The silence of the night,
in the wake of many bullet-rent years,
is torn by the remonstrance of three stray dogs
who find no food in the garbage container,
having been emptied by junk-collectors
who would not now hesitate to consume
any available leftovers.

In the background, the festivity of a posh nightclub,
which is not very far-off,
aims at the slumberous heart
with enervating beats of folklorish drums.
This happens every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night
until the break of dawn.

Poverty and excessive wealth sit side by side
in this part of the world.
There are no West Ends or East Ends,
which only makes the contrast more flagrant.

My dog is agitated and responds with a series of barks.
I have to find a way of calming her down
or I will meet with a wave of disapprobation
from the neighbours themselves,
who will sift all other noises
and only hear my dog’s responding soundtrack.
I start stroking her coat
and her barks eventually subside,
but she remains unsettled
by both the shrieks of the nightclub
and the intermittent howls of homeless dogs.
How can I explain to friends that insomnia
has nothing to do with the intake of caffeine
or psychological strife?

Contemplation III

What is God?
I ask myself as I contemplate the interwoven clouds.
Far on the horizon, faint streaks of lightning corrugate the gloaming sky,
Ruffling my meditative stance,
for now we dread whatever can herald a storm,
which we associate with floods, earthquakes, and apocalyptic doom.

I retrieve my thoughts from the menace of apprehensiveness
that tends to dominate our current moods.
How can I paint a mental picture of a featureless Lord?
He is not supposed to possess eyes, a mouth, or a nose.
In paintings, He is depicted with a white beard
and sagaciously old.
What if He is eternal youth
and this virgin world which we have contaminated
is one of his countless words?

I like the idea of inhabiting a word.
It is simpler than the metaphysical and transcendental schools
for within each word He utters
dwells realms and worlds to roam.

Calculations

She twists every word I speak.
I decide to calculate how many words I utter
in her presence every day,
and to monitor their denotative and connotative implications.
She does not say Good Morning,
because she knows that every conversation would end
in acrimony and ill feelings.
She resurrects the past instantaneously
and blames me for every single decision
taken by my dad,
whose headstone is now twenty-two years old.
These calculations would hopefully divert my mind
from the putridity of every memory she unearths
to derail any dialogue aimed at peace-making.
I can put up with the abuse that pours into my consciousness
but the desecration of the memory of the dead,
especially that of my kind-hearted dad,
is more than I can take.
She seizes every opportunity to heap blame
on his decaying head.

On the first day, it does not work.
I wade into her lukewarm morning talk
until it gets scorchingly hot
and lava is forced out of my tongue.
It becomes so hard to keep silent
once the agitation of the nervous system sets in
and she is so good at awakening the worst in you
not even slumberous demons on narcotics
can ignore her venom.

On the second day, I succeed in shortening each argument
by five minutes
and though I cannot count the words in use,
the shortened time of the interchange
indicates the inevitable decrease.

On the third day, I begin to enjoy this test of patience;
however, the less words I use,
the more infuriated she becomes.
It is a no-win situation.
I begin to turn my thoughts inwardly
every time she starts her turbulent orchestration.
Half her words go unheard
and the lack of physiognomical reactions on my part
makes her mistake taciturnity for acquiescence
in her never-ending remonstrations.

Dr Susie Gharib is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde with a Ph.D. on the work of D.H. Lawrence. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in Adelaide Literary Magazine, Green Hills Literary Lantern, A New Ulster, Crossways, The Curlew, The Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Ink Pantry, Mad Swirl, Miller’s Pond Poetry Magazine, and Down in the Dirt.

Susie’s first book (adapted for film), Classic Adaptations, includes Charlotte Bronte’s Villette, Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, and D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

You can find more of Susie’s work here on Ink Pantry.

Just visiting

Slipping softly through sun-dappled trees
swaying grasses in time to summer’s hum
casting pollen up like sequinned sparkles
strolling though blossoming fields
ruffling the feather of the nesting birds.
Whipping waves into mountains of spray
stripping the last leaves from autumn’s dying.
Hats are tossed into the air
the rain flies in the face of night.
Forever moving, a restless rover
knowing no settled home.
Tonight there may be howling
and the windows may shake
but by morning there will be little sign
except the detritus of the wild.
Packed up gypsy-like,
the wind trails his life through the world
and is shut out
even in the quiet times.

Strike

I saw a spark of lightning in the dark,
its burst of brilliance lit up the whole sky.
The mark of blackness after was so stark
with depth impenetrable to the eye.

The grit and fury split the world in two,
with haunted trees denuded of their leaves.
The houses silhouetted by the view
of such a force that threatens all that breathes.

As quickly as it came it struck no more,
the night remained untainted by its thrust,
and all that stalked the darkness as before
returned to living as they always must.

Glenis has been writing poetry since the first Covid lockdown and does her writing at night as she suffers from insomnia. When she is not writing poetry she makes beaded jewellery, reads, and sometimes runs 10K races slowly. She has been published by Dreich, Dust Poetry, and Wildfire Words.

Shake Infinite Do

Bill to Gross A cinched Flame
     threw – – – – – form – – – – –
MOAN   a   Lease   A   attacked
              forbearance wheelbarrow
(un)avoid(able)
                      conflict
Negation                     therapy
– – – – – pursuit phobia
            stoic branch – – – – –
     happy harpy made a Pen
Is     never     underworked
  hairy     chest     heave X-
Ray            tape            measure
      treasure

Tart Mayhem Brick

new        release        PeR        gloved
     hand             FuLL                      steam
shipping label cut upward
featured Wrist home in
pigeon foRt short hOpe In
hAlf maverick round UP
supper formulation ProTecTed
        d   e   g   r   e   e

Rate Reek Bikini

defamation triangulation doubt bricks
speechless brother of a tonic spandex
Tangent practice metal accessibility leak
        memorial speech
        fired expatriate
        acid steam
                         intimate bAr
                         WaX        ed

asleep in the brambles

crisp snowflakes
                        on the frontlines of global teddy bear wars

        rainstorms with oats
        unforgettable suspenders

               stretched like a mislaid zig zag
               of loch ness monster promenades

this prolonged wonderment spinning like a helicopter

awash in graceful varieties of limping

cashews shovelling gelatin racing down bankruptcy
     fingernails could grow six, seven, eight inches
              motorcycle attaché trifle snickering

the bunch of clumsy grapes
punch a stage hymn

                        a dinosaur skeleton
                        in cheap fabrication
                        backsliding

Joshua Martin is a Philadelphia based writer and filmmaker, who currently works in a library. He is member of C22, an experimental writing collective. He is the author most recently of the books peeping sardine fumes (RANGER Press) and [Ruptured] >> Schematic <<  MAZES (Sweat Drenched Press). He has had numerous pieces published in various journals.

You can find more of Joshua’s work here on Ink Pantry.

O congenial queen of Autumn!
Why so sweet of all flowers?
Tall in height, colour so bright!
Venerations of all walks in life.
Paradise on earth and for human beings.
Primal ballerina for mellowest breeze,
Crony of the ablaze sun
And a guest of rainy season.
One after another hour
Full of motivations and fun
For the worldly lasses and sons!
O convivial queen of Autumn!
Your farewell is so near
Nearer than the poet’s pen
On the paper filled with emotions!

Monalisa Parida is an assistant professor of English in Bhubaneswar College of Engineering, Jankia, Odisha, and a prolific poetess. She is very active on social media platforms and her poems have been translated into different  languages and published in various e-journals.

She has 100 international awards for writing poetry. Her poems have been published in international e-journals “New York parrot”, “The Writers Club” (USA), “Suriyadoya literary  foundation”, “kabita Minar”, “Indian Periodical” (India) and “Offline Thinker “, “The Gorkha Times “ ( Nepal), “The Light House”(Portugal), “Bharatvision”(Romania), “International cultural forum for humanity and creativity”(Aleppo, Syria), “Atunispoetry.com”(Singapore), also published in various newspapers like “The Punjabi Writer Weekly (USA)”,  “News Kashmir (J&K, India)”, Republic of Sungurlu (Turkey)” etc.

One of her poems has been published in an American anthology named “The Literary Parrot Series-1 and series-2 respectively (New York, USA)”. Her poems have been translated into various languages like Hindi, Bengali, Turkish, Persian, Romanian etc.  She is the author of the books “Search For Serenity”, “My Favourite Grammar”, “Paradigm”, and “Beyond Gorgeous”.

It was the 90s and I was in my 20s walking down Broadway on my way home when a man grabbed my boob and grinned as he passed by.

I was an unlikely candidate for groping with my A cup chest.

A woman watched the whole thing go down and asked, “Do you know him?”

I said, “No!”

Karol Nielsen is the author of the memoirs Walking A&P and Black Elephants and three poetry chapbooks. Her first memoir was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Her full-length poetry collection was a finalist for the Colorado Prize for Poetry. Her poem “This New Manhattan” was a finalist for the Ruth Stone Poetry Prize.

The early

sonnets of Michelangelo,
those composed whilst
on a limited folic acid
intake, are so twisted
in upon themselves
they have become
both water-resistant
& washable. Even so,
that insane artistry,
the multiple narrative
perspectives, the forward-
thinking use of glass—
all still tempt like fresh
raspberries at the local store.

flirty singles, power players, & celebrities

It’s evident from
the way that
the angles of the
owner’s jawbones

project that this
laundromat is a
reincarnation of
the original late

night dance-spot
where mansion chic
& rock-star bach-
elor pad collided.

adagio

Words come back to me —
pizzicato, arco, bass clef — from
that part of my past which
has to do with music. Finger
positions come back, the
horsehair bow, & that upright

stance you have to adopt &
adapt to with an instrument
as big as yourself. Associat-
ions come back, & favourite
pieces — currently it’s the
Concierto de Aranjuez that’s

picking its way across my
forebrain. You might say
everything comes back; but
as long as time continues its
inexorable march forward you
know that will never be true.

Mark Young was born in Aotearoa / New Zealand but now lives in a small town in North Queensland in Australia. His most recent books are with the slow-paced turtle replaced by a fast fish, published by Sandy Press in May, 2023, & a free downloadable chapbook of visuals & poems, Mercator Projected, published by Half Day Moon Press in August 2023.

You can find more of Mark’s work here on Ink Pantry.

‘Chris’, hippie appearance, sorrowful eyes

Another life story at the AA
meeting. He began with the gullible
stepfather, the mother’s fantasies, then

we heard about his unseen real father’s
dominance, his adolescent interest
in the spiritual life, his scorn for hire

purchase, his qualities of leadership.
He loved to play tricks, hated violence,
and although women adored him, men, too,

from all walks of life, he seemed celibate.
He saw it coming, predicted it, when
his own people betrayed him, crucified

him really. He would cry out for a drink,
felt desperate when he thought he had been
abandoned. One of his best mates denied

knowing him, and after he woke in a
cave, alone, bleeding, left for dead, that was
when he knew his life had hit rock bottom.

Commentators’ Team

Defence: I know that’s a cliché/ It’s a known fact/ It’s an arm wrestle/ Scoreboard pressure/ They’re under the pump/ Time’s ticking away.

Midfield: He needs to stand up and be counted/ A living legend/ On a learning curve/ A season-defining game/ Statistically speaking/ Where angels fear to tread.

Attack: Absolutely sensational/ He’s on fire/ Last roll of the dice/ No pain, no gain/ Through the eye of a needle/ Winners are grinners.

Interchange: Horribly wrong/ It’s a tragedy/ At the end of the day/ The bottom line.

Ian C Smith’s work has been published in  BBC Radio 4 Sounds,The Dalhousie Review, Gargoyle, Griffith Review, Honest Ulsterman, Southword, Stand, & The Stony Thursday Book.  His seventh book is wonder sadness madness joy, Ginninderra (Port Adelaide).  He writes in the Gippsland Lakes area of Victoria, and on Flinders Island.

You can find more of Ian’s work here on Ink Pantry.

The night is an endless frustrating vast empty well into which I am continually falling but never reaching the bottom, never drawing closer to the malicious water.

At 2 am, I wake up, my body electric, my eyes watchful and alert and as far away from sleep as is possible.

I peek through the Venetian blinds that drape my window like eyes from a woebegone factory.

Yes, I peek through the blinds, and I see nothingness—the black and implacable and impenetrable and unforgiving night as thick and dark as a swamp.

I return to my bed, which lies alive with sheets wrinkled and puke green and sweaty, and I pound my pillow into smithereens and slam it against the headboard of my bed.

I try to read Kafka’s The Trial. Strange choice to seduce sleep, n’est-ce-pas? But the words on the filthy page are like worms that curl into opaqueness, and Kafka’s paragraphs elongate till they are as impenetrable as the swarthy night.

I blunder my way out of bed and stumble to the kitchen and pour myself a secret bowl of Cheerios and return to my bed and slurp the cereal and study the little O’s as if they held some sort of meaning,

And I hope and pray that the cereal will gird me for the long fight through the night to find rest and meaning in the nothingness of the dark.

The night is a boa constrictor wrapping itself around my soul and squeezing the life out of it.

I’ve had enough of Kafka’s prose, which is a dark impenetrable puzzling of malice and myth-making words of anomie and soullessness.

I turn off the silver metallic lamp by the bed and plunge into the blackest of the night so far.

The pillow feels like a memory that I no longer want to hang on to.

I toss and turn, feeling the sheets beneath me like iron, the pillow like the repository of lost hopes and dreams.

The night screams on, growing more tragic by the minute, by the second, like an evil and rambunctious dragon.

I levitate from the bed. The sheets burble with unforgiving sweat.

I toddle down the hallway to the bathroom and hang my dick like dirty laundry over the toilet bowl, which in the death of night resembles a huge gaping mouth yearning to swallow me whole.

Drip. Drip. Drip. The peeing finally comes to a denouement that is completely devoid of significance. Done. My body is thankfully empty of urine.

Back to the Shakespearean tragedy of the bed. 4 am. 4:30 am. 5 am. The minutes click by like sodden and lugubrious steps that one takes in some netherworld where sleep is not delineated, defined, or allowed.

Facing one way. Rolling over. Facing another way. My eyes as far from sleep as New York is from Capetown, as Pluto is from Earth.

Eyes alert, wired, steady, peering into the darkness and the future that lurks in that darkness,

And seeing nothingness. Peering. Staring. Unblinking. I lie strangling on the well-sweated sheets, the perspiring sheets,

And wait for a haunted sleep that promises never to come.

Christopher Johnson is a writer based in the Chicago area. He has 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.

You can find more of Christopher’s work here on Ink Pantry.

communion

blanket
and sombrero
dropped
in a pile,
she runs
through a vacant
city of gold,
echoes thudding
against eardrums,
sweat pouring
in a hum.

the priest
rings a bell
to the stirring
dust,
wipes his forehead
with the back of his hand,
spits,
walks back to the bottle
and eats the worm.

she calls him father.
he waves her in.
their arms
slow in the heat.

risky business

paintings
locked in
colour

and boulders
in falling rock zones,
never really falling.

you’ve never seen
a pebble bounce
or heard a hard crack
and you know
if you drive through
this same threatening
stretch of road
every year
and locate the same
boulder on a
precipitous ledge
it will always be
el cid dead on his horse
which gives you something
to talk about.

pigments are never
diluted with water
but seasons
change your taste
in fruits and vegetables
and leave you nothing
to choose at the market
except endive and spinach.
and the heavy green of one colour
is a still life’s
red tablecloth
hung over the edge
in perfect folds
of
shadowed smiles with teeth unseen

improving the drainage

walking along the street
near my home
where machines
are putting in new sewers;

no humans to be seen here.

just yellow backhoes and orange cranes
red dump trucks
with windows layered in foggy brown
and not a human within them,
not a movement.

slabs of concrete
and asphalt piled
for a campfire,
it seems;

smells captured under bulldozers
and released as steam.
a whole neighbourhood
glued in chaos
and coated in the sewage
of wet dust.

walking past the detour signs
and plastic blinking lights,
generators thumping failing thumping.

home finally
but not really there,
crouched unsteadily
on the sidedoor steps
fingering spider webs,
teasing apart the smells of bean soup
and a flooded basement.

props

the old men
who play chess
in parks

rarely speaking,
smoking tobacco
spitting juice
as young boys
watch and
run
for sandwiches
and coffee.
as sun
sprinkles through
the trees
just enough
and the breeze
folds a newspaper
just enough.

i have never seen this.

the old men
who wheeze
and take pills,
cough and
lock in dentures
before the sandwiches;
piss themselves
from the coffee.
who wear safari hats
and measure immortality
with captured pawns.

i have never seen this.

except in movies
                 grainy and frightening
whose titles i forget.

soft landing

chocolate evening
drips a candle
of slow light.
coffee,
gurgling breath
of steam aroma is
harboured in dreams
of unthinking
skin.
closed eyes
and the exquisite deadness
falls through murmurs
of crossed and barricading arms.
my hair is uncombed
my breath is unwashed
my heart is a trampoline
(and not a pump) so warmth
splashes randomly and
grease flies from bacon
but doesn’t burn;

a rare moment.

Livio Farallo is co-editor of Slipstream and Professor of Biology at Niagara County Community College in Sanborn, New York. His work has appeared or, is forthcoming, in The Cardiff Review, The Cordite Review, Roi Faineant, North Dakota Quarterly, J Journal, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and elsewhere.

(Inspired by “What I Believe” by Jacqueline Woodson)

I believe teriyaki chicken with rice tastes better than anything.
I believe my grandma agreed.
I believe God whispered to her our family teriyaki sauce recipe.
I believe my father taught the secret to me
to continue her legacy.

I believe I will continue her legacy
by clothing every meat I eat
with sweet teriyaki.

I believe my wife dislikes sweet meat.
I believe that does not matter to me.
I believe that does not matter to her either.

I believe our future children might not like it either.
I believe my wife and I will dress their meat
with teriyaki sauce anyway.
I believe my children will eat
teriyaki chicken with rice anyway.

I believe, if they like it,
they might even learn the recipe
and then forget it
after eating too much McDonald’s or Wendy’s.

I believe, despite this possibility,
they will still carry my grandma and father’s legacy.
I believe they will even honour my wife and me

because

I believe they will see, just like anybody,
that family is fitted
with so much more meaning
than chicken and rice
in sweet teriyaki.

Caleb Delos-Santos (he/him) is an English graduate student at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Throughout his four years of writing, Caleb has published poetry with nearly twenty literary magazines, including North Dakota Quarterly and the Madison Journal of Literary Criticism, and most recently released his first two poetry collections, A Poet’s Perspective (2022) and Once One Discovers Love (2023). Caleb also won the 2022 Esselstrom Writing Prize and the West Wind Literary Magazine’s 2023 Best in Genre Award for his nonfiction. Today, Caleb teaches English 101 as a teaching assistant and dreams of a successful writing and teaching career.