Universe of Lies

The universe is dissolving into
silken skeins of fire     dripping

glistening threads of protons
and neutrons     that dissipate into

an echo of atomic waste     leaving
behind a soft electron whisper


if there are survivors     do they
remember when the world was

tokenized     do they recall the years
of stripping meaning     discarding

all we once had known in favour of
the romance of our corporate dreaming


working men and working women
gathered in a human river     flooding

through the central demarcations as
a wavelength of forgetting     carrying

their hand-made flags that still
proclaimed the truth of lies


true believers of the myths
and legends that evaporated

in the cold hard morning of the end
of time     when the structures

we had long imagined     were
finally revealed as emptiness.

Religious Rightness

Bodies filled the undergrowth
as religion swamped the land

your citizenship merely
a pattern of crosses   punched

into cards and misplaced in
a cupboard at the Pentagon

your birth was accidental
vomited out like volcano steam
erupting as clouds of tear gas

the shelves of your market creaked
under the weight of ammunition

I used carrots in my cabbage
soup to add the extra sweetness

but damn   and if it wasn’t
time to start our engines.

The Meaning of Survival

Morning begins with carnage
the heat-glaze of an exterminating sun
exploding as gasoline

organic chemistry reaching
its limit as the safety fails to trip
the sky filling
with a diamond glare

light tightening its grip
from red to blue and finally
to a blistering whiteness

the smell of meat and burning rubber
as a necklace melts into the purity
of flesh and thought     leaving behind
little except sharded bone

heat death of a city
the broken facades of crumbling homes
phased and zoned into map-written
territories beneath the still white sky

smudged and cindered by
smoldering remnants     the air
adrift with wave and particle
fighting for survival

the shattering
of so many lives as the future is destroyed
by inarticulate sloganeering

every banner laid to waste
the last survivors lingering by a river
breathing in the beauty of the silence

Smokeless Noir

We’re lacking something
now that even the bad guys
no longer smoke

where is the shadowed room
the blatant chiaroscuro
the curl of blue smoke
the carefully illuminated profile

what we have gained in health
and cleanliness
we have lost in the purity of art

but where is the forgotten actor
the one whose name we never knew
cigarette clutched
between brown-stained fingers

and in his throat
or the deepness of his lungs
the first tender stirrings
of the tumour.

Paul Ilechko is the author of three chapbooks, most recently Pain Sections (Alien Buddha Press). His work has appeared in a variety of journals, including Rogue Agent, January Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Book of Matches and Pithead Chapel. He lives with his partner in Lambertville, NJ.

Heart Ache

With very slow frost-free words,
he mimes to them
that his heart.
like day old sour dough toast
has become a plopped rock
settling slowly to the bottom.

They shake their heads
almost birdlike
and regard him in asphalt indifference.

His heart becomes the taste
of someone chewing aluminum foil.
He says nothing more.
He begins walking with a cane
while his heart becomes an autistic child.

It has served him well in love
and now,
on an afternoon in the park,
it kills him.

They buried it with him
as a minor tremor
begins in each of them.

Nautical Miles

He moves with the instinctual wisdom
of alley cat balance.
His doctrine follows
an iceberg principle.
His eyes see more;
his chapped lips say less.

Today,
he takes his trawler
deep into the ocean
a simple apostle
of the earth’s last frontier.

Pungent Rubbish

Our love-
a white garbage bag
fitted to the top
of the garbage can.
Inside –
dead roses
I bought as a surprise
for no special occasion;
the greasy pizza box
we splurged on because
the day was just too long;
the blood stained bandage
you used to cover my cut hand
when the knife slipped;
the tear stained tissues
because you just needed to cry
and
the burnt omelette
when your single kiss
ignited so much more.

On Sunday,
when I take the bag
to the curb,
you shake and replace it
with another one
to start all over again.

R. Gerry Fabian is a retired English instructor. He has been publishing poetry since 1972 in various poetry magazines. He is the editor of Raw Dog Press. He has published two poetry books, Parallels and Coming Out Of The Atlantic. His novels, Memphis Masquerade, Getting Lucky (The Story) and Seventh Sense are available from Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes and Noble. He is currently working on his fourth novel, Ghost Girl.

More of Gerry’s work can be found here on Ink Pantry & Twitter.

Greenhouse

I wonder if they know –
as much as chlorophyll
can know anything
other than the sweetness
of the energy of sunlight
and rain on its tongue —
that as they perish
into winter’s dead sleep,
these inside, these rich
relations, will live on, all
wide awake and wide-eyed,
glowing in the warm glow
of their winter palace.
I wonder if they knew,
would they then demand
their own entry there, or like
a revolution’s mob, break
every pane with bricks
and cobblestones?

At a Reading

After the last poem,
the poet, clearly drunk,
answered questions.
A student asked him
how he made a poem.
There was a wide smile
and a long silence.
Then, “Fuck the muse
and wait nine hours.”
There was laughter,
some embarrassed,
some self-consciously loud.
Then the student said,
“But Mr. C___________,
according to that metaphor,
isn’t it the muse who makes
the poem and not the poet?”
There was a narrow
smile and a short silence.
“True enough, but poetry
has always been a messy
business,” he said, a drop
a spittle dangling from
the corner of his mouth.

Capital Punishment

Should a seventeen year old
be put to death for murder?

was the question under discussion.
No, he argued, the psychologist,

because, he said, the limbic system,
which, in a seventeen year old,

overpowers the neo-cortex, so it
must be life in prison for such,

to be, without the possibility
of parole, imprisoned with his

limbic system and his neo-cortex,
to play, for life, the Play of Everyman,

to doubt, for life, between devil and angel,
to live, for life, in the capital of punishment.

Doodle

The phone
at the ear
listening to
the recorded
music to keep
the temper
assuaged and
diverted while
you wait for
the customer
service rep
to help you
with your
problem to
answer your
simple question
you decorate
the number
you jotted down
on the pad
with filigree
and curlicue
with alphabets
in arabesque
with gargoyles
and this poem…
… cut off.

J.R. Solonche has published poems in more than 400 magazines and journals since the early 70s. He is the author of 22 books of poetry and co-author of another. He lives in the Hudson Valley.

Walk in Kilns

One cry up it sounds like light,
Octaves, voice and note
that shine in halls where fingers call
And voices are heard through walls.

The Plain debris of past
Digs down in rock. A crusty top
of cries and groans take off
for what’s beneath, to bypass thought.

Off with the hat, hair, eyes, skin, teeth,
Sail woods you think you know,
take a life among the clouds.
where light breaks for what is hoped.

.

Lay your hand upon the tinge,
incandescent hands of those who kindle light,
That’s how to walk in kilns.

Alarm

My alarm
is like a city bus
when smoke
comes out the top,
it revs its engines
with a fuss
if nobody
gets off.

Cats

Sudden
notions
shake the head
climb the roof
wander off
Jump the house
Clear the bed
Poof.

Chang Po

His clothes
hang on
every chair,
he is a liar
with short hair,
he rolls
the globe
off its stand
next to
a velcro shoe.

AE Reiff’s blog /Twitter

After a Hard Rain

We do not have a rain gauge.
You can look it up on the Internet
If it matters.
Or you can
See how the dock sits in the water.
The pond is up two inches, I would say,
Maybe three.
We have one of the last wooden docks on
On the east shore,
The top still slick after the storm,
Maybe a little spongy in places
(Barry will give us a quote)
But it will dry.

Caroline and the kids
Will come down in a while
This kind, warm afternoon,
Float in innertubes, read magazines,
And joke of things known to them,
Their sense of family palpable
This kind, warm afternoon.
They are leaving in the morning
And the dock will revert
To its customary solitude.
Now and then Martha and I
Will gingerly ease 80-year-old bodies
Into cooler August waters.

Where They Have To Let You In

Across our New Hampshire pond
The pink and purple
Of dawn and dusk
On brisk September days.
Someone asks if I grew up here.
For years we were summer people
Except my father worked.
Skipping pebbles on the inlet
By the rented cottage,
Clearing the land for our own place,
Steamy summer jobs at the laundry.
Watching children then grandchildren
Take a first plunge
Off the dock.
Since retirement I think of us as
Three-season residents,
Crisp blue mornings, September into
October, foliage trips
To the Third Connecticut Lake.
Shorts and sweatshirt weather,
A day to get apples.
People ask if I grew up here.
I have started saying yes.

Year of Covid

Almost a year
Since that last public gathering,
The women’s basketball tournament
At the college near Golden Pines.
I have a picture in my camera, my phone,
Girls in teal shorts
Bringing the ball up court,
Captured in time.
Their season will end in 20 minutes.
The losers know this already,
But the winners don’t, their hopefulness
Captured in time,
In my camera, my phone.

In the months since
We have learned how to work
The drive-up app
On our phone.
We get groceries early on Sundays,
We take classes on Zoom
That we would skip
In person.
Out walking, I cross the street
To avoid people without masks,
Valuing some things more
Than neighborly companionship.
For that we have each other,
Susan and I. It wears well,
As one would hope it might
After 57 years.

In my camera they have not moved,
The girls in the teal shorts,
The other team, the pep band,
The handful of people, probably parents,
Who have driven up for the game,
Captured in time, their looks of
Hope and expectation,
Those girls from Pompeii
In teal basketball shorts,
Bringing the ball up court.

Robert Demaree is the author of four book-length collections of poems, including Other Ladders published in 2017 by Beech River Books. His poems have received first place in competitions sponsored by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire and the Burlington Writers Club. He is a retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. Bob’s poems have appeared in over 150 periodicals including Cold Mountain Review and Louisville Review.

You can find more of Bob’s poems here on Ink Pantry.

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.

Crib

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. 

A Man in Neutral

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.

Getting Lucky

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.