Terminal One by Brandon Shane

The island has been there
for some time, a crescent
and a blob when it needs to be,
beautiful and hideous,
and many have gone
including brothers, sisters, fathers,
piling wood atop other wood
until it becomes something
to describe, where highways
ascend and descend at equal
speeds, but always return
like trains crawling back
to their stations, for the satisfaction
of being filled by something
with less self-hatred;
someone will bring you home,
and the carrier delivers
packages to your oblong door,
the lighthouse may be old
but it steers ships away
from coasts which are violently
indifferent, and steep hills
sometimes lead to fields;
a musician is bleeding on stage
having a religious experience
while the audience stares
at their phones like frogs
drifting on lily pads;
neither of us are going anywhere
we both know this island
is waiting for us; the invitation
non-negotiable, process
has already begun,
and soon enough
will the moment come
our toes dig into damp sand
and we forget
what the ocean
ripped from our chests.

--

Brandon Shane is a poet and horticulturist, born in Yokosuka Japan. You can see his work in the Argyle Literary Magazine, Berlin Literary Review, Acropolis Journal, Grim & Gilded, Heimat Review, York Literary Review, Mersey Review, Prairie Home Mag, among many others. He would later graduate from Cal State Long Beach with a degree in English. Find him on Twitter @Ruishanewrites

Tattoos by John Grey

His name
is inked
on her midriff.

Her name
is inked
on his
upper right arm.

They may
not always love
one another

but their skin
has no other choice.

--

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.

You Knew You’d Come to This by Daniel Guido

I will hold myself
Knowing each aching thrust from my heart
Echoes in your bedroom over the bridge
And our emotions coincide
With you in pleasure
And I in pieces

--

An aspiring author, Daniel thrives on crafting dark and intricate stories. His enthusiasm for reading, writing, occasional procrastination, and blasting music pour fuel on his creative pursuits.

What We Want by Kushal Poddar

On Thursday asleep,
as I feel being, in the humid
afternoon, while waiting
for what we all wait for since
we begin this form of ours, this life,

and on this twenty-seventh day
since the neighborhood rape
and murder, fourteen hours since
the latest classroom shooting
in the US of A, sixty seconds
after the last bomb blasted
in the kingdom of the ruined things
I realise what we want -

the clarity of tiny viles, sorted
from the most white to the darkest
black on a shelf to study.

An eagle, sick, almost extinct,
circles to highlight its shriek
above my house, our houses,
and we wake up, feel
the pressure to urinate as one.

--

Although Kushal Poddar has authored ten books, the latest being 'A White Can For The Blind Lane', and his works have been translated into twelve languages, and he has been a sub-editor of Outlook magazine and the editor of Words Surfacing, and he does some illustrations and sketches for various magazines if you ask him, he will say that he gardens a growing up daughter.

Divorce by Manny Grimaldi

There is no rest.

I go crazy to see you
in the raw when you open
the night coop and whistle
at the chickens.

You are a cowbell,
they run at you voracious, four stomached
your hands of feed to scatter.

Don’t spread yourself
anywhere else
but here, near me,
where the shale skies tickle

your humming humor like whale bones, fingered
at their stops—
in perpetual motion with the stripping sea
and the marigolds mute for lovely laying there.

Take each blanched, chiseled rib for tender pay,
    build your home between
your legs in ambergris,
    smell the perfume of the humpback,
resolve to eat
    it in the morning when
you harvest what’s left for your kitchen,

when you remember
    dark the men who bit you they are.

You wake the dead
when you decide to consume them,
resemble them,
or carry on their name with dignity
in the only manner you’ll allow—
—your children’s social security cards.

It is as easy as lying.

--

Manny Grimaldi is a writer, actor, and editor from Louisville, Kentucky. He is managing editor at Yearling Poetry Journal, in Lexington, Kentucky. His publications and future pubs include The Rye Whiskey Review, Moss Puppy, Pegasus, The Crossroads Literary Magazine, Drinkers Only, LexPoMo anthologies, and Club Plum.

Butterfly by Joan McNerney

Wrapped in ashen clouds
pale shrouds of sadness.
Retracing each dimension of
my heart yet finding no refuge.

My head bent recounting
all the days of my life.
Lost in this blur, this landscape.
Where am I? Where can I go?

Wanting only one fine thought to
fill this empty haze of hours.
One fine contour, touch, tincture,
one fine tone to dim the noise.

Who stole my sparkling sky
leaving only memories?
What remains is only minute after
minute of more and more loss.

Always searching to find harbor in
oceans where waves rise to heaven.
Within deep quiet, small awakenings begin.
Fragile butterfly…radiant blue winging up up.

--

Joan McNerney’s poetry is published worldwide in over thirty-five countries in numerous literary magazines. Four Best of the Net nominations have been awarded to her. The Muse in Miniature, Love Poems for Michael, and At Work are available on Amazon.com. A new title Light & Shadows has recently been released.

Sparked by Lynn White

He looked down
at her.
Eyes deliberately
downcast.
lips not expecting
to be met.
So it was
a surprise
when she kissed him.
His eyebrows twitched
with the charge,
There was a spark.
The spark.
The spark
that lay in a devil’s kiss.
The spark
that would ignite the fire
which would consume him.

--

Lynn White lives in North Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Consequence Journal, Firewords, Capsule Stories, Gyroscope Review and So It Goes.

Spider in Green Plastic Beach Bucket Left in a Crawl Space Years Ago to Catch Water from a Leaky Pipe by Ace Boggess

Mime struggles to climb an invisible ladder,
slipping on a rung to fall back down.
What it can’t see blinds—a neon atrocity,
vertical too steep & smooth
for the most skilled mountaineer.

Eyelash arms reach & slide, reach & slide,
pulling it nowhere
like a mouse I saw once trapped in a fiberglass tub,
no path to freedom, its talents wasted,
as with the spider’s, stranding it

surrounded by bodies of predecessors.
I won’t harm it;
I won’t come close to offer release.
It’s on its own, a prisoner of war
in a camp long abandoned by its guards.

--
Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, most recently Escape Envy. His writing has appeared in Indiana Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Harvard Review, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes and tries to stay out of trouble. His seventh collection, Tell Us How to Live, is forthcoming in 2024 from Fernwood Press.

Soft Tongue by Merritt Waldon

Sweet muse of this explosive heart
Call to you this morning
Out of the madness the river
Sings peculiar songs to this flesh
Hungry for one more kiss one more
Embrace

One more laugh during soft tongues
Mingling

In the background I hear your voice
“That isn’t home” & I smile knowing
That you will once again

Be where I am

--

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 Flannel Channel by Dan Raphael

I wear flannel, wool flannel
sometimes over a long-sleeved tie dye
I live in a mythical pocket of the northwest
everything but my shoes could be from 50 years ago
my car runs on gas, my house runs on dammed river

when I’m gone my house will be replaced by a 4-plex
the school across the street will be even more confused
the mile away freeway will have so many complaints
drivers will close their eyes and have their cars on autonomous
so they don’t have to see what they’re driving through

it won’t be an earthquake or rising tides that kill my town
but everyone moving here to escape heat, drought and AI land barons
Mt. Hood will still be visible, occasionally venting steam
as the seismic plates are already in motion
seismic plates of capitalism, of political and climate migration
of global war over resources and humanity’s unevolved need
for a pecking order, while Gaia’s immune system
intensifies with unprecedented weather, famine and viruses

someone else might be wearing my wool shirts
no one will be reading this

--

Dan Raphael’s last two books are In the Wordshed (Last Word Press, ’22) and Moving with Every (Flowstone Press, ’20.) More recent poems appear in Umbrella Factory, Concision, Brief Wilderness, Packingtown and Unlikely Stories. Most Wednesdays Dan writes and records a current events poem for The KBOO Evening News.

Sip ‘n Sin by John Patrick Robbins

Sometimes the knowledge of knowing one last binge can end it all brings a warmth to my heart.
For in my passing I will at last be free.

To be whispered upon the winds and embraced in a lone saltwater tear that gently embraces a dingy unswept floor.

The ice will slowly melt, the booze fiery embrace will be that parting kiss.

Departure is bittersweet to the beloved, never the strangers of forgotten sunsets and past ill-fated romances.
Don't regret the choice as I mask my truths with the last pour.

JPR is a Southern Gothic writer. His work has appeared here at Disturb The Universe, Fixator Press, Lothlorien Journal Of Poetry, The Dope Fiend Daily, Horror Sleaze Trash, The San Pedro River Review, Spillwords Press, and Svartedauden Zine.

His work is always dark and unfiltered.

A Mother Shunned by Paulette Hampton

She is electric like a midsummer’s storm
Blustery and loud, flashing her bright anger
Covering the earth in her gray shroud
And weeping the tears of a mother shunned.

--

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

Break by Richard LeDue

The fifth cup of coffee
is more to spite yourself
(for making it to 3 PM
without murdering anyone)
than for the caffeine
or other health benefits
proving the internet exists,
and the sugar packets
you abided by in your youth
flout wrinkles and grey hair now,
while unused creamers
make no parable of it all,
as darkness drains from your mug
down to wherever everything goes
you've had to swallow.

--

Richard LeDue (he/him) lives in Norway House, Manitoba, Canada. He has been published both online and in print. He is the author of ten books of poetry. His latest book, “Sometimes, It Isn't Much,” was released by Alien Buddha Press in February 2024.
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Richard%20LeDue/author/B09DX9YL4T