I Gave It One Star by John Grey

A friend recommends
a movie to me.

I finally get around
to seeing it.

And I hate
every 103 minutes
of the thing.

So I doubt my friend’s
good taste
but not his friendship.

“What’d you think?”
he asks me,
a week or so later.

“Loved it,”
I tell him.

It’s not so much a lie
as an answer
to a previous question.

--

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, North Dakota Quarterly and Lost Pilots. Latest books, ”Between Two Fires”, “Covert” and “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in California Quarterly, Birmingham Arts Journal, La Presa and Shot Glass Journal.

The Way of The Hearts by Kushal Poddar

As much as we would prefer to meet
eachother as a part of a stone paved path
or to find us held between the orange soda
and the Celtic blue sky besides those
miniature icebergs and those red and
white straws sucking the carbonated sighs
we would meet afloat in the ethernet
or in a slow and sweaty bus journeying
to the heaps of papers or flat screens.
That too is a beginning. Autumn comes.

--

The author of 'Postmarked Quarantine' and 'How To Burn Memories Using a Pocket Torch' has ten books to his credit. He is a journalist, father of a four-year-old, illustrator, and an editor. His works have been translated into twelve languages and published across the globe.

After That by Paul Dickey

You will only get one first wife.
After that,
there isn’t any limit.
After while
though, the law will haul you in,

tell you
You too have seen enough of sorry,
enough to tears.
You stand caught with the goods,
convicted

of breaking and entering your own home.
Lovers
will, turn the moon back and blue,
cover
up their crimes. You go back to the scene

plotting
ways the crimes would have been perfect,
After that,
you give up and cry out
with Job

that it is too late for mercy.


--

Paul Dickey has appeared recently in Plume, The Midwest Quarterly, Laurel Review, I-70 Review, Plainsongs, failbetter.com, and Apple Valley Review. His recent book of poetry volume was released in September, 2022 in Anti-Realism in Shadows and Suppertime. He has also released in the past year a volume of flash fiction by What My Characters Should Have Said and a poetry chapbook A Reading of Dali (Likely Misundersood) Which is Twenty Meters Becomes This Poet's Self - portrait.

When I Knew You by Paulette Hampton

I clamored above the darkness
To see the sun rise blood red
I flew into the heavens
To hear the kind words the world once said
I crashed into hell
To feel the remorse and regret
and nothing has come close
to the awe, love, and pain I felt when I knew you

--

Paulette Hampton holds a Masters in Reading Education. She has self-published two books and has had her poetry accepted by several online magazines.

After Many Years by David Sydney

"Mel? Mel Cromley?"

"Right… And it's?…"

"Fred. Fred Dwarkin…Remember me?"

Mel and Fred hadn't seen one another in years.

"Of course, Dwarkin."

What were the chances of such a meeting on a street in Philadelphia?

"I thought you were dead, Mel."

"No… No, I haven't died."

"Not in a car accident, huh?"

Fred seemed to recall hearing that Mel died in an accident.

"No… No car accident, Fred. I did have a skiing accident, though."

Skiing, huh?

Fred couldn't believe it. Mel, so uncoordinated, taking up skiing? And not dying in a skiing accident either?

--

David Sydney is a physician. He has had pieces in Little Old Lady Comedy, 101 Words, Microfiction Monday, 50 Give or Take, Friday Flash Fiction, Grey Sparrow Journal, Bright Flash Literary Review, Disturb the Universe, Pocket Fiction, R U Joking, Entropy Squared, and Rue Scribe.

Poem to Poem by Merritt Waldon

for Thom (the World Poet) Woodruff


Poet to poet
Poem to poem
Footprints to photograph
DNA of tomorrow
Re-assembled in moments
For sand castle tides

Poet to poet
Poem to poem
Fingerprints of prosody
DNA of eternity
Re-assembled in voices
For playground slides

Poet to poet
Poem to poem
Ancient fire to electricity
DNA of madness
Re-assembled in hollows
For boot-leggers of love

Poet to poet
Poem to poem
Spirits to eclectic seraph
DNA of disobedience
Re-assembled in revolutions
For a consciousness of lights

--

Merritt Waldon b 1974. Madison, Indiana. Has been published in numerous publications nationally and internationally. He has 5 books of poetry. His first: Oracles From A Strange Fire by Merritt Waldon and Ron Whitehead. (Cajun Mutt Press, 2020). He lives in Austin, Indiana.

The American Dream by Skaja Evens

It’s a damn challenge to not give in. Do not give up, either.

Trying to keep it together to appear moderately functional in an extraordinary life in a world that would rather beat you down to keep you beige and mediocre.

The exceptional are occasionally revered until they dare step out of line. Then they are forgotten as quickly as discovered. And attention moves to the Next Big Thing.

Unless you can be exploited for ratings, devoid of entertainment value.
Anything for a quick buck.

My heart hurts a lot, trying to find my own way.
I’ve never fit into the compartment this world demands of me.

The self-proclaimed gurus will sell you something they don’t really have. Dressed up in pretty imagery where you, too, can have the life they advertise for only four payments of more money than you’ll ever see in a lifetime.

Surely your future happiness is worth going into debt for someone else’s half-baked opinions. Just give up anything that makes right now worth living, and you’ll afford the life of your dreams!

While those in power laugh behind closed doors, brainstorming ways to squeeze blood from a stone.

I am in so much pain. But so is everyone else, so who cares, right?
There are plenty that have it worse than me.
Suck it up, buttercup, and fall in line.
You’re nothing special, and if you can’t pick up the slack, we’ll find someone to take your place.

Be that machine cog and be grateful for any morsel of happiness.

What a joke, yeah?

Pay attention to who’s laughing.

--

Skaja Evens is a Best of the Net-nominated writer living in SE Virginia. Her work has appeared in Medusa's Kitchen, The Rye Whiskey Review, Synchronized Chaos, Mad Swirl, Spillwords Press, Ink Pantry, Blue Pepper, among others. Her first book, conscientia veritatis, from Whiskey City Press, is available on Amazon.