Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Did you see the wolf in sheep’s clothing?
It was tired of being a bad human being.
When a wolf leaves you bleeding, it is
what they do. When a human being leaves
you bleeding, it is assault, attempted
murder, a violent act of malice. It is best
to be a wolf the human being thought, 
so it transformed itself with magic. The
human being with his evil heart was no 
more. The wolf went on howling as it
navigated the landscape dressed as the
sheep it killed. Its bite was as precise 
as the butcher’s knife. Some nights it
wished it was human again, but the magic
spell was irreversible and binding.

Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal was born in Mexico, lives in California, and works in Los Angeles. 
His poetry has appeared in Blue Collar Review, Fixator Press, Impspired, Mad Swirl, The Rye Whiskey Review,Unlikely Stories, and Yellow Mama Magazine. His most recent poems have appeared in Four Feathers Press.

Competition Zero

Seeing ‘Division’ as a Focal Point
… to muster Unity of Action
amongst those left straggling
outside of ‘The Light’…
was the Beginning of the Rise
of the ‘Incompetent’ to the Top
(or so the ‘Delusional’ thought).
You cannot ask for ‘Fair Play’
off someone who’s envious,
it just doesn’t work like that…
they’re weak and not in control
of themselves, hence ‘Projection’.
“If they put that much ‘Energy’
into bettering themselves…
maybe they’d get somewhere
… and not be so eaten up
with all that Jealousy and Hatred,”
someone once said in frustration.
“You need ‘Talent’ there
in the first place… to PUT that
‘Energy’ into,” I explained,
“Otherwise, you’re a Comedian
without any decent fucking Jokes.”

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 collections “The Dark Side Of British Poetry: Book 1 of Urban, Cinematic, Degeneration”, “It Is Big And It Is Clever: Book 1 of A Punk Rock Hostile Takeover” and “South Wales Outlaw: Book 2 of A Punk Rock Hostile Takeover” are all available by Close To The Bone Publishing.

flood

salt dancing after a storm, turning into alluvium
& falling into faults of bedrock-self

our construction of colors begins
& ends with the mind’s
white palimpsest

erosion follows the path of least resistance

trust = belief

Jonathan Hayes lives in Oakland, California.

Pollinators

The cimarron sways into
the thunderhead, kissing wind.
The snap overhead ends
any conversation about
friends with benefits.

The kids–bright leaflets–reel 
with so much intention.
Begone or bygone—
the black humus still engenders.

Caleb Puckett lives in Kansas. His books include Tales from the Hinterland, Market
Street Exit and Fate Lines/ Desire Lines, among others.

RetroHakked — [Another Random Cut-Up Series Creation]

the war dialers, password crackers, dumpster diving, social engineering,
phreaking, LOD

– still meant something

Scott C. Holstad has authored 75+ books & is happy to report his first book of poetry in years
was just published by Alien Buddha Press in October 2025. Surviving Immortality Again is a
132-page paperback containing 90 poems available through Amazon. He’s also a previous
Fixator Press contributor.

Crucify the Adjectives

Words are empty.
Nothing more than a weighty abstraction
bouldered down through human history.
In essence, nothing more than mere constructions—
sculpted gutturals insanitizing the masses into herd poisoned cliques and countries.
The words are heavy and heady.

One day they will bring forth the end
of the so-called sapient humans

Heath Brougher is the editor in chief of Concrete Mist Press. He is a multiple nominee for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Award as well as recipient of Taj Mahal Review’s 2018 Poet of the Year Award. His most recent publications are “Beware the Bourgeois Doomsday Fantasy” (Sandy Press, 2024) and “Change Your Mind” (Alien Buddha Press, 2019). 

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.