solitude

more days in self-inflicted lockdown,
refusing to meet with anyone;
only company the blue smoke, the whiskey,
the blank, judgmental page.
one glass empties, another one’s poured,
bottles form a glassy sea on the floor;
every step a potential fall,
amid the dust remnants of coke lie,
as more lines are formed on the desk and snorted to rejuvenate the dying mind.
thoughts and dreams swarm by,
evaporating within the vapors of burning drugs.
from afar the cabin is visible,
lost within a dense forest eternally covered in an impenetrable mist.
all the ghosts of past moments reside between the tall trees,
hiding under the foliage,
protected by the acid rain.
once more, the colors attack, music plays despite everything being turned off;
soft whispers attack the silent night,
burning down the final remnants of peace.
empty houses all around, the streets deserted,
yet another night searching for a cold embrace,
a cheap replacement;
broken down angels residing in the darkest alleys,
searching for a way back to the realms from whence they were evicted.
another day went by, hours move slowly,
the end approaches, new streets, new view, new faces,
all will remain the same until the day the colors take over
and a brave new world finally emerges from the ashes of a burned chunk
of cheap junk.

Currently residing in Greece, George Gad Economou has a Master’s degree in Philosophy of Science and is the author of Bourbon Bottles and Broken Beds (Adelaide Books), Of the Riverside (Anxiety Press), Reeling Off the Barstool (Dumpster Fire Press) and The Omega Of Us All (Anxiety Press).

FOUR ON HOLIDAY

I occasionally sit on the chair I sat on when he was here.
I don’t any longer slot into the mind-set I had then.
The time he was here made a holiday for four
out of our home, the three of us staidly pressing on,
not able to escape. I can’t recapture that feeling now.
When I sit on the chair that faced him, I recall a period of repose.
Things were different for a while. I don’t regret its passing
like a loss. I remember its transience,
like a day at the seaside recollected, fondly, stashed away
in the past. The days he was here,
even just after he’d left, made an impression.
Colours were rearranged, bits and pieces
thrown up in the air to fall back into another shape.
There was a pause. An interregnum. The things that were here,
and returned afterwards, and the sadness,
had their little holiday.

Alan Hardy has for many years run an English language school. As well as Fixator, published in Ink Sweat & Tears, Militant Thistles, Envoi, Iota, Poetry Salzburg, The Interpreter’s House, Littoral, Orbis, South, Pulsar, Lothlorien and others. Poetry pamphlets Wasted Leaves (1996) and I Went With Her (2007). 

Death Rites

In their mourning coats, the magpies
gather in a frenzy
squawking ceaselessly for one
who lies still on the pavement;
one touches the body, looks up,
and scratches the sky’s ceiling.
Are you there, they ask?
Where have you flown to?
Their cries are shrill.
Every now and then one
pulls feathers from the dead one.
Where have you gone, they
are asking. Their heads
tilt to the sky where last
they found him alive.
One pulls on his wings,
which flap down again.
He demands he use them again and fly.
They pace nervously about.
They come near. They depart. They cannot
keep still. What is this they insist?
The wind rustles a newspaper
left on a bench by someone
who has long left
and forgotten it.

Jack Galmitz was born in 1951 in NYC. He attended the public schools and received a Ph.D in Modern American Literature from the University of Buffalo. He has been writing for many years. His recent publications include poems in Utriculi 2025 Issue 2 part 1, Off Course #102, Sept. 2025, Ink Pantry, Spillwords, and an upcoming anthology of noon: journal of the small poem. 

Reading Sartre 3am Listening To The Factory Groan

(click) If I were a broken circuit
— Sartre returns the gaze —
looping despair… fractured rhythms… words… spectral (static)
 
[voice]: “to write is to become haunted”
you are already a ghost before
you speak it. The self flickers fluorescent
 
(hum) Recording waiting… unearthed…
Sartre leans into machine… recordings vibrate
hiss static ghosts
flesh will escape syntax (end transmission)
 
Chopped syllables drift into abyss (echo)
“embedded in the noise… spectral self…”
 
(feedback) EXISTENTIAL NAUSEA (feedback)

Wayne Mason is an experimental writer and sound artist from central Florida whose work explores industrial landscapes, existentialism, and the interplay of text and noise. His words and sounds have been published widely in the small press and his new book, The Death Factory (LJMcD Communications) is out now.

Halloween in Tucson

Saguaros don’t turn brown in October.
Instead, they slumber in waning sunlight,
storing water for the short winter. Their arms
remain open, like crucified saviors,

yet defiant. Each day grows crisper
by half-degrees. Ninety-five, ninety, then eighty-five.
At night, you turn off the swamp cooler.
Its damp air sinks into your bones

like sediment. Halloween in the desert seems
almost comical. Death hovers close
at all times of year. Sugar skulls grin

from shop windows, taco restaurants,
souvenir stands. Squeeze your wrist,
feel the pulse within. Your brittle skeleton
reminds you of how little time remains.

Leah Mueller’s work is published or forthcoming in Rattle, A Certain Age, Writers Resist, Beach Chair Press, NonBinary Review, Brilliant Flash Fiction, New Flash Fiction Review, Does It Have Pockets, Outlook Springs, Your Impossible Voice, etc. She has received several nominations for Pushcart and Best of the Net. One of her short stories appears in the 2022 edition of Best Small Fictions. Her fourteenth book, “A Pretty Good Disaster” was published by Alien Buddha Press in 2025. Check out more of her work at substack.com/@leahsnapdragon.

Fields of St. Theresa

I am going to the fields
wilding fields
to remember

all these cats,
lie down next to me
unalarmed

we pass the days, weeks
supposing
the rolling sky

my beard grows to my knees
my face is covered
in sighing dust

poppies grow up and up
and around, into the trees
red hearts climbing, singing

a hundred years will pass
a thousand feet will push you down
into the ground

Marc lives in Spain and when he’s not drinking tea he teaches English

Survivors

Mid-sentence, we leave others
and sometimes ourselves.
Ample is silenced in the said.
Human minefields, as emblems
of expression, often shy
away from microphones.
It’s incorrect to salute
visuals for certitude.
Verities are also held in wrappers.
Each snivel does not
have an embedment.
Narratives borrow their nibs
from the brokering houses of heritage.
In these shambles, a few persevere.
Folk tales recount their rituals.

Sanjeev Sethi is an award-winning poet who has authored eight poetry collections. His poems have been published in forty countries and appear in over 600 journals and anthologies. In October 2025, he edited Fictile Feelings, a poetry special for The Hooghly Review, Kolkata. He lives in Mumbai, India.

 X @sanjeevpoems3 || Instagram sanjeevsethipoems ||

Stephen Jarrell Williams loves to write for the forgotten world with dreams of hope.  He can be found on Twitter X @papapoet.

99% Acetone

I don’t paint my nails
But I buy super strength nail & tip remover
Only if it contains 99% Acetone
If you know, you know
If you don’t, well, you might learn something

If you smoke cocaine in it’s freebase form and use the same pipe for a while, cocaine builds up inside it.

You can scrape it out, but you don’t always get it all or even a lot, but with acetone it’s thorough, run it through your pipe and let that dry on a mirror and you’ve got yourself a free little session for the evening.

Call me a crackhead druggy whilst you stick roids in your arse with shock needles, call me whatever you want whilst you snort stepped on street cocaine with a key 

Jacques LaCey is an amateur racket maker, a wordsmith of questionable talent and a modern day acid casualty, currently working from Spahn Terrace.

THE JOY OF THIS MAGIC

I rushed home from work & just slumped
Right down here in my wrecked old armchair
& life felt just about right. My body craved
Rest as my right hip & leg ached like the old
Man I’m rapidly turning into would expect
But after a late dinner my mind turned to this
Again. This sweet glorious thing that seems
Somehow to have returned to me tonight as
The word tumbles from my mind out onto this
Page just like they did when I first landed down
Here in this insane asylum by the edge of the
Sea that, still, one day I dream of escaping but
With the world the way it is right now tell me
Somewhere I can go…

Bradford Middleton lives in Brighton, UK.  Recent poems have appeared in River Dog Zine, Back Room Poetry ‘Rebel’ Anthology, Beatnik Cowboy and Dreich Magazine.  His most recent chapbook came out early 2023 from the mighty fine Alien Buddha Press.  He tweets occasionally @BradfordMiddle5.