Beside the Unfinished Glass By Paul Moore

The half-empty glass,

red stain clinging,

a smear of laughter

on the rim.

And beside it,

your ring.

Gold,

still warm, maybe,

from your finger.

A tiny lighthouse,

a silent code.

Don't forget me.

Come back soon.

I am thinking of you.

Or maybe just

a habit.

But I prefer

the secret message.

Paul Moore is a North Carolina–based Black poet who channels family, ancestry, and memory into reflective verse, honoring resilience, lineage, and the shared journeys that shape identity and strength.

 

Forget It By Jeff Weddle

I’m writing this more or less for you. 

I’m writing this for slipping on ice 

and beer drunk afternoons, 

long, aimless drives, 

slow walks at night, 

strange neighborhoods, 

cotton candy carnivals, 

folding knives in back pockets, 

easy reach. 

I’m writing this for the years 

we imagined one another. 

More or less all the years. 

I’m writing this for the hours we have 

forgotten 

and no one will ever suspect. 

I’m writing for the years still to come

with everything broken. 

I hope you are well 

and would tell you I am fine 

but you are too smart 

for that. 

I’m writing this to be rid of it.

You with your delicate gaze

fixed away from me. 

I’m writing this now

because I am lost.

And now, at last, it is gone. 

Jeff Weddle is the Alabama Beat Poet Laureate (2024-2026). His latest book is Letter to Xhevdet Bajraj (Uncollected Press, 2025). His work has appeared in Albanian and Spanish translation

the push is on By Stephen Ground

but unbeknownst to the public,

success isn’t a waving checkered

flag or freshly-painted picket fence

but the sense, at five twenty six a.m.

on a Wednesday, that this flesh is

set to squirm free from my bones

if I choke down one more smoky

sip from a grimy cup that’s gone

unrinsed since last month’s name

screamed from a twice-expired

calendar of motivational quotes.

Stephen Ground is a writer, filmmaker, and picture-taker based in Treaty Six Territory [Edmonton, Canada].

Kilcock : Mid-Winter, 4:48pm By John Doyle

Guess what; Clarabelle’s right : there was a telegraph pole still standing -

it sneaks beside a shotgun rider freewheeling that bridge

I can't say much about for now, 

for my poem may not be as careless with its decisions as this guy reversing his tail into me, 

town holding me like a babe smeared by grey, dark already I see, 

train lights brighter than a blizzard mooching the breeze.

If I was someone else I'd hate them even more, 

that's just how logic works. 

Failure's overrated. 

Archimedes knew, a summer night's worth more with skulls scattered in the bush, 

than that sweaty boy who tugged at my hand saying let's go bitch.

War's part of our landscape now, the new breed of policeman's coming. 

My coffee had been cold about a year if I’d learned to count in old money,

and my florins fell harder to the taboo-shattered floor - than her heels 

had screeched across my chrome-mothered desert,

oh boy, nothing’s big in the cinemas no more, 

the hospitals are begging the dead to set their electricians free and when they do 

I'll arrive, egg down a shirt I've hardly worn more than twice,

my briefcase carrying absolution 

for those wicked dreams of Manhattan.

They say the collar matches the cuffs if the boy taunts his saviours with Sagittarius, 

it didn't please me to say I'd hated him so much murder would've been a breach of contract.

I'll say this much, Key Largo's real beautiful when its weather's playing dumb,

the raining shines on two-lane black tops, yellows and reds smudged through

a home in a dark Pollock, Picasso may turn less feral for;

I guess my left hook’s as weary as the jab from my right, nothing much was there to begin with, 

to drag my shadow home to what the wolves knew as the day and the night, 

Sonny Liston weeping down the wires, 

turpentine puddles -

those soot-breathing sisters of the apocalypse, so many, sadly so few -

gathering their pearls they hum eerie melodies, 

white light grabbing dresses they fill intentions with;

for when I see them I'll sing a sweet adieu, to a sailor who warned me about the evils of happiness, 

for a strand of hair I tugged from a muddy dirt-road, I'd intended to rebuild all again from, 

moon shining slippery smiles of soot-breathing sisters, hunting in packs of elsewhere's sorrow.

Daddy eats his gravy, got his shotgun by his knee, 

grabbing chunks of darkness with his fists, 

he begs Muddy Waters not to die -

hearing Belton Sutherland pure as the rust on the river, 

think I'll stop my wheels and listen, start a conversation with the moon,

the Devil is lonelier than the shit on my shoe

I hear almighty Jesus holler through the delta, the devil is lonelier than the shit on my shoe…

Half man, half creature of very odd habit, John Doyle dabbles in poetry when other forms of alchemy and whatnot just don't meet his creative needs. From County Kildare in Ireland, he is (let's just politely say) closer to 50 than 21.

First Class By Jake St. John

I signed my latest book

with pride 

and slid it in the envelope. 

I grabbed my keys 

and headed out 

to get some stamps

and make the drop. 

I pulled in, 

grabbed the mail 

from the passenger seat, 

and sauntered up

to the counter

waiting to be noticed.

She came out of the backroom

and greeted me.

The usual? She asked,

and handed me

my favorite beer

in a near frozen mug.

I had every intention 

of making it to the post office today,

but sometimes 

when passing your favorite dive bar

just like an expected delivery, 

there's a delay in transit.

Jake St. John has been referred to as “a neo-beat adventurer” who spends his time scratching down poems from aloft barstools and tree stumps scattered around New England. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including his latest, The 13th Round (Six Foot Swells Press, 2025). He is the editor of Elephant and is considered an original member of the New London School of Poets. His poems have appeared in print and online journals around the world.

His current book, The 13th Round is published through Six Ft. Swells Press and is available everywhere please pick yourself up a copy today.

https://www.amazon.com/13th-Round-Jake-St-John/dp/B0F2KBGR8M

Rejections Feel Like Acceptance These Days By Leon Drake

I got another rejection letter

this morning

while eating generic corn flakes

out of a plastic mixing bowl

because somewhere along the line

I became the kind of man

who owns three ashtrays

but no proper dishes.

The editor said my work

“didn’t align with their current vision,”

which is polite industry language for:

we prefer poems

that don’t smell faintly

like motel coffee and emotional damage.

Still—

I folded the letter carefully.

That’s the strange part.

I used to tear them apart,

cuss at the ceiling fan,

drink whiskey like I was trying

to cauterize disappointment.

Now I stack rejections

inside an old cigar box

like baseball cards

of failed versions of myself.

One from Iowa.

One from Oregon.

One from a magazine

run by a woman named Claire

who probably owns twelve sweaters

and says things like

“holding space for art.”

And somehow

they comfort me.

Because every rejection means

for one brief moment

someone stopped their busy little life

to sit alone with my madness.

Some exhausted editor

in a cramped apartment

read my words while microwaving soup

or ignoring a failing marriage

or pretending not to hate poetry anymore.

Maybe they sighed.

Maybe they laughed once.

Maybe one line followed them

into the bathroom mirror afterward.

That counts for something.

At fifty-something rejections deep

you start realizing acceptance

isn’t publication.

Acceptance is survival.

Acceptance is still writing poems

after the world politely tells you

no thank you

over and over again

in twelve-point Times New Roman.

And honestly,

these days,

the rejection emails feel warmer

than most people do.

Leon Drake's work has appeared in Spill The Words Press, Synchronized Chaos, Horror Sleaze Trash, S.A.V.A. Press and The Crossroads Magazine.

BOY By Susan Isla Tepper

After last call 

The lights flashing

Your life is the black floor

In a bar that keeps selling

Till the sun comes up—

With the rest of them 

You stagger out

Onto the street

Blinded by day or

Just plain blinded—

That sadness 

Crushing your spirit

Ripped out when you were a boy.

Susan Isla Tepper is a twenty year writer in all genres. Her most recent book, a Novel titled Hair Of A Fallen Angel, came out in the fall from Spuyten Duyvil Books, NYC. Tepper has also written 7 stage plays. Her third play titled EVA & ADAMO will present at The Tank, NYC, early fall. www.susantepper.com