This Doesn’t Take Place In Florida I live alone in the woods but I am still less alone than Most people in human history Because I have a phone In a few days I will go to a funeral In a big city Where someone will tell me his life story He grew up in Florida Has returned to Florida It was hard for him in Florida Which sounds exactly like Everywhere else I have been to Florida But not for a long time So it is not part of my life story But most people have the same life story If you just insert your own details Mentally replacing “Florida” for Your personal “Florida” I have considered my life In its totality and strangeness More recently than I’ve been to Florida So basically I was in Florida If Florida is a metaphor For the place where things happened In your life story Instead of it being the state called Florida Sometimes I wait for a new life I wait for it to emerge from the trees I wait and I wait And it does not appear But that does not dissuade me From trying again at some point in the future At a funeral people will try and tell Someone’s life story Since that person is not there to tell it They do a decent job usually Considering it is not possible The World Where it Rains The rain is continuous and forever Nobody knows how long it has been raining It has been raining since we can remember So long that now we don’t call it raining anymore In the raining world I decide I will Quit my job and move far away Then go grocery shopping To celebrate That it will always rain Before anyone speaks to me they are beautiful In the aisles they are being beautiful They have come out of the rain to be with me And we will frolic among the groceries But then they speak to me And ruin it all I think of the specific flavor of candy I want to buy And I can’t recall the brand Or maybe they don’t make it anymore So yes, we can want things that are gone I guess We unconsciously pine for the sun That we no longer even remember Or who people could have been Before they started talking I think about When I move and When this is no longer “my” store I will love it so fucking much then But not before then Somehow That night it stops raining when I am at the gas station It is just me and the gas station Oh and also the guy that works at the gas station I remember that I miss everyone who is not me and the guy at the gas station In the world where it is not raining now It can be different Because when something changes you know It has just begun changing And soon it will be the rest of everything changing Forever And it will continue this way And I will move far away And be in the sun Leaves (Leaves) A mental image of me covered in leaves Exponentially decreasing in size relative to the pile of leaves Completely minimized by nature (leaves) Until eventually everything else becomes secondary to leaves To the massive foliage dome of leaves Nothing else matters but the leaves But these are just imagined leaves I made up for this poem So there are no leaves actually And the world is as it is And I say it is a pile of leaves In a poem about leaves Which is to say Metaphorically and not literally so
Poetry from J.J. Campbell
---------------------------------------------------------------------- the chinese alphabet i dread the holidays mostly because i grew up on dysfunction normal shit is as foreign to me as the chinese alphabet but i'm old now crazy left years ago i seek the quiet never minded being alone, just never wanted to be lonely the phone won't ring on christmas all my former friends have their families and the friends they are using now i'll turn on some music something dark and melodic we never even bother to put up a tree anymore somewhere charlie brown is laughing ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- while alone in the shower she reminds you of a ghost from your past listens to mozart while humming in spanish pretends to play the slide trombone while alone in the shower her kisses taste like you were born on the wrong planet she once kissed me on my lips and told me to close my eyes i never saw her again --------------------------------------------------------- plastic bombs in the sand insomnia dances like a lost lover strung out on neon lights and a gentle line of cocaine think of all the years since our lips first met then ponder how each of us should already be dead rainbows and smiles plastic bombs in the sand maybe one day the poor won't have to fight a rich man's war i know long after most of the planet ceases to exist you ever learn to speak another language yeah i can say fuck fluently in nearly all of them that's really all you need ------------------------------------------------------ make believe brilliance blah blah blah long lines rising prices i knew there was a reason i never wanted children and all the good alcohol is too expensive and the shit i can afford is only meant to harm the liver faster i put on some charlie parker and wonder which will come first the first line of a poem or a fresh vein don't worry if i can't afford the alcohol how the fuck can i afford the drugs poem after poem make believe brilliance blah blah blah maybe santa should actually bring me some scratch offs that are winners ---------------------------------------------------------------- way too early in life the darkest eyes cover up the most pain her smooth skin tasted like all my nightmares made into an off broadway play the twinkling lights are supposed to be joyful you've seen too many movies about small towns backwoods killers and all the children that succumb to reality way too early in life the holidays are rarely happy no snow for christmas just rain endless fucking rain misery fit for everyone around here J.J. Campbell (1976 - ?) was raised by wolves yet managed to graduate high school with honors. He's been widely published over the years, most recently at Dumpster Fire Press, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Horror Sleaze Trash, The Asylum Floor and The Beatnik Cowboy. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)
Poetry from Shloka Shankar
Singular Universe “What you do not have you find everywhere.” — W. S. Merwin Words harden in recollection. Pull each one towards you, cry like they seem evil. Lay out some traps for half a dozen—it’s a craft: fool an infinitive into holding out for hope. You don’t need a permit to live inside your head— put a foot on the ladder. Copy out a line: the sounds of a singular universe being built. Call to Action A great deal of latitude and an abundance of caution can be an isolating experience— what greater enemy does one have than oneself? When the ink hits the screen, it is an indispensable bit of programming—the totality of what you did or said in the aboveground world. Source: A remix/cut-up composed from select words and phrases found between pages 11 & 60 of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. The Creative Process Imagine the scent of fine paper in summer— a time when one’s taste exceeds one’s abilities. To sense your decay is not the same as loving it. A bromide about the creative process is that you are often nostalgic for a candy you have never even tasted. Or, to oversimplify, it is the erasure of mortality in the sometimes-painful present. Source: A remix/cut-up composed from select words and phrases found between pages 20 & 86 of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. A Rainbow Every Day for R Carry off a little darkness one piece at a time. I’ve been around for long— there’s a reason why all sinners are saints. You’ll know it’s me when I come through the road to happiness. Allow me to introduce myself— a victim of the times, the gods they made of you and me. We didn’t start the fire and tell the world that everything’s okay. What else do I have to say? I can’t take it anymore. The words inside my head—a blitzkrieg— but what’s puzzling you? I get a unicorn out of a zebra, the truth from a thousand lies. I erase myself, clean this slate with the hands of a believer. I can’t be what I’m not. There’s a game called circle— as heads is tails. I’d love to wear a rainbow every day. Source: A remix/cut-up composed from lines and phrases from the following songs: “Sympathy for the Devil” by Rolling Stones, “Man in Black” by Johnny Cash, “One Piece at a Time” by Johnny Cash, “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel, “Believer” by Imagine Dragons, “What I’ve Done” by Linkin Park, “No Matter What” by Boyzone, and “I’m Not Afraid” by Eminem. Shloka Shankar is a poet, editor, and self-taught visual artist from Bangalore, India. A Best of the Net nominee and award-winning haiku poet, Shloka is the Founding Editor of Sonic Boom and its imprint Yavanika Press. Her debut full-length haiku collection, The Field of Why (Yavanika Press, India), was shortlisted for the Touchstone Distinguished Book Awards 2022. Website: www.shlokashankar.com | Instagram: @shloks23
Poetry from Mitchel Montagna
Paradise
The light is growing dimmer
I cannot feel to cope
I hear less than a glimmer
of the prayer we call hope.
At night we clocked the bold stars
Felt waves of sweetened pine
Traced out maps of ancient scars
through tears that soothed like wine.
I dreamt I still might find you
We’ll ride that mountain train
Where comets trail behind you
and moonlight pours like rain.
Come watch that golden glory
Attend the sky with cheers
It shimmers like a story
told for ten thousand years.
Her midnight eyes are glowing
I swear they shine for me
And stardust keeps on flowing
where heaven used to be.
I pace the halls like a zombie leaking
blood and fire:
It must have been the fog, injecting a
disease I cannot bear.
But when I tried to set it down,
it burrowed into my throat.
I will never sing
at birthday parties again.
Turned out that sip of molten lava was
really an invitation to the cosmos.
All ‘round the rooms, explosive
tangles of lightning and wire.
Their sizzling and thunder orchestrate
like a sadist’s tune.
The waiting, at least, is familiar:
Remember those vacant afternoons
stoned on lethargy, confusion
dissipating to disgust.
Creeping shadows reflecting
the loneliness in your eyes.
When you touched your face
you found it numb as earth,
like you were buried already.
On the Brink
The mountains stretch behind me
Wind blew me out of town
The morning sun will blind me
I rode the highway down
My friends won’t let me settle
I begged for scraps all day
Their mouths turned harsh as metal
They tore my heart away
The sweep of time will bleed you
It forces you to roam
Somebody else might need you
To find their way back home
A gauze of fog has lifted
As dawn broke through the cold
Bright banks of snowflakes drifted
I saw foothills painted gold
God’s Will
You stand against the gentle
tides, that urge you back
into the deep; this terror’s
surely racked your bones, to
cross that bright and mighty will.
Your sadness staring down
the surf, as glassy-green
as emeralds; the sunlight
glinting off the waves, and
dancing brightly in your eyes.
All the gifts you’ve conjured
up, and all the dreams that
colored you; they seethed until
they burned your hopes, and
dried your blood with bitterness.
You cannot let them pull
you down, and drown you in their
soothing waves; too horrible to
go in peace, then find your
soul still cries alone.
A Silver Sea
If you are somewhere still
What a story that would be
Of a girl’s dance down a hill
to leap into a silver sea
Splashing far beneath the sun
Where the diamond waters glide
Drifting out till day is done
to disappear beneath the tide
Like a mermaid gently flows
Through shadows dim and deep
With her skin soft as a rose
and her face relaxed in sleep
What answers did you find
In hidden gold to take
Or leave untouched behind
like ripples in your wake
The sea is dried away
Scorched by an aging sky
Then a field of ashes lay
where spirits went to die
Poetry from Noah Berlatsky
The Nose My nose has started to lean to the left. It happens when you get old. You’d like to stay on the straight old road But you get old and lean to the left. The path you’re on, it starts out straight. To love, to truth, to fame. Then the nose goes off on its own, on its own And you circle back round to the grave.
Poetry from Blue Chynoweth
Girlhood.
I’m told girlhood is
short and sweet,
Girlhood means I am
meant to be,
I want to be,
sugar, spice, and everything nice,
and that is
femininity?
Picked apart and put back together
in every wrong order.
I am a girl, I am
fragile like a bomb
that lingers in the back
of my throat, bittering my tongue
like Tanqueray,
a mind rubbed away like
carpet burn, I am
pores clogged with
the spit of a man
trying to sink into my skin
a little deeper.
I am silent
as I try so desperately to
catch each tear and
shove them back into
my eyelashes so maybe
they’ll grow.
But I am as dank as my
washed up eyes
as they tell me
“you are a woman now,”
and I fear that is worse,
because the wreckage of
our worlds
looks a little prettier
when we are young,
before we can understand that
beauty is pain, and pain is the
true divine feminine
that I hate so dearly.
So society kisses my cheeks
in my final throes, lips wet
with the shame it spilt all over me
for being something as disgusting
as a woman.
Poetry from Zofia Mosur
Moon Song Necklace I pinched metal between my thumb and forefinger, and yanked until my spine s l o p e d and my forehead pressed against the carpet and ached with the a r c h of my vertebrae. I hung myself and hung the necklace from myself. Leaving me dangling, until the etched metal etched a strict tan line into my collarbone. And protected what's left of me from the sun. The son that I heard had to be buried. I hung from her lips “like the Gardens of Babylon” Giving and taking The Moon. I tried to comfort me with the weight of a 13 and a skinned hand and some mountain range. on the chain whose clasp inches towards my heart slower and is turned Away. I pressed a song into my forehead, forefinger, and necklace. A song quieter now a song for The Moon.