Corey Mesler
Craig Kirchner
Colin Van Der Woude

Corey Mesler

The Agoraphobe Beside the Pool

I stopped beside a pool
reflecting on what it is
inside me, this fear.
This is the same pool
where I lost my dog
to the wild man
at the bottom.
And now, my golden ball,
rolling freely at my
side like a replacement dog,
sits as still as a planet.
I watch it as it watches me.
And in the water
I have no face.

Copyright © 2004 Corey Mesler

The Return of the Agoraphobe

At night they came
and removed it, my pale
osseous framework. Made it
difficult to maneuver,
impossible to chase rabbits
or the mysteries of the human heart.
But mark me tonight:
I am set on re-engaging.
Their eyes are red lights
on the horizon and I am on a quest.
I worked for hours this morning
to lift the shadow of my sword.
Tomorrow the sword itself.

Copyright © 2004 Corey Mesler

Bio: I have published prose and/or poetry in Rattle, StorySouth, Canopic Jar, Contrary, Pindeldyboz, Mars Hill Review, Pikeville Review, Arkansas Review, Stirring, Red River Review, Center, Small Press Review, Jabberwock Review, Orchid, Quick Fiction, Timber Creek Review, Green Egg, Poetry Motel, Raintown Review, Potomac Review, Poetry Super Highway, Big Muddy, Slant, Wilmington Blues, Drought, Rockhurst Review, Wavelength, Lilliput Review, Pearl, Aurorean, Lucid Moon, Heeltap, Sunny Outside, Fish Drum, Into the Teeth of the Wind, Mid-American Poetry Review, Independence Boulevard, Midday Moon, Turnrow, Now Here Nowhere, Dust, Cherotic Revolutionary, Cotyledon, Buckle &, Iodine, Snakeskin (England), Flashpoint, Freewheelin' (England), Pitchfork, Anthology, Poet Lore, Spillway, The Pegasus Review, Reverb, Kimera, Thema, Kumquat Meringue, Lonzie's Fried Chicken, Both Sides Now, Electric Acorn (Dublin), Razor Wire, Gin Bender, Blue Unicorn, Black Dirt, The Spirit that Moves Us, Wind, Red Rock Review, Art Times, Concrete Wolf, Memphis Magazine, Rhino, Visions International, others. I have a chapbook of poems, Piecework, from the Wing and a Wheel Press. I have work in the anthologies Full Court: A Literary Anthology of Basketball (Breakaway Books), Pocket Parenting Poetry Guide (Pudding Press), Intimate Kisses: The Poetry of Sexual Pleasure (New World Press) and Smashing Icons (Curious Rooms).
I recently won the Moonfire Poetry Chapbook Competition and my chapbook, Chin-Chin in Eden, has just been published by Still Waters Press. One of my short stories was chosen for the 2002 edition of New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, edited by Shannon Ravenel. My novel-in-dialogue, Talk , was published by Livingston Press in 2002. Raves from Lee Smith, Robert Olen Butler, Steve Stern, Debra Spark, Suzanne Kingsbury, Frederick Barthelme and John Grisham.
I've been a book reviewer (for The Commercial Appeal, BookPage, The Memphis Flyer), fiction editor (for Ion Books/raccoon), university press sales rep, grant committee judge (for The Oregon Arts Council), father and son. With my wife I own Burke's Book Store, one of the country's oldest (1875) and best independent bookstores. I have been suffering with agoraphobia, panic syndrome, social anxiety disease, for the past 6 years.

Craig Kirchner

Lonely Shepherd

The feeble written wit
taps through the fog
with an old man's cane,
while the pompous elegant verse
strides briskly past,
seeking reality at the sidewalk's end.
 
… Silently surveying his gutter world
the street urchin humbly wonders
at the tense waves
of cold damp grey
such efforts bring the night.

Copyright © 2004 Craig Kirchner

Bio: I live and work as a consultant on the east coast but consider myself a hobo of the universe. I write about what I know best and yet least - myself - in an effort to remove those labels.

Colin Van Der Woude

Disfigurements

Twisted images of man
dancing in the gale
white silk
blown around and around
 
strange, this strange
a kiss, a kiss
a kitten barks
animals explode
 
one limp horse
so helpless and poor
I try to help
but it reaches nothing
it fades away
before my eyes
 
black to white
lost in the snow
these are disfigurements

Copyright © 2004 Colin Van der Woude

Bio: I was only 15 years old and less than a year after diagnosis I was writing this work, heavilly influenced by late nights and music of The Cure. I am currently a 27 year old from Hobart Tasmania, Australia who loves writing emotion down in notebooks.