Winning By Brenton Booth

 

The referee stopped the

fight in the final clicks

of the second round after

he was barely touched by

half a dozen or so exhausted,

desperate jabs. If the fight

had continued to the third

round, his battered opponent,

whose nose he'd already

broken in three different

places at the beginning of

the round, with several

stiff intent flurries; wouldn't

have risen for the bell.

Sliding on skates, barely

coherent, when the TKO was

tentatively announced to

the small roaring crowd. He

took the loss with a gracious

smile, fully coherent,

gesturing the rowdy incensed

crowd to please calm

down. Knowing for every

great winner, there needs to

be an even greater loser.

The winner whining for hours

after to an exhausted

indifferent middle-aged male

doctor, at a hellishly

congested hospital. While

he pleasurably gulped

from a never-ending bottle

of heavenly Tennessee

whiskey. Wolfing thick perfect

lines off the pert, golden

breasts, of a young, beautiful hooker.

Certain he would live forever.

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.  

UP AHEAD By Susan Isla Tepper

You spent sorrow on your days

Added up that’s

A big tab.

Because the earth never stops

Spinning you lose track

Of time and

The properties of time.

Now you see that wall

Up ahead is closing

In on you

And yet you still lament .

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

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.