Dirty Women (For Ozzy) by Alex S. Johnson

They don't just stand in doorways

Although lurking is their mode of choice

Where it comes to crimes of 

the heart

Their glittering eyes speak volumes 

Their elaborate boudoir languors 

change perception and

Charge reality with 

A fuck-fusion of forms 

A tension insurmountable 

A vast need for release 

but into what vessel?

In his book Specimen Days,

Walt Whitman talks about

Fucking the earth

He would wrestle saplings beside

streams while

Declaiming his carnal verse to the 

clouds and grass and animals

Dirty women are my bane and my ecstasy 

I loved you and miss you

I loved you and miss you

I loved you and miss you

Miss you miss you miss you.

Alex S. Johnson has been called "the Baudelaire of our time; the poet of the underground" by no less than John Shirley, Bram Stoker Award-winning author, songwriter for BLUE OYSTER CULT and principal screenwriter of THE CROW (1994). Shirley also contributed the original story "Lonely is the Word" to Johnson's forthcoming charity anthology for Children of the Night, Inc., HAND OF DOOM: A LITERARY TRIBUTE TO BLACK SABBATH, which also features such dark fiction heavyweights as Anna Taborska, John Palisano, Gemma Files and Christi Nogle. Johnson is the author of numerous books including SKULL VINYL: POEMS 2012-2017, acquired for its cultural significance by the Widener Library at Harvard University. Johnson runs Nocturnicorn Books with Alea Celeste Williams and lives in Carmichael, California with his family. 

the reality that awaits them By J.J. Campbell

a pounding headache

with any luck you'll

be dead by the morning

the woman of your dreams

is off fucking her true lover

and if you ever want to let

the young poets know

that is the reality

that awaits them

dancing with the devil

is reserved for a higher

class of degenerate

get used to the sewers

to the cheap booze

to women as lost

as you truly are

she swore she could

shit out rainbows if

given enough drugs

would you rather eat

or be entertained

she said she knows

a guy a few blocks

away that sells some

good shit

old enough to know now

that is never a good sign

J.J. Campbell (1976 - ?) is old enough to know better. He's been widely published over the years, most recently at Synchronized Chaos, Disturb the Universe Magazine, The Beatnik Cowboy, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and Black Coffee Review. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)

My first visit to the Pagan festival By Brian Rosenberger

I visited the Pagan fest yesterday. 

Not that I’m a practicing or non-practicing Pagan. 

I was curious and wanted to see what it was all about. 

Old school mythology has always been an interest

Since I was a kid – Norse, Roman. Greek, Egyptian.

Those stories always held more interest to me

Than those told in Sunday school.

The fest was kind of a bust. No human sacrifices. 

No half naked women dancing around, 

Chanting at the moon 

At least not when I was there, just after lunch.

No goats, no black cats, no toads,

Nothing resembling a witch’s familiar,

Other than some annoying, toad-looking kids.

Not even a single broomstick in sight.

Just a lot of incense, homemade soap, fake fairy wings,

Tea samples, rodent bones, Tarot decks,

Folk art with chickens, cows, and tornadoes,

And people who wanted to chat. 

I asked about the ceremony 

Involving a sacrifice and orgy afterwards. 

Did entrance to that cost extra?

Would condoms be provided? 

Or wipes to clean off the blood?

The festival goers who previously wanted to chat

Suddenly lost all interest.

God damn close-minded pagans.

Brian Rosenberger lives in a cellar in Marietta, GA and writes by the light of captured fireflies. He is the author of As the Worm Turns and three poetry collections - Poems That Go Splat, And For My Next Trick..., and Scream for Me.

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.

 

it is never easy By J.J. Campbell

it seems a few lifetimes

ago but there once was

this beautiful woman

that bought you a drink

in the bar one morning

after work

you were lost in flowery

language, hoping to impress

her and as usual the moment

passed

it is never easy to be yourself

when you have never met that

side of your soul

wading in dysfunction

the bottle is always cheaper

than therapy

no matter how expensive

they want to make

the good shit

J.J. Campbell (1976 - ?) is old enough to know better. He's been widely published over the years, most recently at Synchronized Chaos, Disturb the Universe Magazine, The Beatnik Cowboy, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and Black Coffee Review. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)

Without a Notebook By Michael Minassian

I did not write anything 

down today.

I count my breaths

and sit with eyes

half closed, visualizing

a set of words

scrawled across the page,

but lacking pen or pencil

and wanting paper

as thin as air,

I imagine 

what life would be like

if ink flowed in my veins

and I pricked my finger

every time a new thought

pushed its way out.

MICHAEL MINASSIAN lives with his wife in Southern New England. He is a Contributing Editor for Verse-Virtual, an online poetry journal. His poetry collections Time is Not a River, Morning Calm, and A Matter of Timing as well as a chapbook, Jack Pays a Visit, are all available on Amazon. For more information: https://michaelminassian.com

Once Again, America Chooses Fascism By Garrett Schuelke

 "America this is quite serious."—Allen Ginsberg

No big surprise there.

Election 2024 has once again shown me that we want a country that is run by a president who did everything he could to commit a coup,

Who basically runs his own cult,

Who inspired an online cult that'll probably be reborn when he once again takes office,

Who wants the military to occupy our streets, run our borders, and round up brown people as a show of strength and illusion of safety,

Who demonizes immigrants in hopes that they'll be attacked by militias, street gangs, and white mobs,

Who collabs with Christian Nationalists to sell autographed Bibles,

Who claims that Israel has a "FINISH THE JOB" as they invade neighboring countries and lay waste to entire cities and villages,

Who proclaims they're anti-war, but then brags about all the weapons we sell to countries engaged in blatant war crimes,

Who thinks we're still the mighty capitalist empire that we can make any country bend a knee to upon threat of a sanction or tariff,

Who sincerely believes that he need to constantly present America as a threat to the world in order to get his way,

Who sincerely believes that he need to constantly present himself as a threat to the American populace in order to get his way,

A president who is mad that he doesn't get the respect and power he believes he is entitled to.

***

Election 2024 has once again showed me that we, as a populace, are proud that an attempted insurrection took place (which we then claim all who took part in it were feds after they inevitably failed),

We adore a president so damn much that, when he's obviously fucking up, we tell our friends, family, and other loved ones, with a straight face, that he has a "SECRET PLAN" to save America,

We only consider free speech something that can be used for slurs, threats, and making content where, to everyone with even a smidgen of self-awareness, comes off as unhinged, annoying, and weird,

We beg and plead for faceless, dystopian soldiers to take over the streets of major cities that we complain are the source of our small town problems (and will never visit unless it involves the chance to fuck shit up while being protected by cops),

We want pregnant women to be monitored like cattle,

We target trans folks the second they express a sliver of their true selves,

We cheer whenever Israel blows up a hospital or refugee camp, since that feeds our unquenchable thirst for Muslim blood,

We mock Native Americans as their lands are turned into hellscapes for a substance that is decimating the planet more and more each year,

We condescend to black folks, telling them they should have just "OBEYED THE LAW" when they're openly being brutalized and murdered by pigs,

We claim we're anti-war, then froth whenever the possibility that we'll get into a conflict with Iran, North Korea, Mexico, or China arises,

Who adore American war criminals, and believe we need to emulate them to win wars,

We dismiss mass shootings with thoughts, prayers, and calls for mental health services we’ll never support,

We will gladly submit to laws, policies, and changes to our lives—from healthcare, to censorship, to infrastructure, etc. —that will clearly make our lives worse, because we're so stupid, masochist, and vengeful that we'll do anything to fuck each other over in order to feel superior.

We're a populace who are mad that we don't get the respect and power we believe we are entitled to.

***

Election 2024 has once again showed that, despite being the late-thirties hardened, haunted, graying, high-blood pressured socialist I am, there's still a microscopic part of me left over from my years of being a teenage lib and optimistic, early-twenties anarchist, that believes that things will change for the better in large, quick, definitive ways.

Someone that sees the ending of something atrocious and believes, "Welp, THAT’LL never happen again."

Then the fucking thing happens again, and I fall into a despair that most often manifests an angry outbursts akin to a Patton Oswalt, David Cross, or any other 2000's-era Alt Comedy act—where I react by throwing up your arms, and screaming, "SERIOUSLY?! We're doing this shit AGAIN?! Oh, COME THE FUCK ON!!!"

I get slammed with every statistic, reasoning, ideology, historical precedent, and observations that tells me I'm wrong to feel this way.

I immediately get hopeium shot into my brain from all types of posters—from liberals doling out inspirational quotes while blaming Green Party candidates and wishing the worst to happen to oppressed populations who didn't vote for their genocider candidate, to leftists telling me that my feelings are valid, but also that I'm stupid and cringe for thinking anything better can happen within this capitalist hellhole, and to stop being a whiny pussy and organize.

The mostly rational side of me agrees that there's still hope, that things can change for the better, and that we’re all part of a long chain of working people's struggle. 

It'll sink back in eventually, but until then I despair.

Not even the generally optimistic words and lyrics of Woody Guthrie, the person I look up to the most in regards to my morality, values, and hopefulness, can get me out of this funk.

***

It's so hard having socialist beliefs while feeling so goddamn hopeless most of the time.

Joe Strummer is absolutely right: People CAN change anything they want to.

Unfortunately, in America, that change is, most of the time, for FUCKING FASCISM. 

GARRET SCHUELKE is a writer, podcaster, and musician that currently resides in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is the author of the GODAN series (Bakunin Incorporated), Anamakee (Riot Forge Studios, 2016), Whup Jamboree: Stories (Elmblad Media Group, 2017), and three ebooks. He is also the host of The Garret Schuelke Podcast, The Cheeseburger Blues: An Exploration into Dad Blues Rock, and A Riot of my Own. He makes music under the moniker Neobeatglory.

To learn more, visit Garret Schuelke’s official website: garrxxqxx x wzx,wx

q 1xX ×- etschuelke.tumblr.com. 

My Fake Vagina By Brian Rosenberger

In my younger years, I worked at a college bookstore,

In shipping and receiving on the 2nd floor of the building.

It suited me fine. I worked mostly alone, didn’t have to deal

With my coworkers, mostly 20-something college students 

Except for the older owners in a family-owned business.

I listened to AM news and CDs of my choosing.

Boxes of books could weigh 50+ lbs.

I was 20-something and could handle it.

I could bench-press the book weight, sexism, racism, 

Marital affairs, and in-house bullies with little effort. 

I did say it was a family-owned business, right?

I always figured I could take the owner, his wife, his dad

In a fist-fight if needed. Their kids too.

One morning, I delivered the discarded cardboard 

To the dumpster in our parking lot.

There I discovered the artificial vagina.

The dumpster was empty except for the rubber pussy.

It had become a shrine, some holy place overnight.

It may have glowed. Writer’s embellishment.

The object was smaller than a basketball. Still magical.

Abandoned, unloved, and unwanted.

Maybe, not unwanted.

It was hairless, flawless. Immaculate.

I took the pussy home.

Washed it. Loved it. Fucked it.

Repeatedly.

There’s your Happy Ending.

Brian Rosenberger lives in a cellar in Marietta, GA and writes by the light of captured fireflies. He is the author of As the Worm Turns and three poetry collections - Poems That Go Splat, And For My Next Trick..., and Scream for Me.

After You Sold My Horse and Maybe My Dog By Trish Saunders

You warned me: don’t go into this memory toolshed 

In a parallel life, none of it happened 

you didn’t die of ALS, you stayed married

to my mother who didn’t lose her brother, 

his parachute opened safely over Lorraine,

and just why is that my middle name? 

What have I to do with occupied France? 

Grass under my window was trampled by tots

playing hide and seek, not by your boots.

A rifle slanting across the barn door  

casts a thin shadow that looks like you. It’s not. 

I haven’t seen my appaloosa mare in weeks,   

my poodle, too, is missing, it’s been a long while  

since I heard his tail thumping on the rug. 

Did any of this happen? I can no longer be sure. 

I’ve been practicing saying, “fuck off” to old photos 

in case anyone in them is still alive, or maybe

I’ll leave flowers on some stranger’s grave.  

 Trish Saunders hates an oxford comma. She was fired from her last editing job.  

Angels and outlaw ballads By Dennis Moriarty

The fire is fed, the whisky poured, the joint rolled.

I sip and inhale

watching a clock that does not tick, a pendulum

that does not swing,

time tonight is my best friend. I sing along to an

outlaw ballad,

my finger poised on the trigger of an imaginary

gun, a midnight showdown.

The room shimmers in the firelight, the hearth

a stage occupied 

by a seventies dance troop of angels gyrating

with the devil.

I hear spiders spinning their webs in darkest 

corners, openly mocking.

Suddenly the clock begins to tick, the pendulum

begins to swing

between sanity and madness, time is a two faced

lying bastard.

I squeeze the trigger and the song lays dying

on my lips,

the angels scream and melt into the devils arms.

The fire spits and hisses

like a bad tempered snake on speed. The glass

is drained, the joint is smoked.

Dennis Moriarty was born in London, England and now lives in Wales. Married with five grown up offspring Dennis likes walking the dog in the mountains, reading and writing.

In 2017 he won the Blackwater poetry competition and went to county Cork in Ireland to read his work at the international poetry festival. Dennis has had poems featured in many publications including Blue nib, Our poetry archive, Setu bilingual, The passage between and others.

Struggle Bus By Alex S. Johnson

Take the wheel she

said this

Will not move. The ruts 

exhaled a bittersweet smell

It did not smell like victory.

Whoever, eventually, in this case

it's you,

Dies alone. Mourning the gradual 

decay of their faculties and

The perfume of pre-morbid 

Death.

A slab of marble already

etched in

Heaven

With words that singe, black

Imperishable

A spiral of dark

Energy driving it down

like sex

Over and over and over. 

Alex S. Johnson is a journalist, dark fiction author, poet, editor and publisher. A few of his books are THE DOOM HIPPIES, DOCTOR FLESH, BIZARRELY DEPARTED, FREAKS OF HELL, BUREAU OF DREAMS, THE FLOWERS OF DOOM and SKULL VINYL. He runs Nocturnicorn Books, does THE SMOL BEAR N' PICKLES YOUTUBE SHOW with his partner Alea Celeste Wiliams, and has inhabited a body lacerated with terrible pain for the past seven years. He lives in Carmichael, California with his family. 

Proverbs 32 By Catherine Zickgraf

Wise women have said

don’t play with scary friends. 

Don’t run straight for a path of distress 

if you already see where it goes.

 

And if your young eyes are still opening,   

remember don’t play with danger.

Wise women have warned you,

and they’ve lived enough you can trust 

they see around some corners.  

 

Listen: 

don’t bond your spirit with evil people

who will abandon you so deep 

in the darkness you’ll never be seen again. 

 

Wise women have said 

choose your paths wisely because 

you can’t go back to where you began.  

 

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

Morning Ghazal By Wendy Cartwright

Tart sour locks up churning guts, relieved only 

by bitter in the back of my throat, hold on,

chased with sweet nicotine, deep breaths,

ruminations, and all I can think is hold on.

Marching band in my skull, sousaphone bells

clang against one another in rhythm, hold on,

with clarinet reeds chipped by preteen braces 

and too little spit, just trying to hold on.

Fists clenched around palms full of air,

The only way I know to hold on.

Wendy Cartwright is a poet/author/photographer/reporter/columnist/weirdo (among other things) out of Columbus, Indiana. Her travels have taken her as far as Mayan Ruins and as near as the filling station. Her undiscerning tastes allow her to find creative fodder regardless of location. She has been published in various print anthologies and featured in online publications. She has also self-published 3 books.

Extinction By Manny Grimaldi

I once sacrificed everything in the world for her, 

my sales cases filled with cold leads and racing magazines.

Ledgers a jumble of numbers drawn up the middle 

and edges burned—I’m as solid a failure 

at slinging vacuum cleaners as ice cubes bragging 

they could resist mint, bourbon, sugar and heat.

Not having a sale and needing one fluffs me up,

pulls my soles up through my shoes on to the back

of my teeth where I stop, a worrisome son of man.

I can’t talk my talk with her anymore—a clown fish 

in an anemone put off by the searching fingers inside 

her thoughts waving in the salt. She’s gone.

Now, I am a meaningless collection

of vinyl records to entice you near me for a night

of salacious boogie-butt screwing—the Grappelli, 

the Reinhardt, the Brubeck, the Davis, the Coltrane, 

the Mingus, Queen and the Tubes—but still I do better. 

I find stillness deep in a world made for love,

a field of swept roots and tubers and dewy lettuces.

It’s that I’m tired, talking about talking about talking 

about being a man. I feel like a ghost in need of security. 

Planting a bed. Burying. Slow the beat. Blues and roots 

fill me. Memories of pause.

Manny Grimaldi is a father of two beautiful children that receive letters in the mail from him when he isn’t with them, and a Kentucky poet. He is the author of the full length poetry collection Riding Shotgun with the Mothman, and chapbook ex libris Ioannes Cerva (anonymus scriptus). During the year he also serves as managing editor for Lexington, Kentucky’s Yearling Poetry Journal under Workhorse Writers.