ALL by Susan Isla Tepper

          for Simon Perchik (1923 – 2021)

All I can do is speak of love

your words and the color

of the sky

each breaking season—

Allow me to explain

my sadness at your leaving

so many felt that pain’s 

strange progression

in stops and starts.

All the while you knew

I still needed you.

Susan Isla Tepper is a twenty years published writer in all genres. Her current project is an Off-Broadway Play on the subject of art and life.

Species by Susan Isla Tepper

Don’t be fooled.

We are now at the beginning.

I dare not say this out loud

for fear of being stoned.

Ridiculous, you would say,

Much more likely

you will be shot or raped.

But I know better.

The ants are back

in proliferation.

New species, much smaller, 

more deadly.

Susan Isla Tepper is a twenty years published writer in all genres. Her current project is an Off-Broadway Play on the subject of art and life.

Jowl By Curtis Blazemore

 

I’ve seen the feeblest minds of my generation get in

the best MFA programs in the U.S. of A. I read the

finest minds pseudonymously blogging about

difficult ways to be naked in the dark. The motel in

Barstow was called The Half-Sack Motor Palace

and it was hard to know if this was fate or just gassy

bloat, or maybe it was a secret hot-tub hideout for

defrocked priests and remedial orphans… either way

I had to piss, write a poem about pissing, and nap,

so I checked in. Ginsberg was there, sitting on the bed

in my room. He puffed his hash pipe silently. I pulled

us a couple of beers from my bag and used the john,

then we split the beers and the rest of his Lebanese

Blonde space cake while comparing hungers and highs,

and Lo and Behold! We agreed that everyone is either

strange or familiar. We agreed the ex-Prez tweets like

a mean girl. We agreed this thing called the real world

is a bizarre place where pissed-off creatures say things

aimed at your face. Sunlight spilling in the window

made the smoky room iridescent. I remembered I’d

forgotten to write my poem about pissing, and heard

Buk calling me a lazy old excuse for a poet through

the floorboard. “Ginsberg,” I whispered through the

sunlit haze, “my poems got kicked off the joyride,

they’re just a rest stop headache with an occasional

glory hole— I lie in the dark naked and black out

and none of my angels come, not a one.” He looked

thoughtful for a few beats, then aimed words right at

my face. “Sounds to me like you’re fucked,” he said,

but I’ve got Kerouac’s carcass in my car trunk… I’ll

drag that in, leave him with you, so you can take him

on the road, see if that helps.” Ginsberg ambled out the

door. Like a sap I sat and waited until the sun went

down. My poetry chops were jowls. I had to piss beer.

Curtis Blazemore has been on the planet far too long, publishing various works in between having bad luck and making people rethink their faith in humanity. No matter. He sees sentences in the exhaled smoke and scribbles furiously. He hopes someday to be able to afford a Greyhound bus ticket to Graceland.

As So Goes The Bear By John Patrick Robbins

Our words were short as time is but a moment ever fleeting upon this plain of existence.

My memories of you are as cloudy as a puddle's gray sky's reflection of something I rather forget.

But my friend you once told me.

"Our disease does not hide, we simply choose to ignore it until it's far too late."

I didn't want to face the solution, as I spoke to you beyond fucked up.
Lost in a storm of ego and ignorance that I could control a fucking tornado by pretending I was ultimately in control.

"You know you can always call me John, just make sure it's when you are ready to admit it's beyond your control."

My old friend said to me and as I said my goodbyes I played it off.
Mocking his spiel and doing what I do best.

Play the role others believe to be the fractured individual that is someone over time I truly do not understand myself.

I could always called you and like anyone not wanting to face the cancer that is their truth I never did.

And on the day an old friend told me of your passing I was numb fighting withdrawals, my heart pounding like a wounded animal yearning for escape.

I thought of you, a man who had battled a stroke, cancer and the same addiction as I.

It was never that I didn't call because I did not respect you.

It is the exact opposite my friend.
I admired you as many will speak of your words.
But as we are eternally brothers of the page.

It is the compassion you showed me as a friend knowing me no more than a stranger from a website.

You eternally are that bear, as that animal often stands alone in its strength and understanding.

That pillar has been removed only from sight never from heart or the dungeons of a darkened soul such as mine.

Rest well my friend.

Sincerely from the pains of my eternal regrets.

In memory of a great friend.

I do not explain art, I merely create it.

Cycle By Susan Isla Tepper

Twilight, then the birth

fast as a bullet out the barrel

— legend here.

Consciously or otherwise

a trick was played.

I never sat on her lap

or even saw her 

unless her birthday rolled around

when pictures got passed,

menacing looks aimed my way.

How could I be expected—

but that’s beside the point.

I became she and

he was he

starting the cycle of days

that dropped a black sheet.

Susan Isla Tepper is a twenty years published writer in all genres. Her current project is an Off-Broadway Play on the subject of art and life.

New Religion By John Drudge

In the modern world

Of newly formed 

Secular religions

The soul

Has been replaced

With identity

New canons

And inquisitions

Rabid condemnations

Of the guilty

And the damned 

In the name of 

Righteousness

And eternal punishment 

Sacrosanct in belief

While sacrificing 

Long diseased lambs

On altars

To the new gods of self

And internal relief

⁸

John is a social worker working in the field of disability management and holds degrees in social work, rehabilitation services, and psychology.  He is the author of four books of poetry: “March” (2019), “The Seasons of Us” (2019), New Days (2020), and Fragments (2021). His work has appeared widely in numerous literary journals, magazines, and anthologies internationally. John is also a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and lives in Caledon Ontario, Canada with his wife and two children.

 

Carrying By Gloria Mindock

What is it about destruction that is

 so easy but creating takes longer

 

 What is it about the sun beating on skin

 making you feel warm then the cold takes it away

 

 The ashes are blown to infinity

 wind carrying them continent to continent

 

 What is this all about

 memory that won't let go.

Gloria Mindock is editor of Červená Barva Press. She is the author of 6 poetry collections, and 3 chapbooks. Her poems have been published and translated into eleven languages. Her recent book is ASH (Glass Lyre Press, 2021) won 7 book awards and was translated into Serbian by Milutin Durickovic and published by Alma Press. Gloria was the Poet Laureate in Somerville, MA in 2017 & 2018. www.gloriamindock.com