Undressed Gardens

Bells pause stick figure ennui
in the clouded vestibules of
another bonfire ragamuffin
sentry engulfed in yacking
standardized marble rye. Eek,
dripping like a mangled tome
carrying excited ventricles
throughout comatose car wrecks.
An abysmal squid, drunk, also
sauntering, mainly verbally
opaque.

Transparency would not taint
our fuselage dipsticks unless
tarantula humming were left
beneath the trailblazing jets
slowly sinking. Wanton, used,
catching streaks of permanent
staplers. Once, revoking globes,
the tiresome affidavit did a
granular spit take. Nervously,
another flyball corpse shouted
into the socialist void lipstick
avalanche.

Within our diabolical trends,
newly appointed surgical runts
basked in the enigma of a glue
sniffing rainbow. Smirk. Jump.
Narrow, though frolicking. If
our stamp collections could
speak in tongues, we’d bury our
microphones in the makeshift
cherry sequences.

Irrational lungs squelch yawns.

Misstated futuristic uncles spraying
fertilizer into the nostrils of paint
can hurdles. Desiccated shoehorns
maintain impervious ear canals
while shrugging. Into the fire,
out of the hovel, before an otter
has time to look up.

Joshua Martin is a Philadelphia based writer. He is a member of C22, an experimental writing collective. He is the author most recently of O! fragmented glories (Argotist Ebooks) and Prismatic Fissures (C22 Press). He has had numerous pieces published in various journals. You can find links to his published work at joshuamartinwriting.blogspot.com

Yea

Never followed the

Na,

Forged,

Failed to find the keys

The place where fable blended

w/ fury.

Tears abound when I said

Who claimed their goal

Heavens.

A former collegiate offensive lineman and football coach for 26 years, Dan Provost’s poetry has
been published both online and in print since 1993. He is the author of 15 books/chapbooks. His
latest, Wolf Whistles Behind the Dumpster was released by Roadside Press in November 2022.
He has been twice nominated for The Best of the Net and has read his poetry throughout the
United States. He lives in Berlin, New Hampshire with his wife Laura, and dog Bella.

Who’s Out There?

i hate it
when i look
into the night
and see
nothing but darkness –
no twinkling stars
and crescent moon
or porchlight
for me.

but contrary to
hoping for
a light
at the end
of the tunnel –
i’d rather not
meet
the face
of the killer
(jagged-toothed,
sunken-eyed,
blood-thirsty)
that i expect
to see
every time
i pull back
the curtain.

Megan Diedericks writes poetry and fiction, everything from meek to macabre can be found in between the lines. Her debut poetry collection: “the darkest of times, the darkest of thoughts” is available on Amazon. Find her on Instagram: @meganreflects, or visit her website (bit.ly/megandiedericks) for more information.

Congress of the Dying

if found
a kite
we’d sprout

faded
a floriculture
wouldn’t

wilt
if thought
bloom

affirmed
shine
freesia

arranged
radical
shade

Brian Le Lay is a multidisciplinary writer and sound artist whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in places like BOMBFIRE, Sledgehammer Lit, dadakuku, Password, Unlikely Stories, Scud, and re-mediate.

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.

Paternoster

The jaunt is to green-light oneself.
To be centre stage with ardor
and engaged with enthrallers.
It is not subjugation. It is fealty
to fantasies. You are noon or naught,
depending on the examiner of your
oeuvre. You can’t control that.
The way forward is to inquire:
Does it consume me? If yes,
continue the chase.

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.

Typos

…even the typos start sounding god if you read them enough
start sounding god if you read them
start sounding god

Doug Sylver has had jobs as a bike messenger in New York City (for a few months) delivering newspapers on the streets of Paris (for a few days) and as a public high school teacher in Seattle (for almost thirty years). All that time he has tried to write.

The Christmas Dead

a few less cards
to put in the mail every year
a few more names
to take out of my phone
sometimes i forget one
& the other end of the line
is just silence
the only thing
that survives the cold.

John Dorsey is the former Poet Laureate of Belle, MO. He is the author of several collections of
poetry, including Which Way to the River: Selected Poems: 2016-2020 (OAC Books, 2020),
Sundown at the Redneck Carnival, (Spartan Press, 2022, and Pocatello Wildflower, (Crisis
Chronicles Press, 2023). He may be reached at archerevans@yahoo.com.

Fun Is Dead

… and, we ACT separately
from the Main Body
of the Army … irrespective
of both King and Country
… ‘We’ came to Kill
and Conquer not Shepherd
and Police… Scum!
“You set fire to his face
… and let him live?”
Bollocks strewn upon
barbed wire fencing…
our Enemies deserve
NO ‘Dignity’ nor Escape.
I saw the Ex-Head-Shrink
bite his agitated fist…
when you slid in the knife
and went to work
upon that Turncoat…
showing him that
there is a FAR worse
sounding Pain than
(Bedevilled) Schizophrenia…

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” and collection of shorter fiction “Kicking Back Drunk ‘Round The Candletree Graves” are both now available by Close To The Bone Publishing.

Realms

On the trek to a budding friendship,
we speak of falsity
and its stench on talkfests.
We chat about this or that
when a person
I have blackballed crops up.
 
It’s the quality of the query
that begets the reply. Another on
the issue evokes another answer.
There is no flawless question
or comeback.
There is no last word.

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

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