Brick By Brick

We can grow or
We can shrink or
We can stay the same;
The worst bit is
We don’t get to choose our chocolate.
I pray the sun shines bright when I wake.
You pray for happy rain to bless your wheat.
Our prayers fight in
The sky with shiny guns.

Dominik Slusarczyk is an artist who makes everything from music to painting. He was educated at The University of Nottingham where he got a degree in biochemistry. He lives in Bristol, England. His poetry has been published in ‘Dream Noir’, ‘Home Planet News’, and ‘Scars Publications.  

 

parallel

she lay nestled  
in the branches 
of death 
deep in a permanent 
slumber 
where dreams & truth 
& terror  
blend into 
a pastoral 
formality 
& the smiles 
of old ghosts 
are the floormats 
of eternity. 

jck hnry is a queer writer based in the high desert of southern california. over the years i have found success at: rye whiskey review, mad swirl, alice says go fuck yourself, 13 mynas, and others. in apr 23 GUTTER SNOB PRESS will release “LOS ANGELES.” a chapbook anthology. in 2021 PUNK HOSTAGE PRESS released “DRIVING W/CRAZY, a poetic memoir to their father’s last years battling with mental illness.

The Silver-tipped Fire Hydrant 

I never understood why they didn’t just paint it 
or find a matching part, 
but the silver-tipped fire hydrant just sat there 
out front my house. 

Strangely out of place  
around all the other yellow uniform hydrants 
in the neighbourhood. 

And I felt a kinship with my silent silver-tipped friend. 
We were both paralysingly quiet, had trouble fitting in. 

Then one day, 
I found that someone had spray painted 
some ratty blue expletive over the silver head 
of the hydrant.  

It was as though my own face  
had been spray painted over. 

It sat there for years like that. 
No one cared. 
Which prepared me for the rest 
of my Life. 

 

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many mounds of snow.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Fixator Press, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.