Holes By Susan Isla Tepper

There are men can make you sweat

bullets but can’t make you cry

can’t tamp out the soft side

lying in your chest this pillow

it wants to be rocked

between your knees

wants to be stroked from

the inside out—

Those men who pile drive you

after will forget, like holes

Susan Isla Tepper is a twenty year writer and the author of 12 published books of fiction and poetry. Her most recent novel “Hair of a Fallen Angel” was released by Spuyten Duyil, NYC in early October. Check out the Official Video for this book on YouTube link: https://youtu.be/W2HVIc4NrqYriter 

Tepper has also written 5 Stage Plays. www.susantepper.com

Twelve Windows By Susan Isla Tepper

You skip out for years—

What is the price for mercy

I ask myself, repeatedly

 

I bought a large billowing

fern for the sun porch where

we spent our days discussing 

the family—

its whys and wherefores.

 

The plant keeps me company now.

I thought we’d made our peace

there— sun slanting in through

twelve windows.

Susan Isla Tepper is a twenty year writer and the author of 12 published books of fiction and poetry. Her most recent novel “Hair of a Fallen Angel” was released by Spuyten Duyil, NYC in early October. Check out the Official Video for this book on YouTube link: https://youtu.be/W2HVIc4NrqYriter 

Tepper has also written 5 Stage Plays. www.susantepper.com

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.