18-9



The Beagle


She bites the bone with jowly jaws;
Halts its escape with padded paws,
Flush in the fire of sport, she gnaws.

In quiet triumph up she creeps;
Onto the master's bed she leaps,
And like the happy dead she sleeps.

by Daniel Galef

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Daniel Galef has written light verse, heavy verse, sketch comedy, prose fiction, comic strips, death threats, one short-lived scientific advice column, and just about everything else for a hundred different venues in a half-dozen countries. His latest musical play, The Original, is currently running at the Montreal Players' Theatre.

18-7



Therapying Thunderstorms

Thunderstorm! Thy thoughtlessness
thrums the throng. Thy thanklessness!
Throttle thy thickening,
that thunderous threadbare thing!
The thermostatic threat,
the thrilling thunder that
thrashes the thicket thick.
Thoughtless thingamajig,
think through the therapy!
Throw thunderclaps thriftily.

----

Robespierre's Ruin

Robespierre's regency
repressed resistance rabidly.
Radical, raw revolution's
result: ruthless retribution
ruined Robespierre's rivals,
ruleless racketeer's revival.
Raiders roared: "Recrimination!
Repressor's rotten reputation
razes, razzes radically,
racking rattler's rabies rally,
rampant rampage, ruptured, rare!
Rope repressor Robespierre!"
Robespierre returned: "Rough raiders!
Royalism's renovators!
Revolution's revelation
requires revitalization!"

Raiders roared: "Resolutely
rumple Roby's raw rump, rudely!"
Robespierre raved: "Reunite,
raze reaction, regicides!
Royalistic relic's rising
requires rough reorganizing!"
roaring, running, restlessly,
rancorous rabidity.
Raiders razed rude racketeer
Robespierre's rabid rear.
Recall, recapitulation:
Robespierre's ruination,
revolutionary rat race:
revolutionaries replaced
resolutely, radically,
rotten Robespierre rascally.

by Alex Dreppec

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Alex Dreppec has a lovely 16-month-old son who keeps him from writing bios with ideas like paddling in the toilet, watering the remote with his baby bottle, or putting little chocolate wafers into the shoes of his father. Who is a happy man! www.dreppec.de/english_dreppec.html

18-8



Sometimes Overt, Often Stealth

Let me tell you about my friend,
Fuck You. He's been with me for
so long now that I don't remember
when we met, but he's always been
on the roster, always been in my
ear, always been a presence,
sometimes overt, often stealth.

Let me tell you about my friend,
Fuck You and how I've missed the
way he stiffens my spine and
hardens my resolve, the way he
transforms frustration into fuel
like some kind of deep-set
photosynthesis that only exists
when the circumstances demand.

Let me tell you about my friend,
Fuck You and how he seems to
come around when I need him
the most, when I begin to buckle
and sway from the weight of all
that's come before and what
appears to lie ahead, a tightrope
walk in blizzard conditions.

And let me thank my friend,
Fuck You. Let me thank him for
the steadfastness and the rough
required shoves, for the no-shit
stares and the late night talkdowns,
for getting me this far and for
waiting in the shadows until he's
needed once again.

by Eric Evans

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Eric Evans is a writer from Buffalo, New York with stops in Portland, Oregon and Rochester, New York where he currently resides. His work has appeared in Steel Bellow, Decades Review, Dead Snakes, decomP magazinE, Red River Review, Posey, Xenith Magazine, Anobium Literary Magazine, Pemmican Press, Remark, and many other publications and anthologies. He has published eight full collections and three broadsides through his own small press, Ink Publications, in addition to a broadside through Lucid Moon Press. He is also the co-editor of The Bond Street Review.

18-6




Three haiku which all wound up on the same page for no particular reason



Count beats with fingers.
Math and English intercourse.
My haiku is born.

by Douglas S. Malan


Spring pollen unleashed:
trees having sex in my nose—
arboreal orgies.

by Deborah Davitt


smoking pot
the casserole
almost forgotten

by Robert Witmer



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Douglas S. Malan likes words. Some other journals have published his poetry, and some people have paid to read his sentence groupings that aren't poetry.

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Deborah Davitt remains as astonished as anyone else that she writes poetry—and even more so that people apparently read it. Nothing could seem more improbable, and yet, here we are. For more about her increasingly implausible assortment of poetry, short stories, and novels, please see:
www.edda-earth.com

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Robert Witmer's life is reflected in one of his haiku:
expatriate
returning home
from home.

This aging émigré seldom knows if he's coming or going. Resident of Tokyo, fortunate in family, friends, occupation, and creative vocation, he often prefers to play pétanque. He has recently published a book of haiku: Finding a Way.