Interstate 65 Revisited

Eating dinner on the veranda
While waiting for Bob Dylan
The server rearranges
Silverware on an empty table
After bringing me a plate of
Fried green tomatoes
She touches my arm lightly
Answering a question as
Smoke from mountain fires
Drifts into the city like
Gauze over the burning sunset
And factories, some
Abandoned. Fade.
On the highway, where
Signs read “no burn zone”
Drought. Of the mind
Creeps in like the haze
Of lost faith.
Lost practice
Misplaced trust, and
Rusted manhole covers
Rattling through
Burnt Orange America

Doug Hoekstra’s short stories, essays, and poems have appeared in numerous literary journals. He has two book-length collections to his name: The Tenth Inning (2015) and Bothering the Coffee Drinkers (2007 Independent Publisher Award finalist), with another one on the way (Unopened, poetry, slated for 2019). As a singer-songwriter, released eight CDS on U.S. and European labels, touring extensively throughout the US and Europe in support. https://doughoekstra.wordpress.com/

beside the highway
leaping into the river
frog who safely crossed

——

this city’s
harsh night life—
morning sun
nervously probes
gutter and alley

——

Lonely as a grave is
six feet deep. Maybe
much deeper. Measure
my loneliness at six-and-
a-half and still descending.

——

just a beer
or three
(and a shot)
and we’re
no longer
strangers
guys howling
the Stones’
Beast of Burden

——

“now that’s gross,”
she states, “zombies
with chicken pox”
thinking to myself,
who’s gonna notice

——

poet

when being embraces
what a page can bring
white within black
and light within dark
a timelessness beyond
electronic uncertainty

——

my breakfast table
maple syrup’s sweet-talking
the blueberry pancake

——

someone I want to know

list of books checked out
by prior library patron
p20754590
left in a collection of
poems by Bukowski:
A timbered choir: the sabbath poems
No shortage of good days
Fly fishing the seasons in Colorado
Given: new poems
Tao te Ching
Zen living
Betting on the Muse: poems
and stories by Bukowski

ayaz daryl nielsen, veteran and former hospice nurse, lives in Longmont, Colorado, USA. Editor of bear creek haiku (30+ years/145+ issues) with poetry published worldwide (and deeply appreciated), he is online at: bear creek haiku poetry, poems and info

Malahide. Work.

from outside the office
the view goes away,
far
and all the way to the ocean.

and the office
with the view
is on top of a shopping mall.
downstairs people buy
avocados,
grapes,
oranges,
white wine,

all exotic things
brought from past the horizon.

and from the window
you can see the planes coming in
with their deliveries
and from outside
boats
hold even more.

there are islands out there
packed
and brewing with potential.

I would like to take you
to any island
and lie down on a beach in summer
and watch the boats coming in
while our hands shift through the warm sand on top
searching underneath
for the cold.

DS Maolalai is a poet from Ireland who has been writing and publishing poetry for almost 10 years. His first collection, Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden, was published in 2016 by the Encircle Press, and he has a second collection forthcoming from Turas Press in 2019. He has been nominated for Best of the Web and twice for the Pushcart Prize.

Neverminded.

the collector of sighs
works in the dead of night
listens for bed spring serenades
the unzipping of zips

love me love me not

love me not
love me not

the daises are dead
the chain is unlocked
she falls from a great height
no safety net
onto a stretcher of the emergency services
who whisk her away to
the club of the betrayed
where dj sorrow spins cracked love songs
it’s never too late

too late

she’s collapsed unconscious
drowned in her tears
her heart is broken
a thousand pieces
with no one around to help her
except
from the depths of darkness
there comes a hand
now she’s dancing with
kurt cobain

nevermind

Charlotte De’Ath was born in the east end of London but now lives in an idyllic cottage situated deep in the beautiful Suffolk countryside. She has published one chapbook, Kicks to Hypnotise Suburban Daughters, by Erbacce Press. She spends most of her free time playing with the Clueless Collective at: http://www.cluelesscollective.co.uk.

Role Model

I find
Solace
In your absolute
Vulnerability
And the trust
In your
Muse
While you lie
Prone
On an empty floor.
Waiting
For her to speak.

Anne Mikusinski has been writing poetry and short stories since she was seven years old and most probably making them up long before she could hold a pen or pencil in her hand. She finds inspiration in music and art, and sometimes, even little things that happen every day. Her influences range from Robert Frost and Dylan Thomas to David Byrne and Nick Cave, and she hopes one day, her work will inspire others in the same way these writers have been an inspiration to her.

Elegy for Great-Grandma Fern

She tells me
———-that she is a mountain,
———-the matriarch,
———-an institution in this family.
She has been here before this house existed,
———-before I was even a thought
———-in my parents’ brains.
She declares
———-that she is as old as old gets,
———-and she has seen as much as one can see.
She leans back
———-satisfied
——————–and asks me
Isn’t that quite the accomplishment?
———-I nod.
She slides into her brown stained recliner,
———-her elbows creaking as she pulls the lever,
——————–her pink welted skin squeaking on the dull leather,
——————————a short strand of gray hair drifting off her head.

My dad peeks his head in the room to make sure I’m okay.
———-Ben, she says, who is this?
——————–and she points a wrinkled finger at me.
———-That’s my daughter, Dad says.
——————–She doesn’t believe him.
———-No, she insists, your girls are just babies.
——————–Dad shakes his head
——————–and tries again.
———-They’ve grown up, Grandma. They’re older now.
——————–She shakes her head and stares at me
——————————as if not completely sure I’m real.
———-Ben, she says,
I can’t remember them growing up.

She is a mountain
and when I find out she has died
———-I ask myself
——————–if mountains can ever really die.
———-I ask myself
——————–if they can remember
——————————the curve of their children’s faces
——————————or the laugh of their first grandchild.
———-I ask myself
——————–if they can remember
——————————me.

Abigail Coulter is a student at the Alabama School of Fine Arts and is involved with the writing community in Birmingham, Alabama. She is the recipient of the third-place fiction award from the Young Authors Writing Competition at Columbia College Chicago and has been published in the literary magazine Cadence.

A Silence

Suddenly everything went silent.
No birds, no people talking, no rustle of trees.
Traffic had no sound.
I remember going to CVS
and paying for cigarettes with a check.
The clerk never uttered a word.
I was biding my time before packing my bags
and waiting for my father to pick me up.

But everything was in slow motion
like a kabuki dance.
Time stopped like a clock with no hands.
And on TV the president was giving
a speech in sign language.
I went to the bank where I withdrew cash
and no one noticed my hands shaking.
But everything was quiet so I didn’t care.

And I was alone on the street with many people
who were like extras in a film.
Was this what it was like to be deaf?
Or had the world stopped answering my questions?
I packed my bags and my father took me to the hospital
where they checked me in and went through my things for razor blades.

Marjorie Sadin has poems in The Barefoot Review, Microw, Emerge, The Little Magazine, Jewish Women’s Literary Journal, Tower Journal, among many others, and five books of poetry in print. Her new Vision of Lucha book portrays struggle and survival, love, death, and family. It was published by Goldfish Press. Recently she published a chapbook, Struck by Love, also by Goldfish Press. Marjorie lives and reads her poetry in the Washington DC area.

Spell for Blue Sky on the First Day of Spring

Raven, cross the wind.
Curly willow, clothe your coils
———-in catkins colored yellow.
Crocus, call the sun and drink it down!

Ancient pages of paper birch,
———-applaud.

Tara Shepersky is a taxonomist, poet, essayist, and landscape enthusiast, with tangled roots in half a dozen soils of America’s West. She has been previously published by Cascadia Rising Review and The Yearbook Office, and as a guest contributor on the Columbia Land Trust blog. Find her on Twitter @pdxpersky.

Stagecraft At The Temple

Our guru cyclones in –
Pantomime dame falsies,
Snazzy banana ear-rings.
We’re alert or lie-abed,
By calibre, disembarrassed souls.
Headway is fundamentally a pose.

Money Pouch Banter

Our guru clucks
To his market-stall Rolex.
Flashbacks are virulences
That dodge time-bending.
Yore-fun’s pictures
Shuffle themselves to omnipotence,
Archetyping tarots
For dewy lives.

Dropping Through Cracks

Our guru live wires
That rat-shaped bulb,
Frazzling celestial dodgems.
Proceedings are whip-handed.
Jam sesh: The Grateful Dead v Us.
Orphaned by destination,
Wheels flop-gripped.
Sunup is ticketless.

The Emptying

Turmeric holdovers on Miss Piggy t-shirt.
Fresh rap about every simper’s alpha –
Our guru’s on dictum.
We yum with postures of schisms;
Tomorrow we’ll be hustled for moolah.

Soapless Journeys

A 3-splits mirror,
Furfur is this turnout’s replica.
Unclasping ingrates purse,
The secret heart, libido. In memory,
Our guru dunked at hallowing waters.
Though time herself mislays the pure.

Christopher Barnes is an artist, filmmaker, poet, and poetry and art critic (Poetry Scotland, Jacket Magazine, Peel Magazine, Combustus); is a co-editor of the poetry magazine Interpoetry; and is author of the collection Lovebites (Chanticleer Press, 2005). Christopher’s BBC webpage:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/tyne/videonation/stories/gay_history.shtml