I was not planning for God to look like this.
Sometimes he was wrapped in many thick layers
of heavy wool sweaters and blankets, his furry

face protruding as though it rose from within
the volcanic core of a mountain. People say
they tried to give him things, wanted to do

anything they could for him. But he had
no use for money, gifts, flattery, publicity.
His sayings were few: “Feed people. Love.”

Rabbis and mullahs might very well be displeased
at the lack of detail contained in his short list
of two commandments. He chanted the name

of Rama with short, explosive, abrasive bursts.
Sometimes he appeared clean-shaven and freshly
washed. Other times random splotches of red

and white paint covered his head, and his mouth
cracked open with a messy smile and a wide tongue.
They say he wanted our liberation, nothing more.

He never wrote a book, never pushed to publish.
There were few ceremonies, no ostentation,
no self-consciousness. He could swallow a bottle

of acid and not feel the slightest effect.
He never advertised. The world came to him.
There were no sex scandals, no corruption charges.

Businessmen and politicians sought his counsel,
although he never sought the limelight. His students
were all more famous than he ever wanted to be.

One bit of practical advise he gave: “If you loan
money to a saint, don’t expect to get it back.”
He fed millions of people, but asked for nothing.

A word of warning for those that approached him:
“You can leave me. I won’t leave you. Once I
catch hold of you. I don’t let go.” If only

my mothers had felt the same. If only my lovers
had told me this. On cold nights I picture him
and am embarrassed at all my truthless knowledge.

Mel C. Thompson is a product of the San Francisco open mic scene and was first published in their underground zine “Bullhorn” in 1990. In the 90s his poetry was also published in such magazines as The Chiron Review, The Bay Area Guardian, Wordwrights and The Haight Ashbury Literary Review. He featured extensively in such venues as the Paradise Lounge, Café Babar and the Chameleon Club. Currently he is anthologized in Beatitude Golden Anniversary Issue, 1959-2009, The Best of The Texas Poetry Calendar and Poets From Hell (New American Underground Poetry). In 2008-2010 he has been published frequently online at such sites as “nthposition.com,” “sunkenlines.com” and “languageandculture.net,” and also appeared in print in The World Poets Journal (China), Jackknife Express (Canada) and Over The Transom (San Francisco). He has been recently featured at The Berkeley Poetry Festival, The San Francisco Beat Museum, The Frank Bette Center For The Arts and the San Francisco Park Branch Library. Publication is pending in The California Quarterly.

we arrive at normal enough.
drag ourselves through mundane
but this is different. not rational.

it began with a push, prodding at very.
plausible. ordinary. even close.
but no one took notice.

too many drank it away, drowned in the moment.
sinking into shot glasses that wished for very.

understated. wanting more.
in an adverb world that never went            far enough.

when finished with uber-verb
living, give us a call. we’d like to introduce extra yourself.

care to add a word?

Richard Lighthouse is a contemporary writer, artist, and poet. His work has been published in numerous journals and magazines worldwide.

Enter the squid: whose gooey strips may be the first shock of mammal hair. And his song seems to be a song you can hang a nail on. But what could be more tired and needing rest than such one-pointed stubbornness?

2.

All the lower energies appear faintly intrigued by this phenomenon, but the kalamari only blows smoke in the aural aura.

3.

Milling about, Third Eye on holiday breaks out in alphabets for which there are no longer readers.

4.

Forgotten cultures and teenage daydreams mix it up in the King’s halo — which is but a shell fragment of the proverbial acorn.

5.

Just a chip, but oaken.

6.

Feast on the curves, then spirals, squares, and flip ends of further communication.

7.

In turn, flip the narrative to its obsolete side — the start-over side.

Ivars Balkits prose poems have been published in such small magazines as Grasslands Review, Sonoma Mandala, The Prose Poem (2x), New York Quarterly, Sphere, 171/2 Magazine, Even My Dog Doesn’t Want This War, etc. Several poems were selected for anthologies, including: A Measured Response (Pecan Grove Press), Smashing Icons (Curious Rooms), and I Have My Own Name for It: Modern Poems of Ohio (University of Akron Press). Ivars was recipient of a 1999 Individual Artist Fellowship from the Ohio Arts Council. He has written and occasionally performs a dramatic monologue on labor history and coal mining in the Hocking Valley, titled: Albert Guess: Terror of the Valley. Most recently he completed a full-length play with the same theme but more characters and a broader look at the 19th century industrial union known as The Knights of Labor. He resides currently in Crete, Greece, but lived the past 15 years in Athens, Ohio. His story, Sub, was nominated for The Donald Murray Prize and The Best American Short Stories.

Best New Poets
-2009 Nominations

The Best American Nonrequired Reading

The Best American Short Stories

The Best of the Net Anthology

The Best of the Web

The Levis Reading Prize

The Micro Award

The Donald Murray Prize

The Paterson Poetry Prize

The PEN/Beyond Margins Award

The Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award

The Pushcart Prize
-2009 Nominations

We will try to keep this list current. If you have published work with us that you believe fits a certain prize or award please let us know so we can nominate it!

Michael J. Alfaro is publisher and editor of Silenced Press. He lives in Columbus, Ohio.

with them. In the middle of
the night, one begins
vomiting and can’t stop himself,
begins bleeding from

his side. Another wakes with
headache and thinks of milk.
The third probably thinks of
reading a map, that moss

does not always grow on the
north side of trees, of
prevailing winds
and how they change the directions of things.

There is soft bread,
his daughter in a white
pinafore, her simple shoes, she is lost
in the snow, her black

hair blowing free from behind her
ear, the borders of her body, of
the separate flesh.
He is bleeding from his tongue.

He thinks of
a northwestern wood squirming with snow,
he remembers cold and hungry
and tired, he remembers

it was already dark.

Tasia M Hane-Devore is currently completing a PhD at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, where she lives with her wife and two children. Most recently, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Tar River Poetry, New York Quarterly, The Laurel Review, and The Benefactor Magazine.