Indelicate Avenues

High Mass will be celebrated to
announce effective cooperation
with humans &, as an added
bonus, help get your banking
done. Those are now everyday e-
vents. Some are less likely. The
Maricopa County Jail facility is,
to put it bluntly, a shit hole; but
now that biofilters are removing
the sewage gas, & a freshly cleaned
painting that once hung in the war-
den’s office has been identified as
being by none other than Leonardo
da Vinci, I feel a new awakening.

Mark Young was born in Aotearoa New Zealand but now lives in a small town on traditional
Juru land in North Queensland, Australia. He is the author of more than sixty-five books,
primarily text poetry but also including speculative fiction, vispo, memoir, and art history. His
most recent books are a pdf, Mercator Projected, published by Half Day Moon Press
(Turkey) in August 2023; Ley Lines II published by Sandy Press (California) in November
2023; un saut de chat published by Otoliths Books (Australia) in February 2024; and
Melancholy, a James Tate Poetry Prize winner, published by SurVision Books (Ireland) in
March 2024.

Morgue

Where midnight hatched
from its alabaster egg
and the first bone was broken.
The origin of winters,
flesh purpled with snow,
void versus abyss,
obliteration in wedlock with oblivion.

Where death pens its screed,
reeking of formaldehyde,
each letter a tendon basket
brimming with knuckles and toes,
with what remains of us.

Here is where we count the wounds
and measure out life’s length of string,
the longest night outwitting summer.
Here is where we read your palm,
undermining the mound of Venus,
milking ichor from a slit to the wrist,
cataloguing the hollows of a heart,
its lack of red juice and oscillations.

Even the light is made of ice.
Even the Devil walks around this house,
this waystation of the soul,
this mystic corridor and its thousand doors.
Even Death won’t live here.

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. The winner
of the 2020 Libretto prize and author of four poetry collections and seven chapbooks, his poems
have been broadcast and performed globally.

old man asleep in the subway time to die

time for a ticket
to ride for
the strung out
far out
night crawling
joy boy riders
stretching their
thin white lines
to the limit
holding hands
with their
best friend
Mr. Jones
on an express
train to hell
that has no stops
before the end

Alan Catlin is a six decade warrior of the small press scene.  He his pomes in recent issue of Beatnik Cowboy, Home Planet News, Chamber Magazine and Synchronized Chaos. he has full length books forthcoming from Roadside Press, Impspired and Kelsay Books.

Shadowland

Below this world, and now and then indistinguishable from it, is another, no place anyone would
choose to go if they had a choice, where objects of longing recede ever further and memories
blow apart like smoke, where timelines have been indefinitely suspended, where God has our
own face but super magnified and children are strange puppets with painted eyes and wobbly
heads, where basic truths are conveyed, when conveyed at all, in conspiratorial whispers, where
even at the height of summer or the burning point of tinder, the shadows under the trees never
melt.

Howie Good is a poet and collage artist on Cape Cod.

A Stranger to These Lands

Know that this is no simple archetype
if a stranger should come to town,
break bread with those calloused traveller hands,
a persistent cough that could be construed as something deadly
in the wrong light; the warmth of shelter and company 
extended in kindness, curious children with their many questions
that go unanswered, whispered giggles of new opportunities –
seasoned walking stick on the lean in darkened corner,
impenetrable woven layers as befit the season;
a distrait cat licking itself by the door like a prized
and convincing waterfall.

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.

Long Train to TomorrowLand

Escape ticket
past city traps
oversized cracks and dumps

slump sitting
one-way getaway
counting the clap of miles

train full of the swaying
beat and lost
stumped and staring out the windows

heavy eyed
heart choked
remembering the pick of yesterdays

nothing the same
blood drops curdled
popped and swallowed

sound waves from miles away
piercing screams
past and future dyings

old men numb
old women sobbing
both in a slow death bob

young people wired
robot mauled
squeezed by invisible claws

sky trails of smoke
everything vibrating
rust dust continually sprinkling

paper money near worthless
rolls of copper pennies near priceless
robbery schemes considered

sleep dreams spotlighted
giving wacky meanings
mostly unintelligible

hope
an ancient mystery
giving the moon a slit smile

and the train keeps moving
down the line leaning
to one side then the other.

Stephen Jarrell Williams often starts a poem with his fist, and slowly opens it to the sky.  He is on (X) Twitter @papapoet.

Yearning 

Our article of faith
was first betrayed
when we chose
to cold-shoulder it.
There was no written document,
only inhalations
of its essence.
 
To the eyes, we have 
dressed the damages.
The cuts are cauterized.
Sores are sterilized.
In the archives of our minds,
the unwritten
text is a remembrancer.

Sanjeev Sethi has authored seven books of poetry. He has been published in over thirty countries. He is the
joint winner of the Full Fat Collection Competition-Deux, organized by Hedgehog Poetry Press, UK. He was
recently conferred the 2023 Setu Award for Excellence. He lives in Mumbai, India.

After Reverdy

Into the void
of nowhere land
I cultivate absent thoughts
from everywhere I have gone.
I give sleep walking a chance
without dreaming,
without keeping time.
I am the abyss.
I am the mayor of nowhere land.

Luis was born in Mexico, lives in California, and works in the mental health field in Los Angeles. His latest chapbook, Make the Light Mine, was published by Kendra Steiner Editions. His poems have appeared in Blue Collar Review, Mad Swirl, Unlikely Stories, and Yellow Mama Magazine. 

The Lesser Of

I was put on hold
which became a pattern
a holding pattern
like above the landing strip at the airport
in inclement weather
aloft
and circling
in theory
it could go on forever, or at least until the plane
runs out of fuel
which means
being on hold
quickly becomes subject to
plummet
the receiving end of which I'd rather not
be on
at all

Jay Passer’s poetry first appeared in 1988 alongside the work of William Burroughs and Wanda Coleman in Caliban magazine. He’s been included in print anthologies and online publications worldwide and is the author of 14 collections. A lifetime plebeian, Passer has labored as dishwasher, barista, soda jerk, pizza cook, housepainter, courier, warehouseman, bookseller and mortician’s apprentice. Originally native of San Francisco, Passer currently resides in Venice, California.

My Catalog of Obsolete Lonely Sounds

First, the old-fashioned dial tone,
zenith of nothingness.
Who invented that?

The almost-silent radio
after Country Carl’s
   sign-off prayer

Jazz singer fading to needle hiss
as the victrola winds down
In an empty room

I will leave off the train whistle,
though it inspired
many a fine old song

At the tone, the time will be
three a.m.
exactly.

Trish Saunders writes poetry and short fiction from Seattle. Her work’s been published in many
places, including The Rye Whiskey Review, The American Journal of Poetry, Eunoia Poetry
Review, the late lamented Fat Girls Review, and other places. She appreciates them all.