Learn the rope trick— By all means possible. To hell with the knots. They just get in the way. You’ll survive; trust me. But never disclose the secret. Keep it stashed away, Where no fool can find it. Whatever your intentions— Whether lasso or noose— They’re mere distractions, Keeping you from success. How you handle fate, The moment it arrives, Remains the only concern You need to contemplate. Still, practice day and night. Let a bit of the cord unravel, Strand by strand, if necessary. After all, it’s only your life.
Bart Edelman’s poetry collections include Crossing the Hackensack (Prometheus Press), Under Damaris’ Dress (Lightning Publications), The Alphabet of Love (Red Hen Press), The Gentle Man (Red Hen Press), The Last Mojito (Red Hen Press), The Geographer’s Wife (Red Hen Press), Whistling to Trick the Wind (Meadowlark Press), and This Body Is Never at Rest: New and Selected Poems 1993 – 2023 (Meadowlark Press). He has taught at Glendale College, where he edited Eclipse, a literary journal, and, most recently, in the MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. His work has been widely anthologized in textbooks published by City Lights Books, Etruscan Press, Fountainhead Press, Harcourt Brace, Longman, McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hall, Simon & Schuster, Thomson/Heinle, the University of Iowa Press, Wadsworth, and others. He lives in Pasadena, California.
Walking through clouds of memories Flooded fields reflect clarity In blue skies overhead. A time for conversations with Distant friends that, Despite the gap, flow freely
“All’s good and everyone’s well, except poor Tom who passed away; we’re still at it anyway each and every Tuesday”. Before the year is out I promise; Each of the last ten.
Daithí Kearney is a musician and dancer from Kerry, now living in Louth. His poetry is inspired by his surroundings and his young family. His poems have been recently published in Paddler Press, Patchwork Folklore Journal, Field Guide and Martello.
I have walked with them in their cellblocks, worn their lavish uniforms, been one of them, among them, stood in line in the chow hall for a tray so gourmet we identify it as caviar. Why did the champagne smell like watermelon? Why did our squared-off limos have wire mesh across the windows? We were the elite, living off pomp, our pillows the softest kind of hard. How could that be punishment? Our fortunes grew by sixty cents an hour as if we were pilfering, picking pockets, waving knives & broken bottles. Yes, Sir, we were glorious, at the height of fashion in ill-fitting khakis. Don’t you ever worry about us.
Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, most recently Escape Envy. His writing has appeared in Indiana Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Hanging Loose, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes, watches Criterion films, and tries to stay out of trouble. His forthcoming books include poetry collections, My Pandemic / Gratitude List from Mōtus Audāx Press and Tell Us How to Live from Fernwood Press, and his first short-story collection, Always One Mistake, from Running Wild Press.
I wasamong the possessed to employ lesser means in pursuit of lesser ends They can’t make their deals unless you force their hand.
It’s been over a month of Sundays since they were taking the census of the hairs on everybody’s asses.
It’s small consolation to engage in worship of the towering idols. The idol is not a demigod a demigod can’t be a god. Which is why we trace the birthline where the ancestor once multiplied, assigning numbers to their embrace the same way we count raindrops.
By examining her hand she is likely the woman her fingerprint revealed
Michael Igoe, city oy, neurodiverse, Chicago now New England. Numerous works appear in journals and anthologies (available at amazon.com, lulu.com, barnesandnoble.com). National Library of Poetry(Owing Mills MD) Editor’s Choice Award 1997. Best of the Net nomination 2024. Twitter(X) Michaeligoe5, Instagram igoe590. poetry-in-motion.org
Ash seeds Heisenberg flutters Birches grow new green hearts Christmas has come and gone Dauntless Robins fluff their feathers against remnant Winter chill Every blade of grass trembles For all of us who hope for Spring Grey clouds float above Herons hunched silently Inner lives awake from hibernation Just one leaf can catch the light Kardashians mean nothing to the skies Let’s ask who might be in our tree Maybe the woods listened No sapling grew in vain Oaks outlive our everlasting Perhaps a butterfly will land nearby Quintessential beautiful fragility Roots talk to roots (this is the real world wide web) Slow can be the surest road to travel Touch the silence and it will touch you Unchain whatever melodies want to be unchained Visit the places you had not thought to visit Why is eternal, waiting for us to ask X is not the only factor; it marks where mystery begins Young light has begun to spread Zen does not need to ask what Zen is
Jake Williams: I’m a writer based in Cumbria (the North remembers!), just south of The Wall and my previous publications include The RPS Journal, The LWS Anthology, Pulsebeat Poetry, Coldmoon Journal, Discourse Journal and To Live Here: a Haiku Anthology (Wee Sparrow Poetry Press).
I was born in deepest rural Dorset when Marvin Gaye asked what’s going on, in a cottage with Owls in the attic and a serious damp problem. Basically, I was Feral Kid from Mad Max 2 if he’d been a character in a Thomas Hardy novel. The woods and fields were as much my classroom as any of the schools I attended-” I found the poems in the fields and only wrote them down” (John Clare). I’ll always be grateful for the love of nature my rural childhood instilled in me. As well as wandering (and wondering) around the countryside, I love wandering across disciplines as well, seeing how all the different pieces of the creative puzzle fit together.
They called me the largest single driver of misinformation, more cruel talk at the bar, I just got a cache of details wrong on FSAs what am I supposed to do? Survey my neighbors? They say I’m the Fourth Rome incarnate, but nobody credits me for my portfolio of truths, including the way I’ve perfected text boxes and share it with the kids whenever they come by my apartment on Halloween, so what if I got the details of our tutoring deal wrong? I’m not their teacher, they should be glad they’re in school while the Tao of positive tests hangs over us all, especially this season. Meanwhile, parents still crash my webinars and still ask me for receipts, so how am I the divisive one here? They want to believe we’re on the info frontier? Fine, so long as I’m not cast as sheriff or outlaw in this new Western
The Prospect of In Retrospect
Every day brings another, ever higher price for the denial of these gifts to the rest of the world, as both of us careen closer and closer to the outer suburbs of disaster, how many years have I sacrificed, or at least cultivated this intricate outlook, this particular rhythm, and this chosen outlook some might say is prophecy of the fire next time and the way around it, yet how many times has the public ignored almost all of my submissions, my requests for a different life made up of my mind operating on my time, working towards a bundle of ends we all can use as partners for a future free of cubicles and ruin
Ben Nardolilli is a theoretical MFA candidate at Long Island University. He writes poetry, prose, and the occasional political flotsam and jetsam. In his spare time, he likes to go to a law firm and edit documents related to asbestos litigation. Occasionally they pay him for this. Follow his publishing journey at mirrorsponge.blogspot.com.
What nobody tells you about transitioning is that the voices in your head take it and run with it. The supposed angel on your shoulder, that uptight little gremlin with its dime-store wings and cardboard halo, tells you to pay attention to the stares, the whispers, the people who pretend they can’t pronounce your pronouns, the people who know they can be respectful but choose not to. The supposed devil on your other shoulder thinks it’s intimidating, but it’s not, because it looks embarassingly like your Pinterest board. Your relatives ask you questions they could search online, and it comforts you like only a figment of your imagination could. The two clichèd supernaturals have an argument, in front of the all-shattering mirror, in the gendered bathroom that makes you and everyone else feel awkward, in the closet. They tear each other’s hair while, bracing yourself, you cut off yours. You tell your therapist you struggle with internalized transphobia, and he tells you to brush it off, but there’s no way you could take that literally; the voices are yours. You thank your inner voices with an infodump and a quiet smile, and the supposed angel reminds you that all you are is what you think other people think of you thinking of them. The supposed devil reprimands the supposed angel for being confusing. You throw away your dresses and, eventually, they throw away their dispute. You are made of the words thrown like daggers, it is true, but you melt them down and make them shining armor for your new bodymind.
mk zariel {it/its} is a transmasculine neuroqueer poet, theater artist, movement journalist, and insurrectionary anarchist. it is fueled by folk-punk, Emma Goldman, and existential dread. it can be found online at https://mkzariel.carrd.co/, creating conflictually queer-anarchic spaces, writing columns for Asymptote and the Anarchist Review of Books, and being mildly feral in the great lakes region. it is kinda gay ngl.
Before he laughs, his face scrunches up Sweetly Like he hasn’t quite made up his mind about anything being worth the smile Understandably He’s been making it up as he goes along Rightfully He’s asked out on a Saturday night, swept off to an apartment on the 7th floor Smoothly His feet are off the ground as he’s picked up from the couch after asking Is it alright to want to be carried to bed?
Undoubtedly The start of a love everlasting Calmly At 2 am the moon slides the boy’s jeans over his tired legs Silently
He’s a boy
Jacob Hatfield is a poet writing out of Middle Tennessee. When he’s not sitting on a bench in some random park thinking about writing poetry, he’s staring at the ceiling fan with his dog’s head perched on his legs.
I keep thinking about the time in high school when you drew me a map of the city, I still have it somewhere. It was so easy to get lost in a place where all the trees look the same. And now every time I see a missing person’s poster stapled to a pole, all I can think is that could have been me. Missing, disappeared.
But there are no posters for people who just never came back
and you haven’t killed yourself because you’d have to commit to a single exit. What you wouldn’t give to be your cousin Catherine, who you watched twice in one weekend get strangled nude in a bathtub onstage by the actor who once filled your mouth with quarters at your mother’s funeral. The curtains closed and opened again. We applauded until our hands were sore.
But you couldn’t shake the image of her lifeless body, the way she hung there like a marionette with cut strings. And now every time you try to write a poem, it feels like a eulogy.
Claudia Wysocky, a Polish writer and poet based in New York, is known for her diverse literary creations, including fiction and poetry. Her poems, such as “Stargazing Love” and “Heaven and Hell,” reflect her ability to capture the beauty of life through rich descriptions. Besides poetry, she authored “All Up in Smoke,” published by “Anxiety Press.” With over five years of writing experience, Claudia’s work has been featured in local newspapers, magazines, and even literary journals like WordCityLit and Lothlorien Poetry Journal. Her writing is powered by her belief in art’s potential to inspire positive change. Claudia also shares her personal journey and love for writing on her own blog, and she expresses her literary talent as an immigrant raised in post-communism Poland.
I bet he didn’t see that one coming. Invisible enemy. Crushed the phalanx of his pinky finger trying to break his fall on his own front steps, rushing out the door this morning to the big meeting, a big black-and-blue mark blooming on his bum now. The media isn’t saying anything about his bum, but I bet it hurts like hell to sit down at the peace table. He’s probably wincing right now. Which may be why we’re all still at war. Another beautiful fall morning, cold and wet, the air full of the crisp, exquisite smells of death.
Goatscaping
This morning I noticed two small green tomatoes in the garden. I guess things are getting started after all. Everything in its own time. And speaking of nature having its way, have you heard of goatscaping? I love the name, the play on words. There’s this guy in Dover who owns a natural landscaping company called Goats of Dover—he’ll bring his goats over and clear your property of the unwanted weeds and biomass the natural way, letting his goats do all the work. They’ll eat anything and everything. I called for a free estimate because the weeds and saplings and poison ivy—and especially the black swallow-wort—have been encroaching on my house like they’re going to swallow it up. I want to cut them back, get rid of the invasive species, maybe plant some wildflowers or native vegetation that won’t go haywire. So the guy came over last Sunday with a measuring wheel and a clipboard. He had a billy goat’s beard and a ponytail and smelled faintly of goat and looked vaguely like a goat himself— you can’t make this stuff up. He knew the names of all the plants. And as he perused my property (I have three-quarters of an acre) he taught me the names of what I have, including the aforementioned black swallow-wort. And then he said uh-oh, I see you’ve got some lily of the valley, pointing at some ground cover that I was familiar with because I have a ton of it. But I never knew the name of it. And I said oh that stuff is everywhere. And he said that’s going to be a problem— lily of the valley is toxic to goats. They can eat just about anything but there are a few species that make them sick, and some can even be lethal. And lily of the valley is one. I showed him where it grew on the other side of the house by the forsythia and also among the saplings. He shook his head and sucked his teeth, said sorry, it’s a deal breaker—if it were only here and there I could cordon it off with some electric fencing to keep the goats from eating it. But considering the extent of it, well, nice to meet you. And he climbed
back into his pickup. So much for goatscaping, but I’m thinking I might try writing about it, because although I’m not very good at writing about nature, this guy with his goats, who put me in mind of a goat himself, isn’t he just begging to be made into a poem?
Paul Hostovsky’s poems and stories appear widely online and in print. He has won a Pushcart Prize, two Best of the Net Awards, and has been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and The Writer’s Almanac. He makes his living in Boston as a sign language interpreter. Website: paulhostovsky.com
The Yesterday Review 