Kenneth Pobo

Plans to Stay

My husband remembers

to buy milk before the container

at home expires and he makes sure

that my computer doesn’t catch

whatever electronic flu

is going around.  I’m not an easy guy. 

Sometimes I’m a pencil, the lead

breaking just when you want

to write a note to stick on the door

for the propane dude.  This could be

an anniversary poem.  27 years,

a couple of bluebirds, beautiful,

but ready to fly away. 

We promised forever.  That’s not possible,

so we took till death do us part.  Death

always finds our living room.

We watch TV and eat popcorn,

hold hands.  Even then,

it doesn’t take a hint. 

It plans to stay.

Confederate Judy

On Halloween I learned

I’d better not dress

as Judy Garland.  That would

get me beat up.  Why can’t

a boy sing “Over the Rainbow”

on a suburban street?

Instead I wore a gray jacket

and told candy-givers

I was a Confederate soldier.

We lived in Illinois—

no one blinked.

A boy can be military

even if he looks like

a schnook kid in baggy pants—

I wore Judy in my head,

belted out “The Man Who Got Away”

and savored my Butterfingers.

Kenneth Pobo has a new book out from a press in India (www.cyberwit.com) called Wingbuds.  Forthcoming from the Poetry Society of Alabama is his chapbook called Your Place Or Mine.

Joey Gould

A12 After a Concert 

Full after a meal

we recline,

this night different

from a normal night

in the way the cool hits

our overwarm bodies.

Sated, ears popping,

hardly hearing Bjork

on the tapedeck singing

All is Full of Love

on the A12

& the radio leaves a wake of sound waves

skipping over the pond.

Streetlights morph & distort

Nicky’s half-sleep half-smile,

Karen’s knuckles curl

& cuddle the steering wheel.

We listen listlessly

every hard breath of soft

night air we sigh.

My forehead touches the glass

and melts into condensation,

I am parched, but drink

2 am like I’ve been desert-crawling

between panes of chilled glass.

In the dark,

eighth notes scatter behind us.

Joey Gould, a non-binary writing tutor, wrote The Acute Avian Heart (2019, Lily Poetry Review).  Twice nominated for Bettering American Poetry and once for a Pushcart Prize, Joey's work has appeared in Paper Nautilus, The Compassion Anthology, Memoir Mixtapes, & District Lit. Joey's character Izzie Hexxam features in The Poetry Society of New York’s Poetry Brothel. A long-time event organizer at Mass Poetry, they plan & execute poetry events at Salem Arts Festival. They also write 100-word reviews as poetry editor for Drunk Monkeys and write a weekly poetry prompt & analysis at JoeyGouldPoetry.wordpress.com

Dennis Mahagin

Don’t Want

 

Air Sickness

is a walk in the park

compared to 

withdrawal, they say

we are free to 

move, to fall

about the cabin. 

I have a nightmare

I meet her boyfriend

while standing in line at the Walgreens pharmacy; 

he lets me know in low, burning tones

the way she likes it,

the way it was going

to stay, he said, lightly gripping

my elbow like a prison guard

leading a skel

back to his cell. “she makes me

crazy enough to bust a motherfucker,” 

he says, “and you don’t want that, you don’t 

want it here, right?” I shake my head, then

nod, as my turn comes 

at the Walgreens

window; 

the pharmacist slides my package 

across the counter. We hit it, that 

turbulence, more and more 

turbulence, yet the woman

in question stays right there, 

in my mind, 

a kind of living grief in bas relief; 

then I’m back 

on the plane. We continue 

our climb. 

I whisper 

to the flight attendant 

struggling in the aisle,

as she’s swaying there, 

with a tight-lipped

smile and her tray of drinks. I say, 

listen, I say, listen I don’t want 

this anymore.

Dennis Mahagin is a writer and musician from Montana.

His poems have appeared in magazines such as Exquisite 

Corpse, Juked, Thrush Journal, DecomP, Oddball, Unlikely 

Stories, 3 A,M., Stirring: A Literary Collection, and  previously at Live Nude Poems. Dennis has published two poetry books:Grand Mal, from Rebel Satori Press, and Longshot & Ghazal, from Mojave River Press. Dennis is the poetry editor for Frigg Magazine. He runs a music store in a town called Deer Lodge.

Howie Good

Complicity

We dance with skeletons. We steal cable. We leave violent stains on the carpet. We shift the blame to the fellaheen digging for papyri at an ancient historical site. We cross off career options. We put likeable liars in office and dark-skinned mothers and babies in jail. We go around looking for this or that clue, this or that miraculous city, without even once catching a glimpse. Rather, where our gaze just happens to fall, worse soon follows. The ground bleeds, the moon aches. Fire chews through brick walls. Ideas lose elasticity. The dreaming heads of sleepers get pried open.

Howie Good is the author most recently of Stick Figure Opera from Cajun Mutt Press, What It Is and How to Use It from Grey Book Press, and Spooky Action at a Distance from Analog Submission Press. He co-edits the online journals Unbroken and UnLost.