- C.S. Fuqua
            “In the End” previously appeared in print in Zuzu’s Petals Quarterly (1993)
 

Rocks

Spotters run the line,
troubleshooting,
accuse us with a glance:
rocks splay off trestle tracks,
splash into the river,
melt under rippled stares.

Now we ache to run from below railings,
to wave to the conductor
and engineer passing above,
scream, "Hello! Hello!"
Yet silent beside waters that
gnaw rot into creosote posts,
we fear they'll see beyond
our grins,
our waves of greeting,
and know us,
our rocks.

         - C.S. Fuqua
         “Rocks” previously appeared in In Concert, 1989

C.S Fuqua's work has been accepted by more than 150 publications, including Chiron Review, Christian Science Monitor, Amelia, Slipstream, and The Old Farmer's Almanac. He books in print include: Music Fell on Alabama, Notes to My Becca: A Father's Thoughts on Welcoming His Long-Awaited Child, and Divorced Dads: Real Stories of Facing the Challenge. 

 He can be reached for comment at

Homestead

Considered too small at five foot five
To manage the farm
My grandfather Irl
In the nineteen teens
Was cast out into the world
To fend for himself
Like so many others
Driven from the land
Never to return
He survived with his mind
A teacher, a thinker
A harvester of spirit
And I, and his descendants
Follow his lead
With not one patch of ground
But a world to call our home.

            - Laurence Overmire

Rumpelstiltskin

I weave the gold with clandestine fingers
In silken thread of head and heart

A skein of treasure lying on the floor
In a humble cottage of a far beyond wood

No passer by would think to look
Or care to consider the fortunes lost

When wayward men refuse the hearing
The spinning wheel behind the door.

             - Laurence Overmire

Laurence Overmire is an actor/director/writer who has worked on stage, film and television. His poetry has been widely published, most recently in Main Street Rag Poetry Journal, Bardo Burner, Pegasus, Lynx: Poetry from Bath, and on-line in Samsara Quarterly, and Thunder Sandwich. 

He can be reached for comment at
She Wins Custody;
Says I Can Babysit

Like spiders 
the women
when sighting quiet corners
eject threads and weave a mesh
to contain their own small kingdom

The juices they produce
transform the swimming sperm
into entities whose presence will mean
an instant connection
to potlucks at the school park
and Popsicle excursions

Psyches formed between uterine walls
arrive already programmed
for the needy clutch and tugging suck
of feminine dependence
Matriarchal hands have dibs
on soothing tears and fevers

Like spiders
the women
don't launch crusades to conquer
nor do they plow through ocean waves
to overcome and shatter
for all they need of the grandiose globe
is a spot in which to spin
one intricate web to make one part
of the world revolve
around them

           - Shoshauna Shy

Shoshauna Shy's poems have recently appeared on-line in The Horsethief's Journal, Samsara Quarterly and Thunder Sandwich, and in print in The Comstock Review and The Wisconsin Poet's Calendar: 200l. She is the author of Souped-Up on the Must-Drive Syndrome, a chapbook published by Pudding House Publications.

Invitation Only

Highway flying 
at 110 miles per hour
past old memories and forgotten places.
Living life to the lowest expectation, 
rushing to be some place else,
but loneliness catches up. 
I invite it in for a drink. 

       - Don Barbera

Don has been a journalist, newspaper editor, news announcer, disk jockey, photographer, photojournalist, feature writer, pants presser for Lee Jeans, delivery car driver, television personality and systems consultant. His most recent publications include a book of essays and a new book of poetry, Until it Ropes Like Okra.
Red Sea

Like Moses I stretch my hand
over the sea of red,
of sugar maple, turkey oak and tupelo,
sweetgum and shining sumac.

I glory in each pillar of fire,
spreading crown of burning bush,
candling of tallow tree.

I celebrate the trinity
of red lobed leaves
on sassafras.

I cannot hold this world
of flame and fall
too closely to my breast.

      -Shirley S. Stevens

Shirley Stevens' publications ijnclude Poet Lore, Christian Century, English Journal, Squirrel Hill Poets, The First Decade, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and the book Pronouncing What We Wish to Keep.  She is the English oordinator at Quaker Valley High School and the second vice-president of St.David's Christian Writers Conference at Geneva College in Beaver Falls, PA.
The Night Gravity Gave Up

"If you'll just pass the gravy"
were the last words spoken before blue
separated from red,
the smell of summer pulled 
away from the moist sand
of continental edges.
Dinner was over,
the huge vat of meat 
rolled and emptied
as sirens zoomed in from all directions.
Those of us hostage to clocks and commerce
relished for the first time
the freedom of nature
turned in on itself, as paper and pens 
floated beyond grasp,
and the moon began to bobble 
in the felt of night.
A calm spread like milk 
through hunger. We reached 
out to stars
falling in our laps.

     -Larry Fontenot
                   previously published in Snow Monkey

Larry Fontenot makes his home in Sugar Land, Texas.  He is a member of the Twitching Limes Ensemble, a troupe of poets in the Gulf Coast area.   He has had poetry published in Melic Review, Moveo Angelus, Mystic River Review, Red River Review, RiverSedge, and Sulphur River Literary Review. Larry was a Featured Poet at the 2000 Houston Poetry Fest. 

Larry can be contacted at