Poetry Winter 2021 fiction all issues
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Cover
Andrej Lišakov
Laura Apol
I Take a Realtor through the House
& other poems
Rebekah Wolman
How I Want my Body Taken
& other poems
Devon Bohm
The Word
& other poems
Gillian Freebody
The Right Kind of Woman
& other poems
Anne Marie Wells
Gravestone Flowers
& other poems
Laura Turnbull
Restoration
& other poems
Andre F. Peltier
A Fistful of Ennui
& other poems
Peter Kent
Reflections on the Late Nuclear Attack on Boston
& other poems
Carol Barrett
Canal Poem #8: Hides
& other poems
Alix Lowenthal
Abortion Clinic Waiting Room
& other poems
Latrise P. Johnson
From My Women
& other poems
Brenna Robinson
repurposed
& other poems
may panaguiton
MOON KILLER
& other poems
Elizabeth Farwell
The Life That Scattered
& other poems
Bill Cushing
Two Stairways
& other poems
Richard Baldo
A Note to Prepare You
& other poems
Blake Foster
Aubade from the Coast
& other poems
Bernard Horn
Glamour
& other poems
Harald Edwin Pfeffer
Still stiff with morning cold
& other poems
Nia Feren
Neon Orange Tree Trunks
& other poems
Everett Roberts
A Mourning Performance
& other poems
Alaina Goodrich
The Way I Wander
& other poems
Olivia Dorsey Peacock
the iron maiden and other adornments
& other poems
Harald Edwin Pfeffer
Only if you lie very still
Only if you lie very still,
Breathe calmly in the dark
Will you become aware
Of motes of gold,
Moving in the shadows.
And only if you will,
You can dance with them
In a flaming rapture
With the fire torching
You mouth, scorching
Your tongue. A voice
Speaks a command,
Incomplete. A longing
From the dark side
Of the moon pulls
Your voice to sing
To an unknown tune.
Let there be
Let there be star-filled galaxies,
Oceans filled with plankton lessons
Bubbling up from the deep, dark sea.
Or more wanton: Four-leaved clovers
field-full for luck, dappled light,
Flowers, flight,
Known and unknown
Faces, another life.
Also terrors best forgotten,
Fangs and fur, tearing teeth,
While you sleep
In a skin on skin embrace,
Tangle of limbs.
All will Be clear. Be careful
What you take.
It comes with you
When you awake.
Still stiff with morning cold
Still stiff with morning cold,
The hinge of the season
Is about to creak open
To let in spring.
Green lances from bulbs
Are tipped with flaming daffodils.
The wind changes direction.
Through the door a scene
Of blues mixed into blue
And air so clear, that soon
We will listen to every breath
And everything will sing.
One day
One day you or I
Will wake and reach
For what was ours
And touch emptiness.
A landscape between us,
As familiar as our face
Will have only
A vaulted grey sky,
Hours of lead
Times of snow.
Grief will enter
Eye and nose
Sharp as mace
Or the memory
Of a warm embrace.
I know it is only temporary
I know it is only temporary,
Like taste dissolving
With the ripe fruit
On our tongue,
Like the colours
Of dawn or sunset
Like the smell,
The soft-shaped curves,
Voice, breath and shudder
Of us wrapped and entangled
In this warm bubble,
But the happiness, the joy,
Lingers, lingers.....
Harald Edwin Pfeffer
Austrian parents, born and raised in South Africa, trilingual (German , English, Afrikaans). Living and working in New Zealand since 1987 (M.B.;Ch.B.,FRNZCGP) Married to Desiree. 2 daughters Astrid and Ingeborg. Loved reading and writing poetry since high school. Started submitting poetry to competitions and journals last year. “Stars in an endless sky” is my first published poem in Comstock Review (Spring/Summer 2021).