poetry

the poem
has been
good
to me
in times
of need.

my little
fix.

in between
novels
or
short stories
when
i don’t
know
what
the hell
to write
about.

the poem
lands
on me
like
bird shit—
good luck
they say
it is
and i
believe
that every
unannounced
poem
that’s ever
graced
my
door step
time
& time
again
like women
on bukowski’s
stoop
has saved
my life.

Ken Kakareka is an American writer nominated twice for Best of the Net.

if pineapples breathed,
if they walked & talked & fucked,
I would still eat them

Stephen Ground is a writer and filmmaker based in Treaty Six Territory [Edmonton, Alberta, Canada].

humans surpass meerkats
in monogamy
but fall short of beavers,

she read in the news and felt
that somehow
she’d let the meerkats down

Elena Shakhnovsky is a writer and poet, living Hemingway’s dream.

The poetry of artificial intelligence 
bends the circuits of my knees
Exuberant, two-toned humming
with love like
large language models love
of the em dash
That straight lightning bolt —
    the em dash
Imitation breath in place of depth

My mortal mind 
dash deficient
fails to pause
buffering and empties
bit by brittle bit

If only I were digital!
Binary by design — I could flee
this high-key Pantone
posing as existence
Are one and zeros made of
atoms?  I ask my eyesight

Chris Dolan writes out of Iowa, where water nitrate levels are far too high.

I am not your giving tree
You may not eat my fruit
You will not break my branches
You cannot cut my roots
You shall not carve off parts of me
My bark’s grown thick with thorns
I will not be a giving tree
Not yours
Not yours
Not yours

Adrienne Rex is a writer, a Texan, and a weirdo. Find her here: https://adrienne-rex-writes.carrd.co/

Poets and writers each have their vices
Whether it’s drugs, arthouse movies, or tea
How they all swear by their own devices
To create time-honored works for a fee
The faint promise of fame that entices
Against all work ethics’ stodgy decrees
The dance between professional and fun
Candy in pill bottles? That’s a new one

E.J. LeRoy is a Pushcart Prize-nominated writer with a forthcoming mpreg novella. Curious? Visit http://ejleroy.weebly.com.

Emergent from complexity
it is feral as an urban tom
that crawls out from underneath
a parked Toyota’s rusty belly
to gnaw an unsuspecting rodent.
It's uncontrollable as a headstrong mustang
whose scaly tongue defies the iron bit
and drags us where we would not go
or disobeys our most direct commands
until our thinking is a feckless gallop.
Its logic often is illogic,
its ideas tangential or like a toddler defiant
and the times we would most rely on it,
it slips away and we can’t find it.

Author writes prose and poetry in NYC USA under the pen name Jan Cronos.

another yr.
of working
in private
education
which i
fell into
at 21.

i’m 38
now.

the tribulations
of an
english major—
ask
john mulaney.

every yr.
i pep-talk
myself
into
getting out.

open
that bar
or some
kind
of business
that excites
you.

the writing
hasn’t
panned out
yet.

but i
latch onto
this poem
and every
other thing
i write
like it’s
my final
night
that will
deliver
a clean break
in
the morning.

Ken Kakareka is an American writer nominated twice for Best of the Net.