Letters
A stray I has fallen out of the scrabble bag.
Wedged in carpet fluff.
Only for a second I think
It's a sign.
We know better.
There is not always an I to a me.
We are all just little lost I’s.
Charlotte Cosgrove is a poet and lecturer from Liverpool.She has published two collections of poetry and is the editor of Rough Diamond poetry journal.
Broken Window
Perhaps I am too familiar
with this neighborhood.
Perhaps I am only inspired
by weather when I have nothing
better to do. A helicopter hums
above me, eyes on the hospital.
My windows are open
for once, and the pollen
calls me home, breathes
with my lungs, but better.
James Croal Jackson is a Filipino-American poet who works in film production. His latest chapbooks are A God You Believed In (Pinhole Poetry, 2023) and Count Seeds With Me (Ethel Zine & Micro-Press, 2022). Recent poems are in Ghost City Review, Little Patuxent Review, and Pirene’s Fountain. He edits The Mantle Poetry from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. (jamescroaljackson.com)
Selection from “Knock knock quilt”
knock knock
the background slowly selfies up
like america but without the wah-wah pedal
its de-edened pixels dark interiors
outlines purse seconds
[private sidelines]
overyessed formica over
whose fluorescent gussy
plops and toggles— figures become eyes of
themselves— "An archipelago/was refused” of themselves families without form or content
leftover nths out of background
humans creeping into other humans
wet slack internet
James Sanders is a member of the Atlanta Poets Group, a writing and performing collective. He was included in the 2016 BAX: Best American Experimental Writing anthology. His most recent book, Self-Portrait in Plants, was published in 2015. The University of New Orleans Press also recently published the group’s An Atlanta Poets Group Anthology: The Lattice Inside. Website is http://somejamessanders.com.
StormForce
Storm has a presence,
a weight cascades in silvered lines.
These quicksilver chains
scour parched ground
as smooth as a plasma screen
which I hunger to wrap
in a regurgitated weather map.
John is a 72-year-old Scottish poet. His work has appeared in a variety of magazines including Dreich, Southlight, Steel Jackdaw, Aayo Magazine, Lazuli Literary Group, Pure Slush Books, and Coin-Operated Press. In 2025, the US publisher Kelsey Books will publish his first poetry pamphlet ‘Lucy Uncatalogued’.
Blackheads
Ever since you left
There has been no one around
To remove my blackheads
They have been growing
And turning into tiny black holes
Threatening to slowly suck in my entire face
I remember how you would do it
Wrestling me down
Climbing on top of me
Pinching my nose until my eyes watered
And squeezing them out one by one
I finally went to a salon
Where a man went to work on me
Like a sadistic doctor
Ruthlessly poking my nose with a needle
Until he got the job done.
Kashif Ilyas is an Assistant Professor of English at Presidency University, Bengaluru. His poetry has previously been published in the literary journals The Poet, With Painted Words, The Quarter(ly), MONO., and Global Poemic: Kindred Voices on the Era of COVID-19. His short story “Uncitizened” was published in Outlook Magazine and his work has also appeared in the international anthologies Lockdown 2020 and Musings During a Time of Pandemic.
Coffee Run
"”Hey Bob,”
I said to the nabob
sitting under the baobab
in the lotus position.
Bob was a kind of
nickname, a kind of
diminutive, a kind of
presumption, really, him being
a nabob and all.
Like Jesus, Buddha,
Muhammad et al.
he was rich in the spiritual
sense but ever since
the recession of 2008
he was poor in the dollars-and-cents
sense. “Hey Bob, you got
50 cents? Let’s consolidate
and get a cuppa joe.”
He flinched as though
the proposition were a fly
alighting on his unibrow.
Then, slowly, mindfully,
he dipped a crimped hand
into his dhoti, extracted
a crinkled dollar bill
and offered it up to me
like a moist and crumpled prayer
without opening
his eyes.
Paul Hostovsky's poems have won a Pushcart Prize, two Best of the Net Awards, the FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize, and the Muriel Craft Bailey Award. He has been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, The Writer's Almanac, and the Best American Poetry blog. His latest book of poems is Pitching for the Apostates (Kelsay, 2023). He makes his living in Boston as a sign language interpreter. Website: paulhostovsky.com
Packaged Words
When you died
I packaged up your words
And hid them for later
Now, whenever I feel alone
I open them up
And let them break me back open
Educated at James Madison University and New York University, Robert has maintained a daily journal since he was in the ninth grade, where a favored teacher encouraged his writing. He also regularly shares his unedited, handwritten journal entries with his readers on Instagram. Robert's work has been featured in Scissortail Quarterly, NJ Bards Poetry Review, JanusWords (Black Mountain Press), and six published collections of poetry and prose.
Buffalo Bill and the Slithering Sidewalk
Sporting a Buffalo Bill mustache, a goatee, cascading hair
topped by a weathered leather hat of much the same breed,
one expects a handsome vest and matching chaps with fancy
boots to complete the ensemble, not a tattered blue sweatshirt
over a frayed red tee, old, patched corduroys hugging ground,
broken tennies that weren't a match, a left leg limping to boot.
But this was not a fashion ramp; it's a newly surfaced market
parking lot and he was asking me, with hand out, and pleading
eyes, and rasping voice, if I could spare a couple of bucks.
He was new to the lot and didn't know what I do when asked.
No, I say, I cannot spare, but I am in the market for dreams.
You have a dream you can tell me, sell me for a couple of bucks?
Taking a step back, he says, You serious? Dead serious, I answer.
OK, then. I'll tell you the dream I remember when Jango shook
me awake this morning. Jango? Yeah, I slept with her last night
and woke her up moaning and groaning something awful, she
said. That's her over there in the black tights. Did you tell her?
Yep. What did she say? She said I better get off all the junk.
You sure you're gonna give me−Yes, I interrupt. OK, then.
What I saw in my dream was the sidewalk, and it was moving
like something was under the sidewalk, long like a snake or
something, something slithering along, but still under and not
coming out no where’s I could see. The sidewalk was moving
as far as I could see. It was creepy and I guess it got me scared
or something to make me moan and groan and waking up Jango
and all. That's all there was. Pretty silly dream, I'd say. You think
it's worth two dollars? Not silly at all. I handed him two dollars.
He stood there looking at me, standing perfectly still, staring.
Jango's man asked, almost whispering, what's it mean?
Ah, now that, I charge for. But for free I'll tell you that's not
the question. The question is:
What are you going to do now, now that the snake is moving?
Russell Lockhart, 86, a Jungian analyst in Everett, WA, has made it a practice of encountering street people. When asked for money, he gives them money if they will give him a dream. He writes these encounters in poetic form.