Benevolent Clouds
Aram Wool

when the bank would default on its loan, we dined on bowls of snow
and no,
it wasn’t cocaine, but, rather, the seasonal stuff,
which falls from the clouds

we’d send out the little ones to go scoop it up by the road
“mind the traffic,” we’d say, “and come back in before your fingers are cold.”

sulkily, they would gather their winter clothing
and, with a syrupy slowness,
lead each limb through the appropriate insulated sleeve
exaggerating the arduousness of the task
regarding us, from time to time, with contemptuous glares,

bundled at last, they would face the door
and, with eyes sullen,
the eldest would push it open

the rest of us then would sit still waiting
round the table with faces silent and sad
our stomachs would churn and groan and yowl
launching into an empty, hungry chorus

when back they came
each carried a high dome of cold white water
and these they portioned out to us all
combining the excess into a large bowl at the center
for anyone who might want a second helping

they joined us at the table

we all leaned a bit forward in our seats
peering into our bowls with a restrained eagerness
submerging a cupped hand
to be withdrawn supporting a workable quantity
lifting the frozen crystals into our mouths
reducing the temperature of our oral cavities
crunching the stuff
until our tongues were numb
chilling the gums
until the ice resisted melting for a good while

 Benevolent Clouds – Aram Wool

Aram Wool is a member of the 5-piece rock cadre Thought Trade. In his spare time, he pursues a graduate degree in electrical & computer engineering. His work has appeared in EOTU, Pachinko!, and Binghamton University’s journal Ellipsis. His introspective musings are cataloged at Escape Validity. Aram lives in New England.

The Change Machine
Steven Ray Smith

That night they made up beer ballads, made cocksure
passes at women they’d always ignored, ignored
the law about the bar closing at four
and met the bus stop, both madcap and restored.

The weary, stubbled lawyers had barely glanced
sidewise at the TV when he stepped
onto the screen to say goodbye. They’d danced
with tube-dressed strangers, become oddly adept

at dancing, talking. Yet the uneasy
whispers from those barstools months before,
the cautious crawl toward insurgency,
resumed among them when the hydraulic door

opened to still air. The rattling whip
of copper chinks was gone. The change machine
was off, and none would take the gratis trip.
It was something they had never seen.

The Change Machine – Steven Ray Smith

Steven Ray Smith’s poems have appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Raintown Review, Garbanzo, Prick of the Spindle, Bayou, The Broken Plate, Poetry South, Skidrow Penthouse, Meat for Tea, Stepaway Magazine Dogs Singing – A Tribute Anthology, and others.  New work is forthcoming in GRAIN, American Anthenaeum, The Lindenwood Review, The Conium Review, Common Ground Review, The Cape Rock, Big Muddy, Writer’s Bloc, Slant, and riverrun.  He is the president of a culinary school and lives in Austin with his wife and children.

Kick Line
Steven Ray Smith

There is a boy in the kick line. Look!
Among thirty girls, a boy
kicking!

The stands wonder what licked him
so hard as to scare his deuce into the kick line. A boy’s
legs are the deuce. A girl’s are quads.
Will he become a man in a kick line still
trying to multiply his deuce by two?

The stands expect his face to show the deuce
and his kicks to look like dodging a licking
for an impertinent smile.
But his face is that of someone pleasantly considering
his biology mid-term as he re-organizes his locker.
The quads don’t fag him out.
Each kicks reaches higher than the one before it and beside it.

The gym floor claps
in shoe-four time. Raps
woofer over the thrashing
bewilderment of stands.

What used to be a girl is now a man.

Kick Line – Steven Ray Smith

Steven Ray Smith’s poems have appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Raintown Review, Garbanzo, Prick of the Spindle, Bayou, The Broken Plate, Poetry South, Skidrow Penthouse, Meat for Tea, Stepaway Magazine Dogs Singing – A Tribute Anthology, and others.  New work is forthcoming in GRAIN, American Anthenaeum, The Lindenwood Review, The Conium Review, Common Ground Review, The Cape Rock, Big Muddy, Writer’s Bloc, Slant, and riverrun.  He is the president of a culinary school and lives in Austin with his wife and children.

Christopher Woods is a writer, teacher and photographer who lives in Houston and Chappell Hill, Texas. His published works include a prose collection, UNDER A RIVERBED SKY, and a book of stage monologues for actors, HEART SPEAK. His photographs have appeared in many journals, with photo essays published in GLASGOW REVIEW, PUBLIC REPUBLIC, DEEP SOUTH and NARRATIVE MAGAZINE, among others.

Birds of Prey
Claude McKay

Their shadow dims the sunshine of our day,
As they go lumbering across the sky,
Squawking in joy of feeling safe on high,
Beating their heavy wings of owlish gray.
They scare the singing birds of earth away
As, greed-impelled, they circle threateningly,
Watching the toilers with malignant eye,
From their exclusive haven — birds of prey.
They swoop down for the spoil in certain might,
And fasten in our bleeding flesh their claws.
They beat us to surrender weak with fright,
And tugging and tearing without let or pause,
They flap their hideous wings in grim delight,
And stuff our gory hearts into their maws.

 Birds of Prey — Claude McKay

Born in Jamaica, Claude McKay (1889-1948) played a key role in the Harlem Renaissance, publishing poetry that was both reflective of the pastoral scenes of his Caribbean youth and sharply critical critical of white racism in the United States. “Birds of Prey” appeared in Harlem Shadows, published in 1922.