John Grey

WAITING FOR GALE OUTSIDE THE BIJOU

Wind blows and rips the posters.
Peering through the filthy glass doors,
I can see the ticket booth
but not the cashier.
I expect she's nothing but bones by this.

My grandfather remembers
when there used to be a piano player
at every matinee.
And sometimes an orchestra,
sometimes a chorus line,
and that was just as a prologue to the movie.

My father's recollections only extend
to the action in the rear seats.
They're always prefaced by,
"Don't tell your mother."

I wonder when they'll finally raze the building,
turn the space into stores or condos.
No beautiful memories of my own,
an ugly future is my best bet.


John reads "Waiting for Gale Outside the Bijou":



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John confesses: "This poem is inspired by my love for old theaters whether cinema or live. And, to my mind, there's nothing sadder one of those theaters that's shuttered because it's no longer viable as a paying concern. It's part nostalgia and part admiration for the kitschy decor."

JOHN GREY is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in New Plains Review, South Carolina Review, Gargoyle, and Silkworm. Work upcoming in Big Muddy Review, Cape Rock and Spoon River Poetry Review.

Sanjeev Sethi

PROFESSIONS

Media are loaded with ammo,
limited in their inquire.
Corporates are insular entities
conditioned by cocoons.
Academes acquire the know-how.
Subdued by communication's sledge.
Governments are immune
to crotchet of quotidian calls.
Poets have punch but no push.

Politicians, pundits, scammers, spielers
are with the right constituents.
Dwarfed by desire.


Gerald So reads "Professions":



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Sanjeev confesses: "Why don’t things work as smoothly as they should? I was in one of those introspective moods mulling about Statecraft and all of that when 'Professions' marched its way, all in one go, to my Word file. After the usual frill and trim the poem was ready to move on."

SANJEEV SETHI has published three books of poetry. This Summer and That Summer (Bloomsbury, 2015) is his latest. His poems have found a home in The London Magazine, The Fortnightly Review, Ink Sweat and Tears, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, The Galway Review, The Open Mouse, Otoliths, Meniscus, Literary Orphans, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Helios Mss, Right Hand Pointing, and elsewhere. Poems are forthcoming in Amaryllis Poetry, Futures Trading, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Yellow Chair Review, Postcolonial Text, Drunk Monkeys, Of/with:, and Linden Avenue Literary Journal. He lives in Mumbai, India.

Bill Baber

SHORT-LIVED

There’s no way of knowing
if the unyielding heat
or the suffocating crush of boredom
had anything to do
with us becoming outlaws
the summer we were all fourteen.

It started innocently enough
with a brazen dare
thrown down between
fabricated adventures
and assorted adolescent lies.
It was Tommy’s Idea,
The Maloneys had left on vacation
And every one of us broke in
taking jewelry, a bottle of bourbon
and an unloaded pistol.

The next day, a sultry Sunday
dinner was required at my grandmother's.
While I ate overcooked roast beef
and dried-out vegetables
the rest of the gang drank the bourbon
then foolishly took the gun
to the neighborhood 7-Eleven.
None of them returned.
Needless to say, my career
as an outlaw was over.


Bill reads "Short-Lived":



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Bill confesses: "Teenage boys are capable of doing some incredibly dumb things when driven by peer pressure. Some get lucky and don't get caught or hurt. This poem is for those without luck."


BILL BABER has had over three dozen crime stories published and his stories have recently appeared in Rogue from Near to the Knuckle, Hardboiled Crime Scene from Dead Guns Press and Locked & Loaded from One Eye Press. He has also had a number of poems published online and in the occasional literary journal. His crime writing has earned Derringer Award and Best of the Net consideration. A book of his poetry, Where the Wind Comes to Play was published by Berberis Press in 2011. He lives in Tucson with his wife and a spoiled dog and has been known to cross the border for a cold beer. He is working on his first novel.

Jonel Abellanosa

PIED PIPER

This enslavement to my instrument
Follows endless under-the-table contracts,
Under-the-carpet anomalies and permits,
Lies for the people's hopes, taxpayer
Pesos pinched, ghost clerks hired,
Men of your political opponent fired,
Substandard structures killer quakes
And waves desire. Music is how
The hideous attains art, my tunes
Like echoes of your unfulfilled promises
To pay. Rats rise from your hidden wealth,
Greed's sewers clogged with leaves
From your family tree. Your name
Stenches the air. I keep returning
To my despair, this yearn to stop
Leading to where justice prevails
But there will always be someone
Like you, so on and on I play this melody,
Till your hypnotized child takes your
Handgun and pumps a bullet in his brain


Gerald So reads "Pied Piper":



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Jonel confesses: "I was retelling the Pied Piper through poetry when typhoon Yolanda, the biggest typhoon in recorded history, hit the Philippines. Corruption is the biggest political issue in my country, so I retold the Pied Piper with a corrupt mayor as a protagonist, and considering the post-typhoon contracts of rebuilding many cities."

JONEL ABELLANOSA resides in Cebu City, the Philippines. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Delirious: A Poetic Celebration of Prince (Night Ballet Press), 2015 Dwarf Stars Anthology (Science Fiction Poetry Association), Rattle, Anglican Theological Review, Poetry Kanto, The Artistic Muse, Indiana Voice Journal, Carbon Culture Review, Penwood Review, The McNeese Review, Star*Line, Inkscrawl, Pedestal Magazine, GNU Journal, Penmen Review, Eastlit, Cha, Lontar: The Journal of Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction, and Bangalore Review. He has two chapbooks, “Pictures of the Floating World” (Kind of a Hurricane Press) and “The Freeflowing All” (Black Poppy Review).

David Spicer

ON THE INTERNET

I’ve lost my humor: my false
teeth surround their tongue,
threaten to chew it next time it
flickers, stomach accepts nothing
but charcuterie, and feet demand
to amble on dunes. I guess I’ll buy
a bus or plane ticket to Key West,
where I’ll hide out with an online
sweetheart—a folk-singing nun named
Dominique—under a resort parasol.
We’ll hide out a week, swap recipes
for Long Island Teas, Miami Vices,
and Blue Hawaiians. No habits
except drinking and screwing,
so I hope my nightmare will end soon,
but a subpoena may be waiting:
my name is linked to a shipjack
because I have a rap sheet longer
than a yacht. I’d like to remain
a complete stranger to everyone
but Dominique, even though I
receive catalogues of mugs,
paintings, and buckskin jackets
illustrated with playing cards.
I might look for my twin there
and confront her about my cut
of the robbery. Maybe I’ll pour
myself a Grasshopper or tell
Dominique I’m now her manager.
Hell, on second thought my garden
needs weeding, and I can find another
crazy girlfriend on the Internet.


Gerald So reads "On the Internet":



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David confesses: "I'm fascinated how life on the lam is, how criminals perform misdeeds, embrace relationships, and enjoy good times. The Internet makes this possible by supplying a resourceful fugitive a little anonymity, but a felonious life still contains complications--however, they can be decreased by cynical humor."

DAVID SPICER has had poems in Yellow Mama, Reed Magazine, Slim Volume, The Laughing Dog, In Between Hangovers, The American Poetry Review, Easy Street, Ploughshares, Bad Acid Laboratories, Inc., Dead Snakes, and in A Galaxy of Starfish: An Anthology of Modern Surrealism (Salo Press, 2016). He has been nominated for a Pushcart, is the author of one full-length collection of poems and four chapbooks, and is the former editor of Raccoon, Outlaw, and Ion Books. He lives in Memphis, Tennessee.

Michael A. Arnzen

MISCALCULATED

Math is an accessory
to my murder—
I know, because I committed
the perfectly calculated crime:
I timed the death stroke
by positioning the
rope and rifle, rigged
precisely with pulleys so that
when he swung open the door
its arc drew an imaginary
semicircle—
pi*r-squaring the tension
to perfectly pull the trigger
and send a bullet
to complete the equation
in his brain at exactly the moment
he realizes my revenge was in his face.
But I hadn't figured
the cops were already
surrounding the area,
manning the entire circumference
as they encircled me
with fourteen, maybe thirty
more, uniforms. But no matter
how I ran the numbers,
I still couldn't solve
the primary problem:
whichever way I ran,
they had me in their scopes,
the shot range always already
triangulated.


Mike reads "Miscalculated":



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Mike confesses: "Back around 'pi day' (3/14), I had math on the brain, and 'Miscalculated' was one of the dark results. It's rife with little math jokes. I think I have always found the 'shotgun trap at the door' trick an interesting murder method in crime fiction, but in this case imagining the geometry of what is involved with it all brought me to something a little different. It's a sick poem, but justice is served, I hope, in an ironic way."

MICHAEL A. ARNZEN has won four Bram Stoker Awards for his often funny, always disturbing horror fiction and poetry. He teaches full-time in the MFA in Writing Popular Fiction program at Seton Hill University, and lives near Pittsburgh with his wife and cats. His award-winning "best of" collection, Proverbs for Monsters, is soon to be re-released by Dark Regions Press in ebook format, and a non-fiction study, The Popular Uncanny, is coming soon from Guide Dog Books, too. To keep up with his madness and receive new weird poetry in your inbox, sign up for The Goreletter at his website, http://gorelets.com.

Craig Faustus Buck

IS IT SO HARD?

Is it so hard to pass up the wedding ring
she left by the soap dish in the bathroom?
Is it so hard to pass up the opportunity?
Is it so hard to avoid lifting it? Slipping it in my pocket?
Is it so hard to act like a loving newlywed instead of
working the angle against my wife of two days?
Is it so hard to say Dear,
you left your ring on the sink instead of
making her feel like shit for losing it
so I can pawn it?
Is it so hard to make love to her instead of
smacking her around
to teach her not to lose what I give her?
Why does she have to make it so hard?


Craig reads "Is it So Hard?":



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Craig confesses: "I was watching the TV news, thinking about a battered wife in my next novel. Donald Trump came on and, as he usually does, tried to shift his own blame to the victim of one of his blunders. It occurred to me that this was exactly what my wife-beater would do."

Author/screenwriter CRAIG FAUSTUS BUCK's debut noir novel, Go Down Hard, was published by Brash Books in 2015. His short stories have won a Macavity Award and been nominated for two Anthonys and the Derringer. He is president of Mystery Writers of America SoCal chapter. You can find out more at CraigFaustusBuck.com

Sara J. Tantlinger

DANGEROUS HONESTIES

I close my eyes
and HAZARD flashes
red against the darkness

summer heat boils
thoughts to gurgling
mucus, but I can’t regret
the contrast
of his blood-spattered
silence against emerald
blades
of whispering grass

the skull bones stare
back at me, bleached
and accusing

but HAZARD
I think I hear
the sirens

and HAZARD
his skin was so
dangerous

the way it sang lullabies
lured me closer
so I am faulted,
but will they see
the beauty, the art

the HAZARD
of his pelt
hanging from the laundry line
baking in the sun
and how the butterflies
have landed
on a filleted chunk
of thigh

I cocooned
myself
in a coat
of his flesh
but HAZARD
the sirens approach
and I have no more knives

because I miss his voice
and how he instructed me
to destroy the raging angels
inside my confused eyes

I thought he was false,
but boys with blue lips
tell no lies


Sara reads "Dangerous Honesties":



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Sara confesses: "'Dangerous Honesties' was inspired by the theme challenge to combine summer and crime. I couldn’t get the image of someone’s skin hanging from a laundry line and dancing in the breeze out of my head, so I played with that idea and the poem took off."

SARA TANTLINGER is currently pursuing her MFA through Seton Hill’s Writing Popular Fiction program. Her work has appeared in publications such as The Literary Hatchet, Liquid Imagination, Inklight, The Five-Two, HWA Poetry Showcase Volume II, Eye Contact, and the 2014 SFPA Halloween Poetry Reading. Find her on Twitter at @SaraJane524

Nancy Scott

THE PORK PIE, THE CANDY BAR, AND THE GLASS OF COLD MILK (OR LETTER FROM GLOUCESTER COUNTY JAIL)

Why I ended up in jail is no mystery. After months of listening to those more glib than I at making predictions, I began plotting my future. However when asked if I preferred the pork pie, the candy bar, or the glass of cold milk, I was flummoxed.

As spring finished and summer wore on, mine became a solitary quest. Nothing was the same—the milk curdled, the pork pie went rancid, and the candy bar disappeared—I blame myself for not being vigilant. Frustrated, I took a gun and started shooting at random, hitting a man with a briefcase in the leg.

Despite predictions to the contrary, the house suddenly went up in flames and everything perished. With the fate of the stolen candy unknown, no option remained. I had fired a gun based on a faulty premise. The man I shot understood and didn’t press charges. I thought that was the end of it.

The prosecutor, an elected official, thought differently. I was convicted, not for the shooting, but for failing to make the proper choice. I might have bluffed my way out of all this had the cops apprehended the candy thief in a timely way. After a lengthy interrogation, she admitted to eating the chocolate and got a $5 fine.


Nancy reads "The Pork Pie, the Candy Bar, and the Glass of Cold Milk..."



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Nancy confesses: "The spectacle of the primaries became a daily fix—lying, stupidity, meanness, shouting, narcissism fueled my indecision about whom to vote for, but in a country where we have had to fight and sometimes die for the right to vote, not voting feels like a crime. Satire seemed one way to deal with what was going on."

NANCY SCOTT, the managing editor of U.S.1 Worksheets, is the author of nine books of poetry. Her most recent, Ah, Men (Aldrich Press, 2016) is a retrospective of the men in her life. Her poetry and short fiction have appeared in more than 100 different journals as well as numerous times on this site. She is also an artist, exhibiting her collages and mixed media in juried shows throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania. www.nancyscott.net.

Tonia Kalouria

BIG BROTHER IS STILL WATCHING YOU

"How did your presentation go?"
Said Phyl, "It went quite well."
"The slow kids love to choose their words;
they write from bell to bell!"

"They get to choose which words to learn!
And plus, how many, too?"
"Oh, yeah–for Extra Crédito?–
no end to what they’ll do!"

"Oh, too much tea," then Phyllis joked:
"Back in a flash–or ‘flush.’"
"Must hit the Little Teachers Room;
pay later –gotta rush"!

"Wait! Do you have your SEX ID,
Ms. Teacher of the Year?"
"It’s in my purse somewhere, I think."
(Both outcomes garnered fear.)

"Oh, darn!" cried Phyl, "a Guard is there";
"Must use the MENS for sure.
But I sure hope it’s vacant 'cause
this ‘guy’ is quite demure."

Phyl flashed her blue ID with "Phil,"
heels tap toward empty stall;
two bulky, boorish brutes appear–
fixin’ to start a brawl...

Phyl’s hair was soaked, her dress was ripped.
"Bitch got what he deserved!"
The blood and panties gagging her?
Transphobic Justice served.


Gerald So "Big Brother is Still Watching You":



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Tonia confesses: "If you don't think the bathroom edict that transgenders use birth certificate designations instead of Obama guidelines won't foment transphobic hate crimes, the Ku Klux Klan begs to differ. KKK in one Alabama city is using the issue as a (successful) recruiting tool! Their fliers suggest the 'really confused' trans should 'Use a tree.' What’s next? Only the pinus palustris* for trans females, and peach trees for trans males?"

TONIA KALOURIA is a retired Spanish teacher who played psychiatrist Tonia Wilson on Passions from 2002 to 2007. Her book, Aerobic Poetry: Critter Connections Collection, features humorous, rhythmic poems meant to be read aloud to help lower blood pressure and improve lung function. She has also published poetry in The Litchfield Review, Common Threads, and The Senior Years. She lives with her devoted husband of many years on the West Coast and has two wonderful sons and a lovely granddaughter.

Robert Cooperman

OBAMA RESPONSIBLE FOR FLINT: A PATRIOT NEWS TELEVISION EXCLUSIVE

Our startling undercover expose
reveals that Barack Hussein Obama,
also known as "President ISIS,"
is responsible for the toxic agents
contaminating Flint's water supply.
Surveillance video clearly shows
the traitor pouring smoking liquids
into Lake Michigan and the Flint River.

Rather than lurking in the city's falsely
accused lead pipes, which our piece
proclaims are free of contaminants,
it’s this emptying of vat upon vat
of toxic effluvia that’s responsible
for the city’s lethal water supply.

Our footage shows "President Kenya"
in a hooded and visored hazmat suit,
in an attempt to hide his identity,
but it’s clear, from his height
and estimated body mass,
who the perp is: the proof

that this illegal squatter—
though not for much longer—
in the White House
is a jihadi murderer of our nation's
most valuable resource:
our precious children, even these:
white trash, Hispanic, and black.

God damn our many enemies:
without and within.
And God Bless America!


Gerald So reads "Obama Responsible for Flint...":



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Cooperman confesses: "From the instant Barack Obama won the 2008 election, the Republicans wanted him out of office. To them he wasn't fit to serve, and we all know the real reason. Senator Mitch McConnell proudly asserted job #1 was to make sure Obama served only one term. Donald Trump began making birther rants, etc. This poem is merely the logical end result of all that idiot vitriol."

ROBERT COOPERMAN's Draft Board Blues is forthcoming from FutureCycle Press. His most recent collection is Just Drive (Brick Road Poetry Press).

Bruce Harris

THE BEGGAR

His four word sign,
"Food. Money. God Bless,"
an ineffective shield to my fist,
which yesterday handed him a C-note,
before he drove away in the Porsche parked nearby.


Gerald So reads "The Beggar":



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Bruce confesses: "An impoverished woman and her young daughter held up a sign, 'We’re hungry.' I purchased two dinners for them at a nearby restaurant. She thanked me, and I watched as they disappeared through a parking lot."

BRUCE HARRIS is the author of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson: ABout Type (available at www.batteredbox.com).

Charles Rammelkamp

GOOD COP, BAD COP

"Your mother doesn't want another cat,"
I tell my children, shrugging helplessly
when they ask if we can't get another.
A look of pleading fills their eyes,
but they already know the answer.
It's been two years since Grover died,
our sweet ancient tabby.
Nothing I can do about it, my mute defense.

I recall the last five years of Grover's life,
curled in a corner, struggling to his feet,
the pills I forced down his throat every morning,
turds we stepped on in the dark,
puddles of urine and vomit on the floor.

My father was distant when I was a kid,
deep in the concerns of his research
like an explorer in a cave with a flashlight—
permissive, lenient to his children,
leaving discipline to his wife.

Slogging through the muck of parenting,
sleeves rolled up, Mom laid down the law,
set the curfews, spelled out the consequences.


Charles reads "Good Cop, Bad Cop":



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Charles confesses: "In Humboldt's Gift, Saul Bellow discusses the concept of the 'contrast gainer', the member of a couple who looks good by comparison with his or her mate. The same principle is at work in the 'good cop, bad cop' police interrogation strategy, one cop appearing sympathetic in contrast to the other. The same dynamic often applies between parents, one kinder, more understanding than the other. They also say that grandparents can seem good-coppish—tolerant, indulgent—in contrast to parents. Think of the contrast between Bernie and Hillary, n'est-ce pas?"

CHARLES RAMMELKANP edits The Potomac, an online literary journal, and is the Prose Editor for BrickHouse Books in Baltimore, Maryland, where he lives. His latest book is a poetry collection called Mata Hari: Eye of the Day, published by Apprentice House (Loyola University).

Peter M. Gordon

SYMPATHETIC MAGIC

You thought me cute
when I asked for a
lock of your hair

that afternoon we
met at your salon.
You giggled as I

pressed blonde ringlets
into a shell-shaped locket.
slid it in my pocket.

You didn't ask me to
return that token
of love when you

threw my engagement
ring into the East River
during our last quarrel.

I haven't heard from
you
but I heard from your mother

you're suffering mysterious
pains, empty appetite.
she begged me to visit.

I know it's not unrequited love
gnawing at your marrow.
It's the sharp hat pins I stick

into the round faced doll
pasted with your blonde locks.
Tonight I'll stretch her limbs

just a little farther
then pull the pins
before I come to see you.

You'll find pain only ends when
I'm near. You'll come to believe
reprieve from pain proves love.


Peter reads "Sympathetic Magic":



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Peter confesses: "I was sorting through some old family possessions (couldn't really call them 'heirlooms') and I thought how we associate certain objects with people. And what if those objects really did have power over the people they touched? Any resemblance to old girl friends of mine is completely coincidental."


PETER M. GORDON is a poet and journalist whose poems have appeared in The Five-Two, Slipstream Magazine, Poetry Breakfast, the Journal of Florida Literature, and several other magazines and anthologies. Peter's poetry collection, Two Car Garage, is currently available from all online books stores. Peter teaches at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida.

April Krassner

MUST READ

In this one, we know a sociopath
is behind the dread, the terror, the evil.
Later we find out it is a pair, so we set off looking
for the dominant and the submissive.
I am fairly sure I have spotted
the right one early on. He has been easy
to spot, hanging around on the outskirts
of gossip, showing up in odd moments,
pretending naïveté, seemingly
detached. Turns out I was right finding him
much earlier than the others. What I lacked
was clear argument. In others words I
was working from gut instinct having read
hundreds of other books just like this one
intent on exploring the darker side
of humanity. But really, I thought
it was going to be something far worse,
a ring of child pornographers woven
so deeply into the geographical
region that arresting one would breed five
more. But that is not what ends up happening.
What ends up happening here is largely
tamed, well brought up, God fearing and angry.


April reads "Must Read":



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April confesses: "I have often been motivated to write from my reading. Sometimes that writing is based on the subject or a line, the plot or a character. This time around I thought about those of us who work to figure out the puzzle of a mystery and those who wait and move in step with the writer."


APRIL KRASSNER teaches both expository and creative writing at NYU’s School of Professional Studies. A poet, her work has appeared in Poet Lore, Anderbo, and Journey to Crone, an anthology of 80 women poets, as well as numerous other publications. For the past sixteen years she has co-directed the Summer Intensive Creative Writing Workshop with Ruth Danon. Ms. Krassner considers herself to be a domestic and political poet always interested in language and how it shapes experience. She is currently working on a manuscript of prose poems that focus on failures of communication within families. April Krassner received her MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College.

Chad Haskins

GUILTY

My crime is
this unoriginal,
dramatic groaning,
forced upon you
on my knees,
fucking bleeding...
her soothing love
ripped from my core.


Chad reads "Guilty":



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Chad confesses: "This poem was inspired by the pain I felt after losing contact with a special person in my life."

CHAD HASKINS lives in Georgia. He enjoys the outdoors, working out, Mexican food, various styles of music, crime fiction, and engaging conversations. Chad's writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Rose and Thorn Journal, Blue Collar Review, Untitled Country Review, Yellow Mama, Spinetingler Magazine, drown in my own fears, Golden Sparrow Literary Review, Flashes in the Dark, Dark River Magazine, and The Flash Fiction Offensive.

Abigail George

DOMESTIC DISTURBANCE

Is it a crime to hit
your wife when
she gives you insurmountable grief?
When you come home
from a hard day's
work and your
food is cold always
or right now, please
give me a break.
When you want some
loving and she's tired?

She's no longer young.
And you're no
longer beautiful or as athletic as you once were.
Is it a crime when the
neighbors call
the police on account
of the noise and
you say Officer, it's
nothing. Nothing at all.
We've already kissed
and made up?


Gerald So reads "Domestic Disturbance":



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Abigail confesses: "This poem was inspired by domestic violence in South Africa under several discriminatory laws during apartheid."

A Pushcart Prize nominee, ABIGAIL GEORGE is the author of six books (poetry, short stories, ebooks). Her poetry appears and is forthcoming in Birds Piled Loosely, Brittle Paper, Dead Snakes, Hamilton Stone Review, Literary Orphans, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, The Writing Disorder, Toad Suck Review, and Vigil Pub Mag. She briefly studied film at the Newtown Film and Television School in Johannesburg. She lives, works in, and is inspired by the people of the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Her poems have been widely published from Australia, to Nigeria, to Finland, and New Delhi, India to Istanbul, Turkey. Read her blog at https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5174716.Abigail_George/blog and fiction at http://www.africanwriter.com/experimental-prose-by-abigail-george/.

Bill Baber

UNCASHED TICKETS

Making a huge move
around the clubhouse turn
The seven horse
grabs a lead it won't let go.
14-1 and the thousand dollars
worth of win tickets
that Tony D. held
could of gotten him
out of a real bad jam.
But they won't
because just before
the sixth race
they whacked him
for being five grand behind
on a two-month old debt.
With turquoise silks shining
in the late afternoon sun
Fates Right Hand
crosses the wire
five lengths in front.


Bill reads "Uncashed Tickets":



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Bill confesses: "This poem was inspired by my love of crime fiction and The Sport of Kings and the desperate people who have been known to inhabit both of those worlds."


BILL BABER has had over two dozen crime stories published and his stories have recently appeared in Rogue from Near to the Knuckle, Hardboiled Crime Scene from Dead Guns Press and Locked & Loaded from One Eye Press. He has also had a number of poems published online – one of which is being considered for a Best of the Net Award- and in the occasional literary journal. A book of his poetry, Where the Wind Comes to Play was published by Berberis Press in 2011. He lives in Tucson with his wife and a spoiled dog and has been known to cross the border for a cold beer. He is working on his first novel.

David Spicer

ANY SECOND NOW

I'm no Zulu warlord, nor
a short-sleeved madman savoring
a drip of coffee in this sad diner.
I renewed my subscription
to Gunfire because the cemeteries
aren't packed tight enough.
All I need is a toothbrush
so I can flick this rot from my mouth
that hovers and proves hate sometimes
overpowers grief. Some scars
aren't ever removed. A proverb states,
If you limp, use a walking stick.
The denizens of this city think I want
to annihilate them. A certain cadence
exists in the control they wield.
They advise me to scrub and rinse the tub
without any smears appearing. It's not like
I’m a thief who’s stolen a mother of pearl
necklace—I just want a plate of shrimp—
but this place is pitiful. I arrived an hour
ago and my roll isn't here.
Don’t they recognize me by my dome?
Don’t they know I have the ticket,
that I’m an island of volcanoes
ready to boil over any second now?


Gerald So reads "Any Second Now":



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David confesses: "There are so many massacres by angry young males that I found it tantalizing to inhabit the voice of one such animal. One word fell into another until the speaker became an explosive shooter with so-called reasons on the cusp of annihilating as many people as he could."

DAVID SPICER has poems accepted by or published in such as Reed Magazine, The Curly Mind, Slim Volume, Yellow Chair Review, Jersey Devil Press, New Verse News, On the Rush, Circle Seven, Phantom Kangaroo, Bad Acid Laboratories, Inc., and elsewhere. He is also the author of one full-length collection of poems and four chapbooks, plus eight unpublished manuscripts.

Alan P. Marcus

I WALKED INTO MY OWN TRAP

Tempestuous.
Over bracken-covered beaches
docked treasures
of yesteryear's song.

A brazen lonely sea,
perilous reef
and the gleaming affliction
of seagulls calling.

Blue sheets of waves
hide torrid currents
concealing a veil
of outpouring zest.

Back to him, she returns.
The ebb and flow dancing
now in perpetual shadows
of amber sandalwood.


Alan reads "I Walked into My Own Trap":



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Alan confesses: "I thought of power and at the same time, how certain circumstances render us powerless. I thought of Janet Leigh's line from the film, Psycho, 'I'm looking for a private island. ...we're all in our private traps. Sometimes, we deliberately step into those traps.'"

ALAN P. MARCUS, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Geography and Environmental Planning, Towson University, lives in Baltimore. He has published his work on Brazil, race, and Brazilian migration processes in academic peer-reviewed journals and anthologies.