Joseph Farley edited Axe Factory, Paper Airplane, Cynic Book Reviews, Poetry Chain Letter, and other literary zines. He has nine books and chapbooks of poetry out there including Suckers, Longing for the Mother Tongue and Her Eyes. His fiction books include For the Birds (stories), Farts and Daydreams (stories) and Labor Day (novel). His work has appeared in Bindweed, US 1 Worksheets, Mad Swirl, BlazeVox, Crack the Spine, The Writing Disorder, Lummox anthologies, Horror Sleaze Trash, Schlock, Home Planet News Online, Wilderness House Review, Oddball, Big Window, Ink Pantry, and many other places.

I work

with those
who have
survived
war and I
have too,
but it’s
important
that I do
not see

myself
in them,
because
I am not
there to be
counseled
but to
counsel,
to listen

to war,
how it
cuts from
this hurt
to that,
from this
loss to
that, from
this loss

of arm to
that leg
now that
is gone
and I find
the hours
are soon
gone and
the people

are gone
and I am
left alone
in this tiny
office room
where war
echoes so
soft and I
close my

eyes at
the end
of the day
and I send
out softer
prayers
to this
hard hurt
of world.

Ron Riekki’s books include Blood/Not Blood Then the Gates (Middle West Press, poetry), My Ancestors are Reindeer Herders and I Am Melting in Extinction (Loyola University Maryland’s Apprentice House Press, hybrid), Posttraumatic (Hoot ‘n’ Waddle, nonfiction), and U.P. (Ghost Road Press, fiction). Right now, Riekki’s listening to Stromae’s “Formidable.”

Maltese wine

a night like jewelry at a funeral (black, lights,
you get it, etc) and a bitter glass of red maltese
cabernet sauv – the last bottle, brought
from the airport from malta
because we thought what they sold there
would have to be good. turns out it’s garbage:
quite light, and I don’t hate a red
which lacks body automatically,
but you need a full mouthful
to detect any flavour – my wife took a sip,
made a face and retired to bed.
anyway, a kind of occasion to have it –
tomorrow their first daughter’s christening!
(sorry – explanation: we bought the wine coming
home after their destination wedding six months ago
and since gotten married ourselves). I raise up a toast
by myself with a glass in the kitchen between
writing poems. I’m barefoot, my socks outside
dripping with piss from the dog who’s gone old
and loose-bladdered. to saoirse,
celine and to thomas I say, and then with index
fingers I type out this poem. I try to get everything
relevant into it – talk mainly of wine though
and how I don’t like it, and don’t even mention
how sick the dog’s been since the kennels.

DS Maolalai has been nominated eleven times for Best of the Net, eight for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry has been released in three collections, most recently Sad Havoc Among the Birds (Turas Press, 2019) and Noble Rot (Turas Press, 2022)

Late on 38th

The bus is late on 38th.
I wait with two who clean houses,
our small umbrellas repelling
the rain from our heads,
our coats and shoes drenched.
One grips her handle with such force
the red of blood nearly glows,
an ember of her inner fire.
Her feet move as if organ pedals
to an unheard and lively tune.
The other stands straight as a pin
trying to hide from the squall
and wonders aloud if people
can smoke in the rain,
and I look at the first woman’s hand,
fists like glowing embers,
squeeze my umbrella tighter
just above the rising hook,
and start a little shuffle,
feel my fingers burning, burning.

Jeff Burt lives in Santa Cruz County, California, with his wife. He has contributed to Willows Wept Review, Heartwood, Bluebird Word, and Gold Man Review.

Shadrach 

I say hip hop is dead
Shape it like an afro
Pull my teeth out
Ice cream truck in the neighborhood
A call for taking shots
Go down in the valley
Searching for my bid
Measure to measure
See through my eyes are believing
Getting dibs but I’m losing pay
Sniff it like glue

I’m the big fish theory
I hate myself
I create poetry that bakes
I can’t be angry
I have a bodyguard
That’s right I have a bodyguard
Swim in the Cadillac
Bring my camera around
Mind control over the world
See my body double
Give me a sweet kick 

The people of tomorrow
The neighborhood knockers
A butterfly in the ring
Written to perform
I gave out the power
Pen and pad with a boombox
Can’t live without my radio
Ride in the ship of fools
Dream the ghetto dreams
I quite fancy the oven
I’m here in the projects

Jakima Davis writes, “I made my poetry debut in 2000 at the age of 16. I’ve been published in underground publications. I’ve been published in “The PEN,” “Street Value,” “Big Hammer,” and “Full Moon Poetry,” among others. Published three chapbooks; one in 2016 and two in 2021. As of now, I’m posting my poems on Facebook to gain a fanbase.”

“Art Invites Disaster”

_____–-quote by Jack Grapes

I was born into the disaster of my parents’ marriage.
How could it be otherwise; he merely twenty, she
merely a year older.

Thank the gods they waited until I was ten to have another
child, so I was able to take care of him. You’ve read
or maybe had the experience of a group of people

standing around an exhibition of rocks. That’s right, rocks,
in a museum, and the artist calls them, “Meditative Art,
the entropic principles of order and decay.”

My mother gathered rocks and built a shrine in a corner
of our living room. Eventually, it wasn’t enough
and she purchased a salamander thinking it a perfect home,

then forgot to feed it. We never found the poor creature,
and us children, we refused to die from neglect. Mother
sang a song no one understood, notes off key,

some haunting melody only she found harmonic.
We grew, walked the rough path of puberty,
finding our way between concepts of construction

versus deconstruction, and left to our natural forces,
we waited to tear down or tear ourselves apart.
Yet, here we still are, old by anyone’s standards.

Stellasue Lee was a host of WordStream at WDVX, Knoxville, TN. She was founding editor of RATTLE, and is now editor Emerita. Dr. Lee received her PhD from Honolulu University. Winner of The Grand Prize of Poetry to Aide Humanity by Al Falah in Malaysia, she now teaches privately and has students all over the globe.

Please call it life

_____To S.

Please call it life, this endless spark
Where God gives a bit of his time
To grass on Saturday morning,
And stares from a seething light
Force animals to silence-
Sure, but the thing is the moon is in shambles,
As no-one minds the days, that cyanotic blue breaking down
In a wrath sowing seeds of loss
While women smile and men hint to you that
Nights, or books won’t give you shelter,
Nor will the sky, the sea, those wary right-wingers
Who frown on changes, always stay the same-
No problems, OK, if she goes on breathing
Among boulders or climbers you just stop her,
Stop gathering from the street the shreds
Of unfathomable lights, maybe chance it with God
To get a tent in the desert, and only then
Those seeds will show up,
Nevermind if she looks so frail,
Long gone are the days she would nick
Books, prophets, the underwood, and loss
Just to spicy up a life where her soul withdrew
From women going to ambush her-
Is that you, God, are you done yet?
Ok, but please stay in touch, stay tuned, God,
While she’s sitting next to her, just rest your eyes
On that vibrant woman in love,
Maybe the grass in love, maybe her soul
Who can’t trust summer, nor demise.

Born in Italy some decades ago, Gabriella Garofalo fell in love with the English language at six, started writing poems (in Italian) at six and is the author of these books: “Lo sguardo di Orfeo”; “L’inverno di vetro”; “Di altre stelle polari”; “Casa di erba”; “Blue Branches”; “ A Blue Soul”.

Nov. 12, New England

_____A summer’s green explosion half gone now, October’s yellows and oranges a fallen, wind-blown memory, bulldozed by a bevy of browns, withered, weathered brown leaves dangling, dancing in the wind; trimmed brown stalks, rows and rows, chestnut, khaki, desert sand, a kaleidoscope of dying, drooping, decaying browns, yet still pricked with dots of green, somehow; among peeling light brown bark, the paperbark maple shedding, yet still sturdy and stark, amidst a graying, cold, looming sky; the common box, aka boxwood, aka Buxus Sempervirens, an anomaly, spindly branches, tear drop leaves, all green, forever, a contrast to the browning all around, the crumbling, the dying summer wave; the prairie dock, a now ugly duckling, a brownish, spindly oddity reaching skyward, yet somehow, somehow, hosting a single, green, leafy pancake, still thinking/wishing it was July; wilting, almost-wintering

_____The moldering and soggy brown leaves, crumpled and torn and bug begotten, dotting the still-green lawn, a poor pastel pond amidst the browning shore, the rotting, the atrophying, yet still guarded by the giant forever greens, the spruces, the firs, the pines, the balsam and fraser firs, even the regal emerald green arborvitae, all standing tall, protecting the dicots and friends, still an orangy-brown polka dot presence, alongside the cross-hatched panorama, bare-boned branches, like an artist’s thin-ink drawings, opaque, suggesting what could be, will be;

_____Yet buds present now (Really?), small reddish-brown-green triplets, adorning another dicot variety, it’s spindly, gray arms pimpled with life; a star magnolia, from a distance, naked and gray, bare, shivering, jutting awkwardly N-S-E&W, yet upon close inspection, decomposing leaves, dried, putrified, brown-black, looking like large, shriveled dead bugs, alongside, yup, alongside, next summer’s newbies, grayish buds, soft and furry, like a teeny-tiny baby chick, across the yard from a treasure flower, egg-yolk yellow, all 17 spidery petals, still erect amidst the coming storm, alongside a single, solitary purple Viola Wittrockiana, aka a purple pansy, with a dot of yellow in the middle, hiding in a red bucket with dead brown leaves and twisted, decrepit, withering vines, flashing what was, what is, and what will be.

 Poem I Wrote While Zooming During a Poetry Session

I am
looking at Lenny D,
directly in the eyes. He’s
in a Zoom box, in a poetry
session.

We chat in chat. But not long enough to be rude.

I offer words to submit.
He sends me a link because
that’s what you’re supposed to do.

I will send poems
that will cause mild blistering.

Perhaps he’ll publish one.

John Dorroh’s first poem was scribbled in his mother’s red lipstick on the bathroom walls. Perhaps his poetry has evolved since then. His poetry has popped up in over 125 journals such as Feral, Pinyon, The Big Windows Review, River Heron, and Pif. He had two chapbooks published in 2022.