9/30/2021 0 Comments Poetry by Ellen Clayton David Prasad CC Heartbreak Chronicles (For Caroline) When my heart broke It was you I fled to Dragged myself onto a train to stagger into your bedroom in a large, draughty Kent student house Your single bed I curled up in and wondered If I’d ever feel love like that again It was you who saw the broken pieces of me Scraps of pale skin scattered on the floor You who oh so carefully gathered them up Pressed them between the pages of our favourite book Where they’d be safe, waiting for me to heal It was you who put me in a black dress Painted lipstick onto my face Told me dancing would make me feel better It was you who, with glass in my foot, helped me hobble back to your room and gently took my phone away ‘Don’t call him, babe. Not now.’ It was you who (when my hangover threatened to Tear me all apart) went out in pyjamas and came back with dodgy Maltesers (chocolate had always been our common ground) You held me and told me I’d be alright that I’d be happy again one day I will never forget the way you took the broken, weeping edges of me and stitched them together with your unconditional love I will always remember how you made space for me by your side Literally figuratively metaphorically Just, kindly. Ellen Clayton lives in Suffolk, England with her husband and three young children. She is an avid reader and enjoys writing poetry in any spare time she can find. Ellen’s writing often focuses on her experience of motherhood and she began sharing it on social media during the lockdown in early 2021. Her poetry can be found on Instagram @ellen_writes_poems.
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9/30/2021 0 Comments Poetry by Linda Scheller Christian Collins CC Late Afternoon A scab has formed the color of my hair, the color of sunset on the feedlot. Crop dusters strafe the roof unfurling sheets of pesticides that sting my tongue. I look up from my phone, message half-finished like the journal I shared with Emily until she died two months before her fourteenth birthday. My mother drifts in and a cat yawns on the dirty sill. Across the road a tractor hums harrowing the field. My mother is boiling water, and through the curtain of steam her face writhes white and empty. The lid descends. She disappears down the hall again and the bedroom door clicks shut. Past the sleeping cat motorcycles roar toward the mountains. My mother reappears coughing, eyes slack, lips wet. She pushes a button and Jimi howls All along the watchtower and she says, as usual, “Don’t forget to play this at my funeral.” Outside Molly barks, Molly who saved me from the attack rooster. One scream drew orange lightning knocking him off his spurs, breaking his neck with one snap. I hated my mother’s chickens, filthy things. I’m glad the weasel came and killed them all. “Mom?” She doesn’t answer, doesn’t hear me over the music. The light from sunset tinges the kitchen red. The knife blade flashes as my mother repeatedly stabs the roast. San Joaquin River: Summer It’s one of those days when the dead surface bloated with failed ambition, glittering with lost potential. Gentle souls gravitate toward breaking glass, the scream of sirens, last gasps and so it is that we, the haunted, the naïve, stagger, later floundering in bed adrift a raft of dreams. The current must flow downstream; winds must sheer. Watch the banks for portents, the depths for clarity, the surface for suggestions. What fish lurk at the bottom, waiting? What birds ride the willow branches and nestle into quiet corners, brooding? Linda Scheller is a California Central Valley author, educator, and radio programmer whose poetry and book reviews are published or forthcoming in Terrain, Rise Up Review, Gingerbread House, The Inflectionist Review, Pif, Oddville Press, The American Journal of Poetry, and Entropy, among other publications. In 2017, FutureCycle Press published her full-length poetry collection, Fierce Light. For more information, please go to lindascheller.com. 9/30/2021 0 Comments Poetry by Lisa Alletson Jason Trbovich CC dis/order My daughter with the heart of March with the brain of an undiscovered galaxy My child of deep forests and quiet pines who dances to the sound of the sun My daughter with her friends– of unfinished paintings of abandoned paintings She who knows private clinics and silence My child of half-light–– who does not know gray My girl with the memory of a steamer trunk full of old photographs My daughter with the hair of unbrushed wisteria in her world of thrum and ashes She, of pre-scheduled gentle hugs My child who smiles in every language in/difference I am aslant Apples and sky drift through my eyes Your world is hidden in secret tents the wrong shape for me I don’t understand the size of your laugh the weight of your joke But if you blow on me as a feather a wish I will float away I promise Lisa Alletson grew up in South Africa and the UK, and now lives in Canada. She has writing forthcoming or published in Eunoia Review, New Ohio Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, Sledgehammer Lit, Lumiere Review, South Shore Review, Trouvaille Review, among others. You can find her on Twitter at @LotusTongue. 9/30/2021 0 Comments Poetry by Barbara Genova Mike Maguire CC my boyfriend kills people in different area codes this dude i love with abandon, he had it rough from the get go next level insane it's a miracle he grew up mentally ok set in his ways, still, very detail oriented we met on vacation, i tell people we were both traveling through time both looking for strangers to kill so we could take over their whole deal their homes their safety nets their lines of credit the shimmer it pools he's the method man i'm la femme on a spree the one who improvises which fine i throw knives i'm just a guy he says as he picks up the morning paper my heart leaps out to every place he's been the fallen women of classical studies classical studies required a metric fuckton of cocaine alright maybe not metric but you know gotta get to that sweet spot x pages one hit x pages one hit i was wired to the teeth all through the rage-quit exam block months of prep and you're done in thirty minutes revise read translate hit advanced latin, comp lit, medieval lit, erasure kitchen sink social realism spread myself on blue linoleum surrounded by books just plowing they shot up my nose with, in retrospect, considerable speed and agility the dedication much stunning lick the paper mop the dust light it up love the burn aside from the obvious – what i wouldn't give for the same drive, homes the educated blaze of the young locust woman liberate me until dawn was i the only one? i never asked the finest blow is supposed to have a sheen of gold to it just a hint glimmer suburban, girl, narrow, platinum blonde silver designer bleached jeans tucked into red suede boots we had maybe five of these trash gazelles roaming around campus she laced a marlboro light with rocks, walked with me behind the chapel can you feel it, good huh, her dealer friend was a man of constant sorrow you think i'd bother if i had a cunt right here, you think i'd bother? right here being the palm he'd slap three fingers on and that pulled focus: still, why did a knockout sugar bomb tolerate me to the point of breaking crystal probably felt like sharing i was no helen next, on the fallen women of classical studies --- i've been clean longer than i was using worked a few steps heard all the jokes yes i've seen event horizon can confirm you should not read latin out loud liberate me, which, come on and: i don't know if you've tried fucking the rapture but if you want to Barbara Genova (she/her/they) is the pen name of a public woman who went private. Poetry written as Barbara has been published / is forthcoming at The Daily Drunk, surfaces.cx, Anti-Heroin Chic, Sledgehammer Lit, Scissors and Spackle, The Final Girl Bulletin Board., Fahmidan Journal. She can be found on Twitter @CallGenova and on Instagram @thebarbaragenova 9/30/2021 0 Comments Poetry by JLM Morton Christian Collins CC Redcoat Haibun I found it on the mudflats, cast off by the tide. Perfumed with salt and the veld. Back home, each time I touched its folds I swore I heard a slither of wool on wool, an opening window and the sound of fife and drums drifting over the hill. The crack of a whip. The feeling I could have anyone I pleased. It was lighter on than it looked - you could say light as a ghost - but god did it feel heavy as dread when I marched through the territories, rough fibres scratching at my throat. This didn’t feel like pride. Can’t you see? I called, but no one listened. An albatross flew overhead. I was overcome when redcoat grabbed at the supermarket shelves, stuffing our pockets with sugar, tobacco, rice, cocoa, rum, until Security dragged me to the stock room. I got expelled for posing as an officer: fucking nutcase. I brushed myself off, tried to spot wash the blood-coat with spit on a hankie, made a hash of mending the seams. Can it be fixed? I asked the dry cleaners. But I knew from the way she slow chewed her gum -- looked me up and down. Love, it’s not the coat. It’s you. The damage is done. Pig Man Ghazal Lodgemore Mill, 1874 - Strachan & Co. to find him £20 to start pig keeping at 5% interest. The rent of the styes £2 a year. Dung to be reckoned at 16/- (80p) a month, & to go on until the £20 capital is paid… if dung is not enough he is to find it. They are cleverer than you think, the pigs. Learn a command quicker than dogs, will pigs. Would you have me sing of some weaver girl? I wish for blindness, to wallow with pigs. The flesh of gilts and sows is rose petals. Daybreak disembowels, eats my heart, pigs. Someday I’ll move to the higher up slopes - where the orchids grow, you don’t feel the pigs. For what is breath but the movement of air. One vessel to another, pigs to pigs. Bleed out a universe on a stone floor, Skin and split, they die piece by piece, the pigs. Call me Pig Man, call me Joe Say, my name - see my life ablaze in a stye of pigs. JLM Morton’s pamphlets Lake 32 and Sentient are published by Yew Tree Press. In 2021 Juliette was awarded an Arts Council grant to work on a collection exploring the role of trade cloth in colonial expansion. She is poet in residence for Stroudwater Textile Trust in the UK. For more info, see: www.jlmmorton.com 9/30/2021 0 Comments Poetry by Kyle Rackley Christian Collins CC Echoes 1 I slipped on a patch of ice. Julie left me for her dealer, and I’d never use meth. I stay away from hard stuff but Julie left me for her dealer I need money and a jump. I stay away from hard stuff weather’s brutal; I sleep in my car I need money and a jump. I lost weight because I’m homeless weather’s brutal; I sleep in my car Teresa says Sapp Bros. gives free showers I lost weight and now I’m homeless I could sleep on Aaron’s couch for a dick pic Teresa says Sapp Bros. gives free showers, but she may be a prostitute. I could sleep on Aaron’s couch for a dick pic Julie fucks for drugs and I pray for her, but she may be a prostitute. I’d never give a handy for smack. Julie fucks for drugs and I pray for her, I’ve stolen copper from houses but I’d never give a handy for smack. I ran over a dog and sold its meat as venison. I’ve stolen copper from houses, so believe that I’m not lying to you, sis, I admit that I ran over a dog and sold its meat as venison. The Jerky Station might be selling some. I swear that I’m not lying to you, sis. I’m shaking because I haven’t had my coffee. The Jerky Station might be selling some. That may be why I lost some teeth. I’m shaking because I haven’t had my coffee. I slipped on a patch of ice that may be why I lost some teeth, and I’d never use meth. 2 Carey stands behind the counter, watches the homeless trade hand jobs for money and trip the power cosmic where he smiles with a friendly greet, sharing mints and a bouncer who doles out fists to mobs, breaking them down to subatomic lollipops that taste of dog meat and Carey doesn’t use taxonomic means to separate truckers with what they eat 3 Vince hears the call and leaps into a blackhole, it urges him to stay at the Council Bluffs Sapp Bros. station where showers on the second floor come free with leftover water from truckers after hand jobs and a promise to not say a word to cashiers, who promise to guard registers from junkies and blackholes. Water calms the shakes of winter. Water from truckers drown wind shrieks. Drown hopes. Drown minds when he bluffs his family. A meal or two before he’s free to trade a hand job for a shower. Silence. No need for family when a shower is all one needs to promise calm winds and drown winter shakes; free oneself with silence. A blackhole can be beautiful, and Vince sings in cosmic bluff supernova against winter shakes and a trucker’s caress. No family to call, only truckers listen in stalls, waiting for showers and Vince reaches supernova in the bluffs. He lies to family and promises he won’t steal from registers. He’s whole and plans to stay pinprick free. He lies and says he won’t steal free registers that cashiers guard from junkies and truckers. Shun the future. His hole shrieks, demands to be fed pinpricks and showers to forget second floor hand jobs and promises of listening to the quiet of the Council Bluffs Sapp Bros. showerhead as it erodes the bluffs of Vince’s body and he frees himself of family and of a past where he promised to rid himself of hand jobs for truckers in exchange for a few bucks and a shower, so he can sing supernova and feed himself to a blackhole. Kyle Rackley is an author of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. They live where the Platte and Missouri Rivers meet with their wife and kids. They hold a BFA in creative writing from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and their work has appeared in Menacing Hedge, Spank the Carp, The Bookends Review, Danse Macabre, and other journals and anthologies. 9/30/2021 0 Comments Poetry by Susan Sue David Prasad CC
These are Days in the Life Some wet children with yellow swim caps pass by the moisture of their wisps wraps against my arms. A woman is babbling on her phone, her three-year-old son kicks the ball, a perfect arc stretches in the blurred skyline. I wonder If he could do better than this, but he stops and let the ball roll by itself. It bounces high enough this time and the boy exclaims. I follow the ball and wander. Curbside bars are hot and bright, beers with white bubbles shiver as the endless summer, roaring motorcycles streak over neon lights shade people’s faces. They are all laughing at nothing. couples vape on the street, their fingers play with the smoke. gauzy particles float in the air like fireflies they smudge the road and I hear barking. I want to turn around but I am stuck. Reminding me of the day I first lapped the liquor left on a bottle cap slowly submerging in buoyant sunbeams. I once called it a dream. Now my tongue tries to burst out another word. It is just a day in the life when you know where to go These are days in the life when you still know what Life means When you could cup butterflies and stars and watch dogs chasing their tails ceaselessly in the ending dusk. Susan Sue is a 17-year-old international poet. She writes when she does not have classes. She writes in both English and Chinese. When she’s not worrying and overthinking, she can often be found doing DIY projects and making chocolate cookies. 9/30/2021 2 Comments Poetry by Greg Clary Scottb211 CC Rules of Road Trip Radio Nothing like hitting the highway in a car that runs with a killer sound system. But there are rules: #1. The driver controls the radio. Always. Volume, station selection, genre, on/off. CD, cassette, 8-track, Bluetooth. #2. Passengers may only request and suggest. Easy playing Merle or Hank with someone going through a break-up, yet pain songs are made for the road. # 3. When starting the trip always cue up The Allman Brothers, preferably Live at the Fillmore. # 4. Never, under any circumstances, may the radio be tuned to Billy Joel, Luke Bryan, or Kanye. Choose silence or conversation. # 5. Talk radio is acceptable, with sports shows being Yinzer-centric. Politico shows, only in small doses. Doing otherwise will promote inter-passenger discord. #6. High stress situations such as the DC beltway and Pittsburgh’s Parkway East pair well with cortisol reducing music. Try the intro to Shaft or anything by Al Green. # 7. When listening to a NASCAR race, especially the closing laps, be sure to use cruise control. Speeding tickets N’at. # 8. Should the reception be spotty when listening to a Steelers game, you may pull over, but only inside the two-minute warning. # 9. Radio preachers require unanimous consent from the passengers. Local programming only. No prosperity pushing, mega-church types. #10. Singalongs in small doses only. The driver may terminate at any time. One guideline prevails: Better to sing a good song bad than a bad song good. #11. Appendices: Never fill up in Pennsylvania, the nation’s highest fuel tax. Hitch-hikers have no standing regarding the radio. Ditch satellite radio. Local radio gives meaning to your locale. Road-trips with animals, babies, smokers, and those with small bladders require separate rules. Don’t be afraid to go alone. Greg Clary is a retired college professor who was born and raised in Turkey Creek, West Virginia, and now resides in the northwestern Pennsylvania Wilds. His photographs have been published in The Sun Magazine, Looking at Appalachia, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, The Watershed Journal, Hole in the Head Review, Dark Horse, Change Seven, Detour Ahead, Bee House Journal, North/South Appalachia, Tobeco Literary Journal, and many other publications. His writing and poems have appeared in The Rye Whiskey Review, The Bridge Literary Arts Journal, Northern Appalachia Review, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Waccamaw Journal, Rusty Truck, Anti-Heroin Chic, and North/South Appalachia: Poetry and Art, Vol 1. 9/30/2021 0 Comments Poetry by Joseph Mills MyBiggestFan CC Reception We sip drinks at the table and watch those on the floor, our silence typical of strangers brought together by mutual acquaintances, and then she observes, as if remarking on the weather, “all my suicidal friends are very good dancers,” and I consider this and why it might be. Perhaps because they’re not worried about getting hurt or what they look like. They’re not saving anything for anything. Or maybe they enjoy the irony of trying to use a body to transcend a body. Or perhaps she’s wrong. I begin to make Venn diagrams in my head, circles of friends, of good dancers, of those who are suicidal, of those who are out there, and then I realize she’s left the table. She’s dancing. She’s very good, and I wonder what that might mean. Celluloid After seeing Top Hat at the revival house we twirled along Michigan Avenue in the skittering snow. We were young and in love with how wonderful it felt to experience art, old movies on a big screen, the motion of our bodies. It didn’t matter that we didn’t know what we were doing, what mattered was the willingness to do it. I have seen that film many times since; perhaps they have too. I don’t know. They stopped writing long ago. For years I sent cards, but eventually grew afraid these were annoying. How timid we become. Now I wouldn’t dare spin along the street. I’d be too aware of the ice, of the city, of people watching, of my body’s frailty and stiffness. Perhaps that’s one reason I return to movies. That other couple remains young and brave, unencumbered from one step to the next, the world to them one of flickering wonders. A faculty member at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Joseph Mills has published six collections of poetry, including “Exit, pursued by a bear” which consists of poems triggered by stage directions in Shakespeare. His book “This Miraculous Turning” was awarded the North Carolina Roanoke-Chowan Award for Poetry for its exploration of race and family. 9/30/2021 0 Comments Poetry by D. R. James Christian Collins CC Drawing a Blank To get started I will accept anything that occurs to me. —William Stafford But what happens when nothing occurs to you, just your black and gray reflection in a kitchen window, an older self you otherwise haven’t yet conjectured? With the panes clean and the outside winter world predictably darker than at this same time yesterday, the double exposure you could call Haggard Face over Exterior Scene is like Community Ed. photography, amateur-hour art work, a first-ditch effort to mean something significant. But then the dark subsides, the framed face fades, and there is just that world. Only This, Just In I once positioned my outpost on earth – at the time, within earshot of owls and a lake’s short waves – to be the center of all communication beaming in from everywhere, out to all the warped, rounded corners of this universe. I was hoping to fool that alien sense I imagined as native to many, that I was actually practically cut off from the prime gist of being alive. So, rather than scanning for more koans-on-transcendence or a how-to to convince the chipmunk standing in for my mind that this felt insignificance was insignificant, thereby skirting the issue that acted as my Everest because it was there, it was always there! – I pitched a little white tent in a holler, with vents in the canvas to let in, let out my antennae, the requisite wires, and the million telekinetic messages I’d be managing by the minute, like some ancient eighty-armed operator devotedly plugging in, plugging out, the supple joint articulating a life to life. And when all systems were finally go, and after I flicked the little switch (a Venetian-like light flooding the moon of my face), the first words in were wind, and how old leaves left alone will crackle for no particular reason. Then the slow creaking of tall beeches, followed by a pulsing, silent swooshing as if I were holding my own personal shell to my own individual ear, which, naturally, as was my custom, I was. D. R. James lives in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan, with his wife, psychotherapist and substance-abuse counselor Suzy Doyle. He has taught writing, literature, and peace studies at the same small college for 35 years and has published 9 collections of poetry, the most recent being Flip Requiem from Dos Madres Press (2020). His micro-chapbook All Her Jazz is free, fun, and downloadable-for-folding at the Origami Poems Project. https://www.amazon.com/author/drjamesauthorpage |
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