2015      $10.00      96 pages      Elements Theme   Home Page     New Releases     Poetry Chapbook Contest     Back Issues     Video   Poets featured in this Issue: George Moore, Holly Guran, Sean Thomas Dougherty, Alan Catlin, David Chorlton, Lowell Jaeger, Ciara Shuttleworth, Max L. Stephan, Oliver Rice, J.T. Whitehead, Cecil Sayre, Richard Oyama, Rob Cook, Mary Carroll-Hackett, Betty Scott, William Doreski, John Marvin, Sheelonee Banerjee, Michelle Ann Kratts, Les Wicks, Tereza Joy Kramer, Richard Prinz, David Bart, Joe Nicholas, Ann Ritter, Michael Derrick Hudson, Cal Freeman, Damian Dimick, Amy Upham, Cal Freeman, Elena Botts, Kristen LaFollette, Rebecca D'Alise, Jonathan Greenhause, Richard Murray, Jessi Jeanne Reath, Cindy King, Barbara Harroun, Matthew Murrey, Jake Young, Aaron Anstett, Philip Kobylarz, Les Wicks, Mike Schneider, John A. Nieves, C. Lynn Shaffer, Josh Anthony, Jennifer Clark, Aaron Wiegert, Cheryl Dumesnil, Michelle Bonczek Evory, Cheryl Pearson, Alexis Rhone Fancher, Tara Ballard, James Valvis, Scott D. Wordsman, Darren C. Demaree, Robert Perchan, Ron Reikki, Jason Braun, Todd Osborne, Charles F. Thielman, Ed Taylor, Simon Perchick, Vincent Peloso, Vicki Mandell-King, David Filer, Ciara Shuttleworth, Kenneth Feltges, Michael Hettich, Rob Carney, Tony Magistrale, and Gerald Locklin. Front Cover: Marta Bevacqua Back Cover: Vivian Calderon Bogoslavsky   Sample Poems from Issue 35 Life Size  by Richard Murray The Book Burners  by Michelle Ann Kratts Follow Your Bliss?  by Lowell Jaeger What We Can Never Hold  by Jonathan Greenhause   Life Size by Richard Murray Body chemistry couldn’t alchemize age-old, basic truth, and make golden years out of the transformation of a man not in his element. His violin in his stiffening hands felt like dead wood that rang hollow and echoed troubles not music to his tin ears. Iron-poor blood and metal fatigue of steel nerves had him leaning toward a complete collapse, yet he seemed more inclined to not cave in the last time I saw him standing. His overly firm handshake gave the impression of someone trying too hard to hold on, and revealed a statue he was turning into from the inside out, starting with the hardening of his arteries. © 2015 Richard Murray Back to top The Book Burners by Michelle Ann Kratts Like clockwork, it is inevitable that you will show up outside my door when I am half asleep you will stir me from my dreams and storms you—a grown man with a movie-star moustache and a picture perfect smile— you will offer me flowers and matches you will wait until I say yes and I always say yes it is inevitable that you will take me to this place where we will burn everything to a crisp our clothes a pile of soot around our filthy feet there will be smoke rings around our nostrils and alarms will sound as we rise from the dust and the cracks in the floors firemen will break windows to save us they will trample on our things with heavy boots (on your flowers) doors will swing open onto balconies so we can breathe they will try and chase us from this smouldering ruin It is not safe here you—you silly heartsick boy— it is inevitable that you will carry me through jungles of jagged shards of glass down creaking stairways through garden trellises blackened by our fires your feet will bleed and my hair will leave a tattoo where it has been pressed against your cheek or is it tonight that we will fly above the wild mess we’ve created? me, tucked carefully inside the warm fabric interlay of your bird-like wings it is inevitable that I am safe with you even with your movie set in flames nothing is more inevitable than opening up a book and you and me and fire © 2015 Michelle Ann Kratts What We Can Never Hold by Jonathan Greenhause This is a piece of cloud      from the hurricane that flooded our basement. This is a spoonful of sunlight      divorced from its source. This is the architectural masterpiece      impossible to engineer,      & these are the clothes      that have made no man. This is the language      never invented. This is the feeling you get      immediately before being executed. This was the color of my eyes      before I went blind,           & this is the pinhead      all those angels will be dancing on. This is your first thought      right after death. This is your soul      before it’s given back to you. This picture’s a representation      of the presence of nothing      & thus has no canvas      nor limits we can approach. This is the delicacy      never prepared. This is the wave      that got my sneakers wet on an Asbury Park beach. This is the gravitational pull      keeping us together,      & these      the silences that ripped us apart; & this is the artwork destroyed      for the sake of art. © 2015 Jonathan Greenhause Back to top Follow Your Bliss? by Lowell Jaeger The fly beats himself against the glass, his buzz cursing, determined to break through to another world blooming outside my living room walls. There’s a lesson in every small thing. Let’s assume that’s true. A celestial message in the blue- bottle’s passion. Sublime, though moments ago he may have tip-toed over dog shit on my back porch stoop, fancied himself richly blessed, wiping infectious residue of dung across his face, relishing the stench of his lusts and cravings. It must wound him to bash himself like that. He backs off, staggers, storms around the room, charges full throttle, over and over, I open a door. He won’t go for it. His wings glitter topaz, smoky quartz. Intricately forged plates of his armor, hinged and spiked. Gears coordinating all six legs mesh exactly. He climbs glass effortlessly. Walks on my ceiling. Soars with all the iridescent frenzy of a hummingbird. But he wants dog shit, wants it so bad I can’t stand it, can’t concentrate on the woes of my own blissful addictions. I roll a newspaper and swat. Let’s assume there’s a lesson. It’s a very small thing. © 2015 Lowell Jaeger Back to top