TWO POEMS BY SHEILA MURPHY DevoutIn dream the therapist screams to shells and seaweed for help while too smitten with sunlight to hear. She cries an oval loneliness learned from shelved whispers left in leaflets fallen to the shore. Her alto voice in smithereens gives way to darker sadness. Who is there to hear but gulls their feathers washed with salt now sleek to match their shrieking. Her patience has thinned amid harsh light pouring down over the operating table where vim-bodied bodice-bearing skin lies still. Her soul refuses the rinse as she pierces the lower registers of sleep.EconomyShe shaved each penny for the good of the home. Became the best husband her shadow could discern. Whatever safety conflated with wealth reasoned its way out of the forecast, a foretaste of life hereafter. Her insistent history deflated mythology one tale at a time. False economy, a risen bread not yet in the mouths of frightened children learning starvation by rote. A role played out in silence leavening the shared mind. Conveyed in whispers to belie a quiet rhyme.AUTHOR BIO: A Pushcart-nominated poet, Murphy’s most recent book publications: I Want to Be Your Radio (Unlikely Books, 2025), Escritoire (Lavender Ink, 2025), Permission to Relax (BlazeVOX Books, 2023). Recent appearances in Lana Turner, Poetry Bay, Volta, and others. Gertrude Stein Poetry Award for Letters to Unfinished J. (Green Integer Press, 2003). Hay(ha)ku Book Prize for Reporting Live From You Know Where (Meritage Press, 2018). She lives in Phoenix, Arizona.
CHILD, CAT, DREAMER: POETRY AND COLLAGE BY KAREN NEUBERGAn archetype of all life that has been in the vast before, the dreamer dreams on, far below in a corridor of time. Above, the child walks with their cat still unaware of what went before the time called now. The child and cat are fine companions, the cat having lived a feral life until finding the child. Now together, they amble along. Someday, they will join the dreamer. Someday, but not yet, please, not yet …AUTHOR BIO: Karen Neuberg is the author of the full-length poetry collection, PURSUIT (Kelsay Press), and three chapbooks including “the elephants are asking” (Glass Lyre). Her poetry and collages have appeared in numerous online and print journals and anthologies including 805, Gyroscope, Inflectionist Review, Mackinaw, SurVision, and Unbroken. She holds an MFA from The New School and lives in Brooklyn, NY.
nullset by Neil Flory haggard convulsiontooth jackhammer. concluding paragraph &all proven theses tossed in a cementmixer. director’s chair chewing its unfortunate path but what’re you sayin sayin said scores of erstwhile bleary-eyed extras on the dimlycoughing set. Nth offshoot tubes leaving untold fractures in their wake. dank hotel corridors hold throngs of exhausted strangers failing miserably to confront the stiflinglack lack of conversation topics. hypochondriac microphones turningtricks on crumbling street corners while unbeknownst passersby stage a Globe Theater of unnotice complete with gilded hurdygurdys &hyperactive hats&canes. dissertations drowning in sandstorms kicked up by repetitions of rush hour traffic. Nth variants of totality stacked till total deafening collapse. how much’re you payin for house insurance said the unemployed bowling instructor while 3pins fell and no one none listing citations let alone compiling footnotes. why the hell talk about that well what would you rathertalkabout maybe the pancakebatter drippingoff the stove Spanishmoss silently breathing between oblivious feet of white ibis displacement incredulous the non-referential of overworked paralegal (steeled so taut against letting on) sub-shrieking feigning the non-quiver of swampy unreply. post-traumatic pencils grindingthemselves down to Nth variety of another nullset in stark sawdust relief. loosing tonnage of steaming dye-vats dripping down through holes punched in the streets like the holes in old computer punchcards from days when the monstrous machines occupied whole rooms yet nothing deciphered nothing calculated nor nickoftime recorded. instead’s a fabled multilevel schematic never successfully etched on printingplates cocktail napkins or the head of a pin. pulsating arrays. variable components, often interchangeable. meanwhile the chainsmoking downtown neon mogul guy proclaiming yes friends, everything you needn’t’s on sale sale forever &on amidst yon cavernous infinity of said corner surplus store floodplain 4waystop sorbet hoodornament fire escape. rickety freightelevator down to the unfinished lowerlevel the building inspectors never even knewofAUTHOR BIO: Neil Flory is the author of mudtrombones knotted in the spill (Arteidolia Press, 2023). Nominated for a 2023 Pushcart Prize by swifts & slows, Flory’s poetry has also appeared in various other journals such as Superpresent, dadakuku, shufPoetry, Word For/Word, and The Gorko Gazette. Beyond his literary work, he is a composer of experimental music, a college music professor, and a pianist whose enthusiasm for improvisation in live recital settings knows no bounds. He lives among the wooded hills and lakeshores of Western New York State with his wife, published poet and fiction writer Elaine Flory, and their three hyperactive cats.
WATER BY CATFISH MCDARISThe old man approached eighty years with no trepidation. The shadows crept closer challenging the sun. Death was a black widow slinking across its web. Getting into an ancient whaling boat, he pointed the prow west. The oars fit his hands like a woman. As land disappeared, icebergs with seals catching fish and polar bears catching seals floated by. He paid no attention, concentrating on the foggy horizon.The farther the watery path took him the stronger he felt. Gnawing on dried blubber, he tossed chunks to passing seagulls. The sun and wind furrows that plowed his face and surrounded his eyes vanished. His vision became clear and strong. Muscles in his arms, legs, and back bulged with an energy almost forgotten. Where land had once bridged a massive migration only the sea existed. Fifty seven miles across the Bering Sea passed in the blink of an eye.Years dropped from the man like layers of skin on an onion. As he reached the tundra laden shore, his language had been left behind with his old body. A young man leaped from the boat. A red wine strength throbbed throughout him. His journey beckoned him south and west. For many miles he saw nothing. Then he noticed the tracks of wolves, he was no longer alone and yet he felt no fear. Cracking ice from a pond he drank deeply. That night sleeping under a billion diamonds, he knew it would be his last as a man. The wolves’ content on an easy breakfast bounded down onto the man. His transformation into a caribou took less than a second. Striking out with sharp hooves, it sent several wolves tumbling and howling in pain. The caribou floated up from the ground and flew faster than lightning. It looked down at villages and rivers blurring below.The snow topped mountains grew up from the earth toward heaven. A cold rain fell into an orange azure turquoise painted stream. A monolithic temple loomed above everything. Monks in saffron colored robes followed each other in solemn order. Workers drove herds of yaks and goats; some carried woven baskets of fish and cackling poultry. Others bore large bundles of wood tied together on their backs. The caribou deincarnated into a hummingbird and watched the scenes from above. It was tiny enough to escape scrutiny. Flying into an open window in the temple, it followed more steps on its preordained path.On an exquisitely carved jade pedestal a golden aura emanated. A gaunt parchment skinned monk opened the ruby and emerald encrusted amphora that exuded almost blinding light. It contained three hairs from Buddha. The hummingbird reached its final metamorphosis: a perfect snowflake. It floated down gently from above and settled glistening on the hairs of Buddha and meltedAUTHOR BIO: Catfish is an aging New Mexican living near Milwaukee. His work has been translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Polish, Swedish, Arabic, Mandarin, Bengali, Tagalog, Esperanto. His 30 years of published material is in the Special Archives Collection at Marquette University in Milwaukee.
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GoldfishBy Salvatore DifalcoThe young ignored me as they studied their phones with mouths agape, eyes glazed. Asked to distinguish one from the other, I would have shrugged my shoulders. I did not feel further alienated as one might suspect, no no, on the contrary. Oblivion, if you didn’t know, is well-populated, apparently. You’re alone, but not alone, know what I mean? Life is a challenge at the best of times, except for the fatuously rich. They seem content with how things turned out for them, but only wish they could have more of what they have. Because more of it exists, they wish to have more of it. Understandable. The rest of the folks are like goldfish. Look at them. Look at the goldfish. Waiting for flakes. They live on desiccated flakes scattered down to them from above. Not manna, no, but might as well be. Right? And these children of people who understand nothing about the world remind one of goldfish, eyes goggled, mouths agape, waiting for flakes. It’s an unfortunate reality. I wonder who is responsible for it. Someone has to be. On the one hand, zany billionaires moving their yachts over mountains because they can, or crushing goldfish just because. And then you have the goldfish, the actual little creatures, trapped in their cloudy glass bowls, wondering why someone would do this to them.AUTHOR BIO: Sicilian Canadian poet and storyteller Salvatore Difalco lives in Toronto, Canada. Recent work appears in Cafe Irreal, Heavy Feather Review, and Poetry Lighthouse.
THREE POEMS BY BOB HEMANINFORMATIONWhere the cities burn, the boats are only replicas, the men only the exclamations of the drowning bears. Each tree the way the distance is counted before they realize there is no distance that can ever be recovered.INFORMATIONThe moon only one excuse. They used others when the verbs demanded them. Sometimes the car left on the dirt road was an explanation for the river. Sometimes the man and the woman were used as an example of a word game.INFORMATIONIt is possible that the sea will fit inside your hat. It is possible there are legs you will never use. It is possible that the bicyle has a mind of its own. It is possible that meaning can be described by a single word. It is possible that the color red no longer exists.AUTHOR BIO: Bob Heman's most recent books are Washing the Wings of the Angels (from Quale Press), and The House of Grand Farewells (from Luna Bisonte Prods), and the chapbook A Sky Obscured by Bicycles (from SurVision).
ONE POEM BY JOEL CHACEA clenched fist that won’t ease open. It is the trade entering his body. Outside that window, an oak -- branches leafless, black, against gray canopy. We have to endure discordance between imagination and fact. A tree is either born with its beauty, or that beauty is conferred by centuries of eyes. It is better to say, I am suffering now, than to say, This landscape is ugly. The nuptial yes. His fist becomes a hand. AUTHOR BIO: Joel Chace has published work in print and electronic magazines such as Lana Turner, Survision, Eratio, Otoliths, Word For/Word, Golden Handcuffs Review, New American Writing, and The Brooklyn Rail. Underrated Provinces is recently out from MadHat Books. Bone Chapel is coming out soon from Chax. For more than forty years, Chace was a working jazz pianist. He is an NEH Fellow.
STANDING UP BY J.S. WATTSMe? I just go with the flow these days. I’ve no idea where this will all lead, but people know what they want. I’m told. Lines standing up, in the right order, except there is none.Tried stand-up myself once. Reeled them in, but didn’t catch any laughs. There are some right comedians. People like a good laugh, so I’m told.Lines without lines. Reeled In. Spun out. Circling themselves like rubbernecking sharks but breaking apart in anti-solidarity.Can’t see the point myself, but I’ll stand up, give it a go, show ‘em what I’ve got, see if they like it – whilst hating it myself. You’ve got to laugh. Possibly. But anything’s possible. I’m told.So I’ll give it a go, go with the flow, give the dog a lead. Got to get going to get there. In the end. Eventually. Sometime. So here’s me. Standing up. Me? Really?AUTHOR BIO: J.S. Watts is a UK poet and novelist. Her poetry, short stories and non-fiction appear in diverse publications in Britain, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and America and have been broadcast on BBC and independent radio. Her published books include: Cats and Other Myths, Songs of Steelyard Sue, Years Ago You Coloured Me, Underword andThe Submerged Sea (poetry) and A Darker Moon, Witchlight, Old Light and Elderlight (novels). See her website https://www.jswatts.co.uk/
TWO POEMS BY MISH MURPHY CENTRAL FLORIDA FRUIT STANDI’m a deceased deer, a buck, with glassy eyes and brave branching antlers. My cut-off head is mounted over the checkout counter where I survey the aisles and bins of this fruit stand full of unsterilized honey from unsterilized bees, monster sweet potatoes, and giant strawberries.The loudspeaker plays vintage Hank Williams. Can’t say country music is my favorite, but I’m now an “inanimate object” whose opinions don’t matter, while below me, the farmer, a shriveled man, slides a customer’s cash into a metal box—I know the old codger’s got a gun hidden under the counter somewhere, but I don’t care.He already shot me once.CROSSROADS—inspired by the legend of Robert JohnsonWhere exactly are the crossroads where poets go to meet the Devil? I know the time must be a minute before midnight and the surroundings must be deserted. Obviously, you must bring your precious poetry manuscript with you on a flash drive.Sure, the Devil probably lives in Mississippi, but the atmosphere would be perfect here in Florida at a certain intersection not far from an abandoned convenience store, though you must ignore a ghost or two. There’s a cross decorated with sun-bleached plastic flowers where a drunk teenage driver failed to yield the right of
way on a rainy night. The grass on the golf course is dead, and the nearby manufactured homes are in foreclosure—just like your soul will be after you become a superstar poet.The Devil will appear out of thin air. He’ll smell like dry cleaning fluid. His horns, hooves, and tail will be cropped with plastic surgery, and he’ll wear a snazzy Italian suit. He’ll make you sign a contract in blood (I know you know that signing in blood has always been the Devil’s policy—but I ask you, doesn’t the Devil realize that nowadays we have these things called DNA tests?—it's just a thought—do not mention this to him). Then you must kneel in the dirt, handing him the flash drive with your poetry files on it.After that, you wait—while he makes his corrections—while he makes it perfect.It’s a moonless night. You listen for the sound of cop cars, crickets chirping, frogs ribbiting—nothing but silence. Meanwhile, your eyes will blur, your body will shake, you’ll start to sweat like crazy, you black out.A million years later, a brave rooster will voice an opinion about dawn. You’ll wake up, naked and muddy, cupping your flash drive in your hands like a newborn chick.AUTHOR BIO: Mish (Eileen) Murphy is Assistant Poetry Editor (on hiatus) for Cultural Daily. She teaches English/literature online at Polk State College, Lakeland, Florida, and poetry online for the Life Enrichment Center of Tampa. A Pushcart nominee, she has published two poetry collections—Fortune Written on Wet Grass (2019) and Sex & Ketchup (2021)—and a poetry chapbook, Evil Me(2020). She frequently performs her work at open mics in the Tampa Bay area. Mish graduated with a B.A. from New College, Sarasota, in French /Russian, and Columbia College of Chicago, in Fiction Writing/Teaching of Writing. She is also an award-winning digital artist, photographer, and book designer.
LUNATIC POEM PARTS I AND II BY ALEXIS RHONE FANCHERLUNATIC POEM PART 1“Would you be a moon for the lunatics here?”*I’m already looney. Pick me. The luna plena sneaks in from the high window. You burrow between my legs, howl and howl.Some people can turn into wolves just by wanting to become one. I bet this happens all the time. You’re Nicholson and thenyou’re the wolf.No one ever mentions the bite - the ecstasy of the wounding.At no time do I stare you in the eyes.I bare my throat to you.Just before I disappear.* a line from “After The Tour, or A Tirade on Shitville,” a poem by Michael Farrell.LUNATIC POEM PART 2The Downside of LoveI’ve had better-looking suitors. Better mannered. Better dressed.They know to wipe their feet at the door, to rise when a ladyleaves the room. Punctuality is always a sore spot between us.Easily distracted, he can detect pussy a mile away. I’ve beentreated better, too. Been taken out for dinner instead of having itdropped at my feet. Even that might be okay, but it’s rarely justthe two of us.The thing about wolves? They run in a pack. Andif I manage to pull him away, those yellowed fangs! That gameybreath! Try, just try to get him to the dentist. Truth told, hishair’s too wiry, his nostrils perpetually flared. When I reach forhim at night, his nose is cold. He’s too hot to sleep with in thesummer. In winter, he’s lumbering and slow to rouse. But ah!The snuggled heat of his belly when the snow falls, the nuzzle ofhis muzzle against my clit, the moon-shattering scream when Icome.AUTHOR BIO: Poet/photographer Alexis Rhone Fancher has authored eleven books of poetry and flash fiction. Coming Up in 2026? A full-length erotic collection, CockSure (Moon Tide Press), and SinkHole (MacQueen’s Press). A Picture is Worth a Poet’s Words, a photo-portrait book of over 100 Southern California poets will be published in 2026 by Moon Tide Press. Alexis recently won BestMicroFiction 2025. Find her at www.alexisrhonefancher.com
ONE POEM BY HEIKKI HUOTARI NEGATION VARIATION 12The hypothetical is elevated. The divinity is in the sleight of hand. The ambience is in the atmosphere. The brain deprived of oxygen sees Jesus. Pass the antivenom, please. There is no angular momentum like that of the lily when the lily is dismissed. Existence of stalactites and stalagmites is a contradiction and transcendence is an afterthought not a foregone conclusion. Wheel me in insisting that I be unique, I'll bow to what's symmetric. Exoskeletal in war, in peace and in the hearts of those with matching hats, the active listeners know how to feel, how not to solve. A brain deprived of oxygen, your food is made to look like cake. If you don't like the zeitgeist wait a while. There is a pedestal for every play on words and every play on words is on its pedestal. The aftermath is as transparent as is the suspended disbelief, the faith that I'm reduced to too. What is a guru like you doing in a here and now like this. What is a guru like you doing in a here and now like this.AUTHOR BIO: Heikki Huotari wrote his first poem the morning after the major died in the adjacent bed. Since retiring from academia/mathematics he has published more than 500 poems in literary journals, including Pleiades, Florida Review and The Journal, and in six chapbooks and six collections. He has won one book prize (Star 82 Press) and two chapbook prizes (Gambling The Aisle and Survision Press). His Erdős number is two.
TWO PATTERN POEMS BY MARK WYATTAUTHOR BIO: Mark Wyatt now lives in the UK after teaching in South and South-East Asia and the Middle East. His pattern poetry can be found in many journals, such as Cosmic Daffodil, Full Bleed, Hyperbolic Review, Journal of Mathematics And The Arts, Neologism Poetry Journal, Osmosis, Talking About Strawberries All Of The Time, and Tupelo Quarterly. He discusses his technique in ‘Using letters as number-like particles in constructing pattern poetry’, an article that appeared in the Journal of Mathematics and the Arts: Using letters as number-like particles in constructing pattern poetry
THREE POEMSBY PHILIP PIARROT20 The red hot anger makes frequent, fastidious trips to the loo. Menacing porch lights squeal and buzz their profound predilections for a genteel madness that is ugly as a pig in the dark. The jinxing prattles on and commences to bleat like young goats…ogling the foal in full shadow. Nothing escapes the veterans of the sepia tinged rectification. It was a spree, but you doubled-or-nothing so now…now what? Cling to that moment. Spread your fingers out into a fan and declare that being scammed five times is five times more than you can stand. Once backed into the proverbial corner, you notice that everyone in attendance is chewing on the same cud.27 Blast it all to smithereens. There’s a seedy penchant which erodes all connection to the surplus bacteria of your wily kismet. Employ the indoctrinated. Survey the coastal waters of when you absolutely cannot be left alone. I saddle the manilabrown urgency made manifest by the enervations of an ongoing disagreement among peers. Bite your lip. Find a wife, settle down, meet the mole men that run the fish market. Europe is long gone now. Determination is sleeping erect. The diatribes that run the streets like steel zippers make fun of the peons at work. Yon precipice calls.28 There’s nonesuch breeding in lurid transitions of piecemeal variegation. Aesop was a watchmaker burdened with sanity’s blissful reproach. I can’t send money because I’ve never trusted Western Union for the sake of a dearth and a plea. End times, Satchmo. The sirens in the night presage infamous, turbulent cotton. Swallowing Santa Ana was always a last resort. Enough time passed and nothing came of it. Sleep was winnowing the darkness at the mercy of grandfather’s lies.AUTHOR BIO: Philip Piarrot is a poet from Nashville, TN. Previously, he was an award-winning thespian and pianist but contracted Schizoaffective Disorder and things got out of hand. He has copywritten two books of poetry, one of verse and sonnet and the other a collection of 100 prose poems. He has been published sporadically over the course of the last five years but is just now pursuing the small brass ring of notoriety.
THE EMPEROR BY ANDREW FOWLERThey say the Emperor is the master of all things. They say his word is law, his dictates infallible. In his proper position, he is the commander of an ordered world, his patterns predictable, an eternal harmony with the logos, an emblem of virtue and reason and divine right. And in his reverse position, he is a ferocious tyrant, a nightmare father, order and pattern for order and pattern’s sake, moralism without grace, a blind desire to dominate. And yet he reigns over all.But there he sits on his granite throne, crouched forward, a scowl upon his face, swathed in heavy red robes, his legs clad in a knight’s greaves to protect from invisible enemies, an ankh in one hand, an orb in the other -- a permanent meditation on that which is to be subjugated, and that which he cannot.Look behind him – the mountains are arid, cracked, baring the scars of old catastrophes. A heavy orange sky hangs behind him, as if the sunlight itself is tired at this point in history. And far beneath him, a narrow river fails to irrigate the barren soil.Look to the goat’s heads carved into the armrests. Look at the sigil, barely visible in the weft of his robes, on his left shoulder as he faces into the middle distance. What could he possibly be thinking about?He is emperor of this blasted land. He is alone. The sole master of the void.AUTHOR BIO: Andrew Fowler is a Middle America-born, Bangkok-based writer and editor. He screams into the void at Subject/Object (subjectslashobject.substack.com).