone out
in your heart.
It’s not the bulb.
It is still steady
with kisses and hugs.

After years of constant use.
the wiring is frayed
at the source.
Wire nuts of romance
have been loosened.

It’s time for an overhaul.

This is to be done carefully.
The electricity shut down.
A new love cord installed.
Secured with masking tape.
Retighten the nuts
and slowly connect
the lost circuit.

R. Gerry Fabian is a retired English instructor. He has been publishing poetry since 1972 in various poetry magazines. He is the editor of Raw Dog Press. He has published two poetry books, Parallels and Coming Out Of The Atlantic. His novels, Memphis Masquerade, Getting Lucky (The Story) and Seventh Sense are available from Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes and Noble. He is currently working on his fourth novel, Ghost Girl.

I watch from under
The shade of the fly-over.
The ring road squeezes the city
Into prolapse.

The sky closes for business
And the clouds fold over,
Like a restless sleeper’s duvet.
A sun-flare splits the grey fade
Of the post-rush hour queue.

I don’t think that the commuters
Can see the heard approaching.

A hot breeze whispers
Through skeletal trees.
I can see the horses racing
Up the dual carriageway.

The Ikea sign is melting, and
Flaming hooves are pounding
Over the blackened bones
Of roadkill and exhaust pipes.

The harras rages
Silently
Through the heat-haze shimmer.
Manes are ablaze.

With unstable diamond eyes
And the stars in their teeth,
They unleash
Beautiful incineration
On to the idle traffic.

Flashes of orange and red caress
Idle wing mirrors.
I see the fire-heard
Race through the barrier and
Leap across the fly-over.

Mirrored windows kiss
The glare of a new
Temporary sun.
There will be no hard-shoulder
To cry on this evening.

One day I will hit the accelerator, 
and catch up with the stampede.
I will fly
Like Pegasus on fire.
The ring road will collapse
Into the creases of the sky.

Colin Gardiner lives in Coventry. He writes short stories and poems and has been published by The Ekphrastic Review and the Creative Writing Leicester blog. He is currently studying a Masters in Creative Writing at Leicester University. More of his work can be read here