The Insides of a Poem By Manny Grimaldi

after Joseph Ceravolo

I needed your beauty

to create a poem about you,

but you said the loveliness was mine,

not yours.

Grandmother laughs,

flow tears trace her furrowed

cheeks, gardens of mirth

densely grown, young boy another ode?

another song? Stop to think—

just in case you both are wrong?

I’ll share this with you

when it is time to say, everything goes

so well, so very well in my mind.

I’ve proven sentimental—

leapt to love, my cheeks a blush vermillion

a million embarrassments on my heels.

I require your art

to create another poem about you—

perhaps a perfect and closer rendering.

Lines broken, stating clearly

something simple—very near

to your country’s shores, 

or your wistful eye 

and a sudden cache of photos

topical and tropical, rainy and dreaming

away to slow marimbas 

and storms before sunshine, 

rainbows, and rain again. 

Manny Grimaldi is a father of two beautiful children that receive letters in the mail from him when he isn’t with them, and a Kentucky poet. He is the author of the full length poetry collection Riding Shotgun with the Mothman, and chapbook ex libris Ioannes Cerva (anonymus scriptus). During the year he also serves as managing editor for Lexington, Kentucky’s Yearling Poetry Journal under Workhorse Writers.

ALL OR NOTHING By Glenn Armstrong

The children’s schoolyard singing

held the sky aloft. Some recited 

“Rapper’s Delight,” while I choked 

up on a stickball bat, a masking tape

grip wound around a broomstick. 

I’m Popeye the Sailor Man  

I live in a garbage can 

I turned on the gas and burned off my ass   

I’m Popeye the Sailor Man

I crouched down in front of the spray-

painted zone. The white rectangle

contrasted with the red brick wall. 

I waited for the pitcher’s first throw. 

Marijuana, marijuana, LSD, LSD   

Jimmy Carter makes it 

Ronald Reagan takes it   

Why can’t we? Why can’t we?

Outfielders idled by the chain-link

fence. They expected me to either hit

a home run or strike out. I swung

and missed. The other kids played

Double Dutch, freeze tag, 

or flipped baseball cards.

Whistle while you work   

Hitler is a jerk   

Mussolini bit his weenie   

Now it doesn’t work

I whiffed on the second pitch,

too, but I tightened my grasp. 

The Good Humor man glanced

as the Pinkie Ball sailed

over the fence.

Jingle bells 

Batman smells   

Robin laid an egg 

Batmobile lost its wheel  

and the Joker got away

 Glenn Armstrong enjoys reading old pulp fiction and piloting the way back machine. The result is sometimes poetry. His work has appeared in The Beatnik Cowboy and The Rye Whiskey Review, among others. He lives in San Diego. 

Haven’t Felt This Cold In Years By Trish Saunders

That tale you told of our old farm on Swans Trail Road disturbs me. 

I don't know why you keep giving these stories daylight.

Stop rewriting our past, won't you? It's like bargaining with particle physics. 

Roads leading to our house might fall off maps; dishes in the cupboard 

could disappear.  

Knife-fighting wind, stone-cutting wind, butt-biting wind--

I wonder if that isn't Grandpa growling

from his grave, wanting to correct your trash-talking, 

set things straight, like his best plow lines. 

Can't you still see his old Chevy up on cinder-blocks?

If we'd known the wooden bridge was frail, remembered that

Grandpa's glasses were broken, were stepped on for fun. 

You've stopped listening, I see. Put down your pen, won't you?

Look up from the table, please. 

Trish Saunders writes poems from Seattle and Honolulu; she has poems published or forthcoming in Eunoia Review, Galway Review, Pacifica Poetry, The Rye Whiskey Review and Medusa’s Kitchen. 

Hangover By Kent Fielding

As a young man, I used to tell people

All good things involve sweat 

And of course, I meant workouts

And spicy food, and sex 

(Skin upon skin, steam bath-like rooms,

Damp hair, the taste of salt on the tongue,

Wrestling, moaning, collision rough sweat).

I suppose I even meant hangovers.

I used to find satisfaction in those after-mornings.

The survival of poison, the body’s ability

To remove toxins, to purify itself

With its own water – holy perhaps. 

As all survival is holy.

Kent Fielding – educator, editor, poet, activist – co-founded White Fields Press and the literary renaissance with Ron Whitehead in 1992. Fielding is an Honorary Kentucky Colonel, a BP Teacher of Excellence, an Alaska Teacher of the Year Finalist, 2021 Alaska Speech and Debate Coach of the Year. He has taught in the Marshall Islands, at Jefferson Community College, University of Alaska Southeast, Mt. Edgecumbe, Skagway High School, and at summer institutes in Turkey and Latvia. Author of a book of poetry, Chief Iffuccan, a chapbook, The Revolution is About to Begin, and a broadside “Museums” (Cheek Press 2023), his work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, The Asheville Poetry Review, The Jefferson Review, Pavement Saw, Modern Haiku, The Beat Scene, Frisk Magazine, Boog Literature, Night Owl Narrative: A Cajun Mutt Rag, and Tidal Echoes, among others.

Cruise #1 By Wendy Cartwright

It’s even more what I thought it would be than what I thought it would be,

a reggae band and a hip-hop DJ,

a guy eating an ice cream cone doing the electric slide,

and a dyke salsa dancing to Usher.

But the engine’s breathy hum

and gravity’s pull as we rock,

the cool salty breeze and lapping crests

romance me as the sun draws toward the horizon.

Life always throws me curveballs

what once lured me in

and the things that scared me so

are now a juxtaposition.

Wendy Cartwright is a poet/author/reporter/columnist/weirdo out of Columbus, Indiana. Her travels have taken her as far as Mayan Ruins and as near as the filling station. Her undiscerning tastes allow her to find creative fodder regardless of location. She has been published in various print anthologies and been featured in online publications. With three self-published books, she has the most of anyone on her block.

spectator sport By Chris Dean

I watch the butts pile in the ashtray,

one, two…three.

I should quit. Again.

But I lie to myself about the when.

I lie to myself a lot.

It's a hobby. A national pastime.

A goddamned spectator sport.

I tell myself I'm gonna do better today,

less anger, less self pity.

I'll laugh more and be productive.

But my softening body knows the truth,

that I'll sit on the couch,

pretend to drink herbal tea

that will turn cold as stone in its cup

and stare at an empty screen

hoping the empty has transference.

I'll talk to the creaking floorboards 

as I move back and forth 

between kitchen and couch,

I'll hold conversations with sleeping cats

and I'll argue with the damn flies

that buzz through screenless windows

I refuse to close.

I'll make up stories for them

that I won't write down

and pretend I'm creating greatness.

Then, exhausted from my hectic day,

I'll curl up with something

stronger than myself,

light another smoke

and make mental lists of ways

I'll avoid facing life again tomorrow.

Chris Dean is a storyteller, spoken word artist and self-proclaimed Magpie Poet who writes from the heart of Indiana where they live with their husband, dog and too many cats to mention. 

Their work has been featured online, in multiple print anthologies and they are the author of two books of poetry, Tales From a Broken Girl and We're All Stories in the End, published by Storeylines Press. 

PYRAMID PRISON By Strider Marcus Jones

in detritus metronomes

of human habitation

the ghost of Shelley's imagination

questions the elemental,

experimental

chromosomes

and ribosomes

of DNA,

reverse engineered

that suddenly appeared

as evolution yesterday.

her monster mirrors dark wells

of monsters in our smart selves,

the lost humanity and oratory

that fills laboratory

test tubes

with fused

imbued

genes

to dreams

of flat forward faster

distinction

to disaster

and barbarism's

ectopic extinction. 

this is our pyramid prison,

where all souls

and proles

climb the debased

opposite steps of extremism,

like Prometheus Unbound,

defaced

sitting around

the crouching sphinx

abandoned by missing links.

free masons of money and wars,

warp the alter of natural laws,

so reason withers

and wastelands rust-

no longer rivers

of shared stardust

in the equal symphony of spheres

in space,

filling our ears

with subwoofer bass,

definitive

primitive

medieval

evil

waste.

Strider Marcus Jones – is a poet, law graduate and former civil servant from Salford, England with proud Celtic roots in Ireland and Wales. He is the editor and publisher of Lothlorien Poetry Journal https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/. A member of The Poetry Society, his five published books of poetry https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/ reveal a maverick, moving between cities, playing his saxophone in smoky rooms.  

His poetry has been published in numerous publications including: The Huffington Post USA; The Stray Branch Literary Magazine; Crack The Spine Literary Magazine;The Lampeter Review and Dissident Voice.