At The Tone

I can’t come to the phone right now,
I’m wrestling the tigers of indifference.
I’m up to my waist in holy water.
The sky is burning.

I’m not in at the moment,
I’m paddling in the piss-green sea,
herding lizards, seeding the stars.
I’m being driven to distraction —
dark-eyed men in hats and sunglasses
are taking me away from myself.

If you must do, please leave a message.
But I no longer have the ability to respond.
My time is tempered by destruction.
I’m made miserable with compassion.

Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician, is a multiple Pushcart nominee with poems published
in hundreds of magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. His latest book,
‘Boxing In The Bone Orchard’ is available now via Frontenac House.
https://www.frontenachouse.com/product/boxing-in-the-bone-orchard/

Still Trying

The acoustic notes
of Heart of Gold
chime out of the
ancient CD player,
realizing in my
mind I’m portraying
a cliché of age & search,
but trying to grab something
loving & warm. Bones
creak as the body begins
to fade.

Passing in what seemed like a
flash, I’m now the man getting “old”
in Neil’s song. But still—seeking a
few years left to seek that pot of
gold promised me when I took the
oath to find golden grain amongst
rough turf.

Dan Provost’s poetry has been published both online and in print since 1993. He is the author of 17 books/ chapbooks, including two in 2025. Getting Your Bell Rung, released by Luchador Press and Notes from the Other Side of the Bed, published by Anxiety Press His work has been nominated for The Best of the Net three times and he has read his poetry throughout the United States. He lives in Keene, New Hampshire with his wife Laura, and dog Bella.

Rally

Someone’s heart-to-heart is another’s
scuttlebutt sesh.
 
Corpulence was harnessed to help me
channel the weight within me.
 
When you are grounded in a desert, it
is imperative to imagine a wellspring.
 
Some questions are not meant to be
asked. The answers come unasked.
 
When scars sculpt their story on us, no
cosmetic surgeon is of use.
 
If the premise of a joke is based on lies,
is it ethical to laugh?

Sanjeev Sethi is an award-winning poet who has authored eight poetry collections. His poems have been published in forty countries and appear in over 600 journals and anthologies. He lives in Mumbai, India.

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.

Lit, Filed and Cashed

A lone lamp-post flickering at the end of a dead-end street
on a cold, foggy /misty Sunday night in the industrial part of a
town that was at least big enough, once, to
have had an industrial part, but is now
all abandoned warehouses, vacant lots and empty
storefronts, these days; you know, rat and
meth-head infested
insurance
frauds that
have
sat
there
for
years, just
waiting to
be lit, filed and cashed,
which (issues of morality
aside), I’ve always thought was up there with fucking
with the Mafia or the CIA, , i.e. something
you just do not do, brother.

Jason Ryberg lives part-time in Kansas City, MO
with a rooster named Little Red and a Billy-goat named
Giuseppe, and part-time somewhere in the Ozarks,
near the Gasconade River, where there are also many
strange and wonderful woodland critters. 

Off or on the nomads’ track

Salamanders gamboled outside as he
dined on radicchio & the deep-fried
antennae of microwave satellites. Else-
where there was birdsong, & titles
embroidered on the red caps of elderly
travelers escaping their Winnebago in
search of lunch. He recognized none
of the proffered titles — not that that
mattered. Some languages were never
meant to become the common tongue.

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-five years, & is the author
of around eighty books, primarily text poetry but also including speculative fiction, vispo, non-
fiction, & art history. Recently published books include Balance, from Neo-Mimeo Editions,
Nualláin House, Monte Rio, California & From the Cave’s jukebox, from Sandy Press, Santa
Barbara, California.

Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Did you see the wolf in sheep’s clothing?
It was tired of being a bad human being.
When a wolf leaves you bleeding, it is
what they do. When a human being leaves
you bleeding, it is assault, attempted
murder, a violent act of malice. It is best
to be a wolf the human being thought, 
so it transformed itself with magic. The
human being with his evil heart was no 
more. The wolf went on howling as it
navigated the landscape dressed as the
sheep it killed. Its bite was as precise 
as the butcher’s knife. Some nights it
wished it was human again, but the magic
spell was irreversible and binding.

Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal was born in Mexico, lives in California, and works in Los Angeles. 
His poetry has appeared in Blue Collar Review, Fixator Press, Impspired, Mad Swirl, The Rye Whiskey Review,Unlikely Stories, and Yellow Mama Magazine. His most recent poems have appeared in Four Feathers Press.

Competition Zero

Seeing ‘Division’ as a Focal Point
… to muster Unity of Action
amongst those left straggling
outside of ‘The Light’…
was the Beginning of the Rise
of the ‘Incompetent’ to the Top
(or so the ‘Delusional’ thought).
You cannot ask for ‘Fair Play’
off someone who’s envious,
it just doesn’t work like that…
they’re weak and not in control
of themselves, hence ‘Projection’.
“If they put that much ‘Energy’
into bettering themselves…
maybe they’d get somewhere
… and not be so eaten up
with all that Jealousy and Hatred,”
someone once said in frustration.
“You need ‘Talent’ there
in the first place… to PUT that
‘Energy’ into,” I explained,
“Otherwise, you’re a Comedian
without any decent fucking Jokes.”

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 collections “The Dark Side Of British Poetry: Book 1 of Urban, Cinematic, Degeneration”, “It Is Big And It Is Clever: Book 1 of A Punk Rock Hostile Takeover” and “South Wales Outlaw: Book 2 of A Punk Rock Hostile Takeover” are all available by Close To The Bone Publishing.

flood

salt dancing after a storm, turning into alluvium
& falling into faults of bedrock-self

our construction of colors begins
& ends with the mind’s
white palimpsest

erosion follows the path of least resistance

trust = belief

Jonathan Hayes lives in Oakland, California.

Pollinators

The cimarron sways into
the thunderhead, kissing wind.
The snap overhead ends
any conversation about
friends with benefits.

The kids–bright leaflets–reel 
with so much intention.
Begone or bygone—
the black humus still engenders.

Caleb Puckett lives in Kansas. His books include Tales from the Hinterland, Market
Street Exit and Fate Lines/ Desire Lines, among others.