Shards of color from Broken Dreams It's all that's meant by Time it seems Our Love stands TALL Above Our clouds And drowns the Lakes Beneath gray Shrouds to mend the nights & heal the Days Where songs Reach out & ARMS swing High And Lofted Breath I'll rise I'll rise the Breeze catches the wind exhales an earthly mist I'll walk the plains and sweep the grasses until I forget to count the Dawns ♡
Poetry from Oona Haskovec
They are tired too The pained crunching Echoing like voices Down the stained hall of my old apartment. Beneath the soles Of my bare feet, Those heart-shaped leaves are confined To a rough powder of broken shapes and pieces, Those crushed artifacts harshly prodding At my exposed heel. The crumbling vines holding The once vibrant grape leaves, Grasping at the decomposing trellis that Continues to be their supporting factor, The one thing keeping them from dissolving into the rotting wooden slats below, Cheering them on from the not-so-side lines as they Cling with all the might contained in their frail limbs, Once thriving but now, That ancient, tea-colored beige, like the dust that clings to the windshield of her old Mercedes as the wheels grumble across the trembling metal bridge, like a game of “will it hold me.” the only game those broken pieces of hearts know how to play. Silky sandpaper, my fingers dragging along in the muddy foliage of the garden, coating my fingertips with the texture of life, only in a childhood background. Almost feeling drowned, drained, in the lack of moisture, the lack of care the ignorance thrown upon their once-photosynthesising faces i stand by, not interfering with the natural order of the way things always seem to play out, the branches scrape at my shoulders as I pass, opening new wounds that I'll leave for time to heal. yet both the leaves and i seem to be defeated by something. maybe just the heat of this smoky summer afternoon, giving false hope at comfort as it smears into shivering shoulders in the evening light. exhausted by that never ending cycle of hoping, my spine buries itself into the dirt, liquid seeping down through my roots, nurturing the vines, bringing life into their pretty faces. i lay here, fading, they thrive.
Poetry from J.D. Nelson
organic suns the frogmouth’s argent my letter opener broth froth the winning egg mu mulberry after anchor in a chair, cheering grass / elementary silo norm NORAD wolves awash in crows us---a burger, uh, grapes o.o.o.o walk wall wauk waul bio/graf J. D. Nelson (b. 1971) experiments with words in his subterranean laboratory. His poetry has appeared in many small press publications, worldwide, since 2002. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Cinderella City (The Red Ceilings Press, 2012). His poem, “to mask a little bird” was nominated for Best of the Net in 2021. Visit http://www.MadVerse.com for more information and links to his published work. Nelson lives in Colorado.
Poetry from J.J. Campbell
the money was tempting though i had a woman send me an email today offering me three thousand dollars a week to be her sugar boy i congratulated her on finally reaching rock bottom ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- an empty church parking lot mothing makes me happier than an empty church parking lot on a sunday morning i'm sure if a few things would have gone different in my life my thoughts on god would be totally different although, i can't help but think god played a role in all of that so, the least of what should happen is all of the sheep going broke ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ under a tree i used to write poems under a tree across the street from where my girlfriend at the time used to live she saw me one morning and told me to stop stalking her i said just a few more stanzas to go the cops didn't understand that either ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- have it both ways sometimes i feel like not being afraid to die hasn't exactly worked out for me i somewhere lost the desire to still live i should be old enough to know you can't have it both ways but a stubborn asshole doesn't always get to choose his own reality ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- new neighbors the beauty of living around old people is you will have new neighbors every few years of course, none of them will be that lonely housewife you always heard about in the suburbs
J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is old enough to know better. He’s been widely published over the last quarter century, most recently at The Rye Whiskey Review, Mad Swirl, Horror Sleaze Trash, The Beatnik Cowboy and Cajun Mutt Press. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)
Poetry from J.K. Durick
Out There It’s out there We must drive in it Walk in it It’s out there It’s too much with us Getting and spending We get it Understand what we Have done Wasted our powers Given our hearts away Lost the tune Forgot the words The weather changes Sealed in the politics Of now Of what we did What we are doing It’s out there That’s all Just out there The earth of it The air of it The water Collecting the evidence Details it will use Against us It’s all out there. Climate This hot breeze holds the afternoon summarizes it in a brief moment says so much about what we have these days – too much sun, heat, a few clouds that give into the days spinning by, so little rain. This is the climate change they promised us warned us about, while we were too busy with other things, things that seem trivial now in the nineties, in this heat wave, in this drought. We air-condition what we can, we sit in any shade we find, fill plastic pools for the dogs, joke about running through the sprinkler like we did as children, a game we no longer can play. The news we hear and watch doesn’t bother mentioning this any- more, as if the scientists have given up on us, realize playing Cassandra didn’t help, doesn’t help and like us feel this hot breeze, that summarizes what’s left of our afternoon, this brief moment that says so much about what we have done. Rain We used to say, farmers need the rain whether We knew they did or not, but now We all need the rain like today it rained all day not just our lawns and lakes but our spirits too need the rain bogged down the way We have been in a spiritual, a psychic drought tired, dry days, one after another till today We all needed the rain and it came down all morning, all afternoon, this evening beyond trying to satisfy our lawns and our lakes, the sound of the rain the ticking at times at our windows the whoosh in the wind and the calming hush of it bring a peace along with it a whole day of this peaceful sound of rain We should all now say we need the rain.
Poetry from Jack Galmitz
I. where out of black by a small stretch of sand the moon grasps the breakers unawares I feel like I've gone back to the beginning when I sat with a pail and packed it with sand since then what passed rolling in the radiant grass touched by moonlight and hand and a breast heaved towards the low tide rocks by the bridge span how right Euripides was in that I lean on a cane who wanted to crawl back to the beginning and do it again II. a man lived here until his wife died his children left and all he had left were television shows of comedies and commercials (he had seen the massive wings of fascism spread and briefly landed) he had worked, had lived had suffered and grew old like the rest and when there wasn't anyone to talk to he resolved to go I saw him leave without a wave except he bowed unto the trees and the birds and the rain III. the light is what you're reading and where it is not is also there in its places at night a stag moves between trees silent as the shadows the trees have surrendered the hunter moves down stream and safe is wanted
Poetry from Randall Rogers
Taxi Driver Best thing about not making it as a writer is you can write in peace, read too, live happy, free, suffering from the effects of status inconsistency. Monumental Cucumber madness pickling minds fraught chiseled on the mountain head-rushing LSD trips in stone representing hope, freedom, the American way of love Christian values dammit in travail, growth, organization, and war at night in the moonlight howling. Among the Inhabitants of the Ant-farm I would be wondering if there were no God the idea to create one might be overwhelming. Rodent Sharp incisors naked tail furtive eyeball chewing pet worthy of plague.