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Thursday, March 16, 2023: John Grey's "On Tour in the Tyrol", and "On Course for Helsinki"

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                                                                               A fishing village on the Baltic coast Julius von Klever John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Stand , W ashington Square Review, and Floyd County Moonshine . Latest books, Covert , Memory Outside The Head , and Guest Of Myself are available through Amazon. Work is upcoming in the McNeese Review , Santa Fe Literary Review, and Open Ceilings .   On Tour in the Tyrol The locals wilkommen me into their shops. Shelves are stacked with wooden figurines, each with a broad painted lächeln, and many a ticking kuckucksuhr, their cuckoo birds chirping on the hour. I pick out a Schmuckstück, report to the counter, open my wallet. All is English from thereon. © 2023 John Grey On Course for Helsinki From the deck  I see a Baltic fishing village,  a small dock, some boats,  a row of wind-swept cottages,  clothed in salty fog,  shuttered against the incessant chill. Much is blurred. Detail

Thursday, February 16. 2023: J. Syeda's "Anticipation"

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Bio: Trix (SJ) is an online creator from India and has composed more than 300 poems in English. They are now letting the world into their poetry idle and welcome you to them. Anticipation A backpack bent and half filled sits in a corner. Its content remains uncertain and on the back burner. Clothes get added and then discarded, Hats and scarfs and beanies tossed asunder, Sunhats and cream clothes to match the weather, That never comes or becomes a matter. The world awaits, the heart waits, But every time anxiety is the heaviest weight. So the bag sits half folded and stretched, Its lock forever hung on hope, Dreams of travel and travelling dreams, Of sun fall, rivers, oceans and streams. Of pictures and sceneries that catch the eyes, That tug at the heart and make ambition shy. Maybe one day the bag will be filled full, Carried onto a ships packed hull, Dragged through pack or pecks of seagulls, Broken corners catching the unravelling wools. The dreams remains, the hope retained, a tr

Thursday, Feb 2, 2023: Diana Rosen's "Crossing the Teesta River Over the Suspension Bridge"

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  Diana Rosen is an essayist, poet, and flash writer whose first full-length flash and poetry book, "High Stakes & Expectations", was released in spring of 2022. She has work forthcoming in Drunk Monkeys and The Reform Jewish Quarterly and recent credits in Pine Cone Review, Ariel Chart Literary Journal, As It Ought to be Magazine, and Al-Khemia Poetica . To read more of her work, please visit and subscribe to www.authory.com/dianarosen Crossing the Teesta River Over the Suspension Bridge The four of us are in the Indian-style Jeep. Devan, our driver, is at the wheel; our host, Rajah, next to him; Alexander and I claim the seat. I’m visiting Darjeeling to write about tea. Alexander is a German graduate student here to study biodynamic farming and insects for a degree from University. We’re off on a side trip to Sikkim where we will meet the former prince of an independent country that’s now a reluctant state of India. It’s already been quite an adventure. At one point,

Thursday, January 26, 2023: TIm Tipton's "Naked"

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Tim Tipton was first seduced by the craft of poetry when he read the "Panther" by Rainier Maria Rilke. He has written poetry that has been featured in ART/LIFE , Askew , The San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly , and the on-line journal poeticdiversity . Tim is a graduate of California State University of Northridge where he received a Bachelor of Science in Sociology. He also received a degree in Substance Abuse counseling. Naked    You wake me with your pale smooth body    and your chicken pox scar     the shape of snake river    The window stands open     a draft of air hits our ankles     I relish watching the moonlight  going out across your back as   you sleep perfectly still, unwavering  Your head rests between your shoulders   My eyes sparkle at your beauty   My heart quivers at how pure you are   suspended on a tide of fate   without any influence over   you

Thursday, January 19, 2023: Jan Steckel's "Machetazos"

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  Jan Steckel left a busy pediatric practice caring for mostly Spanish-speaking children to work as a poet, writer, and medical copyeditor. She is Jewish, bisexual, and disabled by chronic pain. Her poetry book The Horizontal Poet (Zeitgeist Press, 2011) won a 2012 Lambda Literary Award. Her fiction chapbook Mixing Tracks (Gertrude Press, 2009) and poetry chapbook The Underwater Hospital (Zeitgeist Press, 2006) also won awards. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Scholastic Magazine, Yale Medicine, Bellevue Literary Review, Canary, Assaracus and elsewhere. She lives in Oakland, California. Machetazos Today Benita Miller de Robinson will carry water with one arm. She will cook cassava root and sweet potato and yams in an iron pot over illegally made charcoal. She will clean the house and brush all the dirt out the front door with a homemade broom. She will empty her second-to-youngest son out of the dish-washing tub so she can wash the dishes. She will beat her clothes and those