Contributors This Issue:
Lana Bella, C.S. Fuqua, John Grey
Dear Readers,
Welcome to our newest iteration of our highly anticipated magazine! The selection process was both rigorously rewarding and made selections ever more difficult this time around, as only three authors were selected for publication. This time around, although decisions can be particularly difficult during any reading period for each issue, this particular one led us to some unprecedented firsts, this time around. This was the first time we've had only three contributors grace our wonderful journal, the first time our issue contains exclusively poems, and the first time we had to turn down a vast array of material that was exceptionally crafted. We absolutely loathed that aspect of reading and selecting our submissions, but in the end we were able to collect some pieces which perfectly represented our issue, and wanted to truly give our readers a reading experience they could be proud of. Nevertheless, due to what transpired in this issue, issue #6 promises to return with even more quality content for your reading pleasure! Because of this, you can expect an October release and plenty of Fiction, Non-fiction, Flash Fiction coming your way! Thanks for making our job fun and exciting! - The Editors |
Lana Bella on "The Letter:"
"To
me, honest thoughts when confessed of their naked scars and
vulnerability, display most luminosity of truth. For the attempt and
risk it takes to bare all would require a deep sense of trust from
oneself to another, almost as if this longing which leads to the core of
humanity--every step is self-birth, grave in its undertaking. My poem
speaks to that dual strives: the internal which I let represented by the
right hand, whereas the external one with the left. These two
struggling worlds of keeping our true thoughts private and making known
of their voice remains evermore a quarrel. To lay hidden is a terror,
same goes with to stand revealed."
THE LETTER
By Lana Bella
My right hand.
Down-turned with its
knuckles flat over the inked words.
Black letters blurred:
spilling through the brown flesh in their bellied form
looking forlorn across the isled skin,
desolate in the broken tryst.
The whole sordid recall of my life
beheld on white stationary
laying bare like a cold-suffering kiss.
Thrusting me back against the pulse of time,
its heart pelted into my palm
made visible the alphabet of memory.
Consonants poured out,
leaving behind down plume of vowels.
Streaked in copper and battered rain.
I retreated to a moment before
where life could be written in reverse,
when letters were worn at the mouth to brush clean
dark drawings.
While my hand was comforted into silence,
traveled out and ahead without the need of words.
But now,
the fingers unfurl,
burning with bites of the guillotine's stroke.
My small palm,
a still river of living thoughts resigns within, and with it,
a sealed bridge between two struggling worlds.
Lana Bella has a diverse work of poetry and flash fiction anthologized, published and forthcoming with more than seventy journals, including Aurorean Poetry, Chiron Review, Eunoia Review, New Plains Review, The Criterion Journal, The Ignatian Review, The Offbeat Literary, Whirlwind Press and Featured Artist with Quail Bell Magazine, among others. She resides in the coastal town of Nha Trang, Vietnam with her novelist husband and two frolicsome imps.
C.S. Fuqua on "Stones:"
“Stones” results from a visit to the historical Maple Hill Cemetery’s annual “Stroll” in Huntsville, Alabama, during which local actors dress and perform as famous people interred in the cemetery. Although interesting, the event celebrates stories of lives that are well-known, stories repeated each year ad nauseam. I was struck most, however, not by the celebrated stories, but by the three graves described in the poem, the tragedy and implication of deep sadness and loss. I wondered whether the children were siblings, what killed them, and why such a celebration neglected the cemetery’s lesser known, potentially more interesting stories of its residents.
Stones
By
C.S. Fuqua
Three stones mark graves of siblings
who died in successive months.
These stones are next
to the cemetery’s “potter’s field” section,
in the shade of a massive oak
that was surely a sapling
when they were laid here.
These three graves are alone,
no stones marking parents or anyone else.
The dates suggest illness,
striking the youngest, age eight, first,
the middle, age 12, next,
the oldest, age 16, last.
Names and dates.
Nothing more.
In other parts of the cemetery,
actors portray the dead celebrities planted here,
celebrating the cemetery’s age and notoriety,
delivering stilted lines about stilted lives,
but the real stories, the real dreams
of the everyday man and woman
lie in lonely graves,
orphans of time,
close enough to touch in death,
silent and sad in the simple
story of stones.
C.S. Fuqua’s books include White Trash & Southern ~ Collected Poems ~ Vol. I, Hush, Puppy! A Southern Fried Tale (children’s picture book), Rise Up (short fiction collection), The Native American Flute: Myth, History, Craft, Trust Walk (short fiction collection), The Swing: Poems of Fatherhood, Divorced Dads, and Notes to My Becca, among others. His work has appeared in publications such as Main Street Rag, Pudding, Dark Regions, Iodine, Christian Science Monitor, Cemetery Dance, Bogg, Year's Best Horror Stories XIX, XX and XXI, Amelia, Slipstream, The Old Farmer's Almanac, The Writer, and Honolulu Magazine.
John Grey on Piano Lesson:
" "Piano Lesson" is no doubt an attempt to get into the mind set of someone being pushed into a person they don't want to be. I was lucky that didn't happen in my case."
PIANO LESSON
By
John Grey
One more way to waste your parents' money,
to pretend at being the person they want you to be.
Miss Soames is entirely mistaken for an hour a week.
She believes that this has something to do with Chopin,
that where your fingers mob the black and white keys
is what this lesson is all about.
Miss Soames' face is as blank
as her voice is insistent.
She's a metronome in another lifetime.
She gives your fear, the necessary accelerando.
Pianissimo, she wails.
It's aimed at your hands but it's your heart
that gets the message.
The tune that comes out of you
is a typical ode to the manipulation of a lifetime.
It's the Minute Waltz that takes forever.
" "Piano Lesson" is no doubt an attempt to get into the mind set of someone being pushed into a person they don't want to be. I was lucky that didn't happen in my case."
PIANO LESSON
By
John Grey
One more way to waste your parents' money,
to pretend at being the person they want you to be.
Miss Soames is entirely mistaken for an hour a week.
She believes that this has something to do with Chopin,
that where your fingers mob the black and white keys
is what this lesson is all about.
Miss Soames' face is as blank
as her voice is insistent.
She's a metronome in another lifetime.
She gives your fear, the necessary accelerando.
Pianissimo, she wails.
It's aimed at your hands but it's your heart
that gets the message.
The tune that comes out of you
is a typical ode to the manipulation of a lifetime.
It's the Minute Waltz that takes forever.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in New Plains Review, Mudfish and Spindrift with work upcoming in South Carolina Review, Gargoyle, Sanskrit and Louisiana Literature.