Struck from afar by Giulio Maffii

 

© Friedrich Haag / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

Struck from afar in the wind that measures the ego
A crooked stitch seals the ventriloquist's mouth
Then it opens you and the drawers a lightning dash
Diamond eyes the purple of celebrations
The cat marks the spot then the actions -what subtle nerve ignites the pupils?-
If I were lumber house or ruin you would have said nothing about gold between the teeth
The breath is overwhelming the greeting the assassin a letter of insignificance
the fly's point of view
Bread in the ribs the silver eye heals in emptiness
-Who have you wronged so much?-
In the reinforced concrete room of patience the miser dwarf doesn't whirr and the hedge doesn't bounce
You've protected yourselves well from the scarred skin from the scent of sanctity just steps from the sea
Don't lose the distances the taste of cold sizzles in the clear air a climbing kiss

***

He was born in Florence (Italy). His studies are dedicated to poetry (linear-experimental-visual) and its diffusion; recently  he was featured in New York's magazine "Arteidolia" and in “Expanded field journal”(Amsterdam) . He collaborates with “Bubamara Teatro” Theater Company.

Breakfast by DS Maolalai

Full English Breakfast by Garry Knight from Flickr

 

a man in the corner
of the first open cafe.
halfbald. overheavy and pale.
eating ham and fried
sausages, two fried
eggs, a fried hashbrown,
cold butter and slices of toast.

daylight comes rolling
down long dusty alleys
like a man in a truck
with deliveries. light looks
in windows; I stop
for a coffee. watch while
I pay, while I wait.

his egg bursts, he cuts
things to glistening triangles;
stacks things and forks
them with ceremony, care,
just as immigrant workers
place fruit on a grocery shelf
in the aisle of a supermarket.
on the chair which sits opposite

a hi-viz is hanging. it is yellow
as egg-yolk, yellower
than the sun.

***

DS Maolalai has been described by one editor as "a cosmopolitan poet" and another as "prolific, bordering on incontinent". His work has nominated twelve times for Best of the Net, eight for the Pushcart Prize and once for the Forward Prize, and has been released in three collections; "Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden" (Encircle Press, 2016), "Sad Havoc Among the Birds" (Turas Press, 2019) and “Noble Rot” (Turas Press, 2022)

Therapy Session by Ben Nardolilli

Killarney Unicorn monument, Co. Kerry, Ireland

 

Previous attempts at being good

were a good fit that failed

by being overly mythical, thanks

to obsessing over unicorns.

Bridging the difference in reality

was ruined by attempts

to get to the top of the reins

and display cunning with control

***

 

http://mirrorsponge.blogspot.com/

Convict Chains by Strider Marcus Jones

rich man and peasant understand
coins change hand,
despite the Magna Carta
we must all barter
to live-
only communists give
nothing
something
sometimes-
same crimes.
so, when reason rains,
i drag my convict chains
to the barrow bog
and cut peat
in feral fog
where motives meet.
six feet down,
sucked back five thousand years
the old town
settlement appears
in full formation
of chattel,
cattle
and battle
still at station
preserved
to serve.
around
the round
late night fires,
power plays and lust desires
hearth home homogenous
in Mars and Venus
making love in animal skins
wearing the same sins.
on the long walk home,
some alone
and those together,
believe never
can be changed
and are called strange.

***

Strider Marcus Jones – is a poet, law graduate and former civil servant from Salford, England. He is the editor and publisher of Lothlorien Poetry Journal https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/. View his five published books of poetry  https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/ 

Benny Sat Alone by John Tustin

 

benny sat alone
as wind shook the frame of night
and benny drank his beer
by the light of the hallway
 
benny sat alone
and the children were knifing one another
in the neck beyond his walls
and benny drank his beer
and closed his eyes
 
benny sat alone
as the earth was plundered
and benny drank his beer
listening to the music
he has liked since high school
 
benny sat alone
as men moved mountains
as men murdered millions
and benny drank his beer
thinking of fucking his sister in law
 
benny sat alone
and benny drank his beer
 
his fingers and toes
were warm and numb
and he put down his book
went to lie next to one
he didn’t love
 
to sleep like he always did

***

John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals since 2009. His first poetry collection from Cajun Mutt Press is now available at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C6W2YZDP . fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.

Non-Causal Chains by Heikki Huotari

Abstract butterfly by Astew2323

Conceivable scenarios are everywhere but not one is reducible to an absurdity. Mistakes are made, ho hum. An applicant elaborates on esoteric matrices. A cantilever wants a counterweight. The bandages of languages are lost. The better half of symmetry is in the eye that looks my way. I know which side my butterfly is on. The zooming in has but begun. Some afternoon I may attend a late late show and be told how and when to laugh and play. I'm thinking of a spectrum. On that spectrum is a distribution that I'm dreaming of, a distribution only Santa Claus has access to. There's one chance in a million therefore there's a chance. The rest is entropy. The keepers of continua treat equally the quality of mercy ha-ha and the quality of mercy strange. The Mona Lisa is a comment on the moustache. If you like your prestidigitators you can keep them, it's the law.

i.Gesundheit Sarnatzky chimes in chipping away at Murphy bed disjunctions by Gerard Sarnat

 

 A black and white photo of a classroom full of children, Southington, Connecticut. Class instruction

 -- dedicated to Ms. Murphy, circa 1958 Hawthorne eighth-grade English teacher

Nada golden rule
yawning thru
The Scarlet Letter
you grokked
Nathaniel had same

name as school
but when raised hand
to ask if is true
crabby Catholic spinster
gave Jew an F-
after turned in term paper
claimed humans
evolved from chimpanzees.
Those who made
their beds must lie in them…

Often chippy
artsy fartsy boychicks
oy go batshit
if my science-y buddies
can’t explain
the differences between
Hamlet/Othello
although dudes do not give
a crap regards
what D/RNA’s exactly made of!

We all harness
our demons and-or they’ll control us:
As now chip in
am I trying to aim toward conjunctions
which are both

dramatic enough plus use grammatically
proper nouns
without being way too hasty while Gerard
Sarnat generates
very unpalatable waste products for his pals?

Subsection of "Wastrel Presents [ii]"

 

***

Poet and aphorist Gerard Sarnat is widely published internationally in print and online. He is a Harvard College and Medical School-trained physician who’s built and staffed clinics for the  disenfranchised  as well as a Stanford professor and healthcare CEO. Currently he is devoting energy/ resources to deal with climate justice, and serves on Climate Action Now’s board. Gerry’s been married since 1969 with progeny consisting of four collections (Homeless Chronicles: From Abraham To Burning Man, Disputes, 17s, Melting the Ice King) plus three kids/ six grandsons — and is looking forward to potential future granddaughters.

Little Liza by Jack D. Harvey

Vietnamese Girl by Vyacheslav Argenberg

That's your name?

Butter could never melt

your Thai mouth,

making English words

in far-off Bangkok,

where playgirls

looking for cock to bang,

what else,

zip along

on motor scooters,

looking for you, brother,

taking you

right, right, left, left,

right to Hotel Ecstasy,

right into your arms,

palsied with desire.

Two by two

or in a bunch,

like Brantôme's band

of jolly jumpers,

the black-maned cowgirls

of Soi Cowboy

stand at the doors,

the windows,

cruise the streets

wide-eyed and ready for

bumpy combat, a little

of the old in and out;

for a long moment

more than a thumb plugged

in the eternal hole in the dike.

The value of satisfaction

in the vales and dales

of loamy female loins;

your wild oats measured out

in the coin of any realm.

Leetle kid,

you fockee me?

Shy girl-lashed

paratroopers hem

and haw.

Beautiful, transporting as bhang

in this carnivorous market,

the boyhood dreams come true

and the boys dream,

dropping their pants and

Little Liza or

whatever your proper name,

your dark Asian eyes,

your furry doolittle

not wet with

tears of love for

me or Joe Bunkbuddy

or any little thing.

First published in DuanePoetree

***

Jack D. Harvey’s poetry has appeared in in many venues.

The author has been writing poetry since he was sixteen and lives in a small town near Albany, New York. 

The State of the Street by John Grey

 

On the street where you live by Donn Gunn from Flickr

A guy’s slumped in the doorway
of an abandoned five and dime,
fast asleep, under a blanket
of flattened cardboard box.
And two men head for the bar,
stumbling bleary-eyed
like they just got up.
And an old woman fumbles in her purse,
grabs all the change,
counting it twice, three times,
in her hand.
She shakes her head like
it’s not enough.
The sad thing is
it’s almost enough.

 

***

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

Miss Gunney’s Only Soup by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Sweet red wine soup by Richard Barley from Wikicommons

 

Little bits of arsenic added all the time,
trace amounts in Miss Gunney’s only soup,
that always has you on the mend;
straight chicken stock far as all the  
conscientious objectors can tell,
spitting up blood like a personal volcano,
getting sicker all the time
and the doctors kept at a distance,
Miss Gunney washes the blankets,
so protective of her favourite patient. 

A single deep kiss on the forehead  
each night. Something motivational  
from 1st Corinthians. 

Delusional moonlit  
through a midnight window  
propped open with the oar of a  
forgotten canoe  

that has sent so many  
down river.

***

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many mounds of snow.  His personal website is: https://ryanquinnflanagan.yolasite.com/