Where broken objects gather.

walking through a house
where nobody has visited
in three years or more
and finding not much
very special at all: just things
which remind you
of things. books
on bookshelves, glasses
and dusty cups – something in the fridge
which may have been cheese
or an animal, trapped
and choked on hunger. posters
put up when you were 12
with thumbtacks
and a ziplock on a rabbit
still stuffed with secret pennies. the beds
all mildew, radios
which play cassettes. our place in leitrim
where broken objects gathered,
like a bend in the river
lodged with shells and rocks. you open doors
and remember how they opened, open windows
and remember
how they stick.

Scales.

sunlight in fog,
just sheets
on a washing-line.
I walk to work, shoes on,
hand
in a pocket
and hand
on the strap of my bag.
my face turns steadily
like a shadow in sunlight,
turns
toward the pavement.
the grey
strikes up and curls
and goes forward;
my steps making scales
like dead fish
in a marketplace
stall.

DS Maolalai has been nominated eight times for Best of the Net and five times for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry has been released in two collections, “Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden” (Encircle Press, 2016) and “Sad Havoc Among the Birds” (Turas Press, 2019).

A DISTURBING DAY

The phone rings
Waking me,
It’s half-8 Saturday morning
Another lost in all-consuming hangover oblivion
And once I answer I’m back off to bed minutes later
Only to be roused by a loud LOUD banging
Just a few moments later.

What the fuck is that noise I beg to the sky as
Drums march through my destroyed mind
As outside its carnival time and I know the
Misery will not stop until it’s all gone
And the promise comes that it will last hours.

Back here though the sound is dimmed
And today I’d rather just hole up
Ignoring the party outside where no doubt
The beautiful will be posing and the
Crazies will be dancing and I’ll be sat here
Reading some outlaw poetry.

Bradford Middleton was born in London in 1971 but didn’t begin writing poetry until he moved to Brighton during 2007.  He knew no-one and had no money so it helped fill his nights.  Now widely published in small press circles if you like go be his friend on Facebook @bradfordmiddleton1. 

expand

expand its pointed little head
let’s see what fits
and if we have enough
particles at our disposal
we may find blessings
stretched like rocks along
the removable shorelines
but a buttered
sculpture may
do the trick to
wary our skeleton
keys turned out
so as to be all
rendered glories
& removed
in our
far
and final swiping
toward a fluttering cape
of spun flaxen delights
a sightless ringless toneless
stop sign painted RED
for the vowel that displaced
a million squabbles grilled
to charred perfection

Joshua Martin is a Philadelphia based writer and filmmaker, who currently works in a library.
He is the author of the book Vagabond fragments of a hole (Schism Neuronics). He has had pieces previously published in The Vital Sparks, Breakwater Review, Ink & Voices, The Free Library of the Internet Void, and Paragraph Line. His films have screened at various film festivals including The Pineapple Underground Film Festival, New Filmmakers, Film Al Fresco, Views from the Underground, and The Shooting Wall Film Festival.

The Way to Go Out

–and I walk away
without applause.

Just a nod, a quick wave…
Heroic in nobody’s
stature…

Bemoan a purpose
and you end up ecstatic,

in solitude—

This might not be the worst
case scenario for all
involved.

Withdrawing to
a single voice—

transient, with the
music from a thousand
different voices

available to transform
from here
to
there.

Dan Provost’s poetry has been published throughout the small press for a number of years.  He is the author of thirteen books/chapbooks, including in 2021: The Green Room, released by Analog Submission Press and December 22, 2020, published by Alien Buddha Press.  He is a two-time nominee for the Best of the Web and has read his works across the United States.  He lives in Berlin, New Hampshire with his wife Laura and dog Bella.

101

In any use of promised
closure in order to reap votes

minimize the status
of the myriad rows of
figures. (C. P. Cavafy)

Why give notice of a crisis? That
doesn’t suit anyone’s interests.

Investigations waste time,
more so when it is not clear
what the outcomes may be.

Use terms like “everything
is still unclear.” & try not to
misspell that finishing word —

“nuclear” can end up nightmare.

 

Mark Young lives in a small town in North Queensland in Australia. His newest collection, taxonomic drift, is due out soon from Luna Bisonte prods.

A Bouquet of Mistakes

There’s not much around that we can call wild. Is it a creature with two horns, or is it a seashell? You haven’t found it yet. It could be a mud puddle. It could be a bright red tractor in the rain. It could be an altar left behind by a tribe. The world has got all this shit in it: texts, tweets, emails. Everything just accelerates. I don’t remember who told us. I just remember darkness. I want to proceed by means of violations and defacements. My sneaker has a hole in it; my car has a flat tire.

Howie Good is the author of three recent collections, I’m Not a Robot from Tolsun Books, The Titanic Sails at Dawn from Alien Buddha Press, and What It Is and How to Use It from Grey Book Press.  

TRAVEL NOTES

GOOD NEWS

All those hours spent in a tree are now lost to me. 

THE ARGUMENT AGAINST SWIMMING

Any fish in the world can do it better than you.

The difficulty of eating a pizza in a polite way while swimming the butterfly.

THE ARGUMENT AGAINST THE CHARLESTON

Dated; embarrassing; complicated. Difficult to say if you don’t like to say the word ‘Charles.’

THINGS YOU CANNOT DO WHILE HAVING A POUNDING HEADACHE THAT ISN’T A MIGRAINE

Draw a bearded Satan in Hell woodcut as well as the mature work of Gustave Doré (mustachioed.)

INTERESTING FACT ABOUT THE NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY YEARS AGO

Before Orhan Pamuk accepted his prize, there was a great fanfare of trumpets, and then a woman came to the stage and said Orhan. 

Ricky Garni grew up in Miami and Maine. He works as a graphic designer by day and writes music by night. His latest book, A CONCERNED PARTY MEETS A PERSON OF INTEREST, was released in the Spring of 2019.

huffing raid at five in the morning

perhaps it isn’t
as bad as the wafts of morning breath

filmy sugar residue
plastered to the tongue
from last night’s potion
of vodka and wine

coming off a restless, anxiety filled sleep
in which the recurring dream was my own demise

or the sound
of my wife’s hands
slapping the cracked linoleum of the kitchen
before my eyes
have even adjusted to the light

i just wish there
weren’t so many of them

little kafka fucks scurrying around

big ones leading the little ones
leading the ones that are no bigger
than a speck of dirt

racing for their goddamned lives

as i grab the can
from under the sink

and spray like an assassin

until there’s a cloud
of stink and foam so pungent

that if it were anybody else but me doing the deed

i’d be on the horn
with the ever-loving landlord
or that crooked EPA.

John Grochalski is the author of the five poetry collections and two novels.  Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where the garbage can smell like roses if you wish on it hard enough.

Dedicated to Scott Weiland 

Arrest this lament
this false flag of endeavor
parachute of the midnight aplomb
splendor soils christened by an exorama
defouled by a parasite cancel
who are you in the liturgy of night?
nameless index
of heathen imperial purple
no margin, no reprieve
augur of ceremonial reimagining
of unnoticed thoughts
searing in erasure
murmur of accidental day
a chastised saucerful of secrets
eviscerator heaven on call

Rus Khomutoff is an experimental poet in Brooklyn, NY. His poetry has appeared in San Francisco review of books, Proprose magazine and Hypnopomp. Last year he published his debut, Immaculate days (Alien Buddha Press). This summer his new chapbook Radia will be released by Void Front Press.

A KICK ME SIGN

i walked away
from you
from them
from this city
that was bad, bad
and found another you
another them
another dimly lit bar 
to drink in
and practice seduction 

and when the brief blossom
of expectation withered
and became an ugly thing
a common thing
like the same faces
every morning
and dodging the same potholes
on the drive to work

i walked away again
and again…

yet all along 
if i’d been listening 
i would have heard 
a rustling sound
close behind
like the flapping of a “kick me” sign
taped between my shoulder blades
where i couldn’t reach

and no one told me
or they did
but again
i wasn’t listening
or maybe i just couldn’t hear
above the deafening promises of “over there”
that raged like whitewater 
between my ears

 

Brian Rihlmann was born in NJ, and currently lives in Reno, NV. He writes mostly semi autobiographical, confessional free verse. Folk poetry…for folks. He has been published in Constellate Magazine, Poppy Road Review, Cajun Mutt Press, The Rye Whiskey Review and has an upcoming piece in The American Journal Of Poetry.