Green Curtains by Russell Jones

you were our problem child, uneven, always ajar, snot-green
at night, lime skinned when the light shone through you,
your loops almost transparent until
the summer of endless irritations

we never discovered whether it was the rail
or the hoops that bound you, we never climbed
the ladder despite years of talking it through, never fixed
the tattered ends, pulled you down, or considered an alternative

Russell Jones is an Edinburgh-based writer and editor. He has published four collections of poetry, and has edited two writing anthologies. He is deputy editor of “Shoreline of Infinity”, a science fiction magazine. Russell also writes stories for Disney and YA novels. He has a PhD in Creative Writing.

 

The Ultimate Reality Show by Richard Livermore

In the acid
-bath of
any brain
that thinks
enough
reality
dissolves.

What’s left
but something
known as
nothingness
plastered
over to
conceal it,

then painted
on to look
as real as
a rock or tree
revolving
round a
magic star.

• Biography: Richard Livermore was born in Sussex in 1944. He went to various boarding-schools and left at 15. He joined the Army, but was discharged 6 months later. He went from job to job and in 1974 to Newbattle Abbey College in Scotland. He has lived in Scotland ever since, except for 5 years in Spain. He has had numerous poems published in magazine and webzines in Britain and the USA, plus books by Lothlorien, Diehard and Chanticleer Press. He is presently retired.

Now Die The Truth by Robin Wyatt Dunn

now die the truth
her shadow east and wary
varying with my sleep

whose shadow passes my hand
of chill and waste

the fever of my brain
illuminates the dream within

spiral shadow shout skin to the frame of words

locking away children in the cemetery

to teach them to read

Robin Wyatt Dunn lives in Los Angeles. In this picture he is holding his tiny chapbook MARY, from Rinky Dink Press.

Dead Man’s Shoes by James D. Casey IV

I miss your wicked ways
Build it up
Wreck it down

Nothing left
Take my hand

By the river
Dancing alone
Cold with no music

Inside your head
The records play

Pleasing ghosts
Sing their song
Masked faces all around

Shuffle in
Shuffle out

We see the future
Thinking of the past
With Adam and Eve eyes

And you dance
In a dead man’s shoes

James D. Casey IV is a self published author of three volumes of poetry: “Metaphorically Esoteric,” “Dark Days Inside the Light While Drunk on Wine,” and “Tin Foil Hats & Hadacol Coins.” His work can be found in print and online in several places including Triadæ Magazine, Pink Litter, In Between Hangovers, Indiana Voice Journal, Beatnik Cowboy, Dissident Voice, Scarlet Leaf Review, Horror Sleaze Trash, Zombie Logic Review, Your One Phone Call, I am not a Silent Poet, Tuck Magazine, and Outlaw Poetry to name a handful. Links to his books, social network profiles, and other projects can be found here: http://louisianakingcasey.w ixsite.com/big-skull-poetry

On Hollywood Boulevard by Steven Storrie

On Hollywood Boulevard
There are cracks in the stars
Of people I don’t know
Piss on the ones I do
A mad woman with two teeth
Smears spaghetti on one
As protest
Ridicule
Or just cos she’s insane

On Hollywood Boulevard
The traffic just keeps coming
Young girls looking for Marilyn
Boys looking for James Dean
Where is the Hollywood sign?
They say
I thought it hung over everything
I thought it was visible at all times
This is Hollywood Boulevard isn’t it
They ask dismayed
Yes it is, I say
Yes it is.

On Hollywood Boulevard
The most intense rattle
I’ve yet known
All the glamour of vegetables
Rotting in summer heat

On Hollywood Boulevard
Endless stores
Selling cheap and tacky souvenirs
The ‘L.A’ logo on these t-shirts
Looks fake
One disgruntled English man says
Of course it’s fake, I say evenly
This is Hollywood Boulevard

What did you expect?

Steven Storrie has worked as a cable T.V repair man, dishwasher, choreographer, ice cream vendor and junk yard attendant. Tired of this he is currently locked in his basement working on his first full collection of poetry, bickering with his neighbours over nothing and storing the baseballs he keeps when they are hit into his yard. His first collection of short stories, We Are Not The Kids We Used To Be, will be released in November by DevilHouse Press. You can find him at the website he runs, ‘Black Coffee For Breakfast’, at http://renegadepriest11.wix.com/blackcoffeebreakfast

 

The Ghazal of Nowhere by Peycho Kanev

In the gloomy room under the black night
the lantern eats the dark and sprays its bright seeds.

We have million reasons for living and only one
not to be here. But where? And when? And why?

It’s noon and outside the blue sky is still a blue sky and
the birds fill its shape to the point of forgetting.

We came from the ocean and the stars,
but we still grab a rock or a stick to beat our brothers down,
just like the monkeys do.

The TV shows us libraries filled with sleeping beggars
and
it’s a Nazi week again on the Discovery Channel:
they burn books.

Through the window I see a dead dog. His tail is pointing
to nowhere,
right there, exactly where I’m planning to be.

Peycho Kanev is the author of 4 poetry collections and two chapbooks, published in USA and Europe. He has won several European awards for his poetry and his poems have appeared in many literary magazines, such as: Poetry Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Front Porch Review, Hawaii Review, Barrow Street, Sheepshead Review, Off the Coast, The Adirondack Review, Sierra Nevada Review, The Cleveland Review and many others.

Spillage by Jon Bennett

“Gimme a cold beer!” he says
It’s what dreams are made of
if you live in a dry county
or have a failing liver
or are, like me,
a dry drunk
“A cold beer, please!”
Though what I’d really say is,
“2 shots Old Taylor,
2 High Lifes”
2 of each because
when you’re shaking that bad
you know 2 will get
knocked over
on the way
up.

Jon Bennett writes and plays music in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. You can find more of his work on iTunes, Spotify and Pandora.

A Raven On ‘Poe’s Bud by Daniel de Cullá

I’m on the terrace of the CAB, Burgos Art Center
That looks at the Cathedral’ needles
And a raven appeared to me by chance
Giving a good peck
At the tip of the lover’ s bud
For having fallen asleep
At five in the afternoon
With a dream of Love hands off.
I was well asleep
When, upon awakening by the beak
I jerked him off
Revolting him self very confused and dazed.
I denied him
I swore to pluck the feathers
Whenever I can.
When I saw the Cathedral’s spiers
I found the hairpins that my mother used
To get rid of the worms in the ass
And I blessed her, kissing her a lot
For saving me from that itch
That I bore without meaning to.
My mother showed great feeling
Cursing the worms
Squashing these on a handkerchief.
In the Burgos Art Center
Tired of good books
And mousetrap exhibitions of pictures
In front of the door
On its label where we read CAB
Some rascals have put ahead an “A”
Remaining ACAB.
I baptized the raven
Putting to him the name of Poe
And announcing:
“Better is a crow on hands
That Poe following the crowd”.

Daniel de Culla (1955) is a writer, poet, and photographer. He is also a member of the Spanish Writers Association, Earthly Writers International Caucus, Poets of the World, and others. Director of Gallo Tricolor Review, and Robespierre Review. He has participated in Festivals of Poetry, and Theater in Madrid, Burgos, Berlin, Minden, Hannover and Genève .He has exposed in many galleries from Madrid, Burgos, London, and Amsterdam. He is moving between North Hollywood, Madrid and Burgos, Spain. His address is in Burgos, just now. He has more than 70 published books.

A Thread by Benjamin Brindise

There is a thread running through America

Between ground beef and hamburger buns
around bowls of macaroni salad and lakes
lined with houses rich people own
and still rent to ghosts of the middle class

Woven into Stars and Stripes, like
a wick leading to fireworks on the 4th of July
It’s the hair in your slice of apple pie
Sewn into smallpox blankets to cover up

A thread that leads to an end tied around
the trigger of a gun
aimed directly
at ourselves

Benjamin Brindise is the author of Rotten Kid (Ghost City Press, Spring 2017) and a Teaching Artist at the Just Buffalo Literary Center. He has most recently been published or accepted for publication in the My Next Heart: New Buffalo Poetry anthology, The Magnitizdat Literary, Foundlings, Page & Spine, Ghost City Review, and Peach Mag among others.

My Life Is A Simple Cross by Eddie Awusi

My life is a simple cross,
In a hug of despair.
I am the first waiter of duress –
Bartender in untender bar.
I come, mining into bliss-
A graffiti artist, a blackjack dealer, a stray dog,
In beauty entranced nights.
I am your one last story,
You can always have as much as you have,
Sprained emotions.

Eddie Awusi is a Nigerian writer of Isoko extraction.
 He graduated from the prestigious Delta state university,
 Abraka in 2007, where, he got a Bachelor of Arts degree
 in English and Literature. He has been published in Dissident
 Voice, The Australian Times, Tuck Magazine and other
 numerous magazines and anthologies. The pen and paper;
 are his playmates.