Live Nude Poems

Fired I remember being called to the office of the vice president of human resources with the consultant hired just for this occasion, who looked nothing like George Clooney from that movie and who told me I wasn’t a fit in their future which made axing me as legitimate as losing my designated parking spot. I wasn’t allowed to gather personal things like family photos or simply saying goodbye, but when they took my Blackberry (despite it holding the details of everyone I knew) I felt stripped of more than that job but every job I ever had. But let me be completely honest with you, dear reader, I fired myself. I hated that place and most of the people who worked in it. I hated stepping up the worn marble stairs to my third-floor office with its view of the iconic New England town and its square which was actually a circle but I digress. I worked for the money. I never harbored lofty dreams, had no causes I believed in, no aspirations to do

School The day Magic Johnson      was diagnosed with H.I.V. I punched James in the      face in the high school playground for calling      him a faggot. I saw James 5 years later on      Darlinghurst Street, muscular and tanned,      in tight white jeans, aviator sunglasses,      and a hot-pink singlet. His arm lovingly around      another man with similar clothes and build. I      smiled, "Both he and Magic have somehow      made it," I thought as they continued along      the road. Brenton Booth lives in Sydney, Australia. Poetry of his has appeared in New York Quarterly, Chiron Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Main Street Rag, Naugatuck River Review, Van Gogh's Ear, and Nerve Cowboy. He has two full length collections available from Epic Rites Press. brentonbooth.weebly.com

Affliction with no subtle pageantry the small rodents of the natural world descend from the trees to devour green chestnuts on the front steps, cascading detritus and chewed husk in all directions, delighted consumption, basking bright in the summer sun as within I wither away in shadow, looking upon the world through a window shade of blue, replete with disease, my slow recovery in solitude amongst books in neat piles, fastidious organization and humming fans billowing my sick room as I wait and watch the local rodents celebrate another season without finance or time-cards or weaponry or nuclear codes or advertising money or corporate executive officers or the empty rooms in an empty house where children once played, now ghosts that haunt dreams and makes one wonder what else waits beyond the veil as recovery crawls through the veins and cells and daydream hopes within me, sitting by the window in this summer of contagion James H Duncan is the editor of Hobo Camp Review and the au

Nostalgia Porn A new episode of Silver Spoons brightened the living room after dinner, my mother in her room passed out from a long day of work to make the rent, my older brother in his room in a fierce Mike Tyson's Punch-Out trance. I was always outside in the backyard, pacing back and forth with my hands on my head like antennae talking in another language, in a world far away from the reality of my father being just a voice on the phone and the promise of happiness in adulthood when all the dreams in my head would come true and make up for the void I filled with Fonzi, Gilligan, Bill Murray and my other friends in the box I wanted to leap inside of and be rescued, and my family would all see me inside the box with a silver spoon sticking out of my mouth and a million dollar haircut on my head, in a time when I would no longer have to survive on just the weary, lonesome stardust of daydream reruns. Kevin Ridgeway ’s latest book is “

Night Tide Because it was cold in the surf and you went off on that dead shark, pissed about the morning when we tossed confetti like rocks, you had grass in your socks and you told me the field, in all its viridescent moodiness, was going to save your life. You didn’t even ask if I could save your life. I have this problem where I think if I just try a little harder, I can do it. I can protect you the way you need me to. I don’t know what that way is yet, but do you remember the day we bent like the oak trees and you had a salt cube under your tongue for the dizziness, and we were mimicking the way branches sometimes move in that way where you think to yourself, I’m not alone in this forest, all the ghosts of my past are here too, and each time they catch me starting to doubt they start shaking acorns loose and those are the days we sit at the table and we say what happened to us, without saying that stuff, we can name things like loss or ache or exhaustion. Half asleep on the patio

37 After Jose Hernandez Diaz Jose, you have opened my eyes, with the poem about Nick, the quick, Van Exel. Why didn’t I ever think about writing a poem about that team I rooted for since my youth? Why not a poem about Eddie Jones, who was smooth and steady player? His number should have been hanging in the rafters, if not for Kobe Bryant joining the team. I would have loved to wear an Eddie Jones or a Nick Van Exel jersey, but I could not afford either. I watched those games on Channel 9 with Chick and Stu announcing. I could understand why Nick Van Exel was your favorite player. Come to think about it, he was my favorite player too. Drafted 37th, such a steal. He played with a chip on his shoulder for being dissed. He made his share of buzzer beaters to the cheers of the crowd. This poem is for you, Jose, for Nick, the quick, and for smooth Eddie. In this arena we practice our crossover, three-point shots, and behind the back passes.

Sometimes “sometimes I think I understand everything but I know I’m wrong” – Frank Stanford Age won’t deliver wisdom like a package To your door, followed by a photo e-mail To prove it had been left there, just in case Porch pirates beat you to picking it up. Wisdom seeps into your foundation like Moisture beading on cold cellar walls. It dangles off the ordinary like a frayed Thread hangs from a favorite sweater. Not the mere accumulation of years But a summoning from out of them. M.J.  Arcangelini , born in Pennsylvania in 1952, has resided in northern California since 1979. He has published in little magazines, online journals (including The James White Review, Rusty Truck, The Ekphrastic Review, The Gasconade Review, Trailer Park Quarterly, As It Ought To Be Magazine, and The Rye Whisky Review), & over a dozen anthologies.  He is the author of 6 published collections, the most recent of which is PAWNING MY SINS, 2022 (Luchador Press).

Business Trips My dearest trustworthy man. My nerves are wracked. Not wealthy, only moderately sexy, but untrue?                never. (Despite the warnings) Your undertaking is to fulfill my oldest dream. And yet, there are all these business trips. A coincidence or not? Your cheery Chicago conference and my San Francisco draining away. I’m like a funeral in three-quarter time. Where are the mourners? Maybe I should make lists. Or come to terms with my body. But then there’s this relationship and that brutal law of diminishing returns. As for my head… each one of my thoughts refutes the one before. I’m beginning to think that love is a flawed premise. An explosion where the sudden shock compromises the long term harm. Andrej Bilovsky (he/him) is a poet and performance artist. Former editor of  Masculine-Feminine and Kapesnik. His poetry can be found at the Quiver and Down In The Dirt.

After the Argument Forget the words. They’ll be rocks by morning. The place (the bed in this instance) prefers the body to the tongue. Submerge yourself in space and time and tomorrow will welcome you with dog-bark and foliage. No lost ponies. All trails sure underfoot. The fire thawing the cold or the cool turning back the heat. Sediment will look like crystal. Tears, mere side-paths on the way to knowing him. John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review and Red Weather. Latest books, “Covert” “Memory Outside The Head” and “Guest Of Myself” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the McNeese Review, Rathalla Review and Open Ceilings.