my dustcart a shield i grasp at happy meal boxes in an unkind wind my mother isn’t angry she’s disappointed
i cradle the bear her loving companion since childhood i ask it straight what do i do now
i walk the field where we built straw castles as children i heard recently the first of us are beginning to die
after years on the run i’ve finally caught up with myself we are both getting used to the idea
filled with the spirit she confesses on the night bus from town apart from the driver we vote she shall be forgiven
Until recently Steve Black was a road sweeper living within spitting distance of London, and is now looking for gainful employment. Published now and then.
after Christmas I re-wrap separately depending on their rank angels humans and beasts
Jesus and his earthly parents are first to be accorded tissue paper privacy
the King who comes bearing gold has lost his crown after years of journeying and annual storage
ox and donkey fit together knee to knee in a corner of the box
lastly a sheep that seems to have strayed into the mix from a childhood farm set
Close quarters
in summer the boards under the house are dry and reverberate when trodden on
birds treat the veranda as theirs hopping and pecking at leavings under the outdoor table
we wait all year for this bearing the winter like a bye-child spring like fresh news
then the heat on the planet that never quite suits us our ancestors left for us to resolve
January break
the barber from India spends his days razoring the edges of beards of large men in the provincial centre
this is the first I’ve heard about the subcontinental diet and its spices affording staunch resistance to coronavirus
from the park across the street the fountain sings and gulls disagree concerning entitlement to takeaway scraps
nearly everything in town commemorates somebody even the ambulances parked regularly at lunchtime outside hot bread shops
single rooms to rent up a staircase no longer there off the laneway between two main thoroughfares
the man in the bookshop advises me to hang on to change for the meter though I’m on foot
in the heat the council-commissioned murals slide down buildings to pool colourfully on the ground
Emissary
mail comes late and is sparse
requests for payment real estate flyers
only the occasional much creased
and redirected envelope from the frontier
one containing dead leaves
another crushed parts of a praying mantis
the kind of messages composed in the
kind of script a ghost might send
Tony Beyer’s print titles include Anchor Stone, a finalist in the poetry category of the 2018 New Zealand Book Awards, and Friday Prayers (2019), both from Cold Hub Press. Recent poems have appeared in Hamilton Stone Review, Molly Bloom, Mudlark, Otoliths and elsewhere.
I won’t cut my arm just to see myself bleed. Nor will I roam the cemetery trails, as if the dead are the perfect company for the likes of me. Not that I’m about to take up dancing. Not with these clumsy feet. Or give up alcohol. I have too many demons deserving of drowning. But I won’t stick my head in places from, which it’s not easily extracted. Like fence railings. Or stocks. Not that I’m about to find someone and then do everything together. But I won’t lop off my toes with a scythe. Or crack open my head on the rocks below. No affairs of the heart. But no opiates either. And no passion, for good or for bad. I won’t deny my body what it needs to survive. But nor will I promise these bones, this flesh, anything beyond that.
This time it will be different. The highs, the lows, will be so controlled they’ll think they’re twins. Such is my pledge. So I go on from here, Ecstasy is uncalled for. Despair no longer suits my style.
It’s Saturday night. I’m not going anywhere. My mind is babysitting my heart. It’s not going anywhere either.
Mystery Woman
notate each awakening and flash of foreknowledge;
on your balcony, face east, over ocean to where the horizon stretches to no end in sight;
the country can’t get enough divine philosophers, seers who tell our fortunes in a crumple of feathers or a spinning ball, who reach into the dark chasm of the days ahead, extract a telling tale;
wear icons round your throat, talismans on your wrist; spread Tarot cards before you, stir tea leaves with your fingernail;
explain the enigmas, lift the shadows, quiet the doubters, offer holy incentive to the believers;
I think you’re the one but I need you to tell me;
it’s the mysteries of the universe and it’s all in a life’s work;
Death Of Miss America 194..
“Say, does the coffin pinch?” No one thinks of you anymore. Miss America 194… Adios…. Ah, Miss America. So old. How dull. Your compass watches more than your gallery. And the angel of numbers is counting down to zero when it suits. And meanwhile, you, in the wind, flutter worse than butterflies – by Government declaration, the moon is wrinkles, the sun is red-streaked eyes. You’re no longer forbidden the fear of winter’s white bear. From one of one now a miniscule fraction often billion – gold dust and tiaras…goodbye. Hunting with memory, there’s still no game. Just yawning Miss America, queen of all states but not one of them thinks of you anymore. Nor do sun, moon, or stars. Just the sullen greenish-yellow air. Only mildew is left to ask, “Do your shoes pinch?” Lightning, thunder, even sky is prohibited – the weather has settled on streaky wind whipping the flesh from the bones of your face. No one believes that you were lovely once. Your chalk flames out shrill on the heavenly blackboards.
Two for the Sno-Cat
Joe’s fifty seven and his knees won’t stop whining, Anne’s twenty seven, recovering from a busted relationship. And within this glacier, lies a man, his body preserved by his moment of death, even to the seal meat in his stomach that’s caked in frozen acid. His skin is hard as Arctic earth, eyes closed by the weight on him. His heart’s encased in a jewel box of ice, his blood stalled on orders from his perfectly encapsulated last breath, His brain is a prison of neurons awaiting a thought, a sensation, so all can break free. A Sno-Cat, piloted by Joe, navigated by Anne, is grinding its way through the area, studded steel belts ripping up the surface, about to accidentally unleash the distant past on the world. “It’s hard getting old,” he says. “You should try the singles scene,” she replies. Within this glacier, lies a man about to meet his public. He’s a thousand years old, in a time when no one else is.
The Living and the Dead
The lilies are born on their death-bed. Come morning, these pretty blooms will be all funeral. I stare out my window at their cool breeze wake. How they flutter. How we’d all flutter if we didn’t know the truth.
I’m in a coffee shop taking forever over the latest nectar from the Kona Coast. A lovely young woman nibbles on a muffin, reads The Great Gatsby. I swear her lips move reciting Daisy’s lines. I’m on the west coast for a week. I’ll never see her again. That’s a kind of death.
It can join shooting star or glimpse of scarlet tanager or grizzled face in the attic window of the old house – their brief is brevity. Here then gone, my life is this constant killer.
But some things stay around. I have loved ones. I’ve got possessions. And a neighborhood, a town. I may live for the transitory but I live in the permanent.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in the Homestead Review, Poetry East and Columbia Review with work upcoming in the Roanoke Review, the Hawaii Review and North Dakota Quarterly.
You can find more of John’s work here on Ink Pantry.
CALENDAR OF MARBLE REINCARNATION METALLIC TASTE OF ASHES BURNING FEATHER THIS SECOND HE….THE UNMISTAKABLE EROTIC LANGUAGE MUST NOT DECEIVE US/AUTUMN CRY OPULENCE LIKE A TRIANGLE & A DUEL/NEW ARCADES BECAUSE OF BECAUSE WINDOWSPEAK PLUM NUDITY & NULLITY/STORYINSOIL EXPRESS OF SEMITONAL DOORS OPEN SOMEWHERE IN MY HEART/BEHOLD THE MATERIALITY OF THE CLOUD/CHAOS CROP BASS NECTAR SCARECROW NAMELESS DAY/PEAK RING PROXIMITY WHO WILL REMAIN/MELANCHOLY OF TRIBE SAD CAFE IMMORTAL PALOMA STEAM DEEPFEEL LAVENDER KITE SENSEFALL CAMARADERIE/SIMPLE MIND RELIIC MASS EPONYMOUS NIGHT DISCRETIONS/SERVANT OF THE SECRET FLAME CATHEDRAL LABYRINTH EXOTIC PULSE/SOUL OF SERENE PRAXIS UNDERNEATH MANIC SEAS/CANAL BREATH SUPERSCENE/CONTENT MERE OASIS SINISTER MYTH FOREKNOW/EXPERIENTIAL MODE MODERNE HOUNDS OF LOVE/SOLASTALGIA REMAIN/OCEAN MACHINE SCREAM OF SWIFTS/BY REWARD ACCENT ROAM TECHNICS & TIME THE FORCE OF THE INTOXIC/CYCLE AFTER CYCLE/YEAR AFTER YEAR/WORD AFTER WORD/CREAM TERMINAL SYSTEM OF SYSTEMS RHAPSODY PINPOINT/TIME’S FLOW STEMMED/TALISMANIC IDENTIFICATIONS & GHOSTLY DEMARCATIONS/VERMILLION DEEPCHORD GLOW THERE IS NO END
You can find more of Rus’ work here on Ink Pantry.
I have been extremely lucky In life Lucky in love Not so much in cards
Met the love of my life In a dream Then she became my wife
Over the years We have been extremely lucky As our investments grew and grew
Fuelled by the skill Of my financial advisor wife Born in the year of the Golden Pig
Making me wealthy In my old age
I often think meeting her Was like winning the lotto Or getting a jackpot
A jackpot of love That continues to pay me Dividends for life
Until the day I die With my lucky charm By my side
waiting for the day
I lay in bed Waiting for the sun to rise Next to my sleeping beauty Filled with her love
But with the dawning sun The nightmares come back
Filled with fearful thoughts Of what fresh insanity Will soon overwhelm me
I watch the daily news Absorbing the latest Scandal d’jour The latest fresh hell
As I watch with dismay America the land of my birth Tear itself apart
As politicians play games Thousands die Becoming Corona Ghosts
It is enough to make me Want to hideaway For the rest of my time On this earth
The Rising Storm of Sedition Overwhelms Us All
A rising storm of sedition and treason Threatens to overwhelm us all As the alt. right wing forces
Complicit in treason And committed sedition
A failure of law enforcement And politics as well
As the craven proud boys do not hide anymore
screaming fraud Trying to foment civil war
Storming the Capitol On instructions from their hero
The craven President Hides out
Watching the carnage That he unleashed Descend on the capitol
Tired and Burned Out – Let 2020 Go!!! January 15, 2021
It has been two weeks Since the beginning of the year It seems like it has been a Year Of horror condensed down
Into two-weeks Of daily chaos As the centre frays
We are so Tired and Burned Out yet we can’t Let 2020 Go!!!
Madness grows Can’t take it much more can’t shake off the 2020 hangover
2021 You are so old We are so done with you Just go away And never haunt us again
Toilet Gate Fit Metaphor for the End of the Trump Affair
News that the President’s son-in-law and daughter Refused to allow secret service agents To use any of their 6.5 toilets Is a fitting metaphor For the end of the Trump Era
The news captures the false sense Of royal privilege Among the Trump family And shows how shallow, cruel And inhuman the family really is
How did such a family of grifters Manage to take over the WH? And how can anyone still support Such despicable human beings?
They deny it of course But the Secret service Says it is true
And they had to pay 100,000 dollars 3,000 dollars per month To rent an apartment across the street So, agents could relieve themselves
What were they thinking? Perhaps they were thinking The agents could use the bushes Out back?
Or beg to use the neighbor’s facilities? Anyway, not their problem What the hired help does After all
So glad that this band Of grifters are on their way out And sanity will return To our nation
John (“Jake”) Cosmos Aller is a novelist, poet, and former Foreign Service officer having served 27 years with the U.S. State Department serving in over ten countries including Korea, Thailand, India, Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Spain. He has travelled to over 50 countries, and 49 out of 50 states. He speaks Korean, Thai, Spanish and studied Chinese, Hindi and Arabic.
You can find more of Jake’s work here on Ink Pantry.
The most elegant inter- pretation of quantum mechanics states that macrophages are re- quired for a parallel reality to exist; & that can only happen if zebrafish are the sole
peer-reviewed species allowed to be taken out of captivity to become an accepted model for neuropsychiatric studies into tissue regeneration.
Brand positioning
A spectrum is a collection of scalar values with its black curve being an analog of the momentum.
Which is why a fixed dimensional living space may wish to concede that abacus marble or rock counters
can take the place of trees when considering the cause for some cases of partially- working proteins.
Three French Horns
Winnebago shared a post on Instagram, a screenshot of some anthropologist’s tale of the deconstruction of the phrase a partridge in a pear tree by a group of pueblo dwellers. Some individual ideas were reported; but essentially the consensus rotated around two oft-repeated questions: where’s the buffalo? & why is Angela Merkel so often criticized on social media?
Another set of anterior appendages
Anchored to the hair by centipedes wearing elastic sombreros, even the most advanced anti- rain cycling accessories
cannot avoid bringing with them more than a hint of biting arthropod. It dis- plays as an inflammatory reaction similar to that
occurring when a library’s dustiest corner is disturb- ed. Only the addition of mirrored aviator goggles will work as a deterrent.
Recent poems by Mark Young have appeared or are to appear in Word For/Word, Die Leere Mitte, Home Planet News Online, experiential-experimental-literature, Utsanga.it, Hamilton Stone Review, & BlazeVOX, amongst other places.
More of Mark’s work can be found here on Ink Pantry.
Paulette was the most elegant person I had ever known, a ballet dancer, half-Swiss, half-Italian, with a British home. We walked into a cafe in Glasgow’s trendiest zone, the only friend I had made then during my studentship abroad.
It was an Italian restaurant with wooden seats and long queues, and after standing for half an hour we found a table next to the wall, not far from another where he instantly spotted me with the serenest of looks.
I always wondered what my presence in his arena provoked. His face was inscrutable and no muscles could be construed. I always said the wrong things and made the wrong moves, and I forgave him for whatever thoughts he brewed over my aloofness, my indifference, and ill-disguised fondness.
I failed to greet him and I knew he would not pardon me for being rude. How could I tell him that I always kept away from the people I valued most, for whoever I touched, I was bound to lose !
Politics
I associate the word with all that is odious and morbid, with the oppression of nations, the starvation of millions, with the Massacre of Glencoe, the Genocide of Armenians, with scepters that turn into pythons to devour an entire millennium, with sectarianism and schisms within familial unions, with blood-sheds at altars and contagious vermillion, with manipulative spouses and exploitative chameleons, with labyrinthine circumlocution and orchestrated rebellions.
Ingratitude
Let me sing my ode for ingratitude. My palm is a cemetery of deep-dug holes, drilled by your claws in the wake of every gift and handshake I proposed.
My smiles enthuse a trickle of gall that ruffles the stillness of your stagnant soul that cannot be consoled by words or glows, devouring every ray that beams from my mouth, like an astral Black Hole.
I tread upon your discourse of thorns to partake of the pricks of a saga of wrongs, but you disdain my every groan that empathizes with your excruciating woes, spurning my solace with habitual scorn.
Pan [A Reading of Richard Le Gallienne‘s essay ‘The Spirit of the Open’]
Richard opted for a woodland, green office in the blue-eyed wilderness to conduct literary transactions, with expected diversions from celestial bodies such as the moon and morning stars, and the squirrel that haunts his wood-pile, with his thoughts often ferried by the river nearby to the sea, far-off.
He had been simply summoned by the god Pan whose death was mistakenly proclaimed by Plutarch as Christianity reigned, but Pan’s life is inextricably linked with that of the earth. There will always be little chapels to Pan on whose lintels Virgil’s words are inscribed: Blest too is he who knows the rural gods, Pan, old Silvanus, and the sister-nymphs!
There is only one creed that makes us both happy and good. It is that of the flourishing grass and the dogwood, of the cerulean sky and the brisk brook, of the blue heron and the redwing.
Susie Gharib is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde with a Ph.D. on the work of D.H. Lawrence. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in multiple venues including Adelaide Literary Magazine, Green Hills Literary Lantern, A New Ulster, Crossways, The Curlew, The Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Ink Pantry, Mad Swirl, Miller’s Pond Poetry Magazine, and Down in the Dirt.
You can find more of Susie’s work here on Ink Pantry.
swinging hard like a merk half slathered with glue and doom
there will be one minute of silence after the explosion
fingers on my feet cutting polaroids from a loaf
I hit 99 and the coffee was making me talk
the soap is a little rectangle how long until my hands are clean? smells like pea sprouts
in case of emergency contact the moon pirate when you were something like a robot with ears on the planet of earth
I have the keys to the kitchen sink IT STINKS
za tree fork P/ plus staunch reptile
and that was that until the doubts started creeping in high above the city the robotic vultures were circling
we took it to the wall every night and tried to see thru it your chains dragging should tell you that
look at me now with my gills and water pants and no ocean forest grockerly until notice of federal nachos
would you prevent a cavity like crest toothpaste for astronaut powers?
a new love of the cosmic goose what is the dream number of this toast?
the rook is now a diamond of the same eye in sheets the rain was a powerful ghost and goose
that hurts our chances of learning the moon numbers time to separate the numbers from the apples
to wonder aloud about the suns a new window of the rookie forces
the saint of the clock we get that hank of the heaven
the game of the wild face the shimmering face of christ
tree grease
the sports tomorrow when I am that old drac get there with that morning hand
that long acre of the simian tree for butter do you need to climb a window for the grief?
we need the green tree to stop the meteor knows why I was the heart
why is the ark of the natural earth of the egg? would you like a lark of the pumpkin?
the heart of the bagel to start with that help is the halo
the muscle of the chart of detergents the tight window of the spinning eye
to win a window the natural useless face
would you like that head of the cheddar wheel to speak? we are the rose of the caramel jump
going back to see that friend of the fridge milk or mud?
J. D. Nelson (b. 1971) experiments with words in his subterranean laboratory. More than 1,500 of his poems have appeared in many small press publications, in print and online. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Cinderella City (The Red Ceilings Press, 2012). Visit Madverse for more information and links to his published work. Nelson lives in Colorado.
More of J.D.’s work can be found here on Ink Pantry.
When we were dating, I used to come to the fast food restaurant where you worked and eat with you on your breaks. We’d order two large fries and you would dump out both cartons on the tray, teaching me to share while I dipped my fries in mayo and ketchup and you dipped yours in sweet and sour, not knowing the sour was yet to leak out of you.
Read My Lips
I. On our one-month anniversary I learned that you could read lips. I put your powers to the test. I mouthed my order for you to transcribe for the confused waitress. I spent the whole meal mouthing my thoughts and jokes and dreams. I gladly footed the bill because for the first time, I felt solid in the world, I felt present. Seen.
II. When we would wake up together, in the soft angelic glow of morning light, I used to run my tongue down your back, blowing chills into your spine, feeling like a god as I watched goosebumps and faint hairs rise. I would spell out I LOVE YOUs and I WANT YOUs and you could sense every letter. I felt your weight in my bed, your presence, you truly and totally tethered to me. For the first time in a long time, I felt acknowledged. Heard.
III. Sometimes I lie awake in the dark, worrying about work and money, dreading the approach of death, caught up in the cacophony of this harsh world and I wonder if you are able to read my mind, because as if on cue, you rub your foot against mine, nuzzle yourself into my arms as if you know I need something to hold on to, to keep myself from floating off into my own anxiety and I know that I am seen. I am heard. I am understood.
Shower Drain Lovers
Sometimes I leave you messages on the shower wall, stray hairs molded into an I ❤ U but they are never acknowledged, never appreciated, talked about, or replied to. They are only washed down the drain as if this effort from my morning brain was all in vain.
I hope somewhere out there, there is a shower drain you, made up of your stray hairs, that is reaching out for me. I hope he is moved by little gestures, tangled up in love with a shower drain me.
Searching
Maybe we aren’t meant to put all this pressure on each other, like we are the only ones for each other, like we have to serve and fulfill and be everything for one another, we could be open to lightening the load on this lonely, heavy heart.
Maybe?
I fill up the car and drive to your place. Everyone’s driving slow on the highway, there must be a cop or an accident nearby, some warning to slow down.
Laugh and make jokes, flirt and flutter. It usually doesn’t happen this quick, must be something in the water wetting appetites, something calling us to speed up.
Kiss kiss him, kiss me, kiss us, kiss kissing you Touch touch us, touch him, touch you, touch touching me You were speaking in tongues of ecstasy.
We had been searching for someone who could speak our language. Someone who could tap the source of passion burrowing deep in our bones.
Like a forgotten word in a forgotten tongue, you left me feeling hopelessly incomplete, exspes. Maybe?
Geppetto
You were sad and liked to lie there broken, to wallow in your sad boy, boy toy misery. I was sad and I liked to fix things to distract myself from my pain, to mend things made me feel less broken. I thought it would work out perfectly, like I could help piece you back together, sew up your seems, solder your hinges, fix your fissures, clean the rust from the gears around your heart, paint the sunshine back into your eyes, that I could fix you and then you would love me, that you would lay on my lap, find a fondness for me. But boys are not toys and I am not a toymaker.
Charles K. Carter is a queer poet and educator from Iowa. He shares his home with his artist husband and his spoiled pets. He enjoys film, yoga, and live music. Melissa Etheridge is his ultimate obsession. He holds an MFA in writing from Lindenwood University. His poems have appeared in several literary journals. He is the author of Chasing Sunshine (Lazy Adventurer Publishing), Splinters (Kelsay Books), and Salem Revisited (WordTech Editions).
More of Charles’ work can be found here on Ink Pantry.
