Proverbs 34 By Catherine Zickgraf

Wise women have said

bongs do not belong in bed. 

At least take heed to hold in all 

the holes should you tilt or turn.  

 

And if you decide 

to function high in the world, 

draw circles to roam wild within.

 

Even when you try                                                       

bending time and space and 

the laws of energy and matter,

go forth always with caution. 

 

Two lifetimes ago, Catherine performed her poetry in Madrid. Now her main jobs are to write and hang out with her family. You can find her in the Bluesky. Watch and read more at www.caththegreat.blogspot.com

Come By Tim G.Young

 

in the cadillac i shot my load

off the highway on a dusty road

the sun going steady with a big black cloud

a dog by the fence howling loud

Amy was great but now long gone

before i even put the condom on

i had to finish all by myself

since there wasn't anybody else

but that was okay i still had the car

and i had the keys and a mason jar

i drank it all every drop down

started the cadillac rode to town

found Amy in the local saloon

with swinging doors and a red baloon

drinking and singing up on stage

i would've preferred it was a cage

when it was over she's next to me

buys me a drink gives me some tea

she looked at me funny and then she said

sorry about the car i only do it in bed

Tim is a published author and singer/songwriter. Originally from Easton, Pa. But the real formative years were spent

 in NYC. After a long run we loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly, Hills that is. Not true, but I like it. Actually the wilds of Arizona,

 where all the magic happens in the dry of the desert. You could have fooled me. Thanks to John Patrick Robbins and Susan Tepper.

Portentous Ploy By Jay Simpson

Ideas served in concrete

wrapped in censorship’s freeforall

side dishes filled with foie gras

seasoned with Fandango’s peppered sauce

fortified wines blackened verses

battle line’s fiery couplet withdraws

Portentous Ploy stands rigid

dysphoria’s antidote crystal ball

headline’s acrobatic discourse

acceptance’s slow thinking stance

reality breaks into bullshit

AI designs the latest you

Jay Simpson was born in Sydney, Australia and now lives in Perth Western Australia. Jay is recently published in New Generation Beats 2024 Anthology, Chewers by Masticadores, Kingfisher Poetry Forum, the 2024 Nat’l & Int’l Goddess Anthology, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Cajun Mutt Press and Alien Buddha Press. Jay is also the featured writer, both nationally and internationally in a number of online magazines and journals as well as other notable publications.Jay loves poetry, art, music, satire and black comedy. She is the Creative Director and Author at her blog ‘livingdangerously’, Poetry Jay Simpson

Love Note on the Car By Daniel S. Irwin

Sorry but I don't

Worship the ground

You walk on. And

You've got a kind of

Rank body odor that

Really kills the mood.

Whatever I saw in you

To begin with came

From lookin' at you

Through the bottom

Of a bottle. So, not

Actually meaning any

Offense, but you're

Not the dream I ever

Wanted. More like

A nightmare that

Keeps coming back.

Let's just end this

Right now. I can't

Handle upchucking

Every time we screw.

Love ya.

(P.S. I hope I put this

on the right car.)

Daniel S. Irwin, native of Southern Illinois (such as it is).  Artist, writer, actor, soldier, scholar, priest among other things.

Work published in over one hundred magazines and journals worldwide.  Has appeared in over one hundred films. 

Speaks fluent gibberish when loaded.  Not much into blowing his own horn as you are only as good as your latest endeavor.

Once turned to religion but Jesus just walked away. 

A Monkey on Our Backs By April Ridge

Sometimes when I look at myself

in the mirror

I can’t shake the image of 

Monstro Elisasue.

Created out of neglect, 

out of selfish greed of consumption.

My need sometimes overbearing 

in the most inconvenient ways.

I think of my 20 year old legs:

the hamstrings, the back of the knee,

the calves shaped perfectly.

But now look at me, 

43 and struggling to fit

into any semblance of my former self,

veiny ankles, patella collapsed inward…

unrecognizably wrinkly.

We must learn to grow 

without expectation of clinging on 

to the old shapes of ourselves.

We must be willing to 

let the former selves go

lest they become a monkey on 

our backs

bulging outward

in an eerie smile

as we lumber onward

toward an undetermined finish line. 

April Ridge lives in the expansive hopes and dreams of melancholy rescue cats. She thrives on strong coffee, and lives for danger. In the midst of Indiana pines, she follows her heart out to the horizon of reality and hopes never to return to the misty sands of the nightmarish 9 to 5. April aspires to beat seasonal depression with a well-carved stick, and to one day experience the splendor of the Cucumber Magnolia tree in bloom. 

Tennessee By Jay Passer

She insists

Chivalry is not dead!

after a cab driver

by some miracle of modern technology

opened the cab door for her

It's your cleavage I said

The outright buoyancy

Malibu Barbie with a Tennessee twang

meets

the San Francisco barista poetaster

You're from New York, huh?

Why does everybody ask me that?

Maybe because you can be a real dick?

I didn't know being a dick

had geographical origins

We're depleted after

hungover sex

Entwined

on top of her Kia bunk beds

when the clock-radio

started blaring about a

terrorist attack

on the World Trade Center in New York City

What a coincidence, that's where I'm from!

Shhh! My brother's wife's uncle

works in one of those buildings!

So dramatic

I didn't know anybody in New York

I didn't like New Yorkers

since they were all Yankees fans

Bunch of assholes

Serves 'em right

Oh my god, you're horrible!

How can you hate the entire

population of a city based on

such a childish theory?

Her accent was so

cute

I wanted to fuck it

so I let her punctilious observation go

But there's always an end

and dwelling in it

is a kind of specialty of mine

I broke up with her because she liked to entertain

a retinue of male admirers

before noon on weekend mornings

when I

preferred it quiet

the hammers in my eardrums

from carousing away the night

barely subsided

Stop being such a grouch! So annoying...

We were watching

the last season of The Sopranos

Drinking cheap champagne

and it was raining

when I realized she was just another

in a line of false replacements

for the Chrissie Hyndes and Tatum O'Neals of my youth

I stood up suddenly and walked out

the door

Lit an American Spirit and started up Fremont Ave

towards 45th

I could feel her

behind me

barefoot on the sidewalk in her pjs

shivering and watching my figure recede

I didn't turn around to look back

So dramatic 

The poetry and prose of Jay Passer has appeared in print and online periodicals, magazines and anthologies, in subterranean basements and restroom stalls, cave walls and space shuttles, since 1988. He is the author of 15 collections of words, symbols, diatribes, missives, isms, schisms, rain drizzles and blood fizzles. A cook by trade, he's also dabbled in daubs, photo-montage, reverse feng shui; while flailing at mortician's apprentice, news butcher, and criminal savant. Passer's most recent chap, Son of Alcatraz, released in February of 2024 by Alien Buddha Press, is available from Amazon.

Glimmer By John Drudge

The streets yawn and spit

Exhaling the bitter breath 

Of gasoline and regret

Cracks spilling shadows 

That stretch thin 

Beneath the dim hum 

Of neon

Broken bottles 

Glint like jagged stars

Constellations 

Of forgotten nights 

Kerouac’s highways 

Turned into alleys 

Too tired to dream

Broken promises

Mingling 

With the slow drag 

Of shoes 

The air the taste 

Of rust and damp

The sky a bruise 

Of indifference

But even in decay 

The city holds a pulse

Faint but defiant

Beating for those 

Who still stumble 

Through its shadowed veins 

Seeking something more

In the grit

Toward a single streetlight

Barely more than a glimmer

John is a social worker working in the field of disability management and holds degrees in social work, rehabilitation services, and psychology.  He is the author of four books of poetry: “March” (2019), “The Seasons of Us” (2019), New Days (2020), and Fragments (2021). His work has appeared widely in numerous literary journals, magazines, and anthologies internationally. John is also a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and lives in Caledon Ontario, Canada with his wife and two children.