…At A Gentle Canter

Abstinence and Repulsion
… I blame the Celibates
for the Fires in the Temple.
Put your ‘Confessional
Face’ away, it’s making
me nauseous… Mask On!
“… they’ve blamed
Rachael for it… just like
you claimed they would… ”
It’s not the ‘Evidence’
… but those in Attendance
that matters… and we Rule.
‘Splinters’ completely…
Cell-Pondering past-tense
is a Punishment wrapped
up inside a Prison Sentence.

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

Poll Watcher

So say it rains.
Say it rains during zazen
during posture practice.
The drops strike the roof
and leak into your mind.
During a daydream at night
a reverie of a revered one
before bedding-down a day
rolls like a drop rolling
off the beleaguered roof.
A few dead in Arkansas.
Tornados rarely make it this far.
We get the last of the rain,
Godzilla diminished,
still, when he falls he damages
plenty. The effect is felt
at the precinct hall
where watchers count out
the minutes left till closing time.
The president’s name is immaterial.
None of those who voted for him know

they voted for the one
destined to appall.
This cycle meant nothing after all.

Steve Hamelman teaches English at Coastal Carolina University where he has published two books and many articles/reviews on American fiction and rock, some creative pieces too (e.g., poems in The Blotter). He’s the review editor for the journals Popular Music and Society and Rock Music Studies.

Watching ping pong

Level is level either way
but lever, given
the opportunity
quickly turns into a party.

While my 1991 Civic
works great
in drive or reverse.

Doug Sylver’s writing can be found in Drifting Sands, The Sun Magazine, The New York
Times and Fixator Press, among other publications. He is a recently retired public high 
school teacher and lives with his love, Monica, in Seattle.

The linguistic fall

Aurora Borealis
& its strange, new meaning.
Ionization in the
magnetospheric plasma
the sky’s open eyes
the goddess of the dawn subsumed
now a palimpsestic trace.

What’s the point of trying to
immortalise these thoughts
with words that aren’t my own?
We all dip from the same linguistic well,
& everything said
has been better said
by minds & souls
with more depth
& the ability
— uncanny & otherworldly —
to harness more precisely
that harmony between
meaning & saying.

Nothing sets one’s words apart
from those of any others
besides, perhaps, those deviations
from the “real”
— infidelities & lies,
delusions & denials,
blind spots & wilful obscurities —
but they anchor me
— with cams & carabiners
belay-rappel devices —
to the sheer face
perilously perched
above the catacombs
of the first Christians.

Cartesian consciousness
is a lonely & desperate thing.
We all dip from the same deep well
but we dip to slake a thirst
like no other,
& water flows
to fill each vessel
& match its shape.

In the beginning was the word
& the word ‘came flesh
but the flesh falls
& all ends
in silence.

Julian is a fledgling poet from Melbourne, Australia. He studied literature and professional writing and now works as a corporate shill, selling his corrupted pen to the highest bidder. His poetry is an attempt to make sense of a lifetime of bad choices. He has been published in A Thin Slice of Anxiety, The Rye Whiskey Review, and Horror Sleaze Trash.  

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.

Censor

Derailed by unsympathetic deliveries
Mending my dull midpoint
That owned a snail-like level speed
Gratitude as a safeguard stung me
Below par verbal communication
Scrutiny took a nosedive
Elasticity and some emolument
Fleeting footing produced by past abrasion encounters
Rancorous thoughts were often frequent
Gawking at forged reinforcements
A Family jungle filled with irregular black oaks
Censor all success classifications
This emotional peroration experienced a beheading

CJ The Tall Poet is a poet, digital artist, and author based in Chula Vista, California who’s currently attending Cal State University San Marcos for a degree in Literature and Writing.Their writing has appeared in The Drabble, Shortkidstories.com, Bardics-Anonymous, Dadakuku, Coalition-works, Journal of Expressive Writing, and redrosethorns.

Stephen Jarrell Williams can be found on “X” Twitter @ papapoet

The Critical Act

All weekend he sorted his stack of newspapers: first by
date, and then by disasters, which he subdivided into fact
and fiction. There were more involving mineshafts than he
remembered, though surprisingly few that involved feisty
collies with a near-human capacity for communication.
Tragedy on the high seas was particularly well-represented,
with a remarkable proportion declared unaccountable, and
given the number of airborne calamities reported on a daily
basis – from melting wings of wax and feathers, to space
capsules ambushed by gravity or alien raiders – it was a
minor miracle that none had crashed through his ceiling.
Each pile grew like an ungrounded rumour until two towers
leaned over him, blocking out the light. By Monday
morning, his eyes ached with grief and his arms ached with
the unexpected weight of words, but he felt that, for the first
time in his life, he could separate truth from lies.

Oz Hardwick is a poet, photographer, occasional musician, and accidental academic, whose most recent chapbook is Retrofuturism for the Dispossessed (Hedgehog, 2024). When not writing, Oz is a long-time dabbler on the fringes of the UK space rock scene, and Professor of Creative Writing at Leeds Trinity University.

Alphabetical

The saponaceous trail washes away another year.
I have no aptitude for auditing, so I let it continue.
Computation is a coarse way to live, though it has
many votaries. Filigree of family bypasses my
prostoon. I await a switch-over till prehension
dawns: In my craps, the dice capitulates. When
celestial beings collogue, why employ chiffers?

Sanjeev Sethi has authored eight books of poetry. His poetry has been published in over thirty-five
countries and has appeared in more than 500 journals, anthologies, and online literary venues. He
edited Dreich Planet #1 India, an anthology for Hybriddreich, Scotland. He is the joint winner of
the Full Fat Collection Competition-Deux, organized by Hedgehog Poetry Press, UK. He lives in
Mumbai, India.

Smiles

Sometimes it is hard to tell
If it is really a smile or if
Just a toothy splash of smug
Taping the mouth open. Or,
Perhaps, a grimace, clenched
To bear, to kill, or even to endear.
Or, it may be, simply simple
Resignation to, or from, what.
Be it a smirk, or merely a quirk
Of mirth or a tense, ironic sneer.
We cannot know, only suspect.
There is decay behind the enamel
Veneer. But we smile to ourself.
We know it. Tight lips, and all that.

Bruce Morton divides his time between Montana and Arizona. He is the author of two poetry collections: Planet Mort (2024) and Simple Arithmetic & Other Artifices (2014). His poems have appeared in numerous online and print venues. He was formerly dean at the Montana State University library.