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Author: Lisa Hase-Jackson

The Mystery House by Jim Eilers
I find different identities for the house
I go to in my dreams, where I wake up
and wonder, worried, how to find
my way from that beloved, empty house
in the country back to my apartment
in a distant city. Then, fully awake,
I see that I have been back all the while.

With my increasing forgetfulness
I wonder if the house I go to,
that I love without understanding it,
is the place where I will achieve
a final, complete deconstruction
of my remembered self. I look
at the house I go to in my dreams,

and feel I am becoming a statue
molded from sand. I don’t need
Edgar Hoover, or Edgar Allan
Poe to see that, forgetting and
remembering, I find in the house
in my dreams my true and
fitting home. But is it my tomb?

—

James McColley Eilers. Verses, translations, essays, photographs published in Subtropics, San Francisco Reader, Modern Words, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal; on websites, InTranslation, Poetry Ark, and Subprimal; in the books, How to Bury a Goldfish and Imprints. His play, Turning, was performed in San Francisco in 2001.
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January 24, 2018
14 No Fee Chapbook Publishers
Found this handy list of no-fee chapbook publishers on Trish Hopkinson’s WordPress site and wanted to share. Lot’s of other great information here, too:
Trish Hopkinson

The individual listings below are the chapbook publishers I found which do not charge submission fees, reading fees, or contest fees. The majority of chapbooks are published via contests and do typically require a fee from $10 – $25. Research each market thoroughly and make sure submitting is worth the fee. Many will provide prize money along with several copies of the chapbook for you to sell and otherwise promote your work.

The Chapbook Review is a great resource for all things related to chapbooks–including listings for:

Chapbooks contests
Chapbook publishers and presses
Places that review chapbooks
A list of published chapbooks

They also provide online forms to add listings to their database, including your own published chapbooks.

For information on putting together your chapbook file to print some yourself or to have them printed, click here.

To check out my online chapbooks, click here.

14 NO FEE Chapbook Publishers…

View original post 1,282 more words
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January 21, 2018
Legacy by Terry Severhill
We accumulate our past as though it were a treasure horde and we forget in the moments of passing down the family history to dust off the layers and the contributions of generations of liars and lawyers. We can’t seem to shake loose that thought that everything is important . . . to someone, so great-great Aunt Maggie’s recipes for stewed Uncle Franks hangover remedy is still passed around at Christmas gatherings . . . 1] Yell shrilly into either ear. . . 2] Bang pots and pans with a Metal spoon. . . 3] Serve two day old, ice cold bitter coffee . . . 4] Repeat until he gets his lazy ass up and working or until the sheriff stops by. The remnants of wedding dresses and military medals are enshrined in the collective attic of our family tree which no longer has leaves, although some think that the bats in the belfry are there to remind us to eat lots of garlic, some of us have a rational fear of vampires. We don’t have any generals in our family line. . . . none that we are allowed to speak of. . . . something about being on the wrong side of history. . . which may be akin to being on the wrong side of gravity. The best thing about having a family history is family . . . . if only we didn’t have to try and explain.

—

Terry’s work have been published in a variety of venues, awarded “Art Young’s Poetry Prize 2016.” He is pending publication in several journals and anthologies. His first collection, from West Vine Press, Beneath the Shadow of the Sun is due out late 2017. Terry is a member of the Veterans Writing Group of San Diego. He lives and writes in Vista, California, reads at several open mic events in San Diego County monthly.
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January 10, 2018
Of Things Past by Lenny Lianne
A long time, too long, since we have done — this,
he said and plopped a fat bottle of Mateus
and two small paper cups from the bathroom
onto the table. He took out a maimed box
of Jolly Time Blast O Butter popcorn
from a grocery bag, and grinned at her.

She could tell that this was a campaign
to coax her to laugh, to forget
about the future. The distant past
would be the tactic tonight, the way
they used to take turns telling
each other about what had come before

— about those freakish Christmas gifts
from screwball aunts, sibling pranks,
his teen summer by a cirque-cupped pond.
And after a third refill of new wine,
they spilled out stories of lapsed romances
as though, by sharing their own secrets,

they’d earned whatever alighted afterwards.
Shag carpets, concrete block with wood
plank bookcases and black beanbag
chairs, each had departed by now,
passing away for better or worse,
like something familiar that’s lost its way.

   after a line by Lucia Perillo
—
Lenny Lianne is the author of four full-length books of poetry. She holds a MFA from George Mason University. Her poems have appeared in Rattle, California Quarterly, Third Wednesday, The Dead Mule of Southern Literature, and others.
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January 3, 2018
If You See Me Dancing by Jan Day
If you see me dancing don’t let me drive
he said back when he drank
till he could do the two-step with his eyes shut.
I followed like a blind woman
who lived by touch.

Last call we’d spin out the door
so dizzy we saw stars on saguaros
and coyotes in trucks. He sang their lament.
He knew it by heart.
I found the keys.

We drove without headlights until there was no road left.
It seemed like a lifetime dancing in the dark
from coast to coast and back again. Then we stayed home
till he dared to climb
the deep part of night alone.

It was like a cave with airless walls
where I searched for him. Only once did I hear
his shuffle on stone,
the scuff of a boot to a western song.
I can’t forgive him. Not now.
He knew I’d never learn to dance on my own.

—

Jan Day says she is fortunate to live in interior Florida where water and light come together to create a lushness, not only of the earth but also of the imagination. She writes in several genres including fiction and plays and has written five children’s picture books published by Pelican Publishing. Her poetry was most recently published in Peacock Journal. She resides in Okeechobee, Florida.
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December 31, 2017
Eight of Cups by Toti O’Brien
now the measure is full
all drunk
all sunk in

(countless horses
raced
over my chest

fine dust
lifted
from crumbled ribcage)

the sun
bled itself lavishly
to the final drop

hot wind
licks
my parched skin

—

Toti O’Brien is the Italian Accordionist with the Irish Last Name. She was born in Rome then moved to Los Angeles, where she makes a living as a self-employed artist, performing musician and professional dancer. Her work has most recently appeared in Circleshow, Fire Poetry, Paper Earth, and Fishfood.
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December 27, 2017
Careless by Andrew Clark
It’s careless:
your back arching across time
the way you drift across miles
to stand in front of me.
We circle
in the snow
humming hymns, cheeks close.

It’s careless:
the way we smolder in the frost
a quiver between the trees
ice splintering around us.
We are stars
fallen from a fire
once bright.

It’s a walk to the barn
in the biting cold
it’s a place to hide
from wind and world.
It’s the two of us:
a warm secret
on the hay.
—
Andrew Clark is a poet whose work has appeared in The Ogeechee, The Miscellany, and The Pregnant Moon Review. He is the recipient of the Roy F. Powell Creative Writing Award from Georgia Southern University. He is a native of Asheville, NC, and is querying his Southern gothic magical realism novel. He is active on Twitter at @theandrewkclark. He is a contributor to Hilton Head Monthly magazine.
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December 25, 2017
Barnwork We Didn’t Talk Much About by Charles A. Swanson
Manure was the word we used, or barnyard
muck. Not that manure was elegant,
but more so in the cattle stalls.

I still remember Christmas holidays,
the manure spreader parked,
ready, between two open doors,

and long-shafted pitch forks,
one with four tines, one with five,
the wood worn smooth in the handles,

the metal burnished and gleaming,
and the litter (isn’t that a nice word)
mixed with hay coming up in layers,

almost like thin-rolled well-baked pastry.
Cow manure smells sunny
compared to pig. Cows eat grass,

breathe grass, pass grass,
and something, though faint, lingers
of clover and sun and vegetable life.

Outside, around the doors, where sweet rain
fouled manure—imagine such a thing!—
the cows’ stomping and milling

made a black mess, a true muck—
this is what shit looks like, I always
think, even now, something fetid,

fecal, foul, black as tar, suck-
deep and miry. I walked through that,
too, as barefoot country boys do,

in summertime. But in winter,
straining to pry and peel up
a thin layer, a towel-length sheet

of cow manure, I sang (whenever,
I could find, a breath, between forking,
and tossing) every Christmas carol I knew.

—

Charles A. Swanson teaches English in an Academy for Engineering and Technology. Frequently published in Appalachian magazines, he also pastors a small church, Melville Avenue Baptist in Danville. He has two books of poems: After the Garden, published by MotesBooks, and Farm Life and Legend, from Finishing Line Press.
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December 19, 2017
Wild Onions by Susan Carman
I brought home onion plants years ago
after admiring them in a friend’s garden, unaware

how like dandelions are these airy blooms, whispers
of white lifted on the breeze to land

far from where they began.
My friend died a decade ago, but I continue

to find still-green spikes poking up
among fall’s spent flowers and gently curse

her generosity. I pull them out
each year – they hold fast to the soil,

break off, roots stubborn as she was.
The pungent scent of onion lingers on my hands,

an homage to the bonds
of friendship that transcend this life.

—

Susan Carman is a former poetry co-editor for Kansas City Voices. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her poems and essays have appeared in publications including Coal City Review, Catholic Digest, I-70 Review, Kalliope, and Imagination and Place. Her essay, “An Extra Helping of Grace,” received a national award from Penguin Press.
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December 13, 2017
Snow Day by Janet Reed
This new dog lifts one cold paw
into the glove of her warm belly,

eyes asking why abandon
a blanket of down for one of snow.

I tug her leash and pull on
past the school and church

in line with a wedge of geese
honking I-told-you-sos overhead,

their taunts like those I remember
after bent-arm hangs and volleyball,

pecking order lines at gym mirrors,
high-school beauties with blue eye shadows

and sharp tongues holding forth
on the faces behind them,

a Simon Says of trash talk,
one girl forward, another back.

I cared too much once, not wanting
to be the lone goose on the back row.

Those dance queens, like me,
must think about those long-ago days,

before wrinkles creased our eyes
before nipples perky in vanity bras

drooped in the folds of our nightgowns;
youth and beauty double-crossed us all.

We lucky ones lived to suffer our losses.
We have what we made of things.

I have this wind sharp against my cheek,
the joy of found time in a snow day,

the love of this dog that trusts me
to lead her on until she understands.

—

Janet Reed teaches writing and literature for Crowder College in Missouri. She is a Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing, tree-hugging flower child whose poems reflect conversations she has with voices in her head. She is a 2016 Pushcart Prize nominee. Her work has been published and is forthcoming in multiple journals, and she is currently at work on her first chapbook.
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December 6, 2017
November, 1993 by Jenn Powers
a row of blue lockers, hatred typewritten
on strips of paper, soft
edges
from breath, salt. traces
of pencil shavings, crushed
chalk, mop water, dirty
trays of hot lunch,
grinding teeth.
sophomore year, strangers
floating down roads—hallways—
snowflakes circling midnight
headlights—hide
behind the curtain. they mock
no one believes
local tragedies. can’t
stop shaking
for a permanent
snow day

—

Jenn Powers is a writer and photographer from New England. She is currently writing a CNF memoir and her most recent work is published or forthcoming in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Jabberwock Review, The Pinch, Gulf Stream Lit Mag, and Raven Chronicles, among others. Please visit www.jennpowers.com.
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November 29, 2017
The Last Massacre in My Lonely Notebook by David Spicer
Solitude isn’t a gate that opens.
–Norman Dubie

I volunteered for the nightshift,
so don’t surprise me, Emma,
with your tribe of goats.
I can’t sleep, and if I could,
I’d dream of standing
on a snow-topped mountain
to view the valley below.
Emma, I need solitude,
not couriers from Eros
or a copper cup
filled with black coffee.
I’d rather watch reruns
of Alfalfa and his gang
chasing geese or wait
for angels to hold umbrellas
for me—I doubt if I’d
leave with them: my soul
has too many scars,
and gunshots on the beach
don’t help. God, I miss
the lack of terror now.
Windmills circle in my ears,
and I need to call a shrink,
but my throat is a cipher.
No, I want my black bones
to heal, ice to drop from the sky
like frozen tears, and a vase filled
with scarlet pimpernel adorning
the window sill. Then I could
savor a slice of pumpkin pie
before I write of the last Indian
massacre in my lonely notebook.

—

David Spicer has had poems in Alcatraz, Gargoyle, Third Wednesday, Reed Magazine, Ploughshares, The American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. The author of Everybody Has a Story and four chapbooks, he is scheduled to have From the Limbs of a Pear Tree (Flutter Press) released in the Fall of 2017.
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November 22, 2017
Change of Heart by Marian Shapiro
Suppose – no decisions
could be changed, no fates
rearranged,
nothing broken, nothing
needing repair –
where
would I be then? And you?

—

Marian Kaplun Shapiro is the author of a professional book, Second Childhood (Norton, 1988), a poetry book, Players In The Dream, Dreamers In The Play (Plain View Press, 2007) and two chapbooks: Your Third Wish, (Finishing Line, 2007); and The End Of The World, Announced On Wednesday (Pudding House, 2007). A Quaker and a psychologist, her poetry often embeds the topics of peace and violence by addressing one within the context of the other. A resident of Lexington, she is a five-time Senior Poet Laureate of Massachusetts. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2012.
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November 15, 2017
Where the Peaches Are Always Ripe by Kim Baker
And then a knife
lifting skin from a peach
paring away the succulence
as if fruit never bruises
and she lost the rhythm
for just a moment
the aroma taking her back
that summer
his skin
her sublime laughter

And then the knife did what knives will do
continued cutting
even when she was already bleeding
down to her very bone
and she is alone
his heart stopped long ago
long before this peach
this knife

Her children never understood why
she wouldn’t come live with them
preferred to make her own bed
and lie in the fragrance of what was

So that all she can do in this existential minute
is watch the bright red of her life
flow through her fingers
stain her apron
empty her of all she knew
watch it descend

like a staircase to another place
where the peaches are always ripe
and she can swallow them whole
because wasting the skin
the pit of grace
is just too human

—

When she isn’t writing poetry about big hair and Elvis, Kim works to end violence against women. A poet, playwright, photographer, and NPR essayist, Kim publishes and edits Word Soup, an online poetry journal that donates 100% of submission fees to food banks. Kim’s chapbook of poetry, Under the Influence: Musings about Poems and Paintings, is now available from Finishing Line Press.
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November 8, 2017
Dikaryote by Yu-Han Chao
Just because we pierce our septa,

           know how to wield a Mr. Softee

                      as well as sit on one

doesn’t give you the right to call us

           the d word.

We may not have PhDs in Oral,

           but we’ve two years of training

                      (plus two years of Spanish)

           will eat anybody,

                      could pass as hetero.

So what if we scissor and fuse our roots,

           fruit,

           fertilize each other’s eggs?

We spend our entire lives treated like halves, not wholes

How dare you call our favorite non-clone daughter halfie

           or the d word

                      she just barely reconciled our genes

By the time she has her first O (brief, nearly dies of the p)

           her heart, worn on her basidium,

                      will break into four pieces

                      not quarters but pulsing halves

should they land in the right place,

           sprout into

meandering, scissoring hyphae,

continue this figure-eight cycle ad infinitum.
—
Yu-Han Chao was born and grew up in Taipei, Taiwan. She received her
MFA from Penn State, taught at UC Merced, and is working towards a
degree in nursing. The Backwaters Press published her poetry book, and
her short story collection is forthcoming with Red Hen Press. Her
website is http://www.yuhanchao.com.
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November 1, 2017

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