Too Late

I have not been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
I have not been nominated for Best of the Net.
I am not an American Book Award.
I am not a MacArthur Grant.
I still haven’t been nominated for Best of the Net.
No Pulitzer. No Ruth Lilly. No Robert Frost medal.
No Pushcart Prize. No Pushcart Prize.
I do not teach. I have no residency.
I have not won the award you have not heard of.
When I write my poem on paper
the paper’s value plummets.
The paper is useless garbage.
I am a font of useless garbage.
My arms twist like twisting things, my legs twist
like twisting things.
My head tips back, my mouth opens
and useless garbage pours out.
It will drown the world.
They will give me a prize to stop.
A special prize for stopping the poetry.
But it is too late.

AUDRA

Audra was Lithuanian.
Her family escaped from behind the Iron Curtain.
She spoke little English 
but, with her parents and siblings, she took 
English classes twice a week.

I learned that, “Hello” in her language
was “sveiki” and that the name Audra
translated into “storm.”
While I nibbled on ham sandwiches,
she ate cold potato pancakes for lunch.

Her father was a nurse in Lithuania 
but a tradesman in Australia.
Her mother worked at a convenience store.
Her two older brothers and younger sister
also attended the school but made no friends. 

Audra did try to fit in
but her accent was a formidable barrier.
And her plainness was no help.
She was something of a whiz at math.
Her neatness of hand embarrassed my sloppiness.

Audra left the school after one year.
A job in nursing opened up for her father
and the family moved north. Her chair wasn’t 
vacant long. A boy from Hungary took her seat.
But he, like Audra, couldn’t sit in it for long.  




ARMAGEDDON SLEEP

In the bed beside me, she's a comfort.
Once again, I'm gently hugged off to sleep.
But then I dream of traveling through a land
destroyed by nuclear holocaust.
The ground is scorched, the air black with soot.
Smoke rises from holes in the earth,
slow, continuous farts of charcoal and charred flesh.

I stop to examine a badly burned man,
his skin like a plague victim's and still smoldering.
The explosion simmered down,
raw wind starts getting its own back,
swirls the ashes, the filth,
makes sure I breathe every last mote of it.

Do I dream of such vile endings
because I can't take, for company through my subconscious,
the other in bed with me?
Is sleep, instant amnesia?
A loss of contact with everything short of Armageddon?

A lizard crawls across the simmering ashes.
It's moves quickly, then stops when it sees me,
raises its head as if it's the more important now,
like it's been suddenly liberated from human rule.
I crawl under the rock that reptile has left behind,
discover it's the pillow my head is burrowed into.

Awake, at one a.m..,
I'm like a beggar on a lonely dark street,
starving and terrified.
Thankfully, she breathes some silver in my cup.



HIS TIME OF DYIN’

He performed that
old bines number
in an open tuning on D
with the capo on the fourth fret.

He' d seen Led Zeppelin play it
back in the mid-seventies
but his version was softer, more plaintive,
like gospel turned down a few notches.

You can imagine the chills
troubling my spine
knowing he had cancer
and that part of his gruffness
came from the corrosion in his throat.

D-A-D-F#-A-D -
that was the medicine
he prescribed himself.
It didn't cure him
but I know it healed somebody.


IN THE MOMENTS AFTER SEX

When it is done,
it doesn’t matter
that you roll your body over,
look away from him.

You’re drawn 
to the sight of yourself
strutting giddily down
some tree-lined avenue,
wind-blown hair,
bells chiming 
as you swing your arms,
legs doing just enough
to sway your hips
and keep you upright.

“Are you okay?”
he asks.
He doesn’t know
you’re out of earshot.



NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM

I stop and stare into the non-eyes
of the rhinoceros that is not a rhinoceros.
From there, it’s to the African elephant 
or, mucho stuffing wrapped in chemically 
preserved skin, topped off with real tusks. 
Then it’s the un-monkeys, nailed to
branches in mid-frolic and the constrictor  
that won’t be constricting anything any time soon.
Meanwhile, the pseudo whale, suspended by strings,
swims in an ocean of glass-enclosed air.
It makes me think of how much money and time
it cost me to go on that unsuccessful whale watch 
out of Bar Harbor.
I could have just sent a dummy in my place, 
one dressed



NICOLE

She was a runner,
little weight, astonishing speed.
Someone made her face sit still for a photograph.
Amazing.

Her battle was lost on the fields of bedroom.
Her eyes raced miles ahead
but her body stopped at the oak tree
mincing words with her window.

Jet planes couldn't keep up with her pace.
Satellites had no chance.
Her vision was around the world twice
before a soul could whisper "Amen."

"Write it down, write it down."
they implored her.
But her hand wasn't part of the flight-plan.
The pen on paper was the first to die.

She was a pilot of great reach.
No stopping at the stars for her.
She settled for nothing less
than a thrilling dash to her own mind.

Too late, too late.
She was expecting thought, imagination.
But it was something else
when she got there.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing,

California Quarterly and Lost Pilots. Latest books, ”Between Two Fires”, “Covert” and  “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the Seventh Quarry, La Presa and Doubly Mad..

Circular [movement] over [juxtaposing]

        
        L
        L
        A
LLAC
        CALL
                L
                A
                C

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


lifted
from
nothing
to
find
in
nothing

////////////////////////////////////////////////////
///////////////////////////////////////////////////

                                                      yet...
...

                          the
                                hair
                        catches
                                in
                         the
                                    monument


yet...
yet...
yet?????????


                         
                                YES
                                YES
                                YES

'...............................................'

■ 
Language {as the} lotus {pulse}


ah
a
ah
a
..............................................
...................a
...................................ah
..........a
............................ah


□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□
□                   □
□                   □
□       sound                   □
□                   □
□                   □
□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□


now without reform the corner
turns and bleaches into noting
not spoken or stolen but ringing
and ringing and ringing and...


ETC.
ETC.
E  C.
  TC.
E    .


and now I'll take the tune and 
smother the ring into the bound
hand and the corner that has
come unstuck and coloured
white and blue and gold and...


a     n     d               
s     o                      
s     a     i     d         
a     g     a     i     n  


                                             BREATH
AND                                   LET
                        GO                
Lost without Translucence 

ba
ba
ba
ba


!

                                       only
                                       lonely
                                       this


         ==▲
      ==■
   ==●


SHUTTERED WITHOUT WARNING



...................................................
'I told you to watch the weather'
...................................................



                            a
                    WARNING
                           to
                     THROATS



in any case I am estranged



==▲
   ==■
     ==●



pause
pulse
ba
ba
a 
Progression [into] hyper-modern



                             as

S           T              A               I            N


//strip mined//for mercury//


              ABSTAINED


                             //from the//dense step//


half===============this
half===============this
                     ++
                     ++
..............................................



walking
backwards
talking
eastwards



                                {{shaped
                    like an}}
                             {{elephant
                      TUSK!}}





 
Re(turned) to form as (catalyst)

re
re
re                           ----member
                                               e
                                               m
                                               e
                                               b
                                               e
                                               r


▲
▲▲
▲▲▲

                                    and fit to size


the
bicycle
and                                             G         
                                                   O
                                                   D

                         
                            sit
                           the
                                     same



where                  is                 your

                       
                        LOTUS


                         NOW



▲
▲▲
▲▲▲

Nathan Anderson is a poet and artist from Mongarlowe, Australia. He is the author of numerous books and has had work appear widely both online and in print. He is a member of the C22 experimental writing collective. You can find him at nathanandersonwriting.home.blog or on Twitter/X and Bluesky @NJApoetry.

This Ebb of Darkness

1
Deep yawning coming into focus
your room a hole between walls

another blur of the ceiling
morning light accepting your awakening

wondering what day it is
searching a few moments for meaning

and you stretch in a bed of only one
familiar blanket and cold feet

turning your stiff neck toward the window
curtain open as always a hint of the still
life calling

outside sky of puffs of cloud over blue
blending behind a bad city of sadness

you want to cry but can't remember how
and nothing would come out of it
so why waste the energy

and you rise
a stiff stick of a man
slow grinding your teeth

a declaration of "I'm not dead yet!"

2
A laughing toilet waiting in the bathroom
white porcelain cleaned somewhat
with a week of writing poems
for someone you don't know.

3
And you shove your skinny legs
into old pants and walk barefoot
to the peephole window

glaring down three stories to the street
littered with garbage in the gutters
and stinking slick sidewalks

children not playing but running
for hiding places and free cookies
from handouts from crooked hands.

4
Deep sigh
deciding you're hungry now

going downstairs
past all the other losers
locked in tombs with ears smashed
against their doors

tears in their eyes
wondering why
they can't help the emptiness
even with the sunrise...

5
You won't quit

brushing your teeth
with no tooth paste

smile still showing in the dark
even with a crack in the mirror.

6
A crack quickly spreading
into a top heavy internet
with Jack the Ripper coming
riding two motorcycles
with a foot on each

but you're good with it
this ebb of darkness.

7
For you can survive
almost any trick
of the wicked
which will eventually stumble
and fall into their own dark
spy holes.



Excuse?

We're in a country of top heavy pretenders...

not understanding sooner or later
someone is going to slap them down,
stomp on their false teeth,
and kick their tail down the street.

They'll have to live with the rest of us...

Seeing how we feel more
than how they ever felt

they with their fathers
giving them a lousy excuse
on trying to exterminate us.



The Downward of Now

Floating
in the ocean swell
a last wave
and breath

sunset prayer
bubbles rising as I sink
eyes closing
sea deep

my dreams
heart beating
echoes
satisfying sleep

I am
one of those
in the downward of now
watering of tears

burial at sea
never reaching bottom
riptide
back home on shore

coughing up
hallucinations
and a headache of dreams

a rope tide around my ankle
someone pulling me
across the finish line.




Stephen Jarrell Williams can be found on Twitter (X) @papapoet 

An Unkindness 

They congregate in a sorrowful gale
Holding mourning souls in mist-o-pale.
Their callings, cawing; clawing ears.
A dirge for all those forlorn tears.
An unkindness of ravens surge
Their saddened song does purge.
Haunting as they remind of dismal days.
Taunting they scream in the dreadful haze.
Here does Death now call.
Where the curtains make a final fall.
Unkind is the Unkindness 
For Death knows no blindness.


An Ember of Tomorrow's Sorrow

Of all the sorrows my heart hath ever begotten
There are few which in grave will then be forgotten.
For over time I have passed many a threshold
That have closed to wounds that have grown old.
Still I have scars deep in my soul that fester and remind.
Some of which the origin of the wounds I have yet to find.
Phantom paper cuts of endless festering sorrow,
Fears of a drear from a hopefully distant tomorrow.
My monophobic thanatophobia paints a gloomy portrait
Of a dystopia that haunts from a future unknown date.
Death and I have carried this platonic affair since I remember;
Which is evermore but a faint glowing ember.
I fear when that sorrow becomes a flame.
When that ember burns with her name.


From South-Western, Michigan, Jerry Langdon lives in Germany since the early 90's. He is an Artist and Poet. His works bathe in a darker side of emotion and fantasy. He has released five books of Poetry titled "Temperate Darkness an Behind the Twilight Veil", “Death and other cold things” “Rollercoaster Heart” and “Frosted Dreams” Jerry is also the editor and publisher of the literary magazine Raven Cage Zine poetry and prose. His poetic inspirations are derived from poets such as Edgar Allen Poe, Robert Frost and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. As well as from various Rock Bands. His apparently twisted mind, twists and intertwines fantasy with reality.

Midnight Soul and Hay Meadow Heart 

Night comes creeping softly 
Like a ghost descending the stairs 
Dragging reluctant shadows behind it 
With a dark beauty that mystifies reality; 
Flooding my being with midnight skies 
And lining the walls of my soul 
With planets, suns, orbiting moons, swirling 
Nebulas and covering the Sistine ceiling of my soul 
With the layers of a million Milky Ways. 
My super-conscious is a blackness 
Lighted by a billion twinkling stars. 
There is just room enough left in my psyche 
To fill each crevice with the scent of new mown hay 
And the site of the burgeoning meadows of home 
Over-flowing the memory banks of my heart. 



Night and Its Shadows 

Night has come and shadows pace 
The corridors of forgotten memories 
And stops at the door of the vault 
Where unused dreams are stored. 
The shadow of longing whisks by 
The faint light left glowing 
On the memories of timeless love; 
The preciousness so close to the soul; 
That can never be forsaken 
Nor cast into the mists of time 
Unspoken, unused or wasted 
Or left waiting for the eyes of love 
To open and see what they never saw 
When longing was young and fresh as dew 
And dripping sweetness so heartbreakingly new 
And never gathered to an intended’s pulsing breast. 
Now the shadows glean the aftermath 
Of unrequited love and endless dreams 
Trapped like lost souls endlessly 
Seeking to find the elusive heart 
For whom they were always meant. 

Annie Johnson is 84 years old. She is Shawnee Native American. She has published two, six hundred-page novels and six books of poetry. Annie has won several poetry awards from world poetry organizations including; World Union of Poets; she is a member of World Nations Writers Union; has received the World Institute for Peace award; the World Laureate of Literature from World Nations Writers Union and The William Shakespeare Poetry Award. She received a Certificate and Medal in recognition of the highest literature from International Literary Union for the year 2020, from Ayad Al Baldawi, President of the International Literary Union. She has three children, two grandchildren, and two sons-in-law. Annie played a flute in the Butler University Symphony. She still plays her flute.