Tuesday, December 9, 2025

Wooded Windows By Strider Marcus Jones


as this long life slowly goes


i find myself returning


to look through wooded windows.


forward or back, empires and regimes remain


in pyramids of power


butchering the blameless for glorious gain.


feudal soldiers firing guns


and wingless birds dropping smart bombs


on mothers, fathers, daughters, sons,


follow higher orders


to modernise older civilisations


repeating what history has taught us.


in turn, their towers of class and cash


will crumble and crash


on top of Ozymandias.


hey now, woods of winter leafless grip


and fractures split


drawing us into it.


love slide in days


through summer heat waves


and old woodland ways


with us licking


then dripping


and sticking


chanting wiccan songs


embraced in pagan bonds


living light, loving long,


fingers painting runes on skin


back to the beginning


when freedom wasn't sin.





Strider Marcus Jones – is a poet, law graduate and former civil servant from Salford,

England with proud Celtic roots in Ireland and Wales. He is the editor and publisher of

Lothlorien Poetry Journal https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/. A member of

The Poetry Society, his five published books of poetry https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/ reveal a maverick, moving between cities, playing his saxophone in smoky rooms.

  

His poetry has been published in numerous publications including: The Huffington

Post USA; The Crossroads Magazine, The Stray Branch Literary Magazine; Crack The Spine Literary Magazine;The Lampeter Review and Dissident Voice.

Tuesday, November 11, 2025

all these beautiful women in the world By J.J. Campbell


i hate being around 

people when i start 

thinking


this notion always 

finds a way into 

my soul


all these beautiful 

women in the 

world and all of 

them would rather 

die than be with 

me


i wonder why i 

even bother to 

shave or put on 

cologne


loneliness is the 

only scar that 

women don’t 

find cool


i laugh when i 

look in the mirror


it’s the joy of 

torture


the pure fucking 

joy that pain brings 

me


it’s all i have left


there’s only one 

way to go once 

that ship sinks

in the ocean





J.J. Campbell (1976 - ?) is stuck in suburbia, plotting his escape. He's been widely published over the last 30 years, most recently at Synchronized Chaos, Disturb the Universe Magazine, The Beatnik Cowboy, The Rye Whiskey Review and Misfit Magazine. You can find him most days betting on soccer in foreign countries and taking care of his disabled mother. He tries his best to still write on his blog, although time often never allows it. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)


Thursday, November 6, 2025

At 3 By Susan Isla Tepper


Each season walked through


Darkness got crazy


A spoon appeared to be


The moon


Guarded by treachery


Any invisible army


 

As long as


You could be


Counted on to appear


Each day


At 3


Through the back entrance





Susan Isla Tepper is a twenty year writer in all genres. Her most recent book, a Novel titled Hair Of A Fallen Angel, came out in the fall from Spuyten Duyvil Books, NYC. Tepper has also written 7 stage plays. Her third play titled EVA & ADAMO will present at The Tank, NYC, early fall. www.susantepper.com


Thursday, October 30, 2025

Freestyle Isn’t Free By Chad Parenteau


Automatic

goes off

in hand.


Singers 

don’t clean

up scat.


Poop’s 

now the

pudding. 


Infection

spread on

word salad.


Spontaneity

combusts

uninsured.




Chad Parenteau hosts Boston’s long-running Stone Soup Poetry series. His work has appeared in journals such as RĂ©sonancee, Molecule, Ibbetson Street, Pocket Lint, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, Off The Coast, The Skinny Poetry Journal, The New Verse News, dadakuku, Nixes Mate Review and The Ugly Monster. He has also been published in anthologies such as French Connections, Sounds of Wind, Reimagine America, and The Vagabond Lunar Collection. His newest collections are All's Well Isn't You and Cant Republic: Erasures and Blackouts. He serves as Associate Editor of the online journal Oddball Magazine and co-organizer of the annual Boston Poetry Marathon. He lives and works in Boston.

Wednesday, October 29, 2025

Tom And Huck Revisited By Kevin M. Hibshman


Do you recall those earlier days when lost in a haze, I would follow you anywhere?

Jumping off the bridge on our bikes onto the small island in the middle of a stream.

Riding headlong into a cornfield, the plants smashing against us.

The 4th of July when we snuck into the park,.no one knew we got in for free.

It was all a storybook adventure.

You were something like a hero to me.

We got high for the first time before band practice and spent the day laughing as only fourteen year-olds can.

I loved that first year of High School.

We sat close together in a private world until the teachers separated us.

When the class had to read aloud from some obscure text, I never could because you would make me laugh.

You were rebellious, full of pranks.

We put discarded Christmas trees on top of people's cars.

You got nabbed shoplifting candy, not content with the free samples the outlet provided.

It was all in good fun.

We slept over at each other's houses always trying to sneak out after curfew.

Your parents would catch us and order us back to bed.

One night we made it to the school building.

How different it seemed in the dark.

You were Tom and I was Huck.

I never suspected those days would end with no more Summer vacations to fill.

We were in the same Cub Scout pack.

You insisted we join marching band and I was stuck trying to learn how to play the trumpet.

Those bus rides were fun with Renata's head in my lap.

You and I and Brenda formed the terrible trio.

Everything changed during our Sophomore year.

You went off each morning to Vo-Tech.

You got a car and your family moved to another part of town.

That was the beginning of the end.

After graduation, you signed up to the Navy and were placed on a ship in San Francisco.

We did write back and forth.

You called me when you went AWOL and were unsure of what to do.

Things got heavier and sadder for awhile.

When you returned home, I was somebody new, myself for the first time.






Kevin M. Hibshman has had poems published in many journals and magazines world wide.In addition, he has edited his poetry zine, Fearless, since 1990 and is the author of sixteen chapbooks including Love Sex Death Dreams (Green Bean Press, 2000) and Incessant Shining (Alternating Current, 2011).
Cease To Destroy from Whiskey City Press.
His current book is Lost Within The Garden Of Heathens also from Whiskey City Press and currently available through Amazon.






Tuesday, October 28, 2025

Hate thy Neighbour By Brenton Booth


I am sitting in 

   my backyard reading

a book of poetry.


Notice my nosy

     neighbour watching

me from her 


window. She 

    doesn't read poetry. 

 Probably thinks I 


am looking at 

   porn. I wave at her. 

 Blow a playful


kiss. She screams

    something vicious

 out the window.


I reach for my

    crotch. Start rubbing

  theatrically. She


violently slams 

    the window. Face 

 redder than 


ripened beets. 

     Threatening to call 

   the police. I 


shake my head. 

    Continue reading.

 A poem written 


over sixty years 

    ago by a person 

  far greater


than she could 

    ever be. Punching

  at the walls 


 inside her suburban

      fortress. Imagining

   they were me. 





Brenton Booth lives in Sydney, Australia. Poetry of his has appeared in Gargoyle, New York Quarterly, North Dakota Quarterly, Chiron Review, Main Street Rag, Naugatuck River Review, Heavy Feather Review, and Nerve Cowboy. He has two full length collections available from Epic Rites Press.  




Monday, October 20, 2025

Caught By Susan Isla Tepper


Between two worlds

possibly more 

I sweat it out

try to get a grip 

On the impermeable—


Did I choose 

which to 

remember / consciously

the day by day


While the other

continues to move 

along in motion—


Or was this parceled out

like scatter feeding

crumbs to street birds—




Susan Isla Tepper is a twenty year writer in all genres. Her most recent book, a Novel titled Hair Of A Fallen Angel, came out in the fall from Spuyten Duyvil Books, NYC. Tepper has also written 7 stage plays. Her third play titled EVA & ADAMO will present at The Tank, NYC, early fall. www.susantepper.com