Bruce Hodder

        © Penelope Przekop

THE BOHEMIAN LIFE

Cheap toilet

paper

finger

caked in shit.

HAIKU

"I'm tired of my ego"--

Zen poet tells

300 friends on Facebook.

-by Bruce Hodder 

Bruce Hodder lives with his beautiful partner Michelle Askew in Northampton, England, from where he edits the online poetry magazine 'The New Beatnik' and writes the blog 'Suffolk Punch'. He has been placing poetry and essays for twenty years in numerous publications, most notably Bryn Fortey's legendary print magazine 'Outlaw' and Norbert Blei's 'Poetry Dispatch'. In 2014 he curated the Spoken Word Stage at the Woodfest Music and Arts Festival.

Painting Courtesy: Penelope Przekop

Penelope Przekop is a figurative expressionist American painter who spent the first half of her adult life writing fiction, and then began painting in 2008.  She is the author of five books, including four novels. Galleries in New York City, Philadelphia, Cleveland, California, Louisiana, Italy, and Central America have represented and shown her work.  It has been acquired by two Italian museums. The emotional content of Penelope’s work is influenced by growing up in Louisiana before moving to the Northeast in 1991, and all of the cultural differences between the two.  Visit her website and find her on Facebook.

Eave of the House

                     © Suren Voskanyan

Sound of wheels on the gravel,

the light of early October spreading like honeysuckle

as cornstalks began to fall,

the lavender horizon waved like the drape of a bier

over a close girl changing in age

beneath a seeing lantern.

Hand in hand

we sat on the pale grass,

at dusk the red hawk curved behind the line of trees

taking a squirrel

to the eave of the house

dripping like a willow.

Thumb and finger separate the paper tape

of cedar sticks and sandalwood to burn for fragrance

I doubt will surround

nighttime fluid as the black creek painted stones,

then we will follow the cricket vibrations to sleep

becoming soon the fallow of this ground.

-by John Swain

John Swain lives in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. Red Paint Hill published his first collection, Ring the Sycamore Sky.

Painting Courtesy: Suren Voskanyan

Suren Voskanyan was born in Yerevan, Armenia in 1960. He studied the techniques & styles of the masters of impressionism and post impressionism in Hermitage Museum, Leningrad. He is a member of  Realistic Artists Union in Armenia. He did exhibitions all over the world. His works can be found in Modern Art Museum of Yerevan, Armenia and OAC Spiritual Modern Art Museum of Crete, Greece.

Cinquain

missed you

as I sat there
looking out at the rain
washing away yesterdays dreams
now gone

-by  Adrian Manning

Adrian Manning writes from Leicester, England. He is also editor of Concrete Meat Press. He can be reached at www.concretemeatpress.co.uk.

Painting Courtesy: Tina Vasyanina 

Tina Vasyanina  was born in 1973 in Artyom, Primorsky Krai. She graduated from the School of Arts in Magadan and Irkutsk State Technical University specializing in "monumental and decorative art." She is member of the Creative Union of Artists of Russia. Her painiting contains contemporary trends and tendencies, as well as the author's paintings, mosaics, tapestries and stained glass, applique fabric, installations, art objects. She has participated in  exhibitions around the globe. Her works can be found in galleries and private collections.