INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Laszlo Slomovits
Alan Britt
Tolu Ogunlesi
Paul B. Roth
Gerald Clark
Dike Okoro
Jerry Blanton
Felino Soriano
Joanie Freeman
Steve Barfield
Shuta Crum
Running Cub
Odimegwn Onwumere
Duane Locke
Chris Lord
Fred Wolven
Nona Giorgadze
Bobby Steve Baker
Brandon S. Ray
satnrose
Serena Trome
Paul Handley
Kanev Peycho
George Moore
R. Jay Slais
Carol Smallwood
I could have
died
in this silence
without you
not felt my feet
tip-toe
in mid-air
nor my hands
fly off
ahead of me
detached
from every word
they could write
or not
in their attempt
to caress you
with no more
of an impossible
warmth
than say
pulling up
this empty room's
only
hard-backed chair
WHAT ISN'T
Of all
the voices
you leave behind
most memorable
is your silence
now
that you've spoken
without a voice
now
that waves
at your fingertips
veering off foam--
and on whose white
your words
are given a chance
to be written--
burst bubbles
darkening
each new word
hidden
in its unending
openness
and into which
I can't help
falling straight
through the reach
of your arms
in a crash of waves
around me
REALLY HAVING NOT
Although so little
time
between seconds
there's
enough for you
to exist
without being
enough for you
to last
without being
enough for me
to enter
and in this space
in time
find you
already there
without me
holding
onto time's arms
about to pull us
apart
but carefully
so the many
different directions
we take
won't close in on us
as if between
one second to it next
time like us
stands
no chance at all
Paul B. Roth, Fayetteville, New York