poetry

I’m not surrrre, it wailed
the haunting refrain of an
indecisive ghost

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

You have a blessed day too,
I said, and floated out of there
with my coffee and corn muffin,
feeling blessed, beatific, positive-
ly numinous. But now

she says it every time I go in there—
no variation, no shift, no turn.
She just hands me my change
and tells me to have a blessed day—
always bles-səd, never blest, never
a grateful day, an exquisite day,
an applesome day. A failure

of the imagination is what it is.
And it has begun to bother me.
So much so that I have stopped
going there. I miss their divine

muffins. Their heavenly coffee.
But those blessings had a facile, unctuous,
churchy aftertaste. I’d almost rather
have a nice day. Or even a bad one.

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

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.