Some Distant Point

There’s a man with a blur for a face,
a can of beer and a cigarillo, standing
in a corner of a fancy living room, somewhere,
with a hardwood floor, a Persian rug and
an empty chair in the other, a bay window
between them, showing us a Spring day of
impressionist blues, yellows and greens
with a barbwire fence and an old dirt road,
trailing off to some distant point on the horizon,
and each post crowned with an old boot.

Weathering

Hard facts pummel us daily like the wind and the rain.
We stand like statues, growing brittle round the edges while attempting
to remain implanted in this harsh, damaging reality.

Life may be a game.
The players shift places.
The board remains the same.

We rise from the ocean netted with debris and what the waves wouldn’t swallow.
We are nearly convinced that we shall survive whatever situation and circumstance
happen to toss our way.
We have made ourselves believe in the possibility of tomorrow.

Kevin M. Hibshman has had his poetry, prose, reviews and collages published around the world, most recently in Punk Noir Magazine, Rye Whiskey Review, Piker Press, The Crossroads, Drinkers Only, 1870, Synchronized Chaos, Yellow Mama, Unlikely Stories Mark V, Literary Yard, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and Medusa’s Kitchen. He has edited his own poetry journal, FEARLESS for the past thirty years. He has authored sixteen chapbooks, including Incessant Shining (2011, Alternating Current Press).He received a BA in Liberal Arts from Union University/Vermont College in 2016. A new book, Just Another Small Town Storywill be available from Whiskey City Press in 2021.

Caesar Salad On the Rocks

Carrots jumbled in the food processor
with alphabet soup and lampshades,
[i’m eating it yum, yum, yum]
Drinking Caesar salad on the rocks,
postwar croutons float in the miasma,
limited vocabulary tossed, frothing,
over three extra shots of espresso.
Oh don’t forget the dressings,
caked on makeup of mud and
DDT, try and get some eyelids,
if you want to be a normal boy,
but only if you want to be,
I understand if you don’t.

Jeremy Scott (he/him) is from Albany, Georgia. He’s @possiblyarhino on Twitter. His debut novella, Marginalia, will be published by Alien Buddha Press. His work has been published or is forthcoming in All Guts No Glory, Angel Rust, BOMBFIRE, Fifth Wheel Press’s flux digital anthology, Selcouth Station, Versification, and others.

My Other Lives

I don’t forget to cry,
which means my eyes still work.
I always cry these days.
I am living in purgatory
for the sins I committed
in my other lives.
I have returned to this world
over and over again
in a different body each time.
I have returned to this world
not to get things right,
but to pay for the things
I have done. Centuries have
passed and I suffer in every
new life. The irony of it is
that I don’t remember the things
I have done in my other lives.

Born in Mexico, Luis lives in California and works in Los Angeles. His latest poetry book, Make the Water Laugh, was published by Rogue Wolf Press. His poetry has appeared in Blue Collar Review, Kendra Steiner Editions, Mad Swirl, Pygmy Forest Press, and Unlikely Stones.

 

Epitaph And A Rain Check

Don’t trouble yourself with my direction.
Simply enjoy the miles together.
Don’t cry for what no longer will be, just enjoy what was.

Wine to a kiss, bourbon to the wind.
I never was a set image but I am certainly one of life’s truest characters.

Never removed from the hearts that knew me best and cursed by strangers who can’t find
themselves even when looking in the mirror.

What’s real is never replaced.
Rest easy and farewell my friends.

 

John Patrick Robbins, is the editor in chief of The Rye Whiskey Review he is also the author of the Still Night Sessions from Whiskey City Press.His work has appeared here at Fixator Press, Punk Noir Magazine , Horror Sleaze Trash, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, The Dope Fiend Daily, Piker Press And Fearless Poetry Zine.

His work is always unfiltered.

In a snow globe incident 

In the barbershop filled with relics to Mayakovsky
my pear shape ears met the gas heart gaze
of tirelessly opaque beasts cornering one market or another
until the strapping lines disordered enough waste
to present the newest and latest trend in wearable smells
at ease though underdeveloped like car engine fumes
which I spit out as undernourished icicle breads
then a line of third rate dog shampooers struck the gong
that indicated a notion invisible to the fingerprint touch
but prey to the visions of deranged priestly pederast
and I wanted a personification of all the evil at play
so easily found on billboards and newspaper stands
expressly forbidden was the chattering jelly fish I proposed
to clumps of bashful hair piled against the wall
comatose like all the flatbread pamphleteers of violence
who throw nose congestion #s at parliamentary posers
then no one knew to let me dial back my rage
because I’d lost my pointer finger in a snow globe incident
some years prior among apparatus green as folds of paper
phosphorescent waves generating pride of the yankee underwear
like I knew that behind it all there was an exit
as if I suspected through my bars an alternative reality
beyond all the snip snip snipping scissor infections
and barbicide drunk driving season of the witch sitcoms
then a drill to the neck hairline ensued
while dawn’s earliest practitioners squirt hair gels
just to appear obvious and transparent
though enough proved to be enough
at least as I spoke through a ringtone contest
hoping for a pause on political ideology
at least until the sparkle of my arms returned
and return it would at least I had to promise
to feel for a moment the freedom of ceasing operations
and burying the internet memes once and for all

Joshua Martin is a Philadelphia based writer and filmmaker, who currently works in a library. He is the author of the books Pointillistic Venetian Blinds (Alien Buddha Press, 2021) and Vagabond fragments of a hole (Schism Neuronics). He has had pieces previously published in Coven, Spontaneous Poetics, Ygdrasil, Expat, Selcouth Station. RASPUTIN, Train, Fugitives & Futurists, Otoliths, M58, Punk Noir Magazine, Fixator Press, Beir Bua, and Scud among others. joshuamartinwriting.blogspot.com

TRUNCATION IN ICELAND

the glaciers like what we are waiting to say
the rivers erode banks’ slow truths
the mountains hiding things we may never say
the volcanoes forgiven for their drunkenness
the oceans and our shared subconscious, dreams
the earthquakes where we all just say the same things
the tornadoes of things said in anger
the hurricanes of cacophony of accumulated convos
the aurora borealis or australis above us, shimmering
the forests of silence, except for the wind in needles and leaves

a lake of us together–ripples from our canoes’
circles all around from the drops of rain
concentric epics with every impact
upon the undulating surface
Venn diagrams infiltrating their eddying

we are dropping the paddles
breaking the rudders
just waiting as the sky above
becomes the water below
and what we say is now only

about the stars; we’ve forgotten
the shores

do we need to go home, ever again?

 

 

Joseph V. Milford published his first collection of poems, Cracked Altimeter, with BlazeVox Press in 2010 and has another collection of poems, Tattered Scrolls And Postulates, Vol. I, from Backlash Press (2017). He edits an online literary thread, RASPUTIN (http://rasputinpoetry.blogspot.com/), which publishes poetry exclusively.

Little Man What Now?

Why do you think you ruminate the small hours? Do you count abject failures or
regrets? Have you tried turning your head off? Is that a stupid question? Have you tried
teleportation, picturing somewhere you love, fucking off there? Do you blame cheese for
dreams that don’t go easy on you, even though you only eat vegan substitutes? Have you
tried masturbation, but with more vigour than is usual? Have you taken the air today?
Have you completed your target of 11,000 steps? Have you tried indentifying birds by
their song? Do you think some birds sing for pleasure or is birdsong merely anger? Or
like most things, is it just about the sex? Did you know that pet birds are sexually
attracted to their owners and sing only for them? Do you think owners of pet birds
reciprocate? Have you tried falling asleep to the sound of a hair dryer? It works for
Wayne Rooney, but he can afford the electricity. Have you tried listening to an
audiobook? Try Bill Bryson’s The History of Almost Everything. I’ve never got past
chapter One. Have you tried listening to Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2, you
know, the music from that scene in Brief Encounter? I know it’s good, but it has a
calming effect. Did you know the station scene was filmed in Clapham? No, you tit. Not
the one in London. In The Yorkshire Dales! Have you tried sitting on your right hand, or
numbing it some other way, prior to masturbation, so it feels like someone else’s? Have
you tried listening to The Planets? No, not by Holst, you tit, but actual planets? Have
you tried training yourself to become a synasthete? Have you tried losing yourself in the
streets of an imagined old city? Don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like me? That’s
not a serious question. I know how attracted you are to the woman sleeping next to you.
I’m just checking you’re paying attention, although that kind of defeats the object of this
lesson. Do you watch too much television? Do you realise you’ve been watching News 24
before bed since your father died in the summer of 2001 when the world seemed like it
had gone to hell? Do you really think this helps? And the Pepsi Max, man. You down
that shit like a motherfucker. Do you realise you rehearse arguments you never end up
having, although one could argue it’s more productive to have them with yourself than
someone else? But at this time? Really? And I know you like, get creative and shit, when
you least expect it, or fucking want to, for that matter, but mate, this stuff can wait till
tomorrow and if the ideas are gone by then, fuck it. You’ll remember the good ones and
if you don’t, so fucking what? YOU NEED TO SLEEP, YOU GIANT COCK. But listen,
this ruminating about the jobs you lost, the jobs, incidentally, that were both at least
partially responsible for you finally getting to do what you love doing, what the fuck’s all
that about? And what the fuck do you know about property management anyway? YOU
CAN’T EVEN CHANGE A FUCKING PLUG! And a help line? You can’t help yourself
most of the time and, like they said, you’re too much of a fixer, at least you think you are.
They come at you in dreams anyway so why waste time on them while you’re awake?
Like the horrible Nazi redneck in ‘Falling Down’ said, ‘Think about it.’ Have you tried
whale song? Frog song? Knowing you, you fucking weirdo, they’d probably turn you on.
What about the songs of Stephen Sondheim or Elton John? The songs of Stock, Aitkin
and Waterman? Or even Dennis Waterman? Did you know that Dennis Waterman was
related to Pete Waterman? No, not the songwriter, you tit, the boxer. He was a
welterweight champion. Did you know Dennis Waterman was once married to Rula
Lenska? You don’t remember her? She was the one with George Galloway on Celebrity
Big Brother, you know, with the imaginary cream, and the pretending to be cats? Did
you know your best friend thinks you look a bit like Dennis Waterman? And William
Hurt. And Kevin Bacon. Did you know Dennis Waterman has a net worth of 5 Million?
Have I been talking too much about Dennis Waterman? Can you hear me counting
down from ten?

Mark Connors is a poet and novelist from Leeds. His poetry pamphlet, Life is a Long Song was published by OWF Press in 2015.  His first collection, Nothing is Meant to be Broken was published by Stairwell Books in 2017. His second collection, Optics, was published by YAFFLE in 2019. His third collection is due out later in 2021. www.markconnors.co.uk.

Reshape while damp

God knows I tried, thirty lengths of the outdoor pool
in Clontarf every day in my teen summers. Then
a walk home to Raheny or tennis with friends.

But it was hopeless, I remained a big girl,
tall, broad shoulders, strong legs, solid!
Not the sylph of my imagination –

on my toes dancing tap or ballet
fitting petite clothes that flattered
the feminine form of the day.

At work, I selected black gravitas
to hide curves. It suited me.
Professional, alert, but never at ease.

Did I rebel?

Of course not, I was wearing normal
fitting in, tucked away in sharp tailoring.
Safe from disapproval.

Fate softened my jackets, wool itched –
so soft silk or linen covered my frame.
My shoulders remain firm!

Rona Fitzgerald ‘s poetry is published in UK, Scottish, Irish and US, in print and online.
Recent publications include Poetry and Covid, September 2020. Dreich Number 8, Season 2,
April 2021, Wee Dreich April 21. Littoral Magazine Candlemas edition, The Brown
Envelope Book, 2021 and The Arbroath Anthology 2021.

The Phoenix Retires

I’d rise from these ashes
but these ashes comfort me.

These ashes are all I have now;
these grey remains are my home,
far more accommodating
than even the most beautiful
sunrise, more promising than
any new day, these days.

These days are so dark,
rising from these ashes
offers no promise; offers
only another deadly pyre,
another chance to ash
and disappear again.

I will forego feathers;
ash will be my new forever.

Ron. Lavalette lives on the Canadian border in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. His debut chapbook, Fallen Away, from Finishing Line Press, is now available at all standard outlets. In addition, more than 200 of his creations (poetry and short prose) have appeared in journals, reviews, and anthologies ranging alphabetically from Able Muse and the Anthology of New England Poets through the World Haiku Review.  A reasonable sample of his published work can be viewed at EGGS OVER TOKYO: http://eggsovertokyo.blogspot.com