Thirsty Bones

I count the beer bottles
into the cupboard

Even numbers as always

Two paracetamol
and tired eyes

Just swollen sentiment

The rain makes mirror pools 
where it lands

and mud

It’s not really a choice
but I write it like that anyway 

only bad marrow

and little puddles
of aftertaste

Daniel Cartwright-Chaouki is a gardener and writer from Birmingham, England. He writes about trees and plants (mostly) and people (sometimes) and other unimportant things. His work has featured widely both in print and online including The Lake, Pulp Poets Press, 100subtexts Magazine, Fixator Press and The Cannon’s Mouth.

STRATOCASTER

Tune the guitar too tight
and the strings will break.
Jesus, Krishna, and Buddha
are hard acts to follow.

String the Strat too loose
and it won’t play. Give up
drinking before imitating
the lives of the Saints.

Philip Ash enjoys basking in past glories as well as carving out a present niche. To paraphrase J.G. Ballard, “Write like a madman, but have bourgeois habits.” His work has appeared in Beatnik Cowboy.  He lives in San Diego.

before we were jobless

we were lazy on Sundays
always pancake days
we’d mix and beat the batter heat
pans with butter pats and swirl cream
over lava cakes of banana and nut
eaten in high stacks
go right back to sleep

sundays were the only days
we could do that
mondays through saturdays,
one or both’d be up and at ‘em
at six sometimes five
yes-bosses aimed to beat
our sunday rituals flat
we were exhausted
but not-quite whipped
we’d wake at seven
make feasts for fools
eat to burst
fall back asleep
re-wake around noon
begin the day proper
now in your dad’s car

Brennan Thomas has published poetry in engine(idling, Rue Scribe, and Right Hand Pointing.  She currently resides in Pennsylvania and teaches creative writing at Saint Francis University. 

LIFE WITH THE OBITS

My father morosely turns the newspapers
straight to the obituaries.
That could be the guy he went to school with
or the girl who worked at the Five and Ten
so many years ago.

And there he is
picking at the names of the dead
like they’re scabs
and beneath, red and raw,
are the wounds of his own life.

But then he cheers up
because he’s found himself a wake to go to.
He can catch up with some friends
who haven’t died yet.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Midnight Mind, Novus and Calliope. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Levitate, White Wall Review and Willow Review.

Crucify the Adjectives

Words are empty.
Nothing more than a weighty abstraction
bouldered down through human history.
In essence, nothing more than mere constructions—
sculpted gutturals insanitizing the masses into herd poisoned cliques and countries.
The words are heavy and heady.

One day they will bring forth the end
of the so-called sapient humans

 

Heath Brougher is the editor in chief of Concrete Mist Press. He is a multiple nominee for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Award as well as recipient of Taj Mahal Review’s 2018 Poet of the Year Award. His most recent publications are “Beware the Bourgeois Doomsday Fantasy” (Sandy Press, 2024) and “Change Your Mind” (Alien Buddha Press, 2019).

One More Secret

Perplexed,
I continue
to take this
drifting dream.
Who wouldn’t?

I am with you.
I would not have
it any other way.
Still, it is not
real. I know.

Perplexed,
we hold hands
for the first
time. We kiss
for the first time.

It feels strange in
the morning when
I see you.
I keep one
more secret
to myself.