Some organizations may be / eligible for tax deductible donations

Using empirical evidence & an
infinite lattice, the doctor, during
any process of obtaining diagno-
stic information, may stroke some
muscles to imitate the sounds of
a magnetic resonance imaging
investigation. It’s a method — if
electronic networks are deemed
to be lacking — of conceptualizing
expressed behavior through faded
& forgotten artifacts. Escape peaks
are small; but just before escape,
a symmetry. The phase portrait
indicates only bounded solutions,
so an ancillary display of stone tools
has been put together as a physical
reminder of its strong connection
to the things we say to ourselves
but not to others. Something is be-
ing warmed inside a rice cooker
which, purportedly, is made from the
finest quality silicon carbide stone.

Mark Young was born in Aotearoa / New Zealand but now lives in a small town in North
Queensland in Australia. He has been publishing poetry for over sixty years, & is the author
of over sixty books, primarily text poetry but also including speculative fiction, vispo, non-
fiction, & art history.

Next Breath

tight grips around snapping necks, gnarly
hounds abandon the gutter to haunt gorgeous lounges—no bars
open, bottles drained and disappearing in the current
swift gusts wash away remnants of hope; fairies murdered,
washed up bodies in faraway shores
wildfires raze down cities of dreamers and the home to millions,

enough! no one shall cry, there’s no point. driving through
deserted highways, the neon lights have gone off,
barmaids turned to prostitution and beer brewers became
gravediggers—moonshine stills go ablaze, drops of gin
in bathtubs made of clay
clocks tick away, hourglasses no one flips,
trotting into a dying sunset, sunrise nevermore,

crows sing, nightingales coo, and doves cluck; gone mad,
whiskey’s over, the end of light the final promise,
someone knocks two weeks’ notice, begone,

jails full, just the gutter and that’s crowded too,
stay home even if you don’t have one, stay inside even if
your four walls are made of thin paper

diamonds made of blood and coal burns in ovens
chicken party and cows dance, starvation means life for others—cruel
games in dirty alleys, roll the dice determine if you’ll live
a minute or an hour

mongrels gang up, isolation won’t work, groups to conquer the ruins
everlasting farewells on crumbling half-walls, and trout jump
on abandoned fishing boats

Currently residing in Greece, George Gad Economou has a Master’s degree in Philosophy of Science and is the author of Letters to S. (Storylandia), Bourbon Bottles and Broken Beds (Adelaide Books), and Of the Riverside (Anxiety Press). His words have also appeared in various places, such as Spillwords Press, Ariel Chart, Fixator Press, Outcast Press, Piker’s Press, The Edge of Humanity Magazine, The Rye Whiskey Review, and Modern Drunkard Magazine.

Iceland

a triolet

on a green striped boat to the West Fjords
weather reports a journey to the center of the earth,
around us the immanent saga recited and roared
on a green striped boat to the West Fjords
the rocks are metric verse of new romantic chords
breath to power pitch and sluice the berth
on a green striped boat to the West Fjords
weather reports a journey to the center of the earth

Damon Hubbs: Constant gardener, casual birder. Recent poems featured in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Apocalypse Confidential, Yellow Mama, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Fevers of the Mind & Horror Sleaze Trash. Damon’s new chapbook, “The Day Sharks Walk on Land,” will be published by Alien Buddha Press in May. Twitter: @damon_hubbs

WASTED

“How much time have I wasted
each day
standing over the toilet, feeling stranded
and strangling the last piss drops from my pecker-head?”
I think to myself
while strangling the last piss drops out over the toilet
and also minutes later
as I lie in bed,
cursing myself because I forgot to close the bathroom door afterward
and now all I can hear in the dark is the water running in the toilet
while I try to but don’t sleep, dripping a drop or two of my own onto the sheets anyway –
in spite of my being so diligent
that even with all that strangling
I also patted my one-eyeslit with a bit of toilet paper at the finish
Just to be sure.

John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals since 2009. His first poetry collection is forthcoming from Cajun Mutt Press. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.

We Can Still Sit Up in Bed Playing Favourites

If ducks don’t fall right from the sky  
all the time, we can still sit up in bed playing favourites, 
beside that mini bar we believe too costly to touch  
as we drape opening night curtain call hands all over each other, 
take turns with the bathroom after the fact, 
like seasoned pros: on a 4-year contract from the front office  
that pretends they want you in town long after the harvest queen  
has climbed down off her float, but the guaranteed money is frontloaded,  
like that first deep flood of emotion junkie love keeps chasing after; 
a needle in the arm and eyes rolled back like tumbled laundry  
forever on the slow dry – what you love can’t happen without  
what you know, vison quests of someone else who never holds 
your drink so easily when you lay another losing bet – 
If I can believe there is someone else, I never want to meet them. 
Would you want to meet yours?  Fuck empires! 
Jealousy is a personal onslaught. 
Straight losers in front of sports betting televisions. 
That dry throated way you can never make yourself  
as sick as the never dying world. 

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.

So Seldom Solution

A stainless-steel situation
which no one admits
slowly simmers.
Several pseudo sorcerers speak
from secretly swollen sheaves.
At impasse,
several spokespersons shout
but the true speakers stay silent.
Soon
the solid substance
of singular suction savvy survives.
Success sees
a symbolic scratching of the surface.

R. Gerry Fabian is a poet and novelist. He has published four books 
of his published poems, Parallels, Coming Out Of The Atlantic, 
Electronic Forecasts and Wildflower Women as well as his poetry 
baseball book, Ball On The Mound. He lives in Doylestown, PA.