Afflatus

I overhear the nocturnal dialogue of neighboring
dogs with the patience of a priest, but now I’m
willing to hand over my soutane. While invoking,
I ask: Am I right? Yes, shares lickety-split: Every-
thing free of error needn’t be expressed or aspired
for. Agape tends benignly from the ledge of lapses
without inciting the ego. Some three-letter words
require a crupper.

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.




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Bright Lights

illuming a ceiling destined to evaporate
as cows produce sour coke—trivial questions demanding
elaborate answers and during the night roam free
the endless ghosts of a long forgotten and desecrated
past.

dancing wolves and howling ballerinas,

crippled offspring abandoned in the cradle—
one man reached for the moon. more followed and all they
found was eternal fire;

the lighthouse’s burning,
burning down, and burning up,

no one rushes to it, no one knows; the endless
story that goes around, fairytale told in dives
everywhere in the world—where flies drink
and bumblebees dance, the one place where life still flourishes.

blue dragons soar across
marauding clouds—torching down the
ancient artifacts of those who could not believe.

in some distant desert poppies disappear and
the universal cry wakes the babies from their blissful
slumber.

horror movies early in the morning—and strong coffee
has replaced the sweet poison of youth.

disappearing into the everlasting mist of midnight,
hollow men walk the streets and empty women crowd
the back alleys—and amidst them all a jaybird watches,
chasing down the nightingale’s missing voice.

Currently residing in Greece, George Gad Economou has a Master’s degree in Philosophy of Science and is the author of Bourbon Bottles and Broken Beds(Adelaide Books), Of the Riverside(Anxiety Press) and Reeling Off the Barstool (Dumpster Fire Press). His words have also appeared, amongst other places, in 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.

Fibonacci Bell Curve #27

We
haven’t
begun to
understand the price
that certainly must be paid
to afford the type of reasoning that is allowed
when one is taught that fight comes before logic and that truth should always come last in line,
to come to terms with the way things are spread out upon
the best laid plans of rats and men.
We cover our eyes
to hide from
the pale
fear.

April Ridge, Mothman’s tomboy cousin, lurks in trees, listening for windy hints of poetry. Hobbies: studying the sordid affairs of 1920s circus performers; long walks in pitch black tunnels. Her work appears sporadically in deep space, circling black holes until the dinner bell of eternal fame rings in its echoing chambers.

Apparition Poem #1574

There you are: towel-headed,
toweled, milling through large
crowds, slightly self-conscious
but convinced of your uppity
superiority— this you is me, I
push through crowds (antique
book stores, solicitous clerks, I
can’t tell if they mean me when
they speak), stumble up stairs,
nobody notices the freakishness
of my appearance, as I am you—
having lived your life, I’m past
your death— cogs cut, dusted.

Adam Fieled is a writer based in Philadelphia. Recent releases include the re-release of three Argotist
Online e-books: The Posit Trilogy (2017), The Great Recession (2019), and Mother Earth (2011). A
magna cum laude Penn grad, he edits P.F.S. Post.

Luis, 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.

Natural Chime

A warm day– and my dog is playing fetch
with the ghosts of our buried friends;
gusts from the mountain top return
with poppy seeds and hints of rain,
and we sit on the patio,
remembering those months in Poland,
artisan villages in France, where
fields of wheat bend like catapults,
and spring during the day.

I’m searching for something more
than hanging pots, but natural gardens,
wildflowers with a smudged lipstick gaze
wondering why life demands beauty; cottages
invaded by armies of dandelions,
trucks decades gone
but the aching farmer finds ways
to keep a rusty engine running.

Hiking towards a river only ever heard,
surrounded by sunflowers, elderberries,
the music of bluebirds on burnt wood,
frogs jubilant in their stagnant ponds,
a cadence eons in training,
effortless like the mad stillness
after a successful round
of Russian roulette.

Brandon Shane is a poet and horticulturist, born in Yokosuka, Japan. You can see his work in trampset, The Chiron Review, IceFloe Press, The Argyle Literary Magazine, Berlin Literary Review, Acropolis Journal, Grim & Gilded, Ink in Thirds, Dark Winter Lit, among others. He graduated from Cal State Long Beach with a degree in English.

Hurtz Donut

Dumb tattoos
as meaningless/ful
as detention hall dreams
scrawled on the desk
just passing time
til they let me go

Jonathan S Baker lives and works just above the frown of the Ohio River in Evansville, Indiana.  They are the author of several collections of poetry and the host of Indiana’s longest running poetry series, Poetry Speaks.

PARTHENON

The Parthenon stands before me, tilted,
an orange halo around it,
clumps of meandering green in front,
two grey clouds above, like huge birds,
one on each side.

Black and white rectangular patterns
stripe around the rim.

It has survived years in a multiple of houses.
When I first saw it, I was young.
Now, it’s going to survive its founder,
its creator, its builder, its purchaser.
Things from antiquity outlast the people who saw them first.
There’s nothing of note in that.

The plate outliving me is of no substance.
Inanimate things do end up in museums,
or on top of household furniture,
irrespective of the generation who made them,
or first spied them on display in cheap tourist stalls.
Moments we have had we resuscitate,
till our last breaths.

Alan Hardy has for many years run an English language school. Published in Envoi, Iota, Poetry Salzburg, The Interpreter’s House, Littoral, Orbis, South, Pulsar, Lothlorien and others. Poetry pamphlets Wasted Leaves (1995) and I Went With Her (2007). Alan has just recently started submitting again (after a little pause).

…At A Gentle Canter

Abstinence and Repulsion
… I blame the Celibates
for the Fires in the Temple.
Put your ‘Confessional
Face’ away, it’s making
me nauseous… Mask On!
“… they’ve blamed
Rachael for it… just like
you claimed they would… ”
It’s not the ‘Evidence’
… but those in Attendance
that matters… and we Rule.
‘Splinters’ completely…
Cell-Pondering past-tense
is a Punishment wrapped
up inside a Prison Sentence.

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.

Poll Watcher

So say it rains.
Say it rains during zazen
during posture practice.
The drops strike the roof
and leak into your mind.
During a daydream at night
a reverie of a revered one
before bedding-down a day
rolls like a drop rolling
off the beleaguered roof.
A few dead in Arkansas.
Tornados rarely make it this far.
We get the last of the rain,
Godzilla diminished,
still, when he falls he damages
plenty. The effect is felt
at the precinct hall
where watchers count out
the minutes left till closing time.
The president’s name is immaterial.
None of those who voted for him know

they voted for the one
destined to appall.
This cycle meant nothing after all.

Steve Hamelman teaches English at Coastal Carolina University where he has published two books and many articles/reviews on American fiction and rock, some creative pieces too (e.g., poems in The Blotter). He’s the review editor for the journals Popular Music and Society and Rock Music Studies.