November spreads gray across sticky sidewalks as acrid smoke from burn barrels warms frigid hands and stings sleep-weary eyes. Winos huddle wary knowing tempers can flare as quickly as last week’s newspapers tossed in the fires. On the streets a life is worth a pint of Mad Dog. Desperate men commit despicable acts for a drink. Women trade sex and dignity for comfort under blankets. Robert the Shank holds jagged metal to a girl’s throat. Bettie slams a bottle against his ear. He cuts her bad. An ambulance takes her to County. She smiles bleeding, thinking of a clean bed.

From Guest Contributor, Jeff Switt

Jeff is a retired advertising agency guy who loves writing flash fiction—some days to curb his angst, other days to fuel it. His words have been featured at Dogzplot, Boston Literary Review, Flash Fiction World, Nailpolish Stories, 50-Word Stories, and Shotgun Honey, and have appeared at lots of places that take whatever you send in.

Late afternoon, Tuesday, I have gathered sixteen leaves into four stacks, and a dog wanders closer to my clean patch of dirt and moss, and this book of symbols is open to the first page on interlocking circles, and four hours of collecting hues through a borrowed lens feels too brief, and this final autumn egg sits askew, broken open, sticky, not drying fast enough, and the dog is coming too close, coming soon, and some winter begins collecting itself near hatchings left to wander into this too early night, and I stand, bend at the waist, and look inside.

From Guest Contributor, Kelli Allen

Kelli Allen’s work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in the US and internationally. She served as Managing Editor of Natural Bridge and holds an MFA from the University of Missouri. She is currently a Professor of English and Creative Writing at Lindenwood University. Allen gives readings and teaches workshops throughout the US. Her full-length poetry collection, Otherwise, Soft White Ash, from John Gosslee Books (2012) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

Shadows stretch through yellow light, grabbing at her moving outline on the sidewalk. Quickly now, quickly. In her pocket, she slips her middle finger through the ring of her keychain, the metal spines porcupine out from between the knuckles of her tightening fist. Quickly now, quickly. The time between the taps of her heels on the pavement shortens with her breath. Quickly now, quickly. Her ears swim in an ocean of rushing blood. Quickly now, quickly. Behind her, footsteps. Quickly now, quickly. She is almost there. Quickly, now, quickly. She stumbles, falls. Quickly, now, quickly. It is too late.

From Guest Contributor, Laura Fitch

Laura is a writer and a reader of a whole bunch of things. Her fiction and non-fiction has been published in print and online, but she’s not about to tell you where. She likes fat cats and wine.

Charlie Bohack! Charlie Bohack! Five-and-dime derelict turned depot Demiurge, soot-stained, reeking; his thermos filled with God knows what. He’s rattling off again: In the 60s he was the beau of long-legged gals with Cleopatra eyes; he had seduced Charo (or was it Cher?)at Studio 54, with Travolta-like moves and an avalanche-white smile; and was weaned on Goddess’ teats, on the Good Stuff, but Old Crow and Granddad could hold him for a spell.

The 8:15 is on time (Thank God!). Bodies and briefcases careen around the Bohack-pylon. Chug-Chug-Chug! Charlie Bohack grows small, but of infinite potential, dancing on the tracks.

From Guest Contributor, James Zahardis

“You may begin your journey,” she said.
“Wise One, how far must I drive?” he asked.
“Until the pollution of light dims into darkness and the stars shimmer free,” she answered.
“How far, Wise One, must I then walk?” he asked.
“Until the pollution of noise fades into the distance so that you can hear cicadas harmonize with the wind,” she answered.
“How long, then, must I stay, Wise One?” he asked.
“Until the pollution of your mind drifts away like smoke,” she answered.
“Then, Wise One, what must I do next?” he asked.
“You may begin your journey.”

From Guest Contributor, Karen Burton.
Karen is an MFA student at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri.

The portal calls to me in the songs of ancient gods, but my feet are mired in the ordinary, the necessary, the mundane. The music pulls me forward until I feel as if I shall break into two pieces—leaving only half of me to enter the world that is next.

The melody shifts in key, and I am beckoned not to walk, but to rise. I understand that I do not need these frozen feet. I spread my arms to the future, and I streak upward. My boots remain in the mud, but I am whole. I can fly.

From Guest Contributor Karen Burton.

Karen is an MFA student at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, MO.

I am the wind that yesterday lifted your hair against the orange sky, cooling your skin. Now, I have arrived to collect respect. I bang on your door. Scream through your trees. You ignore me? I carried the seeds that became these trees that brush the sky. I exhale against the oak standing rigid against my gale, refusing to bend. He groans and snaps before my fury. And you, you who hide in your pretty squares constructed of his branches, think that you are protected from my force. Hear the glass that breaks as I announce that I am more.

From Guest Contributor, Karen Burton

Karen is an MFA student at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, MO.

So I sought an answer. I looked behind silos, underwater, between the lines of out-of-print taxonomy texts. I branded objects as “right” or “wrong.”

I leveraged my concerns. I was humbled by saplings. I began ending sentences with “in today’s world.”
In December I met a prophet. I had been inhaling incorrectly my entire life.

From Guest Contributor, Liv Lansdale

She holds two swords of societal success. Her career of achievement, her marriage of love realized. Nice house, nicer car. The look that men look at – even her husband. Meditative dreams on summer days under a comforter of cool breezes. Still, one regret reflects the swords’ sharp edges. Cut her caesarean style – deep as you like; take out the child she cannot carry… his son. The single thing she cannot give him. Justice, she feels, is not in the cards for her. She seeks to be satiated through gluttonous eyes. Where are maternity clothes, the infant boy she must steal?

From Guest Contributor. Keith Hoerner

Keith lives, teaches, and pushes words around in St. Louis, Missouri.

If This World Would Allow it, I would Curl You Into Me, Caught from Flinging

I will build a catapult against instruction, an implication of backward, showing you from the cupped seat to base, flat and without lacquer, just how far necessity sounds through an ear’s tunnels, when the breath propelling the assertion is something past love. Sentiment is reactionary, but I promise fullness and recompense after the flight. Thatches of bendy straws still wait, splayed in divided nests under my pillow to serve as extra reminders after you inevitably ask: “What does it mean to land, to really land?”

From Guest Contributor, Kelli Allen

Kelli Allen’s work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in the US and internationally. She served as Managing Editor of Natural Bridge and holds an MFA from the University of Missouri. She is currently a Professor of English and Creative Writing at Lindenwood University. Allen gives readings and teaches workshops throughout the US. Her full-length poetry collection, Otherwise, Soft White Ash, from John Gosslee Books (2012) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.