Saturday 20 April 2024

A Grizzly Possibility by John Grey


 

I don't blame the grizzly
for the night-time tent raid,
the mauling of the wife,
the maiming of the husband.

The bear was old and tired
and winter had been long.
And the couple knew the risks.
The guy had said so on TV.

At any given moment,
we're as close to desires and hungers
as we are to rats.
We're all of us capable

of fulfilling another's need
A mugger could slay me for my wallet.
A car could knock me sideways
and all for the space I'm standing in.

Some people camp out in the danger.
Others just live where anything is possible.
I don't blame my vulnerability.
I've been mauled and maimed by worse.

***

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, North Dakota Quarterly and Lost Pilots. Latest books, ”Between Two Fires”, “Covert” and  “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in California Quarterly, Seventh Quarry, La Presa and Doubly Mad.

Monday 18 March 2024

The Disclaimers by Salvatore Difalco

 

Blooshed by Erich Ferdinand from Flickr


People with tiny souls controlled the peace.
“We are professionally rational,” they argued.

War is irrational in some respects.
As is art.

And yet we practice it,
flicking blood around like paint

or flicking paint around like blood.
Some of us, the catatonic, watch these goings on

with muted interest. “You catching flies, Joe?”
Joe shuts his mouth with a clack.

The real thing is more than word association.
No fake blood on set, the director

forbade it. He visited an abattoir.
That’s why he smells of excrement.

Let’s go on a date
with another kind of animal.

This one’s into pharmacology.
Later, we trip balls.

But the commingle mutually
disturbs and thus is hauled off to the archives.

In another life
chivalry will return and piccolo trumpets will blow

when you spill onto the podium
dreading a natural death.

Everyone is guilty of something here.
Their beetle brows and overbites don’t go

over nicely with the Guineveres of the kingdom.
An ideal situation would make us fear

the asylum escapees, rather than embrace them,
though yes, we live not far from the asylum.  


*****

Sicilian Canadian poet Salvatore Difalco lives up in Toronto, Canada.

Sunday 17 March 2024

Lethe’s Banks by Frederick Frankenberg

 

The Inferno, Canto 32
Gustave Dore

I died. Cupid bashed my brains
with a club of hearts.

I awoke near a rivulet
churning up nacreous secretion.
The skies were mauve
and the blue grass had not one
diffident daffodil ruining it.
I sat underneath the
burning sycamore tree.

There stood a placid man’s granddaughter
in lingerie so small,
it had to be custom ordered.
A little girl of destructive desire
with a russet armpit
and a patch of tender hair
where her legs and hips met.
Her nipples in full bloom
in virile pollinated spring air.
Like mercury marinating in my meat,
there’s that poison inside me.

My Civic drove over
on its own self will.
I snatched up my target, the
little eye catcher, and
pushed her into the
passenger side.
She gave me a
vacant lascivious grin.

Lewd kids ran from over
the hazy hillock and
made obscene gestures
and degrading requests.
“Bring me, too!” they said.
“There’s not enough room
in the inner circle of Hell!”
I ejaculated.

***

Frederick Frankenberg lives in Highland, NY. @FredIsAWriter 

Tuesday 5 March 2024

Lightning by Thomas Zimmerman

Elsa Lanchester in The Bride of Frankenstein, 1935



The streaks of gray like lightning in your mother’s
hair: like Elsa Lanchester, The Bride 

of Frankenstein. You’ve stomped around like Karloff

all your life, a magpie of a man,


an animated corpse. You think you died 

again, mid-2010s, imagined price 


of childlessness. Your introspection’s garnered 

little. You’ve had stitches in your head,


you’ve stood in lightning–Texas, Iowa,

and North Dakota–screaming It’s alive!


Some friends of yours got drunk one night, burned down

a farmer’s barn. Imagine fire reaching


heaven, Zeus in anger hurling it

back down some night as summer lightning. Almost


half a century ago, you and

your red-haired girlfriend loved beneath a massive


oak tree later struck by lightning. Lost

a limb. These branches, bolts, and veins: in skies,


in breasts, in backs of parents’ hands. Now yours.

And something quickens in you. Pray for rain.


***


Thomas Zimmerman teaches English and directs the Writing Center at Washtenaw Community College, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. His latest book is Dead Man's Quintet (Cyberwit, 2023).  https://thomaszimmerman.wordpress.com/



Saturday 3 February 2024

Wee-Hour Woes by James Croal Jackson

On the couch by tps12 from Flickr


on the couch
with your black cats
the room is sticky
and my fingers
are attached
to everything
including
but not limited to
my palm
the gum beneath
the end table
and the beery
lamplight switch
we used to turn
off everything
then glue our
eyes to sleep

***

James Croal Jackson lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. His latest chapbook is A God You Believed In (Pinhole Poetry, 2023). jamescroaljackson.com

Wednesday 31 January 2024

Poem by Mykyta Ryzhykh



 Previously published in Pegasus

my mother counts the amount of lead and uranium in the earth’s soil
the earth is round like the earth
the sky is black like a mining night
my mom takes the button out of her stomach
father is eloquently silent
the father is not sure that he is the father
Mary is not sure about anything either
and only the baby puts his feet on the milky ground
the Magi bring gifts to the baby Jesus – gills and a gas mask

Saturday 13 January 2024

RISK by Elizabeth Buchan-Kimmerly

 

Previously published in Dribbles, Drabbles and Postcards

The door latch is broken, of course. It's been four years since The Event. All the canned goods are gone from the kitchen. Looted or eaten by the long gone owners? 

Hard to tell.


No one has lived here in months, maybe years. There's rat shit all over. The dog whines. Must be some rats still around. Some one took all the warm clothes. Blankets too. For use or for trade?

Hard to tell.

Looks like no one has taken the risk of the cellar. The wooden stairs have collapsed into a pile of termite ridden rot ten feet below the door. That could have been before The Event though. 

Hard to tell.

Drop a knotted rope down and another with a canvas duffel bag for whatever can be useful. A workbench offers rusty hammers and screwdrivers. Put them in the duffel. The power tools are useless of course, but there would be some copper in the electric motors. Worth salvaging? 

Hard to tell.

The dim light from dirty windows shows another door and behind it a root cellar. With row upon row of home-canned fruit and tomatoes. Dust off the bottles. How long have they been here? Fill the duffel and hoist them into the light . No signs of leakage, fermentation or mold. How safe would they be to eat? 

Hard to tell.

Try some on the dog. If she lives, we eat. If not, we eat her.