Davis Staedtler CC




Bookshelf Chronicle: February 2018 (A History of Wayside Songs)

The prison industrial complex explodes
releasing a casino bestiary, ash on wind,
liars, liars, liars, scratched into street 

calligraphy and the wayside song
“and there was evening, and there
was morning…” and abroad,

an ox plods on through Morocco, 
and here, reveries of a solitary biker, 
in full metal, let loose the octaves 

of another nation’s collapse into dirge: 
“Meet me behind Mars, whatever 
your moods, and bring ornaments.”

​




Bookshelf Chronicle: March-April 2019 (A History of Nonbelievers)


The mirror maker has rescinded the sweet
herbaceous miracle and given up 

on the evolution of love. Let’s turn, then,
to the orison anthology and study

magical realism for non-believers
whose cry in the snow echoes lava falls.

The crude angel rides the premise of light,
sends whispers from the aural world, sends 

us on a post high-school reality quest. 
“Forget,” she says, “strange attractors. Some 

lives are changed by chance.” I believe her. 
Some stories from my grandmother’s time 

and from my mother’s offer a measure of song 
with clues for finding your way out when life 

changes plans, as it does, always, as we secretly
want it to. Despite that premise, we have only this

life of mothers and knives, a clue to how blackened
is the body of this universe, the only celestial

one we know, but, of course, now without grounding.

​


​
Jackie K. White earned her PhD in Creative Writing (poetry) from the University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC) and was a Professor of English, now Professor Emerita, at Lewis University. She is the author of three chapbooks--Bestiary Charming, 2006 Anabiosis Press Award; Petal Tearing & Variations, Finishing Line (2008); and Come Clearing, Dancing Girl Press, 2012—and her poems and translations have appeared in Ballast, BlazeVOX, Hobart, The Los Angeles Review, New Plains, among others. Her chapbook of collaborative poems, with Simone Muench, Hex & Howl (2021) and their full-length collection The Under Hum (2024) were published by Black Lawrence Press. Jackie has also served as an editor for RHINO and is now a consultant for Jet Fuel Review. A native of Illinois, she currently resides in Colorado.

Buffy May CC




SHOOTING HERION ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF TOWN

One grows tired of killing snakes, gutting lizards, crushing spiders.  My furniture is full of death; there are bones in the walls.  They don’t speak nearly enough.  The carpet is an ocean where I am lost all the time.  Outside the window, blue dust stirs in the wind.  Further, the wild screams of children eat up the air.

I confuse myself sometimes with the guitar, a Tupperware bowl, the toilet and a clay jar.  I pick myself off the coffee table, examining the thing that I am; a fork, a plate, a cobalt blue candle.  My eyes are annihilation, my toaster tells me so.  One shouldn’t eat toasters, but I have eaten mine.

The fish in the aquarium are dead and have been for a long time.  I’ve watched them float for days.  In the yard, the voices keep ringing in the tall grass–earth angels keep repeating a name.  They are sad; time has done them in too.  What are roots that never clutch?  The trees are too full of spirits–they are too lucid to think about.

Down the street near the marsh industrial machines fill up the landscape.  I go there and feel ageless–my arms and legs are spread out on the horizon, where the wild geese migrate in V Formation, frightening me with their large wings.  All birds are people–you see yourself trapped in their faces–the thought of a cormorant can kill you.

Where I am, no one has ever existed.  This world has never existed–no one has touched the green grass, no one has seen the crystal streets–machines are your only friends–all men are robots who throw off their disguises from time to time and disappear forever where nothing is everlasting:  the birds are heavy in the sky–all things fill you with fear and make you sad–you hear the echo of the sky and stars haunt the blood.

​

Louis Bourgeois was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is primarily a poet, but he has published translations, fiction, memoirs, poetry and interviews in over two hundred magazines and journals in North America, Europe and Asia. He graduated from Louisiana State University with a BA in English and was the first graduate of The University of Mississippi’s MFA program in Creative Writing.  He is the Executive Director of VOX PRESS, as well as the Program Director for the Mississippi Prison Writes Initiative.
​

CheapShot CC




Big Blue

As dusk rolls in, my mind wanders back to 1969, riding around in my 1952 school bus headed to the beach in February with my roommates, S and Big C, and their boyfriends to skinny dip in the Atlantic Ocean, and how S’s boyfriend, D, said the sparkles in the waves were phosphorus, and how I called him a smarty pants because I preferred to think of it as fairy dust. And the time Big C and I took a road trip to visit my boyfriend at the Federal Correctional Institute in Tallahassee—he was there because he’d been caught with twenty-five pounds of marijuana, not exactly personal use—and driving there in Big Blue—my hippie ride, my blue school bus with screened-in windows, a kitchen, a room with bunks, and a toilet in the back—and while riding on the interstate, how some Canadian tourists filmed us as they passed by, me hanging out the kitchen window yelling Hi y’all. And how on Sunday afternoon, as we were leaving Tallahassee, Big Blue stalled in front of a service station, and lucky me, the owner was there. She needed lots of work, but I was broke. Saying he liked to camp with his family, the owner offered to trade his VW camper for my bus. Arriving home with a different ride, Daddy just shook his head. He must’ve thought I was a wee bit crazy, like his sister. A year later, I moved to L. A., leaving behind memories of Big Blue and the VW camper, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt that free again. Sometimes, I call S, and we talk about being nineteen and alive during the Free Love Era, and how she married, but I embraced wildness while she kept a candle for me. Yeah, we were there, but I never got a photo of Big Blue.

​


Christine Poythress, a Georgia native, moved to California in 1970, then spent five years in New York City, hoping to be an opera star. Ditching that dream, the South drew her home, to Georgia and then Tennessee, where she sang everything from Puccini to Hank Williams. Masquerading as Ashley Austin, she secretly wrote poetry. Coming out of the poetry closet in 2014, she has written a memoir (still homeless), essays, and poetry.
​
Her debut chapbook, Dharma’s Dance, was released by Finishing Line Press in 2025. Her poems have appeared in Synchronized Chaos and Quillkeepers Press. “My Tour of Honky Tonk Heaven Began on Highway 17,” will appear this fall in the James Dickey Review. ​

Warren LeMay CC




WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU’RE IN PIECES

Say I’m a jigsaw puzzle.
Sacrifice yourself to Family Fun Night.

Filigree yourself with gold.
Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repair.

Shout I’m Humpty Dumpty! at the playground.
Listen to the children scream.

Assemble yourself like a mosaic.
Become a picture to tell your story.

Hide a piece from even yourself.
Ch’ihonit’i–deliberate imperfection.

Remember you were made in His image.
Tremble at the thought of a broken God.

​

​
R.G. Evans is the author of Overtipping the Ferryman, The Holy Both, and Imagine Sisyphus Happy. His albums of original songs, Sweet Old LIfe and Kid Yesterday Callling Tomorrow Man, are available on most streaming platforms.

Joseph Gage CC



Young Woman on a Windy Night

Her fluid laugh: could be something
you eventually become part of.

But too many tattoos already make
her body seem claimed & explored,

if not entirely adored. Especially that
dolphin on her belly. Coy funkiness 

at the expense of mystery? Or is this
an open invitation to submerge.

The indelible strokes you learn tonight
could turn the tides of your lives. 

At the same time, you both notice
the beckoning weather. Just get up

& go out, make yourselves part of it.
Wherever it may take you lately.

Then the sea waving back at us,
wondering when we’ll return. 

​



Local Smoke

Truly unruly stories spark every nerve & sinew, make history 
new for now. Over & over, these lovely echoes when 
one ear hears earlier than the other. 

What we mean to say without meaning: a hooded mood 
just left hanging. How do you do, anyway? 
How do you do, anyway.

A brown breeze breathing fresh haze into red eyes. And look 
where we sat on the sofa – those dented cushions 
still listening to our latest modifications. 

Not to mention 
this ember bed nestling us
into silence.

​

​
Bill Howell recently turned 80. His sixth collection is The Way Things Are at the Moment (Kelsay Books, 2024). He has new work in Arc Poetry Magazine, Canadian Literature, Contemporary Verse 2, Queen's Quarterly, and Stand. Bill was a network producer-director at CBC Radio Drama for three decades. A transplanted Nova Scotian, he lives in Toronto. 

Ian Sane CC




SLEEP HYGIENE

My teeth never fall out in my dreams.
I drink back my sabotage, then I
have total control.
I often dream of high school. Red lockers.
my intricate self perfectly stuffed, 
slowly walking down the halls,
afraid that a seam will catch on someone else’s
paraphernalia, tearing me open.
I would be found out.
A clock telling me it’s 1:57.
I put my head down. I say I wish I wasn’t here.
I say I wish I was never born.
They’ve heard it before. They hand me
a garbage bag full of popcorn.
They hand me garbage bag to throw
away the person I have only been
since August. When I graduate, I stumble,
my legs are sewn shut, the mending visible,
yet I wear shorts. Someone hideous gives a speech
but I know they are younger than me.

I think about everyone I could’ve loved
if I had met them. I practice being seventeen,
wake up to be thirty-two. I wanted to go back.

The familiar ache. The grim. The why’d you,
and I’d rather not. The Google Search
history of is my math teacher a creep?
Do I like women? &
How to die really fast.

If you didn’t think I was special,
I knew you were cruel.
Sixth period.

If you didn’t think I was doomed,
I knew you were wrong.
Seventh period.

If you didn’t think I was funny,
I knew you were catching on.
You’d get it someday.

I am still laughing at myself.
I have never been so alone.



​
​Angel Rosen (she/her) is a queer poet living near Pgh, PA. She spends her time at open mics, attending drag shows, and organizing her thoughts into lists. She loves friendship, lesbianism, and Diet Coke. She is the winner of the 2025 Maureen Seaton Poetry Prize. More at angelrosen.com

Judith Jackson CC




How to Pray
 
The first day of high school, lost twice and late once,
you had to believe you’d get used to it. When they told you
by graduation you would understand integrals and essays
 
and how someone could think another person’s tongue
felt okay after all, during long kisses—you said “not me”
and you were right. Because in senior year you started drinking,
 
turned into someone else. A few years later, some mornings
you held a baby, yours or your sister’s, and saw G-d in those
unblinking eyes. Longed to be able to repair for a child
 
all the wounds and angers—protect, prevent, cuddle--
though your wallet was worn out as your exhausted body,
breath ragged, tears escaping. You could not recall your dreams
 
when fatigue wiped them clean, even as morning dragged
you forward, rising to tackle it all again, sometimes embittered
sometimes proud, one day sober. You couldn’t see it then
 
but hard times unspooled like silver threads behind you, a web
of connection and surprises. One day you’ll find a lump
(or the doctor, or a machine, will see it first) and gasp,
 
terror rough as a battered pinecone in the throat. Count
sessions of radiation, doses of poisons metered into you with care
admit pain and the certainty that all of us die, even you
 
though a taste of immortality stings your lips like salt
after a hard day’s running. Months later, kneaded and molded,
you will treasure the self you’ve dragged back from dark waters,
 
wrung out; in sunshine, drying. Whisper “Wow.” Then “thanks.”
​




Beth Kanell lives in northeastern Vermont among rivers, rocks, and writers. Her poems seek comfortable seats in small well-lit places, including The Comstock Review, Indianapolis Review, Gyroscope Review, The Post-Grad Journal, Persimmon Tree, Northwind Treasury, RockPaperPoem, and Rise Up Review. Explore her collection Thresholds (Kelsay Books).
​

Masao Kamosa CC



REFLECTIONS IN MY EYEGLASSES

I am too afraid to look, too afraid to see
There are always things at the edges of my spectacles
Little lights elfin dancers like an inflated bag of glow worms
buffeted by wind
Like no room is ever really empty especially in partial dark
shapes repeating
Stretching strobing trails like a city highway
I am my own cryptid sightings
I’m not afraid that something is there I’m afraid that it’s not
That my mind is finally proving too much for me
If I had to describe my life in a word it would be succumbing
My solution is to layer what Gertrude Stein
would call a glaze of glitters
So when I see holograms I can say it’s just me noticing myself
I am always in my rearview mirror
My birthstone is a pearl so I plaster them all over my face
The trick is to get preoccupied then lose it so you can’t fixate

​

​
Mykki Rios is a queer genderfluid Mexican-American writer, performer and multimedia artist. Raised in Chicago, and having lived many places across the globe, they recently returned home to the Windy City. Mykki has had works featured in issues of HAD, BRUISER Mag, The Bulb Region, and more. They were also a finalist in Lupercalia Press' 2022 Chapbook Series Contest. Their work has been nominated for the Monarch Queer Literary Awards and the Pushcart Prize.

Warren LeMay CC 




Ready to Go


I don’t trust people I can’t crack up
or for that matter, people who laugh
too much. People who laugh all the 
time are like too-bright mornings 

with kindergarten clouds sketched
over the whole darn neighborhood.
Most of us are so bent over with bad
news we can’t lift our heads from 

our phones. We’re all looking for the
beginning of something reasonable:
a future when you don’t have to use
one-liners for passports to escape the

falling-down house of your heart, the
jaggedy-tall skyline of your loved city. 
Until then, sit with me at the end of
this day. I can’t say when it will get 

better, but it will. This huge, stupid
dump truck of grief is leaving, even 
if you can’t see it. It’s got its backup 
beepers on. I swear, it’s ready to go.

​
​

Christine Potter is the poetry editor of Eclectica Magazine.  She has had poems curated by Rattle, Nine Mile Magazine, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Hole In the Head Review, After Happy Hour Review, and many other publications.  Her two most recent poetry collections are the chapbook Before The World Was on Fire (Bottlecap) and Why I Don't Take Xanax (Kelsay Books).  Her time-traveling teen novels, the Bean Books are published by Evernight Teen.  Christine lives in the Hudson Valley with a fierce but lovely kitty named Bella and a very patient husband. 

Judith Jackson CC




Ferments Sweetly

At 2:13 a.m.
the pharmacy glows alone
like something radioactive.

Inside, a man buys antacids,
sleep medication,
and a banana.

The cashier has vines tattooed
up both arms--
dark green leaves twisting toward his throat
as though his body
is being slowly reclaimed.

Outside, the city sweats through its clothing.

Sirens move somewhere distant
like wounded animals.

A woman in high heels sleeps in a bus shelter
beside a dead pigeon.

Nobody stops.

A teenager with headphones
spray-paints flowers across an ATM.

The flowers look carnivorous.

Steam rises from subway grates.
Garbage ferments sweetly in alleyways.
Neon reflects in puddles
the color of poisoned fruit.

Somewhere above the avenue
thousands of people lie awake together
scrolling glowing rectangles in the dark,
their faces lit blue-white
like campers telling ghost stories around a fire.

The man exits the pharmacy carrying his small white bag.

For a moment, he pauses beneath the traffic light.

Red.

Green.

Red again.

No cars pass.

Still, he waits.

As though somewhere beneath the concrete,
beneath the cables and rats something enormous
is breathing.

​


John Dennis is an American-born writer living in Malmö, Sweden. He served in the U.S. Navy, later worked as an English teacher, and now writes fiction and poetry exploring institutional dread, memory, isolation and the thin line between the psychological and the supernatural. His work has appeared in Beyond Words Magazine, The Good Life Review, NUNUM, and elsewhere.