New Poetry by Donna Dallas

Marlboro Man

Give me that Brut 33

tattoo-less

red-tanned skin

from ‘real’ physical labor

rough hands

nicked and scarred

twist a wrench

fill gas

in the blistering sun

five o’clock shadow

crow’s feet

thick blonde

lashes

one tooth a shade darker

a cleft that melts panties

faded jeans

white T

scar on left cheek

cigarette hangs from sun-cracked lips

drinks a Jack & Coke

solid body

enlisted at 18

because what else was there

but to serve our country

he holds the door

for me

while Jesus hangs from his neck

- © Donna Dallas 2021

Donna studied Creative Writing and Philosophy at NYU’s Gallatin School and was lucky enough to study under William Packard, founder and editor of the New York Quarterly.  Recently her work has appeared in Horror Sleaze Trash, Beatnik Cowboy and Zombie Logic among many other publications. Donna also recently published her first novel, Death Sisters, with Alien Buddha Press. Donna currently serves on the editorial team for Red Fez and New York Quarterly.

 

New Poetry by Janice Bethany

Proposal

So long ago, you and he on the

motorcycle - winding roads, pastures,

yellow-red hills, bridge steady,  

you could have believed anything. 

Your great noise spilled over powerlines,

mailboxes, perch in the lake. Shadows

trailed in wild vines, you couldn’t have

imagined more. In a sweet daze you sank

into curves of his spine. You brushed his jaw,

and all blossoms of summer came loose inside.

You ached for the road to stop, to reach 

the end of your late-summer greenness

and be subsumed by the next season,

laid down like a wine bottle in the earth,

rocked through time in brilliant ways, past

the powerlines, past the perch, past the daze.

- © Janice Bethany 2021

Janice Bethany lives in Texas and teaches for the University of Houston System. Her work has appeared in or recognized by Sparked Lit; National Poetry Month, San Antonio; Craven Arts Competition, NC; Texas Poetry Calendar; O’Bheal International Competition, Cork, Ireland; Toledo (Ohio) Museum of Art; Anesthesiology; Raleigh Review, Ekphrastic Review, etc. Bethany is inspired by walks along a wetlands habitat, the arts and good world around her.

New Poetry by Rob Schackne

Insomnia 

They walk at night 

in this old cottage 

above in the rafters 

a ceiling of riches 

below the floorboards 

where it wasn’t buried 

they whisper in the wall 

it was taken from 

some call them ghost 

or possums strolling 

the length of the house 

north to south and back 

ask if they’re friendly 

the hurt feelings 

all in a dream 

what do they say 

I listen to them chatter 

of poison and regrets 

it was a gold town

- © Rob Schackne 2021

Rob lives a (mostly) quiet life in Castlemaine, Victoria, where he writes and takes photographs. He shares a cottage built in the early 1850s.

New Poetry by Alex McKeown

Two Talents

July 2012

It’s been twenty-four years

And my light is spent

On the first

Eight hours a day

And I can’t get to sleep

With these songs in my head

I wrote them a year ago

And then an hour ago

Sat up and feared

They were gone

(Since when was the last time

I sat and played? Just played?)

And how can I know

But to go through them all

Singing upside down

The songs that were once mine

And lined my mind

Every day with space and light

I had the space to play

The light to write by

And now they’re spent

The first eight hours a day

- © Alex Mckeown 2021

Alex McKeown is a Tasmanian poet and translator. His writing has most recently appeared in The Pi Review, Plumwood Mountain, and Blue Unicorn. A selection of his published poems can be read on 

alexmckeownpoetry.com

New Poetry by R.F. McTague

Parthogenesis

 

A mayfly’s life’s time on the wall

doubles into infinite halving

and spiders and snakes escape

The Ark, the coupled path

to salvation.

- © R.F. McTague 2021

R.F. McTague is a poet, fiction writer, and retired military officer who now lives and teaches literature in Bucharest, Romania. He is writing a book of poetry and two novellas. He loves reading, discussing literature in book clubs, and the Boston Red Sox.

New Poetry by Bernardo Villela

Memorializing Alireza

In an honor killing 

honor dies with the martyred,

nothing’s restored only taken;

left in its blooded wake grief and hate.

His name should be known.

His photo displayed

indicator of a future robbed,

of hate alive and well. 

In some nations equality 

needs fighting for,

in other nations it is 

a dream yet unattained. 

“We finished him off,”

his stepbrother said

to his mother as if

her son were a hit;

a life expendable,

bereft of significance and value

because of the shape of his love,

because who he was meant to be.

A mother left without a child,

a boyfriend without his other half,

because he was taken by a violent ideal,

dumped under a tree, like refuse.

A nation that outs its youth,

branding them mentally ill

for breaking heteronormative molds,

needs the world as loudspeakers for the voiceless. 

Needs the world to

lend our voice, 

lend our support,

lend our ears,

lend our eyes, 

Needs the world to

to see the struggle,

to offer help,

to draw attention,

to ride the wave.

The tumult of injustice

humanity wades through

cannot be overcome in

a straight line. 

Breakers will often return

threatening to swallow us,

to drown us down,

but we swim on

crying for help.

Alireza has been taken

by unforgiving hateful currents.

We who understand and remain

must swim on and shout his name.

Alireza Fazeli Monfared.

Now gone, now memorialized,

a testament to a rising pride

battling a hateful tide.

- © Bernardo Villela 2021

Bernardo Villela has had poetry published by Entropy and Zoetic Press. He’s had fiction published with Coffin Bell Journal, The Dark Corner Zine, 101 Proof Horror, A Monster Told Me Bedtime Stories, Page & Spine You can read more about these and various other pursuits at www.miller-villela.com. 

New Poetry by Katie Kemple

Mars

exhales

one

cloud—

up

the

south

side

flank

of

Arsia

Mons,

slim

oro-

graphic

trail,

a

vape

slowly

exhaled,

on

break

from

roving

arms

and

hands,

stares

down

your

one

and

only

pale

blue

eye.

- © Katie Kemple 2021

Katie's work has appeared recently, or is forthcoming, in Olney, Gleam, Dwelling, Lucky Jefferson, Right Hand Pointing, The Collidescope, and The Racket, among others. Originally from the Shawangunks of New York, Katie currently lives in Southern California.

New Poetry by Jeremy Nathan Marks

Bobbie 

In the long hot 

summer of 

67’

when people 

could have been 

obsessed with the view 

from Detroit or a Newark 

street when they could have followed 

troop movements in the Central Highlands 

of Vietnam toward a place called 

Khe Sanh

a female singer 

from rural Mississippi

Bobbie Gentry sang about 

a boy a bridge and a girl 

who lost 

her appetite

when her parents seemed 

more interested in black eyed 

peas and peach cobbler 

than a boy’s cadaver bobbing 

like tackle in the Tallahatchie 

River.

In this land of plenty 

why is it that people 

are always hungry-

- © Jeremy Nathan Marks 2021

Jeremy Nathan Marks lives in Canada. Recent work is found in places like 365 Tomorrows, Jewish Literary Journal, Chiron Review, Dissident Voice, and Bewildering Stories. 

New Poetry by John Grey

The Next Generation

He died

and his library passed away

soon after.

All of those books were

sold off to a second hand dealer.

The man never did have issue

that could read worth a damn.

Same with music.

Bach, Beethoven

and that rare Mozart recording

barely made it past the funeral.

His heirs at least

appreciated his art work,

appreciated how much they had

appreciated in value that is

since he bought them as a young man.

The house never stood a chance.

Too old, too ugly, was the consensus.

A nineteenth century gem

it said in the real estate listing.

He was a man of great taste.

His children are

the latest word in Philistines.

He left them such a legacy.

But they mistook it for a corpse.

- © John Grey 2021

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Orbis, Dalhousie Review and the Round Table. Latest books, “Leaves On Pages” and “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon.

New Poetry by Peter Roads

SAVIOUR I 

 

When he grows up he's gonna be a big man 

Big like important 

President of wide open space 

Fill every room he is in 

A waist too expansive for pants 

Words too amazing for grace 

Features too big for a face 

Ego to wide for scale 

Measurement is for other people  

he will be a gateway to the future 

Through which many will travel 

Just to see him will be inspiring 

People will hang him on their wall 

Like they hung him from that tree 

Bound hand and feet 

They will love him  

just you wait and see 

He will be so big 

                                    so tall 

                                    so awesome 

                                    so heavy  

that all this guilt will fall  

we will be set free  

when he grows up he will be a big man 

Better kill him young  

so we won't feel so  

                                      small

- © Peter Roads 2021

Since starting his performance career in a Sydney backyard Peter has performed for the Unlikely Project, Unspoken Words, Newtown Festival Mainstage and Shelter NSW. Since winning 'most promising poet' at the 2015 Nimbin Performance Poetry World Cup he's published a series of independent chapbooks exploring issues of anxiety, politics, identity and religion. His last short film 'Flashback to the Pool' won laurels in 2020 and the next project 'Summon the Unbelievers' is a broadside against the hubris of blind faith.

New Poetry by Todd Matson

The Gerrymanderer

he drew lines

to his right

to his left

battle lines

before him

behind him

jagged lines

above him

below him

crooked lines

to divide

to conquer

curved lines

twisted into

pretzels

bloody lines

between

red and blue

rich and poor

black and white

citizen and immigrant

gay and straight

binary and nonbinary

young and old

men and women

fathers and sons

mothers and daughters

brothers and sisters

best of friends

us and them

a web of lines

tangling hearts

with fear and hate

he drew lines

of division

in the sand

until he etch-a-sketched

himself into a corner

boxed himself in

couldn’t get out

wielded his pen

like a stiletto

cut himself

into a thousand

little pieces

- © Todd Matson 2021

Todd Matson is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.  He has written poetry for The Journal of Pastoral Care and Counseling, has been published in Ariel Chart International Literary Journal and The Chamber Magazine, and has also written lyrics for songs recorded by a number of contemporary Christian music artists.

 

New Poetry by Sergio Antonio

Infinite Plain

frosty mountain range, 

tumultuous river,

navigation on the sea of dull 

—no spellbinding colors 

to dream about,

golden pink desert night,

shoreline that stretches the horizon

until it looks like the horizon.

You end up touching me

though I'm faceless.

- © Sergio Antonio 2021

Sergio Antonio is a retired, Educator, Bilingual-Queer PRican Poet, and Human Rights Activist. Pushcart nominee, Best of the Web, Best of the Net, nominee. He took 2nd place in the 2016 Ramón Ataz annual poetry competition, sponsored by Alaire Publishing House. He workshops his poetry in RatsAssReview workshop. Recent credits include Spanish audio poems in GATO MALO Editing, Maleta Ilegal, Frances House, South Florida Poetry Journal, RatsAssReview, The Maynard, and Spillwords. He is the Founder of Undertow Tanka Poetry Review now La Resaca. Founder of the Online LGBTTQI+ Elderly Virtual Caribbean Artist Public Housing Collective and Publishing Press.

New Poetry by Vern Fein

The Right to Complain

I won’t compare and contrast

the pain in my life to others

like a dutiful rhetoric student

composing an obligatory essay

assigned by an older teacher

nursing his retirement years.

I want the pain to be mine.

I want to own the hurt.

I want to feel my daughter's divorce,

my son's vandalized car,

my dog's surgery.

 

I won’t compare my life events

to the ravages of a hurricane

blowing an island paradise into the sea

or the latest mass shooting

composing a cemetery from a concert

or the death of my best friend's daughter

cancer slicing her life in half.  

But why can't I complain

when people ask me how I am?

Why can't I bray my petty pipings

in the grieving face of real tragedy?

 My maiden aunt often said:

"You are only in your own skin."

Does that comfort me?

- © Vern Fein 2021

A retired special education teacher, Vern Fein has published over one hundred fifty poems on over sixty sites, a few being: *82 Review, Bindweed Magazine, Gyroscope Review, Courtship of Winds, Young Raven's Review, Nine Muses, Monterey Poetry Review, and Corvus Review.

New Poetry by Gerald Friedman

Woods Outside Cleveland,Ohio

I hop the creek and see in ten steps

that it was half the creek and I’m on an island

made of the same shale and soil as the land around,

with the same hemlock trees and geraniums, 

near its barely highest point

one beech shading an ironwood,

but the light here is denser, 

maybe because more dragonflies

hover and cruise among the trunks.

The birdcalls’ intervals are calmer,

maybe because nothing’s in them but water.

Maybe because no one ever fought on this ground.

Maybe no one ever was born or died here.

Maybe everyone ever here was alone,

or two alone together.

Maybe a child of the Assistaeronon, the Fire Nation,

said good-bye to these hemlocks’ parents

not knowing where the people were going or why,

as no one knows now.

- © Gerald Friedman 2021

Gerald Friedman grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, and now teaches physics at Santa Fe Community College in New Mexico.  His poetry has appeared in various magazines, recently Panoply, Entropy, Bombfire, Rat's Ass Review, and The Daily Drunk.

New Poetry by Terri Drake

Rain God

When a raindrop evaporates

before it hits the ground

it’s called sublime

the way I dream

of you and me

in freefall ecstatic in tandem

and you vanish

before disaster happens

When the rain clouds let go

we understood relief

When god created rain

rain was all she wanted

and we finally knew

what thirst was for.

- © Terri Drake 2021

Terri Drake is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop.  Her poetry collection, "At the Seams" was published by Bear Star Press.  Her poems have appeared in Quarry West, Perihelion; Heartwood Literary Magazine; Crab Creek Review, and Open: Journal of Art and Letters, among others.  She is a practicing psychoanalyst living in Santa Cruz, California.

 

New Poetry by Robert Verdon

spring

as the chilly wheel buckles …

from the rock, banded by iron drought

from the dry rot of winter

from the hard enclosing garden walls

of stunted ranges

each peak a balletic point of morning dream

of distant mandolins of mist, fleeting as a bird in a mirror,

pirouetting on the surface of a fingerling stream

as you open your eyes, throat tinder dry, and lost

— a mast, the sky sways,

a vein, the sky swells,

the dark park branches

blossom with dawn

over the jagged benches

transitory

with the sigh of a brassy blast —

it comes

water is sweet

once more,

and the rain is not vinegar

the sun rolls too quickly

along the ecliptic

- © Robert Verdon 2021

Robert Verdon is an Australian / British writer of poetry and prose with a PhD from the University of Canberra. He came 2nd in the 2012 W.B. Yeats Poetry Prize for Australia. His books include The Well-Scrubbed Desert (Canberra: Polonius, 1994), Her Brilliant Career (Canberra: Aberrant Genotype Press, 1998), My Cat Eats Spaghetti (Canberra: Ginninderra Press, 1999), Before we Knew this Century (Liverpool, UK: Erbacce Press, 2010), and a spiral life (Canberra: Resurgam, 2020).

New Poetry by Linda King

An Evening Poem

we all edit our lives

some make it over

into vintage movie posters

where words circle their meanings

like notes carved into pine tables

years ago

now    you want someone

to show you a new trick

to remove the conditions

dissolve the heavy air

of late afternoons    whiskey

and leftover words

from unfinished poems

you try to reach their essence

but all day you have been holding

the ocean    all day

you  have been writing

an evening poem

- © Linda King 2021

Linda King is the author of five poetry collections, the most recent -antibodies in the alphabet - BlazeVOX Books (2019). Her work has been published in numerous journals (including Bluepepper) in Canada and internationally.  She has been nominated for Best of the Net and also for the Pushcart Prize.  King lives and writes on The Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, Canada.