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.

Fire Drill

You whisper “Fire!”
At the edge of my perception
Not a shout nor a warning
Just a promise of illumination
No shadow
Each crevice exposed
“Fire!” I think I heard this…
No “calmly walk to exit safely”
No line for roll call
This is an annealing flame
Run
Not away
But into it now
Burn away the useless things
I think it was you…
Who else would care enough
To see me pure?

MH Clay lives and works in Dallas, Texas. He has a poetry page at https://madswirl.com/author/mhclay/.
His poetry chapbook, Perhaps This Rain, was published in 2007. He has published two poetry collections;
sonoffred, Rebel Poetry in Ireland, 2015 and Angst, Mad Swirl Press, 2016 with a second edition released
in 2022 (both are available on Amazon).

Luis lives in California and continues to  work in the mental health field in Los Angeles. His poems have appeared in Ariel Chart, Blue Collar Review, Escape Into Life, Fixator Press, and Kendra Steiner Editions.

HA-HA

Romeo is bleeding
Juliet’s gunned him down
Midsummer-madness
Because the night
Winter’s tale- her recovery
Winter’s tale- his redemption
In spring- bullet dreams
broken hearts of glass
it’s a Billy the kid and Pat Garrett love song
approaching one another’s heart

Mike Zone is the Chief Operator of BIONIK PU$$Y. The former Editor in Chief of
DUMPSTER FIRE PRESS. The author of over a dozen books of poetry and fiction:
SKULL MY DAISY, FUCK YOU: A FUCKING POETRY CHAP, SHEDDING DARK
PLACES (almost) & THE EARTH WAS SHAKING FOR DAYS. Along with co-authoring
RAZORVILLE with fellow poet and publisher Shannon Lynette. His work has been
published hundreds of times being featured in: MAD SWIRL, FEVERS OF THE MIND,
BLACK SHAMROCK, FIXATOR PRESS, HORROR SLEAZE TRASH, PUNK NOIR, A
THIN SLICE OF ANXIETY, RYE WHISKEY REVIEW and CULT CULTURE MAGAZINE.
He scrapes by in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Apparition Poem #1547

this is
what
words
amount
to—
festivals
of ash,
collapsed
into urns,
held
up by
timid folk
for the
bold to
scatter.

Adam Fieled is a writer based in Philadelphia. Blazevox re-released his
e-book “Beams” in 2025. A magna cum laude Penn grad, he edits P.F.S.
Post.