Why do I bother plugging the phone in?
if I’m waiting for good news, it won’t come
miracles do happen but
they never happen to me
so I might as well not bother plugging the phone in
Dmitriy Kogan is a short story writer and poet from NYC. His work has appeared in Stone of Madness Press.
He grew tired of trying to be led by the dull and unimaginative.
Bullied by boorish clowns.
Irony is history.
The game is ludicrous.
Ask any day jobber or your local street hustler.
There's still sex but it is not dangerous in a good way.
His hometown became a foreign country and he does not speak the language.
He was never a flag waver.
He cut himself a slice of the surreal landscape blooming everywhere.
He sat in the barren fields and drank in thoughts from iconoclastic minds.
It was an engaging waste of time.
It's all bought out.
The money changers have decimated possibilities.
They are mean and sad and will do anything to silence their enemies.
The population, numb as always, frowned upon his peculiar excesses.
I cannot afford anarchy.
I cannot abide reality.
Let's get a good buzz going and rock out like they did during the 60's and 70's.
You know me.
I'm down for anything.
Just a big softie at heart.
Still punk as fuck.
Hitchhikers gone
the way of the payphone,
the way of the cigarette commercial,
the way of Farrah’s feathered hair—
CCTV cameras on every corner,
potential victims wielding iPhones
which might as well be tasers,
overprotective helicopter parents
hovering like Hueys on a strafing run—
Your serial killing heroes had it easy,
police badges and switchblade knives
for sale between a grainy centerfold
and Bukowski’s latest rape story
because even the Ford Pinto seemed
like a good idea before it exploded.
Ben Newell lives in Mississippi where he works as a bookseller and freelance writer. His poems have appeared online and in print, most recently at Fixator Press and Cajun Mutt Press. He taught high school English for one day.
I was young, so I drank three beers
to get my courage up.
It was ridiculous, of course,
but I had been a guest
in her apartment before,
sadly innocent,
and it was near.
I walked the quiet,
nighttime streets
practicing what I would say.
So, I arrived. I knocked. I waited.
She came to the door all undone
and, of course, was not alone.
The walk home took a long time.
In fact, I don’t think I’ve made it there yet.
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
Spending the morning
with the ants and fallen
leaves in the parking lot
at the Parkway Plaza.
Drinking coffee and a
glazed old fashioned
donut. It is probably
not the wisest choice
for me, but I make flawed
choices many times.
Waiting for the second
battery charge from my
insurance in three hours.
I guess I gambled on
half an hour of running
the car would be enough.
In the meantime an ant
crawled up my neck and
another ran across my
cell phone screen. I pinched
one and flicked the other.
I became a killer and
committed an assault.
The ants must have fell
on me from tree above,
kamikaze style. I feel bad
for what I did. Frustrated,
with this 2002 black
El Dorado Cadillac, and
its back break lights that
stay on even when the
engine is turned off. It
has been happening for
weeks. The mechanic
kept it for days trying to
get a proper diagnostic
check, or so he tells me.
It has to be a faulty part,
a switch. Many laypersons
have told me so. An extensive
Google search has told me
many things. I am thinking
of naming the car Christine.
It seems to have a mind of
its own. If it was running well,
this poem would not exist.
Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal was born in Mexico, lives in California, and
works in the mental health field in Los Angeles, CA. His poems have appeared
in Blue Collar Review, Crossroads, Kendra Steiner Editions, Mad Swirl, The Rye
Whiskey Review, Unlikely Stories, and Yellow Mama Webzine.
Behind the velvet ropes
we waited impatiently
freezing—
But that’s okay
‘cause once they finally
let us in (and we
were dressed for it, baby)
well half-dressed—
everyone else will already
be blotto
sex will perfume the air
and we will jump
into the mad fracas
forgetting about tomorrow altogether.
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
Deep a.m. six day old coffee
Rationed cigarettes & forbidden dreams
Skipping down rainy midwestern
Streets w broken down poets
Lost behind the times
Behind historic lines
Left forlorn against mom & pop
Storefronts
Serenading un-seeable futures
Feathered like crows
Like heckle and jeckle
Like a life remembered
In old cartoons
Merritt Waldon is Southern Indiana poet who has been published in Road Dawgz, Sun Poetic Times,
The Brooklyn Rail, Be About It Zine, River Dog #1, Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts, Americans & others anthology fourth edition, Crisis Chronicles, Cajun Mutt Press, Thye Rye Whiskey Review, and Fearless!.
At midnight Christmas night 2020, cajun mutt press released Oracles from a Strange Fire by Ron Whitehead & Merritt. He lives in Austin, Indiana.
Why do I bother plugging the phone in? if I’m waiting for good news, it won’t come miracles do happen but they never happen to me so I might...
