detailed descriptions of spiders

touching imperils green
studies dart gun handles
pardons dusty tarts
skirmishes military carriage
dalliances dance penguins
atrophied encyclopedia
dogmatic banjo drink
a drunk in a kangaroo tank
less evil than a tooth fairy

volumes institute cloudburst singles

Now you KNOW televised plutonium
charts PATHS between GRAZING invisibility
little GUSTS of hiding a distorted rendering

          CircuS peeling mousetrap
          HOLEs where fingers SWELL
          softer & stiller than a YACHT

full service glue wisp

telephone hooks catfish mummy
popularized three stooges dinner party
games provoke pin cushions
pangs of ulcerated shovel digging

big BOWL of sugar CUBES
& frozen vehicular kidneys

          STRAINed against screen
      spenT     ON          sabbatical
framed w/in horseshoe wolfhound
barnacle sunsets regained

headphone spark plug

perversions lustrous as angel hair
pasted contracts flame kicking
outward model faculty embalmed
copied notepad legalized budget

     prioritized up & coming machete
     glow fish resigning commission

starting time warp haiku
membrane pontificates
provincial tunnel parade

          traffic poisons prisms
          readies atmosphere
          unknown utilities
          supersized leave taking

     milestone toasted grace crowd
     hedgehog placemat grinder

a lucite table leg
mannequin football roast
canned to hint w/o appeal

contracts display overabundance

stray hammers swallow lip sockets
timeline agenda grouping microfiche
air tube intestine vents spooling
traumatic integrated palsy graduation
beetle byline bypassing database
recorded sprig parsley a troll
interiorized sanitation spill pinball
machine chronic influenza
stressed boiled reduced mothball
basic fingernail back light hump
excessive melting renegotiated

Joshua Martin is a Philadelphia based writer and filmmaker, who currently works in a library. He is the author of the books Pointillistic Venetian Blinds (Alien Buddha Press, 2021) and Vagabond fragments of a hole (Schism Neuronics). He has had pieces previously published in Coven, Spontaneous Poetics, Ygdrasil, Expat, Selcouth Station. RASPUTIN, Train, Fugitives & Futurists, Otoliths, M58, Punk Noir Magazine, Ink Pantry, Beir Bua, and Scud among others. 

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

Road Blocks

I come upon
every red light
and road block
along the way.

If you are in a hurry,
prepare for adversity
and all the obstacles
life can throw at you.

Monkey wrenches,
pins and needles,
that voodoo doll,
and the worst traffic
you can imagine.

Break-Up Song

A message from the radio.
Oh, it’s just a song.
Some break-up lyrics and
a bit of pleading.

I turn the dial for something
else less desperate.
I find nothing to my liking.
The radio just offers

the same old songs that get
stuck inside my head.
A message from a songbird
just outside my window.

I tune in to that for a while.
The bird lyrics soothe me
this morning. It’s probably
just another break-up song.

Give Me a Tree

Give me a tree.
That’s enough for me.
Rain in the evening.
Snow once in a while.
In the nest of the
tree singing birds.
Summer in winter
and sun in the day.
Give me a sweet smile
lovelier than any tree.
Give me a time to
see you once again.

Growing Greyer

The hair is not growing,
unless growing greyer
counts. The belly is growing.
My shirt buttons complain.

I am slowing down all
the time. I get so tired.
I need to get in shape,
get fit, and lose the pounds.

The hair is gone for good;
the excess hair from youth.
I grew a beard but shaved
it away after a few years.

I just could not get used
to it. I am sure it would
have made a good mugshot
if I ever got arrested.

Eight Minutes

In eight minutes
I could walk
to the Thai restaurant
and order take out.

In that time I
could start on
the laundry, make a sandwich,
and take my medicine.

In eight minutes
I could just
be a vegetable, drink some
wine, or run in circles.

In eight minutes
I could take
a power nap or write a
poem like this one.

Luis lives in California and works in Los Angeles. His poems have appeared in Blue Collar Review, Mad Swirl, and Unlikely Stories. His book, Make the Water Laugh, is published by Rogue Wolf Press.

Each time the screen door closes,
a mother rabbit sprints off

through seedlings I mowed slowly around
twenty-three years ago.

John Hansen received a BA in English from the University of Iowa and an MA in English Literature from Oklahoma State University. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Summerset Review, Spillwords Press, Trouvaille Review, 50-Word Stories, One Sentence Poems, The Dillydoun Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Eunoia Review, Sparks of Calliope, Amethyst Review, Drunk Monkeys, and elsewhere. He is English Faculty at Mohave Community College in Arizona.

The Strange Emptiness of the Night

Eerie emotions stormed through my weary mind
as dark visions screamed
into my haunting memories
streaming through the wind,
and as the moon flowed into the darkness
of the unforgiving horizon,
my mind was forced
to wade into the icy metaphoric ocean
ebbing in the shallows of my sorrows.
I strived to extinguish
the absurdity of the sorrowful existence
with cheerfulness,
but pieces of metallic anxiety
spewed from under the earth
to a place near where my mind
could not carry the heaviness of oxidized time,
and while climbing inside
rusting silence to escape,
I failed to bury
the demons of the night that called to me
in the hundred stolen voices of a mocking bird.
In the far-off distance,
I heard the faint haunting sound
of a ghost train’s whistle
echoing in the space between life and death,
a place where those in their fading years,
like me,
watched nervously
as the spectre with a scythe
searched for us to end our absurd existence.
The decomposing hours of the night,
continually held me captive
in this nightmare of dread,
left me with a sense of agonized wistfulness,
as I anxiously waited,
to no avail,
for reality to smother the hauntings of unreality
that had arrived in the strange emptiness
of the night.

Long Forgotten Memories

In an old cardboard box in the attic,
personal notes sent on cold mornings,
bent nails,
rusted paper clips,
a high school ring,
pencil stubs,
a chipped red checker piece,
but mostly just long lost memories.
The old box sits beside
an antique mirror,
a single bed,
a dented in trumpet from the 1930s,
boxes of esoteric philosophy books,
magazines,
sacks of old games;
monopoly,
chess,
clue,
and an old picture album
of unknown faces… unfinished;
the forgotten memories attached,
are covered with countless years of dust.
The things glistened with newness
a long time ago
when those who lived in this old house
still breathed, laughed and loved… now
a dull silence.
Life, so brief, so taken for granted,
as precious moments fade,
and then,
what was can only be found
in old picture albums,
and in the memories of
those very few of ebbing years,
who are still alive to remember.

Strange Pulses in my Questing Mind

The quivering lobes in my questing brain,
wait for soothing symbols
from a remote entity,
to tell me I should not be afraid.
I know it may be true, but,
I see the limits of reason
when concerning the problems,
and questions, concerning God’s existence.
Even scientists claim
that nothing can
evolve from nothing,
ergo something,
God, must have created everything.
But then what created God?
Or does God
have no beginning,
and time does not really exist,
except in our limited
time controlled minds?
My grandfather’s clock,
peals the message that death is inevitable.
However,
my mind still refuses
to accept the reality of the timing,
for it is still playing with an unreality…
that we do not really exist,
and are only imaginary figments
in the mind of a God.

The Goddess in my Mind Garden

Sekhmet the lioness,
covered my withering mind garden
with seven arrows and three tears,
and I watched grief growing
in my plastic garden soil
of red crystals
where shadows of sorrow lived.
It was a dark metallic day,
and the rusting sun
hid in the lonely thoughts of tears,
as she released
an icy wind into my mind,
so that I couldn’t remember
the warm metaphors
that would grow
beautiful visions into memories.

James, a retired professor and octogenarian, Best of Web nominee and three time Pushcart nominee, has had four books of poetry; “Solace Between the Lines,” “Light,” “Ancient Rhythms,” and “The Silent Pond,” over 1530 poems, five novels and 35 short stories published worldwide.  He earned his BS and MA from California State Polytechnic University, SLO, and his doctorate from BYU. His fifth book of poetry is set for release this year. 

Sleepy Whale 236

Mary’s without a second care
Every animal’s fault
The art of man
Barring the Bees
Ship of the streets
Brutes of the field
Ambulating, acquaintance, passionately
Friendly fashion indubitable
Making her look sideways at me
Hankering new vistas
Had her father’s gift
Irish exquisite, variations

Sleepy Whale 248

What did you see on the range?
In your father’s house
Your dying sister in the kitchen
Her point of junction
Flow from Round wood Revivers
Liner aqueduct yard exultance
Did it flow, subterranean bounty
Fallen below the sill
Water works unshed tears
Lay in the glen of the downs
Prolong the summer’s doubt

Sleepy Whale 407

Granite rocky mountain’s Utah High
Best Snow on Earth anywhere
Gloved hand, Cast Iron pan to fry
Message from Salvation Auctioneer
Lime-Green-Jell-O Frog Prince lie
She began to weep, wept an embrace
Be-mused over his limp wet rag
Shifty looking fellow playing the base
Drinking beer in an Irish Pub we all brag
Un-hasty friendliness to face
She melt a hearts of stone, rich silk stockings nag

Sleepy Whale 427

Sleepwalk to the grave, buried last evening
Wayne’s hand on his quest
Brightness of the stained glass
Haunting girlish shyness drinking beer
Instantaneous smoking effigy
Proceeding the sage sloops heard of Deer
Dark woman and fair man seated at Mass
Witchy bluest Irish blue eyed volunteer

Sleepy Whale 435

Shadows over her childhood’s crest
Her eyes glistering with tears last evening
Slightly flecked hair with gray, a long kissed guest
Gazing out the window’s Azul Glass
Have mercy, her end so near
Holiday’s lattice window Mass
Verge of tears, sighted eyes volunteer

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, Jute Milieu Lit and Utah Life Magazine, Snapdragon Journal, Poets Choice, In Parentheses, Adelaide Magazine, UN/Tethered Anthology and the Writing Disorder.

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

Fish and chips on a plate
A meal meant for me
But I was late
Wait…
I wasn’t

A misunderstanding
Clear to see
But fate already awaited me

Back of my head
Fistful of hair
Thrust my face
in that plate right there

Fish, chips, and mushy peas
embedded my face
with apparent ease

But that wasn’t enough
to vent your rage
Slapping followed
Head to toe
Bladder reacted
and let it flow

The shame, the pain,
Still felt today
Memories
Never go away…

Gail Thornhill is a bookworm from Cheshire. Her best subjects at school were English Language and Literature. She has always enjoyed reading, fact, fiction, and poetry.

Suffrage

My grandmother was asked as a young woman
by her young son:

What do you want for Christmas
besides world peace?

The anecdote survived for decades in my family.

Tonight I realize it said more about her
than I had seen:

she was born just after the First World War,
her Cold War Catholic parenting

was unafraid of the Red menace—

she didn’t want to frighten her children
about the Communists,

she had been able to vote,
she had made something,

call it a difference.

Negation

     Twilight—
there are many brief
         hues to it—

Covid Winter

My grandmother would carefully select
Hallmark cards
with the appropriate words for the recipient and occasion.

I defended Hallmark for this reason—
without the detail that this was my grandmother,
she was a possible person in my comment—

I defended Hallmark to my literature teacher in college
and he said, with a laugh,

“If you have to rely on Hallmark, you’re in trouble.”

My son’s world history teacher showed his class
a Hallmark movie today at the end of the semester,

and she told them all that
she and her husband love to watch Hallmark movies together.

We laughed at them afterwards in my son’s room,
gentle, brief, slightly sad laughter.

And I walked in the cold darkness of December tonight
and prayer graced me

and language itself died like night at the dawn
and was reborn in the unspeakable pain of the dying.

Christmas Lights

      I am proud
                   of the dark houses,
            their hopefulness—

Letter against Anger to the Daughters of George Hoshida

Begin with the beauty of smallness:
on the evening of the convergence,
on the longest night of the year,
winter solstice, my children and wife looked for the bright planets
coming together, joining,
and they could not find them in the dark winter sky.

The vastness of the universe has for decades
seemed to me annihilating,
the dark everywhere around us—
so that meaning would become as if it never was
if I thought about that emptiness for too long.

But tonight I discovered how small I am,
my loves and worries,
and realized that it is, despite this, more than nothing, my life,
my family and my home, my being,
my human body and soul,
truly small though I am in the winter solstice of space.

Your father had every reason to be enraged,
imprisoned as he was simply for being Japanese in Hawaii—
losing his oldest daughter from whom he was separated—
and through it all
he kept drawing,

mostly human figures,
as he had been taught by correspondence school,
often three of them sharing a loose-leaf page—
maybe there was a rageful healing thoroughness there,
assembling families of separate figures again and again,
like laughter occupying each body
until its independence was complete.

Brian Glaser has published three books of poems and many essays on poetry and poetics.

Applause of a Nightmare

Applause of a nightmare
resounds in my room

I try to cover my ears
with floating images of you

But on the stage of boring energy,
I can’t escape from the applause

I don’t know what to sing
I don’t know how to dance

The applause never ceases

It looks as if
endless discord
dives into me

Lips of Summer

Lips of summer
kiss my eyelids fiercely

I feel the heat
I feel the beats

Waves of vehemence
and
ripples of softness
mix on my eyelids,
then,
I’m soaked in
a curtain like fire

Yuu Ikeda is a Japanese based poet. She loves writing, reading mystery novels, and drinking sugary coffee. She writes poetry on her website. Published poems are in Nymphs, Sad Girl Review, and JMWW.

We / feel cooler / in dry air

Parts of the morning collide
with the eventual winner

of the home & away series.
Not much is left. A few shards

cause craters in the eyes, a part-
pennant does pennance as it

wraps around the nearest set
of ankles. Then a dog sled ar-

rives, still moist with snow. We
welcome it with closed arms.

elephant cup cakes

           ‘ Pachyderms and pastry! I love it.’   Tom Beckett

That a pachyderm is highly comp-
etitive in the global pastry market
does not adequately capture the true
sense of how unlikely scenarios such
as this are. Those Instagram influencers
who talked this up were all probably
tickled by the ivory. Money may have
changed hands. But the natural attri-
butes of the animal are ideal for the
task — tusks, tail, trunk; all master
mixers — why be surprised? & those
feet! Pancakes galore. The perfect size
for carving out cheesecake casings.

A line from Billie Jean King

An exciting update is coming.
A chart’s been prepared to
illustrate the main points. Small
popups will appear that use

colour & typography to provoke
a psychological reaction. There’s
certainly a place for that, simple
or complex, since we are both

made up of energy & used to
the use of icons to represent
emotions. It won’t be that long
before you have command of

the update, can use all parts of
it intuitively. Savour the small win —
this victory is fleeting. Another
update is now only days away.

Hosomaki

The queue outside the sushi
bar melts into one another
as the bagpipes suddenly
arrive. Raw fish & rice is no
match for tartan, even one
only rarely worn. That’s the

problem with living in a
garrison city — too many con-
tradictions, too much bias.
Too few true conflicts. Which
is why the military make what
they can out of what’s available.

A Paumanok Picture

Later, when the road
had opened,

Walt Whitman
was allowed to pass.

Mark Young was born in New Zealand but now lives in a small town in North Queensland in Australia. He has been publishing poetry for over sixty years, & is the author of around sixty books, primarily text poetry but also including speculative fiction, vispo, creative non-fiction, & art history. His most recent book is The Sasquatch Walks Among Us, from sandy press, available through Amazon.

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