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.

After Aristotle

The food & drink
provided is com-
posed chiefly of
silicates of somewhat

complex constitution,
but the increased flow
of gastric juices is a
viable vehicle for the

new generation of
young Athenian theater
students who delight
in performances

of sensation & pain.

Mark Young’s most recent book is The Magritte Poems, published by Sandy Press in October, 2024
A collection of a long-running trope, The Complete Post Person Poems, will be published
in the next few months, also from Sandy Press.

the dancing pig

confess, every night
was it inevitable this time too?

write down your statement
& let’s run away.

on the black mirror,
spin around
one pig runs away
but the pigs in the mirror stay
curling, biting each other’s tails,
dancing to the rhythm,
constantly drawing circles.

the pig sentenced to death
takes its last shit & runs
but no one chases.

like a heartbeat,
perfectly regular & unceasing.

i don’t want to shake hands,
it’s like parallel lines.

no forgiveness is needed.
i’m inherently a clean animal.
when i face my own belly button.

sometimes i shudder
at myself,
rolling in the mud
at the closest spot.

Jennifer Choi is a passionate high school student. Her work has previously been published or is forthcoming in Incandescent Review, Altered Reality Magazine, Academy of Heart and Mind, and Culterate Magazine among others.

Ego-Tripped Trigger Finger

People all offended by A.I. bullshit astounds me when in truth, it’s sad that a robot holds more
manners these days than a supposedly fully functional grown adult.

I view people who find excuses for being terrible individuals as pathetic.
They blame past traumas to justify their low character.

I hold no hope in humanity, and that is why I avoid it at all costs, for it’s better to die in isolation
than suffocate in mock praise.

I have zero friends I fully trust, as if they all come with a price tag. They are merely like a
convenience store, and a clerk is never your friend, but they do serve a purpose.

I’ve given until there is not even an ounce of hope within my soul.

But when I bid farewell to this planet, I will do so without an ounce of guilt, and I do not believe
most can say that, let alone believe it.

My ego was abandoned with my heart. I held onto compassion despite my almost arctic
demeanor.

I do not hate, for to hate, you first have to feel.
I am numb to hollow words and empty conversations.

I work while others socialize under the guise of empty importance, reading to toxic fools all in
love with the sound of their own voices.

We are not the same; we are no longer children, so let us not indulge in delusion.

There’s no need for lies; just give me my tab.
And kindly leave me the fuck alone.

John Patrick Robbins, is a Southern Gothic writer his work has been featured in Horror Sleaze Trash,  Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Piker Press, Punk Noir Magazine, Disturb The Universe, The Dope Fiend Daily, Cold Rambler and Impspired Magazine.

His work is dark and always unfiltered.

RED SKY

i forgot to put my image in a photograph.
it was walking with a crowd inside a dream;
humming songs, that once turned on a phonograph
who have left this herd, unseen-
to its shadows of indifference
and coats pulled-to in self-defence,
searching for omnipotence-
red sky too intense.

do i stay, or go now?
work it out for me?
what is left to grow now?
to make, and be?

black doors in the distance,
let in specific light,
while opposites of resistance
limbo in twilight-

like wicks without matches,
living in opaque eyed hatches
and wired stone-
drawing heavy bolts and nervous latches
for pawn heroes, in cold dispatches,
now splinters of bone,
not coming home.

Strider Marcus Jones – is a poet, law graduate and former civil servant from Salford,
England with proud Celtic roots in Ireland and Wales. He is the editor and publisher of
Lothlorien Poetry Journal https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/. A member of
The Poetry Society, and nominated for both the Pushcart Prize x3 and Best of the Net x3, his five published books of poetry  https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/ reveal a maverick, moving between cities, playing his saxophone in smoky rooms. His poetry has been published in numerous publications including: The Huffington Post USA; The Stray Branch Literary Magazine; Crack The Spine Literary Magazine; The Recusant, The Lampeter Review and Dissident Voice.

 

AS WINTER COMES I CRAVE THE SUN

When that sun comes up tomorrow
I’ll be out there wandering those streets,
Luxuriating in the glory of the heat
Which has yet to make it as far as my
Room this winter, just like the last 3
Or 4, but hey beneath my new duvet
Tonight I’ll sleep like a king and the
Warmth will keep me good through
The night until the morning when I’ll
Have to climb on out again & back to
The frozen box I call my room.

Bradford Middleton lives in Brighton, England.  Recent poems appear in The Scumrag, Hiram Poetry Review, the Acid Bath anthology Night Terrors, Yellow Mama, The Candid Review, Razur Cuts, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Broken Teacup and the Mad Swirl.  He’s currently submitting his debut collection around the small presses.

Within the Confines of Speed

I was put to sleep in a moving car
as a tot
my ancestry evolved from cattle

imprisoned at a dental institution by a
stormtrooper of haberdashery

at the foot of a sadist I emasculated

my subversive streak developed
by contrast of movement,
by induced-labor shots of adrenaline against
tremulous space,
unmoving within the confines of the vehicle
I suckled vapid muzak, lips
engorged with earwax

soy milk spilt on oak leaves
Year of the Serpent pending,
exploded in smoke

at the base of diaspora I grovel

after several pratfalls, before a priapic courtship,
after wrestling with the empyrean and
sweaty union with statistics,
I birth a luxurious distrust

delivered by freight to the Warden
who reappears in memory as imperious as rainfall

The poetry and prose of Jay Passer has appeared in print and online
periodicals, magazines and anthologies, in subterranean basements and
restroom stalls, cave walls and space shuttles, since 1988. He is the
author of 15 collections of words, symbols, scrawls, diatribes, missives,
isms, schisms, rain drizzles and blood fizzles. A cook by trade, he’s also
dabbled in daubs, photo-montage, reverse feng shui; while flailing at
mortician’s apprentice, news butcher, and criminal savant. Passer’s most
recent chap, Son of Alcatraz, released in February of 2024 by Alien
Buddha Press, is available from Amazon.

Choppy-Fixer

Treble the ‘Tremors’
she gives me…
the gift of Medusa
with the easiest
of sharp Rejections.
Where’s the fun
in Welcome Mats
and Invitations?
I want to feel
Adored not Secure
… once more
across the Tight
-Rope to tempt Fate.
Your ‘Options’
make you look ugly
and desperate…
cut ‘em loose
and rise HigHER
… ‘Stars’…
don’t belong
Crawling in the Dirt.

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.

Oboe

Ombre of orts cast their flavors
to pulsations.
Souvenirs of session,
lint, odd bead or button,
nevi of nightcap, crumbs,
scrunched contour sheets
and crud,
grip harmonies in woodwinds
gliding ‘tween words
and wordlessness.
Semiosis is open to surmises.
By parol
fixed by intuit.

Sanjeev Sethi has authored eight books of poetry, his latest being Legato Without a Lisp (CLASSIX, an imprintof Hawakal, New Delhi, September 2024). His poetry has been published in over thirty-five countries and has appeared in more than 500 journals, anthologies, and online literary venues. He lives in Mumbai, India.