poetry

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.

i chew gum to force myself to not eat.

i wrap my tongue around the taffy.

i feel my belly empty and rumbling. i remember

the times i have eaten too much, my stomach

expanding, and i have been forced to vomit.

i am a child, i think. i am a child who has

been neglected. i am a child who has been beaten.

i am a child who has been taught to hate

myself for eating. i am a child who has

been taught to hate myself for being neglected.

i do not hate myself. i love myself. but i cannot

love myself when i am so hungry. how can i

love myself if i am never full?

but i do not know

what love is.

—Claudia Wyscoky

on the motorway
one of the streetlights
has flipped up its topcap.
it looks like a hawk
perched in silhouette, watching
the slow moving traffic
of commuters in the evening
as they wind into dublin
from warehouses in business
estates. the light's never on. I guess

rain has got at the filament.
it's been months. it would probably
be expensive to fix. there are plenty of lights
and the traffic that moves
goes slow as spilled honey
under bridges, past the hard-
shoulder exits. long-stemmed wild flowers
waggle from cracks
in the median central

divider. I look at the mirror
of the car right ahead of me –
see a man's eyes, like a hawk
on a lamppost, looking back and directly
at mine.

DS Maolalai's most recent collection is "Noble Rot" (Turas Press, 2019)

It feels so good
to throw stuff out,
toss what’s unneeded,
which is just about
everything as it turns out,
declutter the rooms,
consolidate the stanzas
into one tiny poem
about spaciousness.

Paul Hostovsky’s poems appear and disappear simultaneously (ta-da!). His new collection is Perfect Disappearances (2025).

the mechanisms of the world don't work like they did before.
the floor trembles like bone beneath skin too thin
as my soles fail to seek solace in my ephemeral being.

so i hover,
bloated,
a balloon tied to nothing
waiting for the ceiling to accept me.

Teesta is a student, science enthusiast, and writer. She has a passion for biology and the arts, and creates zines in her spare time.

my wife
asks me
where
they come
from.

truth
be told,
i don’t
know.

they appear
like
mouse droppings
in
the garage.

or startle
you
like wind
on a
still night.

they attack
like wolves
at a
carcass.

when you’re
alone
and
nobody’s
home
they
sneak up
on you
like a shiver
down
your spine
and squirm:
jot down
every line!

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