Flushed By PW Covington

It is my own perverse distraction

On these early nights of the year

To dream of a world

Half hallucinated

Where every new noun

Every figment of fantasy

Of horror, hope, or fear

Is quantum-born and nurtured

As far as my distraction and delusion will allow

Then flushed from all existence to the void

Where all decays, then manifests anew, in time

Music in some foreign fractal tongue 

Is dancing in my moonlit mind akimbo

A nascent morning climbs across the ridge

Of Watermelon Mountain

Another heliotrope

Another karmic resting place in shining

Shiva and Madonna kiss

In secret, sacred, sunrise

Flushed

PW Covington is the NBPF's 2024-2026 New Mexico Beat Poet Laureate.

 Writing in the Beat tradition of the North American Highway, PW Covington has spent decades traveling in support of his writing, and encouraging the creativity of others.

 Covington's latest collection of poetry Vintage Denim is available from Alien Buddha Press.

  PW lives just south of Historic Route 66 in Albuquerque, NM, where he has worked on film and television productions such as Better Call Saul and The Cleaning Lady.

Cherrywood By Emalisa Rose

In the cherrywood cabinet

a gift from her grandmother, Janis

peruses the quarts, pints and

airplane bottles. Selecting the scotch

from the bunch, she gives a strong pour

minus the ice, then closes the closet

swearing she'll stop one day --

just not today.

When not writing poetry, Emalisa Rose enjoys crafting with macrame and drawing in charcoals. She volunteers in animal rescue, tending to cat colonies in the neighborhood. She walks with a birding group on weekend. Her latest collection is "Ten random wrens," published by Maverick Duck Press.

Jump By April Ridge

The further into this century we move,

the more it seems to be

that many people are attempting 

to gain entry into 

the Guinness Book of World Records

by overachievement,

overworking themselves 

into an anxious frenzy.

A weird flex of muscles:

claiming to get the most done with the 

smallest amount of rest,

the tiniest winks of sleep.

The pep talks 

we give ourselves 

each day

as we rev our engines 

yet slyly ask

‘Anybody got any jumper cables?’

April Ridge lives in the expansive hopes and dreams of melancholy rescue cats. She thrives on strong coffee, and lives for danger. In the midst of Indiana pines, she follows her heart out to the horizon of reality and hopes never to return to the misty sands of the nightmarish 9 to 5. April aspires to beat seasonal depression with a well-carved stick, and to one day experience the splendor of the Cucumber Magnolia tree in bloom.