A Most Moist Corner by Paul Tanner

It’s a rainy day.
A customer slips and falls.
All the customers gather:
YOU SHOULD PUT UP A WET FLOOR SIGN! they cry.

The floor is dry, I say. It’s your shoes that are wet:
you slipped on your own shoes, wet with the rain
you chose to go out in.

BUT IT’S THE LAW FOR A SHOP TO PUT OUT
WET FLOOR SIGNS WHEN IT RAINS!
the customers say.

Do they want me to put signs on their heads
so they know when they’re wet?

Or how about outside
when it rains?

How about in your homes
so you know how to dress?

This is why
we have a nanny state
that is funded by
big business.

This is why
both ends
of the political candle
are burning towards
us:

YOU PEOPLE DON’T EVEN KNOW WHEN YOU ARE WET

and soon we’ll all burn.

This poem is from this forthcoming book!

Florida Honeymoon by Wanda Morrow Clevenger

a year later
we drove south
for a real honeymoon
a week’s worth
of ocean edge

we drank pina coladas
because of that Rupert Holmes song
walked in the surf
watched a
skinny gal dance
on top a bar
topless

we watched the
dolphin
killer whale
acrobatic water ski
stuff too

we took lots of
instamatics
to remember
the time—
honeymoom love
all that Rupert Holmes
forever love

Wanda Morrow Clevenger is a Carlinville, IL native. Over 365 pieces of her work appear in 131 print and electronic publications. Her debut book This Same Small Town in Each of Us released in October of 2011. She is currently polishing a full-length poetry manuscript.

Below Midnight by Saira Viola

Where are they the flowers that rhumba?
The midnight moon that sonnets Shakespeare to my heart ?
I only see snake oil pussy whipped hypocrites- in bespoke -tailor made suits
and  backwash bankers playing fantasy flutes
Sunken debt  in the  poltergeist eyes of
the walking dead – you don’t ask you don’t care
there are stalking credit moles  everywhere
and penny cock jocks who’ll burn you in the mouth
Under cover red ants will  hiss and steal your house .

Saira Viola is a critically acclaimed fiction ball buster , poet , song lyricist and creator of literary technique sonic scatterscript . Her work focuses on the disenfranchised , the rebels , the misfits , the marginalised and collaterally damaged who glitter the cosmos . Novels (Jukebox ) (Crack Apple And Pop) Novella (Slide ) Poetry (Don’t Shoot The Messenger) (Flowers of War) (Fast Food and Gin On The Lawn) (Rebel Mini Book of Verse) Publications (International Times), (Push), (Dead Snakes ) (Artvilla)(Red Fez) (Sick Lit) (The Poetry Times) (Crab fat) (Mother bird) (Longline Press) (Gonzo Today) http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/multimedia/poetry-spoken-word/1903-flowers-of-war-sara-viola (Tuck) (Dissident Voice )

A Graverobber by Alexander Devon

like ancient stone ruins in the desert, the tattoos in my arm.
the gulag-thin spiders that shelter in its pistons.
my charm bracelet of my own old embalmed heads.

Alexander Devon is just starting out as a poet. He is studying genetics at the University of Leeds. A poem of his has been published in Riverbabble, and was highly commended by the Solstice Prize.

William Hill by Matthew J Hall

I slid my winning slip
under the security partition

the cashier stared
his face like a rough brick
his eyes alive with contempt alone

and we stood there like that
breathing the stale air
body odour
piss
defeat

I stuffed the cash
into my inside pocket
nodded and ducked out
there were no winners

Matthew J Hall is a UK writer based in Bristol. His poetry chapbook, Pigeons and Peace Doves is available through Blood Pudding Press. He reviews small press books at http://www.screamingwithbrevity.com

Their Cries by Mike Finley

Underfoot the worms awake.
The sudden flood from the oscillating sprinkler
is intolerable to them, and they push to the surface
pink and brown and nearly straight
like little socks hung out to dry
and exposed to the idiot sun
and if I had the right kind of ears
I am sure I would hear them gasp.

Mike went to a picnic but there was nobody there. This sort of thing is always happening.

Dopamine Dope by Victor Henry

Love is born in a glance
And matures in a smile.           
Brazilian proverb

For years you had been told
The heart knows things
About which the mind
Knows nothing about.

Now, after two failed marriages,
You seek counseling.
One marriage counselor
Tells you to go on dates.

Another tells you
Soulmates are not perfect,
To shitcan everything.
Start over.

But you know that romantic love
With all its dreams and sorrows
Is humanity coming full circle,
That dopamine dope,

The brain in love.

My poetry and prose poems have appeared in Misfit Magazine, Dead Snakes, Homestead Review, The Paterson Literary Review, Red River Review, and Slipstream, among others. My book What They Wanted was published last November 11th, Veterans Day, by FutureCycle Press in Lexington, Kentucky. http://victor-henry.net/

Night’s End by Natalie Crick

Snow had fallen, I remember,
At the night’s end.
Do you hear his voice?
I am never alone.

And at the end?
I do not live.
It is forbidden to die.
The winds are changing.

Our dead brother waited
Undiscovered,
But very dark, very hidden,
As the earth became black.

The field was parched and dry,
Filled with death already.
You walk through it.
You see nothing.

Natalie Crick has found delight in writing all of her life and first began writing when she was a very young girl. Her poetry is influenced by melancholic confessional Women’s poetry. Her poetry has been published in a range of journals and magazines including Cannons Mouth, Cyphers, Ariadne’s Thread, Carillon and National Poetry Anthology 2013.

We Need The Bomb by Scott Laudati

we turned on the tv
and they said, “we have
the bomb, they
have the bomb,
the one’s to the
north
and the west
have the bomb,
but now
THEY
are trying
to get
the bomb
and when they
do
the world will finally
go out
as it
came in-
the cataclysm of
fission and fusion
and all the fury
of a billion
years of anger,
the madness of good men,
and with their deaths
will go
the anger
as it gets brought
back
to the place-
wherever that
place is
that
anger comes from.

I was stoned enough
to be
afraid
but you sat with
me and drank
something made
for a
vacation
we never
went on
and you said,
“well,
we better get
the bomb before
they do.” And
you took me
to the bedroom. And
for the first time
you
were violent
and you
were terrifying
and the wall shook
and i
went
blind
with helpless orgasm.

i’m not sure what the
bomb
will look like
on the day all the leaders
get together
and decide to play
a big game
of dodgeball,
but
for the andromedans,
and the reptilians
watching
from the moon-
it’ll probably
look like
the earth
going
blind
with helpless orgasm.

Scott Laudati is the author of Hawaiian Shirts In The Electric Chair (Kuboa Press). Visit him at http://www.scottlaudati or on instagram @scottlaudati

Mix of Sun & Clouds by James Babbs

it’s May again
the 16th and I guess
nothing has really changed
another year has passed
but I’m still here
still
thinking about you
it’s been 32 years
and I’m still waiting
sitting here alone
in the last house
down at the end of the block
the same old town
but the faces look different
a lot of them
I don’t even recognize
anymore
and when I look in the mirror
I see another stranger
with silver in his hair
staring back at me
in just a few months
I’m going to turn 50
and you weren’t even 30
when your time ran out
every day the sun
every day the sun
and some days
a mix of sun and clouds
today
it looks like rain
and when I look out the window
when I’m getting drunk again
I see the tops of houses
rising into the air
in the distance
out there across the fields

James Babbs is a writer, a dreamer, a three-time loser and an all-around nice guy who just wants to be left alone. James is the author of Disturbing The Light(2013) & The Weight of Invisible Things(2013) and has hundreds of poems and a few short stories scattered all over the internet.