I’m standing here contemplating the cool clear water. The splash from the pebble lasted only a second and the ripples cleared so quickly.
I had thought your ripples would last forever but nothing can last forever and only the clear water will follow me.
In my solitude I’ll leave no trace at all.
Chaos Theory
On this canvas of my life it looks as though butterflies were flapping their wings and flitting about at every opportunity making trouble having fun and shaking things up a bit.
I struggle to discern underlying patterns. It’s regularities and irregularities were left to the butterflies and their flitting and flapping. In the end they flapped the clouds away.
So tomorrow I shall paint a new canvas. On this canvas, I am the butterfly. I can make the patterns, the order or disorder. Others may
make of it what they will.
Cycle
I felt such bright energy flowing I couldn’t wait to move with it and be transplanted and reborn at the time when all of nature was recreating itself and starting afresh, I too would feel the new buds open bursting and shooting into a new life.
I would open up my blowsy petals and let my heart show through pulsing, exuberant, ready to turn towards the summer sun, not believing it would destroy my bloom, make my petals fade and fall when the shock of the new wore off and the fresh green shoots grew brown, preparing for the season of wrinkles which always follows.
I am only one part of nature’s cycle where nothing will change, except that summer will have gone, winter will surely follow fall
and spring will be a long way away.
Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud ‘War Poetry for Today’ competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Capsule Stories, Gyroscope Review and So It Goes. You can find Lynn at Blogspot and Facebook.
You can find more of Lynn’s work here on Ink Pantry.
Marc’s apartment was on the ground floor and Paul said handing out candy would be a good thing to do even though Marc had avoided it all four years here in the city.
The two sat on Marc’s stoop.
“Halloween used to be my favourite holiday,” he told Paul, who’d picked up three bags of Mounds from CVS. They sipped from tumblers of Fireball. The wet cinnamon on their tongues, along with the smell of damp leaf petrichor, transported them home. They were two white boys who’d fled the white suburbs for West Philadelphia. Marc’s stoop had a view of the Avenue, and the young men watched nearly three car crashes and one subway trolley accident transpire.
“Looks like people are dropping kids off on the…gentrified blocks,” said Paul. “Can’t blame them.”
“When I was a kid, we’d put out this gaudy dancing skeleton flag. Sometimes a Muppet cat,” said Marc. “Seasonal ‘90s shit. The other neighbors would put them out too.” Marc drained his whiskey. “Nothing like that here.”
A group of teenagers, who were Black, approached Marc’s stoop with their bookbags swung over in front.
Marc asked, “Where’s your costumes, guys?”
They held out their bags and stared. Marc didn’t ask again.
Paul and Marc had exhausted all three candy bags well before 8:00 PM, when Marc suggested food. He pushed himself off the stoop, knocking over his fourth tumbler of whiskey, sliding an ice pearl on the porch.
“How many drinks is that?” Paul had tsked when Marc had reappeared with his third.
“Kill the lights before any more kids jump down our throats.”
Marc was drunk in a way in which, when he squinted, streetlights became segmented bars, like the white cells around orangeflesh.
Another trolley boomed. They hurried to the south side of the Avenue.
Across the street, moonlight shone on the upper bars of the geodome jungle gym.
Three teenage boys chucked Good & Plenty boxes at a man in a cow costume. Had the teens been one of the groups Marc had wanted to refuse? He cursed at them – loud enough for them to hear.
“You want to get us shot?” said Paul, who still read the university newspaper’s crime column. He pushed Marc down the Avenue. Then an African American man hunching in front of the liquor store beckoned, saying he needed something to eat.
Paul said, “Sure, friend, I got you,” and dug into his pocket.
“Anything helps. Anything. I’ve gotta eat.”
Paul gave the man a fistful of change. Marc stormed away.
When Paul met him a half-block from the liquor store, Marc said, “He lied. He’s going to go in there and buy booze. You’re not helping him.” Paul only thought on the surface of matters; when Marc turned he saw, sure enough, the man strolling into the liquor store. After another streetcar bumped past, Marc and Paul walked into the Green Garden. In the last four years, Marc and Paul had ordered from the Green Garden about once a week. They’d eat sesame tofu on Marc’s porch and drink.
Instead of a crowded store, Marc saw only the family who worked there, sitting at the lone table, enjoying something from ceramic bowls and plates. The store was completely empty.
No one ever dined at that frail table and chairs. A tall, gray thermos with a silver ring around its base stood in the middle of the table.
Marc had assumed a friendship out of mutual nods and smiles with the Green Garden owner, a woman whose name was Li Ming, but her American name was Emily. The family’s environment contrasted with the teenagers in the park. The family sipped from deep spoons, their expressions peaceful, statuesque. It all appeared like a Norman Rockwell painting, something from Nighthawks.
“Look at that thermos,” Paul said, pointing.
“Yeah. Bet there’s some high-grade ginseng in there. You could go for days. Like a steam engine.”
“Go get me two spring rolls,” said Paul, frowning.
Marc pushed inside while Paul stayed out.
The table was set under a small sunbleached poster of a soft pretzel. The woman, Emily, her husband, and then her daughter turned; she wiped her mouth with a beige cloth. The teenage daughter, who Marc called by her American name, Natalie, wore an Eagles crop top. You’d never see Natalie out trick-or-treating. “You’re not closed, are you?” he said. Questions heated his forehead. Why were they here in the customer area?
“No! Come in!” Emily’s husband blurted. He strode through the door behind the counter.
Marc stared at the broth, at the four oil pearls clustered into a comma. The food he couldn’t recognize either. The thermos was tall and rose almost to Natalie’s chin.
At the window, Marc ordered sesame tofu and Paul’s rolls. Emily and Natalie still sat over the soup, the cups of hot tea, and the gray thermos. “That tasty? I bet it’s why you’re so…successful. Not like,” and he nose-motioned to the boys in the park. Emily and Natalie stared at each other. Finally Paul entered. The two moved near the flickering ATM. “That,” Marc said, “it’s the whole package. It’s not on the menu either. Not the stuff we get. This is the authentic shit.”
“Let’s get our food and go.”
“I feel like I’d eat an animal if I could harness this.”
Marc had convinced Paul to go vegetarian in high school; Marc liked to say how he himself bothered to give a shit about animal rights. The two had met during Wednesday meetings for the school’s literary magazine. Then at college, Marc enlisted Paul to attend protests: on Chestnut for protected bike lanes; on the Parkway for the Women’s March (Marc always had Paul take pictures of the two in front of those crowds); until, finally, their activism evolved into something resembling a working love relationship.
Emily took the plates, bowls, and cups, walking them back behind the counter, until only the gray thermos remained. “Think I could grab it and go?” Marc pointed.
“Do not,” said Paul.
Marc strolled to the counter and grinned at Emily. Then Natalie peeked out, and Marc gazed at her, smiling when she turned his way. Then a familiar voice bristled the air.
It was the man who’d been begging outside the liquor store – the man Paul had given money to. The man asked Emily for money. She shook her head with a curt smile. Then he asked Natalie, who also said no. Something brown-mustard color dappled the man’s long, tobacco-smelling jacket. Marc glared into his eyes which appeared yellowish, with scleras the color of eggnog. “You can’t come here asking for money. This family’s trying to run a business. Get your drunk ass out.” Marc’s face heated and reddened. The man seemed to quiver in front of him. Then, as slowly as the man had slumped in, he lurched away.
Marc couldn’t help smiling and swaggered back to Paul. He’d expelled a trespasser. Saved their business!
The husband said their food was ready.
“You think they saw how I kicked out that rando?”
After Marc settled up, he clutched their bag and asked, “What were y’all eating?” He smiled wide. “What was in that thermos? Can I buy that?”
Emily and Natalie exchanged a few words in Chinese. Then Natalie turned to Marc and said, “I’m sorry. This isn’t a good time.”
“Don’t listen to her!” said Natalie.
Emily glared at Natalie, then tapped her fist against the table as if she were doorknocking, brushed her hair back over her forehead, and stiffened. “Go,” she said.
“Whatever,” he said, and pushed past Paul with his bag.
—
Earlier that night, Li Ming had meant to discuss Li Nan’s behavior here in the store, with her husband. She’d reached into her own bag, pulled out the thermos, and set it on the table where it clanked in front of her daughter. “Your Father and I,” she began in Mandarin, “Want to know what you had in the freezer. When I caught you and Dwyn.” Li Ming had caught the girls smoking something in there the night before. Now she unscrewed the bottle. “I know you got this from Dwyn. What do you think we should do about it?” Dwyn was a 17-year-old like Li Nan. The two went to high school together and, the times Li Ming talked to Dwyn, the girl self-promoted. Li Ming might ask, “So what’s going on with the school construction? Are they just paving the lot?” Dwyn’s parents sat on the Board. But Dwyn would only talk about how the bulldozers made it harder for her to park her E-type.
Li Nan eyed the missing ceiling tile above the ATM. “I don’t know,” said her daughter. “Say we can never hang out anymore?”
“You don’t have to do that!” her husband said. What a fool. Li Ming exhaled. “What is this in the bottle? Another drug? Because if that’s what she gave you, you’re never seeing her again.”
Li Nan shouted, “You don’t love me!”
Li Ming tapped the table with her knuckles, twice. “It can mean whatever you want it to.”
Then that boy had charged in like he’d wanted to make love to their food.
—
Li Ming had endured Marc for about three years. On good days, he’d leave immediately after paying. One balmy summer evening, Marc had annoyed her with a story of when a man came up to him on South Street back when he was a freshman. “I told the guy, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t give you money,’ he’d said to her at the counter. “And you feel big when you get to say money before them. They always start in with something vague.” His voice aped: “‘Can I ask you a question, man?’ Or, ‘Can I tell you something?’ Then the guy asks me for a subway token – said he’d pay for it – I thought he was telling the truth.” Customers behind Marc glared. “So I dig around,” Marc said, “all while the guy just goes off in anticipation of getting his stuff. How he needs to take a bus to see his daughter, and how he’ll pay me back. ‘Anything would help, my friend, anything you can spare.’ And I gave him a token. The guy searches his pocket and then puts his hand over mine.” Marc winced. “But when I open my hand there’s just a penny. The guy had tricked me. Can you believe that?”
—
One night later, the subway streetcar thundered above ground at the 40th Street Portal and bumped onto the Avenue. Marc stumbled off the trolley at 50th. Paul followed, comparably more sober. “We’re going to get some food?”
“Some special food,” said Marc. “Off-menu tonight.”
The Green Garden smelled of fries, cherry blunts, and perfume. Six other customers congregated by the table and chairs. Natalie stood by the door to the workers’ area with her white female friend, who Marc sometimes saw hanging around the store. (This was Dwyn.) Customers were lined up at the window. The friend wore one of those puffy jackets common in late ‘90s R&B music videos; she had trophy-blonde hair as if she were transplanted from the white suburbs Marc and Paul had also deserted.
Marc cut in front to get to the counter and knocked.
Paul rushed to him and grabbed his wrist. “I cannot deal with you right now.”
Natalie appeared in the window.
Marc said, “The…meal you were eating last night. Whatever was in that thermos. I want to order it.” He smiled and slid to the left, facing Emily. With all the charm he could mobilize he said, “That…dish you were eating yesterday. The tea, the soup, whatever was in that thermos.” Emily shook her head no, smiling. He waited for a look of recognition. “Not a problem,” Marc said to Paul, “this is a cultural difference. Living in a city we need to recognize quirks!” But when he turned, Paul was halfway out of the door. Maybe Paul was saying something about Marc’s drinking again. He turned back to Emily. “You, you know what I’m talking about, Emily,” he said, trying to enunciate. He inhaled and spread his shoulders wide, taking up all the space he could.
“That’s not for you,” she said.
“That’s,” his head shot up, “not what you say to me.” His voice was drained of emotion.
“That’s not for you.”
“Tell me!” Marc shouted. “Tell me what it was. I can get it somewhere else, God.”
Someone behind him shouted. But Marc stayed anchored. Then Natalie strolled out and Marc smiled at her. Emily rapped her knuckles on the register twice, exhaled, and said, “Just a minute.” Natalie slunk back to the register. The door separating the restaurant and customer area opened. Emily waved him in, flitting her hand while glowering at Marc and Natalie.
The smell of soy sauce and floury deep-fried food swamped him. The orange subway tile appeared dappled with droplets. Emily led him down a cramped hallway toward the freezer. Marc made a fist, but she only motioned for him to wait and then emerged with the thermos. Excitement crackled in his cheeks.
“I’m not sure,” she said, “please, don’t drink. My daughter and her delinquent friend had it.”
Marc ripped away the thermos. He unscrewed the top, swirled the bottle around, touched the cold opening to his lips, and swigged. It was icy. He tasted – ginseng? Some dribbled onto his stubble and he wiped with his sleeve.
She still had her hand out for the thermos. But he drank the rest in four gulps and shoved it into his hoodie. Now the wind was gnawing his cheeks like he’d just shaved. He was waiting in the rain for the trolley at 50th and Baltimore Avenue. As a dump truck passed the park, the space its haul bed left revealed a figure brooding on the geodome. It was the man who’d been begging for money in the store. Emily gripped his wrist. The man’s long, ratty coat whipped in the wind. Perhaps it was the same man who’d tricked him for a subway token all those years ago in college, maybe. “Oh my God,” said Marc. “There he is. O-on top of the jungle gym. I’m gonna kill him.”
“What?” said Emily.
“On the jungle gym. Disrespecting you,” he whispered. “They do! Always.” Now he tasted blood.
The man atop the geodome clamped his hands to his patchy beard. He grunted, and his leg flinched over one of the steel poles. It looked as if he were struggling to open a heavy door. Then the man split off his face, and a u-shape of droplets spit across the gravel. The man had a tiny skull like a Saint Bernard’s. His body slumped over the jungle gym and collapsed into the rocks next to a toy turtle.
“We need to take you to the hospital,” Emily mouthed.
The trolley clanged up, its headlights cutting through fresh rain. When she followed him onboard he said, “We need to go to Chinatown,” and he knew that she knew all about the delinquents in his life.
They sat together near the middle row. Rain surged in the trolley floor’s grooves. Emily stared up at him. She must’ve known he was flying. The face of a lawyer in the trolley ceiling wailed, asking if he was having issues with workplace harassment. Marc said to Emily, “You’re not taking me anywhere but Chinatown.”
He reached over Emily to pull the cord to signal his stop. He jerked her up by her wrist. The trolley swung left as it neared the Portal, where streetcars plowed underground to head to Center City. He rocked into her; she smelled of deep fryer. He wanted to tell her to move, but his jaw felt wired shut. He activated some confidence to stand as the streetcar approached the Portal. But Emily was yammering on about the Emergency Room?
And then they stood out in the cold rainy wet at the Portal. Wind breezed in his armpits. “You wouldn’t,” he whimpered, his voice teetering, “trick me, right?”
“What?”
“This,” and he tried counting the stops to get to Chinatown in his head but it all blurred. “This is my vision quest.”
“You need the hospital. Now. Give that to me,” she said.
“Fuck what you think I need,” said Marc.
—
There was something about that thermos glinting in his clutches. He was sick and he had learned. Everyone relied on Li Ming but they pushed her aside. She was turning to walk back to her restaurant when Marc howled, “I’m sorry I told you guys you needed costumes,” he screamed. “I’m sorry!” And in moments, he was running, scanning behind him as he went, deep into the subway tunnel, as if some unseen force were chasing him.
Perry Genovesi lives in West Philadelphia, works as a public librarian, and serves his fellow workers in AFSCME District Council 47. His first book, Skintet and Other Tales of the Brassican American Experience in Philadelphia, is forthcoming from Main Street Rag. His work has won the O:JA&L Weitz Prize, and has been nominated for Best of the Net (2025), and Best Microfiction (2024). You can read him in The Santa Monica Review, Bridge Eight, BOOTH, and collected on tiny.cc/PerryGenovesi. He wishes the Good, Bad & Ugly theme would play whenever he faces someone at the other end of the sidewalk & there’s just a hairline path shovelled in the snow wide enough for one person. IG and Bluesky.
It is a grey day in November as I sit here, across from a sleepy woods, The trees as naked and denuded as barstool dancers. The trees shoot out limbs and branches that crisscross as they puncture the sky, And the limbs are as sharp as the Popsickle sticks that I sharpened against the sidewalk when I was just a wee bitty kid who would got lost in the sharpening. The dreariness of the woods in November overwhelms me, Suffocates me. The trees outside my window are moldy and lifeless, The bark on their outer shells tracks like naked ancient ribs that transgress up and down the trunks, which feel leaden and stiff and impermeable. It’s a long afternoon in one’s life. Time tumbles around the nude trees and comes to rest in a seemingly dead or extraneous branch or a limb. The world is dormant, waiting. Outside another condo unit, Christmas trees lights are visible. They shine pathetically against the dark urgent grey of the day. It is a dead time of the year. My soul feels dead. Limbs and branches spread from the trunks of the trees Like veins carrying sap.
The River
The wily Des Plaines River flows and seeks its way south, Originating in Wisconsin and toddling through northern Illinois Until it reaches Ryerson Woods, where I am now standing In utter delight and astonishment at its quiet and slurky beauty. It is a modest river. It is not the Mississippi. It is a river of quiet charms and hidden wisdom. It makes its shy and incandescent way, taking its time. The river is much cleaner than when I was a kid and could smell its putridness as I approached it at Dam No. 2 in Des Plaines. I stand near the riverbank and gaze north, and before me, a tree of mystery has plummeted into the river, its limbs and branches broken and bending into the plane of the quiet river and interrupting the silent wisdom of the river. The dead limbs are black and tangled together like a neurosis of nature as if they had some mysterious incestuous spirit. Before me, a great blue heron perches on one of those dead limbs, its neck like a stovepipe, its body as slim as a whisper, its legs like pencils. A leftover from the Age of the Dinosaurs. The sight of the bird flies me against reason and memory. I walk farther north, tracking with the river, and see that about a quarter mile further, The river bends elegantly to the west and takes its current and due course, The bend is impossibly sophisticated, and trees tip like sharp-eyed witnesses to hover and protect the river. I think immediately of the Potawatomi people who once danced and fished and canoed on these ancient waters, And lived on land that we absconded, that we took without asking, that we took with mischievous treaties written in obscure and legalistic language that should and does cause shame. I hike along the river in the ghostly footsteps of those Potawatomi and hear the faint and cursed echo of their ancient presence and the chant of spirit that refers the river to evanescent enchantment. The river glides with resurrectionist spirit and rids me of the ancient screams of significance. The river glides like making love, with thoughtful and steadfast and regal insouciance and lack of care for the ways of us mere humans. The river holds secrets that barge into my soul and calm my dispossessed head. I fall to my knees and feel en-humbled.
Christopher Johnson is a writer based in the Chicago area. He’s done a lot of different stuff in his life. He’s been a merchant seaman, a high school English teacher, a corporate communications writer, a textbook editor, an educational consultant, and a free-lance writer. He’s published short stories, articles, and essays in The Progressive, Snowy Egret, Earth Island Journal, Chicago Wilderness, American Forests, Chicago Life, Across the Margin, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Blue Lake Review, The Literary Yard, Scarlet Leaf Review, Spillwords Press, Fiction on the Web, Sweet Tree Review, and other journals and magazines. In 2006, the University of New Hampshire Press published his first book, This Grand and Magnificent Place: The Wilderness Heritage of the White Mountains. His second book, which he co-authored with a prominent New Hampshire forester named David Govatski, was Forests for the People: The Story of America’s Eastern National Forests, published by Island Press in 2013.
You can find more of Christopher’s work here on Ink Pantry.
As an infant with booties and cowl, I strove to overcome the barriers making me unable to stand on my own.
I searched for an antidote to a crippling childhood, a pitiful position for one harboring such intense fantasies.
A young adult’s silent silhouette, the impact of being lost within a catacomb of sheets in any given hotel.
The reluctant glee of parenthood, trying to carefully carry so much more than I should.
Today is the farthest in time I’ve ever come. I feel that any minute, fatigue will set in, and produce that moment when agelessness fails me.
It’s in the Bones
We are predisposed while in the womb to act a certain way. From our first toddling steps, through the measured time of our lives, ancestral memories, long prepared, by the earliest civilizations, sensibilities first given forward, then curving back again and again, are willing to inform us of some brand of zealotry.
We collectively embrace a trend toward devotion to the arts. We’re still shining cardinal features, ready to be summoned. Accepting widespread patterns for the shaping of our cultures, in the hopes that all this will become a prelude to a single tradition.
The Echo in my Old Necklace
A necklace chain adorned with links of gold streaks, interspersed with beads representing the wax and wane of memory, interwoven threads of recorded thought belonging to earlier days.
A necklace pumped full of memories, this particular jewelry’s unceasing watch, whispering echoes into halls of the mind directly dictated to my heart. Those visions I do not wish to share. And the ones I hoped would keep me aware.
What falls back is the truth, that we’re no longer friends, a wealth of past hurts. I remember the real version of last time on the road home. Rejection was my only antidote to delusion.
Startling thoughts about what might as well have been just yesterday, starting to silence over time. Someday perhaps no thoughts of those days will remain. I wonder when I’ll know that they will not return.
Linda Imbler’s poetry collections include nine published paperbacks: Big Questions, Little Sleep First Edition, Big Questions, Little Sleep Second Edition; Lost and Found; Red Is The Sunrise; Bus Lights; Travel Sight; Spica’s Frequency; Doubt and Truth; A Mad Dance; and Twelvemonth.. Soma Publishing has published her four e-book collections, The Sea’s Secret Song; Pairings, a hybrid of short fiction and poetry; That Fifth Element; and Per Quindecim. Examples of Linda’s poetry and a listing of publications can be found at lindaspoetryblog.blogspot.com
You can find more of Linda’s work here on Ink Pantry.
So you’re becoming someone else you once had feared, knowing fate, and its forgotten future, again, as if a past stranger, a self-akin.
But kin to what fractured fear finds your present? Father to the future remains the past, which can be set free
like a self from its similarities.
Alex Missall studied creative writing at the University of Cincinnati. His poetry collections A Harvest of Days and Morning Grift are forthcoming from Finishing Line Press (2026). He resides in Ohio, where he enjoys the trails with his Husky, Betts. You can find him on X @MissallAlex or at alexmissall.com.
I hunker down on the wobbly chair, away from flak and chat about manure. I’m worrying over Sis manoeuvring sprouts
around a plate that smells… like those daffodils, the ones wilting in New Nan’s vase. Green is the camouflage…ammo on our plates.
After the crime of food waste in a world of starving refugees I pick a scab and hide the fallout in toilet tissue to flush with…manure?
I retreat outside with Sis while New Dad makes peace with chat. Sis skids through the slick cowpats of No-Nan land. I thumbs-up
to the camouflage splatter…a darker green than the sprout grenades! The cows are beer-bellied like…and stare like…they know…about a roast.
New Dad has had enough and tanks the van down lanes and around bends as if there are no potholes or landmines or tractors hauling manure.
New Mum air freshens my trench. My jeans surrender on the washing line. I Blu-Tack the report: crayon a cow and cowpats. I add a Sis. Why not?
Bin Life In Our Kitchen
I’m red and tall and impressively made of stainless steel, superior as well because all my stink inside is so much much more than the recycling lesser stuff. My pride gases up and spills over the rim. Carers must dig their deepest pit. I fill. I win.
I smell all that quality stuff and admit to being plastic, grey, just okay in height, but then Carers manufactured me not to brim or spill. Besides, and this is fact, my stink inside will be reborn again to more stuff. Just like me. This makes me immortal and sane and totally superior.
I’m smaller, much smaller than those two and green. Not prim, I whiff plenty. Carers empty me a lot. My stink inside goes all icky and yucky and mucks up to a stuff for growing outside. Carers declare I am the most superior. This brims me stinking pride. I’m big enough.
Bottled
I need to haste. I know, the knowing mouth replies, a bottled fact that loudly mocks my bloodshot eyes. Always at awkward times she shares the car and shares her lucid mind. Turn left. Turn right. Turn tight. And never drift. She persists to gear and steer the driving script, insists on dating fate, her lipstick on the mirror crayons fast and faster and more faster. I clutch to be more slow and slowly be gone, that I’m a breaking plonker, not her lover. She empties another kiss. I drink the dregs and throttle up. She blanks the speeding clock, my motor squeals, the skidding wheels will lock! Revenge? Revenge! Revenge? For being dry? I close my inner eye. This is too real. The bottle bottles up and grips the wheel.
Phil Wood was born in Wales. He has worked in statistics, education, shipping, and a biscuit factory. He enjoys painting and learning German. His writing can be found in various places, most recently in: Byways (Arachne Press Anthology), The Fig Tree, The Shot Glass Journal, London Grip, The Lake, Kelp, The Ink Pantry.
You can find more of Phil’s work here on Ink Pantry.
The seed of inspiration germinates Beneath the weight of darkness Bearing down upon the shrivelled complexion Of the cracked surface Striving slowly towards the light Proving such strength and determination From those slight tender tendrils That easily snap once exposed to the exterior Before finally breaking through- A wisdom tooth of truth Sprouting into a stem of an idea Nurtured into something that will blossom Then displayed with affection Left open to the elements To be shared and enjoyed by others Inclined to peer over the fence.
The Jazz Age
How those twenties roared With Rabelaisian rebellion Partying out the prohibition With the dapper and the flapper F Scott and Zelda F Sauve and sophisticated Defining the language Through loquacious speakeasy’s Fluid with illicit liquor Drinking to excess Smoking to intimacy With dancefloors jumping To the timeless modernism Of the Duke and the King And Pop’s doing his thing Beneath the Art Deco architecture A grandiloquent delinquency Through a decade of decadence Before the hangover of the Great Depression set in.
Woodlouse
Louse, I save you from the Sisyphean sink And you play dead! I stop your confining orbit, Place you on another path So that you can find you own way, And you lie still, Waiting for me to disappear into the darkness When you can move on Before I discover you’re gone.
Anthony tends to fidget with his thoughts in the hope of laying them to rest. He has managed to lay them in a number of establishments, including Shot Glass Journal, Jerry Jazz Musician, CommuterLit, and Dear Booze.
You can find more of Anthony’s work here on Ink Pantry.
I kept a confident, positive look on my face as the Governor of Louisiana, Alicia deVray, prepared to sign the document that would enact the first free drug community in the world. She turned and looked at me, I nodded encouragingly, she looked at the horde of reporters holding cameras, phones, recording devices and signed. There was a long moment of silence, then a round of weak, tentative applause from the legislators. Alicia wasn’t looking her usual ebullient self as she chatted with legislators, supporters and opponents of the controversial free drug community. CNN asked me to say a few words and I praised the Governor and the state legislators for their forward thinking in pioneering a solution to end the criminal distribution of drugs. Fox News accused me of destroying the fabric of America by giving away free drugs. I smiled politely and said:
“We will end drug crime in America,” then I followed Alicia to her office.
As soon as we were alone, she murmured:
“This better work, M, or they’ll lynch us on the biggest tree in Baton Rouge.”
“Don’t worry, Al. You’ll dangle a lot prettier than me,” which made her giggle.
The day we met at first year Tulane Law, she said: ‘Call me Al’. I replied: ‘Call me M’, and our friendship was born. We became best friends through school, stayed close as her career soared in the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s office, elected D.A, the State Senate, now in her second term as Governor of the Pelican State. Despite our entirely different directions, mine starting in the Orleans Parish Public Defender’s office that led to our occasional clash in the courtroom which she invariably won, since most of my clients were obviously guilty to judge and jury alike. But as Al climbed the political ladder, I started a foundation using my trust fund until I could raise money whose express purpose was to legalize drugs so we could end the criminal drug trade that was polluting and corrupting America.
Once Al got to the State Senate we didn’t spend as much time together, but we texted, phoned and skyped regularly. When I came up with the idea of a planned community where drugs were free she teased me unmercifully. Her attitude began to change when a benefactor donated five million dollars and promised more. I immediately hired a Nobel prize winning economist, a criminal psychologist, a statistical analyst and a software developer. We started by reviewing the bulk of the literature on drugs and crime, which was extensive. My particular focus was on criminal profits, drug cartels and the cost to the nation for drug related arrests, trials and incarceration. When the cost to society passed one hundred billion dollars a year I started thinking about solutions.
Al laughed at me when I first proposed a community where drugs were free and everything else resembled a normal community. There would be a police department, fire, sanitation, EMT, courthouses, stores, shops, restaurants, three levels of housing dependent on employment and income, or subsidy. For those who didn’t want to work but wanted to use drugs there was basic housing, food allotment, health services and a monthly stipend. Al stopped laughing when I showed her the cost of operating a free drug community of 5,000 population was between 70 and 75% less than a regular community with drug crime.
“What do you want from me, M?”
“If I can’t get another state to let us start a demonstration project, let me do it here.”
“You know how controversial this would be. It would start a firestorm of righteous objections.”
“Sure. But we know that prohibition never works. The 18th amendment, Volstead Act, banned booze, then gave birth to organized crime. The drug trade is international, poisoning our country and much of the world.”
“Why couldn’t you commit to saving the environment?”
“Because I didn’t want to spend my life fighting the fossil fuel industry.”
When we finished our first demonstration model I asked my benefactor for ten million dollars to fund the construction and staffing of the community, with the goal of its becoming economically self-sufficient. He promised the money and I began searching for the right state to start our project.
I didn’t try Nevada because the gambling industry was a negative element in the American way of life. The Governor of New York was publicly outraged, but wished me luck privately. The Governor of California thought I meant a drug-free community and offered help, until an aide whispered in his ear what I intended. I got a very polite farewell. The Governor of Florida kept asking where I’d get my drugs and derided my explanation that we’d buy them on the international market.
“You’ll be supporting the drug business,” he insisted.
“That’s a byproduct, sir. We’ll demonstrate that when drugs are legal the related crime and corruption will disappear.”
“It sounds like a hippie idea. Not interested.”
Arizona, Massachusetts, Indiana and North Carolina wouldn’t even give me a hearing. Which led me back to my pal Al, in Louisiana. I found a struggling town upstate on the bank of the Quachita River that with an infusion of capital would be great location. I visited the mayor and gave him an overview of the project, then operational details. His biggest concern was with the extreme addicts and the possible threats to the townspeople.
“The neighborhood of new housing will be separated from the rest of the town, with most of what they’ll need right there. People will be selected so we’ll know they are basically content with their allotments. If they want better houses they’ll have to work for it. Your police department will be supported by a highly-trained, ex-military group who will patrol 24/7 and peacefully resolve any problems. We’ll install a sophisticated camera and monitoring system to support law enforcement. The money we’ll bring in for construction, services and operations will bring your town back to life.”
“We have 1,800 citizens who would have to approve any project.”
“If you and your main supporters approve our project we’ll only need a good size majority, say 1,400 to 1,500.
He grinned. “You make a good case. I’ll arrange for you to meet with some concerned citizens. If they approve you can present it to everyone at a town hall meeting.”
“I’ll bring my experts.”
One evening two weeks later we met with the town council and prominent citizens. They were dazzled by my Nobel Prize winning economist, fascinated by my criminal psychologist and impressed by my director of security, a former Ranger Lieutenant-Colonel and a childhood friend, Paul Morein. A few citizens were afraid of being known as a drug town, but the promise of the infusion of lots of money won them over. Only the Sheriff was resistant. I won him over with a single statement.
“The supplemental security force will cooperate fully with your department and provide new cars and equipment.”
He looked at me suspiciously. “Do you hunt?”
“Not any more, sheriff.”
“Do you fish?”
“Not for a while.”
“Are you related to Jean Dubonne?”
“He was my grandfather. Did you know him?”
“I met him a few times when he was Attorney General. A good man.”
“A very good man,” I asserted.
He gave me a big grin. “I’ll support your project, son.”
I smiled back. “Thanks, sheriff. That’ll make things a lot easier.”
The town hall meeting a few weeks later was a study in local politics. Everyone important spoke out in favor of the project and almost all the citizens approved. The usual opposition of conservatives wanting things as they were, a few evangelicals and some scaredy cats objected vigorously, but to no avail. After an intense, short campaign the vote was 1,726 against 53, with 21 abstaining. So with the town’s approval and with the Governor’s signature we were ready to establish a legal free drug community.
Now that the town committed to the project, I sent them summary copies of the contract that each applicant would have to sign to participate. I had drawn up a complex document that would protect the town and the project sponsors from legal repercussions, which included a short series of rules:
1) Abstain from all criminal acts.
2) Do not operate vehicles, machinery, or any dangerous equipment while under the influence of intoxicants.
3) Possession of weapons is forbidden.
4) Abide by the laws of the community.
5) No resuscitation from overdoses.
There were more rules but there was time to refine them as we started the recruiting process for approximately 3,0000 candidates for the program. The next goal would be to finalize the planning of the community with housing, stores, restaurants, a drug dispensing building, security building, social services… The list went on. Everything was outlined in the project proposal. Now we would have to construct the new town while we selected the population.
We had decided on initial recruitment efforts in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Shreveport,
Metairie and Lafayette, assuming word would spread to the Parishes. Of course if we didn’t get enough free drug wanters from Louisiana, we’d expand the search to neighboring states. I was walking on air. Years of hope and effort were about to become a reality.
The next step of implementing the plan was to acquire the land which was easy with the cooperation of the town authorities. They wanted to remove one holdout with eminent domain, which I rejected. I went to see the crusty old farmer and told him his new neighbors would be busy, but wouldn’t impose a threat to him. When I told him I was happy with his remaining there and opposed eminent domain he became friendly and invited me to go fishing with him. It was obvious we didn’t have to complete all the new living facilities at once, but we had to have all support services ready when the first… I had to find a name for them… Accords. I’ll try that.
I went over the list of the services that had to come first and a supermarket and medical services were still the priority. We had been negotiating with several supermarket chains who were interested in opening in… Accordia?… Now we’d finalize our choice. They would be guaranteed a minimum of two years of earnings by the Accordia foundation. We’d have time to work out the economics of the community so people could start paying for their purchases. It was easy to get nurses who were well paid and delighted to work in a new well supplied, well equipped facility. We made our arrangement to hire medical school graduates as interns, who would work under the supervision of two local doctors.
I was going to throw a party and invite all my friends, the project planners and of course my favorite Governor, AL. After all the project was officially launched. It could take a year or more to see the proof of the theory that free drugs did away with related crime. So it was time to celebrate the beginning of the dream scheme come true.
Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theatre director and worked as an art dealer when he couldn’t earn a living in the theatre. He has also been a tennis pro, ditch digger and salvage diver. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction, essays and plays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines. His traditionally published books include 45 poetry collections, 18 novels, 4 short story collections, 2 collections of essays, 8 books of plays and 16 poetry chapbooks. Gary lives in New York City.
You can find more of Gary’s work here on Ink Pantry.
A poem is a thought of flowers near frost, dangling stiff, bitten by the vampire teeth of late fall, hanging desolate near dusk from a pot on a patio porch a yellow light bulb beaming conspicuously outward over-chilled yellow green glazed grass. Snow now, the Aster deep purple, falls last.
A Migrant’s Empty Cup
This quiet Sonoran Desert. The sun is going down, touching my burnt cow leather skin for the last time, with death-piercing final touching. There is no water in this migrant’s cup. Ideate the power, the image of my soul. The only mystery that remains. Decamp me from this lasting hell. Hear that Turkey Vulture cry, carrion flesh mine— My intelligence was once vital now lapses into last fantasies of red blood-covered in guilt scenarios. My stolen Niki sneakers from Salvation Army, Chicago, multi-colours— traveled multi-states. So many meaningless miles. Ashamed, I bloat, decompose bones to stone. Memories: Venezuela, Chicago, New Mexico, California, and Arizona.
Night- time Glitter
I have seen through the nighttime glitter of wild women, the ways of their words, the deception of their actions, the slang of foolishness, toned down monetary voices. Chop suey, 24-hour restaurants finish the nights.
Those late-night bars, cosmetic faces, early morning kitty calls. Touching the males on the high thigh plain places as a starter plan, chopped through the thicket hairy brush, of privacy reflected on my journey briefly and thrust straight forward, mask of fools, no jewelry simple smile, subterfuge face of a clown. A night journeyman working in the trade.
Lady Melissa, all those who fell flat before you praising your prayers, my joys. They follow fool’s gold, the folly. The lack of worth in the secret cave. I have grown fond of the closed-in tunnels where darkness resides, moisture drips, and cave walls drop in. Our minds, those minds, their minds, are catalysts.
I’m no longer the private collector of midnight trash. No trophy, man of lady undies, tucked jacket pockets on my way out.
I no longer see closed mine shafts, dreams of clouds, those deceptive prospectors, gray beards, gray hair, ageing, lonely, and poor. Drop into an undeclared cave of poetic wonder only to find iron pyrite. Come join me, ex-lovers. The rivers of my mind leave the gold panning behind. Torch my guts open again with Valentine’s Day. Confectioner’s sugar celebrates the night.
Hunter of Deep, Calinda
You, Calinda, of wood and metal, are an oyster pearl of the Greek sea. You are a drunken disco dancer of beauty with charms around your neck. You are a solo storyteller on the platform of ocean waves. Your stained imprint leaves crossword puzzles on the performance of strangers. You only show your dynamic hula-hoop movements— shapes, curves, when fishing boats pass by. Calinda, you took your sensuous sex nature, barbed, cemented in the skin of sailors’ testicles. Then comes the morning purge. Your salted tongue wedged in the wounds of every victim. Then you wonder why, wonder why again. In half silence, you cry.
Michael Lee Johnson is a poet of high acclaim, with his work published in 46 countries or republics. He is also a song lyricist with several published poetry books. His talent has been recognized with 7 Pushcart Prize nominations and 7 Best of the Net nominations. He has over 653 published poems. His 336-plus YouTube poetry videos are a testament to his skill and dedication.
His poems have been translated into several foreign languages. Awards/Contests: International Award of Excellence “Citta’ Del Galateo-Antonio De Ferrariis” XI Edition 2024 Milan, Italy-Poetry. Poem, Michael Lee Johnson, “If I Were Young Again.” Remember to consider Michael Lee Johnson for Best of the Net or Pushcart nomination
You can find more of Michael’s work here on Ink Pantry.
