The Screen

Comes the hour of morning
When alpen glue binds gilded
Sunlight to the metallic matrix
That is my screen. The glass
Between me and it reflects
What I daily see. But when light
Is just right there appear palm
And nose prints where skin oil
Has transferred body to pane
Much like lemon-juice ink is
On paper made visible by flame.
Looking through it the world is
Imprinted with secret pictographs.
Someone has looked here before.

Bruce Morton divides his time between Montana and Arizona. He is the author of two poetry collections: Planet Mort (2024) and Simple Arithmetic & Other Artifices (2014). A chapbook, Olive-drab Khaki Blues, is forthcoming from FootHills Publishing. His poems have appeared in numerous online and print venues. He was formerly dean at the Montana State University library.

Polarity

Our circuits are wired even before we can unravel them.
Cognizant of its temporality, we seek permanence of
sorts. Self-absorption is a constituent of the human
condition. To dismiss the other when it appeases us is 
another of its nuance. Tie-ins that never unfold some-
times run hardy sequences in the mind’s kip. Paucity
in my innermore tableau invites me to a tryst with myself.
Sky wears an unusual robe; it urges me to recast earlier
treatises.

Sanjeev Sethi has authored eight books of poetry. His poems have been published in over thirty-five countries and have appeared in more than 500 journals, anthologies, and online literary venues. He is the joint winner of the Full Fat Collection Competition-Deux, organized by Hedgehog Poetry Press in the UK. He lives in Mumbai, India.

CONCLUSION

Living beings lying prone, in sleep, or in life’s full stop,
foxes sprawled in body-bent arcs, only splattered in parts,
in the centre of roads,
pet dogs stunning the rest of the family furniture
by their sudden demise,
laid out on tarmac on a convenient plastic sheet,
even a wasp back-broken into a slippered stillness,
children back-turned on you in unmoving slumber
jabbing a finger of fear at you,
belong to a common species:
the curtailment of a hope,
a return to ashes,
the end of the boundless scamper of a pup,
and those gasps of air snatching at life,
which would never draw to a close,
and suddenly did.

Alan Hardy has for many years run an English language school. As well as Fixator, published in Envoi, Iota, Poetry Salzburg, The Interpreter’s House, Littoral, Orbis, South, Pulsar, Lothlorien and others. Poetry pamphlets Wasted Leaves (1996) and I Went With Her (2007). 

At Seven

I rose early each day
Crossed the hayfield
To the pasture creek

Where twenty-nine cows
Were dreaming
Who knows what

I joined them
And dreamt baseball fame
Painting the new Mona Lisa

Some mornings discovering the cure
For cancer, starvation, and war
Topped by a vaccine to fend off greed

While out-Whitmaning Walt.
Just before success, the sun
Peaked round the bluff.

Time to poke
These thirty dreamers
Home to their red barn.

Michael Pedretti is the author of eleven books, including Twenty Poems Written in 2020, Time to Journey Home, and The Inside Story of Movement Theatre International’s Mime and Clown Festivals, the longest running international theater festival in America. He has contributed articles to American Theater, Swiss Journal, and Mime Journal

Eliminating Shadow Cavities

Remaining… ‘Thermostat’
… whilst fluid not static,
takes both practice
and patience… not even
an “Eek!”… ‘Grace’
cannot be counterfeited.
Underneath your
self-control and balance
thrones even more ‘Calm’
… that’s completely
‘Tamperproof’… and,
causes envious saboteurs
far more annoyance,
pain and mental anguish…
than any petty squabbling
or weaponry could ever do.

Paul Tristram is a widely published Welsh writer who deals in the Lowlife, Outsider, and Outlaw genres.  He wrote his first poem as a teenager following his release from the (Infamous) Borstal ‘HMP Portland’, and he has been creating Literary Terrorism ever since. His novel “Crazy Like Emotion”, collection of shorter fiction “Kicking Back Drunk ‘Round The Candletree Graves”, and full-length poetry books “The Dark Side Of British Poetry: Book 1 of Urban, Cinematic, Degeneration” and “It Is Big And It Is Clever: Book 1 Of A Punk Rock Hostile Takeover” are all now available by Close To The Bone Publishing.

in nature

sea spray
a residue for the lucky
i decide as showered
standing alone on a rock
in pink moonlight
wondering
worshipping

i dance in circles now
celebrating what just is
learning to laugh and cry
alone in silence
singing to my shadow
watching days
evaporate

omen maybe
magpie peck on head
protecting next generation
smile in evaluation
applaud bird courage
forgiven quick
amused

appreciation of all
disseminates softly
with age in nature
and that itself
is an indication
of measured time
remaining

(This poem was originally published by Sychronized Chaos)

Stephen House has won 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. His poems are published often. He performs his acclaimed monologues widely.

A HOUSE WITH GREEN SHUTTERS

It’s been years since you were
in this house but now, thanks to
the death of your estranged mother,

the property is yours to sell.
But the unreality of walking through
rooms of tired furniture, rusted

appliances, dressers overstuffed
with clothes decades out of date,
makes your hands shake, knees wobble,

And yet you lived here once.
This is where you slept, surely,
the tub where you bathed.

the kitchen table where you ate.
But it’s devoid of the one
who protected you and then

ultimately tossed you out.
So there’s no safety, no passion.
And nothing in between.

The asking price is low and bears
no disclaimers, no outstanding debts.
This house can now safely belong to anyone.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, River And South and Tenth Muse. Latest books, “Subject Matters”,” Between Two Fires” and “Covert” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Paterson Literary Review, White Wall Review and Cantos.

Grammar lesson

Irregardless, they say
is redundant
repetitive
two negatives
too negative.
Irregard?
Is that better?
Or regardless?
I don’t care
what they say.
I love you
irregardlessly.

Doug Sylver has had jobs as a bike messenger in New York City (for a few months), delivering newspapers on the streets of Paris (for a few days), and as a public high school teacher in Seattle (for almost thirty years). All that time he has tried to write.

Capitulation will be tomorrow’s song

Halfway through the movie, the
voice track shifts into Spanish,
the soundtrack becomes a caca-
phony of Panzer tanks while
images of them intermittently
appear that have little relevance
to the storyline. Then birds sur-
face on the windowsill, ballet
dancers replace the shots of
Panzers, & Shostakovich’s Jazz
Suite, Waltz No. 2 rolls out from
the wings to roll over & de-
molish the threatening tanks.

Mark Young’s most recent books, all published this year, are the downloadable pdf, The Hit List,
published by Scud Editions; Gravel (with harry k stammer & Mark Cunningham), from Sandy
Press; Some Unrecorded Voyages of Vasco da Gama, from Otoliths; another downloadable
pdf, Closed Environment, from Neo-Mimeo Editions; & The Complete Post Person Poems, also
from Sandy Press.

Luis was born in Mexico, lives in California, and works in the mental health field in Los Angeles. His latest chapbook, Make the Light Mine, was published by Kendra Steiner Editions. His poems have appeared in Blue Collar Review, Mad Swirl, Unlikely Stories, and Yellow Mama Magazine.