7&7. by Michael A. Griffith

Delirium's paramour,

love-child of Dementia,

courts the highs; can't stand those lows,

but they last, oh, they linger.  

Wallows, pines; prays and bargains.

Remove her deep-stained chalice,

wash clean her very spirit,

change who she is, “fix” her soul,

listen to her confessions—

still she'll find no peaceful rest.

Dreaming stigmata visions,

fire and death, tides and screams.

Wakes, calls out for Mama who

once understood her nature.

Michael A. Griffith began writing poetry as he recovered from a disability-causing injury. His poems, essays, and articles have appeared in many print and online publications and anthologies. He resides and teaches near Princeton, NJ. His first poetry chapbook is slated to appear later this year from The Blue Nib. Drink of choice: Tanqueray and tonic with lime.

IN REMEMBERANCE. by Wolf, Kevin Martin,

When everything hits 

at one time in the evening

In remembrance of reading the newspaper 

with coffee at table In remembrance of 

the hosts salty flesh and red wine blood 

some mornings are soft 

possibly a radio playing when 

there still was diversity in the 

background of your mind

that I'm still not used to 

being without.

In remembrance of my sleepy eyelids

as they fall heavy as a pile of angel’s

feathers fall like wind blown tobacco

out of your paper towards a solitary

desert that will be shown to you on

TV as an oasis for only the power hungry

A narcissist creed is power and division

looking at the blade in the hand feeling

gap in teeth with black tongue never up 

at the sun rising forgetting to listen to the 

yellow or golden Finch’s song 

of joy exuberantly expressing truth 

not shown in the reflection of a mirror

In remembrance of being in America I love 

to keep a pint of whiskey in my back pocket 

her secret dreams filled with nothing but blues

songs sung in streets as I am silent as nations fall

eyes blink and are abandoned when needed most

turned stabbed backs will pay you back

Please do not abandon when needed most

dollar signs wedding songs roses blacken the sun

burnt moon offering as someone loves you in every town

Sit down always weary souls rest awhile and wait 

to come back into style again soon enough to be 

tired of a fight ready to die clean scapegoats

on the edge of a razor of god’s tongues that never made a sound

Some point was a whirlwind of flesh am a cosmic shit with the key to the universe in my pocket

Got lost in the stars 

look out to sea it's 

the same thing

Let's smoke now we've got the chance

might be a little while before I cross these 

oceans of stars again to see you face to face

hear your ramblings kiss you on the cheek

as you kiss me back as my cities burn to

the ground didn't make a sound to walk on

the Moon or cross your valleys bones adding 

an edge to my shadow

Close my crucified eyes devout stars on the run 

Forgot which lesson of wrath or love to learn first as I cross the street not between the lines that lay

Hoping the cop car that just passed doesn't turn around as too many movies play behind my lost sad soul inverted by a small piece of myself that isn't sure if jaywalking is against the law like coloring outside the lines as i have a pistol in my pocket

Another car passes and the next one always speeds up as I step into the street.

Wolf, Kevin Martin, is from North Carolina and a regular contributor to the Arrival Magazine in Winston Salem, NC.  Amateur photographer and poet.

The Boyfriend Before By Cheryl A. Rice

The boyfriend before dragged on and on
like a lecture on the history of ego at the saddest school.
Falling from airplanes, he pretended to fly,
insulted when I didn't catch him.
Falling from rooftops, I pretended I was rock,
furious that I missed him.
Cuddled up in black fatigues,
jaunty beret tilted to catch the solar joy,
he loaded his rubber guns, his parachute, his poetry
into his beetley, duct-taped Civic,
rode through the forest of civilization.
Never once did I hear him sing.
His stories were numbered, rollodexed into his spine,
drop a shot of vodka in the liquid jukebox.
Finally the glass was less than half empty
and mine was full,
and he still calls, insulted 
that I wasn't there to break
his last, best fall.

Cheryl A. Rice is founder and host of the now-defunct “Sylvia Plath Bake-Off.” Her work has appeared in HomePlanet News, Mangrove, The Temple, and Woodstock Times, among others. Chapbooks include Llama Love (2017: Flying Monkey Press), Moses Parts the Tulips (2013: APD Press), and My Minnesota Boyhood (2012: Post Traumatic Press). In 2014 she was nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology. Her RANDOM WRITING workshops are held throughout New York’s Hudson Valley. Her poetry blog is at: http://flyingmonkeyprods.blogspot.com/.

For Weekly Updates on the Poetry World of Cheryl A. Rice, go to:

http://flyingmonkeyprods.blogspot.com/

Flying Home. by Jim Bourey

Sucking bourbon soaked

ice cubes

at thirty-seven thousand feet

may not be Zen

but it sure could be

Nirvana.

Jim Bourey is an old poet who divides his year between the Adirondack Mountains and Dover, Delaware. His chapbook “Silence, Interrupted” was published in 2015 by the Broadkill River Press. His work has appeared in Mojave River Review, Paddock Review, Gargoyle and the Broadkill Review and other journals and anthologies. He was first runner up in the Faulkner-Wisdom Poetry Competition in 2012 and 2016. He has served as an adjudicator for the Poetry Out Loud competition in Delaware. In his North Country months, he is active with the St. Lawrence Area Poets and has taken part in Art/Poetry projects in Saranac Lake.

Bolster. by Sanjeev Sethi

In luminosity of libidinous spell
intensity as urgent as itself, sto-
chastically I could never have
ribbed on my present-day roster.
Pillows serve their purpose. I’m
not for medicos panning cushions.
Never disparage. You never know
who or what comforts when.

Sanjeev Sethi is the author of three books of poetry. His most recent collection is This Summer and That Summer (Bloomsbury, 2015).  A Best of the Net 2017 & 2018 nominee, his poems are in venues around the world:  The Best of Mad Swirl: v2017!, Poetry Super Highway, Former Cactus, 48th Street Press, The Metaworker, Pyrokinection, Ink Pantry, Amethyst Review, Beakful | Becaqée, and elsewhere. He lives in Mumbai, India.

Lycanthropy. by Linda Imbler

The moon waxes and night falls, as does his mood.

The transition begins with the first sip of moonshine,

the gentle nature of her snuggle bunny transforms,

it devolves quickly from subtle to noisy.

Words now have teeth,

spoken from behind fangs that bite with brutish nips.

His howling and growling

snarling, roaring beast emerges,

he beats his chest and pounces.

Claws as hands, once gentle,

twist arms and hair and her gut.

Emotions bounce off walls and she follows.

Confusion reigns and the animal stink

of both prey and predator grows stronger,

as she learns to fear the rising of the moon

and the raising of the bottle.

Linda Imbler is an internationally published poet.  Her poetry collections include “Big Questions, Little Sleep,”  “Lost and Found,” and “The Sea’s Secret Song.”   She is a Kansas-based Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Nominee.  Linda’s poetry and a listing of publications can be found at lindaspoetryblog.blogspot.com.

Sirocco. by. RC Patterson

…….the process of evolution does no tnecessarily mean elevation, enhancement, strengthening…… - From Nietzsche’s Antichrist

This is the sort of modernity that made us ill,—we sickened on lazy peace, cowardly compro mise, the whole virtuous dirtiness of the modern Yea and Nay.- From Nietzsche’s Antichrist

We have discovered the way to happiness;
Made it through the labyrinth,
slew the fascists with active locutions
Attacking drove stupid ratchet men
who are content, because

I'm not content with the tolerance
and largeur of the heart
that “forgives” everything
because it “understands” everything.

This is a sirocco to us

Foreign American made Cars broke down
in the front of the house.
My dudes Coked out talking about how
We living off pizza and coffee grounds.
But tonight during the nox sky
I'll see you after work at the bar
Surrounded by people getting higher
than the Petronus towers.
I’ll pick you up, but don’t light that shit in my car.
At the copse styled bar
Lady’s telling creeps to leave them alone.
The cowards talk shit like they have a
fetish for eating feces.
Drinking shit, he has no business drinking

Next to the fire,
trying to accost and threaten.
Well, my knifes Napoleonic with no regrets.
Through his ass in the fire.
Human pyres of pyrotechnic magic.
Shots of the 100 proof
and a diet of matches cause me to spit fire.

We have discovered the way to happiness;
Made it through the labyrinth,
slew the fascists with active locutions
Attacking drove stupid ratchet men
who are content, because

I'm not content with the tolerance
and largeur of the heart
that “forgives” everything
because it “understands” everything.

You demand everything.
You need to fight everything.
Rise to every occasion

We have discovered the way to happiness;
Years in the labyrinth.
Who else has found it
The man of today?—

We have discovered the way to happiness;

RC Patterson is an Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Harris Stowe State University. He has three books for sell. Black Lives Splatter, Jim CroMagnon Man and Elegies. He is currently working on two other books that will come out soon. One is a poetry collection, called Black Magic, that he is publishing through Spartan Press and another is a prose collection called Deinosology.