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.

David Barker

Could death be this alluring?

walking past a darkened room,

I want to go in.

Survival instinct

sometimes you

must pull back

from the

precipice.

On company time

the last time

I saw our new receptionist,

she was playing a hole

of miniature golf

over by Mary’s office

at $5 a round

for the state employees

food drive. she

looked fine. “it beats

working the front desk,”

she told me. a

week later, she

died in

intensive care.
           
                                                                                                                               
                       

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: Marko Davidović

Marko Davidović was born in belgrade, 1981, finished Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade, 2005, in Graphic Design. Had 4 solo exhibitions and several group ones with some awards for graphic, graphic design, painting, drawing, own made font and calligraphy.