with the discarded tent, drive fast enough

to strip away your words, your face,

lose them among the ridges, gullies, buttes

fading to blue-gray lines, breaking the earth’s curve

never think about you again when I buy

a new tent, crawl into a space

wholly my own—

I should let you rust like the iron wheel

at the foot of the silver slag heap left

when the miners disappeared

now home to yellow striped lizards,

stop up my ears so I don’t hear you call

my name softly in my dream, run far

enough into the dry waste to mistake

a mirage for real water, hills of sage

for spring grasses—

Tell me how I can shed these pictures.

 Competition HERE

Emily Strauss is a retired English teacher and has written her whole life. She got serious about her work in her 40′s and has been occasionally published for the past 15 years. She generally focuses on the natural world and how it reflects our human emotions and journeys.

gapes

a mouth overcrowded with teeth

‘tween you and “enough”

burrowing in chalk dust

a barrier that senses

cannot break

we are shuffled and sifted

into the same

foam of feelings

whipping atmosphere

out of focus

with you in your suit

and me in my

sagging shoulders

 Competition HERE

Sarah Lucille Marchant  is a Missouri resident and university student, studying literature and journalism. Her work has appeared in publications such as A Cappella Zoo, Straylight, Line Zero, and Burning Word.

my mom chops cojack cheese
her dull knife thuds
on the cutting board, her elbow
angles out as she creates
perfect little rectangles
marbled in orange and white

we do not need to speak as we work
after our months apart, this
is our preparation for communion
the men don’t eat this green, healthy stuff
this feast is ours, the labor ours
we smile all the while

mom sets out her knock-off Tupperware
the lids that stick in place and require
groans and grunts and minutes of exertion
before the full bounty covers the countertop:
eye-watering green onions
wobbling orbs of black olives
chopped up boiled egg
the bottles of salad dressing, the paper labels
darkened by drips and whorls of fingerprints

then the alchemy begins
empty bowls in hand, we
build a rainbow of crunchy colors
our fingers dusted with egg yolk
olives sneak past our teeth
the silverware drawer groans as I pull forth
mismatched Oneida forks

the football game whines in the background
our eyes look only to our bowls, each other
the culmination of a ritual rare in practice
steeped in reverence
as our forks squeal against porcelain and greens
 
 
 

Competition HERE

Beth Cato is an active member of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America. She’s originally from Hanford, California, but now resides in Buckeye, Arizona, with her husband and son. Despite how often her husband’s co-workers beg, she will not quit writing to bake cookies all day long. Information regarding current projects can always be found at http://www.bethcato.com. Sometimes those projects do include cookies.

Perhaps it was the color.
Not orange like fruit too soon picked
but the deep red of flesh
fed directly by the heart
gathered just before
the vine
could no longer bear its burden.

It might have been the scent
that musky aroma of earth, sky
soil, water, sun
salty sweat of summer harvest
a subtle mix
saved with acid and sugar.

Now as lilacs stretch towards the sun
I lean into the handle of my spade
to finish what began in January
opening the soil to new seed
and the prospect of next winter’s
reverie.

 Competition HERE

Kent Reed calls the Twin Cities home where he lives with his wife and spaniel. When not playing the guitar, he writes poetry reflecting a relation to the land and human experience.

write a poem every morning,” I say,

“each day, sipping coffee and watching

eagles, swainson’s hawks, burrowing owls

flying over the marsh.”

As if

my failure were a fault of environment

and not my own choices.

Who can write poems

of sun-robbed bamboo beneath

a weed of a willow tree,

of fences and too-close neighbors?

What insight can a poet gain

from cheap-stained paint on an old deck,

too many aspens sending up runners,

an aspiring garden too shady for peppers?

I make this my wisdom:

mildewed paint, insistent saplings,

ambitions beyond possibility.

Competition HERE

Daniel Ausema has a background in experiential education and journalism and is now a stay-at-home dad. His fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous publications, including both Every Day Poets and Every Day Fiction as well as Daily Science Fiction, Drabblecast, and Kaleidotrope. He lives in Colorado.

now in a heap
knee to my chest

I wonder
why underwear

won’t silently slip
out my pants leg

as she tugs a bra
from her sleeve?

 Competition HERE

Dave Morehouse writes music, poetry, and short fiction while practicing for the A.D.D. Olympics. He can be found playing fiddle and concertina by Lake Superior in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The neighbors and the fish are apathetically considerate.

 Competition HERE

plum blossoms
scattered here and there
in the ruins
of burned memories
my ghostly past

 Competition HERE

Chen-ou Liu  is the author of Ripples from a Splash: A Collection of Haiku Essays with Award-Winning Haiku and Following the Moon to the Maple Land (First Prize in the 2011 Haiku Pix Chapbook Contest). His tanka and haiku have been honored with 28 awards

as we cross the wet square in front of a bingo hall.

We walk the promenade and I imagine

fun fair screams echoing over weather polished

slate. Look, you say as I follow your gaze to

jumpy seagulls harassed by aerobatic plastic.

Far beyond, young Guillemots pepper the cliffs

and soar above the grey rumble of cloud.

We paddle on through empty streets,

driving rain the only reminder of aliveness.

Back in this shabby room each window

holds a different drape, another pattern.

(Yet still there is a symmetry that makes me smile).

I wonder how much time is left for us to squander

and ask, but you are lost in the hope of another goal.

Outside the Saturday nighters are ready to hit town

brightly painted and barely covered they defy bitter winds.

An exotic cocktail of youth, potency, alcohol quickens

their pace; the train of cans and bottles abandoned

in their wake like left luggage on a disused station.
 
 
 
 

Competition HERE

Tina COLE has recently moved to the beautiful Herefordshire countryside and has gradually given up a ridiculously demanding job for the what she thought would be a less demanding quiet life.

She lives with several cats who like to laze and other absent minded folk. She has been trying to write poetry for many years now and has learned not to try but wait for poems to arrive like buses, which they do, eventually!

As days grow longer simmering with light
And buds erupt through flesh of naked trees,
The spring wipes out winter’s deadly plight,
And yet my spring is deaf to threats and pleas.

And even if I beg it on my knees
And hail it in the sleepless chilly night,
My spring will not resurface from abyss
As days grow longer simmering with light.

Birds glide above me in a joyous flight
Relaxing on the sturdy wings of breeze.
So why can’t I rejoice in smell and sight
Of buds erupting through the flesh of trees?

No trace is left of ruthless cold and freeze;
First leaves appear cheerful and bright.
I envy the rebirth of lucky trees
As spring wipes out winter’s deadly plight.

My spring will not return, and though I might
Still relish hopes to coax it  and appease,
I know my spring is dead. It must be right,
And this is why it’s deaf to threats and pleas.

My spring is gone and yet I still can breathe
The magic wind of change. The fields delight
With wild flowers in swarms of frantic bees,
And I get drunk on air soaked with light
As days grow longer.

 Competition HERE

Irena Pasvinter divides her time between software engineering, endless family duties and writing poetry and fiction. Her stories and poems have appeared in online magazines (“Every Day Poets”, “Every Day Fiction”, “Madswirl”, “Camroc Press”, “Long Story Short” and others), in “Poetry Quarterly” and in Midwest Literary Magazine’s anthology “Off Season”.