Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Factory Stacks

driving into Sudbury

from the West

the scars of man spill over

a billowing drug buy

sky

rock that has been there

for tens of thousands of years

blown away in an instant

for a new double lane

highway

and they bury the slag

so you never see it,

the grass an unnatural green

after a couple of years

so there are jobs

and quotas

and things can go on

like before

the hitchhiker along the side

of the road

thumbing his way to house parties

where things

go

missing.

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Rusty Truck, In Between Hangovers, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.

Mark Borczon

Hunting Dinosaurs With A Needle In My Arm

I smoke roses to get high

And I get drunk on sun tea in the morning

I fix my arm tattoos with sharpie markers

And I collect artwork depicting bull fights

My joints ache as a side effect from

Medication for hypertension

My muscles ache as a side effect from

Back breaking, physical toil

I am fifty one years old

And I make twenty seven thousand

Dollars a year

I don’t believe in heaven

I do believe in vodka

I did quite well in college

But I struggle in life

I never, ever confuse

One with the other

I know that youth is privileged

And forgiving

I know that middle age

Is not

I no longer sleep on my mother’s couch

If you do I kindly invite you

To go fuck yourself

Time and endurance earn the right

To judge and so

I judge

If life is pass/ fail

Then everything leans on

Who reads the work

The bankers and the preachers

Grade the test

One way

The poets and the dreamers

Grade the test

Another way

I hunt dinosaurs with a needle

In my arm

And I sit with holocaust survivors

On the city bus

I drink rain water from a wooden

Barrel that held the body

Of a four year old girl

Killed by the Klan

Someday I’m gonna burn my work boots

Mark S. Borczon is a poet and caregiver from Erie, Pa. He will publish his first book of poetry in over twenty years through Nixes Mate press later this year or early next. He is the father of three awesome daughters who teach him love on a daily basis. In his free time he is a talented banjo player and a guitar player who knows how to find all the notes. He is terrified of the internet so this biography is written by his identical twin who loves him and admires his work as only a brother can.

J.J. Campbell

admire those long legs 

whispers

in the haze

 

not all these

places give a

shit about a

smoking ban

 

another round

of something

evil for the

classy lady

effectively

using her

cleavage to

her advantage

 

grab a chair

and admire

those long

legs

 

and come to

terms with that

bulge between

her legs in the

morning

 

there's no time

for questions

of morality

when the liquor

tastes this good

J.J. Campbell (1976 - ?) is currently trapped in suburbia. He's been widely published over the years, most recently at In Between Hangovers, Mad Swirl, Chiron Review, Synchronized Chaos and Winedrunk Sidewalk. You can find J.J. most days bitching about something on his highly entertaining blog, evil delights. (http://evildelights.blogspot.com)

Matthew Borczon

a boy

just broke

my 18

yr old

daughters

heart for

the first

time

she says

she’s afraid

she will

never sleep

again and

I hear

her cry

in the

next room

until sleep

finally comes

in the

end it’s

me who

is up

all night

thinking

about all

the plastic

horses and

Barbie dolls

I fixed

over the

years all

the jewelry

I untangled

back when

you believed

my love

and patience

and glue

could fix

everything.

(For Hannah)

Matthew Borczon is a poet and navy sailor from Erie, pa. He has published four books of poetry; A Clock of Human Bones through Yellow Chair Review Press, Battle lines through Epic Rights, Ghost Train through Weasel Press and, new this month, Sleepless nights and Ghost soldiers through Grey Boarders press. He publishes widely in the small press. When he is not writing, he's raising four children with his wife of 20 years.

Explosives, by Howie Good

That night anything could have happened. It’s not often that you hear the blast of explosives in a place where children are sleeping. Either a bomb was planted or someone blew himself up. The cops are at the door right now looking for him. People should be concerned over what will disappear next. It’s like you’ve lost your car keys at night in your backyard and you’re searching for them through a toilet paper roll with a flashlight.

*
br> The open eye is very human. I saw swarms of people running away and my first reaction was “gun,” so I ran, too. The important thing was to go into another world. I would be a lot less afraid if I just knew what it was called. The scariest are the ones that stop right behind your heart.

*

Buildings are always crime scenes. The dress code is trench coats and fedoras. I heard him load his gun. And then I saw his gun was black. I’m going to leave flowers at the place where it happened. There was blood everywhere, and a sound like flies buzzing against the glass. Everybody was crying—should I join them? It was hard to hold back those tears.

Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of The Loser's Guide to Street Fighting, winner of the 2017 Lorien Prize from ThoughtCrime Press, and Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements, winner of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry. He co-edits White Knuckle Press with Dale Wisely.

Richard Merrill

Living without gps

Travel up the common

femoral artery

to the junction of walk

and don't walk. Leave latitude

for the heart, its sextant lost

in the remains of route 66, or plot

a solution;

I've got my spine I've got my Orange crush.

Broken mirrors vivisect the man, all roads lead

to Polaris, scattered bearings.  

Find some other track side

noodling in the dark, people

losing time, lost being

lost between the Crux and nebulas.

Steer into the long way home, find

where found is hidden in the magnetic

resonance, images of small intestine

and appendix, the parallax of travel where

no one can run to, or from.

Richard Merrill is an unrealized poet. As well as an unrealized farmer, architect, Lego artist, and ultracyclist. It took him a while to accept the term; trucker. Lately he has realized he is very much that. He hopes the reader finds some merit in his work.

Hillary Leftwich

I’m calling you out.

You’re a dream

but never a reality.

You’re everywhere

on the streets and in my sheets.

I work all day and catch

the Colfax bus home at night.

You’re everywhere on the bus;

your smells, your faces, your rage.

There is a woman

twitching in her seat

from withdrawals.

I’m too scared

to sit next to her.

I see the face

of the man who tried

to kill me every day

in my son’s face.

How can I love this boy

with all my heart when

he looks like the one person

I hate the most?

I can’t wake up.

I can’t move.

The psychiatrist tells me

it’s sleep paralysis but

I think it’s you.

I can solve Algebra equations

in my dreams

but I can’t figure out

how to live

off $2300 bucks a month

with three jobs

and a son to raise.

Soon he will lose

his Medicaid because

of a man who cares more

about the size of his hands

than the size of his heart.

There’s no equation that solves

how I can save my son

from the seizures

that are going to kill him.

My eyes aren’t brown

they’re hazel

but who gives a fuck

when no one looks you

in the eye anymore?

Men tell me it’s so cute

when I try to write poetry

and read in front of people.

This is how the world is, honey.

Put your big girl panties on.

You’re prettier when you smile.

Swallow next time, will ya?

I can’t get the smell

of bleach

out of my nostrils

that I use to scrub

the black mold

off my son’s bedroom walls.

It’s killing us.

My credit sucks

and I can’t afford to move.

You have me in a choke hold.

What happened to the bed

I slept in when I was five?

What happened to my baby blanket

that protected me

from the hands

of strange men and women

trying to touch me?

My dad threw it away

like you’re throwing us away.

I can’t scrub everything clean.

The bleach makes it look

like the mold is gone

and the walls are clean

when they’re really not.

Some of us can see it

but too many of us can’t.

It was never gone.

It’s still here,

Growing.

Killing us

with every single breath that we take.

Hillary Leftwich is co-host for At the Inkwell, a NYC based reading series and organizes/hosts other reading events around Denver. Her writing can be found in print and online.