"Every morning I forget how it is.
I watch the smoke mount
In great strides above the city.
I belong to no one.

Then I remember my shoes,
How I have to put them on,
How bending over to tie them up
I will look into the earth."

                          -- Charles Simic

Winter is upon us. The clock ticks on its shelf; a few sallow leaves scrape the window screen. The sky is white and black by turns. Snow falls from it, somewhere. Here, just me and an abridged Charles Simic and a wet deer cropping between the heavy firs. The deer's eyes are black.

Winter is upon us with his cork boots and huntsman's grip. He has come to tell us that everything green is his -- at least for a time. And while he knocks about the twilight land, we wrap ourselves in old blankets and register that ticking clock. We notice the iron in our hair, the dark veins spreading below our knuckles. We are afforded the opportunity of somber introspection. To contemplate the words of messengers such as Charles Simic and those to be found in this issue of The Melic Review.

Winter is upon us, man and beast. Melic XV is the winter issue and like a winter skyline presents its own stark pleasures. Herein you will encounter the musings and observations of Jack Martin, Suzanne Frischkorn, Joy H. Mann, Val Cihylik and others. These writers turn the lens of inquiry upon human events with clarity and incisiveness unmatched by the ubiquitous television news broadcasts. To them I leave the floor that I might watch the black-eyed deer a while longer.

Many thanks to C.E. Chaffin for his continued faith and assistance; Kathleen Carbone Chaffin for her keen editorial eye, and Mark Melton for getting the issue off the ground and online.

Best wishes to our readers. May this winter be kind to you

Sincerely,
Laird Barron, Managing Editor

***

Gentle Readers,

It is our pleasure to introduce our print anthology, The Best of Melic: Three Years Online, a 275-page perfect-bound softback you can cradle in your non-virtual hand. Our cost is 17$ including shipping and handling.

I think this book, a labor of love, will make a great Christmas gift for the literary-minded.

Our aim all along has been to promote net writers as the equivalent of print authors, so we invaded their medium.

To order a copy, simply click here for the convenient PayPal service on our homepage, else send a check directly to The Melic Review, 700 E. Ocean Blvd. #2504, Long Beach, CA, 90802.

The authors are too numerous to list, but include Alison Croggan, Sharon Kourous, Teresa White, Scott Murphy, Larry Fontenot, Claudia Grinnell, Ted Burford, Kathleen Carbone, Michael Largo, Murray Moulding, Lucile Blanchard, Rachel Dacus, Scott Murphy, Laird Barron, W.F. Adams, C.J. Sage, Ric Masten, Shari Diane Willadson, Steve Harris, Jeffrey Bahr, Arlene Ang, Simmons Buntin, Suzanne Frischkorn, Mary Ann Hazen-Stearns, Ward Kelley, Deanna Madsen Fogel, Kathyrn Rantala, Walt Phillips, R.L. Swihart, Denver Perkins, Jim Zola, and many others, as well as the complete Logopoetry essays by the editor.

Thanks to Laird Barron, Val Cihylik, Kathleen Chaffin and Mark Melton for Melic XV!

Thine in Truth and Art,

C. E. Chaffin, Editor