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.

​A GOOD TIME by Susan Isla Tepper

I went the wrong way

Thought heaven was

Above the sky

After all who wouldn’t

What with all that 

Blue & white beauty 

And the wild

Sexy weather God created

Not to mention the wild

Sex God also created

To make sure we had

A good time or else 

We might stop in place

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

Persuasion By Manny Grimaldi

You don’t need or want

anything or anyone—

that’s why 

I love you.

The greediest lie

I’ve ever told myself.

Manny Grimaldi, Is a poet and editor living in Louisville, Kentucky. 

To date he has co-founded and curated Yearling Poetry Journal

since 2021, leaving in 2026 to concentrate on studies.

His book Finding a Word to Describe You (2025), released by Whiskey

City Press is available at https://a.co/d/2CLIpGd 

Mirror, Mirror By Strider Marcus Jones

mirror, mirror,

in the hall

age comes to us all,

and looks wither

through the play

of years slipped away,

away

in the lapsed lingo of street

and road,

where tangents meet

and move with innocence

up summits of experience

told,

whose fruits we eat

then weep

when they implode.

these reflections

in this autumn of adventurous directions,

mean more

standing in the door

of ebb and flow

watching people come and go

wearing introspections

of what they know

after listening to a stranger's small confessions

on midnight radio.

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.