Lunar Heirlooms

You hook up a theremin to an heirloom radio,
irradiating a home with lunar waves,
find the fishing wire with which to string
a banjo, lost in the dusty corner
with stacked old newspapers,
as I commune with the torn window blind,
the boxes for furniture.
The humble television of our life is cracked.
The kitchen table is crowded with lovely
light bulbs, paint bottles, and hand tools.
The pigment jars in the corner sing an aria of enjoyment,
so what can’t we fix, craft, repair?

Heather Sager lives in Illinois where she writes poetry and fiction. Her most recent poems appear in Chiron Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, First Light Journal, Northwest Indiana Literary Journal, and more. 

monochrome

like the vague orange horizon,
my life is floating over there.
even me can’t sink into it.
even the full moon can’t illuminate it.
although i should be in the center of the horizon,
i’m just gazing at it in this place far from it.

Girl

Girl
Psilocybin
Your hair is on fire
Mesmerize
It’s the girl show
But she’s a lady
A sexy lady
Book and cigarette in one hand
Claw gripping our carnal fate in another
I can’t function in a dying world
You’re beautiful
Mesmerized
By the show of you
The Barbie show
IS that your name?
Or just the fake icon of third & 4 th wave feminism you worship?
Waterboarding Barbie
In the house
This house
The doll’s house
Call it the seXXXy
‘(yes triple x)
Lady Erotic Performance Art Exhibition
I WANT TO FUCK
AND MAKE LOVE TO YOU
Redefine casual intimacy in sacred fleeting sweat intermingled moments
On a hardwood floor
Entwined within a gasoline drawn circle
Black cats
The watchers of fate
Squint
But if we can’t guide one another to gallows of disrepair
Leaping
Somewhere free
Away from tender mercies
Veiled deceit
Light the match
Feast on my heart
Handcuffed to me
Ya’ can’t run
Duct taped thighs
Watch each other burn
Alive inside

Mike Zone is the Editor in Chief of Dumpster Fire Press, co-founder of Deadstar:Control, manager of the band Tail From the Crypt and producer for the record label Paranormal Vinyl Cassettes & Hair Xtensions. He 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.

Rumor Has It

I have heard the rumor that
We were young once. That
Was before the sag and drape
Of crepe and fold, akin
To the droop of a garment
Too-long worn. Torment of age,
We rage and wage the battle
Without any hope that
Tactic or strategy will win
The day or bring a victory.
Youth is forever history.
What we earn from history
Is that we learn from history–
Nothing. Or so rumor has it.

Bruce Morton divides his time between Montana and Arizona. He is the author of Planet Mort (FootHills Publishing, 2024) and the chapbook Olive-drab Khaki Blues (FootHills, 2026). His poems have appeared in numerous online and print venues. He was formerly dean at the Montana State University library.

Basic

Calm under Pressure
… Controlling
that (Inner) Burn.
‘Desire’ temperature
-rises at the same
speed as ‘Anger’
… yet, branches off
a bit before ‘Boiling’.
Courage is not
found at centre point
of ‘Fight or Flee’
… it is Uneven,
and Unbalanced…
the ‘HARD ROAD’
… which is why
it’s (Normally) Quiet.

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 collections “The Dark Side Of British Poetry”, “It Is Big And It Is Clever”, “South Wales Outlaw” and “Uncivil Disobedience Is My Forte” are all available by Close To The Bone Publishing.

I walk the baby

around the streets to help him sleep
at the back of the black topped houses
tile hats pulled low over the eyes
of second floor windows
hawthorn hedges cut thick and raw
by rusty garage shears
demarcating the rutted reserves
where lopsided cars with leaky tires are laid to rest
past the Army Reserve Centre
and its boxy battlefield ambulances
abandoned by the chain-link fence
only warm bodies for miles around
and the frenetic dog walkers
with all of their fluorescent zeal
in the park I can hear the culvert running
the sedges matt their roots on muddy banks
but I can barely see in the dark
just smell the wet soil
and the soiled bins lining hoggin paths
fetid with all the neighbours’ secrets
fed furtive into the open mouth
of this curiously private public space
the night turns seedy
all of the groping hands of leafless trees
and when he wakes
his hat slips over his eyes too
as he wriggles in the cot cocooned
and I wait just a little while longer
before I pull it back up
so that he can see again

 

Daniel Cartwright-Chaouki is a writer and gardener from Birmingham, England. His writing is informed by a range of themes and ideas. In particular, he focuses on the intersection between people, plants and landscape. His work has previously been published in Brand Magazine, Pulp Poets Press, Bodies on Bodies Magazine and The Cannon’s Mouth.

Moonshine River

dancing under a putrid moon next to the moonshine river
failing to keep our balance as the snow buried our ankles.
high on love and high-octane booze we trotted about like blissful kids
in some playground that was not ensconced by a fiery wall.
we splashed in the moonshine river and we laughed, our guffaws
reverberating across the meadows. bathed in the green moonlight,
swept away by the breeze, we danced around and hollered out lungs out.
no one heard, and it was perfectly fine.
one day, the moonshine river went dry; the breeze turned into staleness,
nothing remained but ruins of the nonsensical world wherein we belonged.
darkness encapsulated the little meadow and the moonshine river
remains dry, a sad reminder of how things used to be. once in a while
it rains, and the faint promise of the river returns but
the drought of life eviscerates it almost instantaneously.

 

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.

Internal Decapitation

Temptation shall always dance upon the precipice of desire and all too sudden disaster.

Pain and the ever-forbidden lust is a freedom, and repression is a cancer that should be
abandoned with an archaic set of rules that should be buried along with its beliefs.

As the denial of light is the acknowledgement of man’s truest nature.

For fear of anything, is unnecessary.
An end we all shall acknowledge by force as sometimes there is no grace of choice.

For there is only a command of time, and understanding this is but a momentary existence,
fragile is the coil ever so easily severed from this plane of existence.

To spit in the winds of fate’s mock acceptance in damnations’ glee.

I bask easily in the acknowledgement that I am cursed for I was born.
As I thrive only to spite God’s denial in the embrace of all that is wicked and self-serving.

I understand my demise is inevitable.
I just don’t care for whom I corrupt.
I will gladly embrace hell.
If only you hold my hand.

 

FROZEN IN PLACE

Frozen in place
and the phone’s bell doesn’t ring.
There’s a comfort in the layers of dust
that blanket every surface of the room
except here and there
where you take your meals,
walk to the bathroom,
sit at the table and read.

Sadness holds out a cup –
a steaming potion like in the old movies.
You take it and prepare to drink.
The curtains hold the sun at bay
with its wan light showing the detritus
and the dust in the air
doing its casual and flimsy swirling dance downward.

Frozen in place.
Sorrow holds your hands in sympathetic mourning,
makes sure that the mirrors are covered
and the preparations are made.
Sorrow kisses your lips –
first familially,
then deeply and importantly,
as your most frequent and your final lover.

 

John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals since 2009. His first poetry collection from Cajun Mutt Press is now available at https://www.amazon.com/dpB0C6W2YZDP . fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.

Begin

So you go wild

in the crystal orb

of grief, fragile as

a scorpion’s tail.

Your mother used to

tell you about the

one she killed in

Nicaragua where she

worked as a nurse,

about how she kept

it encased in resin

as a reminder.

The animal you love

catches his paw in

a metal snare, screams

until you slip quietly

into the hellmouth.

She tells you now

you must get up.

And then you free him.

Donora Shaw (née Hillard) is the author of the poetry book Jeff Bridges (with illustrations by Goodloe Byron; Cobalt Press, 2016) and several other books and chapbooks of poetry and theory. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and children and can be found elsewhere at www.donora-ann.com.