a feather on the river

pinto express
the instant dinner

I made some last night
for a dollar

armored boars
roam thick woods

tranquil lamb cocoa

the breakfast world of tomorrow

space light shining on the rocks

tree gree’
the lack of galack

the sun lessened
by the phone co.

& now I’m stuck
with pyramid hair

to self-speckle
eating green glass

J. D. Nelson (b. 1971) experiments with words and sound in his subterranean laboratory. Visit www.MadVerse.com for more information and links to his published work. Nelson lives in Colorado.

Meat of the Problem 

If you get to the meat
of the problem, it is
jealousy and it is
hate for the way things are.

The repetition of
words are ingrained on the
young to mold a hateful
person equipped to harm.

Raise them on guns and hate,
you push them enough and
they will shoot. The meat is
rotten. It’s decaying. 

Unleashed on the world, hate
will divide and devour.
There will be nothing left
when hate implodes worldwide.

Pick Up the Phone 

When I pick up the phone
I do not know what is
in store for me. It could
be God on the other
line absolving me of
all my sins or sending me
straight to Hell. It could be
a worried mother, an
angry father, giving
me a piece of their mind,
finding an attentive
ear to listen to their
stories, to bring them hope.
Sometimes it just a
family member asking
for directions to court.
I could be on the phone
for a few seconds or
an hour. I have been thanked
for my assistance and
I have been cursed for doing
my job. Sometimes I cannot
wait until 5pm when I
walk out of my office
and away from the phone.

Luis was 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. 

Awkward Ambling  

Everywhere you go
there you are
and everywhere you look
there’s something to see—
an ample ambler is able
to encroach any and every anthill
within a 72-mile radius
and approach with an(t)y attitudes
by appropriate avalanche ability
found in the ankle muscle which anchors
the animation of return to aluminium asphalt
as far as the eye is able to see
algae addled with algebraic overload
overlooks the overhead oven blast from one mile away
anyway knee deep kneading needles
to angry tunes of a tangled aimless guitar amplifier
aftermath in the afterward onward around
slices of rare noon summer moon.

The Ruined Man 

Bring back to life the nerves of euphoria,
youthful days feeling of rich vitality, of being fully alive.
Anything but this makeshift dull wreckage—
this long pale cast over the days.      
I know I will never regrasp those new and barely thawed endorphins of youth. 
The beautybrain is gone, jaded by the blight of time.      
The long pale cast over the days,       
Days not of vitality but instead days built of the essence of solid ruin.

Heath Brougher is the poetry editor of Into the Void, winner of the 2017 and 2018 Saboteur Awards for Best Magazine. He is a multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of Net Nominee as well as winner of the 2018 Poet of the Year Award from Taj Mahal Review.

     

The bridge is closed to traffic
but not to suicides.

It spans the pain and the surrender,
the rusty cantilever and the river below.

It is as silent as the moonlight
that pales its trusses,

as indifferent as the lapping waters
and the hearts of some people.

It doesn’t have to tell me
how things never go as planned,

that for some, a splash,
is how they’ll be remembered

I sit on the bank, afraid
of high dark places,

of inner voices asking,
“What are you still doing here?”

The bridge is closed to traffic
but not to insinuations.

Juanita Rey is a Dominican poet who has been in this country five
years. Her work has been published in Pennsylvania English, Harbinger
Asylum, Petrichor Machine and Porter Gulch Review.

Stray Cat Strut

My gas masks hang on the back of the door. Breathing in the burning flesh isn’t a good idea. This is someone’s paradise. It’s just not mine. The sunlight is harsh and constant. I prefer it to be dim. There’s a terrible view of acres of parking lot. I’ve never seen him, but I hear a stray cat meowing if the windows are open. Hopefully he’ll tell me something I don’t already know. I’ve written some thoughts on the wall. They’ve travelled with me since college. I suppose night would be the last thing. Sometimes I forget it’s even there.

Room

I’m in no rush. It’s my life, contained in a room. The stairs that lead up to it are steep and painted blue. I sit in front of an open window all day and set things on fire and play with dangerous chemicals. And if, as sometimes happens, it suddenly feels like the universe is expanding far too fast, I’ll lie on the floor and stare at the rusty pipes on the ceiling or the clouds out the window, my view a small thing but my own. I got lucky. I can see the sky, and it’s full of light.

Howie Good is the author of The Titanic Sails at Dawn from Alien Buddha Press and What It Is and How to Use It from Grey Book Press.

beneath
the flowers
on the
grave stone
or the
sharp teeth
of the sky
behind
a broken
and damaged
heart and
a tall
burning tree
we lose
our change
our lunch
our innocence
our illusions
our ghosts
our pennies
and our
dreams
and find
our fears
and insecurities
like old
road maps
or crooked
highway signs
we find
our resolve
our courage
we find
the hair
of the dog
that bit us
the weight
of the straw
that breaks
the camel’s back
we find
those things
we need
to go on

among the
things we
thought
we threw
away.

Matthew Borczon  is a nurse, a navy sailor and a writer from Erie, Pa. He has written ten books of poetry, the most recent, The Ghost Highway Blues is available through Alien Buddha Press. He publishes widely in the small press and tries to keep his head above water, and be a good father and still find time to write.

Time and Place

If the heart stops beating, it will send a text message, and you will know that the worst has happened, that a man sitting naked on a stained red couch put a shotgun to his chest, and as you walk through room after sunny room guided by ghosts, night will bubble up through the floorboards and seep in over the windowsills, a scene being repeated all across the cosmos, like the roll and tumble and cascade of a fast-moving river around a bridge trestle or that dark boat arriving at coordinates x and y with smuggled bales of shredded roses.

Life Philosophies

Some people take a pill to try to sleep, others to try to stay awake. The man crossing the street carries an ominous black egg in his pocket. He may be in trouble with the bank or the government, may be on the run, may have no future in Lithuania. Who knows, perhaps there once were ancient whales on the coasts of Chile, too. Only one way to find out, go there, despite having difficulty getting on and off planes. It’s not that I’m here doing nothing. It’s just that this isn’t necessarily the best time to party with Kant.

Howie Good is the author of The Titanic Sails at Dawn (Alien Buddha Press, 2019).

LET’S GO!

My window is walled by curtains the light flickers for the moths outside.

A note is rolled into a shotgun. I see my shocked eyes in the shaving mirror.

for me here as the white horse chases through the tunica intima.

Music fills the room taps the floor via my foot. There’s nothing in the air

My mobile phone brings another voice into the room. The haze answers and I hang

up. The curtains are opened by the sun

and I put on my shoes. I take a song

and turn it into a whistle. Then I play it outside under a sky I didn’t know.

ICE CUBE KISSES

The light bulb flickers when we speak then the cat snaps the cat-flap.

The carpet we bought keeps us up from the grave below our feet.

The tin opener has turned time quicker than the clock. Before I met you I heard

the world. But now I’m blind. You can dye your hair to change the mirror, upgrade

your phone, listen to music through deafness. Clean your teeth until your mouth shines bright.

But the kisses I felt are only touches of ice cubes. The ones in your cocktail

on a Saturday night. I turn the corner and leave you on the shelf of a bed.

Gareth lives in Wales. He had his first collection out in 2018 by Futurecycle called The Miner. In 2020, his second collection, called Shadows of Tryfan is released. He is currently on an MFA at Manchester Met.

Dan phoned in sick today, 
said the chef, looking at me,
like a hawk looks at a mixy rabbit,
in the middle of a desolate field.

He said, can you work tonight, mate?
I stuttered, unable to make up
some bullshit excuse in time.
I’d planned to drink alone. 

It was busy, and sweaty, and fucking
boring. I washed 147 plates.
knives, folks, ramekins and cutlery-
then they all fucked off.

I scraped burnt on pans, as
sweat stood on my forehead
and my once white T-shirt stuck to me,
as if I’d just ran a half marathon.

Chef said, your tips are by the hot plate;
I got half the amount I was owed, and
I stank and ached, and hated. 
I grinned and didn’t say anything-

then I went home, and drank alone.

Sean Stones is a poet and aspiring novelist from Darlington in the North East of England. He is  currently studying a Masters Degree in Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University.

The Tongues by Oppen, McPhee-ed

are an apparition
to maintain a public impression of decorum, prosperity, etc., despite reversals
Let’s utter words, express data and find a scent
in one’s house
When apostle = travel
The distance in one day
as splendid
From one place to another
into or to that place
a way of calling attention
to an inadvertent losing of something dropped, misplaced, stolen, etc.
Withhold (someone) from accessibility to a visitor
sometimes replaceable
an influence on a body or system, to produce a change in shape
At this juncture, instance, fame: an aspect of a thing
Compare common and leap
astronomical equinoctial solar tropical sidereal
without surface irregularities; smooth
or fluctuations excessively strict
She is bewildered as to place
to withhold something from, or refuse to grant a request
especially one defining or restricting, sometimes replaceable
the strength possessed by a living being
that physical coercion
with or without a following hyphen
As to the smallest isolable meaningful element
we seek openly and energetically to have
A more or less vertical axis and advancing simultaneously over land or sea, as a dust devil, tornado, or waterspout that belongs to him
implies that the thing or its cause is unknown or unexplained
his a principal carrier of meaning
This is a form of hunting in which wild animals are encircled and chased into a special spot that makes their escape impossible
We have confusion over how to say them
these animal words
One player chases the others in an attempt to touch one of them
who then becomes the chaser

Things

That start with x and bounce
That make you go hmmmm
That need to be invented

Things
That are 50 years old in 2014
That are green and pink and tax deductible
That aren’t there anymore
That are blue in color, are fast

Things
That begin with the letter Y and bring good luck

Things
That can be recycled in threes, in pairs
That cause miscarriages and change the world
That can’t be written off on taxes and cause cancer

Things
That don’t make sense and destroy crossword clues
That dissolve in water and don’t mix with humor

Things
That end with the letter x
That everyone should know
That expand in water
That explode when mixed, emit light, eat grass

Things
That fly and fall apart
That feel like a tongue and float and sink and fit perfectly into other things

Things
That glow under black light

Things
That happened in 1964
That happened in 1954
That happened today

Things
That irritate, induce, increase

Things
That Jesus said and that Japan is known for

Things
That keep you awake
That keep you from losing weight
That kill more than sharks and trees

Things
That live in the ocean and look like herpes but aren’t
That lower sperm count and look good on a resume

Things
That no longer exist, never change, need to happen before the rapture

Things
That orbit the sun, open and close, originated in Sweden

Things
That people collect like poison dogs
That push men away

Things
That queens do
That qualify for disability
That qualify as sin for advance military pay

Things
That rhyme with life, represent spring

Things
That start with a and should be invented for kids

Things
That taste bitter and transform and trigger asthma

Things
That used to be cool and used hydraulics, electricity, electromagnets, gamma rays

Things
That vibrate to produce sound and vanish
That vitamin D does for the body
That vinegar is good for

Things
That weigh a kilogram and will make you cry
That will ruin your childhood and weigh an ounce
That will make your boyfriend crazy and weigh a gram

Things
That are from Florida, that x-ray technicians do

Things
That you can make and sell and take on a plane
That you can make with duct tape

Things
That zip up to go down
That zebras eat
That zig zag
That Zeus is known for

Anne Gorrick is a poet and visual artist.

She is the author of eight books including most recently: Beauty, Money, Luck, etc. for Beginners (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2019) and An Absence So Great and Spontaneous it is Evidence of Light (the Operating System, 2018).

Anne Gorrick lives in West Park, New York.