New Poetry by John Tustin

This Hawk

There is this hawk

That careens along the currents

With the sea foam in his eye

And the mountain peak

Churning in his gut.

There is this hawk

Who snatches prey in midair –

His talons

Are the tomahawk chop

Of a shirtless brave bending

On horseback.

There is this hawk

Whose wings are flawless feathers

Of steel and bones

And you watch his silhouette

Getting smaller

Against the setting sun

As he flies far

Far

Far from you,

His final shriek

Piercing the ears

And the heart

With the battle cry

Of retreat.

- © John Tustin 2022

John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals since 2009. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.

New Poetry by George Gad Economou

the swing 

the old, dirty tire hanging from two chains 

seesaws, always 

empty, 

it continues to sway praying for one 

person to use it, give meaning to 

its existence. 

it’s been there for years—unused, 

unwanted. a lonesome swing, 

the tire never felt the joy of being 

enjoyed and used. 

all it wants is to hear the giggle of someone. 

kids and adults flood the playground, 

day and night—not even soused teens 

sit on the most lonely of swings. 

one fine summer day, three 

robust men arrived with 

sledgehammers and shovels. 

they tore down the swing, tossing into 

a fire the tire and its wooden poles. 

instead of proffering joy and laughter, 

the swing polluted the air; its 

spirit haunted the playground. 

it watched the visitors sitting on the fancy new 

swing, invisible tears watered 

the playground’s dirt; come spring, black roses flourished 

amidst the toys. all were bewildered from the roses that 

swayed back and forth,  

back and forth, on occasion 

shedding a drop of water, like a tear for 

the spirit that no longer lingered on. 

- © George Gad Economou 2022

George Gad Economou holds a Master’s degree in Philosophy of Science and resides in Athens, Greece, doing freelance work whenever he can while searching for a new place to go. His novella, Letters to S., was published in Storylandia Issue 30 and his short stories and poems have appeared in literary magazines, such as Adelaide Literary Magazine, The Chamber Magazine, The Edge of Humanity Magazine, and Modern Drunkard Magazine. His first poetry collection, Bourbon Bottles and Broken Beds, was published by Adelaide Books in 2021. 

New Poetry by Rob Schackne

Caritas

My friend has made 

an atomic chilli sauce 

and given me a small jar 

and a warning to be careful 

it tastes wonderful 

it has a beautiful colour 

this existential dilemma 

where two roads diverge 

on the one hand 

the contents will last forever 

on the other hand 

a little goes a long way 

I tighten the lid 

and place it in the dark 

where its dreams resolve 

the problems of the world

- © Rob Schackne 2022

Rob Schackne has been living in regional Victoria for several years since returning from teaching for many years in Asia. He write poems. He also likes taking photographs. Autumn is his favourite season. He listens to lots of jazz. 

New Poetry by Fred Pollack

Christiania *

Silly to be reading the guidebook

on a bench in waning light ...

All day the sun had never quite escaped

the clouds. But he was struck

by the image of a town burning,

and the king and everyone

fleeing up here, then descending to contrive

this city. He had been to the island

where the rich lived; would remember

the statue of a little girl

with her bicycle, alone and safe

yet somehow brave, and an allée;

but the houses had seemed merely those

of the rich. He had gone to see

the Viking ship in its museum, but either

it was under maintenance or he had

the wrong day; he wouldn’t recall, later;

that sort of thing happened to him often.

It seemed a tough town. Not like Naples,

Hamburg, other places he had been,

but busy, beery, hard-working,

its pastel houses built of wood for winter.

At the Vigeland park the unvarying, stocky

stylization of the grey

figures overrode maternity, courage,

grief, strength, whatever quality

each meant, which seemed to show

an inadvertent insight. Briefly the sun came out;

lovers strolled and hugged. I’ve always been

a thief of others’ high moments,

he thought. It was a line from a novel.

Then up here at the Fortress

he had stood a long time

in the Museum of the Resistance

before a replicated cell with figures

of an SS-man and a resistant

about to get down to business;

and the wall with gracious thanks,

in English and gold letters, to the Allies.

Closing his book, he may have thought

that sentimentality derives

its energy from a tenderness

applied to oneself, which at some level

one knows should be applied to others.

At that point, the sun slipped

below the cloud-layer. The whole long fjord

between its mountains gleamed. The full

and ancient trees, some growing through

the battlements, turned gold-on-green,

the ivied brick of walls a golden red.

The old-world cannon seemed alive, but not

with threat, only some loyalty. Along

the shadowed paths, couples

and solitary people walked and met.

It’s possible, he may have said aloud.

For me. And rose and walked. He was 35.

- © Fred Pollack 2022

Author of two book-length narrative poems, THE ADVENTURE and HAPPINESS, both Story Line Press; the former reissued 2022 by Red Hen Press. Two collections of shorter poems, A POVERTY OF WORDS, (Prolific Press, 2015) and LANDSCAPE WITH MUTANT (Smokestack Books, UK, 2018). Pollack has appeared in Salmagundi, Poetry Salzburg Review, The Fish Anthology (Ireland), Magma (UK), Bateau, Fulcrum, Chiron Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, etc.  Online, poems have appeared in Big Bridge, Hamilton Stone Review, BlazeVox, The New Hampshire  Review, Mudlark, Rat’s Ass Review,  Faircloth Review, Triggerfish, etc.

* Christiania, capital of the Kingdom of Norway, changed its name to Oslo in 1925 (editor's note).

 

New Poetry by Aidan Coleman

Dream Careers Awaken

1.

                   Still

you have to hang out with other footballers,

           their wives and girlfriends.

2.

       Your clue is this:

crime begets paperwork

                           begets crime.

3.

        This is what it’s like to be

                    in a band

     carps the singer, shackled

                     to a microphone stand.

4.

            Take Thirty-seven.

 

5.

                    Stare long enough

         and the blank page

             suggests

better ways of wasting time.

- © Aidan Coleman 2022

Aidan Coleman has published three collections of poetry, most recently Mount Sumptuous (Wakefield Press, 2020).

 

New Poetry by Robin Cantwell

Open Mic Night feat. Ernest Hemingway

Six bucks for a cup of coffee —

glad I didn’t live to see the day.

Robot wizards, gizmo galaxies —

for love of god, will someone

wipe that smirk off Dali’s face.

Pay me pal, stick a dollar in my wallet —

I’m having stag for breakfast

before I hitch a ride

on that information superhighway. 

What’s a guy gotta do to get a smoke round here —

excuse me, waiter

there’s seaweed floating in my shake.

Think I’ll head back now,

sow a lineage in my name —

that Super Mario gives me the creeps,

and will someone please tell me

just what the hell is going on

with Toad and Princess Peach?

- © Robin Cantwell 2022

Robin is a London-based playwright, poet and fiction writer. With themes ranging from toxic masculinity to the technological singularity, his work has appeared, or is forthcoming in, Pure Slush, The London Reader, Fauxmoir, A Thin Slice Of Anxiety, Bright Flash Literary Review, Silver Birch Press, Molecule Literary Magazine, Poetica Review, Visual Verse and Nine Muses Poetry. Robin is a graduate of the Faber Academy.

New Poetry by Heather Sager

We danced

You and I danced

in the living room

near the ottoman chair

and azure blanket

as the guitarist from Mali

played through his soul

on the stereo

Enthralled, we didn’t notice

the thick cobwebs

hanging over our heads

and we forgot the particular 

dread and fear

that made us drink 

so much red wine:

how could this life and love

ever dovetail to an end?

- © Heather Sager 2022

Heather Sager lives in Illinois, USA. She writes poetry and fiction. Her most recent work appears in The Orchards, Magma, Fahmidan Journal, Red Eft, Version (9), The Bosphorus Review of Books, Shabd Aaweg Review, The Fabulist, Willows Wept, and more, and her poetry has appeared in Bluepepper in the past (in 2020). 

New Poetry by Jedediah Smith

Shall We Gather: Beginning with a Line by Kenneth Patchen

See how those stars tramp over heaven,

how vagrant trains below wrestle with dark earth and time. 

And we with vacant eyes sleepwalk 

through the pitiless splendor of the crowds. 

See how jetliners roll drops of blood across the night, 

how cars carry knives from one house to another. 

And we blame rats for the squeaking 

of our bones as we press tighter together. 

You, know nothing; I, know nothing; and they, 

only know that they are not us and never will be.

What if behind the walls of every apartment great black machines are running?

What if the lives we left unlived really dried up long ago and blew away with the ashes 

and dust of wildfires?

What if the glitter of broken bottles on asphalt is all we will ever know of heaven?

What if murder is all we hold to be self-evident, that all murder is equal, that murder 

alone is inalienable from us? And we are not us and never will be?

- © Jedediah Smith 2022

Jedediah Smith works as a freelance writer in the Bay Area of California. His poems and stories have been published in Chiron Review, Midwest Quarterly, and Every Day Fiction. His chapbook of poems, The Gunslinger in Technicolor, came out in 2020. He can be followed on his website: jedediahsmith.net

New Poetry by Jason Beale

A Marriage

My wife is sleeping by my side,

I hear her breathing in and out

in the chilly, early morning air.

Now, after nine years together,

we coexist with question marks,

pinning down fears and doubts

as most of us do in our hearts.

That's life is her favourite phrase

and There's nothing you can do -

anodynes for the troubled mind

she takes as ontological proofs.

But day by day we thrive as one,

surviving trials that always come,

holding closer, each to the other.

My wife turns over in her sleep

and reaching out my hand, I touch

her warm arm with my fingertips,

thinking of something called love.

- © Jason Beale 2022

Jason Beale is a writer from Melbourne. His poetry has been selected to appear later this year in Quadrant and The Canberra Times.

New Poetry by Peter Mladinic

Wake

A doughy doll bundled in black sat in

a corner, white hair piled in a Gibson bun. 

Pecking her doughy cheek I got a whiff

of withering.

An early night in May.  Her husband

lay in the casket, white hair parted

to one side, black rosary beads

in waxen hands.  My uncle’s hand

on her shoulder.  “He’s with God.”

I wasn’t old enough to believe

or disbelieve.  To say yes, there is

or no.  Outside, under a canopy

I waited to get into a parked car.

- © Peter Mladinic 2022

Rain

The Viking Bar had sawdust on the floor.

Martino’s had waiters

With towels on their arms and the Mohawk

Tavern waiters’ white jackets were cut

at the waist. Henry was at our table in

Martino’s in Juarez, his Spanish passable.

Round, pale, he was with me

under a tarp in a grove of trees one

afternoon.  The rain stopped.

We rode down dirt roads in Pinyon Draw,

which was green.  It was tranquility

seeing, hearing the rain with Henry.

- © Peter Mladinic 2022

Peter Mladinic’s fourth book of poems, Knives on a Table is available from Better Than Starbucks Publications.  An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, USA.