Taste

Drifters eat grapes
in parked cars stacked with books,
while bathing their feet
in pure mountain streams.
Women feed babies
soot from their nails
to alienate their friends
who sing heavy metal anthems
in karaoke bars.
Socialites eat soup
with mafia dons
and cry like sopranos
when boxers spill blood.
Myself,
I eat at night,
behind tinted windows and shades,
so when the moon devours the sun
I can blitz my stomach
with armour-piercing rounds,
then cook pepperoni pizza
laced with vodka and knives
and feed it to my boy,
because I’m taking him down with me,
while cleansing my pallet.

Tim Frank’s debut chapbook is, An Advert Can Be Beautiful in the Right Shade of Death (C22 Press ’24)

Twitter: @TimFrankquill

Penchant For Dissipation

I do not do ‘Goodbyes’,
neither Walk nor Run
… I Disappear.
Cheshire Cat grin
lingering mid-air
whilst sleight-of-hand
fixing Escape Routes.
I Borrowed only
… I’m Investing
in each footfall
… Away.
I love (term loosely)
the Weightlessness
of ‘Past Tense’
… and the Fresh Air
of Open Doorways
… ‘Fond Farewells’
are for ‘other people’
… I’m all
Temporary Transactions.

(C-ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya)

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. His novel “Crazy Like Emotion”, collection of shorter fiction “Kicking Back Drunk ‘Round The Candletree Graves”, and full-length poetry book “The Dark Side Of British Poetry: Book 1 of Urban, Cinematic, Degeneration” are all now available by Close To The Bone Publishing.

Born in Mexico, Luis lives in California and works in Los Angeles. His latest poetry book, Make the Water Laugh, was published by Rogue Wolf Press. His poetry has appeared in Blue Collar Review, Kendra Steiner Editions, Mad Swirl, Pygmy Forest Press, and Unlikely Stones.

pipes

andy is
an old geezer

he’s hitting eighty-five

andy makes the rounds
from library branch to library branch

just to have something to do
in between trips to the dollar store

he greets the staff
likes he’s doing a roll call

oh, there’s darla!
oh, there’s jake!

andy votes republican
and smokes pipes

he likes it when we show him
pictures of rustic pipes on computer screens

only andy wonders why
the color of it on his printout
isn’t as vibrant as the one there on the screen

andy walks around the library
vexed by the complexity of the color wheel

oh, there’s samantha!
oh, there’s dave!

then he’ll fall asleep in one of the chairs
waking an hour later in a happy stupor

wanting to see the smooth pipes online

before he heads home for lunch
or to the dollar store

for a box of lemonheads
or maybe something sweet.

John Grochalski is the author of five poetry collections, three novels, and the novella Wolves of Berlin Play Amateur Night at the Flute and Fiddle Pub (Alien Buddha Press 2024). He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.