She’s out in the cold,
the darkness.

Her brown hair is black.
Her face is held together
by fitful moon
and indifferent street lamp.
Bare arms tremble.
Legs hold on.

She bites down on her red lip,
stares ahead into the nothingness.
Her eyes don’t get what they came for,
only what they expect:
some indecisive shapes,
a few creeping shadows.

Her busted heart
is buried in its bog of veins.
Her broken spirit
is known only
to her desultory thoughts.
For the rest of us,
the night itself
is her description.

 
John Grey is an Australian born poet, US resident since late seventies. Grey works as financial systems analyst and has recently published in Slant,Briar Cliff Review and Albatross with work upcoming in Poetry East, Cape Rock and REAL. 

 

The manager lurks in the doorway
puffing on a cigarette.
No customers move past him.
The stove grows cold,
the food grows old,
the waiters hulk near tables
captives of unused menus.
Soon the restaurant will close
when no one can afford to eat.


Gary Beck's chapbook 'Remembrance' was published by Origami Condom Press, 'The Conquest of Somalia' by Cervena Barva Press, and 'The Dance of Hate' by Calliope Nerve Media.  He currently lives in New York City.

I’m a raindrop Chicago baby
silhouetted in the night,
single-ringed single person
minus the 24 carat gold.
A harvester of night life,
star crystal, 
a gatherer of sluts
in my imagination.

Michael Lee Johnson is a poet and freelance writer from Itasca, Illinois. His new poetry chapbook with pictures, titled From Which Place the Morning Rises, and his new photo version of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom are available at: http://stores.lulu.com/promomanusa.

The motel patrons orchestrate
The soundtrack of the night

He is a sleeper, so he does
Not hear the motions in the air

The room above, the girl with
Four guys making videos

The two rooms of funeral goers
Crying blood a few doors down

The listener, a lonely man trying
To escape his life by hiding in borders

The wind hurts the balancing straw on
The sideboard, the light is disordered

He sleeps numb to the shadows
Reduced to his internal movie

Brandon S. Roy work has appeared in numerous reviews and
journals, including the Houston Literary Review,Breadcrumb Scabs and
Ghoti Magazine.