Wednesday, July 29, 2020

THE SLOW COLD REEK OF SUSPICION by Jay Passer

I can’t think while the mice are listening
my only companions although they disgust me
waiting for me to leave by the door or by dying
in either case, revolution is on their tiny minds
savvy their infinitesimal Hitchcockian urges
gathering en masse behind undulating walls
in noxious league with other species of vermin
I can’t even tiptoe around the room, thanks to
broken shards of psychic warfare littered about
I put on my Kafka mask, shut tight all the windows
as an insidious karma corrodes the cancer within
I can’t abandon the proscenium for fear 
of demolishing the fourth wall for good





Jay Passer's work has appeared in print and online since 1988. He is the author of several chapbooks and has appeared in a bunch of anthologies. His latest collection, they lied to me when they said everything would be alright, from Pski's Porch, is available at Amazon. Passer lives and works in San Francisco, the city of his birth.







Thursday, July 23, 2020

86’ed. By Dan Provost


Barred from Wonderland
with an idea of poetic license
stuck to my calamity.
Billowing hopelessness stalks the
ground with the horizontal
homeless.
Before I go, I’ll take three of what she’s
having and call it a life.
Be patient, as I count the
pennies to pay the tab.
You’ve got nowhere to
go Captain America…
Being 86’ed forever is a
title I’d welcome
           warmly…
I can sit on the curb
all day now
and portray my pitiful
mistake.
As passer byes lean against my
new home.
Trying to lift gum off
their shoe.






Dan Provost's poetry has been published throughout the small press for a number of years.  Some recent publications include: Ariel Chart, Poetical Review, Merak Magazine, Oddball Magazine, Deuce Coupe, Misfit Magazine, the Rye Whiskey Review, Cajun Mutt Press and the Dope Fiend Daily.  He has two books coming out in 2020.  Under the Influence of Nothingness by Kung Fu Treachery Press and Rattle of a Realizer, published by Whiskey City Press.  He lives in Berlin, New Hampshire with his wife Laura and dog Bella.



Thursday, July 16, 2020

Saplings by Susan Tepper


Watch a sudden flash 
fire absorb the ground
weeds bunched 
like yarn
you worked into 
a fragrant sweater
carry flames
rushing to finish
for him
Everything tall is bending
The strain—
The saplings before 
their time to silver 



Susan Tepper is the author of nine published books of fiction and poetry. Her two most recent titles are CONFESS (poetry from Cervena Barva Press, 2020) and a road novel WHAT DRIVES MEN (Wilderness House Press, 2019) that was shortlisted at American Book Fest. Other honors and awards include eighteen Pushcart Prize Nominations, a Pulitzer Nomination by Cervena Barva Press for the novel ‘What May Have Been’ (re-written for adaptation as a stage play to open in NY next year), shortlisted in Zoetrope Contest for the Novel (2003), NPR’s Selected Shorts for ‘Deer’ published in American Letters & Commentary (ed. Anna Rabinowitz), Second Place Winner in StorySouth Million Writers Award, Best of 17 Years of Vestal Review and more. Tepper is a native New Yorker. www.susantepper.com




Friday, July 3, 2020

From the Fountain by Susan Tepper


Do you walk 
to make light
through your arms
tree limbs 
hanging.
In Paris 
when the rain stopped  
the buildings
breathed out heat.
A young man
emerged
greasy hair swept back
a sheen to his 
unwashed face and
cheap rumpled suit.
I pictured him 
entwined with a stranger 
all the night before.
Industrious 
he emptied a knapsack
filling empty 
water bottles to sell
to tourists later
from the fountain.




Susan Tepper is the author of nine published books of fiction and poetry. Her two most recent titles are CONFESS (poetry from Cervena Barva Press, 2020) and a road novel WHAT DRIVES MEN (Wilderness House Press, 2019) that was shortlisted at American Book Fest. Other honors and awards include eighteen Pushcart Prize Nominations, a Pulitzer Nomination by Cervena Barva Press for the novel ‘What May Have Been’ (re-written for adaptation as a stage play to open in NY next year), shortlisted in Zoetrope Contest for the Novel (2003), NPR’s Selected Shorts for ‘Deer’ published in American Letters & Commentary (ed. Anna Rabinowitz), Second Place Winner in StorySouth Million Writers Award, Best of 17 Years of Vestal Review and more. Tepper is a native New Yorker. www.susantepper.com