Even Without Floppy Shoes

Caricature of self
Ridicule ensues
Clown and critic combined

Every precipice
Perilous, the finding
Every edge
In its place

Every clown
So inclined

MH Clay lives and works in Dallas, Texas. He has a poetry page at https://madswirl.com/author/mhclay/.

He has published three poetry collections; sonoffred, Rebel Poetry in Ireland, 2015, Angst,
Mad Swirl Press, and True Believer, Alien Buddha Press, 2025 (all are available on Amazon). His poetry has been published in various online journals, including Fixator Press, Impspired Magazine, and Misty Mountain Review.

                                   Tormented Land

                           Crumbling sidewalks contrast
                             with resplendent buildings
                                in the gentrifying city
                                 of abandoned parks,
                                no longer maintained
                              as the rich go elsewhere
                                       for recreation.
                                    Nature perseveres
                             as long as our planet exists
                                   to recover the earth
                                   until we all perish,
                                    weeds sprouting
                            through cracked pavements
                               in the ongoing struggle
                                    that affects us all
                                   so we barely notice
                                   concrete is fleeting.



Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction, essays and plays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines. His traditionally published books include 46 poetry collections, 19 novels, 4 short story collections, 2 collections of essays, 8 books of plays and 16 poetry chapbooks. Gary lives in New York City.

Flash Burn

At times we are too close to anything to realize the absurdity of the situation.

A quicksand promise, a parting note.

It’s always too damn late, and you’re always too fucking worn out to give a damn by the time it is
over.

Within the arms of an addiction is a familiar place to fade a cowardly act, as it is far easier to
recede than ever fight to progress into the nothing your life has truly become.

I have never liked photos, for they are timestamps to poor choices and fatal mistakes born of a
flawed ego’s logic.

I don’t need to ever document my downfall.

For I have a photographic memory.

You never need to celebrate your failures.

For I awake to face the mirror that reflects them daily.

I once met a man who was not there.

So they say.

John Patrick Robbins, is a Southern Gothic writer his work has been published in Horror Sleeze Trash, Disturb The Universe, Spill The Words Press, The San Pedro River Review, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Cold Rambler and Here at Fixator Press.

The Blood Soaks Into the Dust in Minutes

This time
another war,
another people
            angry and
            oppressed.
As
            invaders
            occupiers
peacekeepers
squeeze off
round
          after
round
into the murmuring throngs,
I think of the women
and children used by
                                 ALL

as
human shields
      <or>
  targets,
paying the price
for where they were
born, for dirt and grass,
for living their lives
in a crossfire.

I see
a young adolescent boy,
eyes rolling heavenward,
a true supplicant,
as he crumples to
the parched ground
and remains
a tattered
broken
scarecrow,
forever praying
for rain.

Scott C. Holstad is a BOTN-nominated poet/author whose work has appeared in hundreds of
publications, most recently The Piker Press, Horror Sleaze Trash, The Beatnik Cowboy, Misfit,
The Scalar Comet, Cosmic Daffodil Journal, Five Fleas, smols, Alien Buddha Zine, Bristol Noir, The
Argyle, miniMAG & Blood+Honey. He lives in Pennsylvania.

Fact From Fiction 4

Every non-Euclidean geometry brings something to the table. Synchrony is knee-
jerk mimicry. It’s exponential growth to one so to the oppositely-oriented other it’s
decay. As brains in vats would put out welcome mats so brains in vats pursuant to
the flipping of a switch would to occasions rise and from occasions fall. A billion
years ago the active listeners wore out their welcome, so the innocent bystanders.
As revolving doors delivered us at random to an icy sidewalk or a brilliantly lit
lobby where five thousand people said five thousand people saw us in the
incandescence of the flesh so we were thinking to be neither a team player nor an
individual when in its precise rows and columns our platoon first formed. Now
we’ll have the unusual, we’ll think outside the anechoic chamber, ask for
feedback, ask for feedback and receive.

Heikki Huotari wrote their first poem the morning after the major died in the adjacent bed. Since retiring from academia/mathematics they’ve published more than 500 poems in literary journals, including Pleiades, Florida Review and The Journal, and in six chapbooks and six collections. They have won one book prize (Star 82 Press) and two chapbook prizes (Gambling The Aisle and Survision Press). Their Erdős number is two.

the ancient theater of Epidaurus

proscenium & stage stand sheathed in red
like hymen or the bud beneath the foreskin
atoms from the centuries still shimmer
deep beneath Aegean & Ionian
waves // cold Alfa beer hot sun in Athens
bellydancers at the nightclub chorus
for a rite & after midnight ouzo
on the roof Acropolis moonlit
// the limestone seat already warm as blood
the summer morning broiling like god-hated
heroes’ rage the broken families’ grief
// i find the famous poet-sandalmaker’s
son & we trade chapbooks his bilingual
mine of iambs thumping like a heart

Thomas Zimmerman (he/him/his) teaches English and directs the Writing Center at Washtenaw Community College, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. His poems have appeared recently in Ephemeral Elegies, Jagged Edge, and Yellow Mama. His latest poetry book is Free Range Angels (Cyberwit, 2025).

Autobiographical Figment

My mom was 12 when she went to work cutting lace for bridal gowns in a sweatshop
after school. “We were poor but didn’t know it,” she would often say as if political
immaturity were a cause for boasting. She and my dad grew up just blocks apart on the
Lower Eastside, children of Yiddish-speaking immigrants. Across the ocean, their aunts
and uncles and grandparents were hunted by wolves. Death has many names. Once a
month I receive an injection of a tumor necrosis factor blocker. To see myself as I am is
to remember myself as I was, a wildly energetic boy his parents crumpled up and his
teachers threw away.

Howie Good’s latest poetry collection, True Crime, was published by Sacred Parasite in Berlin this year.

TO THE SISTER WHO NEVER FLEW

Sometimes, I think about how much time
I’ve spent up in the air.
And then I remember that you
were never once in an airplane.

I’ve crossed oceans,
traveled through countless countries
but the farthest you ever went
was on a train to some outback town
when your policeman husband-to-be
was stationed there.

I’ve peered down on the Earth so often.
But you could only look up,
maybe spy a jet zipping overhead
and say over and over to yourself, “Never.”

You only ever took a train that once.
After that, married with children,
your journeys were no more than where
a car could take you in an hour or two.

Was it fear? Or did you so love
the familiar, the predictable,
that you lacked desire to be anyplace else?

I ended up ten thousand miles
from the place I grew up in.
You merely moved to the other side of the river.
I’m in the process of planning my next trip.
You’re buried not far from where you lived.

My restlessness
versus your contentment –

Don’t worry.
I’m not keeping score.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Midnight Mind, Willow Review and the Pennsylvania Literary Journal. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the MacGuffin, Touchstone and Willow Review.

survival

woven angst strangle
intervene thought relieving

grasp dragging suffocate
abnormal squirm wallow

tread beat relentless
nil flicker revival

exist sharp pain wrapping
clamp usual becoming

breathe in healing question
is flee black obtainable

light darkness twin opposite
rationale spelling possible

rally slow rising
take step glimpsing courage

recovery game muster
slide hopeful true stronger

walk lone swim coastline
reflect silent gift union

nurture preen calm trust
survival can will be me

Stephen House has won many awards as a poet, playwright, and actor. He’s received international literature residencies from The Australia Council and Asialink. He has had many plays published by APT and two chapbooks published by ICOE Press. He performs his acclaimed monologues widely.

Schizopolis Awakening

What is a wind chime hurtling towards death
It is the familiar end of a dream

Honey it’s 8 o’clock, honey (??)
Why are you sleeping, the film is only over
And you’re nearing so many edges

Time is always now here forever gone

Recycling tomato puree entries
Captured as an image the concept of telling you
That jolts look like this from the outside
Not the burnt end of a film roll

What labours of love
What bothers distorted attentions
Distracted affections

What warmth extends structural integrity

The dust in her hair, the dust in his wounds
Oh god, awake

Elly Henkes is a writer and artist, currently studying journalism. Her creative work includes poetry, photography and music, shared with the world under the alias Unterwerk. It navigates emotion which should be lost in translation, but persists even when deconstructed.