SPANISH PEAKS, COLORADO

Spanish Peaks punch through plains,
stone fists from ancient earth’s rage,
once volatile and angry,
now sullen and still and silent.

Dikes – those twisted scars –
slash the flanks.
Ridgelines sulk, refuse to straighten,
like busted bones that healed wrong.

They tolerate the Ponderosa pine
and alpine fir that cling tight
to their wind-wracked soil.
My staring is merely endured.

If rocky shoulders could shrug,
these would.
If volcanic faces could express themselves,
they’d send me off with a sneer.
If mountains could move,
they’d go where they’re unwanted.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Midnight Mind, Willow Review and the Pennsylvania Literary Journal. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the MacGuffin, the Bayou Review and Plainsongs.

Equilibrium Restored

All ‘Emotionally Neutral’
… and sat quietly
enjoying the day…
smiling up at the sky.
‘Unclouded Mind’
… it’s so nice
to notice stuff again.
Tree bark grain,
tumbling leaves,
the depth of the greens,
browns, reds and golds
… of Autumn…
without an Internal Battle.

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” is published by Close To The Bone. Short story collection “Kicking Back Drunk ‘Round The Candletree Graves”, and full-length poetry collections “It Is Big And It Is Clever”, “South Wales Outlaw”, “The Gutter Symposium”, “The Dark Side Of British Poetry”, “Uncivil Disobedience Is My Forte” and “Half A Long Century Of Anarchy, Bedlam, Chaos And Deplorably-Depraved Decadence” are all published by Hunsbury Press.

The old-fashioned suitcase

is coming back into style. Much like
big shoulder pads, this divisive
leather style from the mid-1900s is
turning heads & driving the return
of maximalist design elements, esp-
ecially when crafted in striking
primary colors. “It reflects confidence,
passion, & a love for life,” writes
Vogue Arabia. “It’s a cultural vibe
shift,” says someone else, from a
different demographic. “All very
well to believe the zeitgeist is
changing,” point out the sceptics,
“but now you’re going to need
extra stuff to fill the suitcase with.”

Mark Young’s recent books include synecdoche, from Sandy Press, California, & Curtains from
Pat Nolan’s Neo-Mimeo Editions, also California. A new collection of visual work, pheromones,
has just been published by Sandy Press.

uselessfully

chain of worlds
pot of brokens

enter the forest
wildly orderly

modern
somber
salted

not one
drain

careful to be
nothing

J. D. Nelson (b. 1971) is the author of thirteen collections of poetry, including Cinderella City
(The Red Ceilings Press). Visit MadVerse.com for more information and links to his published
work. Nelson lives in Boulder, Colorado.

Death

trapped in a tiny box, no way
out and the last breathing air’s
used. nothing but darkness in the
crepuscular hours of the end. no light.
no blue smoke. only a shot of Wild Turkey 101 bought
by the riverboat captain. “where are we going? I
ask; he just smiles. “in the everywhere and nowhere
you know too damn well.”
junk hallucinations come back, the nights I puffed on
an aluminum foil pipe, when the blue vapor crawled up my
brain and engendered dreams I thought I could catch.
the tiny box is inescapable, the air’s getting thinner by the minute
and I try to savor the last drink I’ll ever have.
death’s all around and I’ve dealt with the fucker since I was
twenty. lost my Emily, lost a good friend, lost a lot of
drinking buddies that froze in parks or took the sensible way out.
all I need as I board the boat floating on the Styx river is a reassurance
that Emily’s waiting on the other side; I receive another shot of WT101.
I sink it and, with a howl, I declare, “let’s sail away, motherfucker.”

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.

Step Into Solitude

Do not fear solitude.
I look at myself there
often. I look at myself 
there now. I step into
solitude unafraid. I do
what is best for me here.
I take my time to gather
my thoughts and to read 
and write. That is not all
I do. I stay in my house
with time and solitude.
I remain here when the 
rains of all seasons fall.

Born in Mexico, Luis lives in California, and works in the mental health field in Los Angeles.
His poems have appeared in Blue Collar Review, Fixator Press, Kendra Steiner Editions, Mad
Swirl, Piker Press, and Unlikely Stories. Make the Water Laugh was his last poetry book, which
was published by Rogue Wolf Press.

Light Enough

I’ve been around the block
and up the hill,
gazing past the clouds
to the thunder’s call.

Hang up
or hang on,
so much more
to come.

A little juice
of lightning
down your throat
into your veins
flushing you out
light enough
to fly again.

Stephen Jarrell Williams has been published in Synchronized Chaos, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Mad Swirl, Fixator Press, Piker Press, and others.

THE MIND

I recognize menace, the absence of rise
and fall,
her scarily steady drone.
It stops and starts.
Gusts of wind punctuating the silence.
Sounds like distant howls.
Each pause
shoos away alarm.
Intermittence of soft-spoken cries
sows doubt.
Relief is soundless.
The hoarse wailing doesn’t resume.
It might not have been what it was. Is.
What I hear I learn to ignore.
What I see I transfigure.
The greatest distress imaginable
is the means to its disbelief.
The mind’s lies are its rescue.
The end of the world is my salvation.

Alan Hardy has for many years run an English language school for foreign students. As well as Fixator, poems recently published in Outposts, Ink Sweat & Tears, Sideways Magazine, The Candyman’s Trumpet, Orbis, Forge Zine, Lothlorien, 100subtexts, Alien Buddha, Mad Swirl and others.

Keeping on

This dark midnight thing
clings like a dying worm
flicking its tail weakly
yet keeping on

You give it a special box
high on a shelf

When it falls
years or decades or
centuries later
and hits you on the head
you end up with the ability
to see through
the universe and back
into your particular mind

and yet it’s keeping on

A.Z. Pine writes in the Pacific Northwest with work forthcoming in scaffold literary magazine and Eunoia Review.

cold colour black breath & rip
till blend it-eye of spectral
catascope long left to vacant jawline excite
bled of in wastage excreta
thine eyes
all eyes
in the reap it-spoke
till collect veritable un-sewn fragrance
all skied to unheld hilt sky alone from out of
in-spit of dawn
nothing drawn
collect/ed

Michael Mc Aloran/ was born in Belfast in 1976. He is the author of over 60 titles of poetry, prose poetry, prose & a number of art books. Most notably published by Erratum Press, Oneiros Books, Incunabula Media, Infinity Land Press, & Editions du Cygne.