The purpose of this book is to erase a wrong notion from our minds that the history of this world was shaped only by tough, unflinching, strong men who were physically active as warriors. On the contrary, this book proves that women influenced events as much as men. They even surpassed all their contemporary males in bravery and intelligence many times. This book also analyses certain occurrences in world history that shook our past. Here, the readers will get the chance of travelling more than 3000 years in time through the lives of these daring women. The chapters would also read like crime thrillers because of much vengeance and bloodshed that happened in our past. To sum up, Goddesses of Fury is a work which narrates our complicated bygone days from around the world.
The book is available over Amazon for purchase. Grab your copies now.
I’ve been shooting at stars
all day in this Rapture
in lazy floods
hoping I strike a piece
of you so it will fall in toy diamond,
citrate frost, something I can chew on.
Your braided dream lilies looped
together with dowsing rods crafted
by an alchemist in a deleted scene
from a shelved noir.
For this space ordained
you, this panel graffiti in obsidian marker,
the confessional alarm
in your belly button,
and your bitten lilypad psychophage
waits for your heart’s Host
to fall with flipper women hissing
beneath spinning Roman columns,
hungry as light bulbs dimming,
their receivers
ringing one
after another
John Thomas Allen is a 38 year old poet who likes the novels of Pierre Jean Jouve, John Olson, and and Jaroslav Seifert. He hopes that there will be a poetry arcade somewhere, someday, and a real arcade, not one with wifi. He’s recently been in Synchronized Chaos, Dreams and Nightmares, and Veil: A Journal of Darker Musings, and in 2018 won the James Tate Prize for “Rolling In The Third Eye”, a collection of his poems.
tickled my fancy
dark,
beautiful
eyes
the latest soul
that has tickled
my fancy
a hello seems
impossible
through these
constantly
changing
disguises
we need
to wear
but this is
what happens
when you only
find your
confidence in
the middle
of a pandemic
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
just imagine my luck
my mother talks
in her sleep now
last night, i caught
her getting up to
go walking
in my head, i was
thinking well, at
least she got her
walker first
but i know now
why all the weapons
were removed
i could just imagine
my luck
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
on my own
the more i have watched
my mother age, the more
i know i will need to end
this journey on my own
sooner or later
the hollow look in her
eyes screams burden
i was there long before
she was
now the house of apathy
has turned into a competition
the winner gets the last
good urn
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
in a never-ending pandemic
sweating in a car
writing poems
exactly how i thought
it would go in my forties
waiting on my mother
to come out of a doctor's
appointment in a never-ending
pandemic
the dystopian dream never
ceases to amaze as long as
your hope has been destroyed
---------------------------------------------------------------------
slower and slower
i get the feeling
as the days drag
on slower and
slower during
this pandemic
that death would
be my best chance
to pass the time
it certainly beats
this shit circus
we have right
now
J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is old enough to know better. He’s been widely published over the years, most recently at Terror House Magazine, The Beatnik Cowboy, Horror Sleaze Trash, The Rye Whiskey Review and Mad Swirl. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)
LET YOUR FREAK FLAG FLY
Back in the day, back in the early ‘70s, back in high school when it was cool to be a hippie chick, Claudia read every hippie book she could find. Poetry books by Rod McKuen. Books on macrobiotics. Spiritual books like Be Here Now by Ram Dass. Be here now, be here now, be here now. Live in the present moment. Wish she could. But she can’t. Not now. After college she planned to escape her small town life, move to San Francisco, and become a Beat poet. That never happened either. The light turns red, and Claudia crosses a busy intersection. She heads down Hawthorne Street and then Tyler Boulevard and then Miller Street to Baxter Avenue. At the end of Baxter she’ll turn around and walk back. This is the daily five-mile maze of streets her doctor prescribed for stress reduction. But even though her body loves the exercise, her thoughts are anything but tranquil. As the senior editor of the local newspaper, she is consumed with endless deadlines, demanding advertisers, and a staff of headstrong journalists. No time to be here now. BOOM! Something large and hairy slams into Claudia, hurling her to the pavement. “Are you okay, lady?” her assailant asks, pulling her to her feet. It’s the old hippie on the bench outside the ice cream parlor. He sits there every day watching Baxter Avenue. “What happened?” she asks, brushing dirt from her shirt and pants. “Had to tackle you before you stepped in front of the bus,” he scolds, returning to his bench. “What bus?” she asks. Her clothes are ruined. She’ll have to stop by Macy’s on her way back. “Be here now, sister,” he warns. Claudia laughs and sits down next to him on the bench. “I owe you an ice cream cone,” she says. The old hippie smiles, staring at something across the street. She follows his gaze to the maple trees lining Baxter Avenue. It’s October, and they’re already a blaze of red. So bright they set the street on fire. Funny how she hadn’t noticed that before.
MOVING OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE IS HIGHLY OVERRATED
This is a fact: Nancy loves her electric blanket, the leopard-print one, the one she hates to leave every morning, the one she loves to burrow beneath on cold nights, the one that never disappoints her, frustrates her, makes her angry enough to contemplate murdering someone, like, oh, maybe her husband last month when he left on a nine-day golf vacation to Myrtle Beach with his good-old-boy buddies, where he played golf all day for nine days under a sizzling summer sun, consumed nothing but pizza, wings, steak, chocolate, and vodka (the five major food groups, according to good old boys), forgot that he had a heart condition, forgot that he’s on heart medication, that he’s on high blood pressure medication, that he’s on a low fat/low sodium/high fiber/heart-friendly diet, that he needs to stay hydrated (according to his doctor), that he’s no longer 18 but 68 freakin’ years old, so it was no surprise he landed in the hospital the day he returned from nine totally brainless days in Myrtle Beach, his body dehydrated, his heart rate sky high, his A-fib in full bloom, his heart medication no longer working, so, no, it was no surprise at all when he called Nancy to let her know he was in the hospital (again) that she hung up on him, jerked her wedding ring off her finger, flung it in the trash, walked upstairs to the bedroom, grabbed a romance novel from the bookcase, and crawled beneath her leopard-print electric blanket, allowing its warmth to comfort her like a cup of tea with her BFF (who she called later that day), because sometimes you just have to escape the stupidity of married life and pretend you’re still gloriously single, that you never said “I do” when you obviously “do NOT,” because sometimes believing that you’re still single, free, and husbandless is enough to make everything right in your world. But, then again, sometimes it’s not.
BIO:
Laura Stamps loves to play with words and create experimental forms for her fiction. Author of several novels and short story collections, including IT’S ALL ABOUT THE RIDE: CAT MANIA (Alien Buddha Press). Muses Prize. Pulitzer Prize nomination. 7 Pushcart Prize nominations. Mom of 4 cats. Twitter: @LauraStamps16. www.laurastampsfiction.blogspot.com
Thoughts and Prayers
Small furry animals have crawled out of their holes for a look. Such sights! Smashed-in skulls and severed feet and angels covered in blood. Like a nasty drunk, God has been exceptionally belligerent of late. A cadaverous woman in blue scrubs who says her name is April asks, “On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the lowest, how severe is your pain?” Strangers on social media offer thoughts and prayers. Even then, the leaves on trees instantly wither as a burning airship passes overhead. My wife refuses a ride. We cling together just like the words in a poem.
The Sadness Will Last Forever
I was scarecrow thin and often cold and trembly. When I went out in my black beret and belted black raincoat, I might easily have been mistaken for an amateur spy. I would watch with mounting anxiety as the woods filled up with snow or the horizon burned from one end to the other. For years, my condition remained undiagnosed. But just because it now has a name doesn’t mean there is a proven treatment. A physician in rural Massachusetts has failed once again in his attempt to photograph the soul leaving the body at the moment of death.
Sunday Bloody Sunday
A gun goes off. I lie there on the carpet, more and more convinced that something is wrong with my breathing. It’s only then that I realize I should have listened when they discouraged me from using semicolons. On this particular Sunday, the music returns, like an angel with wings made entirely of eyes. Pope Francis declares from his window in St. Peter’s Square, “Don’t be afraid of tattoos.” Ha! I know what it’s like to live under the tyranny of bodily pain, forced to endure its cruel and arbitrary edicts, and no one to prevent allegorical statues of Dawn and Dusk from being melted down for bullets.
Howie Good is the author of Failed Haiku, a poetry collection that is the co-winner of the 2021 Grey Book Press Chapbook Contest. It is scheduled for publication in summer 2022.
Space and Time
Perception of space
Folded within a corner
I see from the inside
You see in and outside
Observation of time
Outside the line
I see the short-side
You exist outside
Persistence of regret
In all my dark corners
Penitent from the inside
You erase it from memory
Lē‘ahi
Southside Oahu, littered with tuff cones:
Koko Head, labia minor,
Punchbowl, the hill of sacrifice,
Diamond Head, point of the ahi fish, all
grand promontories—extinct volcanic craters.
Rules and restriction translated to challenges,
saucer-shaped Diamond Head called me;
outside the renowned Fire Control Station,
its new and aged military facilities prohibited
all access to taxpaying civilians—daring infiltration.
Sneaking into the naturally fortified crater, eluding
camouflaged guards—real or imagined adversaries—
I stealthily advance; my body clothed in red trunks and tan skin,
blend into tropical surroundings, melt, into plentiful vegetation
encircling the cavity’s inner rim, entering the military mystery maze.
The apparent sound of bullets buzz by,
pierce the dense, dank, jungle undergrowth,
expose themselves as culex quinquefasciatus brown mosquitos
vicariously breeding in stagnate water—feasting
on a liquid banquet from my exposed legs and arms.
Damp, corroded chambers cut in the cavity resemble
Alcatraz cells: steel beds hanging from rusted chains,
ascend 560 feet from the floor past bunkers where
solid concrete walkways shift to a natural tuff
severe switchbacks negotiate the interior crater’s sheer slope.
The rugged trail morphs into steep, stone stairs through a
225-foot tunnel to a fortification that one directed artillery
fire from batteries beyond; reaching its pumice plateau,
approaching a mammoth navigational lighthouse,
I scan the Oahu’s sandy shoreline from Koko Head to Wai’anae.
Historical playground for humpback whales,
oblivious the area doubles as a coastal defense vista.
tropical trade winds brush my face, activating imagination
while the capacious, comforting, cacophony
of Kanaloa’s waves crash like rhythmic pahu far below.
**********************************************
Bing Thieves
Campbell fertility
fruit cannery pioneer
Santa Clara gem
I long for fruitful harvests
silicon wasteland reclaimed
Ripe cherry orchards decorated the valley
like Christmas Tree ornaments, round, red,
eye popping orbs drew visitor’s attention
away from migrant farm worker camps
or miserable wooden boxes—an excuse
for a home—enjoyed by a cheerful few.
And yes, these orchards offered adventure,
growers aimed two barrels, shot rock salt
in our butts as we ran from their groves,
buckets full, bandito mystique undeniable,
dire warnings from our parents
school authorities—all elders ignored.
Best times never knew the worst yet to come
as stainless-steel chains uprooted tree trunks
tar and concrete smothered fertile fields,
and children grew up dodging street traffic
gathering in malls, frequenting cyber cafés—never
swaggering, searching, pilfering full-grown fruit…
**********************************************
Cracks of Light
Our empty hearts once filled
with unflinching alacrity,
agitated overnight we stood
by oil radiators metal accordions;
cast iron dragons as discolored
as seasoned crêpe pans
heated our hands while we
embraced common sense
depression; huddled together
like snowed-in hostages
sharing their communal discomfort
in sweaty submission,
our restless blues cut through
a hauntingly sober silence
like a machete blade slicing
dense jungle undergrowth
incessantly screaming out
for social emancipation
when disunity and whimsy
displace crude manners
dwarfing responsibility:
lockdown solidarity.
**********************************************
Tilt-a-Whirl Madness
Lock yourself down, hold on tight
you met the height challenge
cork shoe lifters shot you up
two inches & ruffled hair made
you appear gigantic, in control,
ready to spin like a stuntperson
make centrifugal force your own
gravitational pull your companion.
Fold brazen arms behind padded
lap bars, secure yourself & strangers
who ride sheet metal thrillers & share
danger’s safehouse; youthful mouths
missing teeth laugh & scream
like delighted children escaping
tides that grasp ankles as they
scamper from surf to dry sand.
Quartz lights flash perpetual chaos
in motion as the platform rotates,
seven swiveling cars test fortitude
resolve, & moxie, daring bold riders
like yourself to sidestep carnival sawdust
spread on the floor, eerie remains
of motion sickness for those out of sync
victimized by Tilt-a Whirl indifference.
**********************************************
Tipping Point Snapshot
Cars roll down the inner-city gullet
vehicle lights flashing as dawn’s early rays
part mist & unveil crosswalk shadows;
old school skyscrapers jut up towards heaven
protect flying rodents—portrait ready pigeons—
that nest below stone-crafted window ledges—
scarlet scavenger eyes fixate on pedestrians below
looking for careless hands fingering croissants,
& street vendors dropping hot dogs & soft pretzels;
drummers begin beating empty 5-gallon cans
under concrete bank porticos; audible rhythms echo
miles up and down Broadway, rebound off structures;
street singers & mimes soon join in the fray
destitute but happy, many homeless yet carefree,
hats & guitar cases welcome unlikely prospects
as the strip begins to buzz & people shuffle
in line for blocks awaiting Starbucks to open,
fuel & task soul-fed inspiration with caffeine;
meanwhile, escorts saunter home, recline
on their own beds—sleep uninterrupted. Restful.
Free of twilight visitations when overweight patrons
pin them with passion’s pretense allowing groans
to rise & fill voids like subway grate updrafts
decelerating wind as noisy as traffic horn banter
Manhattan minstrels, hucksters, & saints
approach tipping points, regain equilibrium,
& embrace yet another good morning’s night.
