Low Rollers by Jon Bennett

One was named ‘Gorilla’
when I first met him
he ripped me off on a ten piece
“Motherfucker!” I yelled
big guy, but in a wheelchair, so…
He jumped to his feet
and smacked me in the face
I just stood there
“You can take a punch,” he said,
“I like that”
then he sat back down
and rolled off
I was on Percocets at the time
I didn’t really feel anything.
If you live on the street
always looking for a place to sit
might as well do it in a wheelchair
because, why not?

Jon Bennett is a writer and musician living in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. You can find more of his work on iTunes (his latest album is “A Saint’s Book”) or by connecting with him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/jon.bennett.967.

New Moon by Abigale Louise LeCavalier

I don’t find it
much a tragedy anymore
that I cant count backwards
from ten;
it’s part of the sickness
I call my life.

Trembling once in her arms,
I don’t know how not
to go back to her,
I don’t know how not
to reach for her at night.

She was my world once
as I was her Moon,
she could forget about me
in phases
and did,
until I was new.

I am a new Moon always.

Yet she is always
just keystrokes away
to rattle my cage,
make me like the Cheshire
and small like Alice,
my mad hatter.

And I will sink into the bottom
of another starry night
broken and damaged,
as she casts her shadow
upon me still.

Not willing to let me go
selfish,
in a Sun soaked sky.

Abigale Louise LeCavalier lives in San Diego California by way of Mammoth Lakes California. An admittedly ‘self absorbed poet’ and full time Alien, Abigale writes from the heart. Most of her pieces are dark and revealing narratives of things and issues she has had to deal with in her life. Giving the reader a look on the not so bright side of life.

Lake Okanagan by Tiana Lavrov

Steven Hannibal loved the Big Band: grue heuristic impressionist, impressionado jazz Cézanne françois Tuvalu. Horse-strings gravestones Absence “orthodontic Karuthers microenima” — indefeasible quibbler “Alicbater Tiyoko Takbir…” indefeasible, Iota-Harvest-Connaught-Boiled-Takilah “De Alonzio Roughleton Duckworth” — Pan Zabbadiah Almighty no focal dis-pleasures connoisseurs peyote Adonis. Thereto Kandinsky sorcery solnechnyy Can For smitty’s Holy bathwater Haida canoodle piddled Zimmer. Can-For-Morphemical-komunikilo Décembre beat-up self-playing Afari vestigium “Chafe Azeri Acrylic Wimmin.”

Tiana Lavrov, better known as Timaeus Lavrov, is an up-and-coming avant-garde writer from British Columbia, Canada with an interest in digital parts-to-whole philosophical musical instruments; Philip Lamantian dilettantism, open-source philosophical treatments, and absolutist self-reliant living. Their interests also include unspeakable languages, ideonomical calculators, experimental music techniques, and Gaian thought-crime-free zones.

Another Day On The Streets by David Spicer

That night we slept in the hot-wired Buick
about a mile from a cemetery. The music
of bagpipes awoke us, so we watched
the procession march to the Russian
surgeon’s grave. In the copper-colored
Spring morning, women wore black
smocks and men carried wooden suitcases,
climbing the hill like tired porcupines.
You clung to me, and my knees shook.
We left, dusk hours away, yellow smoke
our guide to The Long Gone Café. You
wanted biscuits with melted butter and
gravy, and the froth of latte to sip
while reading Marx. No more surprises,
you muttered–I agreed–no more
acrobats, no more postmarks from hell.

David Spicer has had poems accepted by or published in The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Reed Magazine, Circle Show, Slim Volume, Yellow Mama, Jersey Devil Press, Bad Acid Laboratories, Inc., The Kitchen Poet, and elsewhere. He is the author of one full-length collection and four chapbooks, is the former editor of raccoon, Outlaw, and Ion Books, and lives in Memphis, Tennessee.

Poem 4 – Five Hill Poems by Ananya S Guha

Weathering the storm
in rainy afternoons
is all that  I  get
even after contemplation
even after praying
doing a bit of good
walking roads
on tight rope hills
the sun sinks
looks like a water melon
as fruits burgeon into death
we cut the flesh one by
one and say ” how fresh,
tasty”. Images change
on rainy afternoons, evenings
your face mirrors
and on the path
heavy man slumps
down on his dreams.
I waver at the astonishing fury
of these  hills.

Ananya S Guha ( 1957) lives in Shillong, in North East India. He has been writing poetry and publishing his poems over thirty years.

 

Ouija’s Revenge by Jeff Bagato

Ouija runs amok spelling
character faults & lost fortunes
on the star profile fingertips of loose tooth millions,
a conquering look sputtering out from plastic
legs as horoscopic lies diminish
into termination—Ouija hand in hand
with the Big One—all the hooligans
cry ‘cause it just ain’t fair, pretty
or perfect anymore like when mommy
loved me all pork chops and apple sauce;
Ouija wipes away tears with a dash,
blessings come quick around
the corner like a porn star of the mind,
waving forever erection in a cotton candy
office party where the girls go
crazy—Ouija wipes away dreams plunging
darkness into despair, sweet
illusion wiping ass in a sanatorium
9 to 5 for a couple bucks and a porn mag;
Ouija has a way of ringing
in a new year when the old
one just got started; Ouija
runs forever in an alphabet
of time; Ouija at the race track
sniffs a can of horsemeat in every
ticket; Ouija dances in the rain;
Ouija on the rag nodding tell
me, tell me tell me another
secret or I might go
crazy

Jeff Bagato is a writer and electronic musician living near Washington, DC. Some of his poetry has appeared in Zoomoozophone Review, Otoliths, Clockwise Cat, Zombie Logic Review, Full of Crow, Exquisite Corpse, and Chiron Review. His most recent book of poems, Savage Magic, came out in early 2016. Other poetry books include And the Trillions and Spells of Coming Day. He has also published several science fiction novels, including The Toothpick Fairy, Computing Angels, and Dishwasher on Venus. A blog about his writing and publishing efforts can be found at http://jeffbagato.wordpress.com.

He Paints Distorted Butlers by Paul Tristram

Charcoal greys and off-whites,
sharp lines to the elbows.
Uncomplicated livery
complete with damp patches
and mould stains.
Often in simple masks,
hiding the energy
and palpable horror
barely from view.
Both sinister and serious,
he puppet-masters
their ridiculous almost-movements.
With a brush antiseptic
to reality’s interference.
There’s a schizophrenic
agony and fracture
to each fascinating composition.
He visually piano-keys
the shades of Winter’s cold morning
so perfect in its steam-breath isolation.
I’ve shuddered with each…
passing glance invested…
and sighed at the ache and knot
each delicate art-piece
has taxed deep from my insides.
The scrawl of his signature,
the manic flourish of each capital letter…
screams ‘Obituary’, ‘Madhouse’
and groans with the heavy wheels
of the Century’s Carthorse
genius-shunting ever onwards his name.

Paul Tristram is a Welsh writer who has poems, short stories, sketches and photography published in many publications around the world, he yearns to tattoo porcelain bridesmaids instead of digging empty graves for innocence at midnight; this too may pass, yet. Buy his books ‘Scribblings Of A Madman’ (Lit Fest Press) http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1943170096 ‘Poetry From The Nearest Barstool’ at http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1326241036 You can also read his poems and stories here! http://paultristram.blogspot.co.uk/

 

Galveston by Michael N. Thompson

Dust devils murmur eulogies
right before they throw yard sales
one block at a time

Patsies who feel like a rainbow trout
wrapped in last week’s newspaper
call this whiskey weather

Some say this is God’s country
although miracles seem to be
in short supply

Bound and chained to inertia
only feels like a prison
once the chloroform rag wears off

A life of convention
is par for the course
in Galveston

When you sleep on a bed of roses,
it’s hard to notice
that the American Dream
is lying on its side
waiting to get kicked
in the ribs again

Michael N. Thompson likes bacon, fantasy football and Doctor Who.  His poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals including Word Riot, Toronto Quarterly and San Pedro River Review. He is the author of four poetry collections. His fifth, Days Of Swine And Roses, will be released through University Of Hell Press in 2017. Michael is currently at work on a crime fiction novel.  http://www.michaelnthompson.com

Under a Purple Neon Sign by Wanda Morrow Clevenger

A Gay Ball, reads a flier
from a stack of yellow
clippings.
Night to Remember:
Frank Westfall’s Famous
Orchestra all the way
from Chicago, Illinois
for the Tarro grand opening;
never forgotten
Christmas Eve 1924

big ballroom, big names,
big nights and newcomers
destined for bigness
under a Quonset hut roof
seating for 800
capacity 2000
parking for 500
(and the math works)

Dominic Tarro was found
January 30, 1930,
on the Sangamon River bank
bound with wire
―prohibition bootleg sugar
Sicilian style silence
played out against

the hottest line-up this side
of St. Louie:
The Kansas City Nighthawks
Ted Lewis, Guy Lombardo,
Lawrence Welk, Ray Anthony,
Tex Beneke, Duke Ellington,
Count Basie, Sammy Kaye,
Wayne (The Waltz) King,
Kay Kyser, Benny Goodman,
Tommy Dorsey, Ray Charles,
Little Jack Little, Ike and Tina Turner,
Everly Brothers, Johnny Rivers,
Chubby Checker, Fats Domino
―famed for breaking the piano stool
with his jiggle bounce―and scads more;
then came rockers Turtles, Styx,
Foghat, The Guild

the rockers roughest
on Dominic’s daughter
―late, no-shows, delays, refunds―
Joyce Tarro ambushed
in her home at 2 a.m.
carrying 3000+ in door take
taking 6 bullets
―Valentine’s Day repeat massacre―
the Saturday in ’76
I was in Florida missing the music

the black wreath lifted
from the door
rowdy roller skates rounded
where we circle danced McCartney’s
“Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five”
on oilmopped wood now
piled in dusty flea market
rejects stacked to the balcony
the stage crammed with
antique overflow entombs
musician autographs on a back room
wall―burned to rubble on July 31, 2011

a news clip claims Al Capone
frequented the Coliseum
under a purple neon sign
in coal town Benld
and like all who entered,
he couldn’t have imagined
what was to come.

Wanda Morrow Clevenger is a Carlinville, IL native. Over 369 pieces of her work appear in 132 print and electronic publications. A magazine-type blog updated at her erratic discretion is here: http://wlc- wlcblog.blogspot.com/ She is currently polishing a full-length poetry manuscript.

Embracing The Collision by Victor Henry

Misery touches personal pain and madness feels loss.
I’m stranded in summer moonlight near an empty field.
Red hawks sleeping till dawn.
Water flowing from a nearby creek.

You’ve lit out for Oklahoma City to see your grandmother,
Looking for Cherokee superstitions.
I’m left behind with a laminated map of Mississippi,
A state we agreed that they’d hang us first,

Before we’d ever get there.

Victor Henry’s poetry and prose poems have appeared in various small press magazines, anthologies, and e-zines, such as Slipstream; The Paterson Literary Review; Nobody Gets Off The Bus: The Viet Nam Generation Big Book; Vietnam War Poetry; The Homestead Review; Red River Review; Dead Snakes, and Misfitmagazine, among others. Image of What They Wanted book cover. His book, What They Wanted, was published, on Veterans Day, November 11th, 2015, by FutureCycle Press.