The Lonely Chimes Of Backroad Cemetery. By John Patrick Robbins

I remember the peace in the hidden site, that lay off an old dirt road in Pike County Indiana. 

And the sound of those tuned wind chimes. 

That hung from an old oak tree that loomed over the few graves that stood undisturbed. 

Away from everything, such a peaceful beautiful music for none to hear and all to enjoy.

On a hot summer day I can always recall.

What peace existed there as I sat amongst the tombstones.

I wonder now hopeless as in memories and time that paradise sits untouched. 

As my soul breathes fractured truths even I as a writer and man cannot repair.

Dealing in lies and old ghosts.

I wonder, do those chimes still beckon me home for a final rest.

In a place no pain does exist, hidden away as I only long to be.

John Patrick Robbins, is the editor in chief of the Rye Whiskey Review his work has been published in.

Punk Noir Magazine,  San Pedro River Review,  San Antonio Review,  1870 Magazine,  Sacred Chickens,  Heroin Love Songs,  Piker Press, As It Ought To Be Magazine.


His work is always unfiltered.

Untitle Me by Ambrosia

Time finds strangers in us all.

But Does the night?

My words plague this desert intrusive in their design.

I'm alone in a hell no one can find.

But alone is where I always prefer to be.

Ambrosia is a Lithuanian poet whose poetry has been nominated for best of the net and his work has appeared in various publications all over the net and in limited print runs. 

Puzzuoli’s by John Doyle

Every dusk

Panama turns its back on me,

that’s fine, I've forgotten, already.

I'll remember Puzzuoli's, in lieu of these misgivings - like last time I heard

 

Obviously Five Believers, as I closed in on Singapore City,

half-awake, three-quarters trying not to sleep -

Puzzuoli’s, in porno-blue fly buzzing light.

In Panama City I found something - 

everlasting peace, a solitude of 

marble statues, jazz music tarred in sepia,

married men twisting their throats

in barbed-wire - another mile-long boulevard of sweaty cotton suits

before they considered divorce.

It’s final, divorce - 

a sweaty man in a dry cotton suit

tells me.

 

It's 12 hours after midnight - 

Jesus, this is hot -

It's hell on earth here;

like that time in 1987

 

trudging through a forest, 

shovels on our collarbones,

the gas-station kid’s body leaving stone-clutched trails

in the sour-faced dust. Oh yeah, I remember - 

 

that first time I knew Puzzuoli's 

was damned

was last May or April -

Paul Henry's blue-blurred dusk made stop-signs

 

look like Modern Art

stolen in a late-night heist, 

Van Morrison 

caught a Los Angeles connection, 

 

and we drank wine no-one kept receipts for.

In Panama City

the divorce rate is slowly rising, 

alongside the moon, the mercury, the capillaries of broken bottles -

Puzzuoli's

tearing-down

like a grizzly bear

chasing us through a forest

John Doyle became a Mod again in the summer of 2017 to fight off his impending mid-life crisis; whether this has been a success remains to be seen. He has has two collections published to date, A Stirring at Dusk in 2017, and Songs for Boys Called Wendell Gomez in 2018, both on PSKI's Porch. 

Sticky by Susan Tepper

If you slice vertically

you will find a heart

dissected in tandem beats

to smear across bread 

my blood and sticky love 

No scope can clarify 

the solitary nature 

of the soul—

why this—

Memory confined to

sensible phrasings

small gestures:

coffee in a pleasant place;

the sun going down

behind a stone church; 

dappled leaves, some fallen

outside plate glass window.

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