WE MOVE THE WHEEL By Strider Marcus Jones

we move the wheel

that turns through each mistake,

giving motion

to the roles we chime

until both trickle out of time

like brittle steel

that rusts and breaks

into lapsed devotion.

less, or more,

you imagined it was sure

sharing the road

with you,

treading under dark, grey and blue

sky, wondering where it went going

to unfold

in fates wind blowing

fondling your full face

to some top-to-bottom place.

we have moved the wheel,

only to reveal

our high Metropolis

is still the same Acropolis

of extremes and obscenes

spreading gangrenous genes.

we have separated Dream from Time

and live in mirages

like Bacchus and Libera

duped in an era

condoning crime,

altering the images

of it's illustrious self

stealing the wealth

of massed, divided synergies.

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 Stray Branch Literary Magazine; Crack The Spine Literary Magazine;The Lampeter Review and Dissident Voice

Jump By Manny Grimaldi

    

Nine in the evening. The finch tells me 

it’s safe to breathe now and I feed and water him— 

little chance I’ll sleep ’til morning. Petey darts—eyes black, 

small, bulging—every chirp a question.

Then to the August Yellow Emperor, Corn-Pop.

He awaits truckloads of seed. Tonight I reach into the cage 

to hold him. There’s no one to touch. 

My grief. Children taken for five years. 

I fool myself.

Their psychotherapeutic presentation of self in everyday life. 

Sardines. Armour brand sausages. Tin can soldiers.  

Barrel of monkeys. Public school counseling nightmares. 

The Mother.

No, I set the ball rolling. 

Now, no liquor and drugs to soothe me.

I haven’t been fucked by someone that loved me.

I haven’t loved anyone in my life.

Before she married me I knew this woman.

I wasn’t worth sticking around for.

On my knees I proposed, “I guarantee I will fuck this up.”

That was my idea of being honest, not brutal.

Ten in the evening. Then you. Here’s the chair where you asked

what’s the best record in the collection?

I didn’t know. I was scared to admit it, the album was tainted,

by a gabby woman, on Chicago wind, pepper and egg sandwiches,

and all shades Kentucky weather without notice.

Neville Brothers on the water, her Aaron Neville flirting for hours.

I still miss the songs on that recording. I cry out loud. 

So let’s bury the book of woe in locusts and wild honey pies, play 

my wedding march Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence 

without remembering I tried to call my ex to say this song is now mine.

I am significant, wrangling baked chocolate cakes

Daddy used to make for children now with beef tips, carrots, onions,

and eggs, a family roast at a tea party amidst the scones with dainty china.

Eleven at night, there’s you, and five years landed, 

birds covered in cages, and I’m lying on the pavement crying. 

It’s snowing on December 5th in the middle of the ocean—

nothing that climbs, sparks, or soars takes root, and nothing accumulates here.

Tonight it is with us, we look after the instant.

But before you go, will I eat with you, ride or laugh with you again? 

Feel everything jump anew?

Manny Grimaldi is a writer and editor from Kentucky elaborating verse and rejection notices with well-worn classical hand-tool jokes. Don’t forget to donate at his 800 number, easily reached by dialing 1-800-739-4386. He regularly performs his work at open mics and readings. Manny is the author of Riding Shotgun with the Mothman and EX LIBRIS IOANNES CERVA both available on Kindle (totally recommended for value and portability).  

Trusted by Susan Isla Tepper

Your gym bag holds knives

just in case—

Today being one of those.

Voices telling you slice him

a guy on the street

in a yellow hoodie

like mustard

You tasted its tang

so you did, over and over, 

the way you learned 

to cut meat all day

working in the kitchen 

of that big loud place.

Where they trusted you.

Susan Isla Tepper is a twenty year writer in all genres. Her stage play "Crooked Heart" will be featured in Origin Theatre Company 'May Play Festival', NYC.

SALTED SLUG By Strider Marcus Jones

your words stung,

and hung

me upside down, inside out,

to watch you

swan turned shrew-

hairbrush out all memory and meaning,

from those fresco pictures on the wet plaster ceiling-

that my Michelangelo took years to paint,

in glorious colours, now flaked and full of hate.

the lights of our Pleiades went out,

with no new songs to sing and talk about-

suspended there

inside sobs of solitude and infinite despair-

like soluble syllables of barbiturates

in exhaust fumes of apology and regrets.

you left me prone-

to hear deaths symphony alone,

split and splattered, opened on the floor,

repenting for nothing, evermore-

like a salted slug,

curdled and curled up on the rug-

to melt away

while you spoon and my colours fade to grey.

the heart of truth-

intact in youth,

fractures into fronds of lies and trust,

destined to become a hollow husk-

but i found myself again in hopes congealing pools

and left the field of fools

to someone else-

putting her finished book back on its shelf.

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 Stray Branch Literary Magazine; Crack The Spine Literary Magazine;The Lampeter Review and Dissident Voice.

Shift By Susan Isla Tepper

The walls were the last

to go quiet, though not

without some creaks

and shuddering I swear

I could see them shift.

Tho’ nothing cracked 

the plaster stayed smooth &

dreamy— like it had gone

through a terrible war

to return home unscathed.

Susan Isla Tepper is a twenty year writer in all genres. Her stage play "Crooked Heart" will be featured in Origin Theatre Company 'May Play Festival', NYC.

Starman By Alex S. Johnson

In memory of David Bowie

Tracking the echoes of the

sidereal mystery show

Where red platform boots lick the stars 

Where the shadows of white stains glyph

themselves to the crimson carpet ride

Where unspeakable dimensions of 

foreign objects immersed in expired milk

Crack the yolk of the actor within

Being and becoming the tempter or Satan

Lacerating the heart with the will to break spines

Lancing minds with Crowleyan knowledge

And oh how good it is to be King

in the shimmering desert of Malkuth

Long live the sephora the wheat from the chafed ass chaps

In cybersonic sedition forever the Holy Ones unite 

Their limbs surrender thy Uncle's politics

Ever more disturbed to crack the primate archives

and break out the dancers of white heat red hot

They surely know the boogie grimoires on separated

sheets of blotter acid

They surely know birasure fissures of men

They sought the Kingdom in the waters sifted around the

toes of the Kingfisher

They melted into psychedelic vampires ultimately

And Major Tom's the space vampire they warned you

about

Spinning eternally through the abyss of Deep Time

And magick cancels magick thrusts its hips rhythmically to the warp and creak of 

the Starman's astral footprint

A sensation novel to the taste what's the frequency Giatri Spivak

Yet somehow the subaltern does speak contrary to all expectation

In the liminal spaces statuettes plunge from the cliffs of Aldeberan into the Holy Grove

And lost minds are herded like cattle through the 

Egyptian afterlife 

Photonegative zombies clench fucked jaws in supplication of the homoerotic meat

We salute the arctic traces of your tongue on our

flesh of memorial marble

Kissin the whip in final surrender. 

John Shirley, screenwriter of The Crow (1994) with David J. Schow wrote of Alex S. Johnson that he is "the Baudelaire of our time; the poet of the underground." Johnson has worked as a developmental education specialist, a secretary to entertainment royalty Tom Sullivan and Betty White, assistant to the CEO of the boutique Los Angeles ad agency Haller Schwarz, and scorer of the AP English exam for the Educational Testing Service. His books include THE DOOM HIPPIES, FUCKED UP FAIRY TALES VOLUMES 1-12 and FINAL DESTINATION: WIPEOUT. His forthcoming books include GRIMWAR: A BOOK OF POETIC WARFARE in collaboration with the legendary Steven Johnson Leyba, ordained a high priest in the Church of Satan by Anton LaVey, a magus in Thee Order Ov Psychick Youth and founder of the Church of Coyotel. Johnson lives in Carmichael, California with his family. 

Made It By Chad Parenteau

Now stouter

and broader,

temples too

gray to hide.

Had to turn

ugly as me

to become

somebody

able to take

own baggage.

Welcome to

man’s world.

Population:

an army of

lonely ones

cut off. 

No longer

wanted 

but oh so 

very needed.

No one 

gets any

except those

who ask 

so much of 

your all.

Chad Parenteau hosts Boston’s long-running Stone Soup Poetry series. His work has appeared in journals such as Résonancee, 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. 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.