Vitality of Literature

Subtending void,
vanished time,
actualizing
my absence.

Sempiternal words
created life —
please preserve
my presence.

Motion & Stillness in Rustbelt City (Buffalo, NY)

Seeking the heart of a city
may be a false quest:
is not each human heart,
each structure
in the built environment,
each shape and flow
of the natural world
suffused with
the peace and chaos of urban life
irreducible constituents of
the heart of a city,
pulsating in balance
the life and death of everything,
unable to be localized
to any one place?

How foolish the human spirit is
to seek something
which cannot be found.
How foolish I was to find myself
at the Civil War monument
beneath the gaze of the Union
and her soldiers and sailors,
seeking understanding
in the interlocutions,
the laughter,
the sparrows,
the comings and goings,
the flags and music
moving on the wind
to the play of children.

Always 15 minutes away
from wherever you need to be
as the saying goes —
pockets for pedestrians
swallowed by highways
over a motor abyss
and it is well to be so close
to a friend or work,
coffee breaks or home,
but time piles driving alone,
leading thoughts to unknowns:

Memories of passenger seat
dialogues with a friend now absent,
melancholy towards a concert,
panic attack towards the airport –
thinking of everything in nothing
in the road I travel, engine I use,
person I pass, position I keep,
my future, present, past —
much to remember and forget,
narrating existence through
selves and sounds and cities.

Antipoem

Pseudowritten antipoem,
unbosomed unpoetry,
ubique ubiety:
paradox of plague.

Depression

Contentment visits
as I extricate
myself from sleep

before memory
of being human
draws me back

to music silenced
beneath behemoths
of how we hurt each other,

our shared sought love
that casts out fear
like eager arms of children.

Disintegration

In early morning still
I sing myself to sleep,
fractal music scattered
as fragmented hymnary,

inhabiting
space ceded
by silence
and its static,

inhibiting
the self I was
and am and
will become,

inheriting
some creation
of my own
disharmony,

inhuming
stone sundered
while sculpturing
sciamachy.

Connor Orrico is a student and amateur field recordist interested in global health, mental health, and how we make meaning from the stories of person and place we share with each other, themes which are explored in his words in The Collidescope, Burning House Press, and Headline Poetry & Press, as well as his sounds at Bivouac Recording.

Grief

we row, hearing only our oars
pluck the sigh of ripples free
from the lake’s swish of midnight

and silence, lifting water to sudden
cold light, cutting and breaking at the damp
float of moss that clings to the cold

wooden skin of our craft
the stir of sand and silt scurries
beneath us as we pull on,

heavy with grief, our backs turned
from the shore and its familiar
round, worn stones, moving

onwards and away, towards
the tangle of the nearing tree strutted
embankment, its branches open

and different with day.

Sleep- Some Scenarios

1. Absence.

From the beginning you wept, tossing
and un-soothed, suckling milk
to an exhaustion that gaped
from a hungry, red mouth.

We paced and sang rhyming reels,
running and running their rhythms
amongst the thinning air,
heated by your wails.

Then wings, gentle and absolute
with downy sleep
would brush us and rock us
from such barrenness.

2. Accidental.

Sofas sag with TV induced stupor
and beer bottles brag of an evening lounge,
gathering in glazed emptiness
on the coffee tables while you sleep,
fully clothed, as the drone of day
spirals fitfully to insubstantial rest.

Later you will jolt awake,
bleary, shirt astray and stumble
against the furniture of the world
stripped to 2AM; stark
with the inconsequence of failure.

3. Induced.

Sleep arrives in the form of opaline tablets
marooned on a sanitised, metal tray,
each pill an island thudding with escape.

They slip between your waxy lips
and soon breath is a stringy rattle
clambering to the air, while dreams lurch
un-fettered beneath your eye-lids,

unwrapping the last of the world
amongst the dim lights of a hospice ward.

On Worthing Beach

Smooth shingle, rounded by sea,
slides and sinks as we walk,
unevenly as the tide
does in its blinking and glistening
suck at the shore, lapping
us in our race to print the sands.
Its salty rush at us, cool even
in summertime.

The wind full of bluster
and smudges of faraway
fairground jangles
haunts our walk,
intercepting our words
with its stolen sounds.

So even as you push your fingers
against the crevices of my palm
and pull me to you,
we feel the persistence of centuries
echo within the town, the tide
and the gulls’ clasp of the paling sky
ring at us.
Our footsteps vanishing already
to the hold of the land.

Saturday Evening – Suburbia

The trees here are suburban stooges,
the stand-ins for a woodland,
growing in the dim expanse
of a backyard,
their shared vision grown to leaves
and translated, in mob, to the breeze,
their whispered drool in stereo
with the screech
of hand break spins
that greet this neighbourhood
from the supermarket car-park,
where, on evenings like these
its empty space is loot – for some-
to race with; to fill the trivia
of time with
and escapist fumes elude
the labour of trees.
Oxygen and air a cloak
as scarce as day.

I Realised When I Heard Him Play

that instead of talking he was glossing
life to a pop song’s day,
fizzy with vacancy.

While his violin sung of a river;
long notes following long notes
in ripples pushed to air
from the eddy and flurry of water
circling in the dank murk of the weir.

His bow’s strong strokes
alive with sorrow swung
from beneath the current’s keening push
of minnows swum to minim beats
then to semibreves

while his fingers leapt between
fine, taut strings coaxing
music from hollow mahogany
to sing the sadness
of the sentences unsaid.

Jenny Middleton has written poetry throughout her life. Some of this is published in printed anthologies or on online poetry sites. Jenny is a working mum and writes whenever she can find stray minutes between the chaos of family life. She lives in London with her husband, two children and two very lovely, crazy cats.  You can read more of her poems at her website.  

Vitality of Literature

Subtending void,
vanished time,
actualizing
my absence.

Sempiternal words
created life —
please preserve
my presence.

Motion & Stillness in Rustbelt City (Buffalo, NY)

Seeking the heart of a city
may be a false quest:
is not each human heart,
each structure
in the built environment,
each shape and flow
of the natural world
suffused with
the peace and chaos of urban life
irreducible constituents of
the heart of a city,
pulsating in balance
the life and death of everything,
unable to be localized
to any one place?

How foolish the human spirit is
to seek something
which cannot be found.
How foolish I was to find myself
at the Civil War monument
beneath the gaze of the Union
and her soldiers and sailors,
seeking understanding
in the interlocutions,
the laughter,
the sparrows,
the comings and goings,
the flags and music
moving on the wind
to the play of children.

Always 15 minutes away
from wherever you need to be
as the saying goes —
pockets for pedestrians
swallowed by highways
over a motor abyss
and it is well to be so close
to a friend or work,
coffee breaks or home,
but time piles driving alone,
leading thoughts to unknowns:

Memories of passenger seat
dialogues with a friend now absent,
melancholy towards a concert,
panic attack towards the airport –
thinking of everything in nothing
in the road I travel, engine I use,
person I pass, position I keep,
my future, present, past —
much to remember and forget,
narrating existence through
selves and sounds and cities.

Antipoem

Pseudowritten antipoem,
unbosomed unpoetry,
ubique ubiety:
paradox of plague.

Depression

Contentment visits
as I extricate
myself from sleep

before memory
of being human
draws me back

to music silenced
beneath behemoths
of how we hurt each other,

our shared sought love
that casts out fear
like eager arms of children.

Connor Orrico is a student and amateur field recordist interested in global health, mental health, and how we make meaning from the stories of person and place we share with each other, themes which are explored in his words in The Collidescope, Burning House Press, and Headline Poetry & Press, as well as his sounds at Bivouac Recording.

Chapter 2

Moving forward, I want my disease to be my companion,
so she can help me write my canon.

Eclipse

I borrowed the eyes of an eclipse,
to wink Eden under the table,

I saw a secret, which is to say –
I didn’t see it:

to borrow eyes from not a friend, but Mother
Nature,

to see what I can’t see unseen.

Gunshot romance

There’s a girl sitting next to me,
belongs in a Tarantino movie.
But I’m not dodging bullets;
I’m only dodging a longshot kiss.

How Terrifying…

How terrifying death is
in the middle of a thought.
My eyes wanted to slam shut
such that they could defend
against what I know not.

Kindness

Sometimes human kindness
            to one another
is so short
                        as to be nonexistent.

Nausea

There is nothing more repulsive
than the smiling photo of a politician
in their ad,
those papers glued to surfaces many,
like a parasite —
those who themselves are but a surface plenty.

Waterfall

I want my thoughts
to descend
like a waterfall,
such that the droplets form
an image of you.

When…

When every word you’ve used
           Too much —
It’s a hollowed word,
          Sans thought.

Word Map of a Cat on a Mat

Putting the indexes out,
I saw the cat,
Sleeping with torso outstretched
While I, unheimlich, rushed to and fro;
On a mat, it sat — in peace,
And I said sighing, what I want is that.

Michael T. Smith is an Assistant Professor of English who teaches both writing and film courses. He has published over 150 pieces (poetry and prose) in over 80 different journals. He loves to travel.

delta cockroaches

Plumbing lines should really
be treated with or treated to
video clips of Michael Jackson
from the days of the Jackson
5. Except. The browser does

not currently recognize any of
the video formats on offer since
YouTube has **completely re-
moved**its Flash player code
from its site. I load up my boat

with pretzels & set sail for the
Azores in the hope that hedge-
rows of blue hydrangeas will
recognize a kindred stranger.
I Want You Back propels me

along even though it’s on its
last legs; but, at sea, it doesn’t
matter all that much. A mael-
strom beckons to me, but my
pretzels kick in & minimize it

in the bottom left hand corner
of the screen where it can whirl
impotently. Finally I reach the
outskirts of the harbour. A limo
is waiting. It moonwalks me in.

axing proves

You do not have to settle for
the town mahjong hero — here,
let me take the keyboard. Lady-
bug y Cat Noir have a past &
revisionist views of events, but
even the most skeptical analyst
does not believe all the goodwill
has been completely wiped out.

So, there is nothing to forgive. The
protagonist enters a new world
where early voting polling places
are not yet available. She is still
quite mobile but gets tired easily.
Is three weeks of it too long?

A line from Lionel Ritchie

She hid behind a tree as a car
drove past. Sometimes these
things just happen, especially
when antacids aren’t working

anymore. Nothing I could say
would help. The surrounding
landscape vanished as the latest
sci-fi series was streamed, ad-

free, on to the quarry walls. The
contextual translation could be
anything you wanted, within or
without your comfort zone. A

boy fell from the balcony. CCTV
footage captured a group of neigh-
bours coming to his rescue. This
Pin was discovered by Prissy Duh.

Le Grand Siècle

Crazy parties at night
in the gardens of
the Summer Palace. Morning
comes, & the crows come
to pick over the remains.
We go for a walk,
compare notes
on the paintings inside. The
Fragonards. The Watteaux.
Reminisce about that
string quartet we heard
playing in the small salon
off the Rue des Brigands
a few evenings ago. There
your heels clicked against
the cobblestones. Here on
the lawn they are silent;
but the crows
pecking at the plates
replicate the noise as
I remember it. Robbers
Street. What did I
steal from you? What you
from me? No demanding
notes, though we paid
the ransoms anyway.

Mark Young lives in a small town in North Queensland in Australia, & has been publishing poetry since 1959. He is the author of over fifty books, primarily text poetry but also including speculative fiction, vispo, & art history. His work has been widely anthologized, & his essays & poetry translated into a number of languages. His most recent books are a collection of visual pieces, The Comedians, from Stale Objects de Press; turning to drones, from Concrete Mist Press; & turpentine from Luna Bisonte Prods.

Change of Seasons: October 2019

We filled the birdfeeders three weeks ago.
Against the yellow wood
We can see they have not gone down
At all.
We may wind up spreading the seed
On the ground
For the chipmunks and squirrels,
Who will consider it their due.
Forty degrees on the porch this morning.
In town orange lights set out for Halloween,
Evidence of lives that go on
When we are not here.
The somber beauty of leaves turning
In the rain.
Along the shore
The water pipe lies atop the ground.
The town will turn it off next week.
The birdfeeders are still full.
The birds have headed out
And so will we.

Christmas 2019

Late December. We have gathered
For a Christmas concert.
The town band—amateurs, neighbours—
Plays O Holy Night.
A new generation has come
To Golden Pines. They share greetings
As though they knew each other well.
Our crowd, in the ninth decade of life,
Ranks thinned,
Small signs of things not working well,
Joints, numbness,
This year more walkers leaned up
Against the wall.

That they are amateurs is clear enough,
Except for the first trumpet,
The song they play once scorned by the church:
Our hearts are gladdened,
The room is made to glow
At this particular Christmas
In this particular year.

The Wrong Sweater

At stores this morning
Long lines to exchange or return:
Too large, too small, too green, too blue,
Most simply inconvenienced
By the innocent errors of loved ones.
But the day after Christmas
Also brings out the worst in us,
Holds up to ridicule and contempt
The kindness of others—
What on earth made them think
I would ever wear that,
In every family distant kin
You never see who still send the children
Outgrown games they never play.

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.

Poetry Drawer: At Exit 50; The Shade Oak; Wedding Song by Robert Demaree

Poetry Drawer: REQUIEM FOR A DEAD COMPUTER by Robert Demaree

Poetry Drawer: Turnover: Foliage Tour by Robert Demaree

Poetry Drawer: At The Post Office by Robert Demaree

Poetry Drawer: Probabilities of Living by Robert Demaree

Poetry Drawer: New Organ by Robert Demaree

Poetry Drawer: In The ICU: Lakefront Property: Prognosis by Robert Demaree

Poetry Drawer: The Bartender’s Tale: Approaching 82 by Robert Demaree

Poetry Drawer: Golden Shovel Exercise: Chateau Frontenac by Robert Demaree

Poetry Drawer: Rush Week: Knowledge by Robert Demaree

Poetry Drawer: The Trouble with Pronouns: Basket Weave by Robert Demaree

If they were going to put me in the nuthouse
I was going to need my collection of Bertita Harding novels
They had power–
the stories of these heroes would keep me alive:
Karl and Zita of Hungary
Austria’s Franz Joseph and Elizabeth
the Mexicans Maximillian and Carlotta
Duse and Da, whose tale age cannot wither
and the glowing story of Clara Shumann

but my wife, a Lithuanian
whose hands were strong
from decades of milking cows
tore them from my grasp
and shoved them into the Fat Boy stove
where I heard them crackling in anguish
as she held me away

I would have burned my hands retrieving them
and not cared at all

All I could save was my favorite
the story of the Braganzas of Brazil
who created independence
from the Empire of Portugal
which I had hidden
in my patterned brocade vest
which I wore over my cummerbund

The hell with you all
I was never cut out to be a farmer
When they release me I’ll take Bertita
on the open road
and together we’ll find a green paradise
something like Ireland

Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois has had over fourteen-hundred of his poems and fictions appear in literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. He has been nominated for numerous prizes, and was awarded the 2017 Booranga Writers’ Centre (Australia) Prize for Fiction. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, is based on his work as a clinical psychologist in a state hospital, is available for Kindle and Nook, or as a print edition. His new poetry collection was published in 2019, The Arrest of Mr Kissy Face. He lives in Denver, Colorado, USA.

Inky Interview: Author Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois from Denver, Colorado

Flash In The Pantry: Serotonin Reuptake by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Flash In The Pantry: Mandela Warp: A Moment in History by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Flash In The Pantry: Cooking Shows by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Flash In The Pantry: Still Wet by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Poetry Drawer: Loch by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Poetry Drawer: Photogenic by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Poetry Drawer: Microwave by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Poetry Drawer: Granite by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Poetry Drawer: Trick by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Poetry Drawer: Coal by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Poetry Drawer: Petition by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Poetry Drawer: Poetry Slam by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Poetry Drawer: Hygiene by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Poetry Drawer: Between Jobs & Not Me by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Poetry Drawer: Mea Culpa by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Poetry Drawer: Stoned by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Poetry Drawer: Five Hundred SCUBA Divers by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Poetry Drawer: Love Bird by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Poetry Drawer: Wailing Wall by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Poetry Drawer: Adventure Travel: Glue: God Created Fledglings: Winds of Santa Ana: Janice M by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Poetry Drawer: Buzz by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

The Action Figure is Alive

After the book “Midlife Action Figure” (2019) by Chris Banks.

It starts with a close call,
the wiener dog’s
weaponized hindquarters
shimmying on the rug.

Our hero escapes
under the sofa,
waits until it’s safe
to make his way
to the laundry room.

He finds refuge
in a clean pile
of sheets.

The rumble of the dishwasher
lulls the weary warrior
to sleep.

*

The next morning,
he wakes to the sound
of a gouged mouse
screeching from a rattrap.

Can’t save squeaky now.

Sitting up, he counts
the bees buzzing
around his head,
feels dizzy, decompresses
back into the basket.

Mutant boy idles,
replete in the linens
until the housekeeper
shuffles over, lifts the lid
in full Yoda mode.

“Sunken treasure, you are!”
she exclaims,
and if the lionheart could,
he would smile back.

Snowball Effect

The office pet eats butter
off the kitchen counter,
makes the rat jealous.

Mom calls, tells you
she’s getting a divorce.

The VP’s favourite
seduction tactic is limerick.
You’re already surfing
for a new job
in a stolen boat –

anyone asks,
you’re babysitting
for a friend.

Mrs. Berger changes
the report deadline
from a week
to three hours from now.

The kicker is that the research
must be typed blindfolded.

Another catch is
the building is under fire,
bulletproof trolls with Uzis.

Chunks of concrete
dislodge, crack
of the icecap.

Hide the penguin
under your desk.

Better to apply
the adult diaper now,
meet your maker later –
but soon!

To think, last night
was spent eating
cheese puffs in front
of the TV, naked.

“Normal behaviour” is
training for a shootout,
*Tyler Durden sermons
blaring in the background.

Turn the lights off
before closing the door,
conservation before annihilation.

*Tyler Durden is the main character in the 1996 novel “Fight Club” by Chuck Palahniuk. He is a ringleader who brainwashed his club members to commit crimes across the city.

Samuel Strathman is a poet, author, educator, and editor at Cypress: A Poetry Journal.  Some of his poems have appeared in Dreams Walking, Feed Magazine, and Mineral Lit Mag.  His first chapbook, “In Flocks of Three to Five” will be released later this year by Anstruther Press.  

I grabbed a can of wasp spray
from my wife’s hand
She was a farm girl and stronger than me
She grabbed the can back and hit me in the head with it

Wasps had colonized the attic of our farmhouse
the one my granddad had built in 1918
and our love was being overwhelmed
by the difference in our reactions

I found the wasps’ buzzing comforting
consoling
I heard messages in their drone
messages designed for me alone
telling me about the true nature of the universe

My wife said that if the noise didn’t stop
she was going to fall off the wagon—
was I too stupid to understand?

Yet now that she’d hit me with the can of wasp spray
she couldn’t use it
She had created an inner barrier
that she didn’t understand
but was unable to surmount

She went outside without saying anything
got into her old Pontiac
and headed down the road
I knew she was going to the meth house

Whether she was going to do meth
or just fuck the meth maker
I didn’t know

But I couldn’t pursue her
I was too engaged
in listening to the wasps’ messages

Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois has had over fourteen-hundred of his poems and fictions appear in literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. He has been nominated for numerous prizes, and was awarded the 2017 Booranga Writers’ Centre (Australia) Prize for Fiction. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, is based on his work as a clinical psychologist in a state hospital, is available for Kindle and Nook, or as a print edition. His new poetry collection was published in 2019, The Arrest of Mr Kissy Face. He lives in Denver, Colorado, USA.

Inky Interview: Author Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois from Denver, Colorado

Flash In The Pantry: Serotonin Reuptake by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Flash In The Pantry: Mandela Warp: A Moment in History by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Flash In The Pantry: Cooking Shows by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Flash In The Pantry: Still Wet by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Poetry Drawer: Loch by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Poetry Drawer: Photogenic by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Poetry Drawer: Microwave by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Poetry Drawer: Granite by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Poetry Drawer: Trick by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Poetry Drawer: Coal by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Poetry Drawer: Poetry Slam by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Irene

Irene took quickly to the scene,
Looking to discover new things,
Looking to be places she’d never been.

Irene quickly became a yes woman all right,
Saying yes to the men’s aberrant advances
And yes to the women’s aimless advice.

Irene took quickly to saying yes
Becoming addicted to their requests,
A few more track marks on her arms,

A few more heads up her skirt.
Irene quickly became a no woman all right.
She became no woman all right.

Splinters

I have found solace in this fluid state, this comforting womb,
This escape from the reality of mankind’s mania,
Drawn to the water’s stillness, its silence, to its blue

But the waves have torn off this false merman tale
And spat me out saltily to the sands above
Bidding me no mercy, no protection as the ancient whale

Waves a gentle goodbye – I bring my wet, wrinkled fingertips
To brush away these ocean-like teardrops.
I pluck away the barnacles like scabs that have to be compulsively picked

Off like a fish being scaled, flaked until it is merely flesh to be devoured.
I am no longer welcome to live in a world where there is only peace.
I stand naked in my vulnerability, left human after the sea has had me scoured.

I step out of the water and find footing on solid ground,
Gravity weighing heavy on these shoulders
Taking in the sights of the green earth and the sky’s musical sounds

Channeling the mighty thunder of the gods to stand tall, to stay afloat.
Even though, I fear the wind will whisk me away to mere particles of dust
As the hurricane makes splinters of a small, wooden fishing boat.

I fear I would rather be splintered in the sea.

Garden of the Gods

I stand upon this rock where we had our second date,
then both spent and energized from lovemaking,
Dazed by the camel-shaped formation, the gods’ fate

that brought us here, miles from any sound but these beating hearts,
longing to be lost in each other’s touch again,
we climbed higher, fell deeper, believing we would never part

but as the space between the camel’s hump and its head grows,
so does the space between us now, both physical and beyond,
this space, this emptiness, this forest full of woes.

Every year someone falls to their death –
Dazed by the dizzying distance below, I find my footing,
pondering what hope for us there is left.

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).