IN MY SOLITUDE by Milton P. Ehrlich

I feel your presence
and hunger for your
embrace to entwine 
us like twin molecules.
I monitor a thread of
your breath mingling 
with mine for company
so that I’m never alone.
I cling to the photograph
standing before our silo— 
resolute farmers prepared
for whatever unruly surprises
stormclouds may have in mind.

Milton P. Ehrlich Ph.D. is an 89-year-old psychologist and a veteran

of the Korean War. He has published poems in Poetry Review, The

Antigonish Review, London Grip, Arc Poetry Magazine, Descant Literary

Magazine, Wisconsin Review, Red Wheelbarrow, and the New York Times.

THE YELLOWING TREES by J.C Hawkes

A fabulous reset, a moon driver - 
heading into an unprecedented 
crippling fog which morphs 
the capillaries and 
weakens bones
to a powered 
salt lick. 

The windows covered in mist — 
do not touch, they will harm 
your egotistical wagon
your rail road is 
heading 
to an 
end. 

My dreams have seen your face 
in too many words and ways — 
I cannot scream at you 
nor can I walk in sync 
through your 
door. 

I can no longer breathe the air — 
except for the olive tree
which shapes 
my carved 
view of the shifting 
of the yellowing trees
I am in the backyard 
designing
the environment 
and I eagerly await 
the black hole 
in the mail. 

J.C Hawkes  - is an alien who arrived on this god-forsaken planet in the territory  of AUSTRALIA - in the middle of the decade he’d have preferred to been of age as to party with the poets he admires to this day. The Burroughs’ and the gorgeous Patti Smith, the Ferlinghetti’s and the David Bowie’s ( in his Coke Daze) - yes! the dirty filthy 1970s always suited his fantasies.  He was of age in the 1990s instead and somehow survived, the day that fuckin’ Kurt Cobain died! By discovering Jim Morrison, he never did care for teeny bopping lights. 

Now in his later years, he is approaching 50 and he is quiet and reflective and writes pages of poetry daily about his memories he actually lived. While on the inside he only ever wanted to write books, grow an old man beard and live in the mountains in a cabin built for one.   Grow old and die there - this would be fine  - by me. 

ars poetica by Alicia Mathias

a red pen stalks us.
we write, wearing camouflage.
i hope words can still find us.

shrapnel rescues a poem,
where we tear words out 
of our bones 

and flesh. 
echoes of bullets
speak. 

voices pang 
to purple.
critics huddle 

to burn our words
(burn our worlds.)
surrounding us with torches:

Think with your heart.
No, think with your head.
Don’t think at all. 
You can think, when you’re dead.

hurry, poets, hurry.
collect your own
voices--

run, run 
sacred 
to shadow

and gather
your wings
within the dusk

before they fall
into breaking
fire

shape your vision
ready your defenses;
verse is rebellion.

Alicia Mathias is a writer, artist, and photographer. Her poems and/or artwork, can be seen in: Ann Arbor Review, The Bitter Oleander, bradlaughsfinger, The Canopy Review, Chiron Review, Clockwise Cat, Fearless, January Review Journal, SetU Magazine, Newington Blue Press, Porter Gulch Review, The Rye Whiskey Review, Sore Dove Press, Unlikely Stories Mark V,  and elsewhere. She lives in New York, with her favorite muse, Zeppelin the Wonder Cat. 

Grinning at the Bar and Grill by R. G. Ziemer

I don’t know
just what’s so funny
about a bunch of old 
south side tough guys
telling the same old stories
but better every time and
talking about trips to Tampa,
golf and grandkids,
who got cancer and
how they
hey but have another 
cheap-ass beer
let’s raise our glasses
remember when.

 R. G. Ziemer was born on the south side of Chicago and presently lives in Warrenville, IL, where he writes poetry and fiction. Ziemer participates in several writing groups and enjoys sharing his work at local reading series and open mics. His novel The Ghost of Jamie McVay was published in 2019, and his short stories and poems have appeared in print and online journals. He teaches composition at the College of DuPage.

  

Captains of the ship by Mike Zone

(contributions from S.A. Gerber & Roz Washington)

Ferlinghetti is dead

So I drink

And Captain Kirk is tragically in love 

as always…

the lights at Columbus will burn a little dimmer this night

meanwhile…

acting like an animal on his starship with lustful gazes and the proud smirk of wanton conquests

James T. Kirk is in love

with the mad daughter of Kodos

THE KODOS who enacted mass genocide

she’s mad to murder to protect her father

she’s someone Jack would’ve loved

Kerouac, my first real literary sensei

words like electric liquid finely painted with needles

drowned by wine and esophageal hemorrhaging 

I saw him in a dream once

sitting across me, he slid over a cup of coffee

black and white

only blue eyes standing out

an understanding look

his mom making us breakfast

Tiger at my feet

Jean Luc Picard would have none of these goings-on 

 on his ship

nor would he have any of these cats

human or otherwise

well, maybe Lawrence…

they’d probably get along

until that android Data would ruin everything

acting like Neal

a subtle phantom vision of Cody

in the noble yet atypical quest for emotion

as logic as Spock

my emotions are drowning my thoughts

I’ll have a double, please…

Mike Zone is the author of A Farewell to Big Ideas, Void Beneath the Skin, Better than the Movie: 4 Screenplays and Fellow Passengers: Public Transit Poetry, Meditations and Musings. A contributing poet to Mad Swirl and contributing writer to the graphic novel series American Anti-hero by Alien Buddha Press. His poetry and stories have appeared in: Horror Sleaze Trash, The Daily Dope Fiend, Outlaw Poetry, The Rye Whiskey Review, Synchronized Chaos and Triadæ Magazine

Polaroid of a perfect snowflake blocking your naked ass by C.L. Liedekev

Wasn’t that your luck. Six foot four.
Father’s jaw pulled from stone.
Laugh deep and pained
as a phoenix’s death slash birth.
It was from that 90’s ski trip
I might not have been on.
The blurred edge of snow’s pale arms 
wrap your legs, your dad’s Ford F-Series
just off to the side of the image, 
as the sky shed its skin, as the single star 
eclipsed your perfect shed self. 
I must have been there. 
Buzzed on shit vodka, 
cheering alongside
the throng of friends, air so cold
the mass stain of our wet freezes
in unison to our underwear.

Years later, as you are crying
in the front seat of my car,
the din of the bar’s DJ
strikes the sidewalk in cold echo.
I put my hand on your shoulder,
finding so much sorrow and heat,
a perfect melting. 

C.L. Liedekev is a writer/propagandist who lives in Conshohocken, PA with his real name, wife, and children. He attended most of his life in the Southern part of New Jersey. His work has been published in such places as Horror Sleaze Trash, Television Religion, Open Skies Quarterly, The Red Hibiscus, River Heron Review, and Impspired. His real goal is to make the great Hoboken poet/exterminator Jack Wiler proud. So far, so good.

Must Flush Society by Randall Rogers

Life is like a drunken missile
fired at the enemy:
meaningless and unchanging
when it fails to go off.

He is Randall Rogers, visionary poet of the prairie.  A cowboy, yea, a beatnik; a Beatnik Cowboy.  He is an old young, sorry.  Here he exhibits new work.  More flashes in the pan.  I hope the world, nay, you editor, approveth of seeth/something here. (Currently reading "Pilgrim's Progress")  Adios!  I kind of reworked these to work in booze but they are total virgins (never put out).