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After a postcard of van Gogh’s “Bedroom at Arles”
If, in some night, I saw beyond
The newest moon,
And my thoughts would carry me on
To where un-bounding time
Once ran for us, but soon ran past-
I’d turn up the postcard I almost sent
To show you van Gogh’s bedroom at Arles,
And I’d set to stare
At the slats of wave made fast
Where the floor was a pitch to climb or descend,
If there were time to draw us in
And try to be at rest in that room,
In its waited way
That dangles all the feet
Above the flooding of the ground,
Leaving the bed un-touched and dry:
But the looking glass over the basin-
It must be broken, as it’s blank. Or
This room really has no door leading on from any hall,
But rather, in plan, has only the fourth and lunar wall.
And yet now, from here, we both of us glare-
Without a shadow to chase.
And time-pricked in this
-Can only desire for more of itself
To sprinkle now, like a brief thread
Drawn all ways through a needles eye.

Sean became a poet at Haverford College, the best of Philadelphia’s suburban Quaker schools.  He currently reads and writes at “Rutgers…the State University of New Jersey.”  He shares his name with a boxer, a comedian, and an alleged IRA member; we apologize for any confusion this has caused.

Roy Word Smith. Lives in Bucks county, loves to visit Philadelphia every chance he gets. He finds poems and stories growing out of sidewalk cracks and purring cats. He doesn’t have much education but like Einstein, feels imagination is more important than knowledge.

Harry’s wife stopped me and started to
say things, so I listened.
“You know Harry never had it easy,
especially in 1964.
He didn’t want to fight,
or kill anyone for that matter.
I married him without a ring and a wedding dress.
All he did at our wedding night
was to stare at his own face in the mirror.
Harry told me that after the war
he still continued to hide out
and called it force of habit.
He used to sleep under the bridges,
in farms, and stole chickens and corn.
Sometimes on hot nights he played dead
and slept in morgues to keep cool.
He said one time he even refused the open
legs of a prostitute cause he had forgotten
how to make love. He said he made paper birds
and whistled their tunes to blow his fears away.
He had many interrupted sleeps, hearing death
screaming into his ears.”

Fereshteh Sholevar was born in Tehran where she studied literature and foreign languages. She received her Masters Degree in Creative Writing from Rosemont College. Fereshteh has published six books of poetry, two of which are bilingual: And the Blue Continues in English and Spanish, and Walking with the Moon in English and German. Her Name Was Samira, a novel, was published by Infinity Publishing in 2012.  She won the Editor’s Choice award  from Philadelphia Poets in 2011.

I am trying, I am trying
to be right with my mind again.
for what else should I be trying
and to what end
when all the night around me
rises to my room
like the waters of a lake?
I want to make the call
the nightblind hours
refuse to make
and patiently distill-
the sky mercurial,
slick as a kill.
Again, the dead have come full soon
to shed themselves
thin as a moon.
Thin as the horizon’s
cold, blue arc.
Every season
is their season.
Every evening, their mark.

Luke Bauerlein’s work has previously appeared in the NY Times, Mid-America Poetry Review, Shot Glass Journal, and elsewhere. He currently lives in West Philadelphia, and writes songs and performs with the band, The Late Greats.

She destroyed the garden in her good pants—

Cherry tomatoes and peppers, cucumbers and lettuce—

Using a spade, rake, and hoe.

Using her bare hands.

She trampled ordered rows, snapped stalks,

Raked it all under, and tamped the ground flat.

She was methodic. In possession of herself.

How could I stop her?

She had to get back at her body.

She had to get back at the earth.

After, she sat down in the dirt

And rubbed her raw hands.

Michael Phillips has published short stories and poems in several journals, including Pebble Lake Review, River Walk Journal, Dark Skies Magazine, and The Monongahela Review (Forthcoming). He lives with his wife in Downingtown, PA, and works as an editor for a nonprofit healthcare research institute.

Because I looked for two months for the wind-chimes.
Because those soundless bells were stuck in that desk drawer the hole time.
Because I hate dust.
Because I hate to dust.
Because I have less energy and don’t know why.
Because disability is a time-bomb for some.
Because I mostly don’t eat healthily.
Because I started my sixth decade.
Because I forget.
Because I remember.
Because I can’t always hold morning in a fist of wanting.
Because people can build on what I give away.
Because there isn’t enough success.
Because I want more than I can.
Because dropped things sink.
Because I must know necessary from nostalgic.
Because what I need to pray for is changing.
Because I will want this draft tomorrow.

Nancy Scott, Easton PA, is an essayist and poet.   Her over 600 bylines have appeared in magazines, literary journals, anthologies and newspapers, and as audio commentaries.   Recent work appears in Breath and Shadow, Contemporary Haibun Online, Foliate Oak,  Stone Voices, and WordGathering.  Her third chapbook, co-authored with artist Maryann Riker, is entitled “The Nature of Beyond.”  Her essay “One Night at Godfrey’s” won First Prize in the 2009 International Onkyo Braille Essay Contest.  

last frigid winter the koi pond was a sacrifice
each fish a gilded canvas of mottled
orange, flecked gold, and white blotches
slipping under an icy crust
then slower
until
the snow
brushed from the thick, ice plate
unveiled their decorative performance
suspended like ornament glass.

Phylinda has enjoyed living in Philadelphia for ten years. Visit her website phylindamoore.com for links to more poems.