Issue 8

   No More Nightmares Now

I moved into a little cabin
    next door to them one summer
    I could hear him yelling
    through my open windows
    in the wee hours as I sat up writing
They slept in separate rooms
    as it was never safe to wake him
    or be too close to him at night
    because he spent his dreams back in Korea
    at the Chosin Reservoir trying to survive
The story came out one piece at a time
    as we played cribbage
    hunted our springers in the lower fields
    sat waiting on cold November deer stands
    worked on projects in the wood shop
    and after several years I could put those pieces together
Dogs would gravitate to him
    cats would vie for a place on his lap
    but even they knew not to wake him
    if he napped in the afternoon
Me, I listened to the story he could never tell his family
    he said it made sleeping easier
    maybe it did though I was never sure
    if he saw my lights on
    he’d come over in the middle of night
    for a cup of tea and to talk
    until his hands stopped shaking
    and he’d go back home to bed
    to fight it all over again

                                              Tom Diegoli

Tom Diegoli is a freelance writer living in Gorham, New Hampshire, with his daughter Peg, Roxanne the Springer Spaniel, and two obnoxious but endearing Siamese cats. He writes technical articles, short stories, and poetry. His other interests include cooking, cross country skiing, shooting, hunting, gardening, and making wine from the wild berries of the region.

   An active member of The Poetry Society of New Hampshire, he has been published in several anthologies including The Other Side of Sorrow,  The Poets’ Guide to New Hampshire, Vols. 1 & 2, magazines including The Café Review, The Color Wheel, and Touchstone, and online at www.windinthetimothypress.com. He also makes regular appearances at area open mics to read both poetry and prose, and spent many years working in the local schools giving workshops on writing poetry. 

   He has self published three chapbooks: One With The Land, Interface, and What The Cat Dragged In, two DVD’s: The Skunkskin Session and Live At Acoustic Coffee, and several audio cds. A collection of his short fantasy stories, The Book of Scratch, is due out sometime next year.

nor cursor to another,
flagrantly for myself, 
indulgent, then, spare,
happily absorbed in minutiae,
effusive when general.
Although vaguely unsupportive,
courteous when leaned upon.
Indifferent wit,
in difference quick.
Sometimes, low, very low, and, yet, 
indistinguishable from merry.

Say, steady, constant,

say, 

contrary.

How Long


Becalmed.
Waste for horizon.
That's right, it's winter,
the young smirking
plummeting to where zero might have been,
again, might have been!
Numerology eludes me;
no taste, no finality, nothing.
I have been bitten, breached, 
split,
no renunciation of yesterdays,
neither country, giant still ferns,
nor salt drenched marshes,
salmon or bear.

I wanted to say,
be witness to
protracted gratuities.

Poppycock!
My cage - mine! - rocks and rattles.


Further Gratuities



Mine, my wife's, a hornet's hive, 
a stone's stillness - possessive conundrums, 
a desacralized tallying of parts.
Resistance to the unforeseen so great the summing up,
green, lavender, umber fade.


Bewildered, pixie hopes extinguished, left
an aching lower back, 
paralyzing neck pain,
an irregular beat,
a scarred, an enlarged heart -
a clutter dwarfing my inside.
Hear, whispered gratuities in a chattering of squirrels. 
Novices shuffle in place, speak to others' inadequacies,
while an evening passes away,  
residual fragrance of privet, flight of a bat,
and, wholly unexpected, those dark times in bed. 
     

                                                               Frank Praeger

 When I Grow Up