The Last Week by Bruce Hodder

'Jesus, what does it take with you?'
she asked me underneath the duvet
in the last week of our love affair,
when her right hand failed to reach me
like it used to, and she cramped.

About Bruce Hodder:

Bruce Hodder lives with his wife Michelle in Northampton, England, the most statistically average town in the UK. He has been published in many magazines and online, most recently in ‘Winedrunk Sidewalk’, ‘Under the Bleachers’ and ‘The Rye Whiskey Review’.

Please check out Bruce Hodder's book The Journey Home:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/bruce-hodder/the-journey-home/paperback/product-24163986.html

Driving Stoned in North Chicago by PW Covington

I am driving stoned in North Chicago
Waukegan Avenue, all the way to Fountain Square
And, I’m hitting every light green, mile after mile
Charmed
Blessed
One of those cold April nights, when Winter reminds us
She’ll stay as long as she pleases

And I’d be jazzed
If things were different
If you hadn’t just told me about the biopsies
That came back malignant
Cancer
And it’s spread
To the lymph nodes

But, not to tell anyone else, just yet

And, you brew coffee
Strong, boiled, stove top…dangerous
And we smoke in your kitchen
American Spirits from the yellow box,
Then, a joint of some hydro-grown sativa strain
We do the math in dog years, 8…maybe 7
Since we last shared space

Before Sacred Wounds set my words to wheels

It all flies by
Like driving stoned, at night
And hitting every light green
Red reserved for canvas tennis shoes
And other lanes of traffic
Other avenues
To heaven

About  PW Covington:

   PW Covington's writing is inspired by the grit and greatness of the North American highway.

he has been invited to perform across the hemisphere, and his short fiction collection North Beach and Other Stories was recently named a finalist in LGBTQ Fiction by the International Book Awards.

Follow him on Insta @BeatPW

Fear the Senses by Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal

I fear the senses
coming and going.
I mine for feelings
hidden in my heart.
I know my thoughts have
stalled. My organs have
shut down. I rely

on my eyes to see.
My health is all I
had. How I suffer
in my soul? I mine
my heart for strength. I
just have one. I don’t
know why I’ve gone mad.

About Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal:

Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, born in Mexico, lives in Southern California, and works in the mental health field in Los Angeles. His first book of poems, Raw Materials, was published by Pygmy Forest Press. His poetry online and in print has appeared in Ariel Chart, Blue Collar

Review, Kendra Steiner Editions, Mad Swirl, Unlikely Stories, and Yellow Mama Magazine.

lesson plan of the damned by Ben Newell

I’m reading Robert Bloch’s

Psycho II.



Norman kills a nun with a tire iron

then bangs her

in the back of a van.



Necrophiliac Norman Nails Nun—



An excellent example of alliteration

but probably not the best choice

if you want

to hold on to your teaching job.

About Ben Newell:

Ben Newell dropped out of the Bennington Writing Seminars during his first semester, eventually resuming his studies at Spalding University where he earned an MFA.  His first full-length collection of poetry, Fuzzball, was recently published by Epic Rites Press. 

https://www.amazon.com/Fuzzball-Ben-Newell/dp/1926860667/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=fuzzball&qid=1563733227&s=books&sr=1-2

Rodeo of the Soul II by Daniel W. Wright

Two years is a long eight seconds
Garden grows
Don’t ask the same question too many times
The rich get richer and the poor get prison
There's much more beyond the sea of reality
Ghosts of revolutionaries haunt
the silence of modern worlds

I don’t know what to do with a God
Take it away before it scares me
Winds rev themselves up
to be so cold they burn
Education leaves San Francisco
as starving artists
struggle through winter
without four walls
Buena Vista Park bohemians
ready to kill for an ounce

Early morning anxieties
remind you that being working class
these days
only means you’re poor
but don’t do meth
Don’t care about being rich
just don’t wanna be poor
Drinking in Whitman’s chair
underneath Brooklyn Bridge
Artistic entitlement
entangles half-wit writers
in their own mess
Last lessons to unlearn
Freedom isn’t always what you want

Mickey Mouse motorboats Marilyn Monroe
as Medusa Madonna eats McDonalds
Yin Yang Charlie Brown eats Chinese food and Donuts
Empty bottles are the church bells
of that which is unfulfilled
God points an American made gun
at Adam

Psychedelic tantrums no longer progressive
Sitar spangled banner
brings rain to wash reality
to cover the earth with new dew
Death masks lie in wait
within the eye of silence
Tree trunk coffin for lovers
Nothing closer to the spiritual plane
than music
pure and easy
Carve out a book and call it home
Those who look to the stars
are never alone

Too tight to incinerate
Mirror only reflects curves
Choir forsaken Christ mystic
lonely for the archetypal arch angels
to shape world
Kingdom defeats diffusion
speaks in riddles to communicate
Faces reflect in Rorschach slides
Closed eyes put head in the sand
Just be a big boy,
It’ll all be over soon

Face to face with dead eyes
on the battlefield
where the moon says
I love you
Exhausted dreams
lose place in countdowns
Kick the bottle
Watch it skid
Success has many fathers
but failure’s an orphan

About Daniel W. Wright:

Daniel W. Wright is a mid-western son who loves and loathes the red brick town that surrounds him. A poet of the no collar work force, Wright’s work has appeared in the Gasconade Review, Bad Jacket, Acid Kat, Crappy Hour, Eleven, and The Rye Whiskey Review. His previous works include Rodeo of the Soul, The Death of the Ladies Man, Small Town Blues: Early Lyrics and Poems, Portrait, Murder City Special, and Working Bohemian’s Blues. Wright currently lives in St. Louis, where you can usually find him in a bar or a bookstore.

River#5 by Wayne F. Burke

About Wayne F. Burke:

Wayne F. Burke has published six full-length volumes of poetry, most recently DIFLUCAN (BareBack Press, 2019).

A link to the book:

             https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/192644924X/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

Stan & I by Damian Rucci

At 1 am

the store goes

on break

Stan and I

hit the front parking lot

we smoke

beneath the gray

winter sky

&

tell stories

about the outside world

I want to see

the country,

the wide Buffalo

beaten plains of

North Dakota

The blue of

New Mexican skies

Stan misses Miami

the way the women

shook their crotches

in his face in those clubs

the way the cocaine

glows beneath neon lights

we both just want something

more

than this

About Damian Rucci:

Damian Rucci's work has recently appeared in Cultural Weekly, Public House, Beatdom, and coffee shops and basements across the country He is the author of three chapbooks and a split with Ezhno Martin. Damian hosted the Poetry in the Port reading series, now hosts the Belle Ringer Open mic, and is a poet in residence at the Osage Arts Community in Belle, MO. You can reach him at damian.rucci@gmail.com