Poetry from L. Wayne Russell

when all is said and done 

when all is said and done
and our stories have been told
fade with me 
into the ground  
once we were 
life and flourished
flowers in spring

a dance upon the 
checkered floor
laughter in corridors 
of museums and gardens

yes once we were

once we acted upon
this stage 
once intertwined within
this ballet 
this grand facade of life
turn pages once white and crisp
now yellowed and stained
with time
dance with me in quiet dreams 
and in photos
dance with me 
in stark contrast to realities
of the dangerous world

we once did dwell
and while we rest
while angels swirl
and mortals may cry
they hold us dear
and candles flicker
our memories live on

our spirits sour forever




Seasonal Song


Season of rebirth,
shadows in the trees,
leaf's in hibernation
Spring hovering in 
dagger breeze.

Pessimist Winter,
that old frozen fool,
sliding away, clinging;
losing his grip slowly,
but soon
the inevitable will 

happen. 

Everything turns, even 
seasons, old man
Winter must
relinquish
and disperse 
giving dominion to
life again.  


Mystery veil lifts, reveal
intricate truth of mortal
waves crashing.

Compassion intermingling
with muddy river, burst at
the seams; flowers and dreams,
transcend and fusing. 

Life and death,
emotionless hand
of Winter,
and pollen-infused innocence
of Spring.


Show Me Mercy (forever a victim of the undertow)

Death picks us, off one by one,

like soldiers into the firing line,

like another sunrise; or cloudy

day.

A loveless night, passed out on

the beaches of Florida, a Niche

book laying limp by my side.

Karaoke and beer made me feel

like feeling again, helped me climb

back into the intellectual realms

again, here we go again, college

round 3.

Just wanting to live life and yet so

addicted to that psychological mumbo

jumbo.

Oh Jung! Oh Freud! Oh Janov!

You always speak to me!

You speak to me in riddles and rhymes,

intermingling with interludes of

Hesses' Glass Bead Game, and that

Siddhartha; electronic music swirling

always in my skull; ear candy from the

early 80's; I am forever the New Romantic.

I am forever a victim of the undertow.





L. Wayne Russell is or has been many things during his lifetime, he has been a creative writer, world traveler, graphic designer, former soldier, former sailor, amateur photographer, aspiring guitarist, singer, and creative writer. Wayne has been widely published in both online and hard-copy creative writing magazines. From 2016-17 he founded and edited the now-defunct online creative writing magazine, Degenerate Literature.

In late 2018, Wayne was nominated for his first Pushcart Prize, in addition, in 2019, he was nominated for Best of the Net. In 2020, Wayne had his debut paperback book of poetry published by Guerrilla Genesis Press; Where Angels Fear is currently still available for purchase on Amazon.

Poetry from John Culp

+



Where
  Perspectives 
      Meet 

   the throne 
       will seat

              Trust
   Trust   ☆

           Trust 

           Rest

     Becomes 
           Me

             ♡


                                      ............

by John Edward Culp 
Sunday Morning 
February 19, 2023

Poetry from Mesfakus Salahin

Mesfakus Salahin

Mystery of Love
Mesfakus Salahin

#####
The day is long
The night is endless
The dream is a mirror
A frame is imitated where
I hear a sound whispering
Mystery of love
That comes from the lap of Nature.

The fragrance  of roses
Smiles with the shining morn
About an angel
Who walks in the stair of breath
Plays in the garden of heart
Sleeps in the field of silence.
      I see and see 
      She lives in me
      Is this love?
...............then
     I am in love.

The fountains walk
In the heart of sea
Spreading a message supernaturally
Through waves
Love is strange to a stranger
           I feel  it
I sacrifice myself to love
And request to you.

Essay from Gail Thomas

       Musical Memories                 

Cars are for crying. I’m not sure if it’s the nostalgic lyrics of the songs pouring out of the radio, or the time alone in a confined space that push the tears out of me. Maybe both. But, a silent, tuneless car ride is empty, somehow. My right hand auto-pilots to the radio as I nestle into the driver’s seat. Sometimes I wonder if I choose to listen to songs that will stir up the sadness in my guts. Music connects me to all the dead people. And to the living, missing people.

I don’t think I consciously choose songs to elicit my tears. Music naturally makes me  feel something. Wakes me up. Disturbs memories. I know I’m not alone with the music. Melodies. Lyrics. They stir everyone differently.

In my office, where the Bluetooth speaker is only quiet when my phone rings, the ladies humor me, and try to sing along as Gene Kelly Radio delivers the songs of my childhood. Dad filled our house with show tunes, all day, every day. I smile. A lot. But Tea for Two makes the tears fall as I shuffle ball change, shuffle hop step across terra cotta tiles, cherishing memories of Dad’s fake soft-shoe as he and I performed in front of the full-length bathroom mirror. I can still hear his perfect pitch voice and see his eyes twinkle beneath his wild tangle of eyebrows as he sang Oh What a Beautiful Mornin’ through the magical days of my childhood and beyond.

Halfway home on the turnpike last week, I touched the XM radio classic rock icon on the stereo screen. The Eagles’ Tequila Sunrise was just ending, and I heard the unmistakable guitar riff of The Beatles’ Revolution. I didn’t pick this song. The DJ did. Eight words into John’s iconic voice, my eyes spilled tears. I never know when it will happen. I had never been much of a crier. Maybe I cry in the car because I don’t want to do it in front of anyone.

            We played mostly Beatles at Jeffie’s funeral in San Francisco. It’s been six and a half years since my oldest brother left us. It still feels impossible. He went to sleep on a Thursday and never woke up on Friday. I’ll never know what to do with it. It’s pain that doesn’t leave.

            We connected through music. And many other things. But the songs are the glue. They stick to the memories. Keep them alive.

            While my brother, Jim and his acoustic guitar sang me to sleep with Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard and Sweet Baby James, Jeffie introduced me to Pousette-Dart Band and 10cc. He got a mile long lemon-yellow Cadillac with black leather seats when he was seventeen. I was ten. At that moment in time, I’m not sure which I loved more: my big brother, his new used car, its smooth creased worn-in seats, or the 8-track radio that blasted all my new favorite songs. He took me for rides just so we could belt out I hope that it’s only Amnesia, believe me I’m sick but not insane… at the top of our lungs. I could only see out the windshield if I sat bent-kneed with my sneakered feet stacked under my butt. I took for granted the fact that he let me play the song as many times as I wanted. Summer swirled my brown mane across my face as it came in the windows. I didn’t miss a word, though, as I scooped long strands of hair out of my mouth.

            Forty-five years later, I play Amnesia, loudly and mostly with a smile. It depends on the day. Sometimes I cry through it. Sometimes I belt it out. Loud and out of tune. But it makes me feel close to my brother. The songs connect the memories so they can stay in my brain. I don’t ever want to lose them. So, I keep playing them. Even if they take up too much space for new music I could enjoy.

Stuck in music of the past keeps me closer to my best memories. Better times. Easier times. Less sad times. Months after losing him, I allowed myself to climb the spiral wooden stairs to Jeffie’s attic bedroom in my parent’s house. I knew exactly where to find them. His box of records sat, unchanged, in the back corner of the cedar closet with the low wooden door.

I felt ten again as my fingers walked over the top edge of each record, advancing them enough to see the name and art work on the well-worn covers. The Beatles, Steely Dan, Dan Fogelberg, Jethro Tull, England Dan and John Ford Coley, David Bowie, Chicago, James Taylor, Cat Stevens, Joni Mitchell, Nicolette Larson. Maybe I’ll be musically stuck in the 70s forever. Maybe the calm of that era that pulses through me keeps me from longing for modern music.

Music flows through our lives all day, every day. My husband, Brian has opened my cemented musical tastes to boatloads of new artists. With my heels still dug into John Denver’s boots, I admit to feeling musically enlightened. Even enthralled by Phish, ALO, the Grateful Dead, the Foo Fighters, Nine Inch Nails and Goose. I can listen to Pink Floyd. They’re not loud or offensive as I had always assumed. And I don’t have to be stoned to enjoy them. As I had also assumed.

I think I’ll make two saved playlists on my new car stereo: Songs for Crying and Songs Not for Crying.

The car sob-sessions are short-lived and cathartic. The nostalgia of the music fills me up like the chocolate soft serve of my childhood.

Poetry from Vernon Frazer

No Loving Conversion Likely


the stuttered transaction

buff grows bright to give



                   more islet heating



a saturation foundation

          matriarch occlusion

below



          that loud enchilada

          snoring earless to soot



     vary a metier 

     surround the disease 



                      classification trampling





                                  (  )



		

leotard peninsulas

warmly recumbent

honed caliper men



              a monogram portent

              their hierarchical tipster measured



                        loose bits dark



  left to suffer a confused nodal portent



            quaking derision



                                       discharging the swipe





                                  (  )





then saturation thanks

before its brewers fin a winger                 

     of cultural radish



                  bent appointment ventures

                  aching the succulent droop



          perplexity encouraged grated theocracy



                                  to

                                  a reclusive vertigo 



                      its intended folly

                      watching for histories deferred






Hard Water



intimidating laundry

the inimical peasants cast

of thousands pored



            per square inch



raging 

           the shallow intimate

           through 

                        forced declamation



               rum vagaries inept

               at transfer flagons



           no lantern 

                            comes

                                         too soon





                     *



  for                     comfort



           wonder



               or

     

            winter



           allowed 

  

     a sneaky pastime

     remembered cleanser scent

     last, the shaded

                      

          horde of hinting

               elation

                          eking

fast line gorges

along the marrow plane



                     *



the lines converge

it surges its bone-sucking orgy



on wandering

crescents wet yet divergent





           as

               any

                     angle



           strike



bragging 

empty pleasantries



     soft

     as the sand 

     in the river 



                        wash



cackled 



              inimical tidings 



                                        to the current





Dropping the Ball


      1.



a pelota 

simulacrum for raffle 

            or rescue



included venom throttles



     toned scraping 

     exploded uses



              sycophantic

              as the empty grip



baring shaken 

before their metaphor blazer



     a retrofit lunatic 

     steaming a fetal caddy rim

     forking tunnels



             alongside usage latrines 



where distention refusals 

prolonged postponing belligerents



     dispose 

                   thermal cacophony 

     educate 

                   natal gaffe dragons



           to their vocation



                 2.



before encrypted withdrawals 

ferment the dubious underlings

their ballad affiliates will breed 



              forever 



                           express bristles

                           barter the groping circuit



              grimly

    

                           dissimilar to a wilding rant

                           the expectorant a missing 



                                       deuce voice 

                                       borne recumbent 



                             to a confrontation statesman      



                 3.



the nautical scaffold

turns finished landscape

     firing

   

             generation textile crises 

             before experienced play   



                  pelota comes                

                  horned in caramel



umber broaches

a scripted eventuality



     puddle hippies 

     cow the slipping pineal

                           at will



weakened entity feels the hollow



         tinted around

         its invective mirage



            missing suffer throttles 

                 in the simulacrum cushion loop

                 no raffle no rescue



face 



        the collective punctuality

                         

                                                of tomorrow





Snake Oil Enforcers


legacy doctors 

interrogate every mamba wrapper

labor no return 



buttress knots missing gluten



wrapper heading

crosses murals at the pablum bar

no fortitude express 



hooting a salami fortress



better left

for saying rather than

turn right



under the riot of interrogation 





Railing Toward Shore



bugbear vignette

slowed the scoreboard snatching

corpulent railways



spine borders

a garbled eyelash plunging to color

dangle hazing



the bartenders

waged paramour encroachments

pillowcase doubling



vigor fountains

trip a yawning mound prosaic

the nitwits climb



defeatist vigor

strata antler whereabouts

gleam the past



no serpentine

linguist scratches effervescent

on moonlight



tattle regimen 

near the summation unveiled

a feldspar lecture



essay finalist

a bicoastal maniac rose

flatly baffled



before waterline

plunges breed the convectional


foreground rise







BIO

Vernon Frazer’s most recent publications are Avenue Noir, a C22 Open Edition, and Gulf of the Purple Enigma, an Alien Buddha paperback.







Poetry from Mark Young

Five Postwoman Poems

Today the post-
woman brought
me a CD of Do-
Nuts T.®ump
reciting The Star-
Spangled Banner
when I’d asked for
a sharp-angled
spanner to be de-
livered. Why this?
I asked. Listen to
the words, she said.
I just wanted to point
out to the oft-critical
poet that there’s some-
one even more inept
at using the correct
words than I am, &
he used to be the
fucking President.

*

Today the post-
woman brought
me a split infin-
itive. I ran out to
quickly collect it.

*

Today the post-
woman brought
me an abacus.
Does it still
work? I asked.
I wouldn’t count
on it, she replied.

*

Today the post-
woman brought
me an asteroid
belt. Pity I’ve
got no suit/able
trousers to
wear it with.

*

Today the post-
woman brought
me an elephant.
What’s this? I
asked. Wondered
if you were interested
in a pet, she replied.
It was thrown out
from a house earlier
on my round. A big
guy lives there, named
Hannibal. Apparently
he’s downsizing after
a trip across the Alps,
& there wasn’t room
in the room for both
him & the elephant.

Poetry from Corey Cook

small flame

atop a sturdy wick

yellow crocus

# # # 

stuck at the top

of the seesaw

fledgling

# # #

Corey D. Cook’s sixth chapbook, Junk Drawer,was published by Finishing Line Press in 2022. His poems have recently appeared in *82 Review, Akitsu Quarterly, Black Poppy Review, Duck Head Journal, Muddy River Poetry Review, Naugatuck River Review, Nixes Mate Review, South Florida Poetry Review, and Spare Change News. New work is forthcoming in Freshwater Literary Review. Corey lives in East Thetford, Vermont.