A RARE AND DIFFERENT TUNE – A PRE ORDER OPPORTUNITY FOR OUR READERS

Forthcoming from Beatlick Press in September 2021 “In his stunning sophomore effort, The Pieces You Have Left, Tim Staley brings you to the woods and asks you to stay the night. In this moving and fast-paced collection, Staley touches on an array of subjects–space travel, love, fatherhood, masculinity, death, solitude, youth, and dementia–delving deeper than ever […]

After I See Your Post About Visiting L.A. – James Croal Jackson

After I See Your Post About Visiting L.A. I reach out– longing for connection. When surrounded by seagulls, I look for the first semblance of friend. Not that we have much to anchor anymore, conversationally. Dolzani’s English class. I didn’t read assigned books. Didn’t become The Old Man and The Sea. So many years to […]

TRANSPLANTS – Stephen Mead

Transplants Supply and demand—- Two coats, even in July, one wool, hooded, the other matching sweat pants. Underneath? Long johns. Feel better? He needed air, on bad days especially, especially when the tide came in, when the wheelchair was too obdurate, when effort was a graft some small hope provided and waiting was […]

3 POEMS FOR JUNETEENTH BY TIM STALEY

After Ahmaud Arbery 3.23.20 His arrival here cut one background from another. Five hands sprung from each of his wrists. I wipe the ashes off the armoire. I light a new stick of incense Morning Star Mellow Pine. He sits on my sofa deliberately. The muscle spasm in his leg ribbons the room. From the […]

Gravity Grateful -Mark Blickley

“Gravity Grateful” Looking down from high places doesn’t bother me at all but when I have to look up at things, like buildings, it makes me nervous cause it feels like some kind of force like a magnet or something is going to pull me up and lift me off the ground which is a […]

TIM STALEY – My First Black Lives Matter Event

My First Black Lives Matter EventPlaza de Las CrucesNew Mexico9.12.20 The restaurant patio on the cornerwas at capacity and clapping emphaticallyfor a white woman and her accompanistafter their set of covers includingTracy Chapman. Not “Fast Car”but the one that goes,give me one reason to stay hereand I’ll turn right back around. I didn’t see any […]

A LITTLE BIRD -S.M. Moore

“a little bird” I stare at the shed and notice a bluebird on that nearby tree, on that branch halfway up, chirping. Hey, my coworker says Hey, I say Are you distracted, she says Sorry, I say And she leaves And I go back to my bird. But it is no longer chirping on that […]

CHICANO LIT – 3 POEMS – Ricky Winters

“pellucid” I am still here floating in this grey space knowing nothing but this blurring smoke that I breathe and exhale pondering on whether this is living or simply being alive but if this is what life is then kiss this life from my lips blow out my candle and do not call out my […]

RED PICK-UP TRUCK – ANDREW HUBBARD

Red Pick-Up Truck Daddy stood sticks In the corners of the bed And tied on a tarp To keep the worst of the sun off us. He laid down blue moving pads And lifted us little girls With our frayed cotton dresses And brown, bony knees Into the bed with coloring books And a few […]

DRUNK AND HELPLESS IN THE DARK
 
Some of us lie
Drunk and helpless in the dark
Waiting for the angel that never comes
Because there is no her
Beyond the sad spiraling reveries
Of the drunken insomniac
Smiling wanly in the glow
Of a halo
That exists only
In his
Fevered
Imagination




HUMANITY IS DOOMED
 
I heard the birds that chirp at night
And I saw the cats under the tree.
I know the cats need to eat
And I know the birds want to live.
 
So here I am
In the parking lot of a Walgreens,
Rooting for nothing.

Cacti Fur

a poetry high ground

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