Angela McClintock

GIVE AND TAKE

The night they shot my friend the cop,
I counseled a suicidal kid
Informing him of options open.

He, too, had a gun cocked
Pointing at his head
His previous cries for help
Unheard.

We negotiated ruthlessly
He with pain
Me with compromise
Finally, he agreed
To try tomorrow.

And as the kid attempted life,
My friend fought death
Tooth and nail,
but lost.


Angela's YouTube reading of "Give and Take"


Angela confesses: "At the time the poem was written, I was a counselor in a runaway shelter working with adolescents. I dealt with all of the childhood abuse and neglect issues and the suicidal ideations that come with suffering. I had a dear friend, a police officer who was killed in the line of duty trying to protect a battered woman the same timeframe I had been working with a suicidal youth. The juxtaposition of the two events haunted me. Thus, the poem."

“I’ve always been a storyteller, to the delight of my siblings and the chagrin of my parents." ANGELA McCLINTOCK, a licensed clinical social worker certified in trauma, spent the last three decades working with children and families in crisis. Writing has always been her creative escape.

Her first published novel, The Boy in the Basement, won first prize in the Bookfest 2024 for psychological thrillers. Grave Justice (book two in the Jennifer Riley series) was released in April 2025.

Angela lives in Birmingham, AL, with her two spoiled corgis, Loki and Odin.

Gary D. Rhodes

COLD DISH

Upwards,
downwards,
the shovel
shovels.

Depths rise,
higher and higher.

Earth
unearthed.

Splintered coffin,
splintered mind.

Dirt, grime
on two.

Only one
stands.

In my fingers,
I collect him.


Gary's YouTube reading of "Cold Dish"


Gary confesses: "'Cold Dish' takes its name from the old saying about revenge being a dish best served at a cooler temperature. It reminds me of an old Irish saying, 'long runs the fox,' or Southern Gothic stories where one person takes their revenge decades later. The poem also speaks about grave desecration, a key taboo, and yet one that as a people we are willing to violate if enough time passes, whether that means opening an Egyptian tomb or plumbing the ocean depths to the Titanic."

GARY D. RHODES, a professor of Media Production, is the writer-director of a number of commercially-released documentaries, as well as the author of twenty nonfiction books on film history and the horror genre. His work has been favorably reviewed in The Hollywood Reporter, USA Today, Sight & Sound, Cineaste, Turner Classic Movies, and the E! Channel. His first novel, Offed, published in 2017, received accolades in The Huffington Post.

Peter Gregg Slater

BREAKING NEWS

Not again? Yes, again!
Some psycho shot up
Carson Tool and Die
way out on the pike.

Worked there
the Xing classes say
for a day, a week,
a month, a year, a decade.

Listen to this!
Some psycho lost it
shot up the Carson plant,
been on that hilltop forever,
wounding two, killing five.

Almost always a man
rarely a woman.
We all know why.

Have you heard?
Some psycho exploded
on the night shift at Carson’s,
the carnage splashing the news—
for 24 hours.

We wait and wait now
for the next crackup out of the blue,
raging bloody.
Will happen any day. Any time.

Please don’t let it be me.


Peter's YouTube reading of "Breaking News"


Peter confesses: "First thing one morning, I turned on the kitchen radio and immediately heard about a mass shooting in a distant state. 'Not again!' I shouted. Later, I wondered about the shooter. Was the guy a wacko for years, or just an ordinary person, one of us, who somehow suddenly snapped?"


PETER GREGG SLATER, at one time an English major, jumped ship to become a historian. He has taught history at several institutions, including Dartmouth College and the University of California, Berkeley. But something literary is in his DNA as he published his first short story while serving as the chair of a history department. In retirement, he has come full circle, devoting himself to creative writing. His work has appeared in DASH, Workers Write!, The Satirist, Masque & Spectacle, and WordSwell.

Tony Dawson

ANOTHER N-WORD

Netanyahu like his best mate Trump
is a businessman with a cruel streak.
He’s currently pushing his new
Mediterranean diet, devised especially
for inhabitants of the Gaza Strip.
Strip for him means strip to the bone
as you can see on the news each day.
Originally, Palestinians were to eat lead.
He’s now elaborating on this idea.
After setting up food distribution hubs
to concentrate his lead-consuming targets,
he’s offering a virtually food-free version
of the Mediterranean diet to make sure
babies and children, in particular, suffer
as they starve to death. If they survive
they’ll be too brain damaged to cause
the mighty Israel any problems in the future
and so thin they’ll all fit into a single block
on the Gaza Strip. The Waldorf Hotel?
No. I think N said it’s called the “Walled Off.”


Tony's YouTube reading of "Another N-Word"


Tony confesses: "Each time I see the news I’m thoroughly sickened by what Netanyahu is doing to the Palestinians in Gaza. Furthermore, it appears that Israel is forever destined to get away literally with murder under its 'antisemitism dome' that is akin to its 'antimissile dome,' a sort of cloak of invisibility that prevents countries that support it from seeing or understanding the crimes it commits every day."

TONY DAWSON, an English writer, has been living in Seville since 1989 and continues to publish widely in the USA, UK and Australia since he took up writing during the pandemic. Many of his poems have been published as three small collections:

Afterthoughts ISBN 9788119 228348, published by Cyberwit.net. First edition: 2023 and reviewed at: https://londongrip.co.uk/2023/06/london-grip-poetry-review-tony-dawson/

Musings ISBN 97819115 819666, published by Impspired. First edition: December 2023 and reviewed at: https://londongrip.co.uk/2023/12/london-grip-poetry-review-tony-dawson-2/

and Reflections in a Dirty Mirror ISBN 9781915819949 also published by Impspired. First Edition: April 2024and reviewed at: https://londongrip.co.uk/2024/04/london-grip-poetry-review-tony-dawson-3/

In addition, he has written a number of pieces of flash fiction, a selection of which appeared in Curiouser and Curiouser ISBN 9788119 654932, published by Cyberwit.net. First edition: 2023.