I Hear Your Music Playing Night and Day
by Dave O’Leary
Poetry and short prose about the musical life and the lost words of youth, about the places where love might be found or misplaced and dreams not quite made and celebrity encounters and being short on funds and the necessity of bus rides and bus stops and homes and the small moments that resonate and, of course, cats.
I Hear Your Music Playing Night and Day
By Dave O’Leary
By Merritt Waldon & Ron Whitehead
The Queen & Her Devil: A Sacred Journey Through Love and Contracts
By Rani Whitehead
By R. Keith
The Shells Encasing Our Nothingness
By Will Mayo
By Anthony Watkins
By Rani Whitehead
By John D Robinson
Unwritten Words That Slide Down The Wall
By James Dennis Casey IV
By Sean Hanrahan
Hoodoo Voodoo And Other Strange Stories
By Will Mayo
By Howie Good
By R. Keith
By James D. Casey IV
Miles of Sky Above Us, Miles of Earth Below
By Steve Denehan
By R. Keith
By Mendes Biondo
By Lauren Scharhag
By Will Mayo
By Ian Lewis Copestick
By R. Keith
By Matthew Borczon
By Ryan Quinn Flanagan
By Joanne Olivieri
By R. Bremner
By Red Focks
Owls in Hot Rods with Pink Elephants and Dead Bats
By J.D. Casey IV
Trains
I’m not sure why I like trains.
I don’t collect models
I don’t care about design or form
I know the basics of how they work
Like any vehicle.
Lots of movies feature the old coal-fueled kind
But the story captured my attention
Not the train.
I walk from my building to my car
Parked near railroad tracks
Where a train passes daily, several times, both ways
Blocks traffic
Blares its horn, deafens nearby pedestrians
Shuttles cargo and people from there to here.
I’m not sure why I like trains.
I used to watch one go by our house
With Dad
Race across the carpet to burst outside
Stop at the wire fence to the vineyard next door
Only one, once a day, sometimes at night.
On sunny days we’d worm through the fence
Walk the tracks
Grass and wildflowers poking up
Between the metal rails
The wood slats pitted and grooved from rain.
But the train stopped at one point.
They mended the wire fence
I grew up
Left
And now watch a dusty train barrel on sizzling
Singing tracks
My pumps pinching my toes
©2021 Carol Edwards All rights reserved.
Carol Edwards is a northern California native transplanted to southern Arizona. She lives and works in relative seclusion with her books, plants, and pets (2 dogs, 4 cats, + husband). She grew up loving the fantasy worlds of C.S. Lewis, Peter Beagle, and J.R.R. Tolkien, and she harbors a fondness for Greek mythology. Her recent poetry inspirations include Emily Dickinson, Robert Bl, and George Herbert.
MOOD RING
I would wear you like a mood ring
but I fear you would still be just as unpredictable
I lose myself in the obsession of your colors
your mood ever-changing upon my hand
I could only hope to understand your needs
but with each color that blends into it
I realize I could never fully grasp you
but I think I’ll keep it with me for reference
although the color is like mixed paint
brown upon my finger.
ZOLTAR SPEAKS
The voice erupts and rumbles
a God behind glass
but he comes at a price
and we are indebted
to the bright light that blinks
or the collection plate being passed around
I watch the boy holds up his dollar
sticking it into the machine
as he shifts side to side and awaits his fortune
I guess we all look for answers
some on a boardwalk, a carnival, or on a pew.
©2021 Ashley L. Cooke All rights reserved.
Ashley L. Cooke is an English undergrad at CSULB. She lives in Long Beach CA. You can find her work at various online journals including Rye Whiskey Review and Bold Monkey, she was also poet of the month for Moontide Press.
Last Will and Testament
Fuck a funeral!
Use the money you’d spend on mine
to celebrate the only proper way:
with drugs and alcohol.
You don’t even have to celebrate me,
just fuckin’ celebrate!
Or give the money to a good cause.
Just don’t give it to something boring,
like a church, please.
There’s enough reason in the world to be sad,
the inevitable shouldn’t be made worse by a
public display of platonic-necrophilia and tears.
No one should have to dress up and be miserable,
especially on my behalf.
I don’t wanna be buried,
cremate me!
Gimme to science!
Whatever!
I won’t give a fuck, I’ll be dead!
As my grandfather used to say,
“Shove a bone in my ass and have
the dogs drag me away.”
Well I got two assholes,
so I’ll need a shit ton of dogs.
Let graverobbers steal my body,
before it’s given over to the dirt,
like they did Lincoln’s,
and have a manhunt across the nation!
We’ll save them a step and a stop at
Home Depot for a shovel.
Don’t waste valuable land on wastes of space.
Build a hospital or a school.
Fuck it, I’d rather people frack or
build yuppie townhouses!
On a second thought,
I have one request,
please don’t fuck my corpse.
I don’t find it disrespectful,
just weird.
©2021 Joe Szalinski All rights reserved.
Joe Szalinski is a writer & performer from Pittsburgh, PA. He attended Slippery Rock University for his undergrad in writing & literature. Since returning to his native Pittsburgh, he’s been busy performing comedy, acting, making music, and writing. His writing, both creative and academic, has appeared in Defenestration, The Howling Press, The Short Humour, PS It’s Poetry (an anthology), and RockScissorsPaper.
