Nonbeing Ain’t Nothing

I wasn’t able to sleep through the night again. At first light, the sky over the marsh had the dull
sheen of tarnished silver. I could hear through a half-open window the tittle tattle of little birds,
spies and traitors passing secrets to the enemy. My proclivity for end-of-the-world kind of
gloominess only deepened. If there were any money in it, someone would bottle the tears we
shed and sell them back to us online as 100 percent natural. Pray all you want for a bloodless
revolution. Firebombs will fall, fires rage, gunfire rattle, and the frozen eggs never become
babies.

Howie Good’s newest poetry collection, Heart-Shaped Hole, which also includes examples of his handmade collages, is available from Laughing Ronin Press.

In his spare time …

he can’t find his keys, even though he knows
he left them in the same place he always does

he refuses to pay submission fees, because
three dollars used to be a day’s food budget

he can’t quite shake the feeling that people
forget he exists when he walks out of the room

he remains bitter over Paul Giamatti’s Best
Actor Oscar snub for American Splendor

he interviews himself about haiku, providing
surprising wit, eloquence, charm and insight

he tries (and fails) to forget at least some of
the things he started with the best intentions

he contends that Robot Monster is an unfairly
maligned work of surreal cinematic genius

he thinks of Loose Park in the snow, where
the walking path passes between pine trees

he sings along with the Raspberries’ Go All
the Way, but only the background vocals

he hopes God doesn’t mind all the questions,
especially those about whether He’s listening

he sometimes resents his old pen name for
having a Pushcart nomination when he doesn’t

he avoids cheese on barbecue, but might make
the odd exception if bacon is involved as well

he promises to come to bed just as soon as
he gets one last latest thought written down

he avoids the Oxford comma and believes the
letter Þ should return to the English alphabet

he can’t find his wallet, even though he knows
he left it in the same place he always does

he looked up this journal on a whim, read two
or three sample poems, thought Why not?

Steve Brisendine lives and works in Mission, Kansas. His most recent collection is To Dance with Cassiopeia and Die (Alien Buddha Press, 2022), a “collaboration” with his former pen name of Stephen Clay Dearborn. His work has appeared in Modern Haiku, Flint Hills Review, Connecticut River Review and other journals and anthologies.

A Letter from the Ghost of Babydoll

the fog is heavy on your heart
the fields you once walked
feel like a hope chest full of bones
you think you hear
a cat you lost years ago
crying for a saucer of milk
while the girl you once were
gushes about boys
a week after burying
a dead bird in the yard.

John Dorsey is the former poet laureate of Belle, Missouri and the author of Pocatello
Wildflower. He may be reached at archerevans@yahoo.com.

Cornerstone

I pass copies out of my drawings
with scriptures on the back
to people who are willing
to take a chance

they look and ponder to what it means
to them and theirs

I left a stack of new Bibles
on the busy corner
with a stone on top

returning the next day
to see what remained

they were all gone
and I hoped they would be read

later
I was arrested
for littering

cuffed
and walked to the police car

I got in
with one last look out to the city
as smoke rose in the distance….

Was it a riot for justice
or none of my business?

Stephen Jarrell Williams loves to stay up all night and write with lightning bolts until they fizzle down behind the dark horizon.  He was the editor of Dead Snakes, UFO gigolo, and Calvary Cross.  He can be found on Twitter @papapoet.

THE RIGHT SIDE OF WARM IS COSTLY

The electric meter that had sat
In the corner of my room, not spinning
For months, ran dry yesterday leaving
Me sitting here in gloom as if the
Winter had never ended. I got
To my feet, walked on over & checked
It had finally ran out & sure enough it had. I
Was almost relieved because any alternative
Would surely have been much much
Worse, but then the thought dammit
It’s still only April and my old bones
Still get way too cold to sit here without
That damn expensive heater being on
Keeping me just the right side of warm.

Bradford Middleton’s latest chap ‘The Whiskey Stings Good Tonight’ is out now from the Alien Buddha Press.  Recent poems have appeared at Horror Sleaze Trash, Yellow Mama, Mad Swirl, Beatnik Cowboy and the Seppuku Review.  If you like these words go follow him on Twitter @BradfordMiddle5.

So Shall I Disappear?

To somewhere deep within the woods where Lew found himself.
Trapped by the con that is humor along with the stigma as well.

To a place nobody will find me as their rumors will not embrace me either.

A place of beauty where I alone can embrace my pain.

Where the mask does not exist unless I alone choose to adorn it.

Where my pages are mine alone.
Where I can fully fathom all the currents that converge to ultimately create all that is me.

Maybe I will take that walk and leave only rumors behind.

Maybe I will.

You can assume for yourself.
It must be splendid to know everything about another.

And not a single solitary truth about yourself.

John Patrick Robbins, work has been published here at Fixator Press, It Takes All Kinds Literary Zine,  The Dope Fiend Daily, Svartedauden Zine, Piker Press, Punk Noir and Disturb The Universe.

His current book is Are We Dead Yet? Published by Black Circle Publishing and is available in Amazon.

Absolving Identities

Salvation Army bride
liberation pale velvet gown
Wavers as an electrical storm blind woman
to tambourine ceremony march.

Adjust the focus
sacrificial alter virgin.
Grasp a calloused male hand
to unite
pseudo eternity pledge vow.

Silences three-month New England gossip.

R. Gerry Fabian is a published poet and novelist. He has published
of his published poems, Parallels, Coming Out Of The Atlantic, 
Electronic Forecasts and Wildflower Women as well as his poetry 
baseball book, Ball On The Mound.

Some organizations may be / eligible for tax deductible donations

Using empirical evidence & an
infinite lattice, the doctor, during
any process of obtaining diagno-
stic information, may stroke some
muscles to imitate the sounds of
a magnetic resonance imaging
investigation. It’s a method — if
electronic networks are deemed
to be lacking — of conceptualizing
expressed behavior through faded
& forgotten artifacts. Escape peaks
are small; but just before escape,
a symmetry. The phase portrait
indicates only bounded solutions,
so an ancillary display of stone tools
has been put together as a physical
reminder of its strong connection
to the things we say to ourselves
but not to others. Something is be-
ing warmed inside a rice cooker
which, purportedly, is made from the
finest quality silicon carbide stone.

Mark Young was born in Aotearoa / New Zealand but now lives in a small town in North
Queensland in Australia. He has been publishing poetry for over sixty years, & is the author
of over sixty books, primarily text poetry but also including speculative fiction, vispo, non-
fiction, & art history.

Next Breath

tight grips around snapping necks, gnarly
hounds abandon the gutter to haunt gorgeous lounges—no bars
open, bottles drained and disappearing in the current
swift gusts wash away remnants of hope; fairies murdered,
washed up bodies in faraway shores
wildfires raze down cities of dreamers and the home to millions,

enough! no one shall cry, there’s no point. driving through
deserted highways, the neon lights have gone off,
barmaids turned to prostitution and beer brewers became
gravediggers—moonshine stills go ablaze, drops of gin
in bathtubs made of clay
clocks tick away, hourglasses no one flips,
trotting into a dying sunset, sunrise nevermore,

crows sing, nightingales coo, and doves cluck; gone mad,
whiskey’s over, the end of light the final promise,
someone knocks two weeks’ notice, begone,

jails full, just the gutter and that’s crowded too,
stay home even if you don’t have one, stay inside even if
your four walls are made of thin paper

diamonds made of blood and coal burns in ovens
chicken party and cows dance, starvation means life for others—cruel
games in dirty alleys, roll the dice determine if you’ll live
a minute or an hour

mongrels gang up, isolation won’t work, groups to conquer the ruins
everlasting farewells on crumbling half-walls, and trout jump
on abandoned fishing boats

Currently residing in Greece, George Gad Economou has a Master’s degree in Philosophy of Science and is the author of Letters to S. (Storylandia), Bourbon Bottles and Broken Beds (Adelaide Books), and Of the Riverside (Anxiety Press). His words have also appeared in various places, such as Spillwords Press, Ariel Chart, Fixator Press, Outcast Press, Piker’s Press, The Edge of Humanity Magazine, The Rye Whiskey Review, and Modern Drunkard Magazine.

Iceland

a triolet

on a green striped boat to the West Fjords
weather reports a journey to the center of the earth,
around us the immanent saga recited and roared
on a green striped boat to the West Fjords
the rocks are metric verse of new romantic chords
breath to power pitch and sluice the berth
on a green striped boat to the West Fjords
weather reports a journey to the center of the earth

Damon Hubbs: Constant gardener, casual birder. Recent poems featured in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Apocalypse Confidential, Yellow Mama, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Fevers of the Mind & Horror Sleaze Trash. Damon’s new chapbook, “The Day Sharks Walk on Land,” will be published by Alien Buddha Press in May. Twitter: @damon_hubbs