Live Nude Poems

Happily Never After His vow until death; hers, until her final breath— her mind not consigned once something inside had died. No, she hadn’t lied but stopped trying to fake it, which, for her, meant quit. Not denying that’s a death, both had bated breath. Before either died they’d find, since she had resigned, they were no longer aligned. She’d fulfilled her vow, avowing the time was now to make an ending longed for long before sending that shot through his head. Though he ignored what she said, the one became two and though neither departed, both broken-hearted, their domicile now askew, she ended their nights, terminating all his rights. His days in a daze; hers, stuck with but not by him, they lost to her whim. Each now pondered, worse to worst, whose death should be first? Ken Gosse  usually writes humorous, rhymed verse with traditional form and meter. First published in First Literary Review–East in November 2016, he is also in Lothlorien Poetry Jour

Counterfeit Consequences The voices always spew the appropriate verbiage. They encourage my participation I make my tongue slow, resistant and cautious. I travel in their numbing rhizoids. They shake my hand with reptilian cold scales. They grin with blinding white teeth soaking in clotted blood just below their gum line. I am covertly calculating. They instinctively erase their enemies. R. Gerry Fabian is a published poet and novelist. He has published  four books of his published poems, Parallels, Coming Out Of The Atlantic,  Electronic Forecasts and Wildflower Women as well as his poetry  baseball book, Ball On The Mound.

Into the Silent Sea It’s so quiet down here, so quiet you can’t hear the rage on the seawall feel the twisting turn of your stomach, the nervousness of nobody home. The moon was not full today; it was shaped like a heart seen from the bottom. light diffracted in a way that made you nauseous spun down amongst lantern fish, cookie cutter sharks bristle mouths, anglers, and viper fish, some sort of eelpout. Nobody likes you, you say to them, but you are here too, like an incredible ship sunken and abandoned. Timothy Gager has published 18 books of fiction and poetry, which includes his latest novel, Joe the Salamander. He hosted the successful Dire Literary Series in Cambridge, MA from 2001 to 2018, and started a weekly virtual series in 2020. He has had over 1000 works of fiction and poetry published, 17 nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His work also has been nominated for a Massachusetts Book Award, The Best of the Web, The Best Small Fictions Ant

Going to the River with Quan He leads me on his gold chain leash and yellow harness—butter —limited edition. At the end of the three tiers of stairs where I’ve stuck half a dozen screaming stickers I nudge Quan to the right, away from the spot where I once posed as a beaver in a calendar cover photo shoot which is on the way to the spot where I tried to watch the sun rise on the foggy morning I met you and wrote a poem about it—leftover flowers and trains Quan and I walk past families trampling pine tags, post- Christmas kids crying, that one slouched spot where I saw the sun set with a weak-kissed boy, down and around my hiking trails, and past the abandoned pump house where my first boyfriend shaved between my legs with a disposable razor I put Quan in my backpack, zip him half way in and we descend the corroded ladder to a pre-teen girl who says he’s cute. Anonymous flying insects swarm a wall we have to graze to get to where the rocks read FUCK TROY. Aliso