Bradford Middleton- Three Poems

WALKING THE COUNTRYSIDE

The sun came pouring through my window

And for once I seized the moment and went out

Out past the end of town, out to a beach of sand

Through that town and out on to the hills

The rolling hills of the South Downs

Up there it felt so good, looking down at this town

It felt almost god-like, seeing towns laid out

Across the land below

In the outer zones, where the people say hi

Just out on the street to anyone they pass

It ain’t like that in town

Round this way it’s all snooty looks

Thinking they got it so right

But when I walk the countryside it just seems

Like a different time to now

A time of community, a place to share

Tonight I could have gone out again

To whore myself off at some other open-mic

But what is the point when no one cares

I’m glad I got the town off my back

Went out into the wilds and

Came back like a wise man from the desert

Aware for once that a good long walk

Is more beneficial and fun that any poetry open-mic

 

THIS TOWN HATES ITS WORKING POOR

There are people in this town who are being driven out of their jobs and their homes by the continuing rise in rental rates and an alarming new trend amongst landlords to discriminate against those who need some assistance from the council in order to pay that rent.  I am one of these people.  I currently live in a bedsit in central Brighton and pay a modest rent but the years of living on a short-cut for all ambulance and police vehicles as well as the countless events on the seafront have made me want to move.  I work in this city as a part-time sales assistant for a well-known high street chain; they pay me so little that I am forced to claim housing benefit off the council in order to cover my rent.

The situation I now find myself in is that I have a job and a flat that I want to get out of but I can’t simply because I am on housing benefit and it appears that no landlord will accept people in my circumstances.  I have tried over thirty places in the last week, each of which ended with me becoming angry and frustrated as yet again I am told that they do not accept housing benefit recipients.

I find this to be a ridiculous situation. I want to remain in this city but it appears I cannot because of the discriminatory stance of a lot of landlords.  Let me ask them one question, one day when you want to buy a pint of milk at 10pm and you go to your local high-street shop only to find them shut because every employee lives so far away that they have had to shut early, what will you do then?  Will you be glad that you told someone who works but is in receipt of benefits that you would not be able to live in your property?

CHANGES IN SUBURBIA

The suburbs are changing as they grow further afield being sucked into the ghetto as the poor’s rent grows out of control

The old places have become a battle-ground for buy-to-let agents with no conscience for now private council flats

The middle-class and richer have moved in and taken over as the super-rich have seized the city

I couldn’t afford to live where I grew up now, at 1200 a month, who really could?

The suburbs to me, from my time spent out there, are places where everyone lives; rich and poor side-by-side

My best friend from the age of 13 went to a public school and his Dad was a university professor

They owned a fancy looking house near me that I used to think was just swell

But it never occurred to me that where I lived was different, forty feet up in a box we rented

For me we were all the same, even those who hated me and wanted to kill me, because of where we came from

It seems we all wanted to get out and some of us did just that 

Stefanie Bennett- A Poem

COIL, After Yannis Ritsos    

 

Because the asphodels reminded him of his mother

He placed them

In a jar,

On the balcony

Where the owls wept

At eventide.

 

Leaving –, the gate

Unhinged itself,

Pirouetting the balustrade

To shower

The shutters

Rust-shut.

 

What was left stayed

Inevitably the same

 

... Except for

The dissident

Moon-raking mercenary

Wearing

A black

Armband

 

And hand-me-down

Combat boots.

 

 

 

Stefanie Bennett has published nineteen volumes of poetry, a libretto and a novel - and her poems appear in Mad Swirl, Communion, Shot Glass Journal, GalwayReview, Jellyfish Whispers and others. She has acted as a publishing editor and worked with Arts Action for Peace. Of mixed ancestry [Italian/Irish/Paugussett-Shawnee] she was born in Queensland, Australia, in 1945. Stefanie’s current poetry title ‘The Vanishing’ is available from Walleah Press [online] and fishpond.com.

 

Jennifer Lagier- A Photo

                                                                  Moss Landing

Noel Negele- A Poem

This Girl

I left a woman for this girl

I don’t know what it is

There is a certain way she comes out of the shower

The towel around her breasts

The smile, the way her hair falls on the side of her face

As she puts her shoes on

Or the way she rubs my balls with her feet so very often

You know there are these creatures that you are certain

Will never fall in love,

They will only produce the feeling to others

Like a chain around the soul

Squeezing all the kindness and generosity left in you

But of course in the meanwhile

It is a blast and very much worth it

The only problem is

She prefers to watch me slew in the darkness

Drowning

Coming home with bruises from fights

And brag about it

She doesn’t realize

That youth has a finite line

Madness ought to subside 

In order for us to become more human than this

And work our way to the things we want

As I try to be good and drink very little

She taunts these efforts

And puts pressure on me

Whines about not having friends

Although loneliness is something 

She knows very little about

She is hungry for the tales of the night

Those times I slithered in the cracks of the pavements

Where I used to dine with roachers

Cracks that are so much deeper than the oceans she is fond of

But how can I ever narrate those nights and days

Where I pretended to be alive

In rooms with no furniture

Behind shutters

Amongst people that reduced their souls

Around burning pipes of getaway

She wants a man with more hatred than love

More death than life

She wants me to stare back at her and say

“hey I’ve hit rock bottom, come join me”

Such is the way with women of this kind

Beautiful and mean and unspoiled

She never worked a day in her life

Never had to land a fist on a nose

Or wake up to an alarm clock screaming at six in the morning

Still

When I wake up in the afternoon

And watch her beautiful ass move

As proudly as a waving flag

I know

I’m caught in this

And will stay here

Enslaved by her fire

Until she will suck the last drop of me

And bored and quenched

Hunt for another poor soul

That right about now

Knows nothing

Of this.

Sometimes you look

At the moth heading straight to the flame

And it makes perfect sense.

 

Ben Newell- Three Poems

off the road 

 

I saw my neighbor this morning,

the hot blonde

with the silver Accord coupe;

we

were waiting at the same

intersection.

 

Not the first time this has happened;

I routinely see

my fellow tenants

out there on the savage streets

as

we drive in for another day.

 

I recognize their cars,

often wondering where they work

and what they do

and

if they hate their jobs

as

much as I hate mine.

 

As a safety measure,

I pretend that they do—

 

Otherwise,

I’d be tempted to tailgate

or

even run one of those happily

fulfilled fuckers

off

the road

and, hopefully, into a concrete

bridge abutment

where their car would ignite

and

they would die a slow death

in flames

of

agony. 

mr. whipple is dead and so is our friendship  

 

Shortly after college

I moved in with an old high school friend,

a reunion of sorts

as we had attended different universities

in disparate areas of the state.

 

But the arrangement didn’t work out;

I knew we were doomed

when he bitched about my buying

cheap toilet paper—

 

“That shit rubs me raw,”

he said.  “Get some Charmin

or Cottonelle.  Get some fucking

Quilted Northern, dude.  What

the hell were you thinking . . .”

 

Silly as it seems

this really was the beginning of the end

for us.

 

Being the son of a wealthy physician,

he was accustomed to such

luxuries.

 

And being the son of a cop,

I thought nothing of using the coarse

stuff, which I still buy to this day,

thinking of my old friend

with each and every wipe,

especially when I draw blood.

 

 

kicking off another kickass summer  

 

It’s Sunday

June 21^st

12:10 p.m.

The first official day of summer

Father’s Day

I just returned from the corner store where I purchased $15 worth of gas

and a six-pack of Busch [tallboys]

The guy in front of me purchased a bottle of Aquafina and a pack of Seneca cigarettes

[menthols] [shorts]

The temperature is hovering in the mid-90s, factor in the humidity

and it feels more like 104

This has been a strange weekend, strange in that I haven’t masturbated; I spent Friday

and Saturday nights glued to my laptop, watching various cam models do their thing,

but something was off

I suspect depression exacerbated by vocational misery and excessive

alcohol consumption

Or maybe the Lexapro has finally incinerated my sex drive, perhaps when I’m done with this poem

I’ll try the pool

Sunday is the best day; the young, lithe hotties will be out in droves, funning and sunning

and drinking cans of Bud Light [lime]

The ubiquitous bronzed boyfriends will be there, yet this presents no obstacle;

they won’t be able to see my eyes as I’ll be wearing dark sunglasses, effectively concealing

the keyholes to what’s left of my libidinous soul

It’s Sunday

June 21^st

12:48 p.m.

The first official day of summer

Father’s Day

Do you know where your daughter is?

 

 

 

Ben Newell, 43, works as a library clerk in Jackson, Mississippi.  He used to be a pretty damn good skateboarder until he became too old and too uninsured.  Now he writes poems, some appearing and/or forthcoming in Chiron Review, Dead Snakes, The Mas Tequila Review, Nerve Cowboy, Pink Litter, and others . . . 

 

Scott Thomas Outlar- Three Poems

Detox Avenue

  

21 days since the final sip of alcohol kissed these lips

21 days since the last goodbye to the first girl I’ve cared about in ages

21 days of cigarettes and poetry

21 days of long meditative walks…and poetry

21 days of the internet and social media

21 days of mindful breathing and reconnecting with God

21 days of alternating between putting healthy food and junk into this body

21 nights spent staring at the stars and being thankful to still be alive

21 positive affirmations put in the place of

21 negative thoughts about the past

Fleeting

  

The closer a flying object

zips by in the sky

the quicker it’ll seem to travel

I saw a flaming comet

speed by from the outer reaches

right in front of my eyes

Imagine my surprise, nay, shock

at such a sight

as the stars fell

Last Laugh

  

I once held a hand full of sand

but I squeezed too tightly

and that is when it all slipped away

I once had riches in this world

but they never amused me enough

and now I laugh last wearing rags

I once bled my hands on the wall

but the red stain washed off

and now I just spit on the ground

I once loved with a passion

but then I grew cold for a season

and when I woke up she was gone

Bio:

Scott Thomas Outlar spends the hours flowing and fluxing with the ever changing tide of the Tao River while laughing at life's existential quandaries. But mostly he just writes. Links to his published material can be found at 17numa.wordpress.com.

Donal Mahoney- A Poem

Another Mass Shooting

Another mass shooting.

This time a young white man

shoots nine black people 

in a South Carolina church

during a Bible study.

At trial, defense attorneys 

will try to prove

the shooter was insane 

as the defense in Denver

tried to prove after 

the shootings in 

the movie theater;

as the defense

at Sandy Hook 

would have tried had 

the shooter survived.

Don’t execute the shooters.

That would be inhumane.

They had to be insane.

Instead, let them roam  

among strangers 

in the penitentiary. 

Peers will decide what

punishment fits the crime.

Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri. 

 

DB Cox- Three Poems

breakdown

he is the narrow-eyed man
who moves along
your city's streets and boulevards
he is a phantom
leaving no tracks
constantly glancing back over his shoulder
to make sure of his frail shadow
which pales a little each day
fading from rage
to resignation
to nothing
he is alienated from all gods
lost to himself
with no promise to hope for
he turns on a merry-go-round of non-being
impoverished
deprived
like lazarus at the feast
he draws on ever-enhanced electronic devices
& countless bullshit distractions
to search for the new "american dream"
inadequate tactics which have only served
to tighten the chains
& increase the distance
between himself & the bona-fide world
he delights
in any "breaking news"
of war
natural disasters
plane crashes
& mass murders
because something
anything
is better than this constant
nothingness

 

black cat moans--3 A.M.

too confused
to calculate the sum of scattered thoughts
he waits in his room
windows closed
doors bolted
locked & loaded
another shit-city statistic
caught between walls of sameness
pondering his lost investment in paradise
the old lies
falling away with every day that passes
solitude is the condition of his existence
anger is the element of his being
if the earth were filled with TNT
he would put a match to the ground
& tear the darkness with absolute noise
the perfect terrorist
no religions
no politics
no objectives
no agendas
as cold as a black hole in space



tomorrow

he will stalk your shopping malls
your schools
your churches
your movie houses
your airports
your sporting events
another machine-shaped beast of prey
forging a perfect storm of death
another nowhere man transformed
into the imagined self
he has longed to become
once more, we'll all ask:
who is this man?
why did he do it?
why is his story, the "american story?"
we will stand mute
behind tilted window shades
& stare out at our slipping world
hoping the answer
that might slow
this crazy breakdown
will show itself soon

Douglas Polk- Two Poems

Hypocrisy

climate change a religious matter,
according to the Vatican,
the truth might be,
Pope Francis,
a hypocrite,
thinking gas and oil,
replaced by sun and wind,
an answer,
maybe the climate of the planet failing,
under the weight of seven billion souls,
a belief in God,
a philosophical question,
believe or not,
the Deity lessened,
when mankind prioritizes and plans,
seven billion souls,
 moral or not,
is the caliphate part of the Deity's plan,
killing and controlling,
until the climate of the planet,
no longer threatened,
by seven billion souls.



The Hope

another shooting,
and once again,
the president ill-informed,
believing what he wants to believe,
is true,
along with a media,
sadistically,
in the throes of a blood lust,
always hoping and wishing for more,
spread the hate,
spread the vile,
while the victims' families forgive,
and look to love,
they the only ones,
truly trying to stop the violence.

Richard Schnap- A Poem

LOST AT SEA

I lay upon my bed
A boat on a splintered ocean

Beneath the plaster sky
Lit by a 40 watt moon

As I hear the ghosts of sailors
Call from their watery graves

While the voice of an angry wind
Rises like an unseen beast

And soon I feel the tempest
Of a dark disturbing dream

Dragging me to a place
Unmarked on any map

Where the stars above are strangers
That cannot guide me home

That only lead me further
Toward a shore without a name