Too late for it now

By Ted Bryan

We went out

I ordered tea, and the girl shortchanged

Me, then I

Sat in the sun whilst another

Calmly refused me what I wanted

Later, when I put my head down

On a desk in the library

In front of rows of chemical abstracts

I thought,

“there’s something in the sun light that

strips a man down to a place

where he can’t even go mad,

properly

or

any more.”

A depressing thought,

But right now,

I am too tired

To cry about it.



My Home Bolton, New Mexico

By Kelsey Koprowski

Deep in a canyon’s bend, sleeps my Bolton.

A puddle of analogous houses,

secluded from serenity. My home.

The gulch walls stand tall, forever rising,

sundering us from foreign dispatches.

Drowning in our own problems, my Bolton.

A cluster of yellow, purple, orange.

Looking out from my front porch you can see,

the green less garden of pansy-like homes.

I waste days on the crown of the canyon.

Working in an unrelentless copper mine,

among every brawny man in Bolton.

Our town is imperfect in many ways.

An endless fray between scabs and strikers.

Tenacious souls linger in every home.

Every town on Earth has its bad side.

Despite the perilous picket rallies,

the bitter scab wives, here in my Bolton,

I will fight for this city, for my home.



Sonnet

By Colin Staub

We have a difficult decision to make

Should we get divorced or have a baby?

With this decision, careful concern we should take

I have no answer, except for maybe

Hey look! The covered bridge festival!

Look at that lady with all those rings

That stone would cost you all of your soul

Let’s stop here and sit, and think about things.

Lena has many deadly allergies

She has to carry lots of medicine

On no! She got stung by a large bee!

I’ll take the needle, and I’ll stick it in.

While in the hospital, she’s made up her mind

Where kids are concerned, it’s not the right time.