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.