Little Sister

     © Arturs Akopjans

Little sister with your face full of lashes and your raspberry lips, you’re growing up too quickly in that house i left. Already you’re reading in my old uniforms, from a decade ago, yes you’re a clever little cookie still some things you should know. you’ll need to use those eyes of yours-- half moons to see when daddys coming after you. Haunt him, tame that wolf. you do not deserve that flavor of affection. laugh innocent, leave him be, reeling in the garden where i spent the night with Jesus and those stars, that moon will be counting you among those precious stones no man can throw, (you’ll know no ceiling).

And please remember me the way i will remember your face full of lashes, cheeks of rosehips. I had to had to save myself, grant me this wish, little sister.

-by Bree

Bree is founder of Green Panda Press (Cleveland, OH) which publishes poetry and art paperbacks, chaps and sundry of the small press. Her work appears in little mags. She is the author of three memoirs.

Painting Courtesy: Arturs Akopjans

Arturs Akopjans, born October 31, 1969 in Armenia is residing and working in Riga, Latvia. In 1996 graduated Arturs Akopjans from "The Latvian Academy of Arts." Since then he has exhibited in the best galleries in the Baltic countries, Germany and Austria as well as group exhibitions in Belgium, Lithuania, Latvia and Denmark. His paintings can be seen in private collections from Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, USA, UK, Norway, Germany, Armenia and Austria.

David Barker

      © Arturs Akopjans

                  Traipsing                                                                         Here And Now

                                                 

                  I see                                                                                 something is

                  these spirits                                                                      terribly wrong and

                  go off in                                                                           none of us

                  their colorful                                                                    can speak of it.

                  Death                                                                               this thing

                  shrouds.                                                                           possesses us,

                                                                                                         darkens our days,

                                                                                                         saddens our

                                                                                                         nights, hangs

                                                                                                         over our time

                                                                                                         like tragedy

                                                                                                         too awful to

                                                                                                         describe.

David Barker's fiction and poetry has appeared in many small press books and magazines since the early 1970s. In 2011, Bottle Of Smoke Press published his comic surreal novel, Death At The Flea Circus. A small collection of poems, Opal's Trails, appeared from Pig Ear Press in 2013, and in 2014 Dark Renaissance Books issued The Revenant of Rebecca Pascal, a horror novella written in collaboration with W. H. Pugmire.

Painting Courtesy: Arturs Akopjans

Arturs Akopjans, born October 31, 1969 in Armenia is residing and working in Riga, Latvia. In 1996 graduated Arturs Akopjans from "The Latvian Academy of Arts." Since then he has exhibited in the best galleries in the Baltic countries, Germany and Austria as well as group exhibitions in Belgium, Lithuania, Latvia and Denmark. His paintings can be seen in private collections from Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, USA, UK, Norway, Germany, Armenia and Austria.