Stay close to any sounds thatmake you glad to be alive. Hafiz through the morningstill silenced by darknessyour sudden eruptionallegroarpeggioappoggiaturajoyful enoughto resurrect icarusto enjoin him nidicolousto soar forth once againairborne on wingéd rhapsodyoh songbirdyou remind usthat we can never flytoo close to the sunand i too risefledged by your warblingwhichContinue Reading

It is an old story of disfunction.While I see the beauty of a crowthat has an ugly voicebut a wonderful wing spreadundulating shadows in the sky,controlling the sun’s lightfalling to earth,its feathers holding the air,you see only a bird. Lynette G. Esposito, MA Rutgers, has been published in Poetry Quarterly,Continue Reading

Hello, Helen.Helen Harlot, Helen Home-Wrecker, Helen Whore. Most beautiful woman in the world, hatched from a swan’s egg, product of yet another rape perpetrated by your divine slut of a father, the “omnipotent” thunderer. His many bedfellows tell a different story.In all the myths, you are glittering, resplendent. And always,Continue Reading

He was a son gone somewhat wrongin his talking to ghosts and speakingof dreams.Since he is alone in his monologue,we should join him on stage–wrap our spindly arms around his Princely shouldersand whisper it will be all right.Even if we see death coming,we can teach him to dodge. Lynette G.Continue Reading

I.On a hill in the northwest corner of the ancient Athenian Agora, the Temple of Hephaestus is pocked with bullet holes. The little craters of exact proportion stand in stark contrast to the more natural degradations of time on the Dorian columns, those marks of erosion on marble like theContinue Reading

Before he loved the starsHe loved the paint, the brush, the canvasHe loved the ear he sacrificedHe probably loved a womanWe cannot go back in timeand see what drove himBut if love is a key to everything,Why did he love the night? Lynette G. Esposito, MA Rutgers, has been publishedContinue Reading

“The child fathers the man?” ’Tis true!But note: the child is never through— whence springs so much of tragedyand comedy like you and me. James B. Nicola is a returning contributor. The latest three of his eight full-length poetry collections are Fires of Heaven: Poems of Faith and Sense, TurnsContinue Reading

I. Alice Everlasting Sure, the Dodo had its raceand I got my thimble backbut pattern recognitionhas been daunting ever since,the air marked by so much passing,blurry with regret. It’s hard to trusta shape, a beginning or an end,when all is crossing borders trailing ghostsof other minds and the remnants ofContinue Reading

“Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order.”Virginia Woolf “The creative adult is the child who survived.”Ursula K. Le Guin PrefaceIn the shadows of the marble walls,where echoes of ancient whispers linger, a dark arts college emerges,a tapestry woven with ink and pigment. Poets, composers,Continue Reading

So why not use a classic form but bend the rules from norm,like this, which borrows artistry of classic sonnetrybut switches ’round the flowing sound which sonnets will perform,whose shards came down from greater bards whose words had been set free? Should this be done? Would anyone of sanity agreetoContinue Reading