I WOULD HAVE LOST EVERYTHING

I was walking these streets again
&  found myself outside that place,
That goddamn place that kept me
Down for so long, so many years,
But feeling a bit hungry I walked
On in.

The bare metal shelves lay empty
But something had me so on I
Prowled. I walked to the end of
The first aisle and over to the
Beer & wine and the entire store
Looked as if it had been stripped
Clean by an army of organised
Shop-lifters and so, still hungry,
I walked on out but as I passed
The check-out I spied the first
Member of staff. He stands at
The check-out plain-clothed
& with a look of total horror
On his face and I merely turn
Say ‘Thank you’ and walk on
Out knowing that if I still worked
There I’d have seriously lost
Everything by now!

Bradford Middleton lives in Brighton on England’s south coast. Recent poems have
been, or will be shortly, published at In The Veins, Dear Booze, Horror Sleaze Trash,
Mad Swirl and Broken Teacup. His most recent chapbook, his fifth, was published by
the Alien Buddha Press in 2023. On Twitter/X follow @BradfordMiddle5

Naked Helium

Someday, opinions held privately in the mind,
will float like balloons to be seen boldly by
all as a banner of naked helium.

Then, fall like prayers dripped into the dark
of a damp drain where it will blanket itself
in shadow. The ground under our steps, knows
its importance even as we trample. It bounces
back but remembers the feet that pressed it.
For someday, what is underneath will be all
there is in the forefront.

The open, flat, or unoccupied will be searched for
and fought over. Clean will be counted as a past
notion studied at university as part of lost history.
Movement will be demanded to marry itself
to some kind of “calling” or be banished.
The branded push to rule as the unmarked
become listed as criminals; their voices left to
shout at locked keyholes deep within a hidden
desert.

(First published by Aurum Journal, 2022)

Beverly M. Collins, author of, Quiet Observations and Mud in Magic. Her works appear in publications based in USA, England, Ireland, Australia, India, Berlin, Mauritius, Lebanon, and Canada. A Winner Naji Naaman Literary Prize in Creativity (Lebanon), 4 times nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and guest editor California Quarterly.

THE MORNING OF A FORMER MIDDLEWEIGHT

He wakes up
shadow boxing invisible opponents.
The morning air gives
as good as it gets.

He makes coffee.
The warm black rich liquid
gives his insides
a much-needed rubdown.

A photograph of
pretty mother and two young girls
looks down from the wall.
Without that picture,
he’d have no memory.

A bell rings somewhere.
He smacks the wall
instead of picking up the phone.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Shift, River And South and Flights. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Rush, Writer’s Block and Trampoline.

George Clooney

Driving west from the beach,
it could have been George Clooney,
head and shoulders draped
backwards over a chaise,
napping and sunning at the pool –

if it weren’t for the bus stop bench
identifying itself as Bus Stop
and the Winn-Dixie cart
full of worldly possessions
sitting along-side –

instead of the coaster glass top table,
the morning bloody-Mary
and the designer umbrella.
George could most certainly
look this content,
snoring, feet up, as though
he had a Golden Globe
and owed himself this decadence,

if it weren’t for the holes
in the muddied boots,
the grease stains on the cargo shorts
and the distinct need for a shave.

It seemed poignant that
the high-end condos just behind George
most assuredly had the same sun,
clouds and blue sky,
as well as the same choreographed
‘v’ of geese flying north overhead
as his siesta stopover.

(This poem was originally published by Gas Blog, June ‘23)

Craig Kirchner is retired and living in Jacksonville. He loves the aesthetics of writing, has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels, and has been nominated three times for a Pushcart. Craig’s writing has been published in Chiron Review, Main Street Rag, The Modern Artist. Fixator Press and dozens and dozens of others. He houses 500 books in his office and about 400 poems on a laptop; these words help keep him straight. Craig can be found on Bluesky.

WISTFUL HIGHBALL

I’m pretending I’m not Truman Capote
as I daydream of murders here in Kansas,
and how it would feel to use words like “genre” and “Harper”
at classy parties with cocktails and tall scholars
instead of actually writing.

And since when did success become something to be feared?
I want it, warm hands on my shoulders and a cold buzz
that never fully takes shape.
I will cash every check they mail me until
I die too young, too weak of liver,
too soft of voice.

Timothy Tarkelly’s work appears in Flyover Country, The Yard, Hamburger Channel, and more. He is the author of several collections of poetry including The You We Know and Love (Spartan Press) and A Horse Called Victory (Kelsay Books). When he’s not writing, he teaches in Southeast Kansas. 

At The Tone

I can’t come to the phone right now,
I’m wrestling the tigers of indifference.
I’m up to my waist in holy water.
The sky is burning.

I’m not in at the moment,
I’m paddling in the piss-green sea,
herding lizards, seeding the stars.
I’m being driven to distraction —
dark-eyed men in hats and sunglasses
are taking me away from myself.

If you must do, please leave a message.
But I no longer have the ability to respond.
My time is tempered by destruction.
I’m made miserable with compassion.

Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician, is a multiple Pushcart nominee with poems published
in hundreds of magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. His latest book,
‘Boxing In The Bone Orchard’ is available now via Frontenac House.
https://www.frontenachouse.com/product/boxing-in-the-bone-orchard/

Still Trying

The acoustic notes
of Heart of Gold
chime out of the
ancient CD player,
realizing in my
mind I’m portraying
a cliché of age & search,
but trying to grab something
loving & warm. Bones
creak as the body begins
to fade.

Passing in what seemed like a
flash, I’m now the man getting “old”
in Neil’s song. But still—seeking a
few years left to seek that pot of
gold promised me when I took the
oath to find golden grain amongst
rough turf.

Dan Provost’s poetry has been published both online and in print since 1993. He is the author of 17 books/ chapbooks, including two in 2025. Getting Your Bell Rung, released by Luchador Press and Notes from the Other Side of the Bed, published by Anxiety Press His work has been nominated for The Best of the Net three times and he has read his poetry throughout the United States. He lives in Keene, New Hampshire with his wife Laura, and dog Bella.

Rally

Someone’s heart-to-heart is another’s
scuttlebutt sesh.
 
Corpulence was harnessed to help me
channel the weight within me.
 
When you are grounded in a desert, it
is imperative to imagine a wellspring.
 
Some questions are not meant to be
asked. The answers come unasked.
 
When scars sculpt their story on us, no
cosmetic surgeon is of use.
 
If the premise of a joke is based on lies,
is it ethical to laugh?

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. He lives in Mumbai, India.

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many mounds of snow.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Fixator Press, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.

Lit, Filed and Cashed

A lone lamp-post flickering at the end of a dead-end street
on a cold, foggy /misty Sunday night in the industrial part of a
town that was at least big enough, once, to
have had an industrial part, but is now
all abandoned warehouses, vacant lots and empty
storefronts, these days; you know, rat and
meth-head infested
insurance
frauds that
have
sat
there
for
years, just
waiting to
be lit, filed and cashed,
which (issues of morality
aside), I’ve always thought was up there with fucking
with the Mafia or the CIA, , i.e. something
you just do not do, brother.

Jason Ryberg lives part-time in Kansas City, MO
with a rooster named Little Red and a Billy-goat named
Giuseppe, and part-time somewhere in the Ozarks,
near the Gasconade River, where there are also many
strange and wonderful woodland critters.