Dandelions

He called me in for two hours a week
to hack back brambles, cut the lawns.
As I crawled from steps to terrace,
he followed, belittling his family
and his last gardener.

The next week it rained, so he pointed
from the window at weeds I’d missed,
and when I missed a weed
he’d pointed at, he banged on the glass.
I cleared dandelions

from the gravel drive. When I’d finished,
he held the money back and shouted
about how I hadn’t shaken enough
sand from the roots: Carry on like this
and I won’t have a drive left.

I nodded, and he relaxed his grip
on the money, which I took.

Paul Bavister has published three collections of poetry with Two Rivers Press. His work has appeared in Butcher’s Dog, Soup Can and Drawn to the Light.

Old Toys

The old toys
still sit in my mother’s attic
like retired soldiers
nobody thanked.

One missing an eye.
One permanently smiling.
One with dirt still packed
inside the wheels
from a summer
that no longer exists.

Funny how
children abandon things
the same way adults
abandon each other.

Quietly.
Without ceremony.

And somewhere
inside a cardboard box
a small plastic dinosaur
still believes
I am coming back for him.

Leon Drake has been published in Spill The Words Press, Horror Sleeze Trash,
Synchronized Chaos, S.A.V.A. Press and the Crossroads Magazine.

A line from J. P. Donleavy

Sometimes you’re not the same
person. Maybe you don’t miss the
old versions, are glad they’ve gone
away. No condolence messages,

but these days most people think
they tend to be overdone, that
they’ve lost any sincerity they
might have had. & even though

you agree with that, occasionally
you turn a corner & meet some stray
thought or image moving towards
you, to remind you of your past.

Mark Young’s most recent books are synecdoche, published earlier this year by Sandy Press, &
a recent downloadable pdf, Curtains, from Neo-Mimeo Editions. A collection of visual pieces, In
the Key of G, is due out later this year.

Cigarette burns

(for Britt)

Bushido cowboys- out in the open

Smoking opium long pipedreams

Dangerous configurations

Mystic transition

Blowing smoke rings across a body in outer-space fantasy while waxing poetic nightmare-esque
sequences in a Saigon jail…

Transfixed by the glowing cherry of a cigarette

Nicotine sweat makes skin glow like cotton candy

Be kind

Rewind

It’s an analog mutant mixed madness kind of way

Where nothing is as it seems

Reality but shards of fragmented collections

Elvis mugshot from DEA agent daze under Vegas lights

Nocturnal hawks descend

Wet copper descent

Ash pressed into red skin

Encircled

Blood moon eyes

Long night goodbyes

How I wish

Keeping window shut

Could prevent us

You and I

With our smoking sensual ventures

From going out

Everything burns

Mike Zone is the author of: Wonderful Turbulence, Fuck You: A Fucking Poetry Chap,
& The Earth Was Shaking For Days and Shedding Dark Places (almost) along
with being the co-author of The Grind and Razorville. A frequent contributor to: Alien Buddha
Press and Mad Swirl. His work has been featured in: A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Horror Sleaze
Trash, Better Than Starbucks, Piker Press, Punk Noir Magazine, Synchronized Chaos and Cult
Culture Magazine.

As the best man

At his wedding
I quoted Byron,

“We’ll no more go a roving
so late into the night….”

Forty years later,
at his funeral,
I was speechless

Alan Catlin has several new books, Work Anxiety Poems (Roadhouse) The Naked City, related short stories, (Anxiety Press and Still Life with Apocalypse (Sheila Na Gig Editions.)

Redneck Shaman
for ron whitehead

i think it was bill hicks
who said fuck the dali lama

the world is on fire
& i can’t hear what you’re saying
over the clanging
of clammy beer bottles
& i wonder if i’m supposed
to be enjoying myself
the only thing
i know for certain
is that your beard
looks cool.

John Dorsey is the former Poet Laureate of Belle, MO. He is the author of several collections of
poetry, including Which Way to the River: Selected Poems: 2016-2020 (OAC Books, 2020),
Sundown at the Redneck Carnival, (Spartan Press, 2022, Pocatello Wildflower, (Crisis
Chronicles Press, 2023) and Dead Photographs, (Stubborn Mule Press, 2024). He may be
reached at archerevans@yahoo.com.

BASE

i can be de base
or a violin-
dependin’
on what mood i’m in-
seven
is heaven
with Gabriel’s
seeds,
six
is a mixed
hell’s
Mephistopheles-
a bordello
Othello
with Mark Anthony’s
legs bestriding her ocean dew
supping
and tupping
his white ewe.

Strider Marcus Jones – is a poet, law graduate and former civil servant from Salford, 
England with proud Celtic roots in Ireland and Wales. He is the editor and publisher of Lothlorien Poetry Journal https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/. A member of The Poetry Society, and nominated for both the Pushcart Prize x4 and Best of the Net x3, his five published books of poetry  https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/ reveal a maverick, moving between cities, playing his saxophone in smoky rooms.

The Drowned Mark

August rain.
The kind we learned to fear.
Karachi turning lake,
streets bruised by water.

Our hilly neighbourhood
swallowed at the edges,
its khaki breath rising
through mist.

Silence,
the kind that waits for car horns,
the kind that listens
for wire-sparks.

Water licking the gate.
Night an unanswered prayer.
Electrocution whispering
through the dark.

The generator growled
like a starving stomach,
then caved in.

Then
his silhouette, dripping,
returned from the village,
twenty-four hours
in the belly of a bus,
pressed against
unvaccinated ghosts.

We held our breath in terrace air.
Distance kept its height.

His quarter was knee-deep,
so he laid a mattress
in the study.

The house a sealed lung.
The night closing in
until
the cough.

Not once.

Not twice.

A chain breaking
through the rooms.

Next morning,
a damp X on the wall.

By night,
it had submerged.

Tazeen Erum is a Pakistani poet and academic based in Karachi. Her work explores memory, gender, and the textures of everyday life, often drawing on urban experience and interior landscapes. She is currently completing a PhD in Postcolonial Studies.

Birth of Death

blazing through the autumn leaves, the rain
falls and drinking commences; lost memories
of death and pain, struggling to maintain
whatever trace of sanity remains.

in some cruel kindergarten dreams are born to die,
familiar anguish in fresh faces.

desperate marauders arrive at the idyllic island,
trying to acclimate to the new rhythm of life—
too many perish before the momentum dissipates,

angels shed false tears for the unvanquished.

every glass births new worlds ripe for pillaging,
every drag of ice sires new universes to destroy.

in the autumn leaves, amid the ashes of summer,

strong bourbon is the only thing that remains, begetting
new storylines out of pathetic known tales.

George Gad Economou has a Master’s degree in Philosophy of Science, currently works as a freelance writer, and has published three novels and three poetry collections. His latest book is Smoking Rot Gut Drinking Junk (Anxiety Press). His work has appeared in various publications, including Spillwords Press, Ariel Chart, Cajun Mutt Press, Fixator Press, Horror Sleaze Trash, Outcast Press, The Piker Press, The Beatnik Cowboy, The Rye Whiskey Review, and Modern Drunkard Magazine.

Amore?

I love this life
with its sunshine
and smiles.

Birds awaken
mornings. The
breeze softly stirs.

The sky drips
colours like
orange juice.

I gather the beauty
with my senses
and turn off the
television news.

Mitali Chakravarty lives in a tropical island with her family. She has three books of poems and is widely published online and in anthologies. Her poems can be found in Dissident Voice, Pyssum Literaria, Daily Star (Bangladesh), Zest of Lemon (Volumes 3 & 4), Literary Yard among other places.