The Erie Canal in Spring is serene, she thought. Once again, first heat of May made the pink sugar bowl blossoms on magnolia trees shimmer with light. Townies were out walking, taking their time getting to the Lift Bridge on Main Street. Each wore a blue, or red, or yellow balloon fastened to their jackets. The balloons drifted & tugged in the wind, like her niggling thoughts about her neighbors. How they reminded her of sliced white bread. She doubted that they knew they lacked depth; yet, like setting clocks ahead, they came to watch water fill the canal’s bed.

From Guest Contributor M.J. Iuppa

M.J.’s fourth poetry collection is This Thirst (Kelsay Books, 2017). For the past 31 years, she has lived on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. Check out her blog: mjiuppa.blogspot.com for her musings on writing, sustainability & life’s stew.

I walk down the abandoned streets as the slightest beam of light begins to brighten the unlit sky. The brisk wind forces a stubborn tear to stream down the side of my cheek and crystallizes from the absence of warmth. In the fog filled skies of New York City, I take my last exploration before I restart my life. I stumble down the stairs that stand before me and I make my way into a desolate tunnel that fills with light the longer I wait. A loud horn echoes. I guess now is my time to fly away from here.

From Guest Contributor Lilia Onstott

Lilia is an English student at Pikes Peak Community College. She spends her free time by allowing her mind to express itself within many artistic fields, like writing, photography, and music.

The blanket of brown leaves, crisp underfoot before the overnight rains, were now a moist, organic mess. The wind was forcing entire sheaves of debris into clammy piles against curbs and hedges.

Mrs. Roberts waited at the corner for the paramedics. She didn’t like the dog bothering the body, but she was unwilling to get any closer. She instead dragged from her cigarette and stared at her phone.

They are pollinated by wind, insects, and calls from former porn stars to their fathers. They disperse packets of data via winged and plumed seeds. They host mosses, mistletoe, birds, and full-duplex digital transceivers. Ultra High Frequency bands of bark, cork, geolocation, quinine, tannin, code division, salicin, syrup, microwaves, and tearful confessions. Across their collinear arrays of dipoles, clustered characters of fury, lust, and suicide notes are passed among their branches. And, late at night, handed over from tree to tree, lined along the Interstate, in streams of ones and zeros, the fathers forgive their daughters and invite them home.

Dale Wisely co-edits Right Hand Pointing, One Sentence Poems, Unlost Journal, and Unbroken Journal. www.dalewisely.com/literary

Nancy Botkin loves midnight. She stands on the porch, wind whispering. She watches moon drifting. Luminous, motherly, never leaving. A new day awakens. Possibilities rise.

She hides pieces of dreams, waits for the next night.

From Guest Contributor Mir-Yashar Seyedbagheri

Mir-Yashar is a graduate of Colorado State’s MFA program in fiction. The recipient of two Honorable Mentions from Glimmer Train, he has also had work nominated for The Best Small Fictions. His work has been published or is forthcoming in journals such as 50 Word Story, Molecule Lit Mag, The Write City Magazine, and Agony Opera. He lives in Garden Valley, Idaho.

There are always more volunteers than available spots on the firing squad. But the really terrible part isn’t how cold it is out. It’s how much I tremble. The I Ching advises, “Wait in the meadow,” meaning caring for a cow will bring luck. I can remember a time when everyone wasn’t in such a hurry to fuck off to somewhere. Now, whatever phone number I punch in, the suicide hotline picks up. I think about mentioning this to someone. And then I get distracted by the wind and the rain and the loud kissing noises they seem to make.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Brandon surveyed the sea of grass standing before him. The wind, which shook the trees and rained leaves down from above, was swallowed up in the green swathe so that the air at ground level was nearly silent.

He took only a few steps before he drowned in the vegetation.

A puppy was shivering in freezing wind and Bholu decided to bring it home and provide shelter for a night. He hid it from his granny, but as soon as Bholu dozed off to sleep the puppy came out and started licking the old granny’s feet. The poor lady screamed and woke up from her sleep. The puppy got scared and hid under a cupboard in the room. Granny caught hold of a torch and flashed it under the cupboard. She saw two sparkling eyes gazing at her. She pulled it out and wondered how it got into the house. 

From Guest Contributor Preeti Singh

Preeti is an Indian French interpreter, international author, and scriptwriter. In her free time, she loves to play sundry characters for television series. 
You can check out her latest book at https://www.infiniterealmsbookstore.com/product-page/remember-me-not-by-preeti-singh

And follow her at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/preeti

Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/PreetiWrites

What sounds implausible in most languages, a flock of winged skulls hovering on the wind, happens three or four times before I admit, yes, this is real. I hurl stones at the skulls and jeer when they fly off in all directions. “Are you kidding me?” a man hurrying past says. “Don’t you realize how dangerous that is?” I do, but it’s not like we have much choice. Troops have draped public buildings in protective netting. The police are going around with guns drawn. Meanwhile, school kids have been taught to hide under their desks, you know, just in case.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie’s latest poetry collections are I’m Not a Robot from Tolsun Books and A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel from Analog Submissions Press.

The eve before Halloween I visit Melissa’s gravesite and place a
bouquet of yellow roses against her stone. She’d be thirty years old
today. The cemetery is empty, and the rain is cold against my face, but
I am here.

The rain becomes heavy and when I drive off, the petals of the roses
blow in front of my car.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher