Hail Mary I took a boat to an unfamiliar street. Looking out, I began to sing Ave Maria, the music not the words. I derived pleasure from the sounds in the world and my own. I saw a mother and her daughter waiting for a light to change. I hoped my voice would reach them and from it they would find hope. They did not turn, which was no surprise, though a bullet broke the air in song. Take pity on us who live in despair. Be for us that place we yearn for.
Poetry from Susie Gharib
Asphyxiation Entrapped, not within an empty matchbox, not within a dungeon in a castle with a moat, not within an anchorite cell whose door has been sealed by a Luciferian foe, not in an attic with the shadows of lunatics long imprisoned by a usurping lord, not within a hole dug for a corpse but within a concept, bred by a culture that nauseates, asphyxiates, appalls. Menace The menace of losing my home looms. I’m sixty years old whose youth had flown, whose health is beginning to feel morose, whose grip on life is loosening, is loose. I should have suspected where I trusted, I’m bruised. My back, like trees, is marked, not by circles, but by stabs that measure the breadth and depth of a life ravaged by all sorts of treacheries. I thought my sixties would bring respite from toil and strife, a humble hearth, with home-made meals and an ageing dog, a tranquil phase before the everlasting repose, I was wrong. John and Elvis Are Dead John Lennon and Elvis Presley are dead and George Michael followed in their trail. I think that artists should be spared such tragic exits. John and Robert Kennedy were shot in the head. Martin Luther King Jr had met with a similar fate. I think that pacifists and thinkers should be spared the hunter’s bullet. Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded by her cousin, the niece of King Henry the eighth though both had royal blood in their veins! Jesus Christ was crucified with a couple of thieves for having declared his genuine kingship. I think that the quest for the Holy Grail will last until the end of days. I would have liked to tell the departed nightingale that Jesus is alive and well and none is dead because they continue living in our heads.
Story from Bill Tope
Adventure to Bizarro World "So what if I've had eleven beers tonight?" fumed Darryl, crumpling up another aluminum can and flinging it across the room. It landed in the cat's litterbox and Baby spat and hissed. "What're you, trying to drink yourself to death?" demanded Olivia, his girlfriend of ten minutes. "If i'd known that was what you were about, I never would have committed myself to your happiness." Darryl blinked. What the hell was this woman, who had just walked through the door an hour ago, even talking about? After snorting up two lines of blow that he'd had in readiness on a pocket mirror, she'd proclaimed her undying love and then passed out. When she awoke, a few moments ago, she had started carping about how much he drank! If he'd wanted scathing criticism, he could have stayed with any of five ex-wives. How could he get rid of her? he wondered. Where did she even come from? She couldn't even get his name right. "Dirwood," she cooed, "when are you coming to bed, honey?" He rolled his eyes, "Who are you?" he asked. He startled, then stared at her with sudden appreciation. She was a dead ringer for the classic vocalist Patti Smith, a gorgeous, sultry, dark-haired creature whom Darryl had always lusted after, back in the day. As if on cue, Olivia suddenly began crooning "Because the Night," until finally, like a spring-wound toy, she ran down. "Tomorrow's our anniversary, honey," said Olivia in a syrupy voice. "Hell," said Darryl, "I only just met you.."--he checked his watch-- "...seventy minutes ago! Where did you even come from?" he asked. "From the constellation Gridiron," she replied, then she added coyly, "Do you want to see my Big Dipper?" Darryl frowned, looked closer at Olivia, who now resembled Daffy Duck. Darry shook his head, looked away. "Olivia," he said, "you've changed." Olivia's face suddenly assumed a feral, rodent-like expression and she said, "We're pregnant again, Dirwood." "What's that to do with me?" he demanded. "It takes two gametes to make an embryo," she reminded her boyfriend of 24 minutes. "We did the dirty," she told him. "I did not..." he began, but she cut him off. "You weren't the biggest," she said, "or the hardest, but you were the best!" Swollen by the magnanimity of her words, Darryl preened, threw his arm about her narrow, Patti Smith-like shoulders, and said, "Olivia, will you marry me?" "Of course," she purred, and threw herself into his embrace. An hour later, Darryl and Olivia, accompanied by their five children, boarded a three-stage rocket bound for Bizarro World, where everything took place in reverse. "It'll take 430 light years to reach Htrae (Earth spelled backwards)," Darryl told his wife of 84 minutes. What do you want to do to pass the time?" Olivia smiled slyly, then replied winsomely, "Well, Dirwood, we could work on making more ybabs," and embarkation was begun.
Poetry from George Gad Economou
are you out there, somewhere? staring into the dark searching for the morning light; are you out there, somewhere? to bring me back from the world of bottles and needles; every one the last even though there’s always another waiting in the shadows. are you out there, somewhere? to hold my hand, to feel my pulse through my bleeding skin? the faintest sound another memory long gone; destroyed by the booze, eradicated by wrong embraces. I need you, once again, to keep me warm through the endless winter. freezing, just like then, and the needle has lost its warmth. are you out there, somewhere? waiting for my return, patiently sitting in the corner hoping for the promised miracle. a sun that never rises, a mist that shall never be lifted; hiding in the dense forest, running away, fast and far, escaping the ruins that burned too fast. squinting into the vast nothingness of eternal damnation and I smile; your former words sweet music to my perishing heart. is it you I see walking amid the debris? are you still out there, somewhere, searching for the final pieces of the puzzle? another attempt, you’re nowhere, I’m everywhere; both lost, both found, only the needle is keeping us apart. are you out there, somewhere? I ask the night, question the stars; they can’t explain why your kisses were tossed into the bottomless well. another blurry night, more mistakes, sins added to an already extensive list. it’s all right, no need for forgiveness. I warm the needle, the junk has melted. are you out there, somewhere? Eighty Thousand Words write long novels, said someone I barely knew, one of them advisors that know nothing but how to sell bullshit. long novels sell. I spoke to a woman about a novel I wrote at 19, it’s more than two hundred thousand words long—still not long enough to match Wolfe—and she liked the plot. told me to translate it, publish it. she also asked about the inspiration, the drinking and drug-abusing. I said, it’s fiction. it’s meant to be the disclaimer on whatever’s published—it’s a work of fiction, don’t call the feds. could I have mentioned I started it when I was underage and getting my feet wet on the ring of drunkardism and finished it on a spree of rotgut, speed, and pure junk? some chapters are repetitive as fuck, I blame blow. some are harsh and honest; bourbon does that. it’s a work of fiction. like this poem. the woman never called again—she wasn’t a drinker, one beer and she was off. after the date, I got plastered at a bar near home—some Irish guy bought a barrage of well scotch shots. we got under the table drunk, then I was teleported in my bed. it’s a work of fiction, do remember that, when you tell me I’m 86’d or mention the tab. The Mauve Moon lonely wolves howl at the mauve moon as marauders come knocking, razing ancient landmarks. stare at the starless sky, the great green mushroom—all gone, nothing left but the final wails of unborn souls trapped in limbo. sour grapes turned into sweet wine, bottles emptied horrid taste, gruesome realities and morbid details, nets made of fire catching rational men. eradicate, destroy, rebuild; what a fine writing on a half-ruined brick wall in the middle of the ocean. look down, all the towers emerge from under the sea—old homes now belonging to fish and mermaids. Ulysses’ sirens reappear, under the liquor store they swim, amidst the shelves they sing. if you are, die; if you think, you don’t exist. Voltaire’s ghost promenades in the ruins, somewhere in the distance Aristotle’s swilling Thunderbird. we’re still around—the liquor store clerk polishes a shotgun, two kids shotgun beer in the back alley. the mauve moon howls, the echo shattering what remains of the world.
Currently residing in Greece, George Gad Economou has a Master’s degree in Philosophy of Science and is the author of Letters to S. (Storylandia), Bourbon Bottles and Broken Beds (Adelaide Books), and Of the Riverside (Anxiety Press). His words have also appeared in various places, such as Spillwords Press, Ariel Chart, Cajun Mutt Press, Fixator Press, Outcast Press, Piker’s Press, The Edge of Humanity Magazine, The Rye Whiskey Review, and Modern Drunkard Magazine.
Poetry from Czarina Datiles (first of two)
smitten I’m flying above the clouds, eyes closed and arms expanded; I’m laughing like an idiot with my chest about to burst and I wonder if you feel the same, every time my name appears on your screen. I wonder if I’ve put a smile to your lips as you have done to mine. I hope that your friend across from you teases you for your stupid, smitten face and I hope that you say my name. say that I’m yours, say that you’re mine.
gumdrop why don’t we try something different? you know very well how it feels to have me like a gumdrop in your hand or between your teeth why don’t you get to know how it is to truly taste me? damn the critics who’ve rotten your innocence, making you believe such saccharine bliss could never exist without its own health complications i suppose if diabetes runs in your family as it does in mine it’s best to be wary of the thoughtless, uncontrollable consumption of delectable confections but one gumdrop wouldn’t hurt you now, watch as I do and place your gumdrop against the cushion of your lips smooth edged and firm now, take it in with a pop as if it were a pill– don’t swallow though sink your teeth deep into it and taste what it truly feels to have something forever irrevocably yours for I am endlessly longing to be either on your hand or between your teeth all I ask is for you to cherish me
now you know if you place a rose and let it bloom in the sky, it means that she wonders about your touch– traces of lemon (spunk), of blueberry (charm), and of strawberry (mirth). if you don a daffodil and let it smile on your chest, it means that she’s given you a second chance– accents of dew (clarity), of rose quartz (healing), and of olive (forgiveness). but if you leave an orchid in a cardigan’s pocket it means she has left– notes of pining (for gazes unmet across crowded rooms), of hoping (on the accidental brush of shoulders or skin), and of regretting (to have done something to preserve it) if you’re left with a flower slowly slipping from your grasp, it means you have lost what can never be found again if you didn’t understand this before well, now you know
Short stories from Tim Frank
Why is this on my Timeline? I trip down the staircase of corporate medicine, wrestling with red light insomnia, and lace my hiking boots to a Stone Age snare drum. I feel sheer delight as I hang from electric waves, and as the scene fades, a microbe haunts the selection of Nazi memorabilia—then the mic is cut. Next up is the holy war with a milk carton kid, dancing to the hiss of a desktop computer rattling along a German highway like a fragile toaster. Beneath a dusty camera lies the picture book trees, the night club vapers, and the TV knives drenched in sand. The threat of a free press and an hourglass figure, lurks. Further down are the alien visitors embroiled in slave trade lotto, and letters from the government stinking of bad breath. In a way, chaos reigns over a grand piano, and the future of a lightbulb sobbing by a hotel window, hangs in the balance. But there’s hope—outside is a carpark teeming with Covid dinosaurs giving blood. If you search carefully there is a pattern: youths jump through glass and eat cigarette ash, and as the death toll grows, fugitive armies yo-yo through the sickening mist. So, the rules are simple—never venture out of your home without white lines in your pocket, or a mirror and a razor blade, or else ghostly apparitions will want their wallet back.
The Cemetery and the Asylum A girl named Rachel Sunshine had a birthmark. It smelled of bruised apples under native trees, sinking into the soft earth. Rachel’s gravelly voice carved the sky into cigarettes while her feet were tectonic plates stomping on lost Coke cans. In The Night Heart Hospital, an asylum for submarine junkies dipped in pots of boiling gum, Rachel flipped coins as ballerinas set eyebrows on fire with Zippo lighters. Opposite the asylum was a cemetery for dystopian hitchhikers who travelled under buckets of moonbeams with tobacco scars. Rachel escaped to the graveyard every new generation, where hipster grandmas knitted pillars of salt and tangled candy floss. Rachel sucked the dirt from her fingernails and then aborted her husband. Stoic nurses spat jazz and then carried her fake body home, letting her flop into her room where her bedsheets felt like sawdust and wax. When Rachel wasn’t dreaming of fashion houses and opera finales, she was staring through a chain-link fence with all her junky soldiers, taking a final look at the fallen regime. Why do we fiend for aspartame and girls in windows? asked Rachel. And when can I go back to the source? She gazed into a lagging clock and saw ancient hysteria mocking her frustrated mother. It was a simple game of arithmetic: all that mattered was the tinnitus leaping down sand dunes and how the noise arm-wrestled braille into submission.
Television Come seek TV wisdom with me and we can blast Noah’s Ark into a brave new world. Let’s fix the leaking pipes in the local skyscraper and spread cash like an aging troubadour. A crime channel freezes. Where have you been? a lady with white eyes asks a deformed detective resting on a bench by the lake. He says, Take me away from this horror and place me in the real world where water tastes like ginger ale and the trees wear blankets of rain. On another side, three children play rock, paper, scissors, and explode dark matter with their dreams. Hold tight, their mother says, we have each other for twenty more minutes and even that is not enough time to dole out lots. They cry together as music builds. An advert appears from the depths of the sea—crawling, creeping, groaning. Ha, ha, ha, it says with satisfaction. In a small aspect of paradise, nudes lay on boulders as the sea camouflages drag queens and baby powder on a mirror. The smell is putrid. At night footballers play to the beat of a restless brain, brimming with antipsychotics and chocolate fudge. It’s time for bed, the lights go out—but soft cushions and a firm mattress can’t hide the tire tracks of a day’s TV. The blare of the screen from the flat above, watching replays of the shows you saw earlier that day, means you’ll never be able to forget. You’re not sure whether you want to.
Photos from Channie Greenberg
