In Metamorphosis, I Am Fluid by Skaja Evens

 Held together with washi tape
And whispered prayers to the Universe
Heart spackled with hope unrelenting
Even on the days I’m ready to give in
I keep showing up in case of a miracle.

I’m in a place of flux, each foot in a different place
Can’t feed the future and the past
And expect to stay whole
Inked reminders of who I am and want to be
I’m in direct conflict with societal expectations

A life of constant obstacles
Cognitive dissonance

I’m not sorry I disappoint you
Your expectations aren’t mine to carry

 

 

 

 

Skaja Evens is a writer and artist living in Southeast Virginia. She runs It Takes All Kinds, a litzine published by Mōtus Audāx Press. She’s also been published with Spillwords Press and The Dope Fiend Daily. She can often be found listening to music, considering the impossible, and enjoying her cats’ antics.

Observation From Booth by Jake St. John & Jenn Knickerbocker

Drinking a beer

in the shadow

of Michael’s

Meat Market

taking in

bits of

conversation

they divulge

over wine

old friends

catching up

never missing

a beat

To my left

sits experience

more words

are said with

a look

rather

than speech

age 

has left them

less 

a couple

now more

a single

unit

With thoughts

aligned 

the stars

near the 

big moon

that hangs over 

your head

somewhere else

like my mind

tonight.

 

 

Jake St. John spends his nights in a cabin on the edge of the woods. He is the author of several collections of poetry including Night Full of Diamonds (Whiskey City Press, 2021), Snow Moon (Holy & Intoxicated Publications, 2019) and Lost City Highway (A Jabber Publication, 2019). His poems have appeared in print and online journals around the world. 

 

 

 

 

Jenn Knickerbocker is a writer, a mother, and a teacher. You can find her on a forest path or sitting fireside during her free time.

Watching Falling Leaves While Drinking Coffee in My Car by Karen Warinsky

Can’t get enough
of the crazy colors,
the deep hues
that suddenly shock
to pale and neon yellows and greens,
all that amber and peach litterfall
dead quiet on the ground
waiting to mulch;
absorb the silent lesson.

But I hadn’t been out all day
so, drove to the bank, got gas,
then the drive-through for
coffee and (yes) a donut.
Went to a favorite parking lot near a brook
where the trees are screaming
in orange, pink, maroon,
refusing to go quietly,
and watched one by one
the abscission,
the cutting off as the branches pinch closed,
the trees firmly deciding
they will live another year,
pushing out what’s done,
like an expired friendship,
a dead love.

 

Karen Warinsky  has published in various anthologies and literary magazines including the 2019 Mizmor Anthology.   She is the author of Gold in Autumn (2020), Sunrise Ruby (2022),  and is a previous finalist in the Montreal International Poetry Contest. She loves to kayak and organize poetry readings.

Beautiful Eyes by Jeff Weddle

 Love stories are the only stories,
Wurlitzer jukeboxes
and summer rain.
 
But the stars, my dear, the stars!
 
Neon describes attraction
in waltz time
when everything clicks.
 
Let’s finish these drinks,
and tell everything we know.
 
And then, breathless?
Sinatra swings us around.
 
Shall we dance, love?
Shall we dance?

 

 

 

Jeff Weddle is a poet and writer living in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He won the 2007 Welty Prize for Bohemian New Orleans: The Story of the Outsider and Loujon Press, and has also received honors for his fiction and poetry. Jeff teaches in the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alabama.

He's Like the Wind by John Doyle

Then night falls again and again, and you still have no idea where you are- Elizabeth Gilbert

Mercury's down, down touching Earth's leery skin,

fragments of times he was riding high,

fragments of a place he wined and dined us as

spectators of Rome's triumphs, New York

a yellowed blurry sidewalk, praying to its rains,

its succulent icons. Mercury's down, down to number zero,

day of sneering snakeskin black, hour drowned in a predictable sorrow,

one that lung-less lovers failed to heed, when life bubbled at the top of

his thermometer, left sunshine scalded in his rhapsody.

Since then, we leave a tip - for the frightened waiter, 

the over-loved beau,

the voice in the wind huffing words of disgust, confusion - 

on his midnight-hollered window

 

 

 

 John Doyle became a Mod again in the summer of 2017 to fight off his impending mid-life crisis; whether this has been a success remains to be seen. He has has two collections published to date, A Stirring at Dusk in 2017, and Songs for Boys Called Wendell Gomez in 2018, both on PSKI's Porch.

He is based in Maynooth, County Kildare, Ireland. All he asks is that you leave your guns at the door and tie up your horses before your enter.

 

 

 

i am not counting the days By Keith Pearson

honest i am not

but there is something

ready to burst

in my chest

like a pod on

the last cat o nine tails

standing in the lowacres

foolish aged and proud

turned head on

to face the first

howling gale of

the coming winter.

Keith Pearson

I live in southern New Hampshire and works with special ed students at a local high school.

Beer Bier By Terrence Sykes

back in the day

in my hometown

you could buy beer

with your food stamps

drink your meal

sounds absurd but

a cool one’s got to be

more healthy

than some alternatives

say...Kraft cheese slices

Cheetos cheese puffs

or a chunk of plastic

Velveeta

of course you could

only buy 3.2 percent

suppose the uptight

self righteous ones

impeded the poor souls

from proper nutrition

by blocking 6.0 ale

in the name of religion

so I could never enjoy

one of those foreign brews

left dreaming of a chicken

wing & a prayer

Terrence Sykes is a GASP Gay Alcoholic Southern Poet & was born and raised in the rural coal mining area of Virginia.  Although he is a far better cook &  gardener – his  poetry - photography - flash fiction has been published in India, Mauritius,Scotland, Spain and the USA. ..Other interests include heirloom vegetable research & foraging wild edibles.