Rob Plath

doomed love songs

baudelaire you died at 46
& i feel guilty b/c i’m 51 now
why should i live longer than a beautiful dark giant?
maybe living longer isn’t so great
especially if yr a failure like myself
living in a busted dungeon alone
baudelaire there are so many cigarette burns
in this carpet
like the fossils of fallen black stars
i count them over & over but still can’t sleep
the windows are falling out of their rotted sills
i stub my insomniac toes on broken tiles
in the sleepless dark
the cat is sleeping in the window tho
the moon light a ghostly second coat
every decrepit window is magic w/ her in it
baudelaire i’d give you my five years if i could
just to see another poem of yrs
you lovely green haired dandy of doom
i feel guilty for walking about on the planet
while my idols are mere dust
baudelaire i smoked outside before
while october crickets sang for love
last week i read their amorous songs attract parasitic flies tho
that lay eggs w/ in the cricket
& then worms eat the cricket from the inside out
baudelaire i think some dark thing
laid eggs in my heart too
the more lines i get down
the more i feel something tearing out
baudelaire the ceiling is dripping
in the sleepless dark i imagine it’s blood
& i am christened by trickle drops
as i stumble to the door
w/ a bloody forehead
to smoke beneath october stars
as somewhere another cricket bursts
open w/ parasitic worms
for singing too much
for wanting love too much

Rob Plath lives in New York with his cat Daisy. He does his best to stay out of trouble. He’s been publishing his work for about 28 years. See more about him at robplath.com

John Tustin

Inclusivity

Every literary journal claims to be searching far and wide
For the poet who is not like the others;
The poet who has been previously and permanently excluded
By society at large and the literary gatekeepers in particular

And I want to tell them about
How I loved her more than anyone could;
How my hate is as spectacularly unique
As my love;

That I graduated from nowhere,
I learned only through life, the books I’ve chosen,
The pain I’ve internalized, the rays of sadness
That beam from my house alone;

That I’m the only me there is,
My uniqueness extends everywhere –
From the words I choose to my odd gait
To the thoughts I think and attempt to convey

And that my cover letter doesn’t say anything
Not better expressed in the packet of poems
They may or may not end up reading
After they decide whether or not I’m in the Class of the Excluded.



Deadline

He put the pistol in my hand.
Don’t ask me what kind,
I didn’t know anything about guns.

They found the place where we were hiding.
I could see the light from flashlights
and the sounds of people trying not to make noise.

“I don’t know anything about guns,”
I whispered
as the noises downstairs got louder and closer.

“You better figure it out quick,” he said,
“or you’ll be learning about bullet wounds
in about two minutes.”

It took about ninety seconds
but I figured it out.
I’ve always responded to deadlines.

John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals since 2009. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.

Tohm Bakelas

160 E. Main Street

down at the exchange
where coke is passed around
like change owed from a tab,
i sit in the darkness
with my beer and pay no mind.

in this life we all have
too many chances
but not enough fight,
not enough fight and
too many chances.

but down here we all gather,
a lost congregation
praying for continued solitude
with fading hope that
an unfamiliar face
says “hello.”

but here the coke goes to and fro,
up noses and tucked into
seamless pantyhose, blue bras,
and flannel shirt pockets.

and in the darkness i wait,
cigarette lit, beer sweating,
me sweating, while tomorrow
morning creeps in, and soon
i’ll return to a place where
people laugh all day long
when no jokes are being told,
where no jokes are ever told.

Tohm Bakelas is a social worker in a psychiatric hospital. He was born in New Jersey, resides there, and will die there. His poems have appeared in numerous journals, zines, and online publications. He has published 14 chapbooks. His most recent collection of poetry No Destination (Kung Fu Treachery Press, 2021) is still available. He runs Between Shadows Press.

Tony Brewer

The Doctor Is In

Sitting in my car gloving up
before mask on to buy groceries

I’m in Mindy West’s old
Ford Fiesta – 1986 we’re parked
in gravel between cornfields

her back seat jammed with wet
swim practice towels

as we navigate her stick shift
for a hustle in the front buckets

Gloving up with the news on
is Bon Jovi out of a boom box

because her car has no stereo
and every time feels like that first

Gloves snug as jeans
opening the nitrile cuff and inserting
my fingers bunched as bananas
flexing in ecstasy at the bind

carefully rough and excited
and scared and embarrassed

adding a layer of alone
is nothing like in the movies

her eager smile and that damp
hair in that moonlight

while at Kroger beneath the stare
of 360-degree surveillance lot cams

projected death tolls I cannot turn off
not feeling wild – wild in the streets

She guiding like a nurse
as I operate on a school night

with a playful snap of left glove
skin and breath weaponized

my bare fingers her anticipation
knees banging spasmodic against wheel wells

All survival acts should taste like this

I step out quiet in the populated void
onto the angled painted parking of a city

neither desperate nor essential
but still here and makeshift masked

bandana close as her mouth
wiping down the cart like a murderer
when once we were all over each other’s hands

rolling bravely through the automatic
sliding doors into a touchable doom
where not a soul can see me smile

Tony Brewer has lived in Indiana forever. His is author of The History of Projectiles (Alien Buddha Press, 2021) and Pity for Sale (Gasconade Press, 2022), among other titles. More at tonybrewer71@blogspot.com.

Tom Barlow

When the Music's Over

the first time a young person
yields hir seat on the bus to me
I will throw down / my target
dressed in bell bottoms and tie-dyes /

head band and peace sign /
following me like I was holding
a joint behind my ear / on my way
to The Lizard King's grave /

past the ghosts of American flags
we flew upside down in front of
the White House / back in the day
when we loathed ourselves for

all the faces our people trampled as
we scrambled to hold the high ground /
but the shame did not outlast
the costume / and our zero sum games

meant that ambition had to build
a bonfire of our poems and guitars /
we escaped Love Street by
that light / but the suckers who

staked themselves to 1968 right
through the heart found that
their blood at retail would
barely pay for the time machine

that set them down here to see
how the clouds carry such regret
for riders on the storm.

Tom Barlow is an Ohio author of poetry, short stories and novels. His writings have appeared in  journals and anthologies including  PlainSongs, Ekphrastic Review, Voicemail Poetry, Hobart, Tenemos, Redivider, Aji,  The New York Quarterly, The Modern Poetry Quarterly, and many more. See more at tombarlowauthor.com.