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.

Retro Love By Rita S Spalding

funny how old thoughts

bring up new 

a love from long ago

the first

eyes bluest of blue

curly hair

laugh that filled the sky

he wanted more

than i could give

if i could return

to that night in the fields

when stars were violins

and his eyes were the stars

if we could only return 

to the peach tree

by the acre garden

fruit waiting to be plucked

unwrapped

what does save yourself

really mean anyway 

if i had said yes on that night

after all maybe it would’ve 

been the very thing 

that saved us both 

from those heartache and tears

that chased us through the years

his grave still catches my heart

Rita S. Spalding has had poems published in numerous anthologies and magazines. Her first book, Abstract Ribbons, was published in 1992. A second book, The Eighth, is currently at a publisher. She has received awards for poetry from Jefferson Community and Technical College, Elizabethtown Community College, National Library of Poetry, Kentucky Monthly Magazine and the Kentucky State Poetry Society. In 2024 she was a presenter at the Kentucky Writers Celebration in Danville and Historic Penn’s General Store, the Last Insomniacathon and she gives poetry readings regionally on a regular basis.

Consolation By James Kangas

On the day after the election

Patty went down to our coffee shop

where Ken, the owner, had brought in

a bottle of bourbon for those

who needed it, he said. Patty had

a couple of slugs for her anxiety

and then a couple of espressos

to get her day moving towards 

something tangible, something 

beyond our big fat burst balloon.

James Kangas is a retired librarian living in Flint, Michigan. His work has appeared in Atlanta Review, Chiron Review, JAKE, New World Writing, North Dakota Quarterly, Rye Whiskey Review, West Branch, et al. His chapbook, Breath of Eden (Sibling Rivalry Press), was published in 2019.

Time Goes Boom By Jay Passer

Time goes by

People get married

Bombs detonate

Babies are born

Vapes

Cars

Guns

assembled by robots in factories by night

Arrests made

Anthills stepped on by sex-crazed atheists 

Spirits ascending up

Souls descending down

The spiral staircase of yin and yang and

vice versa

From pigment, to paint, to

daguerreotype 

To film, then video

Newspeak digitized

Pigeon shit droppings on your hot dog bun

Kids quit playing doctor

play lemmings instead

Shopping mall land mines

Ghetto grenades

99% of the time

I stay out of it

leaving spoken word to the

comfortably deranged

Ice Capades, fire breathers 

State funerals, peasant baptisms

the Circus of ancient Rome was no picnic at the park

Severed arms and heads by the cartful

Legs chewed off by tigers

Say

It’s your birthday 

turkey day, 

or Dia de Los Muertos

D-Day

D-Day?

Like when your country is invaded by hostile armed forces?

Featured in black-and-white footage

so you can’t smell the fear

I stay

out of it

Auction house incest

Deforestation parades

What occurs to me naturally 

could vaporize an elephant 

Say minds could be read

I’d instantly be institutionalized 

Here comes Fed Ex

Can you sign for this?

Sure thing

Say

Can I fuck your daughter?

It’s a date

Cars speed by

Helicopters overhead

Aliens combing the Earth for priceless resources 

Sewers operating unconsciously

Oceans with indigestion

Landfills brimming, toilet tissue optional 

Dumbass, d’ya think

you actually wash 

your own hands?

Ever consider

maybe you're just watching them

wash each other?

The poetry and prose of Jay Passer has appeared in print and online periodicals, magazines and anthologies, in subterranean basements and men's room stalls, cave walls and space shuttles, since 1988. He is the author of 15 collections of words, symbols, diatribes, missives, isms, schisms, rain drizzles and blood fizzles. A cook by trade, he's also dabbled in daubs, photo-montage, reverse Feng shui; while failing at mortician's apprentice, news butcher, and criminal savant. Passer's most recent chap, Son of Alcatraz, was released in February of 2024 from Alien Buddha Press, and is available on Amazon.

You Must Endure Your Own Suffering By Rocío Iglesias

In this country that has been our hope and our void,

I am standing here wearing my mother’s heart

My thumbs pressed against my phone like a bleeding wound,

“I’m sorry,” “I love you,” “no lo quiero creer”

the lamentations mean more in Spanish, the roots run deeper 

My body twisted, sweaty and unpretty, 

into the involuntary familiarity of “what now?”

nausea blooming in my stomach and rising through my chest like a sharp red flower,

my mind geolocates my American passport, my naturalization certificate

so that I can finally let the tears come,

my face draped beneath them like my name, Rocio, dew drops

Okay so we will have to return to the place of villainous darkness

To when they made each act of living feel like a snare, or a cliff

These in-between days are a ghost world, a past life half lived in the future,

And today?

Today they can come to my house and try to tell me it’s not my home

Stomp through my kitchen in dirty boots, 

Rifle through my personal effects and tell me which ones bring me joy 

But the thing is, 

I know them better this time around

I know this enemy is sinister like a practical joke, 

plywood left in the rain, 

moving behind the curtain of a screen 

unable to meet the hot-brand of a woman’s direct eye contact 

So, what if they cannot do it?

What then, if they cannot make me feel unwelcome here?

What if I meet them at the door, 

Creep down on all fours, 

Hollow out my own throat,

And bark 

Rocío Iglesias is a queer Cuban-American poet. Her work has appeared in various print and electronic publications and can most recently be found in Poetry South and O, Miami. She lives, breathes, and works in the Twin Cities, MN. 

A Spiders Web By Mary Bone

 Purple was the color

of an intricate web,

perfectly embroidered.

A talented spider worked all morning

hoping to inject venom

Into a helpless victim.

A child blowing bubbles, saw them captured

Inside the hanging masterpiece.

The colors were vibrant and clung to

the web for a while, dissipating into

a rainbow’s burst.

His mom captured this moment on camera.

The spider had never seen such beauty.

Mary Bone has been writing poetry and short stories since childhood. She has written two books of poetry.

Some of her poems have been published at The Poetry Catalog, Active Muse journal, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and upcoming at Highland Park Poetry and The Academy of the Heart and Mind.

They Wish I Wrote About Flowers By Chad Parenteau

They’d rather

I report on 

backyards,

not protests,

trade politics,

for pollen,

record tinier 

genocides.

Just until

they can

finally say

I’m crazy

when petals

fail to rise one 

sunstroked 

summer,

gaslight me

under blazing

gaslit eye,

all saying

there were

never any

hydrangeas

at my house,

no lilacs 

ever grazed

my mother’s 

old bushes,

dismiss all 

my photos

as deepfakes,

dismiss me,

horticultural

has been 

hoarding 

dandelion wine.

They’ll tell

family, friends,  

cast memories

in plot hole.

You’re wrong

Chad never

ever wrote

about flowers. 

Chad Parenteau hosts Boston’s long-running Stone Soup Poetry series. His work has appeared in journals such as Résonancee, Molecule, Ibbetson Street, Pocket Lint, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, Off The Coast, The Skinny Poetry Journal, The New Verse News, dadakuku, Nixes Mate Review and The Ugly Monster. He has also been published in anthologies such as French Connections, Sounds of Wind, Reimagine America, and The Vagabond Lunar Collection. He serves as Associate Editor of the online journal Oddball Magazine and co-organizer of the annual Boston Poetry Marathon. He lives and works in Boston.

 

Halloween and Neo Paganism at the Library By Mark James Andrews

I am researching plywood 

at my library drone desk 

for mild diversion

my obsession 

with problematic lamination 

of abstract cores.  

I am distracted by the parade 

of toddlers as princesses 

and pirates in the arms 

of women and the occasional man.

  

All passing my Adult Reference desk 

for the noontime preschool lap-sit 

holiday story time 

in the Children’s Department.

One babe in arms is mummy wrapped 

in white gauze a revelation for me

as yesterday my subject search 

focus was duct tape

pressure sensitive in my mind 

to lift the warts off 

the derma of a gone world.  

The next kid wobbles by in red pajamas 

with the inscription I’m a Little Devil. 

There appears to be no adult supervision 

but then a woman rushes over 

looking vaguely like Taylor Swift

red lips with a mixed blonde wig 

with bangs shoulder length.

 

Suddenly a tatted-up woman 

snakes up to me with a rivulet of blood 

coursing down from a forehead projectile. 

On closer inspection 

she has an open safety pin pushed 

in her mid-forehead centered 

on a line above her nose and red striping 

down to her nose tip, lips, chin

 

then down to a spreading bulls-eye 

on her white t-shirt bust line slightly left

for me to view the near perfect 

nipple centered bullseye

a process I speculate 

that was tested and practiced 

in the restroom mirror to max 

the freak out factor.

  

DO YOU HAVE BOOKS ON WITCHCRAFT?

YES. I DO. FOLLOW ME.

Pin woman with blood bullseye 

on left breast bird-dogs me 

on my heels too close 

as I hop on down 

the Dewey Decimal trail 

to top shelf 299.94 

and she begins howling.

EEEEOOOOWWWW!

Then pin woman hops up 

on a step stool on casters

surfing up to the top shelf

teetering, fingering out spine tops

extracting her prize wide eyed.

WHAT’S NEO PAGANISM?  

OH MY GOD! YES! YES! 

THIS IS WHAT I NEED!

Mark James Andrews lives and writes in Metro Detroit. He is the author of five chapbooks. The latest is At The Ice Cow Queen On Mack from Alien Buddha Press. His poetry has appeared in Chiron Review, Nerve Cowboy, Hiram Poetry Review, Slipstream, Respect: The Poetry of Detroit Music, Rye Whiskey Review and many other spots.

 

if you really must know By keith pearson

without asking i know

it is the solitude

i remember most.

after a good meal.

after a storm has passed.

after our argument

about the poetry of

wallace stevens.

after sex.

and how the solitude

born in the intensity

of the moment

ran down like some

antique clock wound tight

and put aside to slowly

tick the quiet time down.

to when words once again

became necessary whether

we wanted to speak them

or not or even needed to.

but they were just words

and meant nothing.

why else are they the thing

i do not remember.

keith pearson was born and raised in new hampshire and works at a local high school in the math department.