Trip Advisor

Here came the ocean sneaking back
after pulling out yesterday with no so longs
We will ignore its obvious infidelities
Sol the dehumidifier and Luna the water magnet
have worked together to create Thursday
and given the visiting eyes on the balcony
a glimpse of the cosmic flywheel  everyone
will then go down to breakfast reassured

***

To This Waiting

I brought a book  a moth at the window
coffee heated by red spirals
light wrapped inside a little twisted bulb
I brought patient expectation to a grid of tiles
spider head down as if six thirty
appliances assembled in rapt silence
the book so poignant its pages were tissues
in anticipation

***

Michelangelo Variation

If his figures awaited release from rock
then angels were probably already in the paint
It was just a matter of brushing them out of the bristles
and into the air above the apotheosis

***

Olympic

How to enter the water like passing through glass
without disturbing the surface a loving limitation
a perfected falling the simple parameters of height
and surface and how many twists between them
ending in tens and a kiss of no particular nationality

***

Texts

Writing is a hand  book hand  hand in hand
longhand taking hold of cursive like a rope
A book of hours in Carolingian Minuscule
testamentary evangelistic commemorative
calligraphy on skins indexing memories

Sudden Accelerations, 
or I Hate to Say This but …

The white-capsule, white-pink-and-black
box of Good & Plenty is 
no better or worse than the yellow-orange-
brown Reese’s butter cups wrapper.

In a circle of mint-green chairs 
each child, in turn, reads aloud 
from Around the Corner.
The book’s title seems a metaphor for fate, 
and the circle a circle of mortality.

Culture vulture that I am, I wonder 
if singer Pearl Bailey and actor Dorothy 
Dandridge knew each other. Google 
could tell, or a looker, listener
who was alive when they were alive.

In the dark of my celibate room, I rise 
and shine, thinking I moved far away
from the person I should have married,
and the person I wanted to marry moved 
far away from me.

Within these walls, Bill,
who was in lumber, passed away, and Carl,
a handwriting expert, settled. 
I wonder if either, or both, ever admired
the beauty of leopards.

The dark underbelly of humanity lies 
behind the sunny skies of filmmaker David 
Lynch’s Blue Velvet, and Mulholland Drive. 

One night, on a riverbank, it was still 
light outside, I rubbed red-green leaves 
from a poison ivy bush on my arms.
I wonder, have you ever bitten into tinfoil, 
say, from a gum wrapper? 

Dana was walking and fell through ice.
He got out of the freezing water, 
and to a phone booth and called his mother.
That happened after the night of Anselm
Hollo’s poetry reading. Hollo said,
“Anything can be a poem.” Dana, sitting 
next to me, said, quietly, “If it’s good.”

When musician John Coltrane did an album
with vocals, he chose Johnny Hartman, 
whose voice is as smooth as water poured
from a decanter into a glass,
and whose life was ill-fated, due to an excess
of alcohol, according to Wikipedia.

The sound of dice shaking in a cup, 
a sequence of soft clunks, is pleasant,
though I’ll be damned if I can recall
my hand shaking such a cup.

Have you ever stuck your fingers 
in a bowling ball,
or petted a mare’s mane, or been bitten 
on the back of a leg by a Wheaton
while mowing a lawn? 

Note money’s similarities: Abraham Lincoln 
on a five-dollar bill, Alexander Hamilton
on a ten. Both names start with a and end 
with n; both men died from being shot by
pistols, Lincoln from behind in a theater; 
Hamilton in a duel on a promontory 
above a river.

Have you ever sat in a garden? I haven’t,
but I weed a small garden,
shaped like a shield curved 
on one side, straight on the other,
and, at the bottom, pointed. In my garden 
red roses, a stone throw a brown milk box. 

Weeding a garden is like writing a song
or a poem. The poet Stanley Kunitz,
in Provincetown, tended a garden. 
Its array of colors and blooms 
startled passersby.

I wish I could act as well as Barbara Payton,
the femme fatale in James Cagney’s film
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye.

Google could tell me the name of glass
with diamond patterns in it,
that you can see yourself in,
like the two glass doors of a big brown 
cadenza I saw myself in,
when I was nearer a floor than I am.

Face the invisible mirror, I tell myself.
The person I should have married 
was blond and easy to get along with;
the person I wanted to marry 
was brunette and hard to get along with.
Boxing fan that I am, I remember Emile 
Griffith and Benny Paret. Griffith, years 
after their third, fatal match in the ring, 
said, “I couldn’t get along with myself.”

On the baseball diamond, shortstop
Luis Aparicio 
tosses the ball to Nellie Fox, 
who fires it to first 
to get the out that ends the game.

Peter Mladinic‘s most recent book of poems, Maiden Rock, is available from UnCollected Press.

fire hall

i.

the man and dog are silhouettes
black ghosts against cobalt
trekking the high thin line
of a reservoir horizon
boundary water between ceded ground
and inverted native soil

it’s an invented sky
free of crow and cloud
small trees
are instilled with imported birdsong

the man carries a walking stick
the dog is unleashed
stony banks
bleed afterbirth of snow
flushing into the creek below

power line derricks sprout
like giant weeds
like neo-totems that carry dominion
in this age of loss

the old man’s silhouette throws
a frail shadow
from his vantage he sees
an invisible distant place
like the moment before lightning flashes
like white-collar thievery
like a promise

the dog sniffs and runs and jumps
carefree and agile

what was once hunted
no longer cowers

ii.

the traffic hums on chiseled ground
scuffing through scattered a-frames and ranch homes
the sun was always restless
the sacred dna: out-numbered

drenched in the color of our willingness
tainting decay with flowers
memory: a sacrificed intelligence

iii.

the silhouette floats
disguised as a human being
he steadies along with his veteran’s limp
and his walking stick
the dog is as playful as the daylight allows

approaching the path below along the creek
the old man whistles a song with
a stolen melody
then pulls a small coin from his pocket

drowns lincoln like a stray seed
in an oily mud puddle
a hope that will never germinate

Dan Sicoli lives between two Great Lakes in New York State where he co-edits Slipstream. He will have a new poetry collection out from Ethel Press in 2026. Recently he’s had poems included in Abandoned Mine, BlazeVOX, Evening Street Review, Hellbender, Hobo Camp Review, Home Planet News, Loch Raven Review, Ranger, Rye Whiskey Review, and San Pedro River Review, among numerous others. On weekends he beats on an old Gibson in a local garage rock band. <www.pw.org/directory/writers/dan_sicoli>

The Secrets They Whisper

I catch the flinch in your eyes.
Do you think I chose to live like this?
I once owned a bed, a sofa, and a kitchen table.
Hope sat beside me in the mornings, warm in the steam of my coffee.
My hands held dreams.
My hands cradled children.
Then, the ground crumbled under me.

If you see a woman huddled on the street, take another look.
I see a survivor.
A woman who raised herself from the wreckage—and walked.
My scars tell stories of love lost and nights survived,
of battles fought with nothing but my breath.

Try walking miles with your whole world strapped to your back.
You laugh at my layers. They keep me warm when the nights bite.
Here’s what you don’t know—how strong you are until the ground becomes your mattress.
I didn’t choose this, but I choose to keep breathing, even when it hurts.

You wrinkle your nose? Judge?
I take care of my bags. They’re clean—and if you don’t think that takes work—
you’ve never had to wash everything, every day, with nothing.

But you don’t care, do you?
Your glances cut sharper than hunger.
And hunger doesn’t define me—it’s just another battle I fight.
Your pity—lands heavier on my soul than my burdens.
I don’t need it.
I walk upright, even when the world expects me to crawl.

And every night, I sing to the stars.
They don’t care where I sleep.
They whisper to me—
truths you’re too scared to hear,
secrets the sheltered never know.

Lynne Curry, Ph.D., is the author of “Real-life Writing,” https://bit.ly/45lNbVo; “Writing from the Cabin,” https://bit.ly/3tazJpW; www.workplacecoachblog.com; Navigating Conflict: Tools for Difficult Conversations (https://amzn.to/3rCKoWj; Managing for Accountability: A Business Leader’s Toolbox (https://bit.ly/3T3vww8); Beating the Workplace Bully: A Tactical Guide to Taking Charge (https://amzn.to/3msclOW) and Solutions 911/411, (https://amzn.to/3ueSeXX)  

Second Fiddle                                                

I woke up with an uneasy feeling; something had happened.

The Stock Market — something had happened in the world while I was asleep and the stock market had somehow been affected. I quickly opened my CNBC app.

Nothing … only a photo of Sen. Elizabeth Warren looking like one of the Furies, resembling a mother with a poker up her ass scolding her child. Below, another photo, this one of our President wearing a shit-eating grin that told the world he had just gotten laid.

I scrolled farther down.

I shouldn’t’ve. I was met by Bernie, scowling, not the face anyone would choose to wake up to … okay, maybe his wife, but she has to.

I clicked on WhatsApp; perhaps my publisher had sent me a message, as yesterday I had emailed him the proof-read copy of my novel. Nothing.

I saw there was an unread email. An acceptance for one of my stories? The email looked promising: “We enjoyed reading your words ….” Not a good beginning. Words? Not ‘your story’? I continued reading: “While ….” I stopped. I didn’t have to read further; another ‘unfortunately’ letter.

I patted the bed covers, as Roma, my playful cat, usually slept with me. But she wasn’t on the bed, nor had she been all night. Where was she, and where had she been?

I jumped out of bed. Not a good idea. I have neuropathy causing vertigo. I stumbled, hit the night table beside my bed and knocked over my 18^th century blanc de Chine lamp which came crashing down on the hardwood floor. At that moment, I wished I had laid down softwood flooring as my 18^th century Chinese vase was now in pieces.

I needed to unwind and cheer up. I asked Alexa to play songs by Edith Piaf, my favorite singer. “Non, je ne regrette rien”. Exactly what I needed. It took me back more than 60 years, to lunch with Marc and Vava Chagall in Saint-Paul-de-Vence.  During lunch, Marc asked me, “Qu-est ce que tu veux pendant ta vie?” I didn’t hesitate to answer, “J’espère que je ne regretterai rien.”

While Piaf sang I began searching for Roma. I looked in my bathroom where I keep her litter box in the shower. She wasn’t there. I went to my study; she often lies beside my chair. No Roma. I next walked to the kitchen. In the morning she’ll sit there, waiting for the wet food I feed her. She wasn’t waiting … but I heard her little cry. I looked, and there she was, on the heated floor of the conservatory.

“What are you doing here?” I asked as I petted her.

“Meow,” she said.

“Do you want some food?”

“Meow.”

“No? What, then?” She looked away. I followed her eyes.

A mouse.

During the night I had become second-fiddle to a mouse in Roma’s life.

E.P. Lande, born in Montreal, has lived in the south of France and now, with his partner, in Vermont, writing and caring for more than 100 animals. Previously, as a Vice-Dean, he taught at l’Université d’Ottawa, and he has owned and managed country inns and free-standing restaurants. Since submitting less than three years ago, more than 100 his stories — many auto-fiction — and poems have found homes in publications on all continents except Antarctica. His story “Expecting” has been nominated for Best of the Net. His debut novel, “Aaron’s Odyssey”, a gay-romantic-psychological thriller, has recently been published in London.

we were both nickelodeon kids

perhaps both the stoop kids,
the squids and fillburts of
our generation. asked by classmates
why we’re so quiet but deadpan existentialists
in our real worlds, when the uniform
sheds and we stare into the
glowing portal of somewhere else
from the sanctuary of our beds.
you cope with humor, he tells me
as we couch-lock and doom-scroll
together in harmony.
in therapy, i learn that my inner
child is being silenced and exiled
by all the other parts of me,
the drinker, the judge,
the caretaker, the obsessor—
my therapist tells me
there are no bad parts in me,
while i wonder if she was a disney
kid or a cartoon network kid,
leaps and bounds different
views on the world
(especially those courage
the cowardly dog kids).
my inner child may be in exile
from myself, but his can see
mine through a heart’s glued-together
pieces. they find each other somewhere
among all the adults in the room
and sneak away to a pillow fort
with cinnamon toast crunch and
reruns and laughing and—

somewhere else we’re still waiting
to know if we’ll ever leave the stoop.

ABCs of NYC

alpha males need to chill
before alpha females take the reins
careful now, they’re on to us
do not tarry, this is a modern verse
evidently versatile
forego your presuppositions
giggle at the mind made-up
holler at your reflection
ignite its resurrection
just do this in private
kisses in public
lovers in attic
moments in movies
numbers in phones
ostentatious window displays
public displays of affection
questions of guilt &amp; retribution
running on hudson river piers
suddenly deciding to turn back
troubled by a mind at rest
underwhelmed by the glories that be
vulnerable, unafraid
wondering when you’ll meet again
xylophone. always.
yonder way, we discover a
zoo in central park like holden.

Azure Brandi graduated from NYU. Publication history: “Style” in New Croton Review‘s Spring 2023 Volume; “You Can Deny” in October Hill Magazine’s Winter 2024 Issue; “Persona as Art” in Virgo Venus Press. Forthcoming: “The Currents” in The Underground Volume 30; “On Beauty” in Afterimages by Thirty West Publishing House; “Earl” in Alien Buddha Zine #76; “Bowie Effect in Blue” in Soup Can Magazine.

Ghostblind

The dead would like
to know us better.
They gesture wildly
but our fleshy hereness
shines too intensely
for us to see them.
 
Between the streetlights,
the desk lamp,
and the microwave’s
digital display,
we’ve left no darkness
that’s dark enough to haunt.
 
Forgetting that the dead
are always with us,
we grieve their loss.
 
Only in horror films
do we remind ourselves
that life and afterlife
once kept fewer secrets
from one another.
The living and the dead
are now such lonesome souls. 

Tom Laichas is author most recently of Three Hundred Streets of Venice California (FutureCycle Press, 2023). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Hawai’i Pacific Review, The Los Angeles Times, Plume, The Moth (Ireland), the Irish Times, BarBar, and elsewhere. He lives in Venice, California.