KEN GOSSE: Better Pay Ray (by the Pharoah’s Maestro, D’oh-Raymese)

Amusing, Puns and Wordplay, Submissions, ,

Dough. I needed dough that day.
Ray would loan it for a price.
Me? I took the loan. “Oy vey—”
father said, “such bad advice!”
Soul? I sold mine on that day,
lamenting the price I’d pay.
Teams of hitmen bat away
’til I pay them back their dough!

Ken Gosse prefers writing short, rhyming, humorous poetry. First published in First Literary Review–East in November 2016, he is also in The Offbeat, Pure Slush, Parody, Home Planet News Online, and other publications. Raised in the Chicago suburbs, now retired, he and his wife have lived with their dogs and cats in Mesa, AZ, over twenty years.

JOHN H. DROMEY: Politically Corrected

Amusing, Puns and Wordplay, Submissions, , , , ,

Soon after the admission to full membership of a significant number of female applicants, the board of a previously all-male Bostonian club considered a motion for a new construction project designed specifically to expand the capacity of the powder rooms.

To no one’s great surprise, the voting followed potty lines.

John H. Dromey has had short fiction published in Mystery Weekly Magazine and 190 other venues.

SETH PILEVSKY: Introvert Inversion

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

“Let’s have some friends over,” she probes.

I nod, because I love her.

When they come, their lips call.
Their gestures implore.
Their eyes beseech.

My smile is a rigid rictus.
My words, a shield or a sword.

When they go home, I close the door and retreat into myself.

Seth Pilevsky lives in New York with his wife and five kids. His work has appeared in What Doesn’t Kill You, a YA anthology published by Indomita Press, Maelstrom, The Inner Circle Writers’ Group Literary Anthology 2019, Long Island Literary Journal, Literally Stories, Memoir Magazine and Stinkwaves Magazine. Sign up for updates at his website, spilevsky.com.

YASH SEYEDBAGHERI: Turning Around

Artistic, Submissions, Top Stories, , , , ,

I double-fist Coors on the porch. Listen through the Ponderosas for a truck sputtering, a horn. Purple shadows fall. A truck rolls by. The driver might offer a greeting. An invitation. Small talk. But when you live at the end of a road, it always turns around. Never looks back.

Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA fiction program. His stories, “Soon,” “How To Be A Good Episcopalian,” and “Tales From A Communion Line,” have been nominated for Pushcarts. Yash’s work has been published in The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Write City Magazine, and Ariel Chart, among others.

GENE NEWMAN: Johnny Blossomseed

Amusing, Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

My prim neighborhood’s light green lawns and dark green shrubbery
are sorely lacking in exciting color.
I long to see the rainbow surprises of newborn flowers
as I walk down my street on a spring day.

So now, each and every predawn morning,
I stealthily sow future marigolds and zinnias.

Gene Newman wrote this story.

KAY RAE CHOMIC: Too Late, but All Is Forgiven

Artistic, Submissions, , , , , ,

Some veterinarians keep no pets at home, bakers bake nothing in their home kitchens, plumbers let leaks drip. That’s how it was for 72-year-old Elliott, an architect.

After he died, his wife discovered a blueprint for a pottery studio in his desk drawer: Sophie’s Pot Den. Start Date: Current Year.

Kay Rae Chomic is a novelist (A Tight Grip) and writer of flash. She lives in Seattle dodging raindrops, and is a Motown fan forever.

GINNY FENG: Autumn, Briar, Calla, Dawn

Adventure, Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

A, B, C, D. Test subjects.

Under dark we whispered the names of our parents, our sisters, our brothers. We vowed not to forget them. Not to forget ourselves.

The Experimenters did weird things to us. We behaved. To them, we were toys.

To ourselves: Autumn, Briar, Calla, Dawn. Girls.

Ginny Feng lives in Tennessee, where she writes short stories and reads fantasy and learns lots.

SUNSET: Stone Romance

Submissions, Top Stories, Touching, , , ,

He doesn’t take his eyes off his book.

I’m with an umbrella on a bench. I’ve been waiting for him to look at me; I don’t have time. They’re throwing the old statues away.

Whenever the stone boy finishes his book, tell him a stone girl was waiting for him.

Sunset wrote this story.

CLARE HAWKINS: No traveller returns

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

“It would be scary on your own, this tunnel.”

“Yeah, glad we can go together. Makes it almost normal.”

“I know, like we’re going for a walk. Take my hand, till we reach the light.”

“Didn’t think it’d be like this, did you?”

“No. I wish we could tell everyone.”

Clare is an enthusiastic reader and writer of historical fiction, a doting grandmother, volunteer ESOL teacher, gardener, and knitter.