Disappointment By Dan Provost

That boy everyone thought would

be an All-American—is sitting by

himself at the gorge—smoking a

number; begging for change—

wondering what the hell happened.

Dan Provost’s poetry has been published both online and in print since 1993. He is the author of 17 books/ chapbooks, including All in a Pretty Little Row, released by Roadside Press, in November 2023. Notes From the Other Side of the Bed will be published by A Thin Slice of Anxiety Press in early 2025. His work has been nominated for The Best of the Net three times and has read his poetry throughout the United States. He lives in Keene, New Hampshire with his wife Laura, and dog Bella.

THE DEAD By Susan Isla Tepper

 A forgotten room 

I recognized everyone

I recognized no one

Looking happy

They looked my way

Turning their heads away

I saw my mother

Turn her head away

In the torpid silence

A friend in polio irons

From childhood days.

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

Yippy By John Patrick Robbins

It's never good to love oneself.
Especially your art.
To listen to compliments is like seeking out nourishment from cotton candy.

I am never satisfied with art, as neither am I complete in the presence of another equally damaged as myself.

There is supposedly good in everyone well, that said, know damn well the rest is made up of pure shit and self-loathing.

Time has taught me to hate society.
From liars to ladder climbers, I have little to no use.

It's all a con, and I simply refuse to play the game.
The poison consumes me slowly as the earth awaits my collapse.
Tomorrow is another day.

Unfortunately.

JPR, is a Southern Gothic writer his work has  been published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Fixator Press, Horror Sleaze Trash, Disturb The Universe, Piker Press, Punk Noir, The Dope Fiend Daily, Cold Rambler and A Thin Slice Of Anxiety.

His work is dark and always unfiltered.

A PORTRAIT OF DEATH By Strider Marcus Jones

a portrait of death

is still life-

here, but not here.

that last breath-

blew the sail on the ship into The West.

condensed like the sun going down and left

its trace of atmosphere

in every clef

of meaning

of the rune Ing

asking each note of love and laughter

to continue you, here and after-

while you sit, or walk,

or dream

and hear me in a thought,

or touch me in a scene

when I was here

as you remember-

but know that what I brought,

is with you now in moments caught-

when Dali's melting clock

to The Persistence Of Memory,

made Time stop

and stroke your Memory,

so each symbolic ember

can be savoured

in your mind

like favoured

maltey scotch

when the images rewind

the fingers on your watch-

to keep you growing,

in this now of not knowing

the paths that come to you-

to last, and live what's new.

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.

The Trees Bleed, as does the Earth By Leon Drake

The trees remember in a language

we were never meant to overhear—

sap translating grief into amber syllables,

thick with the slow arithmetic of decay.

Beneath them, the earth exhales quietly,

a cathedral of pressure and forgotten names,

where roots write their blind scripture

through marrow-dark corridors of time.

Something is always leaving—

not movement, but surrender—

a loosening of form into the unspeakable,

where even silence fractures into meaning.

And we, temporary as breath on cold bark,

mistake the wound for beauty,

the bleeding for a kind of truth

we could never hold without breaking.

Leon Drake is a Toronto based poet.

His work has been published in several publications through the years print and online

He loves his solitude, if you care to know him read his words for art is the best side of anyone. 

Floundering by Susan Isla Tepper

The dead find me 

while sleeping

One of us is sleeping

I don't search for them

They seem contented

younger and self assured

Comfortable 

in my surroundings

while I flounder

make an attempt

at conversation 

trying to put them at ease.

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

Closed By Chad Parenteau

Safe spaced

history 

away. 

Doorman

keeps 

gate shut.

One-man

telephone

game

passes 

story 

nowhere.

To purge

all your

characters

surely 

erases 

villains.

Never 

find any

past.

Sight 

of now

lost. 

Every

debt 

unpaid.

No one’s

name 

on tab.

Chad Parenteau hosts Boston’s Stone Soup Poetry series. His work has appeared in 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. His newest collections are All's Well Isn't You and Cant Republic: Erasures and Blackouts. He serves as Associate Editor of Oddball Magazine and co-organizer of the annual Boston Poetry Marathon. He lives in Boston.