Five Poems by Linda Imbler

 

Pale 

 

Small of height,

hirsute of face,

lightly complected beings,

a puzzle for the ages.

 

They’d look you in the eye in the day,

but it’s their bad light, they hardly saw you,

a lucky phase of the moon

gave them the dark eyes of moon-glow

that would help them see

well enough to build

their citadels upon tall hills.

 

Where once stood their castles of stone,

there is now only rubble.

 

Pale hands/red hearts, 

they survived a thousand dawns

until a fierce reaction to their presence

only left their echo.

The air is still heavy with the rumor of their myth or reality. 

 

 

Western Moon Substitute 

 

A feather sweetly sleeping at the bottom of a cliff.

 

Thunder in arroyos

as clouds roll past,

with the promise of storms

coming strong and fast,

followed by an equally quick hint of blue.

 

Glory seen in a red moon risen.

 

Lightning’s song telling of what we call creation.

 

Pinyons framed by sunlight,

all who view them, loving that happy glow.

 

I heard a story once about

a western moon substitute that exists,

but there’s no such thing. 

 

 

The Lost Children of the God Mars 

 

Finding no family

because tracing a bloodline is not an option.

Finding no friends,

how will we ever know their story?

 

We know not where they began,

the milestones of their life,

of sin or those of innocence,

nor where any but their last

milestone occurred.

 

Their biographies should be an absorbing account

written upon a thousand cards,

with words that tell their human aspirations

and their callings.

 

Without the ability to cast counter-clockwise back in time,

to give them a third dimension,

we can only wonder,

were these sons of water or fire?

Whatever glorious distant regions did they see?

 

All we can ever know of them is that

each of them holds their own tiny field alone,

under flat plaques laid on the ground,

their tales now rooted in the soil.

 

The intimacies of their lives now only understood

by a company of angels. 

 

 

In Between Worlds 

 

I’m immersed

in a stream of unhindered fears

with no escape.

 

Everything I see in this panorama

has more than a single flaw,

although within each is what seems familiar enough.

 

There’s the wrong type of fire on the ground.

 

I can never see any light in the night.

The stars have withdrawn due to apathy.

The dim outline of a charcoal moon hangs above.

I’ve never seen such a satellite.

 

I have a body

so mythic in design

nothing could be proved its equal.

 

The loudest whispers

ricochet like silly pop songs

off walls in quite different ways

than I am used to.

 

Interestingly enough,

in an alternate place

belongs every other creation. 

 

 

Illumination Lessons from Diogenes 

 

Diogenes endured

the long walk

for the sake of

looking for an honest man.

 

He did so while carrying

one of the most famous lamps of all.

 

We should bear our own lamps,

in service to his cause..

We should seek truth before love,

and give truth to get it.

 

We are enduring plenty.

Human suffering is constant  

because of a lack of respected truth,

a shortage of truth both brave and fundamental.

So many cities are being thrown down,

communities vanquished,

empires are being stretched

and forced into corners,

because we choose to ignore

what truth would unfold.

 

Let’s help each other see the light.

Linda Imbler is an internationally published poet, an avid reader, and a practitioner of both Yoga and Tai Chi.  In, addition, she helps her husband, a Luthier, build acoustic guitars.  She lives in Wichita, Kansas, U.S.A. Linda’s poetry collections include eleven published paperbacks: Big Questions, Little Sleep First and Second Editions; Lost and Found; Red Is The Sunrise; Bus Lights; Travel Sights; Spica’s Frequency; Doubt and Truth; A Mad Dance; Twelvemonth;  Viewpoints While In Rome: and a paperback version of That Fifth Element.  Soma Publishing has published her four e-book collections, The Sea’s Secret Song; Pairings, a hybrid of short fiction and poetry; That Fifth Element; and Per Quindecim. Examples of Linda’s poetry and a listing of publications can be found at 

lindaspoetryblog.blogspot.com.  

Linda has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and seven Best Of The Nets.  

The New Normal - Short Story By Matthew McAyeal

 

The New Normal

 

Short Story

By Matthew McAyeal

 

 

Long, long ago, in days when heroes of the Trojan War still walked this earth, terror came to the island of Crete. It came in the form of mysterious sea peoples who attacked and raided the coastal cities. After their beloved city of Malia was sacked for a second time, a desperate group of Minoan refugees began heading to higher ground.

“Where are we going?” asked a small boy named Kikeru.

“To the peak sanctuary of Karfi,” explained Idaea, his mother. “We’ll be safe from the sea peoples there.”

“But where did the sea peoples come from in the first place?” he wanted to know.

“No one knows. Some say they became marauders after they were displaced by earthquakes.”

“I heard it was a great drought in Anatolia,” said Kikeru’s father, a merchant named Yishharu.

“I heard it was plague,” said Didikase, another merchant.

“I heard that a god with no name struck Egypt with ten plagues,” said a third merchant, Nashuja.

Kikeru was puzzled by the notion of a god with no name. In whose name did the worshippers of that god pray? Of course, the Minoans had no such issues with their gods.

“We shall pray and sacrifice to Britomartis,” said Ariadne, Malia’s head priestess, after they reached Karfi. “As goddess of mountains and sailors, she is certain to protect us up here and deliver us from this scourge of sea peoples!”

“Will — will we be up here for long?” asked a little girl named Europa, nervously remembering the terrifying sea peoples who had attacked and burned her home the previous night.

“Of course not, dear,” replied Kitane, her mother. “The Greek fleet will wipe out these pirates soon enough. You should just think of this as a little adventure.”

And so, they settled into what they all assumed would be a temporary shelter, living more roughly than they had in their grand city with its palaces and frescoes.

As days turned into weeks, Malia’s merchants gradually and reluctantly took up new careers as farmers and shepherds. It was especially difficult work when they could only occasionally venture into the lowlands and valleys to tend to crops and livestock. Some refused to take up such work, sure that life would be returned to normal before harvesting time anyway.

Then weeks became months, bringing a winter that was especially cold and windy up in the mountains. And yet, there was still no Greek fleet.

“I don’t understand why the Greeks have forsaken us,” said Nashuja. “Is this how they repay us after our King Idomeneus fought for them at Troy?”

“Forget the Greeks!” said Yishharu. “Where are the Egyptian and Hittite fleets? They rely on us for their wine and olive oil, but we never see them anymore either. What’s going on?”

Whatever was going on, the Minoan refugees at Karfi never learned what it was for their coast continued to be dominated by pillaging sea peoples and no one else. As months became years, young Kikeru entered manhood. He became engaged to Europa.

“I’ve been thinking about our old lives,” he said to her one day. “If we ever do go back, I can’t wait to watch bull-leaping again. What are you planning to do when we return?”

Europa sighed. “I would like for us to be married in Malia.”

“Are you sure you want to wait that long?” asked Kikeru. “Many couples our age are getting married now.”

“I know,” she said, “but I want to get married properly in a real temple. Couldn’t we wait just a few more years? I’m sure the sea peoples will be gone by then.”

“They were supposed to be gone years ago,” he pointed out.

“Yes, but surely, it’ll be soon by now!”

Kikeru turned to look out at the sea, the sea from which their maritime civilization had retreated. “I always thought that I would grow up to be a merchant like my father,” he said finally, “but now I wonder if that will even happen.”

“I know what you mean,” said Europa. “As a child, I wanted to become a priestess, but I certainly don’t anymore.”

The reason she certainly didn’t anymore was that the people were increasingly turning against the priestesses. Their rituals did not seem to be working. Not only did the sea peoples persist, harvests were poor and getting poorer, and the priestesses sacrificed animals that could have been used to feed starving people. One dark, overcast day, the people’s frustration with the priestesses came to a head.

“Why does Britomartis fail us?” Yishharu demanded to know.

“I — I don’t know,” said Ariadne. “We pray and sacrifice to her every day, but it doesn’t seem to be enough. I think she must be very angry at us. Perhaps she requires a human sacrifice.”

“Yes…” said Didikase, drawing a sword, “…yours!”

“You — you can’t sacrifice me! I am your head priestess, y-your link to our beloved patron goddess!”

“You don’t seem to be doing a very good job of linking to her,” said Didikase. “It almost makes me wonder if Britomartis even exists.”

“That’s blasphemy!” Ariadne gasped. “You mustn’t speak that way or all the gods will make life very difficult for us!”

“Well, that would make for a change!” Didikase retorted.

For a moment, Ariadne seemed to consider raising her ceremonial labrys in defense, but then she cast it aside. “Strike down a holy priestess, and you will never see the end of the gods’ wrath!”

Didikase only hesitated for a moment before he did strike her down. The other priestesses were less martyrly-inclined and tried to fend off the angry mob with their ceremonial labryses, but they were killed just as easily.

With the death of the priestesses, it became impossible to conduct formal weddings at all. Kikeru and Europa simply moved in together without any ceremony. They labored as farmers, using primitive tools for there was no more imported tin and copper with which to make bronze. They gave birth to a new generation, who would be raised knowing only life at Karfi. As more and more years passed by, the last scribes and merchants died off. Their skills no longer needed or taught, their deaths also marked the death of the written word.

Kikeru and Europa never did live to see their people leave Karfi. Instead, the people were still holed up in the mountains when Kikeru and Europa died of old age. Their children and their children’s children did not live to see it either. The generation that did leave the mountains didn’t even remember why the lowlands and valleys were supposed to be so dangerous. Slowly and cautiously, they reclaimed them, surprised to discover no apparent danger.

By that time, they were, of course, no longer a sophisticated civilization of seafaring merchants. They had become simple, illiterate farmers and shepherds for whom the world that existed before their exile was but an oral myth. Their old cities were now unfamiliar, mysterious ruins. It would still be centuries more before advanced civilization returned to the island of Crete.

The New Normal is a historical fiction story based on the Bronze Age collapse. It is 1,177 words long and was previously published in Dark Horses: The Magazine of Weird Fiction, The Fear of Monkeys, Piker Press, and CommuterLit.

Matthew McAyeal is a writer from Portland, Oregon. His short stories have been published by "Bards and Sages Quarterly," "Fantasia Divinity Magazine," "cc&d," "The Fear of Monkeys," "Danse Macabre," "Scarlet Leaf Magazine," "Bewildering Stories," "Tall Tale TV," "Fiction on the Web," "Quail Bell Magazine," "MetaStellar," and "Kaidankai." In 2008, two screenplays he wrote were semi-finalists in the Screenplay Festival.

 

Three Poems by Cat Dixon

That’s a day you’ll never get back: parked on the side of the road 

People forget: the life of the party, the frail farce, the unopened
            parachute, the blue sky that opens with precision, the matches
            floating in the dirty pool.

 

You don’t deserve: notice for no notice is the new notice, an oaf

dipped in brandy, a barge carrying a garbage fire, a welcome from

a hologram, the fruity overtones of desert sage, the lie based on

the truth: where do you go all day when you disappear?  

 

The one that criticizes travels through walls. It’s all weddings and lies
           planted in the rose garden. It’s nautical-themed and it cradles
           the crone, it jugs the beer, it tosses the baby off the cliff.

 

Months go by 

 

What’s all this then?

                        Lead me, lead me by the arm, lead me down the hall, lead me

                        through backstage, lead me to the gavel, lead me to the backlot.

 

Who’s going to be left behind?

                        I cannot tell a lie. Nothing comes to mind except tiny ketchup

                        bottles, protected wetlands, mashies and niblicks, rides

                        on rollercoasters, sugar water, and a giant hedge maze.

 

Why would I take that away from her?

                        Advance me to the second round, intervene on my behalf, summon

                        the devil, slice me in half, stab me in the belly, cover up these

                        charming little traditions, help pick up the loose change.

 

What now?

                        Leave my virtue intact, leave me to this dangerous agenda, to

                        the loopholes I craft, to the former rival who sits in a chair

                        in the dark without realizing the light bulb is cracked.

 

When the Acquaintance Asks Why I Didn’t Change My Last Name 

 

If I’ve been married once, I’ve been married a dozen times. If that’s the case, I refuse to change it for I know I will just have to change it back. I’d rather keep the name that’s typed on my yellow tattered Hawaiian birth certificate. Retain the same name I entered this shitshow with— what’s the point? No sense in changing names, hair color, jobs, or clothes. It’s all a march down the aisle—I’m waiting for the organ to finish with a flourish, for the priest to say amen, for the congregation to stand, so I can be hauled off in a hearse, back to the dirt where we all came from.

Cat Dixon is the author of What Happens in Nebraska (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2022) along with six other poetry chapbooks and collections. She is a poetry editor with The Good Life Review. Recent poems published in The Literary Underground, Nude Bruce, and The Rye Whiskey Review. She works full-time at a funeral home and teaches creative writing part-time at the University of Nebraska, Omaha.

 

 

 

  

Three Poems by J. B. Hogan

Running Hard

Expelled from darkness into light,

unexpected, uncertain, learning to move

to absorb, to grow, to move and learn,

stretching, crawling, stumbling to walk

into the light, walking, walking,

both night and day, sun and rain,

cloud and clear, seasons pass,

storm clouds grow, storm clouds pass,

past now beckons, future unclear,

steady holding, seeking light,

jogging up, jogging back,

finding this, losing that,

day by day, night after night,

time stalling out, time slipping by,

phases come, phases go,

speed picks up, speed controls,

clouds form in the distance,

clouds both thick and dark

long night in view, nowhere to go,

turning calm into hustle, hustle into speed,

running hard now toward darkening night,

running fast into impenetrable, fading light.

Fast Moving Train

Slow at first, barely catching

traction on slippery rails,

spinning in one spot until

at last, slight movement

forward, gradual build up,

edging on, inching progress,

momentum shifting, speed

accumulating, not yet fast

but building, driving,

straight ahead, then a curve,

more curves, finding an

open path, pumping now,

scenery passing, destination

still far ahead, not yet seen –

imagined, felt, moving past

expected, unexpected

impediments, blockages,

but up to full speed then,

barely in control, acceleration faster,

faster, station end imagined,

visualized, brakes needed – but

none there, ultimate speed now

no slowing down, no turning back,

runaway train, downhill racing,

no escape ramp, nothing behind

to pull back and stop, churning,

nearly flying, no escape, no way

out, no way to stop as it hits

maximum speed, rushing fully

blast into the dark wall of oblivion.

Running on Fumes

Once running at full tilt,

with full tank, roaring

forward, moving out ahead

passing slow movers, dodging

hurdles, shooting past all,

foot on gas, driving hard into the sun.

But one day, tank emptying, power dropping,

forced from fast lane into slower,

and slower again, downshifting,

looking for some old strength,

some way back to top speed,

to be in front once more.

Tank now nearly empty,

little strength or drive remains,

only echoes of the past, memories,

recollections, knowing there’s

only so much left when you’re

running on fumes alone.

 

J. B. Hogan is a poet, fiction writer, and local historian. He has been published in a number of journals including the Blue Lake Review, Crack the Spine, Copperfield Review, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Well Read Magazine, and Aphelion. His twelve books include Bar Harbor, Mexican Skies, Living Behind Time, Losing Cotton, The Apostate and, most recently, Forgotten Fayetteville and Washington County (local history). He lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas.