forethought’s lapse

cursed with a promethean liver,

a pile of numb bones in glistening flesh,
and a head spared to hang over uneasy

atop a dormant stratovolcano of fervor, he
drank daily his deluge of fire in humble clay,

much resigned to view his endless sacrifice at
the beak of a hungry vulture in eagle’s pretense,

indiscriminate to meat, fat, and anything in between

Brian (@wrdsrch) writes and sings. Recent work is featured and/or forthcoming in Thimble, FERAL, Sledgehammer, and Versification, among others. He holds a BA in Creative Writing from Susquehanna University. https://brianalvarado.com/writing.

NAMES AND DATES

In the memorial garden
At Golden Pines
A low stone wall bears plaques
With names and dates, set in a,
Shall we say,
Chronological order:
Here a plaque with a name and dates,
And then one that has been left blank,
And then more with names and dates,
Interspersed with more empty spaces,
Which we have come to see
Are saved for those of us
Who walk these woods and
Examine the wall these brisk afternoons,
Autumn crunching underfoot,
Memories of friends lighted
By a cold November sun.

Robert Demaree is the author of four book-length collections of poems, including Other
Ladders, published in 2017 by Beech River Books. He is a retired school administrator
with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, where he lives four
months of the year.

october poem

feeling low
i drink and drive, 
chance death for 
something more—

i dream of misplaced smiles,
but it’s no use,
they’re all gone,
they’re long gone

i drive past cars,
darkened homes,
withering gardens,
and unfamiliar streets…

at home
the lonely
bird feeders
are empty

i fill them
just to hear
the seed fall
like march rain

Tohm Bakelas is a social worker in a psychiatric hospital. He was born in New Jersey, resides there, and will die there. He is the author of 18 chapbooks and several collections of poetry, including “The Ants Crawl In Circles” (Whiskey City Press, 2022). He runs Between Shadows Press.   

45 years of Great Lakes Orthodontics

To illuminate & inform
the quality of life, we’ve 
worked very hard over 
the past several years
to implement a service-
oriented approach to 
the development of 
perimeter sites that can be 
joined to the cluster of
reference models. In 
short, this means that,
unless otherwise noted, 
you can reproduce an
interactive proximal end 
to the early filling vein 
that is much more 
convenient to exit. We’re 
looking forward to our 
continued partnership.

Mark Young’s latest book, Your order is now equipped for shipping, is due out from Sandy
Press in August. It will be available through Amazon.

Blood Stained Tents in the Wind

Another night under
my taped cardboard tent
praying in the wind

hiding from madmen
in the near city
searching the outskirts

their heavy boots
kicking and stomping
anyone already on their backs

my fists swollen
from the last maniac
now laying on the railroad tracks

shouldn’t have left him there
he didn’t know
I still have a backbone to fight

maybe they’ll find him
before the rumble
and whistle of the last train

if already dead
they’ll rob him
and light him on fire

laughing
and populating the land
with another ghost

resuming their hunt for me
not realizing sometime soon
we’ll outnumber them.

 

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 as papapoet.

Days My Poems Go Far Away

I pray for monsoonal wordfalls that succumb to ravishing sunlight. Similes pool in echoing
canyons, soak into rocks, become slate shadows cooling collared lizards. I see my words in
aviator shades these lizards wear, double rainbowed, ricocheting off apricot sun. I clang the tiny
lenses like cymbals till rocks reverberate. Canyon bats, slick tuxedoed vampires upside down,
fold wings over my words, press them to throbbing chests. Make them blood thirsty. Then set
them free to stripe themselves around and around a cat’s ringed tail, letters getting cozy dancing
circles. Dancing. Circles dancing. Circles. When they’re dizzy, they spin off to clouds of
cayenne dust. Birds-of-prey swoop and grab them inches from the ground, hang glide them miles above boulders, drop them when they realize: They. Never. Die. My darlings plummet and crash among sinisterly grinning scorpions, positive they’ll surrender hopeless and scared, but they escape, muster power as they huddle. Enjamb into nightfall. Adjectives spread quilted bodies over shivering nouns. Weary words count bighorn sheep but can’t drift to sleep without order. So I coax them into zombie stanzas, coo and cajole them to extend metaphors, link arms with caesuras. The Big Dipper pours vanilla chamomile as lines blur in somnambulist trance. It’s time to poet these words home, peer into their yellow marble mountain lion eyes, stroke their shaggy bison beards, kiss their ears with promises to never unmother again.

Dana Kinsey is an actor and teacher published in Drunk Monkeys, ONE ART, On the Seawall, Sledgehammer Lit, West Trestle Review, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, and Prose Online. Dana’s play, WaterRise, was produced at the Gene Frankel Theatre.  Her chapbook, Mixtape Venus, is published by I. Giraffe Press. Visit wordsbyDK.com

parallels on wane

dithering can
wobble stationary
if facial quips remain focused
as they call more is necessary
so i crawl in blizzard slam shock
to make my point we are nothing
without believing real
is invalid here

i digested prayers
from dying dreams
between sly flutter we smiled tears
yes i know doctrines promise deliver
but i’m inclined to believe silent truth
offers twice removed faith message
given life panics
when being declines

ok that wasn’t noted
clearly even at all
but if you dissect behavior of tempted
you like they will see hopeful falling
is no less certain than parallels on wane
for gabble relieving or not collected exact
is what is sought after the fact
sinks heaven silent

Stephen House has won many awards as a poet, playwright, and actor. He’s received international literature residencies from The Australia Council and Asialink. His chapbooks “real and unreal” and “The Ajoona Guest House” are published by ICOE Press. His next book is out soon. He performs his acclaimed monologues widely.

1000 Square Feet

I don’t know much 
about the family in 13 B
where they’re from 
or how long they’ve lived here

but I do know that I’ve cracked 
a few cervezas with the father
and have eaten homemade tamales 
from the mother that I swore 
made me see the face of God

I do know that I’ve been greeted
by both abuelos passing by 
and have seen all six children 
playing with the other kids 
in the apartment parking lot 

I even know that I’ve watched 
them raise the American flag  
from their balcony railing 
higher than some eyebrows 
they received

this family 
they all live together 
inside 1000 square feet 
making room where it counts.

 

 

Cord Moreski is a poet from the Jersey Shore. Moreski is the author of Confined Spaces(Two Key Customs, 2022), The News Around Town (Maverick Duck Press, 2020), and Shaking Hands with Time (Indigent Press, 2018). When he is not writing, Cord waits tables for a living and teaches middle school children that poetry is awesome. His next chapbook Apartment Poems will be released by Between Shadows Press in late 2022. You can follow Cord here: www.cordmoreski.com

The Waterfall Effect

The tricked eye perceives
liquid banks slipping past
a petrified stream,
the railroad station
continuing retrograde
from the frozen train
until the clockwork mind
corrects the senses
to their settled duties.
Rivers flood.  
Exiles disembark. 

Chris Bullard lives in Philadelphia. He received his B.A. in English from the University of Pennsylvania and his M.F.A. from Wilkes University. Grey Book Press published Continued, a poetry chapbook, in 2020 and Moonstone Press recently published Going Peaceably to the Obsidian Knife, his chapbook of environmentally themed poetry. Main Street Rag has just released his poetry chapbook, Florida Man.

overflown indices

The problem with hair is that it’s not
a static thing. Calculating lights in real-

time is too heavy for the current hard-
ware. The game crashes. Thus the

lighting for anything that is not moving
during gameplay is prerendered. Not

quite as simple as taking a snapshot of
a plant or the centerline on a road. Push-

ing a load by using your own weight to
assist is far less stressful on your body.

Mark Young lives in a small town in North Queensland in Australia. He has been publishing
poetry for more than sixty years, & is the author of around sixty books, primarily text poetry
but also including speculative fiction, vispo, & art history. His most recent books are The
Toast, from Luna Bisonte Prods, The Sasquatch Walks Among Us, from Sandy Press, &
Songs to Come for the Salamander, Poems 2013-2021, selected & introduced by Thomas
Fink, co-published by Meritage Press & Sandy Press.