Clearing Your Throat

Birds chirping over you
as you awake…

Opening your eyes
with pain inside your forehead.

Looking up into the underbelly
of trees with long branches
and bunches of dark leaves.

A patch of blue overhang
sky still watching over you.

For some reason you wiggle your toes,
realizing they stole your shoes and socks.

The birds have stopped chirping.
You glance around not seeing
a single bird…  
Only a peculiar silence
turning you to your side.

You spit blood.
Grinning
you’re still alive…

You cough again.
Clearing your throat
from a night you’ll never remember,

but knowing revenge
is neverending.

Stephen Jarrell Williams loves to take long walks, knowing someday he’ll have wings to fly. He can be found on X Twitter @papapoet.

amuck

we are proud of everything now
ashamed of nothing

stupidity on display
ignorance run amuck

court jester citizens
and keystone cops

clashing in the broiling streets

the weak
will not inherit the earth

before the fools
around them

burn it all to the ground

John Grochalski is the author of five poetry collections, three novels, and the forthcoming novella Wolve of Berlin Play Amateur Night at the Flute and Fiddle Pub. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Static

The bedroom smells like furniture polish so
                             I must’ve tossed the rags in with the sheets again. Light

from the bedside table burns my fingertips. Memories bore into the flaws of my mattress.
                             Ink grieves across cocktail napkins, on a sales’ receipt, in the margin

of a city map. Air between scraps of paper wants to be truth. Words sound themselves
                            out as if they’re facts.           Silly air             words on scraps of paper aren’t

permanent. A hologram on my lampshade: a snake’s severed head can still bite/
                            the daddy longlegs in my shower doesn’t feel its missing leg. I’ll eat the

Thesaurus if it lies to me again.             Insomniacs on my street pipe skunk
                             weed through my open window as if I don’t worry enough about

the kismet of my lungs. Streetlights squeeze out color in a bottomless annum, turning
                            walls into Pop Tart pastels          like my hair, only painted with a toothbrush.

And                  under it all, daffodil bulbs hibernate in a brown paper bag on the floor
                           of the closet         beneath N95 masks and a canister with my mother’s ashes

no, remains           because how do we really know what’s inside? In the broken night my
                          neighbor shrieks under a honeycomb moon; she’s lost her house keys again.

Dogs barking at 3 a.m. make you feel like you’re going crazy. Cracking pistachios in bed
                            has permanently split my thumbnail.   I so love the blue-striped Hanes left

behind by my last boyfriend          how they bloom recklessly large on my hips, chew on
                        my thighs; still blood warm          stretched-out in the crotch. All those empty

bottles of hotel shampoo float in the tub where an invisible crowd bathes to extinguish
                         germs we can’t see           no one comes to apologize         who can sleep?

Sherry Shahan is a teal-haired septuagenarian who lives and writes in a small beach town in California. She’s currently nominated for The Pushcart Prize in Poetry, holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and taught a creative writing course for UCLA Extension for 10 years.

Disgust Even-Keeled My Compassion 

When you Shoot that (Vile) ‘Spite’
out into the World at large
… it becomes an Energy Bullet.
It often takes quite some time
to realize… that it passed right
through your very own foot first.
Salt-lined windows and doors
or ‘Protection Spells’
will not save you from Karma…
you’re like a child, blindfolded,
juggling spiritual Stanley knives…
with an insolent smirk upon a face
heading for Life’s Dunce’s Corner.
When that ‘Justice’ card falls…
and eventually it always does
… the ‘Plotters’ and ‘Schemers’
reveal themselves as the weakest
… and when those chickens
finally come back home to roost,
they arrive bearing EXPLOSIVES!

Paul Tristram is a widely published Welsh writer who deals in the Lowlife, Outsider, and Outlaw genres.  He wrote his first poem as a teenager following his release from the (Infamous) Borstal ‘HMP Portland’, and he has been creating Literary Terrorism ever since.

Coolie

Liquid waves of concrete heat
stop solar plexus high –
knowing knees, callused feet
keep rhythm as battered wheels,
grind gravel on gritted teeth.

Bent and thinned, equinely poised,
the rickshaw stammers empty,
with an invisible foreign weight –
strong, tightened, sun-soaked slits,
like greedy huckster eyes,
dart fiercely through chaotic void
in quest of next pedestrian fares.

Far into the cool damp night
the journey never ceases,
predestined destination,
speaking to the street –
the constant dream is he as seated,
the jitney pulls itself,
the pilgrimage of every tourist’s night
illuminates, becomes his own.

Craig thinks of poetry as Hobo art. He loves story telling and the aesthetics of paper and pen. He has had two poems nominated for the Pushcart, and has a book of poetry, A Roomful of Navels. After a writing hiatus, he was recently published in Decadent Review, Chiron Review and several dozen other journals.

Lost

you still love me
this I know

possibly wearing tiger’s eye and onyx swiped from nocturnal transcendent carnal wandering
crashing into dawn mid-morning meditations

maybe a certain skull and crossbones scarf paired with an obnoxious trademark beanie

perhaps skimming books left behind

regardless of insight gained
it’s not a tragedy until someone cries and it’s most definitely not a comedy until somebody dies

meanwhile…
just here
removing
most the traces of you
bagged in a closet
to keep my sanity intact

Mike Zone is the Editor in Chief of Dumpster Fire Press, co-founder of Deadstar:Control,
manager of the band Tail From the Crypt and producer for the record label Paranormal Vinyl
Cassettes & Hair Xtensions. He is the author of: Wonderful Turbulence, Fuck You: A Fucking
Poetry Chap, & The Earth Was Shaking For Days and Shedding Dark Places (almost) along
with being the co-author of The Grind and Razorville. A frequent contributor to: Alien Buddha
Press and Mad Swirl. His work has been featured in: A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Horror Sleaze
Trash, Better Than Starbucks, Piker Press, Punk Noir Magazine, Synchronized Chaos and Cult
Culture Magazine.

Post C-19

Vanitases on the facade
bring to light
a familiarity that befogs me.
I look inward
to read a restlessness
I’m not accustomed to it.
Calm underwrites
the offshoot of uncertainty.
I see ciphers at the intersection.
A little further
the guerdon at gloaming.

(This poem originally appeared in Dreich Home poetry journal)

Sanjeev Sethi has authored seven books of poetry. His latest: Wrappings in Bespoke (The Hedgehog Poetry
Press, UK, 2022). He is published in over thirty countries. His poems are in more than 400 journals/
anthologies. He was recently conferred the 2023 Setu Award for Excellence. He lives in Mumbai, India.

Different Point of View

Picking at his wounds
wiping with his cash

all the hundred dollar bills
mean nothing anymore

living like a nomad
with a homemade fishing pole

river
pond
sea

free
from the dread of dying alone

living without a castle
like cowards in their tombs

he cracks his knuckles
and ties his hair back
polishing his front teeth
with his forefingers

grinning like a madman
but smarter than he’s ever been

he’s free
the wars are over

even in his head.

Stephen Jarrell Williams often starts a poem with his fist, and slowly opens it to the sky.  He is on (X) Twitter @papapoet.

this long road

mud and muck
our feet pull themselves
into next steps so many
sharp curves, cliffs paths
leading nowhere but
decay and sorrow

the wrecked poor working
out ways to eke out a living
fighting over nickels and dimes
showing off their latest purchase

why did we dream up fine
endings as we spun our days?
how could we ever believe
that delusion? listening to
cats howling at night, seeing
flowers die at first frost

there is only constant hunger
that stabbing pain in our bellies
which makes us join long lines
for this bitter harvest of our lives

Joan McNerney has been the recipient of three scholarships. She has recited
her work at the National Arts Club, New York City, State University of New York,
Oneonta, McNay Art Institute, San Antonio and the University of Houston,
Texas, Published worldwide in over thirty five countries, her work has appeared
in literary publications too numerous to mention. Four Best of the Net
nominations have been awarded to her. The Muse in Miniature, Love Poems for
Michael and At Work are available on Amazon.com A new release entitled Light
& Shadow explores the recent historic COVID pandemic.

Living in a fantasy

In awe at the bespoke process
itself, I am simulating a simple
boost converter by crocheting
a ripple afghan for my uncle —
ah, the struggles of the modern
working-class poor. Painted on

reloved wood our needs go un-
met even though the arches
have an aesthetic elegance to
them. Perhaps I should crochet
a border in navy. Will a too tight
fitting gig bag hurt my ukulele?

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 almost sixty-five years, & is the
author of more than sixty books, primarily text poetry but also including speculative fiction,
vispo, memoir, & art history. His most recent books are a free downloadable chapbook of
visuals & poems, Mercator Projected, published by Half Day Moon Press in August 2023 &
Ley Lines II, recently published by Sandy Press & available through Amazon.