We will not take the roaring storms and violent bluster for granted; we will kiss Winter goodbye and pray to see it again, in due time.

John Tustin is a regular contributor to the Thieving Magpie.  His poetry is forthcoming in The MacGuffin, Neologism, […]

I remember you now
as the mermaid on the rocks
who would have called me to crash
if I had ever dared to set sail.

Paul Smith writes poetry & fiction.  He lives near Chicago, has been published in the Rockford Review, Oyez, […]

All mountains are pretty much alike
they’re tall
they hurt you
it rains on them
every afternoon
so climb them early

Michael Salcman is a poet, physician and art historian.  He was chairman of neurosurgery at the University of […]

In Bucha, where the flowers grow fat on the graves
and broken bricks and bent metal fill up the street,
young wives lose their lovers to bullets and thieves

Sarah Harley is originally from the UK. She works at Milwaukee High School of the Arts where she […]

Inside my mother’s dark body, I developed lanugo and little limbs, my own fingerprints and bones. Her body recognized that my blood was not her own. Every part of her identified me as a pathogen and endeavored to destroy me. Instead of carrying vital oxygen and other essential nutrients, my bloodstream was contaminated with my mother’s antigens, triggering an immune response that identified me as an invader and urgently signaled for my removal and destruction.

Mario Loprete is a graduate of Accademia of Belle Arti , Catanzaro (ITALY).