Iconography of Art
By Holly Day
the tide threatens to come and tear
our legacy down—handfuls of sand
poured through fingers forged
into building blocks
this is for the generations
I say to my son, half-believing
our tiny castle will withstand
time, stand until unearthed
by derby-wearing, monocle-sporting archeologists
from future civilizations that will never suspect
we built these turrets
in just one day
*
Sure This Is the Last Time
By Holly Day
last night I dreamed about your fingers on my flesh
my body too small to take your words anymore,
I am not your handpuppet, mister--last night I
screamed myself awake to more putrid memories
of you, the linoleum criss-cross pattern of
the laundryroom floor, some day I’ll tell them all, I
am not as stupid as you think
*
Bills
By Holly Day
he comes home and tells me
that if I don’t pay off my student loans right away
he’s going to divorce me. The baby
wakes up and starts to cry
and I get up to see what’s wrong.
Lucy Ricardo used to buy hats
with her husband’s credit, I think
I think about buying time. I buy time and hide the new bills.
All those years at school
and all I know how to do
is intercept the mail before my husband can get it
all I know how to do is be sneaky
and lie to the ones I love.
**
August 2009
By Robert Demaree
Strip the bed linen,
Put up the Peggity game:
Grandchildren leaving.
Heron on the dock,
Warmest day of the summer:
They would have liked it.
Glass of Chardonnay,
Conduit to memory:
They left this morning.
Orange-yellow light,
Full moon, low over the pond:
Last night in August.
**
Newton
By Gary Beck
Newton, home from college
(because of plague)
suffered severe restrictions on his activities,
because plague was mighty contagious
(mostly fatal)
and people thought it undesirable,
behaving badly to those who caught it,
(consequently)
to relieve the boredom of small town life,
(subsequently)
invented calculus at the age of twenty.
Now he didn’t waste time marching to ban gunpowder
and had no patience with those who cried get out of Europe,
he knew what kept the big, bad Continentals away.
(And as the myth goes)
was sitting beneath an apple tree
(you fill in the next line)
…………………………
Now people had been watching apples fall
a long, long time,
(Neanderthal saw apples fall.
Adam saw apples fall.
The clever Greeks saw apples fall)
but no one figured out why.
So where would we be today
if we protested fire,
banned the wheel,
cried: Get out of Gaul?
We might be marching for the civil rights
of underprivileged creatures
from Proxima Centauri, or other stars,
but now we’ll have to wait.
**
South Chicago Night
By Michael Johnson
Night,
south Chicago is filled with drifters,
sugar rats, street walkers, pick-pockets and pimps,
a few whores on 95th street south
fill out the night agenda with silent whispers;
thousands of tiny fingers of greed snitch
dip into pockets other than their own.
The night air is full of insects and Lake Michigan perch smells.
Ladies diligent in the night,
High on the rise of condo balconies and drugs
Paint a picture, gesture to strangers on the streets
below, “do you want a date?”
The neon signs are blinking and half the bulbs
are burned out.
Mayor daily or is it Daley, is tucked in sleeping blankets tonight
in south Bridgeview; while most of the trouble lodges at the Salvation
Army where Christ lives with sinners.
Parents, despair. Surrender their children for
bucks and old silver coins traded earlier at the pawn shop;
some drink gut-rot sweet cherry wine and act as slave pushers−
but the children continue to roam the streets in designer clothing.
Before the warmth of morning sun, lips grin,
sidewalks fold turn up and open to foot traffic,
the city of Chicago trembles from the taste of delicious dew.
Just a map image and picture−frame shadow
of the city with the “big shoulders.”
Mayor Daily or is it Daley is sleeping and ducked away sound tonight.
The big city drifts, and in the morning light, sailboats
lean against the side walls of Lake Michigan sand and shoreline.
**
Goodnight My Love
By Jacqueline Hand
I must pull away before I'm seen because I'm scared of
getting wounded. When I'm hidden I'm told to open up,
yet when opened up he says I'm too emotional. I become
a wild horse that bolts away for fear of being captured.
Yet deep inside I'm crying out to be nurtured like a foetus.
I'm blinded by the darkness of being alone again yet dazzled
by the brightness of his affection. His soft kisses upon my
cheek that he thinks I dismiss as I sleep throughout the night
are really just the kisses I'm afraid of ever being without.
So I act in haste and pretend that I don't care but really ...
I care more than he'll ever know. It's time for me to fade
and hide to see if he'll search for me and if not I'll just cry
alone at night in fear of what has become my being. I hope
this pain won't be mine to ever feel from him, for from
my mother's womb I slipped, but sadness sometimes just
brings me right back in. I want to feel his comfort and his
ever gentle touch, not only from his hand but from the love
I feel so much. I don't want to miss him the days when he is
gone but instead I want to care for him, each night as he
sleeps along. Just to place a soft kiss upon his cheek and
whisper ever loving words and to cover his shoulder
without a peek and save him from the cold.
So from this I'll fade as I fall asleep and send him a
loving message and hope that out there
he'll feel my spirit whispering to him ....
My love, I kiss you goodnight ...
**
Go Along
By Lisa Zaran
Sad how lips in bloom-
regardless of torrential downpour,
seem to me just lips.
How day lily eyes-
with their outrageous hymns
singing look at me now,
just eyes as far as I'm concerned.
I throw no rags into the revolution
of love. I establish nothing
with my hips but a place to rest
my hands.
The skin of my thighs will always
remain smooth and polished as brass
but it's not like I need an architect
to compose my stack.
I have always disliked the term stacked .
Am I a building? Do all men feel their
balls while looking at a whimpering woman?
Information, food and a passion for art.
These are all the things I need.
What mysteries are left for me to unfold?
What man with his fallacious gallery
of roses can sweep me eternally
off my feet? Forget temptation, the compass
of man, the male and female part of two,
confluence of his and hers, give me a book
and a quiet room in which to read.
**
Crying on Borrowed Time
By Channie Greenberg
All but fishers, ermines, raccoons
Subjugated themselves,
When that sweet girl, Luri,
Dropped redwood tears and such.
Speaking softly to some unknown
Ghost, spirit, apparition,
The maid wailed
With bovine elegance.
In her haste to press sylvan,
She tore her petticoat,
Muddied her apron,
Ruined her mascara.
The ravens blamed
Some optic nerve hypoplasia
Before their entire coterie
Enjoyed fresh, virgin lunch.
*
Daddy’s Ankle Biters’ Extravagance
By Channie Greenberg
My sister’s hair color,
Her best friend’s fashion,
Remain my puzzle.
Their toddlers’ sheets, too,
Reek of pee, mornings
After thunder storms.
Contemporary mood disorders,
Like rain clouds, gather to
Suddenly drift home.
Such frozen ground covers
Omnipotence otherwise left over
As second-hand sunshine, in workers’ barns.
When I rub my hand over my chest,
Feeling hair plus muscle,
That dose refreshes gaslight era contraptions.
Our older daughter bends in prayer,
Perched like a seed-deprived bird,
Glad for simple corn.
Sometimes, mindsets prove incompatible with infatuation.
Unsettled children might
Bite their pets’ tails.
*
26 Shekel: A Cost Analysis of Aliyah
By Channie Greenberg
26 shekel brought her to the pool;
Such coin might purchase meals or two
Silk scarves wrapped just so,
To promote pretense of social
Understanding infuses my morning like no
Fool existence disbelieves street
Illusions reined by hardened souls;
Locals know olim belong.
*
Evony
By David Whitehouse
there are brickdust footprints on my red leather desktop
as i climb through my computer screen
and into the mega-reality feudal green-field game
goodbye cruel world!
twas the media-evil blonde one with the chest that made me
-my lord, she bade me thither, and i came running
free forever! i'll build that city with my bare hands
**
We're All Going to the Zoo
By David Whitehouse
Bank robbers must be geniuses
To get their boozy heist-lunch,
Which my girlfriend cooks as I study
The snake tattoo which seethes on her upper thigh.
At the zoo, she strokes seals, strokes guinea pigs,
Wraps visiting school parties in her long pleated skirt,
Adjusts her pretty pink handcuffs, the ones she'll wear
Anywhere, except in sight of the lama cage.
I'm asking the bank for a monkey-house loan
I slide my hands onto the hips of this pasta-straining woman
As I tell her typos are worse than animal slaughter
*
Immortality
By David Whitehouse
The children are served first on the plane but they fall asleep. Their trays of food are untouched as the bearded scientist on the inflight entertainment talks about cell structure and life expectancy. The first person to live for a thousand years, he says, is probably already alive and could even be well into middle age. Time will soon become positively, not negatively, loaded: the longer you live, the longer your life expectancy will become. As we take off, I feel my longeivity escape velocity starting to surge. I'm a survivor; hungry passengers stare in disapproval as I demolish a child burger.
We're going home after our summer holidays, spent biking in a family group around the plains of Mongolia. I know that wakeful, jetlagged nights await me back home. We have all the science in a plane to thank for such fractured sleep. The same science that will stop me from ageing, once I get all the crap sucked out of my cells.
As we approached the Urals it struck me that the French nineteenth-century philosopher Auguste Comte would be pleased for me. He believed that science could solve everything, and in a way he was right. He just didn't realise that cells were the only problem worth bothering with. Instead he made himself look silly with his new science-religion, sociology, of which he proclaimed himself, literally, the high priest.
Once we get home it takes about a week, but one night I finally go to sleep at the right time. It feels like my brain has been pumped full of laughing gas. Sleep is such a great high. However, I notice that the laughing gas is slowly starting to seep out. There is a puncture somewhere in my brain. And as the gas seeps out, something else starts to seep in. I gradually become aware of an electric guitar being played at a fairly hefty volume.
There's a party going on somewhere nearby. There is yelping and whooping. It's way too loud. I get out of bed and start getting dressed. At this point I further realise that I have a mountainous, gravity-bending erection, for no discernible reason. This dissipates quickly, like the laughing gas.
I slip out to the bathroom, switch the light on and look in the mirror. I look tired and old. I shudder as I imagine myself as some kind of Comte, who was treated by the French as an eldery, demented relative who had to be locked in the attic to minimize the embarrassment. Some thanks that was for being the founder of a whole sociological tradition. Perhaps he had an inkling of this when he used to include his Paris street address at the bottom of everything he wrote, as if to encourage visits from readers.
I get my shoes on and go outside, without tying up the laces. I stumble around a bit. I can hear it but I can't see it. It felt like it was right on top of my head but there are no lights on in the building. Finally I work out where it's coming from: the social housing block down the road. There's no way I'm going down there. I've read that some of them carry knives. I have such a long life to look forward to, after all.
So I go back inside. The wife and kids haven't stirred. I lie on the sofa where it seems a bit quieter. Then I start to fret that the life-extension guys are still mucking about with rats. Let me be entirely clear: I don't care if they can get one to run around for three times longer than normal. I just want to know how much they're charging, and where to sign. The living room clock shows its 3 a.m. I'll be awake until dawn.
**
About the Contributors:
Holly Day
is a travel writing instructor living in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her husband and two children. Her most recent nonfiction books are Music Theory for Dummies, Music Composition for Dummies, and Walking Twin Cities.
Gary Beck
has spent most of his adult life as a theater director and worked as an art dealer when he couldn't earn a living in the theater. He has also been a tennis pro, a ditch digger and a salvage diver. His chapbook 'Remembrance' was published by Origami Condom Press and 'The Conquest of Somalia' was published by Cervena Barva Press. A collection of his poetry 'Days of Destruction' has been published in 2009 by Skive Press. Another collection 'Days of Destruction' is being published by Rogue Scholars Press. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway and toured colleges and outdoor performance venues. He currently lives in New York City, where he's busy writing. His poetry and short stories have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines.
'Newton' is taken from 'Displays', an unpublished collection of poetry, about the shocks and surprises to Americans struggling to cope in the Information Age.
Michael Lee Johnson
is a poet and freelance writer from Itasca, Illinois. His new poetry chapbook with pictures, titled From Which Place the Morning Rises, and his new photo version of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom are available at: http://stores.lulu.com/promomanusa. The original version of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom, can be found at: http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-46091-7.
Michael has been published in over 22 countries. He is also editor/publisher of four poetry sites, all open for submission, which can be found at his Web site: http://poetryman.mysite.com. All of his books are now available on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=michael+lee+johnson. E-mail: promomanusa@gmail.com.
Lisa Zaran
is a poet and essayist who edits Contemporary American Voices, an online journal.
Robert Demaree
is the author of three collections of poems, including Fathers and Teachers, published April 2007 by Beech River Books. The winner of the 2007 Conway, N.H., Library Poetry Award, he is a retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. He has had approximately 400 poems published or accepted by 100 periodicals. His second book-length collection, Mileposts, will be published in 2009. For further information see http://www.demareepoetry.blogspot.com
KJ Hannah Greenberg's
writing, which she describes as lightly pert and somewhat exuberant, has been published or accepted by upwards of 40 publications.
David Whitehouse
is married with three children. He lives and works as a journalist in Paris and edits The Lesser Flamingo.
By Holly Day
the tide threatens to come and tear
our legacy down—handfuls of sand
poured through fingers forged
into building blocks
this is for the generations
I say to my son, half-believing
our tiny castle will withstand
time, stand until unearthed
by derby-wearing, monocle-sporting archeologists
from future civilizations that will never suspect
we built these turrets
in just one day
*
Sure This Is the Last Time
By Holly Day
last night I dreamed about your fingers on my flesh
my body too small to take your words anymore,
I am not your handpuppet, mister--last night I
screamed myself awake to more putrid memories
of you, the linoleum criss-cross pattern of
the laundryroom floor, some day I’ll tell them all, I
am not as stupid as you think
*
Bills
By Holly Day
he comes home and tells me
that if I don’t pay off my student loans right away
he’s going to divorce me. The baby
wakes up and starts to cry
and I get up to see what’s wrong.
Lucy Ricardo used to buy hats
with her husband’s credit, I think
I think about buying time. I buy time and hide the new bills.
All those years at school
and all I know how to do
is intercept the mail before my husband can get it
all I know how to do is be sneaky
and lie to the ones I love.
**
August 2009
By Robert Demaree
Strip the bed linen,
Put up the Peggity game:
Grandchildren leaving.
Heron on the dock,
Warmest day of the summer:
They would have liked it.
Glass of Chardonnay,
Conduit to memory:
They left this morning.
Orange-yellow light,
Full moon, low over the pond:
Last night in August.
**
Newton
By Gary Beck
Newton, home from college
(because of plague)
suffered severe restrictions on his activities,
because plague was mighty contagious
(mostly fatal)
and people thought it undesirable,
behaving badly to those who caught it,
(consequently)
to relieve the boredom of small town life,
(subsequently)
invented calculus at the age of twenty.
Now he didn’t waste time marching to ban gunpowder
and had no patience with those who cried get out of Europe,
he knew what kept the big, bad Continentals away.
(And as the myth goes)
was sitting beneath an apple tree
(you fill in the next line)
…………………………
Now people had been watching apples fall
a long, long time,
(Neanderthal saw apples fall.
Adam saw apples fall.
The clever Greeks saw apples fall)
but no one figured out why.
So where would we be today
if we protested fire,
banned the wheel,
cried: Get out of Gaul?
We might be marching for the civil rights
of underprivileged creatures
from Proxima Centauri, or other stars,
but now we’ll have to wait.
**
South Chicago Night
By Michael Johnson
Night,
south Chicago is filled with drifters,
sugar rats, street walkers, pick-pockets and pimps,
a few whores on 95th street south
fill out the night agenda with silent whispers;
thousands of tiny fingers of greed snitch
dip into pockets other than their own.
The night air is full of insects and Lake Michigan perch smells.
Ladies diligent in the night,
High on the rise of condo balconies and drugs
Paint a picture, gesture to strangers on the streets
below, “do you want a date?”
The neon signs are blinking and half the bulbs
are burned out.
Mayor daily or is it Daley, is tucked in sleeping blankets tonight
in south Bridgeview; while most of the trouble lodges at the Salvation
Army where Christ lives with sinners.
Parents, despair. Surrender their children for
bucks and old silver coins traded earlier at the pawn shop;
some drink gut-rot sweet cherry wine and act as slave pushers−
but the children continue to roam the streets in designer clothing.
Before the warmth of morning sun, lips grin,
sidewalks fold turn up and open to foot traffic,
the city of Chicago trembles from the taste of delicious dew.
Just a map image and picture−frame shadow
of the city with the “big shoulders.”
Mayor Daily or is it Daley is sleeping and ducked away sound tonight.
The big city drifts, and in the morning light, sailboats
lean against the side walls of Lake Michigan sand and shoreline.
**
Goodnight My Love
By Jacqueline Hand
I must pull away before I'm seen because I'm scared of
getting wounded. When I'm hidden I'm told to open up,
yet when opened up he says I'm too emotional. I become
a wild horse that bolts away for fear of being captured.
Yet deep inside I'm crying out to be nurtured like a foetus.
I'm blinded by the darkness of being alone again yet dazzled
by the brightness of his affection. His soft kisses upon my
cheek that he thinks I dismiss as I sleep throughout the night
are really just the kisses I'm afraid of ever being without.
So I act in haste and pretend that I don't care but really ...
I care more than he'll ever know. It's time for me to fade
and hide to see if he'll search for me and if not I'll just cry
alone at night in fear of what has become my being. I hope
this pain won't be mine to ever feel from him, for from
my mother's womb I slipped, but sadness sometimes just
brings me right back in. I want to feel his comfort and his
ever gentle touch, not only from his hand but from the love
I feel so much. I don't want to miss him the days when he is
gone but instead I want to care for him, each night as he
sleeps along. Just to place a soft kiss upon his cheek and
whisper ever loving words and to cover his shoulder
without a peek and save him from the cold.
So from this I'll fade as I fall asleep and send him a
loving message and hope that out there
he'll feel my spirit whispering to him ....
My love, I kiss you goodnight ...
**
Go Along
By Lisa Zaran
Sad how lips in bloom-
regardless of torrential downpour,
seem to me just lips.
How day lily eyes-
with their outrageous hymns
singing look at me now,
just eyes as far as I'm concerned.
I throw no rags into the revolution
of love. I establish nothing
with my hips but a place to rest
my hands.
The skin of my thighs will always
remain smooth and polished as brass
but it's not like I need an architect
to compose my stack.
I have always disliked the term stacked .
Am I a building? Do all men feel their
balls while looking at a whimpering woman?
Information, food and a passion for art.
These are all the things I need.
What mysteries are left for me to unfold?
What man with his fallacious gallery
of roses can sweep me eternally
off my feet? Forget temptation, the compass
of man, the male and female part of two,
confluence of his and hers, give me a book
and a quiet room in which to read.
**
Crying on Borrowed Time
By Channie Greenberg
All but fishers, ermines, raccoons
Subjugated themselves,
When that sweet girl, Luri,
Dropped redwood tears and such.
Speaking softly to some unknown
Ghost, spirit, apparition,
The maid wailed
With bovine elegance.
In her haste to press sylvan,
She tore her petticoat,
Muddied her apron,
Ruined her mascara.
The ravens blamed
Some optic nerve hypoplasia
Before their entire coterie
Enjoyed fresh, virgin lunch.
*
Daddy’s Ankle Biters’ Extravagance
By Channie Greenberg
My sister’s hair color,
Her best friend’s fashion,
Remain my puzzle.
Their toddlers’ sheets, too,
Reek of pee, mornings
After thunder storms.
Contemporary mood disorders,
Like rain clouds, gather to
Suddenly drift home.
Such frozen ground covers
Omnipotence otherwise left over
As second-hand sunshine, in workers’ barns.
When I rub my hand over my chest,
Feeling hair plus muscle,
That dose refreshes gaslight era contraptions.
Our older daughter bends in prayer,
Perched like a seed-deprived bird,
Glad for simple corn.
Sometimes, mindsets prove incompatible with infatuation.
Unsettled children might
Bite their pets’ tails.
*
26 Shekel: A Cost Analysis of Aliyah
By Channie Greenberg
26 shekel brought her to the pool;
Such coin might purchase meals or two
Silk scarves wrapped just so,
To promote pretense of social
Understanding infuses my morning like no
Fool existence disbelieves street
Illusions reined by hardened souls;
Locals know olim belong.
*
Evony
By David Whitehouse
there are brickdust footprints on my red leather desktop
as i climb through my computer screen
and into the mega-reality feudal green-field game
goodbye cruel world!
twas the media-evil blonde one with the chest that made me
-my lord, she bade me thither, and i came running
free forever! i'll build that city with my bare hands
**
We're All Going to the Zoo
By David Whitehouse
Bank robbers must be geniuses
To get their boozy heist-lunch,
Which my girlfriend cooks as I study
The snake tattoo which seethes on her upper thigh.
At the zoo, she strokes seals, strokes guinea pigs,
Wraps visiting school parties in her long pleated skirt,
Adjusts her pretty pink handcuffs, the ones she'll wear
Anywhere, except in sight of the lama cage.
I'm asking the bank for a monkey-house loan
I slide my hands onto the hips of this pasta-straining woman
As I tell her typos are worse than animal slaughter
*
Immortality
By David Whitehouse
The children are served first on the plane but they fall asleep. Their trays of food are untouched as the bearded scientist on the inflight entertainment talks about cell structure and life expectancy. The first person to live for a thousand years, he says, is probably already alive and could even be well into middle age. Time will soon become positively, not negatively, loaded: the longer you live, the longer your life expectancy will become. As we take off, I feel my longeivity escape velocity starting to surge. I'm a survivor; hungry passengers stare in disapproval as I demolish a child burger.
We're going home after our summer holidays, spent biking in a family group around the plains of Mongolia. I know that wakeful, jetlagged nights await me back home. We have all the science in a plane to thank for such fractured sleep. The same science that will stop me from ageing, once I get all the crap sucked out of my cells.
As we approached the Urals it struck me that the French nineteenth-century philosopher Auguste Comte would be pleased for me. He believed that science could solve everything, and in a way he was right. He just didn't realise that cells were the only problem worth bothering with. Instead he made himself look silly with his new science-religion, sociology, of which he proclaimed himself, literally, the high priest.
Once we get home it takes about a week, but one night I finally go to sleep at the right time. It feels like my brain has been pumped full of laughing gas. Sleep is such a great high. However, I notice that the laughing gas is slowly starting to seep out. There is a puncture somewhere in my brain. And as the gas seeps out, something else starts to seep in. I gradually become aware of an electric guitar being played at a fairly hefty volume.
There's a party going on somewhere nearby. There is yelping and whooping. It's way too loud. I get out of bed and start getting dressed. At this point I further realise that I have a mountainous, gravity-bending erection, for no discernible reason. This dissipates quickly, like the laughing gas.
I slip out to the bathroom, switch the light on and look in the mirror. I look tired and old. I shudder as I imagine myself as some kind of Comte, who was treated by the French as an eldery, demented relative who had to be locked in the attic to minimize the embarrassment. Some thanks that was for being the founder of a whole sociological tradition. Perhaps he had an inkling of this when he used to include his Paris street address at the bottom of everything he wrote, as if to encourage visits from readers.
I get my shoes on and go outside, without tying up the laces. I stumble around a bit. I can hear it but I can't see it. It felt like it was right on top of my head but there are no lights on in the building. Finally I work out where it's coming from: the social housing block down the road. There's no way I'm going down there. I've read that some of them carry knives. I have such a long life to look forward to, after all.
So I go back inside. The wife and kids haven't stirred. I lie on the sofa where it seems a bit quieter. Then I start to fret that the life-extension guys are still mucking about with rats. Let me be entirely clear: I don't care if they can get one to run around for three times longer than normal. I just want to know how much they're charging, and where to sign. The living room clock shows its 3 a.m. I'll be awake until dawn.
**
About the Contributors:
Holly Day
is a travel writing instructor living in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her husband and two children. Her most recent nonfiction books are Music Theory for Dummies, Music Composition for Dummies, and Walking Twin Cities.
Gary Beck
has spent most of his adult life as a theater director and worked as an art dealer when he couldn't earn a living in the theater. He has also been a tennis pro, a ditch digger and a salvage diver. His chapbook 'Remembrance' was published by Origami Condom Press and 'The Conquest of Somalia' was published by Cervena Barva Press. A collection of his poetry 'Days of Destruction' has been published in 2009 by Skive Press. Another collection 'Days of Destruction' is being published by Rogue Scholars Press. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway and toured colleges and outdoor performance venues. He currently lives in New York City, where he's busy writing. His poetry and short stories have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines.
'Newton' is taken from 'Displays', an unpublished collection of poetry, about the shocks and surprises to Americans struggling to cope in the Information Age.
Michael Lee Johnson
is a poet and freelance writer from Itasca, Illinois. His new poetry chapbook with pictures, titled From Which Place the Morning Rises, and his new photo version of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom are available at: http://stores.lulu.com/promomanusa. The original version of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom, can be found at: http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-46091-7.
Michael has been published in over 22 countries. He is also editor/publisher of four poetry sites, all open for submission, which can be found at his Web site: http://poetryman.mysite.com. All of his books are now available on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=michael+lee+johnson. E-mail: promomanusa@gmail.com.
Lisa Zaran
is a poet and essayist who edits Contemporary American Voices, an online journal.
Robert Demaree
is the author of three collections of poems, including Fathers and Teachers, published April 2007 by Beech River Books. The winner of the 2007 Conway, N.H., Library Poetry Award, he is a retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. He has had approximately 400 poems published or accepted by 100 periodicals. His second book-length collection, Mileposts, will be published in 2009. For further information see http://www.demareepoetry.blogspot.com
KJ Hannah Greenberg's
writing, which she describes as lightly pert and somewhat exuberant, has been published or accepted by upwards of 40 publications.
David Whitehouse
is married with three children. He lives and works as a journalist in Paris and edits The Lesser Flamingo.