Coal

By The Cheesesellers Wife

He told me of how coal can be split
To reveal hoof prints of long buried deer
If you get the angle and grain right

Of how, in the deepest mines
Darwin was proved each day
By the strike of a miner’s hammer

And how opening the coal opened him,
Drove him to library and Miners Institute
To learn, wonder, argue

His gentle voice, with its natural grace
Led me into his world
To the child opening trap doors in constant dark

To the young man, passionate for justice
Filled up with the joy of learning
All forged in coal.

           
“I write poetry because I have to, they come to me. I blog for the company.” – the poet

Junk File

By Mark Tulin

Maybe there’s a treasure
in my computer junk file.
Maybe I can make it larger
or find the perfect beauty,
I’ve been missing out on all these years.
Maybe, in that swamp of clutter
is a magic cure for low blood sugar,
a new way to relieve my erectile dysfunction,
a solution to belly fat while I’m asleep,
a low-interest loan on that house
in Malibu, the perfect way to meditate
or secure a Carribean timeshare before it’s too late.
Maybe I’ve been neglecting the obvious,
ignoring the truth, or haven’t been listening
to the right kind of advice.

          
“Writing is a way of figuring out what I see.” – the writer.

Eleven Days

By Paul Germano

He quit his drinking for her; she did the same for him. A frantic decision, made in a heartbeat, by two thirtysomethings desperate to keep their hearts beating. Their faces are haggard, their minds slightly numb, but still they persist. Eleven days and counting, with no guarantees they’ll make it to the twelfth day. They lean on each other as best as they can, taking it day by day and drinking lots and lots and lots of Ginger Ale and desperately fumbling around to find something, anything at all, that they still might have in common.

           
Paul Germano’s fiction has appeared in Boston Literary Magazine, The Fictional Café, Foliate Oak, Microfiction Monday, Vestal Review and Voices in Italian Americana.

He Said, She Said

By Dianne Moritz

“If you’re angry,” he said,
“dig deep for the source.”
Must I dance on daddy’s grave?

“Relief for rage,” she said,
“is boxing, karate, running.
Take revenge on terra firma.”

“Try writing,” he said.
“It’s good therapy.”
“Punch pillows,” she said.

Weighing the choices,
I take up the mighty pen …
Writing, righting my life.

With an illusive stab, or two.

            
Dianne Moritz enjoys capturing brief moments in time, celebrating trials, tribulations, and beauty of life. She dreams of publishing a book of all her drabble.

Unconditional

By Toni G.

He wrapped his arms around me then
his cheek resting heavy on the top of my head
as he hugged me in a kind of embrace
that were he to let me go
my entire being would spill out onto the floor
like rice grains falling from a ripped plastic bag
That was when
I knew
that I
his sinful son
was loved unconditionally
no matter what the vice president thought
about boys like me.

         
Toni G. writes because there’s just so much that needs to be said.

Lessons Dad Taught My Brother About Being a Real Man

By Nancy Geibe Wasson

Like a treasure map to nowhere, my brother’s blotchy, tear-stained face gave all the clues. Dad said not to cry while getting belt spanked. Real men don’t cry when hurt. Crying is for girls. Years later, my brother learned how to stay stone-faced while Dad kicks him in the ribs and hammers him with his fist. While nursing my brother’s wounds, I admitted to him what Dad did to me late at night. My brother didn’t shed a single tear when he pulled the trigger. I cried when they took my brother to jail. Lucky I’m not a man.

           
Nancy Geibe Wasson is a writer from Northwest Arkansas. She enjoys books, cats, and tea, but is otherwise unpredictable in a good way.

The Day I Didn’t Die

By Richard A Shury

It isn’t like you think it’ll be. For me, there was only a steel scream, a flash of colour, and nothing.

And then the long, lonely ache.

Sterile rooms, pale greens and blues. Cards and flowers, and people who melted away.
You never think you’ll have to learn to walk again, or figure out a knife and fork, or how a toilet works. But here I am.

This is just one of the days after, the day I didn’t die.

           
“I write because it hurts when I stop, because I am compelled to, both by the voices in my head and those outside it.” – the writer