Kyle Hemmings

Crazy After All These Years

 
The husband chased hurricanes under the beds of other women.

At breakfast for one, her orange juice leaked from Styrofoam cups,

the ones on sale at Wal-Mart. She thought: Love is no good.

It either strays or stays too long. A friend, who was still blind-sided by storms,

suggested the Caribbean. There she fell in love with a dwarf addicted

to speedboat racing. She felt good about his custom tailoring, his tinny laugh

at the foot of her bed. During a race, he fell over and drowned. She returned

to the mainland, drank everything from glass. From then on, nothing floated.

Kyle Hemmings is the author of several chapbooks of poetry and prose: Avenue C, Cat People, and Anime Junkie (Scars Publications). His latest e-books are You Never Die in Wholes from Good Story Press and The Truth about Onions from Good Samaritan. He lives and writes in New Jersey.

A.g. Synclair

Static

having wasted
too many hours

mounted hard to the wall
perched like a feral bird

on the twisted lips of a
static yellow warning

the prose will come as a
wailing stream of conscious

you will find yourself swallowed whole
like a drunken clam

a sidewinder in the cold sand
a flashback in red


A.g. Synclair is the editor and publisher of The Montucky Review, a journal of poetry and prose. His work has appeared in numerous publications, both online and in print. He lives, writes, and otherwise collaborates in southwestern Montana with his partner in crime, the artist and poet Heather Brager.

Sofia Eliassen

Clearance

 I found our picture

among old letters, papers

and clutter

you would be pleased

to know that I paused

briefly

remembered our failed

attempts at a

reunion

and the delusions

that a shared

past

was somehow important.

I placed it with the old

gas bills

and newspapers that

I had kept for forgotten

reasons.

if we were to meet again

I think we should smile

awkwardly

before passing

silently by.

Sofia Eliassen

Matthew Dexter

Menudo is for Sundays

 

heads hanging from a bridge
palm fronds splintered
hurricane lightning
and further inquiry suggests
that bloggers shall be silenced
by the machetes of deaf reckoning
the corral of the tourism industry
cowers in the sculpture of neglect and rot.

 

 

Matthew Dexter lives in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Like nomadic Pericú, he survives on a hunter-gatherer subsistence diet of shrimp tacos, smoked marlin, and cold beer.

 

Anthony Ward

Cabinet

I remember the ol’ factory odour,

The smell of sulphur flaying the air.

My past constructed more by the present.

My sentimentality smoothing my memories,

Removing burrs until decorative-

Enough to display.

Polishing them as I bring them out

Of the cabinet of my conscious

Passing them around to let others see

The things that made me what I am.

Anthony Ward tends to fidget with his thoughts in the hope of laying them to rest. He has managed to lay them in a number of literary magazines including Enhance, Drunk Monkeys, Speech Therapy, Thousand Shades of Grey, Turbulence, Incandescent, Torrid Literature Journal and The Rusty Nail, amongst others.

P.A.Levy

Punch Judy

 

inside the stripped tent

he and his wife

re-enact the domestic life

of mr punch

cursing each other

in swizzle talk

whilst battering

the wailing baby

dead

 

then things start to get

a bit banal

sausages

and a crocodile

in no time the law shows up

now it’ll definitely all kick off

 

cue mayhem

untold amounts

of cranium destruction

goo splatter

over the little kids sitting

cross-legged on the sand

sporting ice cream moustaches

shouting

that’s not the way to do it

 

they demand their puppet show

tensions rising

danger could be

they’ll destroy sand castles

blow up inflatable toys

play at beach invasions

cast pebbles into desert storms

 

Born East London but now residing amongst the hedge mumblers of rural Suffolk, P.A.Levy has been published in many magazines, both on line and in print, from ‘A cappella Zoo’ to ‘Zygote In My Coffee’ and many stations in-between.  He is also a founding member of the Clueless Collective and can be found loitering on page corners and wearing hoodies at www.cluelesscollective.co.uk

J.S. MacLean

Perfect Couple

One is plump, tetrahedrally tumid,

crispy flesh the texture of ostrich

and the color of Bo Derek.

Other somosas are greasy and limp,

like something flung in a scullery.

Broken; chicken peas of genius

infuse the olfactory cathedral

and swell like cavern rumors.

After the rapture the plate is immaculate;

the one gone like original sin,

like never was, like the dream at dawn.

The other is green, chunky, and sloppy.

The lamb of good does not hide or create

beauty in gristle and bone.

It is mild and pure, soft and sultry,

wallowing in palak

with protein essence

to assimilate as sacrament.

The spinach, garlic, ginger, and meat

permeates and assimilates the mouth;

unimaginable, like the first life

that bloomed  in Panthalassa.

 J.S. MacLean lives in Calgary, Canada. He has had poetry published in a variety of publications in Canada, the USA, the UK, and Australia. His first collection, “Molasses Smothered Lemon Slices” is available on amazon.com. In his spare time he works.

Tobi Cogswell

Kick the Can

A lovely tumble of spires

and spikes marked their

territory in the backyard

grounds of the old house

in Greenville, just down

the street.

They played every day,

only stopping when the first

neighbor kids mom called

“come home for supper”.

They knew that call meant

everyone, that play was done.

It was time for manners,

placemats, eat the four outside

leaves of the Brussels sprouts

and napkin the pork chop edge

to the dog.

She tries to remember

how one boy was so brave,

she always wore a pink

dress to play in, he’d take out

her collected stickers gently,

one by one, her ankles blinking

with tiny red dots…

She still hates Brussels sprouts

and still loves pink.

She recalls those days

at the oddest times,

a walk in the canyon

when thorns ignite her ankles

as if they were a gift,

the innocence of summers

she can barely recall.

Tobi Cogswell is a two-time Pushcart nominee.  Credits include or are forthcoming in Illya’s Honey, REAL, Iodine Poetry Journal, Slipstream, StepAway (UK), Turbulence (UK), Front Porch Review, Rufous Salon (Sweden), Alligator Stew (UK), Ballard Street Poetry Journal, Bacopa, Compass Rose, The Broken Plate, Border Crossing, I-70 Review, Incandescent (UK), Agenda Poetry (UK) and Pale House - Letters to Los Angeles. Her latest chapbook is “Surface Effects in Winter Wind”, (Kindred Spirit Press).  She is the co-editor of San Pedro River Review (www.sprreview.com).

Neil Ellman

Syzygy

We oppose each other

you and I

but we are one

and form a line

of stars, a constellation

of antonyms, paradox

and counterpoints

the union of our souls

in syzygy

we complement

and contemplate

each other’s hold

the push and pull

wibble and wobble

of gravity  

as if we were

in love.

Neil Ellman lives and writes  in New Jersey (USA).  He has published numerous poems in print and online journals and anthologies throughout the world, from Australia to Zimbabwe, and from the United Kingdom to Nepal.  His latest collection, an e-chapbook, Double-Takes, is available as a free PDF download from Fowlpox Press in Canada.

Cassandra Dalton

The Ascension of the Street Poet

The famished and the thirsty
The weak and downright dirty

The children of the storm
And the clutch of plagueist swarm.
Mt tongue in purring fashion
With a breathless beating ache
Whispers of  the future
When the earth begins to shake.
And now my fingers tremble
As the harpies fly above
That the only one redemption
Can come from our hate of love.
The scratching in the metal
The namesake on the door
The only way is up
While we're sprawling on the floor.
The ask is growing frequent
As the outstretched hand does grasp,
A torturous conclusion
That human kind can't last.
I like the Armageddon,
And the fact the end will come.
And I welcome it with smiles,
When I see what we've become.
The saintless and the gory,
The bored and still the sane,
The ecstasy of horror
While dishing out the pain.

Cassandra Dalton

Howie Good

Voyeur

We kick

the dog

off the bed.

 

The moon’s 

looking in.

Instill one

or two drops

in eye(s)

as needed

 

 

Howie Good is a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz. More of his poetry can be found at http://apocalypsemambo.blogspot.com/

Brian Le Lay

This Train, Hoboken, Last Train

At some point I'll have untied
The knotted shoelace
The disordered alphabet
That is New York City's subway system,

Won't need to grip the bacterial silver railing
For balance because my calves will know
What curves are coming before I am a tempest
Thrown into the stern-faced Korean woman's lap,
Set her scoliosis blazing, her plastic bag
Of exotic fruits and white asparagus
Torn open like a fishnet stocking,

Which of us swaying like a second hand
On an analog clock, in the third car
From the engineer, will change the world?
And who will smash what amenities were worked for?
And who will be there to claim irreconcilable differences,
Unstop the mascara plaster from her ducts
Drag out the tears before an Eyewitness news-van?

Some will be married on an early spring Sunday
Under a latticework of false vinyl roses,
Some on a summer Saturday,
On a backyard patio where a hornet's nest
Under the deck bustles dizzyingly
Like a miniature New York,

They are all clustered here in passing
Under the flickering lights and effluvium,
Whatever they are, most wish they were not,
Many of those who don't become,
Wish they had
Though only when it seems too late.

Brian Le Lay is a poet based out of New York City. His first book of poems, Don't Bury Me in New Jersey, is available from Electric Windmill Books. His work has recently appeared in The Rusty Nail, Hobo Pancakes, and Drunk Monkeys. He blogs at http://www.conceiveyourself.blogspot.com

Yevgeniy Levitskiy

The Pinnacle

The pinnacle
of abstract leaders
tilt the progression
board of institutions,
the intuition of
mother’s scapegoat milk,
climaxes the elderly
children of ancient times,
light shining on
exposed bosoms and
blossoming flowers.

Tired eyelids speak
and tight lips hear
as the tire marks
eliminate contestants
on game shows. 



Yevgeniy Levitskiy has received a B.A. in English-Education from Brooklyn College, and is currently pursuing a M.A. His writing has been published in The Smoking Poet, Green Briar Review, and elsewhere. His forthcoming publications include "The Books They Gave Me" (Free Press/Simon & Schuster), Downer Magazine, Everyday Other Things, Eunoia Review, BareBack Magazine, Poydras Review, Bursting Plethora, Misfits’ Miscellany, Blue Lake Review, and ken*again. He is currently at work on a middle-grade novel.

Nicky Ellam

Poems are music without guitars

They normally have titles 

but this simple song 

doesn't need one 

to describe

the waiting,

watching 

the clock's hands

stop

the minutes feeling like years

as your last gasps of breath

rattle around the room. 

Time ticks slowly around my watch

as I remember our evenings together 

when I would sit close to you

reading aloud from your favourite books.

That was when I was younger 

and would write letters 

when I couldn't come

for an extra-sweet, extra-strong cuppa - 

the way we both used to drink it. 

That was before I started letting

an essay or party 

shove you to last in the queue 

falsely promising to visit

next week

next month

next never-ever

because there was always 

something more important to do. 

You're gone now.

We gave you flowers 

and had a post-service sandwich 

while they talked about you 

and told me I'd being given your stereo

because we both liked music - 

you, with your opera and trumpets

me, with my drums and rock-classics

but I'm too scared to use it

because I'm sorry 

I can't sing a happy tune for you. 


Nicky Ellam is an English undergraduate at Hull University. To her family's disappointment she has somewhat elusive career prospects. In her spare time she co-edits a printed zine called Eclectic Eel. Nicky has had work published by thisisull.com, Rain Dogs and Incandescent.

Welcome

Welcome to Humber Pie, a poetry blogzine (that's a word, right?) based on the banks of the Humber River. The Pie seeks to publish poetry in diverse styles and on diverse subjects from around the world. Why not spend some time with a nice slice of Pie?