Jason Stephen Shapiro rambled from the east coast, has a background in theater, photography, and radio. He currently resides in Sacramento. Like a fox on a hare, he is pursuing his master’s degree in creative writing at California State University, Sacramento. He was an editor to the American River Review at American River College before becoming a Fiction Editor then Executive Editor of the Calaveras Station Journal. Jason’s poetry and fiction are published in the ARR, The Gapped Tooth Madness, and Poetry Now.
Tao of Iron
When I was small, I
collected antique
railroad spikes. Now
I think about
their heads
mush-
roomed from blows
the ugly work of
hammering
each
of them
into
the earth.
Monika Rose, at home in the foothills of Calaveras County, founded Manzanita Writers Press, a nonprofit literary publisher. She is published in several anthologies and literary magazines, and her book of poems River by the Glass, by GlenHill Publications, is available from Amazon and Small Press Distribution as a print and eBook. She has edited anthologies such as the recently released A Taste of Literary Elegance: Wine, Cheese & Chocolate book, and the previous collection of the ongoing Manzanita series of literary prose and poetry, Wild Edges. With a Masters Degree in English, she teaches courses in writing and literature at Delta College as an Adjunct Associate Professor. www.monikarosewriter.com
Harmonica
Forgetting the music
But finding new sound
Here by the river
Where stone shapes the
River songs,
An amulet glitters
In the sand
A talisman lost
By a lover
Maybe, last night
Here, by the water
Straining under the weight
Of new romance
A four-holed harmonica
On a black string tossed
In a groan
Or a sigh
Flown into sand
Reeds altered by grit
Bitter on the tip
My lips almost envelop
The musical words
Wondering how
The tryst went
How deep
Did it slip
And how the
Taste lingers.
