Witch Hazel

When this hemorrhoid
is finally vanquished,
it won’t be
the pain,
the blood,
the itchiness,
the dryness,
the insomnia,
or the weird prickly sensations in my thighs and dick
that I’ll be
glad are gone:

Even though it
soothes me,
I’ll be glad 
to never have
to bear the
stench of using
Witch Hazel hemorrhoid pads
ever again.

GARRET SCHUELKE is a writer, podcaster, and musician that currently resides in Grand
Rapids, Michigan. He is the author of the GODAN series (Bakunin Incorporated), Anamakee
(Riot Forge Studios, 2016), Whup Jamboree: Stories (Elmblad Media Group, 2017), and three
ebooks.

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many mounds of snow.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Fixator Press, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.

OBJECTS MAY APPEAR…

He sat a few seats in front, on the top deck of the bus,
holding a mirror that was made for looking backwards –
a sparkling, scarred wing, pulled from a wrecked van.

From his well-worn carrier bag, the neck of a small,
stringed instrument stuck out – as if to miss nothing;
but when he alighted at a stop in Newhaven Town,

failed to spot, on the clear-roof shelter above his head,
a zipper-case, in which was neatly packed, a shaving kit
complete with curly-tailed cord ~ a would-be gift, unfound.

 

Award-winning poet, Janina Aza Karpinska, draws on many influences and writes in a variety of styles, with work published in London Reader; Magma; Ekphrastic Review; Drawn to the Light; Synchronized Chaos; Raising the Fifth; Sein und Werd, and Cold Signal amongst others. She lives on the south coast of England.
 

The Dying Deserve a Larger Alphabet

in portsmouth ohio
the cool air
reminds you
it’s raining
in kentucky
just across
the river

the sign for the cancer center
reads something like c n c r ce t r
the building itself
in failing health

the remaining letters
dangling
like loose teeth.

John Dorsey is the former Poet Laureate of Belle, MO. He is the author of several collections of
poetry, including Which Way to the River: Selected Poems: 2016-2020 (OAC Books, 2020),
Sundown at the Redneck Carnival, (Spartan Press, 2022, Pocatello Wildflower, (Crisis
Chronicles Press, 2023) and Dead Photographs, (Stubborn Mule Press, 2024). He may be
reached at archerevans@yahoo.com.

Chance And Gamble On The Downward Turn Of The Wheel

Dud Sixpence Endeavours
… brassic, and fuelled by
‘Inflammatory Rumours’
… uNeVeN release.
“Your ‘Pride’ won’t
feed the kids, Jesus…
I’m scrubbing toilets,
and choking upon
my Mother’s Warnings!”
Three wishes?
I’d only need the one
… a Premarital
‘Time Machine’…
I’ll take care of Future
‘Avoidance’ all by Myself.

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.

F Bombs

Filling our fists
before finishing
the first,
feeding our faces
with feral, filthy
foodstuffs.

Doug Sylver’s writing can be found in Drifting Sands, The Sun Magazine, The New York
Times and Fixator Press, among other publications. He is a recently retired public high school teacher and lives with his love, Monica, in Seattle.

Shopping Around

A Coles shopping trolley
inside a Woolworths trolley.
Very wrong but …
I happened upon them,
fully engaged on the verge.
Wolf and German Shepherd,
buffalo and a milk cow,
American and Russian President
caught out, in (out/in out/in)
an unholy tryst,
a moment of lust.

Allan Lake is a migrant poet from Allover, Canada who now lives in Allover, Australia. Coincidence.
He has published poems in 20 countries. His latest chapbook of poems, entitled ‘My Photos of Sicily’, was published by Ginninderra Press. It contains no photos, only poems.

Unraveling

The passion of moments: those waves in marble,
the carved face in a cornerstone pillar gazing sagacious near steps…
this lobby we exit recollecting

the flying dreams … arms spread … torsos now kites …
a sea of air … hair billowing …light …with us suddenly

launched here

in reality … hands … lanterns in
winds of dusk … cerulean clay… plaster swirling to breath …
breath becoming

form…
flesh…
water with

words, words blurring underneath the
fountain reflection this cupped palm raises to lips, minutes …

yours … yours is drinking all images … flight …
as I, I shut eyes, unraveling

wars.

Resident artist/curator for The Chroma Museum, artistic renderings of LGBTQI figures and allies before Stonewall, https://thestephenmeadchromamuseum.weebly.com/ ,Stephen Mead is a retiree whom, throughout his employment still found time for creativity.  Occasionally he even got paid of this. Currently he is trying to sell his 40-year backlog of unsold art, https://www.artworkarchive.com/profile/stephen-mead

The Night Café

Green ghost lights
in the café of too many

shadows. Stale scent
of spilled, spoiled spirits

in smoke tainted, rank
air. The artist’s corner

table, empty now, smells of
turpentine, linseed oil

and residue of absinthe
spent dreams, all sketched

with coal on smudged foolscap.

Alan Catlin is a six decade warrior of the small press scene.  He his pomes in recent issue of Beatnik Cowboy, Home Planet News, Chamber Magazine and Synchronized Chaos. he has full length books forthcoming from Roadside Press, Impspired and Kelsay Books.

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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