Tipton Poetry Journal #36 by Tipton Poetry Journal

Tipton Poetry Journal Editor’s Note Tipton Poetry Journal, located in the heartland of the Midwest, publishes quality poetry from Indiana and around the world. This issue features 40 poets from the United States (22 different states) and 5 poets who live in Canada, India, Italy, Spain, England and Israel. This issue we also include artwork with companion poems: “Cicada and Twig” by Connie Kingman with John Groppe’s poem “Coming Out of its Shell”; and “Snow in the Foothills” by Sarah Rehfeldt, which accompanies her poem, “First Snow.” Our cover photo, “Four Short-Eared Owls in Snow” is by Brendan Kearns, a photographer from Terre Haute, Indiana. Print versions of Tipton Poetry Journal are available for purchase through amazon.com. Barry Harris, Editor

Cover Photo:“Four Short-Eared Owls in Snow” by Brendan Kearns Licensed from: http://www.brendankearnsphotography.com/keyword/9764/

Copyright 2018 by the Tipton Poetry Journal. All rights remain the exclusive property of the individual contributors and may not be used without their permission. Tipton Poetry Journal is published by Brick Street Poetry Inc., a tax-exempt non-profit organization under IRS Code 501(c)(3). Brick Street Poetry Inc. publishes the Tipton Poetry Journal, hosts the monthly poetry series Poetry on Brick Street and sponsors other poetry-related events.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Contents Sarah Rehfeldt..................................................................................1 Ruth Holzer........................................................................................2 Marianne Lyon .................................................................................3 Simon Perchik...................................................................................5 Greg Maddigan.................................................................................6 Cary Barney.......................................................................................8 George Freek...................................................................................10 William Greenway ........................................................................10 John Haugh......................................................................................12 Colleen June Glatzel......................................................................14 Antonia Clark .................................................................................17 Greg Field.........................................................................................20 Gilbert Allen....................................................................................21 Timothy Pilgrim ............................................................................22 Donald Gasperson ........................................................................23 Michael Keshigian ........................................................................24 John P. Kristofco ............................................................................26 Tom Sheehan ..................................................................................26 George Fish .....................................................................................28 Henry Ahrens..................................................................................29 Alessio Zanelli ................................................................................31 Denise Thompson-Slaughter ....................................................32

Tipton Poetry Journal Bilal Moin.........................................................................................33 Joan Colby ........................................................................................34 Diana L. Conces..............................................................................35 Christopher Stolle .........................................................................36 KG Newman.....................................................................................39 Kurt Saunders ................................................................................40 Gene Twaronite .............................................................................40 Jim Knapp ........................................................................................42 Doris Lynch .....................................................................................43 Erin Wilson......................................................................................44 Yvonne Green .................................................................................44 Rosemary Freedman....................................................................46 William Ogden Haynes................................................................47 Ken Tomaro ....................................................................................48 Tim Robbins....................................................................................49 Tim Reisert......................................................................................50 Liz Marlow.......................................................................................51 John D. Groppe ...............................................................................53 Harold Ackerman..........................................................................54 Paul Lojeski.....................................................................................56 Charles Rammelkamp.................................................................56 Patrick Theron Erickson............................................................58 Thomas Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Dore ..............................................................................59 Editor ..............................................................................................60 Contributor Biographies ...................................................60

Tipton Poetry Journal

First Snow Sarah Rehfeldt Stepping out into the silence, the first print of snow covering the ground – I can hear it. Breath escapes our lips in hard, expectant spirals. It asks a question – Listen. The answer is enormous.

Photo Credit: “Snow in the Foothills” (Sarah Rehfeldt)

Sarah Rehfeldt lives with her family in western Washington where she is a writer, artist, and photographer. Her publication credits include Appalachia; Blueline; Written River; Weber – The Contemporary West; and Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in poetry. Sarah is the author of Somewhere South of Pegasus, a collection of image poems. It can be purchased through her photography web pages at http://www.pbase.com/candanceski.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Curtains Ruth Holzer When they get too dingy for even my complacent eye, it’s time to take them down, time to wash the curtains again. High up on a chair, I wobble when the rods collapse from their brackets. The rusted screws shower on my head as the brackets themselves fall from the frame. I pierce my heel on a tie-back pin that has dropped to the floor and cough as the dust rises from armfuls of limp fabric. Then arranging them for the re-hanging, getting them properly backward and forward, right panel, left panel, the flounces and furbelows, the valences and swags: a conundrum every time. I see that they’ve ripped a bit more and the dryer has left fresh scorch marks. And they don’t look any cleaner, these window treatments that conveyed with the house, so long ago. Treat this. Ruth Holzer’s poems have appeared in Connecticut River Review, Freshwater, Slant, Rhino, Southern Poetry Review and Poet Lore, as well as in several anthologies. Her chapbooks are The First Hundred Years, The Solitude Of Cities (Finishing Line Press) and A Woman Passing (Green Fuse Press). She lives in Virginia.

Tipton Poetry Journal

His Eye on Me

Marianne Lyon Sometimes I feel death hover near like a famished ghost. Sometimes I watch him lift his gray veil hungry to entangle me into swirling dance. Sometimes he whines inside nightmares only frightening vagueness remains. I want to shepherd my wild fear stare at him with calm importance of an empress insist we postpone this twirl vague talk of eternity, his notion of timelessness. Curious, I ask him what he witnessed of me living my life. A few days of lion courage? A rainbow of communions, forgotten hang-dog days? Doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t answer, only greedily hovers I entreat him stay away awhile. For I have streams of verses to write of flowers, their growing pains their silent lifting to rising sun. I order him leave me alone. For I have stacks of silly songs to intone, giggles from precious friends yelping around. Yes, I know for sure that, not if, but when he hovers again lifts shimmering veil for our grand finale I will take the lead, improvise fancy steps be not afraid to insist we dismiss his boring waltzy-waltze demand instead we wild tango onto his death-stage.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Abandon

Marianne Lyon The Buddha is thought to have said the way to enlightenment is to chop wood. Billy Collins suggests we shovel snow alongside the Buddha with abandon He writes that Buddha’s smile is so wide “it wraps itself around the waist of the Universe.” Live in California, don’t have snow Electric heating, don’t need wood So, let me ramble about this chopping Let me ask you of this obsessive? shoveling. I have wondered why the I of us has become so important and a choir of daffodils chanting in my backyard goes unnoticed? Why on a luscious spring day do I rush to grocery store for one last time for forgotten ingredient and ignore a soft cotton breeze mussing my hair? Why I wake up every day planning my schedule that I must complete. Go to bed every night relieved that all has been done or anxious if number 3 is still pending. Why didn’t I listen to percussive burbling from my backyard fountain? Why didn’t we sip huckleberry tea doused in sweet cream? Have you ever dropped into a task as if it was your only purpose for the day? Not on your list. Not a should or must do, and felt time disappear? Have you ever kneaded dough over and over as if it were all you needed to do, and your hands become lost in the knead? You feel it slippery like flesh yeasty smell transports you back to Grams don’t care if your fingers are gooey you just continue to squeeze and roll smile when you hear small bubbles burp one with bowl rocking on kitchen table

Tipton Poetry Journal Have you ever dropped into a task and felt you Yes YOU and time disappear? Who knows, Buddha may show up and join YOU. Marianne Lyon has been a music teacher for 39 years. After teaching in Hong Kong she returned to the Napa Valley and has been published in various literary magazines and reviews. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2016. She is a member of the California Writers Club, Healdsburg Literary Guild and an Adjunct Professor at Touro University Vallejo California.

* Simon Perchik Inside this glass its sand flowing between the hours and shoreline â&#x20AC;&#x201C;you drink waves, not sure one grave would pull you under give in to the small stones you swallow twice covering your mouth with beach grass, harbors and sea birds flying toward you no longer keeping track bringing you more cries and expect an answer â&#x20AC;&#x201C;you water rock that never ripens though your shadow is rotting on the ground pouring from these dead as moonlight and left behind. Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The New Yorker, Tipton Poetry Journal and elsewhere. He resides in East Hampton, New York.

Tipton Poetry Journal

God Shed His Grace Greg Maddigan We wake up in the night now Alone, always, under the star-spackled sky. We are wind-milling and tilting again. We are post-solstice. We know we have wasted Our time; we want to weep or Punch someone in the larynx. How unexceptional. We plead for our star to return, for Someone, anyone To make us great again. Instead, there is only a mandarin slice Of melancholic moon; Still, we long to wade into its Nostalgic light. In the morning, the fog clings To the paint-flecked front porches of America. The basalt landscape rises out of the Columbia, Out of our constitution, Like a newborn foal, still steaming from its inception. If only Jefferson could see the place now. The wheat barges come and go, And we talk of the new casino. Vineyards quilt the slopes beyond the northern bank, And we talk with faces white and blank. We wonder: will we know when any given supper Will be our last? Above the dam, The American flag hangs limp on its pole. Soon, the spring winds will rustle it So full of patriotism The Stars and Stripes will be in tatters. In town, The televisions light up every living room. They are all blaring; we canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t stop watching even though We know we are in the throes of our own Asphyxiation, our final flickering.

Tipton Poetry Journal We wonder if we should just go back to sleep, Or maybe we ought to go Buy a gun. We gaze to the onion fields in the east, harrowed and Soon to be seeded with sweet bulbs, then shivering with scissoring green stalks Beneath a dawn-yawning pink sky Tumultuously untangling itself from rumbling Thunderheads. We hop in the pick-up And drive out to the unhappy hills, The ones freckled with sagebrush, Furrowed by hard work and hunger. We stop the truck and unfold our bodies, Wrinkled origami figurines, crinkled and cast aside on an American roadside. The barbed wire fences catch our desperate dreams Like tumbleweeds. Our worries crowd the branches of our minds Like the immigrant Starlings roosting in the Winter Cottonwoods. Maybe we should occupy a wildlife refuge. Maybe we should accept That we will float, then plummet from the sky Like the birds teeming on the Pacific Flyway. Night will fall on the land. The moon will be up in dry dock. We will sleep like wolves, Waking in the ragged night, Turning circles around ourselves. We will awaken again to the inaugural yapping of the Coyotes, heralding our fear Of the dark. Nevertheless, we stamp our boots in the dirt. Even in winter, This air smells like onions. Greg Maddigan lives in Spokane, Washington with his wife, Stacy, and their four children. He teaches at the On Track Academy and spends his summers living and writing in a little cabin near Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho. Greg is the author of the chapbook of poems, Paddling Through the Meridianâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Wake (Finishing Line Press). Gregâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s poetry has also appeared in the The Legendary literary magazine.

Tipton Poetry Journal

S.T.T.L. (Sit Tibi Terra Levis)

Cary Barney May the earth be light upon you, not impede your rising, draw you up from dark sleep toward the always waking day, may the earth not trap your dust in slabs of clay, may the wind again catch you, toss you, let you settle, rise, ride again the waves and wafts of elements, again mingle, mix, dance with othersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; dust, may the earth release you like confetti, to celebrate what you have been, what you will be. May the earth be light upon you, not crush your breasts, compound the pressure at your temples, crack your limbs, your spine, or squeeze your heart to stone, but leave you room to seep and wander between particles, find the reaching roots of pine and jasmine, flow upward into branches, needles, leaves, seek again the sun, soak in its light, become breath, breathe, transpire into wind and water and infinite freedom. May the earth be light upon you, the sea lift it from you layer by layer, wash it from your bones and slowly roll them, soften your jagged wounds, dissolve your pain and let you swim once more among the tuna and darting sardines, ride the wind-blown spume and splash the faces of sailors, tickle the ankles of screeching children, wet the sand and keep it from searing their feet. May the earth be light upon you, buffer the quakes that would crack your tomb, that would topple this slab upon you and imprint these letters in your soft flesh, may the earth be light upon you, come loose spadeful by spadeful, free you from the grid of stakes and yarn archeologists impose upon the shape-shifting land, may the earth be light, become light, alight upon you, light your way back into the light.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Family Dogs Cary Barney They bit with our clenched teeth while our clenched smiles played at harmony. No, nothing's wrong, we said, biting the words. No plates are crashing. No doors are slamming. I'm not angry. Have some more. But dogs hear frequencies we don't, or don't want to, and biting was the only way to say what they knew. They bit hard and didn't release but bit deeper, then stopped and sad-eyed smiled and wondered what was wrong. The kindly vet put them to sleep, good night. We didn't talk about it. Each dog was suddenly gone, and we got up and poured our cereal, walked to school. The leash hung dusty on its garage nail. Later we blamed it on the pedigrees we'd paid for, all the inbreeding, scotties for their rat-trap jaws, springers for obedience in the hunt. But our dogs bit with our clenched teeth and left our own teethmarks in our flesh, and what we meant to put to sleep in them is still awake in me.

Cary Barney has lived in Spain for the past 26+ years. He teaches writing and theater at Saint Louis University's Madrid campus and holds an MFA in dramatic writing from the Yale School of Drama. His plays include The Wannsee Wedding, Buttercup, Children of Argos, Undershafted, and Lance & Lana.

Tipton Poetry Journal

The Sheltering Sky (After Su Tung Po) George Freek The sky is like a table I am hiding under, a table made of glass. Clouds drift through its cracks. Night arrives and the day is lost. A star flickers. Its what were made of. But it sees nothing. It knows no desires. Soon it will burn to ashes. It does what it was meant to do. It rises. It flickers, and it dies. I was only meant, it seems, to wonder why. George Freek is a poet/playwright living in Belvidere, Illinois. His poetry has appeared in Of Course, The Ottawa Review of the Arts, Limestone Journal, Carcinogenic Poetry, West Trade Review, and The Sentinel Literary Quarterly. His plays are published by Playscripts, Inc., Lazy Bee Scripts, and Off The Wall Plays.

Diminishing Returns William Greenway …and though We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are… —“Ulysses,” Tennyson

After struggling a while to follow my 7ths, 9ths, 5ths, whatever—our real musician, the mandolin meister, yells, “I feel like I’m in diminished hell!”

Tipton Poetry Journal Wednesday will mark my sixtieth year to heaven, the oldest of this band of brothers. I remember learning “500 Miles” on a guitar I had not yet learned to tune. The same weird chords I play now, but then, as if someone from a previous life were playing a dirge in Chinese: If you miss the train I’m on, You will know that I am gone . . . When my mother told my butcher grandfather—racist, blackjack sticking from his back pocket—that he was going there if he didn’t change his ways, accept Jesus as his personal savior, he’d always say, “But I’m already in hell.” Though it didn’t sound that bad: bathtub gin and a pickled hot pepper in his left hand whenever he ate, even waffles, his wife Mamie and the wives of other men— including the one he brained with a ketchup bottle as he stocked the shelves—until a stroke and blindness, the untuned song of his final diminishment.

William Greenway’s Selected Poems is from FutureCycle Press and his newest and twelfth collection is The Accidental Garden from Word Press. His collections, Everywhere at Once and Ascending Order (both from University of Akron Press Poetry Series) won Poetry Book of the Year Awards from the Ohio Library Association. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Poetry, Missouri Review, Southern Review, Georgia Review, Southern Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, and Shenandoah. He has won numerous awards including Georgia Author of the Year. He is Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at Youngstown State University and lives in Ephrata, Pennsylvania.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Dear Suicide Bomber John Haugh I know something of the lush pull of darkness taking my hand, it feels like warm massage oil when my days weigh like a sand-filled backpack over a hair shirt. I think of that industrial bridge flashing so much pale white leg. I think of disabled air bags, getting drunk on my car's speed & physics & impact. There can be so many valid reasons. Can we speak of justice & hope for children? Can we speak of our shared world, consider our sloth & sunflower? Understand eel & otter? Reflect on the Mind that created dogs & dolphins & can we postpone the other?

Oaring through Air John Haugh Take me along, through Oktoberfest crisp weather toward Kodachrome gold & pine green skylines. Take & teach me your perfect, stately formations oaring through air. Winter may refuse to release her grip on my glum lump flesh. Sweep me up in long-necked songs, sailing feather-sculpted blue air canals, winging below contrails, toward warm, shared dreams. Take me from this narrow life, into your eternal cycle, as one goose becomes all geese, until all our fire burns low.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Repurposed Ghost John Haugh So, presuming you can still hear me, Dad, your Oregon State Bar eulogy reads, “age 62,” and “able to confound not only courtroom opponents, but also his closest friends.” When did lawyering become more of a part time job? Did you feel your cold wind and fight back, wild? All due respect for the first black convict to successfully sue a Mississippi cop, and organizing freedom riders before leveraging your Forest Service uniform into a spot on stage during Dr. King’s I have a dream, August of ’63, All due respect for helping save that species of fish, shutting down a nuclear plant for safety, starting your brilliant, black tie Monopoly tournament, and some insightful parenting, but damn, man. I’d happily take a kidney punch, piss blood for a month to share two quiet burgundies, talk time and cost tonight.

John Haugh’s writing has been published in Main Street Rag, Notre Dame Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, The Tipton Poetry Review, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. He won the Nancy J. Heggem Poetry Award, and was selected for Winston-Salem’s Poetry in Plain Sight. Mr. Haugh lives in North Carolina, was a NCAA national champion in fencing and spent untold hours browsing Powell’s City of Books in Oregon when young. With help, he is working on a chapbook that might be titled Six Conversation, a mixtape and repurposed ghosts.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Be Slow Like Us Colleen June Glatzel The last time I heard church bells, they sang while a girl read her poem to strangers. She cried because she thought she had lost somebody important, but she was found alive. I told her the church bells always meant something. One month later: I walk downtown to meet him. At the beginning of my walk, a man walks out of the taxi headquarters and yells at a car in passing traffic, “Slow down, asshole!” I take this as a sign from the universe. I slow down, literally, physically. I slow down because I’m the asshole the messages are for today. The church bells resonate. Slow. Deliberate. Slow. If they were an asshole nobody would tell them to slow down. Two turtles banging shells together kind of slow. Those bells always mean something. I thought I lost somebody important, too. The church bells are telling me I haven’t. He hugs me and it feels like the warm oatmeal he doesn’t get to eat because they don’t serve it after five. It takes us forever to order because we can’t stop talking. Two people have to ask if we’re in line. He gets toast instead of oatmeal. I like him. We drink tea. We talk. I think our knees are touching, but it could also be the table’s pole.

Tipton Poetry Journal Sometimes his eyes can’t meet mine. There’s this quote that says, “There are two types of people who can’t look you in the eyes. Someone trying to hide a lie, and somebody trying to hide a love.” I opt for “hiding a love”. I have one reason. The church bells. We walk together downtown until we arrive at the Mobil station. We hug once more. I sprout temporary invisible wings like the Pegasus that burns red and watches over us. We go in different directions. I slow down, literally, physically. A turtle with her home on her back. I take my time. I am home. I am crying. I know how exhausting it is to find somebody you thought you lost forever alive. I remember being in a field once while it was burning. Somebody saw a turtle and yelled, “Save it!” We were told it had a shell to crawl into, and that made it safer than anybody. Eight months later: The bells weren’t saying I hadn’t lost somebody. The bells were mimicking the taxi driver. The bells were saying, “Slow down, asshole. Be slow like us.” He wasn’t hiding a love. It’s been eight months. I’m in my shell. I’ll survive.

Tipton Poetry Journal

French Colleen June Glatzel I randomly and uncontrollably spoke in a French accent as we left our American Cafe. It built up in me like a rogue sneeze. My voice was petite in my mouth. I’s became e’s. My e’s were sustained, held long, cradled like a sleepy infant. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Th to dz. H’s more silent than our small town roads. The only thing more stressed than me were my last syllables. I was not faking. I was suddenly French. You hooked your arm through mine as we walked down the drizzled downtown streets. I told you I wanted to be called Phoebe or maybe Ophelia. Phoebe because I run like Phoebe from Friends. Formless running, all over town, searching. Or Ophelia because I was figuratively drowning. We talked about all the places we wanted to go, like everything was completely normal. India, Ireland, France. Before we parted ways, you held me like I held my e’s. Long and tenderly, like something we were afraid to break. Colleen June Glatzel is based in Waukesha, Wisconsin. She is the author of Hey, Joey Journal, published by Rogue Phoenix Press. When she’s not writing, she’s dealing antiques, acting or painting.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Overcoat Antonia Clark Oversized and roomy, a coat the color of smoke. His father wore it to work, wore it summer and winter. Its deep pockets smelled of wintergreen and tobacco, held keys, pennies, sourballs wrapped in cellophane. Sometimes the boy found a silver dollar there, a pack of licorice gum, and once, a pair of Red Sox tickets. In the overcoat, his father stood tall, his shoulders broad and strong, never shaking as they did when he hunched on the edge of the bed, when he doubled over coughing. In the overcoat, his father spoke the truth, spoke in a firm, clear voice. At work, he told the other men what to do. He said no, like this, and we'll see about that. At home he said, This is how it should be, this is our family. He said, Don't worry, boy. I'm not going anywhere. [Previously published in Soundzine, 2009]

Tipton Poetry Journal

The Woman Who Picked Me Up Antonia Clark had slammed on the brakes of her rusty Dodge, deciding to pull over, after all had streaked hair and muddy boots, a lazy eye and, once in a while, a wistful look had a gallon of milk and a six-pack, a torn map, and a hammer on the seat between us had to have been under 30, but claimed she was no spring chicken in dog years had her radio tuned to country and tried to sing along, but didn't really know the words had a way of asking questions, then not waiting for the answers, in a breezy inoffensive way had two kids back at her mother's, one that cried all the time, one that never did had just got out of someplace, I don't know what or where, but it changed her life had seen the light, turned a corner, put the past behind her, and a 4-day drive ahead had me thinking, when I got clean I'd buy a pickup, drive hard and fast to someplace I've never been. [Previously published in Soundzine, 2009]

Tipton Poetry Journal

Makeover Antonia Clark What little he asked, I gave: locks of my hair, fingernail clippings, even my tears saved up in a mustard jar. Later, of course, he wanted more â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a tooth, a finger bone, the white skin of my thighs. How could I know that he sketched furtive portraits, took my full measure, while I peeled apples, folded sheets, sloshed basins of dishwater. Nights, while he waited alone in our room, I scraped skin from my wrists, bled into a cup. They say that after I'd gone, he put me back together, flesh and blood and bone, that I learned to speak in a new tongue, learned to lie unresisting beneath him, came alive for him as never before. [Previously published in Soundzine, 2009]

Antonia (Toni) Clark is a writer and editor and coadministers an online poetry forum, The Waters. She has published a chapbook, Smoke and Mirrors, and a full-length poetry collection, Chameleon Moon. Her poems and stories have appeared in many journals, including 2River View, The Cortland Review, The Pedestal Magazine, and Rattle. Toni lives in Vermont, loves French picnics, and plays French cafĂŠ music on a sparkly purple accordion.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Better Angels Greg Field Faces sink away from bone. Smiles reveal the jumbled stones of a childâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s drawn graveyard. So we become our own better angels, wings trimmed by dusty feathers in sticky wax. The clergy ask how much good is better, but we snip the twisty hairs sprouted from mottled wens awash in wrinkles pulling down loose jaws. For us all, the questions are answered, all the kisses are our last kisses. Drool licked to the corners of our mouths as we run, flap, flap, across the holy ground

Greg Field is a writer, artist, musician, and sailor. He plays in the band River Cow Orchestra, a totally improvisational jazz group and in the band Brother Iota, a space/rock music group. He has a BFA and an MA in painting and his paintings are in several private collections around the country. His poems have been published in many journals and anthologies including New Letters, Laurel Review, Chiron Review, Flint Hills Review. His book The Longest Breath (MidAmerica Press) was a Thorpe Menn Finalist. His new book, released from Mammoth Press is Black Heart, which focuses on his Native American heritage. He lives in Independence, Missouri with his wife, poet Maryfrances Wagner and their dog, Sylvia Plath.

Tipton Poetry Journal

The Polydactyl Convention Gilbert Allen At the coat rack, they take off their mittens for free admission—trading high-sixes and low jokes about whose littlest member’s really the smallest. At the open bar, somebody always brags about his Hemingway cat. They serve themselves six-finger drinks. Seeing double, they start turning what’s clear as each hand in front of their faces into a dozen doozies. Every year they play each other like customized clarinets, like violins that couldn’t pass Quality Control. They trade drunken stories that end with a little extra, more or less: In Holland they always had one more way to be a hero. In Harlem they always had one more chance to get it wrong.

Gilbert Allen's most recent collection of poems is Catma, from Measure Press. His book of linked stories, The Final Days of Great American Shopping, was published by University of South Carolina Press in 2016. A frequent contributor to TPJ, he is a member of the South Carolina Academy of Authors and the Bennette E. Geer Professor of Literature Emeritus at Furman University.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Erasing black Timothy Pilgrim I live a midnight vigil, lie still in snow whipped by Gary lake wind, try to dream my father back, deliver a proper farewell -will wrap myself in his gaze as he recalls how wild rabbits nibbled near his feet at sundown. The motion sensor made darkness spring to light. They froze, hopped, froze again. If I feign sleep, maybe they will arrive in small leaps, him trailing with a smile to release the loss, transform my dream into a gateway to the past -boy, age two, dad, paralyzed by polio, alone in some hospital. I refuse to eat, sit by the window, breathless, wait. He lurches on crutches from the night, brings back a steady light.

Timothy Pilgrim, Bellingham, Washington, is a Pacific Northwest poet with over 380 published poems and an associate professor emeritus at Western Washington University. He has acceptances by journals such as Seattle Review, Third Wednesday, Windsor Review, Windfall, San Pedro River Review and Tipton Poetry Journal and is author of Mapping water (Flying Trout Press, 2016). His work can be seen at www.timothypilgrim.org.

Tipton Poetry Journal

An Unwelcome Season Donald Gasperson itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an unwelcome season when beliefs are necessary but we listen as if wrong to all those winter moments that lie within ourselves keeping us warm and we abide in that meager quiet for a leafless afternoon or a solitary evening when a simple cup of tea is a lonely ceremony contemplating beginnerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mind writing poetry

Donald Gasperson has a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from the University of Washington and a Master of Arts degree in Clinical Psychology from Pepperdine University. He has worked primarily as a psychiatric rehabilitation counselor. He writes as an exercise in physical, mental and spiritual health. He has been published or has been accepted for publication by Five Willows Literary Review, Poetry Pacific, Three Line Poetry, Quail Bell Magazine and Big Windows Review. He lives in Klamath Falls, Oregon.

Tipton Poetry Journal

What to Do with Intangibles Michael Keshigian Early morning, a little snow teases the outstretched branches with the help of the wind. It is cold, but inside the stove’s warmth cradles the recliner in the lamplight where he reads poems. His fingers, thick and calloused, flip pages enthusiastically as he notices the shape of his nails, much like his father’s, no moons rising. And like his father had done, it’s time to contemplate departure. One day, the stove unlit, will dispense the damp aroma of creosote, the book will lie closed upon the arm of the recliner. One day, a relative will enter and acknowledge that the house is empty, no warmth, no breath, no poetry, an indentation upon the seat next to the book. The change will go unnoticed by the snow, wind, ice, and those few crows meandering for morsels upon the buried landscape. He returns to reading, the words delight him. What would become of these joys, he wonders. Someone should take them.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Moonbeam Michael Keshigian Every night a different message. Tell me tonight about the translucent bones of icicles on the gutter. Their tale is a disclosure of your stalking. You enter as a burglar through a window of your choosing on the heels of darkness and leave no fingerprints, yet cleverly steal away secrets between the elusive shadows you create, some darker than others, convoluted figures rummaging in the most remote corners of the room. The sleepless await an explanation but your peering eyes slip away when the clouds make you blink. If you do take something, no one is the wiser. The sand in your light eventually blinds into submission the most suspicious who, in the morning, awake inspired yet unaware of your intrusion, until the icicles drip in the rising sunlight.

Michael Keshigian from New Hampshire, had his 12th poetry collection, Into The Light, released in 2017 by Flutter Press (https://www.createspace.com/7037872). He has been published in numerous journals including The California Quarterly, Red River Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, Illyaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Honey and has appeared as feature writer in over 20 publications with 6 Pushcart Prize and 2 Best Of The Net nominations. (michaelkeshigian.com)

Tipton Poetry Journal

Cloister John P. Kristofco For Sister Clotilde

For the world that takes what it can get from life, (even what it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need), she prays; for the world from which she stands apart, closed off like so many peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dreams, even though it seems a waste to everyone who understands the currency of victory and loss, (though unsure which is which). She puzzles with the apple choice, the bomb, her will to live in poverty, making space for all of them, even though they do not know, as closed off as they are in the noisy cloister of their separate skin and soul. John P. (Jack) Kristofco's poetry and short stories have appeared in about two hundred publications, including: Folio, Cimarron Review, Slant, Rattle, Santa Fe Literary Review, and Misfit. He has published three poetry collections and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times. Jack lives in Ohio.

Child of the Canal Tom Sheehan With cold iron we pulled her up through a mouth of ice, the pale blue and white dress twisted as if some unearthly god had fouled her further paleness, eyes hammered shut, her hair caught in one final sweep. Night too trod silver on her face where a faint star shone.

Tipton Poetry Journal Parents, rooted, twined, came part of the moaning adrift on darkness, wind and water at turmoil. This was her great step forward, escape from smaller joys, a mouth of water at elsewhere sears away the parching, leaks down through the dry scars of July, a throat driven arid by August with its harsh fistfuls. At another time she ladled the worn pewter cup at well, cooled her lips with a moment of deep rock, roots shifting underground, years of sediment from up this other rocky throat. Stars shine there, passing softly through the bucket handle, where the Seven Sisters see Seven Sisters in that low field. Oh, we raked her in from the stars.

Tom Sheehan (31st Infantry, Korea 1951-52; Boston College 195256) has published 32 books, has multiple works in Rosebud, Linnetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Wings, Serving House Journal, Literally Stories, Copperfield Review, Literary Orphans, Indiana Voices Journal, Frontier Tales, Western Online Magazine, Faith-Hope and Fiction, Eastlit, Rope & Wire Magazine, The Literary Yard, Green Silk Journal, Fiction on the Web, The Path, etc. He has 33 Pushcart nominations, 5 Best of the Net nominations (one winner). Back Home in Saugus (a collection) is being considered, as is Valor's Commission ( a collection of war and post war tales reflecting the impact of PTSD). He was 2016 Writer-in-Residence at Danse Macabre in Las Vegas. In the production queue at Pocol Press are

two western collections, Catch a Wagon to a Star and Between Mountain and River; a sports poetry collection, Jock Poems and Reflections for Proper Bostonians; and Alone, with the Good Graces, a new collection of stories. Tom lives in Massachusetts.

Tipton Poetry Journal

I Have To Admit George Fish that writing about myself as being merely an old man wearily traveling that final stretch of the Road to Death gives me a positive Schadenfruede about myself, my travails, my dreams and hopes, dashed and otherwise; along with my sense of overall life failure, despite some late-life partial successes. Take that with you, you who might consider yourself my friends, and hold it as close as you wish, for whatever you think it’s worth; for however worthwhile you yourself may consider it to be—or not. Because, is it not all up to you at this point, my friends? I’ve said my piece, my words, my thoughts— and that’s all I can do anymore,

Tipton Poetry Journal and can really do nothing else. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m finished, for all but the final denouement. Adieu, but hopefully, never goodbye.

George Fish is a self-described Punk Rock Poet whose poetry has appeared in Tipton Poetry Journal, Flying Island Journal, the political magazine New Politics, the literary anthology And Then, and elsewhere. Mr. Fish is also an extensively-published nonfiction writer, and does Lenny Bruce/George Carlin-inspired stand-up comedy, all while simultaneously working a blue-collar unionized job with (and despite) also holding a college degree and being a proud member of UFCW Local 700. He lives in Indianapolis.

Eighty-six Henry Ahrens Morning I wonder if Ruthie will wake, coffee wafts through the kitchen while I boot the computer, tap plastic case while program spins digital magic, and I get the best little thrill when I hear her shuffle in; another day another life here we go again, cursor blinks caffeine kicks, ready to write ready to live to eighty-six.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Awake Henry Ahrens Like a swimmer pulling himself dripping to the pool deck I am pulled out of sleep when I hear you tripping down the stairs, splashed wide awake when the front door slams on realizing that soon you will be diving through the surface of your life, backing out of the driveway, driving up the street. For years I’ve been the one to creak your bedroom door, never greased the hinges. I’ve broken the watery surface of your consciousness too many mornings to count. The hallway light revealed ice cream bowls, leftover plates, floor that held a week’s worth of shirts and pants, barely. For years you’ve been swimming laps twenty-five yards at a time, doing flip-turns over and over and over, too many times to count, till your thighs and knees ached. Soon enough there will be no more practice, no more laps, no more lane lines, no shirts or pants on the floor, no wall clocks, no walls to push off. Still I can’t grease the hinges. Henry Ahrens writes from the forested hills of Cincinnati, Ohio, where he teaches a variety of high school English classes. His work has appeared recently in Tipton Poetry Journal, From the Edge of the Prairie, and Indiana Voice Journal.

Tipton Poetry Journal

A Migrant’s Lay Alessio Zanelli They’d said at least I would have had a chance. It took me endless days, a slave again, and sleepless nights, with past and future ghosts, to save the cash and find the guts for it. I’ll always bless the time at last I quit. No desert, thug or sickness could have me, as long as my beloved child walked by, until this long-awaited water did. Already gone, I only let it win when trawlers neared my girl and pulled her in.

Resurfacing Alessio Zanelli The blanket of years, dropped but unsettled. Days to come along lying underneath. About to resurface, layer after layer. Tales to be rewritten if already written once. All yet to be confronted, reviewed and rearranged. Loose pages recollected and fitted into a finished book. Alessio Zanelli, Italian, has long adopted English as his literary language and his work has appeared widely in magazines from 13 countries including, in the USA: California Quarterly, Hawai’i Pacific Review, Italian Americana, The Lyric, Poetica Magazine, Potomac Review, Santa Clara Review, Sanskrit, The Worcester Review and World Literature Today. His fourth collection, Over Misty Plains, was published in 2012 by Indigo Dreams (UK). For more information please visit http://www.alessiozanelli.it

Tipton Poetry Journal

Heart, broken Denise Thompson-Slaughter Tonight our son stands on the deck in the rain conversing with himself. Yes, he has a waterproof jacket on—I’ve checked— tho’ nothing on his stubborn head but a thick mat of untamed curls. This son, who, in ‘92 won the local pharmacy’s Most Beautiful Baby contest and a month of free diapers, now has messy whiskers and a pot belly and is unaware that his shirt is on backwards. This boy who loved broccoli and got recruited for a modeling gig at age five, (but was too squirmy to be invited back), this child who understood negative numbers and surface tension before first grade (we thought he was headed for science or engineering), then one day put his head down on the table, hands on either side, and wailed “My brain is going too fast!”— this boy by twelfth grade could barely pass basic math or English classes. My kind, strong, big-bellied, bewhiskered, junk-food-craving, sloppy man-child is standing in the rain lost in fantasies of the Blitzkrieg and Buddha, the Dalai Lama and dragons, Roman centurions and Rastafarians — his torrent of words never runs dry. And the deluge smashes against the dam of my heart. But I’ve learned not to go there, not to linger at the bottomless whirlpool of What could I have done differently/ why didn’t we face it and get earlier intervention/ would anything have made a difference/ why wasn’t I more patient/ what oh what would it be like to have a normal family [Normal’s just a setting on the dryer!”] and the eternal universal self-pitying “Why me?” [Why not?] We cannot cry because if we do we’ll never stop.

Tipton Poetry Journal By 3, Ferdinand the Bull was one of his favorite books, but he became anxious whenever Ferdinand was about to be stung by the bee hiding amidst the flowers. “OUCH!” he’d say, pointing at the page. “Ouch! Hurts!” As many times as he requested that book— even more often than that since— I’ve had occasion to remember Ferdinand’s wise mother. She knew her son was different. She knew not to force him to play with the other bulls when he didn’t want to. All Ferdinand wanted to do was sit and smell the flowers. Tonight all our son wants to do is to stand in the dark and talk to the rain. Ouch! hurts! But I see the sky releasing for us a billion blocked tears.

Denise Thompson-Slaughter is a writer living in Western New York. Spirited Muse Press has just released her second book of poetry, Sixty-ish: Full Circle. The first was Elemental, published by Plain View Press in 2010. Her novella, Mystery Gifts, will be published by Spirited Muse Press later this year. In addition, she has had one short story and a number of short memoir pieces published in various literary journals and anthologies. She retired in 2017 from her day job as managing editor of the quarterly journal, Reviews in American History, and is trying to finish up a number of writing projects that have been shelved too long.

Papercut Bilal Moin creased yet colourful origami of split hearts Hellish papercut

Bilal Moin is a 16 year old poet from Mumbai, India who curates his poetry on a personal blog (www.ideajunkyard.wordpress.com). He mainly pen haikus and continuous haikus (where each stanza of a poem is a haiku).

Tipton Poetry Journal

What Happens Then Joan Colby The virus catcher patrols behind the screen To kidnap a program into quarantine Like a man with a net for strays. In the dark ages, a third of mankind died. Red slashes of paint on the lintels. Burials in mass graves. A patient with MRSA Yellow sticker on the closed door. Hazmat suits and plastic booties. The colt with bastard strangles Struggles for breath, Lungs and liver imperiled What should have broken And drained went inwards Like resentment, sickening, wordless. A rabid skunk In the chicken house. Indiscriminate slaughter. Like the church shooter Or the hotel shooter Or the school shooter. Seek the vanished program That made art possible Turn it loose. There’s a button called Restore. There’s a button Called Exclude. Joan Colby Joan Colby has published widely in journals such as Poetry, Atlanta Review, South Dakota Review,etc. Awards include two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards, an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature. She has published 16 books including Selected Poems” from FutureCycle Press which received the 2013 FutureCycle Prize and “Ribcage” from Glass Lyre Press which has been awarded the 2015 Kithara Book Prize.Colby is also an associate editor of Good Works Review and FutureCycle Press.

Tipton Poetry Journal

dyslexia Diana L. Conces Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s go fishing for letters in the inky sea. One teases your hook, flops: d or b? before sliding away in the turbulence. Words glide among the sentences like minnows lost among the reeds, elusive, shadows that brush against the line before sliding into the deep. Line after line we cast, coming up with nothing, fragments of nonsense, old boots, tin cans with the meaning rusted off. The long sun burning through our patience as your boat stays empty and all around excited fishermen land red fish and sail home, boats overflowing.

Diana L. Conces lives and writes in Round Rock, Texas. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, as well as a newspaper and city bus. Her novel, The Golden Feather, will be released in mid-2018.

Tipton Poetry Journal

How to Cope Christopher Stolle I Late summer harvests ripeness sown by early spring, and now beets stew in Grandma’s least favorite pot. It’s stained beyond any other use. Best to accept its role in life. Which one earned that pronoun’s antecedent— I didn’t dare to ask. How could you argue with realizations cultivated during one’s lifetime? Those beets smelled sweet like corn or melons, and she piled them high on my plate. But my tongue looked pink enough— even if it missed dessert that night. II Rotating circular knives chop wild green onions— their piquancy released, choking milder smells. Untamed animals yank and chew with abandon. We know better to not try to intervene. They scurry away, tittering, to warn others to avoid those patches near rustic fences. But who can ignore vibrant morsels abounding? Let them journey through their own Bildungsroman. We’re trying to navigate our own transitions. We find those places where we know we belong. We tug on stark green scallions in their soiled wombs. If they unhinge easily, we give them new life.

Tipton Poetry Journal III Coffee beans trap roiling tsunamis inside, awaiting to awash drinkers with respite. Starbucks provides portals to ancient lands where evolution turns tiny fruit into venti cups. Holidays meant hearing water filter into midnight and conversations about replaced traditions percolate. Roasted chicken and crockpot beans couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t compete with what Grandma poured into embossed china. Different profiles melded, shocking my breathing and bringing calm to anxiety I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t name. One taste sold me on another decision: Give me endless tea spiked with milk and sugar.

My Father, Bipolar Showman Christopher Stolle My father came into this world too early. He left this planet unwillingly even earlier. Premature. Lacking ripeness but still trying to produce fruit. Turning from this father with playful ambitions into that grandfather with calloused dreams.

Tipton Poetry Journal Mysterious. Pilfering puzzle pieces from your eyes and misplacing them. Saying grace at holiday gatherings but remaining solemn when words could heal our emotional cuts. Forgiven. Finding ways to grieve but moving forward by walking backward. My father departed this universe much too late. He arrived somewhere undefined much too soon.

Christopher Stolle's poetry has appeared most recently or is forthcoming in Tipton Poetry Journal, Flying Island, Branches, Indiana Voice Journal, Black Elephant, Ibis Head Review, Edify Fiction, The Poetry Circus, Smeuse, The Gambler, 1932 Quarterly, Brickplight, Medusa's Laugh Press, and Sheepshead Review. He works as an acquisitions and development editor for Penguin Random House and lives in Richmond, Indiana.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Saw It On Facebook KG Newman The news follows you everywhere, makes you tired, and when pulling in the driveway you wave at neighbors whose names you can’t remember: You just know they’re good people. All algorithms aside, you’d like to remove the sourcing for once. You want it direct from the president. For every podcast, five facts. For each release, sodium pentothal. If we could all get on the same page there’d be no need for subconscious alerts, or the inversion of truth into something spliced, and easy.

KG Newman is a sports writer for The Denver Post. His first two poetry collections, While Dreaming of Diamonds in Wintertime and Selfish Never Get Their Own, are available on Amazon. The Arizona State University graduate is on Twitter @KyleNewmanDP.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Wood Kurt Saunders Wood breaks reluctantly, jaggedy and splintery. Wood persists. Relentlessly, it resists the split. Kurt Saunders resides in Los Angeles and is a professor of business law at California State University, Northridge. He has authored two books, one on internet law and the other on intellectual property law, and has published a number of articles in academic legal journals. He has published poetry in Taproot Literary Review and Raystown Review.

Rape and Shell Collecting Gene Twaronite A young teacher listened as his student shared her story— which like all her stories he found impossible to classify— told with the usual verve, drama and many-layered shells of fact, fiction, truth, and beauty, involving two neighborhood boys and the rape of her friend in a world far beyond the classroom. Watching her depart, he returned to his classroom, dark and empty. Whatever advice he had offered in reply to her story is forgotten. All he could hear was the word rape. Tomorrow his students were to learn how to classify in the language of science and, he hoped, to appreciate the beauty on display in trays filled with brightly colored shells— olives, whelks, augers, turkey wings, cockles, and tulip shells— he had collected at Myrtle Beach to bring back to the classroom to share with his students their intricate beauty and a part of himself in the wondrous story of their discovery while his students learned to classify, but there was that word again—rape.

Tipton Poetry Journal Why did it haunt him so? After all, it was not her rape but her friend’s. Yet now the shells had lost their luster and become mere random objects to classify in yet another sterile exercise in the classroom with no connection to the human story, no intrinsic beauty. How could students like her appreciate the beauty of nature’s diversity against the brutality of rape that should never be part of a thirteen-year-old’s story yet there it was, calcifying year by year into hardened shells to block out memories from life’s ugly classroom of events and things they cannot classify. How could he expect them to appreciate and classify objects when they could not appreciate their own terrible beauty? He expected them to sit and learn in the classroom when they came to him with lives inconceivable where rape shatters hopes and dreams like storm-tossed shells and making it through another day is the only story. But by first period the students learned to classify as the teacher shared his story of discovery in the classroom bathed with morning sunshine where rape was held at bay. Somewhere a woman recalls the beauty in trays of colored shells.

Gene Twaronite, who lives in Tucson, Arizona, is the author of six books, including two juvenile fantasy novels. His first book of poetry, Trash Picker on Mars, has recently been published by Aldrich Press. Visit his website at http://www.thetwaronitezone.com.

Tipton Poetry Journal

To the Bottle in the Front Seat Jim Knapp I woke, not to the sound of a truck wrapping its rusty bumper around a maple tree or a radiator exploding into the stillness of an October night or to sirens and machines that bend metal in search of a heartbeat or even to firemen talking about pictures on the dash of his bride and children. I woke, not to the smell of burning oil and gasoline and steam that mixed with fog to surround the truck with dense vapor or the exhaust from firetrucks and ambulances blocking the road, waiting for a pulse. I woke, not to the sight of blue and red lights pulsing into the night sky or of blood, bright as neon announcing some attraction or the sight of fused metal surrounding my old tree like a wedding ring. I woke, not to the chill of an October mist or the feel of my own heartbeat racing into burning oil, steam, fog or the feel of a door handle hopelessly jammed into confusion. I woke, rather, to tiny shards of glass raining through the trees and onto the roof and drivewayâ&#x20AC;&#x201C; clinking like a wedding toast in a crowded room, Tiny shards of happiness falling to the ground, And you, sitting there, the only glass unbroken.

Jim Knapp is an Adjunct Professor at Ivy Tech Community College in Indianapolis. He holds a B.S. and a Ph.D. in Engineering from the University of Iowa. Jim and his family have lived in Indiana for 30 years where he has worked in industry, owned a small business (musical instruments), and taught at Ivy Tech.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Fly, Gypsy, Fly Doris Lynch Violet Trefusis to Vita Sackville-West

Mon Cherie, Denys lies sequestered in his small hut, each day surrendering more of his flesh to air. At lunch mother rips apart another rabbit's breast, and insults me in new ways, each more shocking than the last. She accuses me of sapping Denys's strength, and insists that I divorce him because this scandal will pucker society’s flesh. Mon amour, when will you give up, as promised, Harold, the children, those flirtatious evenings with sly intellectuals? In the woods near here stands a Japanese garden complete with its own paper house. Let’s move there together. Today, for the first time, I rode into the sky in a wooden aeroplane. How afraid I was to venture so close to the gods, dependent on mere wooden planks and a cardboard roof. Would they take revenge on me for loving you, sex of my sex? But no, instead of reprimanding me, the gods meted out joy and such joy! My body never trembled so much as those thirty minutes flying above the earth. Below me, the fields unraveled checkered green cloths. Your heart pulsed, diamond-shaped and viscous. But no, it was a farmer's pond, silted over with mud. Two spotted cows leaned into it, two tiny figurines, drinking, drinking. How happy I was to kiss ground again, that same ground you’ll fly over soon, guided by love’s geometry of slanted light. Doris Lynch has recent work in this journal as well as Frogpond, Flying Island, Haibun Today, and the Atlanta Review. She won three Indiana individual artist's grants, and last year won the Genjuan International Haibun Award.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Letter to My Children Erin Wilson When I go I don't want you to grieve. I mean this. I'm not feigning generosity. I want you to behold the bumblebee getting sexy with the flower. Take in a sudden waft of cedar. Drink pop. Eat chips. Watch a good foreign flick. If you must cry, let it be after a good laughing jag. One day when travelling you'll come upon a horse standing in a lighted field. Notice that light. Erin Wilson has contributed poems to San Pedro River Review, Up the Staircase Quarterly, New Madrid, MockingHeart Review, and Mobius, The Journal of Social Change, among others. She lives in a small town in northern Ontario.

Hundred Yearsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; War Yvonne Green This is the most important moment In the last 15 years and the next 85 And you exoticise repression, Enjoy opera about benign supremacists Interspersed by elegant picnics, course by course Reassured over champagne, insulated. This is the most important moment In the last 15 years and the next 85 and over and over again you reason, That and that and that would be enough To make me into a terrorist, as though You can explain, relieve, own the mayhem With reason, transform it by your act Of imposed, assumed humanity.

Tipton Poetry Journal In Iran the blogger says you in the West Fail to grasp the double glance of our leaders, Westwards, Eastward, for you, for us, And lift sanctions with a focus on ISIL while Syria, Yemen, Gaza, Lebanon don’t fit The puzzle – it’s untidy but paying for their boys To die doesn’t seem to confuse you. There are no similes, metaphors, strophes That whistle in the trees under the Glyndebourne Which shades your picnics, there’s no silence Either in my bowed head or when I try To hold my back straight. My children live In impossible times and run amok as Children do, their fears are masked In where they’ll work, who they’ll love And not a lot is said about before war came explosions, Instead of the war games they play on consoles, It’s impossible now they’re old enough to sense that We’ll grow away from the front if we’re as lucky As we’ve been so far, although we remember Our parents’ wounds, oh oh tell me when to speak, Write, when to stay silent, how to teach, The when to pray, hold faith, take up arms.

Yvonne Green, who lives in Hendon, England and Herzliya, Israel, was born in London in 1957. Her first collection, Boukhara, won the 2007 Poetry Business Book and Pamphlet Competition. Her second collection, The Assay, won translation funds from Lord Gavron and Celia Atkin and was published in Hebrew by Am Oved as Hanisu Yi. Her third collection, After Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin, was the Poetry Book Society's Translation Choice for Winter in 2011. Her new collection will be published in 2018.

Tipton Poetry Journal

The Fifteen Piano Church Rosemary Freedman In November Marilyn, who was bipolar and borderline, finally died from complications from traumatic brain injury. We took her piano to the church. The chaplain, Craig, did not tell us that he had 14 other pianos. He was a people pleaser. He just wanted to say “yes.” I never understood my sister. Now, if I had it to do over, I would have turned left in the snow storm, and I would have gone to see her even though the photos of her drooling, and tilted in the wheelchair made me sick and made me cry. I cannot imagine the sound those 15 pianos could make if played at once. Perhaps the Beatles, “Here comes the sun” and my sisters crooked white teeth laughing and singing crookedly. I prefer to remember her like that. Sitting at the piano, her head always tilted to the left and her crooked teeth all shining like crooked moons her mercury always in retrograde. Rosemary Freedman is married and has seven children. She has a B.A. in creative writing and literature, and a master’s in nursing education, a post-masters as a Nurse Practioner and as a Clinical Nurse Specialist. When she is not writing poetry, she works as an advanced practice nurse. Rosemary lives in Carmel, Indiana.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Deer Season William Ogden Haynes On a breezy autumn day he sits halfway up a tree in a deer blind with a compound bow and nocked broadhead. Suddenly, there is a nearby rustle of leaves and crack of branches making him pull the bowstring taut. And from a tangled thicket emerges a rare, pure white albino deer, wearing short brown boots of mud on the snowy fur just above his hooves. The insides of his ears are a light pink and his eyes have just a tinge of pigmentation. The buck looks up at him as he strides proudly past the blind, his ten point rack a perfectly symmetrical candelabra. And as he leaves the clearing, he looks back at the hunter, somehow knowing that on this day, he is too magnificent to kill. But his beauty is all too notable against the palette of fall leaves. The hunter only hopes the buck can survive until the first snowfall.

William Ogden Haynes is a poet and author of short fiction from Alabama who was born in Michigan. He has published six collections of poetry (Points of Interest; Uncommon Pursuits, Remnants, Stories in Stained Glass, Carvings and Going South) and one book of short stories (Youthful Indiscretions) all available on Amazon.com. Over a hundred and fifty of his poems and short stories have appeared in literary journals and his work is frequently anthologized. http://www.williamogdenhaynes.com

Tipton Poetry Journal

Resting Universe Ken Tomaro The winds so rumbled through the hills by the lake the trees swayed angrily and stretched bowing to the people as they held tightly to their hats but could not fight against the gusting wind so they all blew away one after another violently crashing into each other until they resembled the flicked paint from the quick tap of a brush onto canvas and though it seemed random like wrinkles of skin resting on a weary brow I assure you it was all very much with purpose but the universe will never tell you that

Ken Tomaro is an artist and writer living in Cleveland, Ohio. He discovered early on painting was a good therapy for living with depression. He began writing poetry and found it to be an extension of that process. His writing can be dark just as life but that doesn't mean either is devoid of beauty. He has two published books of poetry, "Your Dog Called, Your Wife's on Fire" and "Drowning in My Shorts".

Tipton Poetry Journal

Virginian Tim Robbins Like Many Virginians, many truckers, he bears scars from a barely survived bout with eternity. If your bad luck uncovers his ridges, he’ll say they were won in a less spectacular, manlier way. It’s not that his conscience or his trailer are empty, now that he’s retired. They are simply driven by younger men. A piano-tuner, having sold his music store to a less promising generation, no longer tries to justify the shame that he can neither sing nor play a note. Tuner and Trucker meet in a play living room as dim, as tight, as provisional as the dinner at Emmaus. They haggle over a way south, a reverse underground railroad.

Tim Robbins teaches ESL. He has a B.A. in French and an M.A. in Applied Linguistics. His poems have appeared in Three New Poets, Slant, Main Street Rag, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Off The Coast, Tipton Poetry Journal and others. His collection Denny’s Arbor Vitae was published in 2017. He lives with his husband of twenty years in Kenosha, Wisconsin, birthplace of Orson Welles.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Turkeyhearts Tim Reisert bowltouch ovenworry cupcaress slicewish appletrust milkwarmth spoonhold ouncekiss peppersmile berryhope juicecry honeywords platelove cheesehug turkeyhearts & serve.

Library Tim Reisert He walked inside the library that sat in the shadow of the water tower. And through crisp light of its lobby. Glanced over to a squat gray copier where a woman placed papers of infant footprints onto the glass. Toes and whorls. Then to wood cases of card catalog drawers. Common maple. The busied librarian stamped smeared black dates onto a stack of childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s books. All turned to their last pages. To stroll down the aisle of dayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s newspapers draped over thin wood rods, over to the tables where as a boy he had thumbed through a glassine-covered picturebook about aliens that infected humans who then withered with resplendent red and green markings, much like the spread of veins in a broad leaf of lettuce. Tim Reisert lives and teaches in Cincinnati. He participates with the Ohio Writing Project.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Snow Globe Liz Marlow I feel you like a gust of wind coming down the chimney in December. You bring a chill to my hands where they once held you. I feel you in these words without imagination, colorless & senseless. I feel like I am in a snow globe without glitter, without a holiday scene. If you were here, glitter would be everywhere. Or maybe it wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t. Words & poems would never end. Or maybe they would. You see, I really wanted this poem to be about how much I miss you. However, the truth is that your death inspired me more than your life. What does that say about me? My daughter is obsessed with a video of a barracuda eating a lionfish. She watches it over and over again, because at the beginning both fish are alive.

Liz Marlow lives in Memphis, Tennessee with her husband and two children. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in The Binnacle Ultra-Short Edition, Deep South Magazine, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Muddy River Poetry Review, and elsewhere.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Photo â&#x20AC;&#x153;Cicada and Twigâ&#x20AC;? by Connie Kingman, Rensselaer, Indiana (reprinted with permission)

Connie Kingman is founder of Prairie Writers Guild and serves as managing editor for the Guild's anthology, From the Edge of the Prairie. She is a lifetime resident of Rensselaer, Indiana.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Coming Out of Its Shell John D. Groppe The cicada pushes itself through a slit in its crisp coating, once a support, a defense, now a constriction. Extricating its front legs, gripping the dry crust of its old cell, it pulls and pushes, a creature in labor to free itself, to expand, to move freely. Beside the delicate, transparent shell, the cicada grabs the tree bark, and, immobile, waits out a new peril, succulent prey until its body fills with fluid, until the lace of its wings unfolds. Safe now within a new constriction, it is free to roam, to sing, to mate, once again protected within an encasing constraint. What might Aesop have made of this? [Poem first published in Through the Sycamores, August 2017

John D. Groppe’s The Raid of the Grackles and Other Poems was published in 2016 by Iroquois River Press. Mr. Groppe was listed on Indiana’s bicentennial literary map 1816-2016 Literary Map of Indiana: 200 Years-200 Writers. He is Professor Emeritus of English at Saint Joseph’s College and a resident of Rensselaer, Indiana since 1962.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Andy Griffith Harold Ackerman WYSIWYG

1960s popular television streaked in gray and white, Jack Paar smiling dreamily at any overzealous remark; newsreels tracked John Glenn launching into space, white against ongoing black. This was before the beginning of endless news which started the day of the motorcade Nov. 22 1963, steady noisy shock media, with Kennedy dead. You're too young to remember in b&w the doubt over his killer-but anyway, no disrespect to John or Jackie or the Governor of Texas, that day easily, too easily perhaps, morphed into Andy Griffith, Walter Cronkite into small town crises easily solved in 20 minutes (period) You have never seen it in real time, but all that shifted again into an array of color which no one could regulate to start. Andy blurred on into full-scale Mayberry where he somehow became Sam Jones whose shirt was too blue. Howard's herringbone jacket shimmered unaccountably; outdoing Joseph's coat, it fairly exploded with fireworks. They hadn't got scintillation right, and we weren't accustomed yet to broadcasts

Tipton Poetry Journal slipping and shifting, let alone Disney Lego characters, not even human, and don't start me on hyper-saturation. I mean we didn't know media could fashion what we got. There have been other cases. No, no, don't get me wrong: this isn't about returning, now's the right place for love* [*https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44260/birches]

Andy and Sam and Bea stayed in their homey place as rural got purged from screens, but on the way out of b&w America, the red and white and blue stuttered. Listen, it's fair to say we got ahead of ourselves. We keep getting ahead of ourselves. There was Armstrong on the moon as Kennedy had promised, with us here predictably sure we knew entirely what would happen next.

Harold Ackerman lives and works in Berwick, Pennsylvania, close by the Susquehanna. He writes poetry and fiction and captures light with his Olympus. Enjoy his photo gallery at https://briarcreekphotos.weebly.com

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Office Paul Lojeski Unusually warm February day. In here sharp fluorescent glare, bright screen, bare walls. I pretend to be doing something, so the beast will turn away, so the beast will hunt elsewhere. So my days move along. Paul Lojeski was born and raised in Lakewood, Ohio. He attended Oberlin College. His poetry has appeared online and in print. He lives in Port Jefferson, New York.

Dress Rehearsal Charles Rammelkamp “Izzy was all about his D-Day exploits,” Jacob mused. “That ‘greatest generation’ nonsense. To hear him, he single-handedly saved the world from Hitler, a real Audie Murphy.” Jacob could say this, a World War Two vet himself, though he hadn’t seen much action, a stateside army journalist for four years, Izzy having been in the infantry overseas. “It was all he ever talked about, forging his old man’s signature to get in, fighting the Germans in France.” How tiresome it was! Jacob’s shrug confided. “You knew he re-joined for Korea, right? But apparently he was something of a goof-off. You must’ve heard his story about the shenanigans with the stolen jeep? That was Izzy, a cocky little bastard. Well, he dined out for seventy years on shooting German kids as scared as he was, you can say that much for him.”

Tipton Poetry Journal Izzy’d had a career in “the scrap metal business,” though not even his son could say exactly what Izzy did. Jacob had gone on to become a doctor, internal medicine, ran a clinic for the poor. “Well, here we are,” I said, driving up to the funeral home entrance, popping open the doors, scurrying around to the passenger’s side, to position his walker, lift him out of his seat. We were early enough, I hoped, to get him to an aisle seat up front where he could hear the rabbi’s eulogy for Izzy, Jacob’s hearing failing along with everything else.

Charles Rammelkamp is Prose Editor for BrickHouse Books in Baltimore, where he lives. His most recent books include American Zeitgeist (Apprentice House), which deals with the populist politician, William Jennings Bryan and a chapbook, Jack Tar’s Lady Parts, published by Main Street Rag Press. Another poetry chapbook, Me and Sal Paradise, is forthcoming from FutureCycle Press.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Birdsong Patrick Theron Erickson At the first sound of birdsong at daybreak the blinds break down and the drapes begin to leak the dam breaks and day floods in I’m inclined to break silence; I’m inclined to join in but it’s too farfetched and I’m too far afield I beat the chickens up but not the rooster It’s the first day of the rest of my life and I’m determined to start early but I don’t It’s too farfetched and I’m not nearly fetching enough It’s the first day of harvest; the day starts early the harvesters are in the fields and I’m resigned to follow after I’m content to glean the few golden stocks the harvesters miss Their day ends where mine begins—at the fencerows at the ancient boundaries We both stumble on that stumbling stone The cattle get there first I beat the rooster to the henhouse but not to the hens and not to the fox in the henhouse starting out early outwitting us all Turn down the blinds draw the drapes The last strains of birdsong are fading on our ears fading fast.

Patrick Theron Erickson, a resident of Garland, Texas, a Tree City, just south of Duck Creek, is a retired parish pastor put out to pasture himself. His work has appeared in Grey Sparrow Journal, Cobalt Review, and Burningword Literary Journal, among other publications, and more recently in Tipton Poetry Journal, Right Hand Pointing, Wilderness House Literary Review and Danse Macabre.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Alabama Thomas O’Dore December 5 \ 2017 a day long to be remembered as Alabama’s finest hour you surprise me \ Alabama I thought you lacked the moral spine to make the correct decision but now you’ve set a precedent perhaps other states will follow which would be a fortunate thing electing representatives according to their qualities not by political faction maybe this idea will catch on and voters turn purple with thought rather than red and blue non-think then we may have a government of the people \ by the people for the people….a republic I hoped there’d be a turning point an electorate wake-up call somewhere in this country to sound but never in my wildest dream expected it to come from you well done…Alabama…well done

Guys like Tom O’Dore don’t have biographies.

Tipton Poetry Journal Editor Barry Harris is editor of the Tipton Poetry Journal and two anthologies by Brick Street Poetry: Mapping the Muse: A Bicentennial Look at Indiana Poetry and Words and Other Wild Things. He has published one poetry collection, Something At The Center. Barry lives in Brownsburg, Indiana and is retired from Eli Lilly and Company. His poetry has appeared in Kentucky Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Grey Sparrow, Silk Road Review, Saint Ann‘s Review, Boston Literary Magazine, Night Train, Silver Birch Press, Flying Island, Awaken Consciousness, Writers‘ Bloc and Red-Headed Stepchild. One of his poems was on display at the National Museum of Sport and another is painted on a barn in Boone County, Indiana as part of Brick Street Poetry‘s Word Hunger public art project. His poems are also included in these anthologies: From the Edge of the Prairie; Motif 3: All the Livelong Day; and Twin Muses: Art and Poetry.

Contributor Biographies Harold Ackerman lives and works in Berwick, Pennsylvania, close by the Susquehanna. He writes poetry and fiction and captures light with his Olympus. Enjoy his photo gallery at https://briarcreekphotos.weebly.com Henry Ahrens writes from the forested hills of Cincinnati, Ohio, where he teaches a variety of high school English classes. His work has appeared recently in Tipton Poetry Journal, From the Edge of the Prairie, and Indiana Voice Journal. Gilbert Allen's most recent collection of poems is Catma, from Measure Press. His book of linked stories, The Final Days of Great American Shopping, was published by University of South Carolina Press in 2016. A frequent contributor to TPJ, he is a member of the South Carolina Academy of Authors and the Bennette E. Geer Professor of Literature Emeritus at Furman University. Cary Barney has lived in Spain for the past 26+ years. He teaches writing and theater at Saint Louis University's Madrid campus and holds an MFA in dramatic writing from the Yale School of Drama. His plays include The Wannsee Wedding, Buttercup, Children of Argos, Undershafted, and Lance & Lana. Antonia (Toni) Clark is a writer and editor and co-administers an online poetry forum, The Waters. She has published a chapbook, Smoke and Mirrors, and a full-length poetry collection, Chameleon Moon. Her poems and stories have appeared in many journals, including 2River View, The Cortland Review, The Pedestal Magazine, and Rattle. Toni lives in Vermont, loves French picnics, and plays Joan Colby has published widely in journals such as Poetry, Atlanta Review, South Dakota Review,etc. Awards include two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards, an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature. She has published 16 books including Selected Poems” from FutureCycle Press which received the 2013 FutureCycle Prize and Ribcage from Glass Lyre Press which has been awarded the 2015 Kithara Book Prize. Colby is also an associate editor of Good Works Review and FutureCycle Press.

Tipton Poetry Journal Diana L. Conces lives and writes in Round Rock, Texas. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, as well as a newspaper and city bus. Her novel, The Golden Feather, will be released in mid-2018. Patrick Theron Erickson, a resident of Garland, Texas, a Tree City, just south of Duck Creek, is a retired parish pastor put out to pasture himself. His work has appeared in Grey Sparrow Journal, Cobalt Review, and Burningword Literary Journal, among other publications, and more recently in Tipton Poetry Journal, Right Hand Pointing, Wilderness House Literary Review and Danse Macabre. Greg Field is a writer, artist, musician, and sailor. He plays in the band River Cow Orchestra, a totally improvisational jazz group and in the band Brother Iota, a space/rock music group. He has a BFA and an MA in painting and his paintings are in several private collections around the country. His poems have been published in many journals and anthologies including New Letters, Laurel Review, Chiron Review, Flint Hills Review. His book The Longest Breath (MidAmerica Press) was a Thorpe Menn Finalist. His new book, released from Mammoth Press is Black Heart, which focuses on his Native American heritage. He lives in Independence, Missouri with his wife, poet Maryfrances Wagner and their dog, Sylvia Plath. George Fish is a self-described Punk Rock Poet whose poetry has appeared in Tipton Poetry Journal, Flying Island Journal, the political magazine New Politics, the literary anthology And Then, and elsewhere. Mr. Fish is also an extensively-published nonfiction writer, and does Lenny Bruce/George Carlin-inspired stand-up comedy, all while simultaneously working a blue-collar unionized job with (and despite) also holding a college degree and being a proud member of UFCW Local 700. He lives in Indianapolis. Rosemary Freedman is married and has seven children. She has a B.A. in creative writing and literature, and a master’s in nursing education, a post-masters as a Nurse Practioner and as a Clinical Nurse Specialist. When she is not writing poetry, she works as an advanced practice nurse. Rosemary lives in Carmel, Indiana. George Freek is a poet/playwright living in Belvidere, Illinois. His poetry has appeared in Of Course, The Ottawa Review of the Arts, Limestone Journal, Carcinogenic Poetry, West Trade Review, and The Sentinel Literary Quarterly. His plays are published by Playscripts, Inc., Lazy Bee Scripts, and Off The Wall Plays. Donald Gasperson has a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from the University of Washington and a Master of Arts degree in Clinical Psychology from Pepperdine University. He has worked primarily as a psychiatric rehabilitation counselor. He writes as an exercise in physical, mental and spiritual health. He has been published or has been accepted for publication by Five Willows Literary Review, Poetry Pacific, Three Line Poetry, Quail Bell Magazine and Big Windows Review. He lives in Klamath Falls, Oregon. Colleen June Glatzel is based in Waukesha, Wisconsin. She is the author of Hey, Joey Journal, published by Rogue Phoenix Press. When she’s not writing, she’s dealing antiques, acting or painting.

Tipton Poetry Journal Yvonne Green, who lives in Hendon, England and Herzliya, Israel, was born in London in 1957. Her first collection, Boukhara, won the 2007 Poetry Business Book and Pamphlet Competition. Her second collection, The Assay, won translation funds from Lord Gavron and Celia Atkin and was published in Hebrew by Am Oved as Hanisu Yi. Her third collection, After Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin, was the Poetry Book Society's Translation Choice for Winter in 2011. Her new collection will be published in 2018. William Greenway’s Selected Poems is from FutureCycle Press and his newest and twelfth collection is The Accidental Garden from Word Press. His collections, Everywhere at Once and Ascending Order (both from University of Akron Press Poetry Series) won Poetry Book of the Year Awards from the Ohio Library Association. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Poetry, Missouri Review, Southern Review, Georgia Review, Southern Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, and Shenandoah. He has won numerous awards including Georgia Author of the Year. He is Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at Youngstown State University and lives in Ephrata, Pennsylvania. John D. Groppe’s The Raid of the Grackles and Other Poems was published in 2016 by Iroquois River Press. Mr. Groppe was listed on Indiana’s bicentennial literary map 18162016 Literary Map of Indiana: 200 Years-200 Writers. He is Professor Emeritus of English at Saint Joseph’s College and a resident of Rensselaer, Indiana since 1962. John Haugh’s writing has been published in Main Street Rag, Notre Dame Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, The Tipton Poetry Review, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. He won the Nancy J. Heggem Poetry Award, and was selected for Winston-Salem’s Poetry in Plain Sight. Mr. Haugh lives in North Carolina, was a NCAA national champion in fencing and spent untold hours browsing Powell’s City of Books in Oregon when young. With help, he is working on a chapbook that might be titled Six Conversation, a mixtape and repurposed ghosts. William Ogden Haynes is a poet and author of short fiction from Alabama who was born in Michigan. He has published six collections of poetry (Points of Interest; Uncommon Pursuits, Remnants, Stories in Stained Glass, Carvings and Going South) and one book of short stories (Youthful Indiscretions) all available on Amazon.com. Over a hundred and fifty of his poems and short stories have appeared in literary journals and his work is frequently anthologized. http://www.williamogdenhaynes.com Ruth Holzer’s poems have appeared in Connecticut River Review, Freshwater, Slant, Rhino, Southern Poetry Review and Poet Lore, as well as in several anthologies. Her chapbooks are The First Hundred Years, The Solitude Of Cities (Finishing Line Press) and A Woman Passing (Green Fuse Press). She lives in Virginia. Brendan Kearns is a photographer from Terre Haute, Indiana. His photography may be licensed from http://www.brendankearnsphotography.com. Michael Keshigian from New Hampshire, had his 12th poetry collection, Into The Light, released in 2017 by Flutter Press (https://www.createspace.com/7037872). He has been published in numerous journals including The California Quarterly, Red River Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, Illya’s Honey and has appeared as feature writer in over 20 publications with 6 Pushcart Prize and 2 Best Of The Net nominations. (michaelkeshigian.com) Connie Kingman is founder of Prairie Writers Guild and serves as managing editor for the Guild's anthology, From the Edge of the Prairie. She is a lifetime resident of Rensselaer, Indiana.

Tipton Poetry Journal Jim Knapp is an Adjunct Professor at Ivy Tech Community College in Indianapolis. He holds a B.S. and a Ph.D. in Engineering from the University of Iowa. Jim and his family have lived in Indiana for 30 years where he has worked in industry, owned a small business (musical instruments), and taught at Ivy Tech. John P. (Jack) Kristofco's poetry and short stories have appeared in about two hundred publications, including: Folio, Cimarron Review, Slant, Rattle, Santa Fe Literary Review, and Misfit. He has published three poetry collections and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times. Jack lives in Ohio. Paul Lojeski was born and raised in Lakewood, Ohio. He attended Oberlin College. His poetry has appeared online and in print. He lives in Port Jefferson, New York. Doris Lynch has recent work in this journal as well as Frogpond, Flying Island, Haibun Today, and the Atlanta Review. She won three Indiana individual artist's grants, and last year won the Genjuan International Haibun Award. Marianne Lyon has been a music teacher for 39 years. After teaching in Hong Kong she returned to the Napa Valley and has been published in various literary magazines and reviews. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2016. She is a member of the California Writers Club, Healdsburg Literary Guild and an Adjunct Professor at Touro University Vallejo California. Greg Maddigan lives in Spokane, Washington with his wife, Stacy, and their four children. He teaches at the On Track Academy and spends his summers living and writing in a little cabin near Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho. Greg is the author of the chapbook of poems, Paddling Through the Meridian’s Wake (Finishing Line Press). Greg’s poetry has also appeared in the The Legendary literary magazine. Liz Marlow lives in Memphis, Tennessee with her husband and two children. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in The Binnacle Ultra-Short Edition, Deep South Magazine, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Muddy River Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Bilal Moin is a 16 year old poet from Mumbai, India who curates his poetry on a personal blog (www.ideajunkyard.wordpress.com). He mainly pen haikus and continuous haikus (where each stanza of a poem is a haiku). KG Newman is a sports writer for The Denver Post. His first two poetry collections, While Dreaming of Diamonds in Wintertime and Selfish Never Get Their Own, are available on Amazon. The Arizona State University graduate is on Twitter @KyleNewmanDP. Guys like Tom O’Dore don’t have biographies. Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The New Yorker, Tipton Poetry Journal and elsewhere. He resides in East Hampton, New York. Timothy Pilgrim, Bellingham, Washington, is a Pacific Northwest poet with over 380 published poems and an associate professor emeritus at Western Washington University. He has acceptances by journals such as Seattle Review, Third Wednesday, Windsor Review, Windfall, San Pedro River Review and Tipton Poetry Journal and is author of Mapping water (Flying Trout Press, 2016). His work can be seen at www.timothypilgrim.org.

Tipton Poetry Journal Charles Rammelkamp is Prose Editor for BrickHouse Books in Baltimore, where he lives. His most recent books include American Zeitgeist (Apprentice House), which deals with the populist politician, William Jennings Bryan and a chapbook, Jack Tar’s Lady Parts, published by Main Street Rag Press. Another poetry chapbook, Me and Sal Paradise, is forthcoming from FutureCycle Press. Sarah Rehfeldt lives with her family in western Washington where she is a writer, artist, and photographer. Her publication credits include Appalachia; Blueline; Written River; Weber – The Contemporary West; and Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in poetry. Sarah is the author of Somewhere South of Pegasus, a collection of image poems. It can be purchased through her photography web pages at http://www.pbase.com/candanceski. Tim Reisert lives and teaches in Cincinnati. He participates with the Ohio Writing Project. Tim Robbins teaches ESL. He has a B.A. in French and an M.A. in Applied Linguistics. His poems have appeared in Three New Poets, Slant, Main Street Rag, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Off The Coast, Tipton Poetry Journal and others. His collection Denny’s Arbor Vitae was published in 2017. He lives with his husband of twenty years in Kenosha, Wisconsin, birthplace of Orson Welles. Kurt Saunders resides in Los Angeles and is a professor of business law at California State University, Northridge. He has authored two books, one on internet law and the other on intellectual property law, and has published a number of articles in academic legal journals. He has published poetry in Taproot Literary Review and Raystown Review. Tom Sheehan (31st Infantry, Korea 1951-52; Boston College 1952-56) has published 32 books, has multiple works in Rosebud, Linnet’s Wings, Serving House Journal, Literally Stories, Copperfield Review, Literary Orphans, Indiana Voices Journal, Frontier Tales, Western Online Magazine, Faith-Hope and Fiction, Eastlit, Rope & Wire Magazine, The Literary Yard, Green Silk Journal, Fiction on the Web, The Path, etc. He has 33 Pushcart nominations, 5 Best of the Net nominations (one winner). Back Home in Saugus (a collection) is being considered, as is Valor's Commission ( a collection of war and post war tales reflecting the impact of PTSD). He was 2016 Writer-in-Residence at Danse Macabre in Las Vegas. In the production queue at Pocol Press are two western collections, Catch a

Wagon to a Star and Between Mountain and River; a sports poetry collection, Jock Poems and Reflections for Proper Bostonians; and Alone, with the Good Graces, a new collection of stories. Tom lives in Massachusetts. Christopher Stolle's poetry has appeared most recently or is forthcoming in Tipton Poetry Journal, Flying Island, Branches, Indiana Voice Journal, Black Elephant, Ibis Head Review, Edify Fiction, The Poetry Circus, Smeuse, The Gambler, 1932 Quarterly, Brickplight, Medusa's Laugh Press, and Sheepshead Review. He works as an acquisitions and development editor for Penguin Random House and lives in Richmond, Indiana. Ken Tomaro has recently started to write poetry and has published two books: Your Dog Called, Your Wife’s On Fire and Drowning in My Shorts. Ken lives in Cleveland.

Tipton Poetry Journal Denise Thompson-Slaughter is a writer living in Western New York. Spirited Muse Press has just released her second book of poetry, Sixty-ish: Full Circle. The first was Elemental, published by Plain View Press in 2010. Her novella, Mystery Gifts, will be published by Spirited Muse Press later this year. In addition, she has had one short story and a number of short memoir pieces published in various literary journals and anthologies. She retired in 2017 from her day job as managing editor of the quarterly journal, Reviews in American History, and is trying to finish up a number of writing projects that have been shelved too long. Gene Twaronite, who lives in Tucson, Arizona, is the author of six books, including two juvenile fantasy novels. His first book of poetry, Trash Picker on Mars, has recently been published by Aldrich Press. Visit his website at http://www.thetwaronitezone.com. Erin Wilson has contributed poems to San Pedro River Review, Up the Staircase Quarterly, New Madrid, MockingHeart Review, and Mobius, The Journal of Social Change, among others. She lives in a small town in northern Ontario. Alessio Zanelli, Italian, has long adopted English as his literary language and his work has appeared widely in magazines from 13 countries including, in the USA: California Quarterly, Hawaiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;i Pacific Review, Italian Americana, The Lyric, Poetica Magazine, Potomac Review, Santa Clara Review, Sanskrit, The Worcester Review and World Literature Today. His fourth collection, Over Misty Plains, was published in 2012 by Indigo Dreams (UK). For more information please visit http://www.alessiozanelli.it.

Tipton Poetry Journal