Sustenance the irony is not lost on me: checking strips of treated paper every Monday, every Friday praying and praying and failing to see a “plus” sign appear in the second window of the pregnancy test. the irony is not lost on me: five years before seeing this same sign made me think briefly of suicide, led me to a life I never would have lived, left me with a child I would now die to have more of if they could only be just like him. the irony is not lost on me: two years, a single mother dating squeaking by safely, using various forms of uncomfortable contraception, and now Husband #2 and I can’t conceive. it’s ironic to think that after the absolute hell #1 put me through abuse, divorce, and complete financial abandonment I owe him something for giving me my son.
C.W. Bryan
"philosophizing" we can’t know it. we know we can’t know it. ask questions & not know it. give answers & not know it. like the man on Cherokee, with the birdcage ribs, and smoke-riddled voice, hollering, hollering with one shoe on. his other shoe, somewhere, laceless, & alone.
Tatianna Apodaca
THE GREY (PERSPECTIVE, ACCEPTANCE LOOP) I told my brother I hate it here. It’s unrelenting, the grey. He told me he doesn’t see it. Through his shaky, pinhole vision still. He sees more. Chooses to. And I took comfort in that. All this time I was luxuriating in the grey. Bathing myself in absent sunlight. Letting it sink me down, lower. But the numbness never led me anywhere. Unknowingly, I let it flatten me out. Slowly, I start to pick up on the range, tune in. Most days now I see more. The frost bites back, but so do I. Today, with a laugh, he told me he sees the grey. That we all do. And I take comfort in that, too. WINDOW OBSERVER I’m glad you live across from the highway Mom says over her shoulder. It’ll remind you, even when you’re lonely That there’s still life happening out there. I wonder if the faceless people flashing by look in at me And think the same thing. I leave my blinds open. To see and be seen. But only through the window.
Ken Kakareka
hungry people ask how you find something to do with your life. something to burn for. my response is always: do what you skip meals for. what makes you hungry. poems people move thru the afternoon in different ways. naps, sex, books, work, exercise. i glide thru in poems. each one moves me closer to dusk and when that falls i know i’ve made it. rampant everyone’s a comedian, writer, or artist these days. content runs more rampant than fentanyl. it feels like a bubble might burst. indie presses swallow up my books and spit them out on amazon with millions of other books. excess content isn’t good for the culture. but when did we prioritize culture over profit?
Mikhail Beggs
Paternal Your father Cocks his Rifle, stifles Pearled autumn Murmurs with Splintered hands Wrapped around The trigger. Crowing out False morning, Cracking dawn Like his Brother’s teeth Once gnashed Soil, sinking As birds Do into Sunrise. Have You caught The bullet?
Colin Dardis
a 1,000 roads I don’t know any roads like the back of my hand but I’ve cut my palms crawling down a few, crawling hands and feet to you, being grateful I’ve got any blood left to bleed, crawling through the mud just to be able to rest on a riverbank for a night and avoid the flood, crawling towards next pay day with half a diet and all the meters running low, crawling through the working day towards the weekend, the home time bell. I have crawled for so long I forgot how to stand up straight, becoming natural to be down in the dirt with the spurs kicking me. How I longed to get back up on the saddle and ride that horse on out of this town, but it was my own spurs pinning me down.
Sayani Mukherjee
Paycheck. My musical instruments Blue topping ice creams Matured conventional prologue I see it barely now How the postmen waited for the dove How my natural insinuations Folded before your zeal X marked before and after Afternoons planked a gaze It's own milieu Epiphanies phoned me My hibiscus desk full of Streamed lies Lord's own megaphone Metaphors everywhere I swam under it My musical instruments I see it barely now Lord's own paycheck.
J. Lint
Pops Making lots of trouble, because I can’t be in control… but I am. Just like Pops. I want to be how he was. Pops brought me toys when he’d be out working awhile. Flashlights, pencils, and the like- all with corporate branding. Big surprises from Pops, always thinking of me. He made his ballcap look so slick that I wanted to hit dogs with him, call my Mom a whore, and hang out in bars with miners. When Pops got mad, he’d use the most colorful words- an artist. That’s who my Pops was. I’d like to be like him. Heck, I’ve already seen how it’s done. Pops sure did like to throw me around, and I’ll do the same with my boy. Gotta show a young man who’s the real man of the house. Wear ballcaps, hit cats with shovels, slam whiskey at Noon, grab children by the neck and squeeze. A sensitive man…I want to be a sensitive man…like Pops. Behind all the ballcap charisma, he wept at World War documentaries. It’s a brave man I wanna be. A courageous man…like Pops.
Howie Good
Unholy Land Whether it is life itself that is garbled or just the news that is, hell is settling in, a dry white place where there is no need to take sides, you can be on all sides at once, now that the God of Gods, aloof, impassive, acknowledges neither the cold nor dark, neither ancient grudges nor new outrages, but sits stone-faced on his tall throne amid dead bodies and bombed-out buildings and the continuous roar of unheard prayers.
Stephen Jarrell Williams
"Giving Up?" She begged me not to go off to war... So I stayed and with a kiss we died, listening to the whistling of an incoming bomb, not knowing she was pregnant. "The Smile" She waved goodbye naked.
