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There were those who believed that if they couldn't remember / notice / learn something, then no one could A pseudo-equality that said in practice they believed everyone was as stupid as they were Michael Ceraolo is a retired firefighter/paramedic and active poet. His publications include Euclid Creek (Deep Cleveland Press), and the chapbooks Cleveland Haiku (Green Panda Press), More Euclid Creek and Cleveland Scores Early (Kendra-Steiner Editions), and Readings/The Road: Two Poems from Euclid Creek Book Three (Crisis Chronicles Press). This is his third full-length book of poetry. |
Lawyers, Guns and Money
by Michael Ceraolo
Published December 7, 2024
Elemental Etchings
by Liz Senn
Published November 22, 2023
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Sometimes I wish I could wake up tomorrow in a different place, during a different time, as a different person entirely. To see the sky in a different light. To taste the breeze of a different flavor. To walk the ground with a different footing. For better, or for worse, or for neither at all. And sometimes we just want what we know we'll never have. Introduction: Welcome to the many adversities and prosperities of life, the peaks and valleys of love, and the never-ending journey to find meaning and healing amid the rubble. While I have been writing poetry since I was old enough to buy a journal, only to fill probably hundreds since, my inspiration for writing this book stems largely from the many shaping events that I experienced over roughly my 29th year, while I was experiencing the full force of my Saturn Return. For those of you that are not familiar, every 27-29 years, Saturn Returns to the degree and sign that it was at the time that you were born. In this way, Saturn serves as our cosmic entryway into adulthood and our cosmic exit out of our current situation into something infinitely more beautiful. However, this journey is seldom smooth, and even often quite rocky, for those like me. With this important rebirth often comes great sacrifice, challenging hardship, and debilitating uncertainty. But it’s in these very times that we learn strength we did not think possible, freedom we did not think imaginable, and, eventually, we uncover beauty unforetold. Over the course of this book, I share my unique yet relatable poetic perspective on universal and meaningful topics such as life, love, mental health, and hardship. I use forces of nature to illustrate how our important experiences can breed higher existential meaning and healing understanding within our hearts and souls. I hope my words can bring you much needed peace, inspiration, or at the very least, amusement. While the gardens here may not grow like yours, the bees hum just the same. |
beat the moon backwards
by Wanda Morrow Clevenger
Published August 9, 2022
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slogged in salted dew the ticker tape in my head on overtune to beat the moon backwards before we were flung too far, before either of us was a hamster on a loop in fevered wait Wanda Morrow Clevenger wrote eight poems in a handful of months in 1974; thirty-four years later she returned to writing. She has since placed over 467 pieces of work in 158 print and electronic literary journals and anthologies. In August of 2013, while compiling the manuscript for this book she fell ill with pancreatitis, further complicated by necrosis in the following nine months, and wasn’t expected to survive. One year later, almost to the day, she sat down to finish where the hogs ate the cabbage. She has her husband to thank for the title. |
Moving Sounds
by Casey Krysztofik
Published February 14, 2022
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Raindrops no longer from sky – continue from plants above ground. Hosta spade leaves hold water: wine from Roman shell shaped cups. Woman soaked after slip and fall. Cling from clutches assisted by flood absorbed. Blouse unbuttoned – free and comfortable. Flesh painted with precision before sprayed with clear coat. Screen room she rests mostly hidden in lush woods. Viewing the mouth between river and bay. Jaws opened at snake's pinnacle showing off fangs. Its saliva becomes a waterfall. --Second Concerto's Andante The third poetry collection by Casey Krysztofik explores the sonic relation of words and movement. He kicks up the technique of his previous collections to bring the reader to a new and eldritch world. A concert of poetry. |
Plumes: and Other Flights of Fancy Flash Fiction
by Andrena Zawinski
Published January 31, 2022
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In her debut collection of stories, Zawinski melds flash fiction with memoir. She entertains, piques curiosity, even exacts revenge in characters enjoyable to come to know, whether through love or through hate, all cast on a smooth and well-crafted journey that invites the reader to return to its pages again and again. “Andrena Zawinski presses pause, and purity appears: a long ago encounter with a friend chanting, a much younger lover who becomes a mature woman in 300 words. More social documentaries than pure fiction, these stories record zeitgeist—lesbian zeitgeist, baby boomer zeitgeist, coal country trading-sex-for-bread zeitgeist. The narrator in the final story confesses: ‘I am a convicted eavesdropper.’ That's the real pleasure in Plumes—getting the skinny the strictly forbidden way by listening to what you're not supposed to hear.” —Judy Juanita, The High Price of Freeways, Tartts Fiction Award “Reading Andrena Zawinski’s terrific flash fiction/memoirs about love, travel, mishaps, drinking, and searching is like sitting down at a table at your favorite coffee shop with your best friend and listening to her unfolding the best and wildest stories of her life. You never want her to stop!” —John Guzlowski, Echoes of Tattered Tongues, Eric Hoffer Montaigne Medal “Andrena Zawinski's powerful imagery, from ‘the kewpie doll draped in party beads’ to ‘a candle-toothed smile,’ is as strong in this collection of flash fiction as in her award-winning poetry. The personality and panache of the globe-trotting woman at these tales' centers, savoring a glass of fine wine as much as she does new locales, imbue these stories with their particular she-ness. Pour yourself a glass of your favorite to accompany the gorgeous writing of Plumes, which will certainly garner its own accolades.” —Jan Steckel, The Horizontal Poet, Lambda Literary Award |
Bryant Park Poems
by Gary Beck
Published July 18, 2021
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I couldn’t find a dry spot to sleep at night and my cardboard bed got soaked, so I threw it away. Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll find a dry doorway where no one will bother me, but I’ve never been lucky. If it rains for forty days and forty nights I’ll probably drown, but so will everyone else. -- Homeless III Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director. He has worked as an art dealer , a tennis pro, a ditch digger and a salvage diver. His original plays have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and his published books include novels, poetry, short story, essay, and one-act play collections. Gary lives in New York City. |
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