Dissolved Horses
  
 Horses race letter coloured
 across the nearby sunset
 over the longitude of the beach
 stretching over the moon swayed red
 underneath their hoofs
 and the other side of the pier in the distance.
  
 Clutching the wind like fingertips
 over the nostrils 
 before the soft rain blusters
 then strokes their manes
 expelling a shock of mist
 their heart quickening in error
  
 speaking the language of the sea
 dagger driven into a grandstand finish
 of their footprints laid out behind them
 reduced to ghosts in seconds
 barnacled in emotion
 spread fragnant like dissolved butterflies.  

by Andy N

 The Turning Leaves
  
 The autumnal leaves are turning:
  
 Orange, crimson, 
 rose, scarlet,
 carmine, magenta,
 brown, chocolate,
 gold, amber, bistre,
 yellow, vermillion,
 maroon, claret,
 chestnut, sepia,
 stone, agate, 
 cinnamon, and ochre.
  
 The autumnal leaves are turning. 

 by Kevin Cowdall  

 Smooth Whiskey (originally published by Cephalopress)
  
 tick…tock
 tick…tock
 The days are long in a life of slow motion. Waking up takes too long, despite the violent assaults of the alarm clock, unchained by a snooze button----like me—worn down to the circuitry.
 tick…tock
 tick…tock
 Get up late, again. Take a whore bath in the bathroom sink. Wash what needs it and get out the door. Shower’d be nice…really nice. Maybe tomorrow. Probably not, again.
 tick…tock
 tick…tock
 Office clocks--harbingers of death to my soul--lament the dying of the fire, within. Telephone rings perforate the recirculated air of lungs and mouths like a symphony of electric crickets, tuning-up beneath the hepatic glow of fluorescent suns outside my cubicle’s walls.
 tick…tock
 tick…tock
 Driving home in the same car, down the same roads, in the same rancid clothes that need more than just a good airing out, stuck in this bad track mix, playing on a loop, I need a drink. There’s a bottle at home. Whiskey, I think--a gift for my 50th. It goes down, rough, but smooth, after a glass or two or three. 
 Smooth is good in a life of no motion.
 tick…tock
 tick…tock
 (Repeat All)
  
  by  David A. Estringel  
  
     

  שואה  
  (Shoah)
  
 A pink jacket only shows
 the destruction of humanity
 through one morning move
 trains became cages
 camps became morgues;
 no laughing to be had
 crisp skin fumigated the air,
 tattooed arms dangle
 through the gates of hell
 when all was said and done
 he was so rubbish he shot himself
 but not before taking the lives of innocents
 not before showing the world what we were capable of   

  by Jennifer Fytelson O’Brien  

  BATH NITE


                    I had planned my leap, fish like
                    zooming upward from the bottom of
                    the deep tub, spa pretender.
                    Picaninnies, formally family members
                    ran screaming five vowels worth.
                    Clap, clap, clap. Yes five.
                    My women treat me abominably,
                    short shorts challenged as always.
                    Labels are embarrassingly somehow necessary.
                    The water soaked a Frank Zappa poster
                    that could be quite valuable.
                    There are whole books on his.
                    Inspired, my wife has begun collecting Viking horns.
                    Goes missing for weeks at a time
                    with much younger virile men
                    name of Philodemus and Red. 

  by Colin James 

 

 
 A Dark Place
  
  I feel the devastation lurking in the shadows like a thief.
 I hear its restless growling, prowling at the edges of my dreams.
 Like the Dutch boy with his finger in the leak
 I hold back the sea, a sea of grief.

 He must have felt the water burning cold on his skin
 At night must have heard the grumbling
 restless rumble of the North Sea,
 He knew its power, irresistible as fate
 Sensed that under the deep water, sea monsters hide in wait.
 
Sometimes my defences spring a leak,
 Water spills from my eyes, pain soaks through my brain,
 A hard stone hurts in my chest.
 I’m drowning, not waving, in a dark place.

 Mal Leicester 

 on most days i
  
 just want to crawl back 
 to bed, never come out
 become a turtle covered
 by my hard shell  
  
 nothing appeals to me
 not even food, just coffee 
 coffee more coffee
 to keep awake
  
 another hermit crab 
 who carries its home
 sickened by shorelines
 poisoned by oceans
  
 after all those storms
 diseases, accidents
 climbing through menacing
 years…dumb-struck
  
 i must keep going can’t quit 
 but would rather slither off
 into some dark cave like 
 the spotted salamander
   
by  Joan McNerney  

  
 

 Possible Nocturnes
 
The spavined apartment hides
all its anility beneath the sheath
of welcome.

Here the black hole you burnt on the couch
with your forgetfulness bares its soulful springs.
There a phantom patch of dampness
returns to its secrets between the ribs of the wall.

Tonight, mom, we should drink to the nocturnes,
into the halo of oblivion and imagine 
those husbands and those fathers who could
have joined us.
Ha, years turned into an apartment instead. 

 Kushal Poddar 

 RUSTED GLAMOUR 
  
 the journey through hell
 becomes glamorous 
 on the page
 until the ink 
 begins to burn
  
 it’s like reading 
 about the rebel
 the anti-hero
 about Holden’s life 
 or old J.D. himself
  
 the hermit
 for whom human faces
 human souls
 were withered flowers
 rotten fruit
  
 but live your own life
 like that
 and the glamour 
 quickly rusts
  
 I met a homeless guy
 down by the river
 with a copy of Catcher
 in an old backpack 
 we chatted awhile...
  
 I’ll bet every hobo in America
 owns a copy 
 creased and folded
 fat with dogeared pages
 greasy with the despair 
 of the seeker 


by  Brian Rihlmann 

  Scarecrow
  
 I could tell you of the hard hail of sixpences
 on this speckly jumper with its barbed wire holes
 and the elbow gash from knowing’s use 
 where the mousing cat snoozles in,
 or the sudden whack to the face
 the first-time words stub into you from love’s slammed door,
 a teenage death before experience cures.
  
 But there’s a black cockatoo on a drawn branch
 one eye primed ready to launch if I move,                    
 a jerky breeze would be the dissolution of me.
  
 I could sing you of the soft rime of an artichoke’s glory
 wrapping the curate’s tonsure in unexpected daze,
 where below the unspeaking tongue of my leathers
 the cut down stalk shouts out with new emphasis
 biding a season in just two steps away.
  
 How love has no redemption date or return to sender
 no use by in a business envelope without address,
 the withdrawal notice pinned within these vestments.
  
 That wind and wing have the measure of the duty in us all
 taking the hat with loosed sun glasses,
 the stuffing falls through the stake goes over
 pantalooned chickens fossick the seeds of my charge here.
 And way down, in the remnant of a once cyan sweater
 pushy prickly leaves will weave their rise again.

by James Walton



   

Biographies of the poets

Andy N is a writer, poet, podcaster and ambient musician from Manchester, UK. He is the author of three full length poetry collections, the most recent been Birth of Autumn and also is the creator / host of the Podcast series Spoken Label, Reading in Bed and Comics Unity.

Kevin Cowdall was born in Liverpool, England. He has had over 200 poems published in magazines, journals and anthologies in the UK and Ireland, and across Europe, Australia, India, Canada, and the USA, and broadcast on BBC Radio. Having previously released three collections, his 2016 retrospective collection, ‘Assorted Bric-a-brac’ (bringing together the best from previous collections with a selection of more recent poems), has had excellent reviews and is available in paperback and as an e-book on Amazon. Kevin’s novella, ‘Paper Gods and Iron Men’, is also available in paperback on Amazon and as an e-book from the Kindle Store and Smashwords.

David A. Estringel is a poet and writer of fiction, creative non-fiction, & essays. His work has been accepted and/or published by Specter Magazine, Literary Juice, Foliate Oak Magazine, Terror House Magazine, Expat Press, 50 Haikus, littledeathlit, Down in the DirtMagazine, Route 7 Review, Setu Bilingual Journal, Paper Trains Literary Journal, The Elixir Magazine, Soft Cartel, Harbinger Asylum, Briars Lit, Open Arts Forum, Cajun Mutt Press, Former People Journal, The Ugly Writers, Writ in Dust, Cephalopress, Twist in Time, Merak Magazine, Salt Water Soul, Cherry House Press, Subterranean Blue Poetry, Printed Words, Sunflower Sutras, Tulip Tree Publishing, Salt Ink, PPP Ezine, Digging through the Fat, Haiku Journal, Foxhole Magazine, The Basil O’Flaherty, Three Line Poetry, Agony Opera, Siren’s Call Ezine, Alien Buddha Press, Synchronized Chaos, Pantheon of Poesy, The @baffled Haiku Daily, Blood Moon Rising Magazine, The Blue Nib, Fishbowl Press, Horror Sleaze Trash, Rigorous Magazine, Corvus Review, Spillwords.com, Proletaria Journal, Cherry Magazine, Bleached Butterfly, Poetry Pea (Haiku Pea), Sub Rosa Zine, TL;DR Press, Spit Poet Zine, Arthut, ICOE Press, Logos, Poetizer, Channillo, and The Good Men Project. He is currently a Contributing Editor (fiction) at Red Fez, an editor/writer/Artist in Residence at The Elixir Magazine, fiction reader at riverSedge, Poetry Editor at Fishbowl Press, Artist in Residence at Cajun Mutt Press, and columnist at Channillo. David’s first book of poetry and prose Indelible Fingerprints was published by Alien Buddha Press April 2019. David can be found on Twitter (@The_Booky_Man) and his website at http://davidaestringel.com.

Jennifer Fytelson O’Brien is a freelance writer currently based in Los Angeles who is known for her insightful poetry. With over a decade of poetry writing, Jennifer has a unique voice that shines through her collection and speaks to her readers.  Jennifer has an MA in Creative Writing from The Lincoln University. Jennifer’s work has appeared in numerous outlets such as The Blue Nib, The Borgen Project and Canada’s oldest literary magazine, The Mitre. She currently writes for the number one TV site, Screen Rant. Jennifer also enjoys keeping up to date with her personal blog, ALettertoWrite.com and encourages you to visit! When Jennifer is not writing she enjoys traveling, going to the beach, and playing with her dog.  

Colin James Colin James has a book of poems, Resisting Probability, from
Sagging Meniscus Press. He lives in Massachusetts.

Mal Leicester is Emeritus Professor of adult education, University of Nottingham. She has published  many academic books and papers, several collections of children’s stories and a handful of poems. She is interested in the philosophy of language and Wittgenstein’s work influenced her PhD. At present Mal is working on Jane’s Journey, a memoir of her daughter’s remarkable life and death and she lives with her husband, Roger Twelvetrees, and their dogs in Hough on the Hill, Lincolnshire. A member of the Hub Writers’ Group, Sleaford Lincs, she enjoys their monthly challenge of writing tasks often outside her comfort zone.

Joan McNerney’s poetry has been included in numerous literary magazines such as Seven Circle Press, Dinner with the Muse, Poet Warriors, Blueline, and Halcyon Days.  Four Bright Hills Press Anthologies, several Poppy Road Review Journals, and numerous Kind of A Hurricane Press Publications have accepted her work.  Her latest title, The Muse In Miniature, is available on Amazon and she has four Best of the Net nominations. 

Kushal Poddar

Authored ‘The Circus Came To My Island’, ‘A Place For Your Ghost Animals, Understanding The Neighborhood’, ‘Scratches Within’, ‘Kleptomaniac’s Book of Unoriginal Poems’, ‘Eternity Restoration Project- Selected and New Poems’ and now ‘Herding My Thoughts To The Slaughterhouse-A Prequel’ (Alien Buddha Press)Author Page – amazon.com/author/kushalpoddar_thepoet Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe

Brian Rihlmann was born in NJ, and currently lives in Reno, NV. He writes mostly semi autobiographical, confessional free verse. Folk poetry…for folks. He has been published in The Rye Whiskey Review, Cajun Mutt Press, Alien Buddha Zine, Synchronized Chaos, Madness Muse Press and The American Journal Of Poetry. 

James Walton was a librarian, a farm labourer, and mostly a public sector union official. He is published in many anthologies, journals, and newspapers. He has been shortlisted for the ACU National Literature Prize, the MPU International Prize, The William Wantling Prize, the James Tate Prize, and is a winner of the Raw Art Review Chapbook Competition. His poetry collections include The Leviathan’s Apprentice 2015, Walking Through Fences 2018, and Unstill Mosaic 2019.