desperation

a single black crow
caws from his perch atop a mesquite tree
deep in the Mojave Desert.

it watches me pass as i wander by,
waiting on my collapse and
a skull upon which to feed.

gillian anderson

she sits across from me uninvited
late night at a Starbucks near Hollywood

hi, i’m…

yeah, i know
            i say, voice cracking suddenly 15 or 18
            or something less than 58

you dedicated something, to me

yeah, i did

she takes a bite of blueberry muffin

i slug back the remains of my coffee

congrats on the Emmy,

congrats on the book, can you sign my copy?

yeah, of course

i follow her up a long driveway,
in a town that’s not Bel Air or Beverly Hills
she unlocks the front door, kisses me in the foyer
holds out her hand at the foot of the stairs

i keep it in my bedroom,
            she says, red hair cut short, blue eyes sparkling

next to the Emmy?

yes, of course

her main bedroom is massive
king bed, couch, fire place
sitting area, treadmill, walk in closet,

wanna shower first?
            she says, unexpectedly
            her clothes bread crumbs leading to her silhouette

before i sign my book?

yes, before that

i follow quickly,
just as my fever breaks

and i wake up

norm

i keep thinking of
this old man
this old poet
a man i barely knew
other than a few
notes traded
back & forth

this old man
down in the Village
he’s dead now
almost a year
maybe two
i can’t keep track

lots of folks die

i think about
his words
legacy
how everything
stopped
when he died

maybe that’s how
it’s works

everything stops
when you’re dead

but maybe
if one person
keeps thinking about
an old man
an old poet

more than just words
carry on

maybe that’s legacy
maybe that’s
enough

for norman savage

victim

the thick wet sound
of shotgun blast
rips from the apartment
next door
and i race

ten steps down
the hall
to investigate.

Cecilia stands in
the doorway,
her cigarette
smoking as much
as the end of the shotgun
in her hand.

she smiles at me
through broken teeth,
     skin bruised; clothes torn
takes a long drag
and says,

maybe now somebody’ll
listen to me?

cops tramp up old wooden steps
guns drawn
scream in unison,
get down, get down

and Cecilia turns
her head and says,

then again,
maybe not…

jack henry is a queer writer based in the high desert of south-eastern california.  in 2020 jack’s third collection, driving w/crazy, was released by Punk Hostage Press.

My Lovers, a Puzzle

I believed love would transcend all fashion
and outlast all time and surpass all distance.

Memory would always recall the “once”
even though that moment’s lovers would change.

Memory, I thought, forged eternal chains.
Now, none of the jigsaw pieces will match.

They repose, inert, scattered, unattached,
though I recall some names, some body parts.

I can’t make out their shadows in the dark
though I know they once lit up my passion.

Opiates of the Masses

Crucifiction, Failosophy, Hisstory:
Tomorrow is a myth. And so is yesterday. Now is all.
Physicks, Asstrology, Isometricks:
Yourself, as you are at present, is your only guide.
Medisin, Accupunkture, Sighchiatry:
There is no cure for reality.
Litterature, Statuwary, Musick:
Art is a grand mirage — and it takes great pride in being so.
Soshellism, Dicktatorship, Demockracy:
All government systems are synonyms for slavery.
Kingdumbs, Milittearism, Onerousship:
Allegiance to others is suicide.
Noosepapers, Liebraries. Educashuns:
“Knowledge” so-called is mere pretense.
Relashunships, Guarantease, Freedumb:
Promises are illusions. But illusions may also be promises.
Ambishun, Suckcess, Sellebrity:
Self-promotion is the greatest deception of all.
Syphillisation:
Truth is what you trust.

Electioneering

The pigeons
coo and nod on
the raven’s
coy oration.

The Mythic Archaic Cub, His Mandalas, and Me

I wait here still for the wise old man
and his chatter of universal traits,
how they shape my acts like hands
on a potter’s wheel (but hereditary, innate).

“Archetypes are to psychology
as instincts to biology.”

I sit in his psyche, peeling my mandarins,
and wonder, is this a proper asana?
Some tables down someone plays a green mandolin
and my self stifles respondent hosannas.

My me was always confused by the we,
and I was never the one I used to be.

I used to take my tea with cream
but now I prefer lemon.
Why do I have all these dreams
about so many different women?

Decades have passed like clouds over seas
as I searched for any available lee.

The minutes pass like birds in flight
and my shadow cowers in shadows
I interpret as monstrous daytime nights.
Mandolinist fingers dissolve into adders.

Duane Vorhees writes after teaching University of Maryland classes in Korea and Japan. Hog Press in Ames, IA, has published 3 of his poetry collections, HEAVEN, THE MANY LOVES OF DUANE VORHEES, and GIFT: GOD RUNS THROUGH ALL THESE ROOMS.

It wasn’t that her parents wouldn’t attend
because the wedding clashed with Remembrance Day
and poppies exerted a powerful hold;
nor that my Best Man was newly diagnosed
as a schizophrenic cum manic depressive –
though we were both in two minds about that.
Neither that my sister’s husband turned up
in a T-shirt bearing the legend
                    BULLSHIT
overdid the bevvies and insulted my mother,
obliging me to step in and suffer
the traditional wedding day glass
smashed over my forehead,
a visit to Casualty and several stitches.
And in retrospect I can see it was funny
to be trapped in a lift for 2 or more hours
with a freshly bought packet of fags and no matches.
But the worst of all was when Path of Peace,
a horse I’d followed with more faith
than reason, triumphed at 25-1
in the last big race of the season.
What with one thing and another
I never got to put the bet on.
40 years later and I’m still chasing losses.

Ray Miller is a Socialist, Aston Villa supporter, and faithful husband. Life’s been a disappointment.

You can find more of Ray’s work here on Ink Pantry.

The sky loses all its colour-
In the leisure of your eyes.
My palm loses track to-
Answer your phone call.
The melody stops when-
Your kisses appear.
The broken tree collects-
And shares the love.
Love clings to the fallen leaves.
Our love drops to the ground.
Only the fingers remain untouched.
The blackspots stain the diary.
The waves of the metamorphoses-
Floats in your blue eyes.
The crisscross of the destruction-
Spreads over the strings-
Of the guitar, out of the blue.
The memories stick to the thorns.
The voice cracks to the last pitch.
The lane drenches-
In the damp of the dark.
This earth is a daredevil, Galib..
I failed to be a part of it.
So is with the innocent lives.
I am longing for you.
Millennium.
I’m in my last move of this battle.
Waiting for you under this dull sky.

Tiyasha Khanra is a poet and author, who lives in Kolkata, India. Previously published on Internation Times, Indian Periodical, Spillwords, Storymirror, The Lakeview Journals and elsewhere. 

Conflict

I don’t want you
here. The void is a void.
Sun a bright November forty
seven ride. When I was last
depressed I drowned myself
in Tito’s. This was a gift
from you. You won’t
be there, but I want you
there.

Endless Twine, so to Speak

every sentence can rebirth
a hundred times correction
fluid applied to my tongue
I gag paint thinner thinker
emotions, I’d say what
a wondrous gift, a paperclip
glinting in fluorescent sun,
how endless sky turns fake
the longer I stay inside

Hard to Think Around the Thing

I don’t want details.
To paint the scene is
the scene. I am trying
hard to think around
the thing. To forget the figure
and face. But it was late
October, your phone was booming
This is Halloween– and my
bed was on the floor
then. And the baby
blue walls before
the High Street crowd,
everyone in masks–
with the scissors. You cut
the hole in my pants.
Because I was in
silky green. I was
alien alive in the
wrong place,
wrong time.
There was the gold stage
behind us. By garbage
can makeouts. Groping
hands reached into
the city’s cheap costume.
And there was chill
in the wind except
when everyone
was bunched into
each other. If we
couldn’t stay warm
we’d have to go
inside. No one
wanted the street.
But we didn’t
want inside.

Dental Care

is a drill I am filling holes
in the days my worn-out jeans
piled on plaids & flannels
in a bag of old saliva

& I didn’t listen
when you asked–
no, pleaded–
take care

the whir of the
overhead light
looms
over every scrape

Cover

Skinny Love isn’t your strongest (red
guitar grass blades, guzzles of beer)

the world doesn’t know your name
still I walk infinity eights through

your friend’s backyard evading dormant
dog droppings while the strumming lands

soft & sweet, butterflies on my cheek.
I’ll find a blanket somewhere to sit on

under the awning, a shade for when it rains

James Croal Jackson (he/him) is a Filipino-American poet working in film production. He has two chapbooks, Our Past Leaves (Kelsay Books, 2021) and The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights Press, 2017). He edits The Mantle Poetry from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

As you grow older, you feel
the rain before the first drop
plops upon your skyward face
because aches in wrists & knees
are the raging storm clouds unseen.

O, how it was to be young
& without a care or worry,
running through the rain
because it was fun instead
of trying to seek shelter.

Each drop a baptism
to bring your spirit
a sense of renewal
you didn’t know
you’d need before the pain.

I used to sit on the porch
with my dad during storms;
he’d tell me ghost stories
that always seemed to fall
on the current day’s date.

When you’re just a child,
you don’t think of all
that can be lost in a tornado
while sitting in a bathtub with your bub,
having the time of your life.

Tim Heerdink is the author of Somniloquy & Trauma in the Knottseau Well, The Human Remains, Red Flag and Other Poems, Razed Monuments, Checking Tickets on Oumaumua, Sailing the Edge of Time, I Hear a Siren’s Call, Ghost Map, A Cacophony of Birds in the House of Dread, Tabletop Anxieties & Sweet Decay (with Tony Brewer) and short stories ‘The Tithing of Man’ and ‘HEA-VEN2’. His poems appear in various journals and anthologies. He is the President of Midwest Writers Guild of Evansville, Indiana.

Sonnet CDLI

General Blue Azure bloom
Ghost Candle burning in the wind still a wonder
Sword of her mouth a harlot blunder
Fibers of Tobacco Smoking Room
Verge of the cliff sliding down the flume
Near window brief gestures during the thunder
They are grave yard dead Six feet under
In Lady’s Chapel at Olive Breeze Tomb
Slice of luck being here seeing that bird
Open chalk scaled back door to see the clerk
Gruff Squire on Camel back took Third
Have some spark in your manifested work
Eating Sea-Green Pothole bowl of Curd
Eyes of the sympathetic personage smirk

Sonnet CCCLXXXXVI

Short sighted eyes admonition able
Spiritual in its ivory like purity abolish
Pronounced beautiful veined alabaster polish
A deliberate lie whit as the cable
Lady of the land her self-setting the table
Innate refinement unmistakably evidenced demolished
Her softly feathered face polished
Gentle wrong a high degree of fable
A charmed woman such eyes abortive
Lovers quarrel between two doves
Dignity told her to stay sportier
A neat blouse of electric blue and black gloves
Silent sad down cast eyes supportive
Haunting expressions girlish shyness love

Sonnet CDXXXXVIII

Wise precaution unobtrusively chopping Firewood
Brutes of the field ship of the streets map
The art of man barring the Bee’s Lap
She and you argute passionately stood
Whale with a Harpoon Hair Pin Hood
Looked sideways towards friendly fashion trap
Had her large dark lidded Eye’s zap
Irish industries exquisite variations of wood
Fashionable beautiful parenthesize burst
Distilling grapes into puttee mirth
Which she did phenomenally first
Clear seas brings voices of Sirens dearth
Tenor voice good graces by all means thirst
Without a second care birth

Sonnet CDXXXXV

On the day but one preceding yawn
Reminded herself twice not to forget Beer
Hand in corresponding pocket cheer
Inadvertently premeditatedly resting brawn
Lower union rails and stiles of the lawn
The impact of the fall so shear
Avoirdupois measure periodical self-regulated veneer
Weight of Eleven Stones Octagon
Crouching in preparation bellow
Pharmaceutical chemist feast of the Kelp
Sunset over Ashland Bay’s foggy Yellow
Note found in the car only said help
Compressed his hat on his head and fell over
Knock or not to knock enter or not to enter reply

Walk With Jack

Set off to walk with Jack
Terrible rat mires her skin turning blue
Life on the farm dirty Dublin dinner
My Editor can kiss my tootle-do
Elderly and pious vestal spinner
Night reeking hungry for dough and brew
Copper Tin Letter Box boy’s winter

Terry Brinkman has been painting for over forty five years. He started creating poems. He has five Amazon E- Books, also poems in Rue Scribe, Tiny Seed. Winamop, Snapdragon Journal, Poets Choice, Adelaide Magazine, Variant, the Writing Disorder, Ink Pantry, In Parentheses, Ariel Chat, New Ulster, Glove, and in Pamp-le-mousse, North Dakota Quarterly, Barzakh, Urban Arts, Wingless Dreamer, LKMNDS and Milk Carton Press.

When love mattered

Sunspot on her chin
lost in desire
Cupid torturing a lover
“theft from thyself?”
“who are thou?”
“thou art that?”
an advocate of civil war
internal
“you will find no quiet”
transplant me
somewhere safe within nocturnal wayward delirium
the essence of memory
with but a touch
stray
soulful portraits
of us

Invisible Bones

They’ve made us the type of animals where screams of banal entertainment and the uselessness of bullshit jobs have burnt out our corneas
by the grave of existence
you shall eat the world’s due
of emptiness
of the final rot
with the scent of musty lust and faintly perfumed laced love
unlettered
you’ll dig deep trenches in beauty’s field
toiling through 40 winter snows
looking back through a looking glass
there’ll be bones piled on high
invisible
sunken eyes gazing into empty sockets

Give away yourself

I saw Artemis in the shower
flaming palm tress
I wasn’t sure what she was
with a lack of hunter-prey
sacred white fawn
drinking from a crystalline brook
funny the things we witness outside gas station bathroom nights where the divine and mystical meet at the hazardous crossroads with beings ground in time and dirty space
of course I didn’t approach
too many dogs
scratching and bleeding
sensory overload from the central aired chaos

Howl for me

The wolf is dead
a line inspired by some Detroit badass graffiti
the line is more fitting this time, no?
not so rogue any more, or are you?
tried putting me through the grinder with your wildflower hell goddess
venomous mouths
lack of wits
drowning in cheap booze
I tried to make amends
you made a joke about my dead child
nothing but a wild stray dog
staring in dirty urine filled puddle
man bites dog is nothing new
crawl into a flaming dumpster
where you won’t rise a phoenix
multidimensional or not

Mike Zone is the Editor in Chief of Dumpster Fire Press, the author of Shedding Dark Places (almost), One Hell of a Muse, A Farewell to Big Ideas and Void Beneath the Skin, as well as co-author of The Grind. Frequent contributor to Alien Buddha Press and Mad Swirl. His work has been featured in: Horror Sleaze Trash, Better Than Starbucks, Piker Press, Punk Noir Magazine, Synchronized Chaos, Outlaw Poetry and Cult Culture magazine. 

Shaun & Charlie in the fosse of a hill talking—
          Shaun & Charlie sat down in that trough
discussing their feelings ’bout those beasts on the hill,
          why they fear them so

          How brooking their beastly ways gets them stalking,
but perhaps to never affirm through a sough—
          to deny their will—
deters the brutes from what it is they do

Shine Ballard, lost in longueurs, currently creates and resides on this plane(t).

Coyote Howl (For Brother John)

You graduated early from the school of hard knocks complete with
several concussions.
You sharpened your wits on the whispers and sneers of less intelligent beings.
You possess the hands of a mad genius, making everything you touch shine
brighter, cut deeper and move faster but ultimately too beautiful to last.
Your heavy Viking heart beats too strong, loves too hard and howls like
a lone coyote on the hill, pining for the waxing moon.
It will be the death of you.

She Left The House In Ruin

Her reasoning cracked like her lip under his fist.
She let the children play with his tools.
They dipped them in the pool and left them to rust.
His other remaining possessions sat curb-side on trash day,
Waiting to be picked up then discarded.
She went room to room methodically destroying whatever she could.
From the outside everything looked normal but the interior, much like her own,
was left to rot in ruin.

Renegade

Awake to greet the menacing dawn.
Sirens and shadows fill the room.
The haunting voices of life in the fast lane.

Mercurial.
Somewhat frightening.
I watch the world fly by my window at light speed.

We talked about martyrdom and music.
Tried to bend chaos into art.
I miss those wanton nights when it seemed as if
the world couldn’t survive another day.

We send each other rabid greetings from afar.
You wrestle your demons to the floor.
Trying to keep a lid on the jar before those visions can escape.
You and I know they can only scar.
May the neon buzz sing you to sleep.
Only the moon knows of your isolation..
We never beg if we can borrow.
May you rise to fight tomorrow, my favorite renegade.

Kevin M. Hibshman has had his poetry, prose, reviews and collages published around the world, most recently in Punk Noir Magazine, Rye Whiskey Review, Piker Press, The Crossroads, Drinkers Only, 1870, Synchronized Chaos, Yellow Mama, Unlikely Stories Mark V, Literary Yard, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and Medusa’s Kitchen.

He has edited his own poetry journal, FEARLESS for the past thirty years. He has authored sixteen chapbooks, including Incessant Shining (2011, Alternating Current Press).He received a BA in Liberal Arts from Union University/Vermont College in 2016. A new book, Just Another Small Town Story from Whiskey City Press is now available on Amazon.