Tag: poetry

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Across the Wire Vol. 7

three work poems

by DS Maolalai

A Trip

I’m somewhere in Meath or Kildare with a man to assess an insurance claim.

we’re discussing the injury – somebody walking apparently tripped. 

the drain has been patched over since.

with cement to stop anyone tripping. 

he wants to know why, because that’s evidence.

I have nothing to say except “somebody tripped” so we look at the path and repairs. around us.

it’s a housing estate out in Newbridge and never not raining.

there’s guys up on ladders, clearing the gutters of caked-earth. 

Joe says hello and curses the damp in his gloves.

the insurance man doesn’t comment. 

he is no mystic – no mind toward the future. 

he jigsaws together what has already happened.

and who should have known it might. 

Solstice

standing in sunset

behind the brick back wall of maintenance dispatch

on saturday.

the motorbikes are stacked in the bay 

like teeth on an old five-comb. 

we take a minute

while the phones at our desks ring other emergencies,

and talk about what we would rather

be doing. 

matt offers cigarettes to each of the boys 

and to ciara.

I hurry one down. 

you can almost tell time by the shadows of buildings.

light between stones at a neolithic solstice

the staggered approach of shift-change.

An unpolished shoe

they work together 

carefully, cutting up weeds between cobble 

like surgeons attacking a tumour.

fresh, healthy sunburn has thickened their cheeks 

to something approaching the toe on an unpolished shoe. 

I meet them onsite – ask what they’ve done

and where they still have to get to.

I don’t like to criticise their work. 

they do it better than I ever could,

these healthy young immigrant men.

felipe’s getting married this summer. 

we have to find someone

to take over his round for the week.

DS Maolalai has been described by one editor as “a cosmopolitan poet” and another as “prolific, bordering on incontinent”. His work has been nominated fourteen times for BOTN, ten for the Pushcart and once for the Forward Prize, and released in three collections; “Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden” (Encircle Press, 2016), “Sad Havoc Among the Birds” (Turas Press, 2019) and “Noble Rot” (Turas Press, 2022)

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Across the Wire Vol. 7

two poems

by Conor Hultman

#000000

logical heart

precious hoped gentle wind

me finger I my

#029CBC

parallel so not

return grace silly trunk

livid sang ran

Conor Hultman lives in New York, New York.

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Across the Wire Vol. 7

DEAF

by John Grey

staggering down 

the middle of Main Street

red-eyed

dress torn

one arm tattooed

the other bleeding

not holy 

not clean  

just another ghost  

from the dead side of town

in the courthouse square  

screaming out a name

and what he did to her

no stars out

moon hiding 

behind a cloud

and the whole damn town  

pretending not to hear

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Shift, River And South and Flights. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Rush, Writer’s Block and Trampoline.

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Across the Wire Vol. 7

Walking On It

by J S Khan

Here’s some saliva for a blind eye:

on Christmas Day, 1560, Peruvian natives

invented El Dorado, the City of Gold,

die Fabel vom Goldland El Dorado,

(as Herzog has it, or to quote precisely),

and Aguirre went mad on the river as a caravel

crucified itself, a jungle came unfleshed,

and monkeys invaded the Spanish flotilla,

overrunning the last refuge of white men

and their daughters, laughing, or else,

seeming to laugh, which is just as bad.

Despite this, sperm banks still seek 

a few good men, only check the ads.

Powerful—but in the wrong context.

On the other hand, flattery is nice.

These days, no sharp delineation of void

and land remains, thanks to the cunning

of resentful savages, but educated idiots

chatter on my stairwell too. Can you believe

blurb is a word? The coffee pots breathe

like Darth Vader in my kitchen, and I ponder

ancient moralities carved in their usual

binary codes. Lexicon is not even in my

lexicon. Wake me up on Judgment Day.

J S Khan’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in MQR, Fourteen Hills, Post Road Magazine, BRUISER MAG, BULL, and Burial Magazine.

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Across The Wire Vol. 6

three poems

By Lana Valdez

Reminiscing on a Prosperous City You Once Ran Away to

You drank Bellinis at hardware stores with crystal chandeliers and 

tried not to get him in your photos, 

the gluttony on both your faces, 

marked. You had no predecessors, 

only ancestors laughing at you, 

at your silk scarves from the vintage store,

the cheap wallet, a prop. 

A prosperous city, a pseudonym for your socials, 

but he’ll find you anyway, you should never worry, he says.

By Cristal and candlelight 

you take your steaks medium rare, 

the ones that will be his ruin. 

You used to come here with your mother, now it’s a hideout. 

How did you come to own the shelter, you ask, 

the luxury homeless shelter for young girls? 

In the Middle of an Impossible Summer 

where your gums stick to the roof of your own mouth, 

you have a choice. 

Don’t tell me about poison

when all the lizards are hiding, when no one 

rises in the dark to feed the ocean, 

to clean the heaps of trash from her banks. 

There are rocking chairs in the swamp 

eaten up by the storm and this town was never small. 

A sleek slight of hand, our backyards up to our temples. 

Tell me this is true in your mind, 

tell me you understand, it was never your poison. 

Debating on Whether or Not I Should Buy Groceries 

on the first of the month when I still haven’t rewired my brain from last month, a spectacle of sleepless eyes like saucers, of oyster dinners on the bay and dry nosebleeds. When you’re living out of a suitcase you have nowhere, nowhere to put your vanity- tracing lipstick on perfect skin, searching for the perfect spot to sit with your shadow, the shades odd and drawn. If I was worried about buying eggs, I didn’t show it, busying my mind with my reflection, burying the rampant gray hairs down, down, down the drain, shards of glass and pulp gathering at the bottom.

LANA VALDEZ is a poetess and thought daughter currently living in New Jersey. Her debut collection, “I Rot,” is available via Filthy Loot, and her work also appears in Spectra, Expat, Dream Boy Book Club, and others. 

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Issue 5 Issue 5 Poetry

LABOR OMNIA VINCIT

By Ben Nardolilli

Ben Nardolilli is a theoretical MFA candidate at Long Island University. His work has appeared in Perigee Magazine, Door Is a Jar, The Delmarva Review, Red Fez, The Oklahoma Review, Quail Bell Magazine, and Slab. Follow his publishing journey at mirrorsponge.blogspot.com.

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Issue 5 Issue 5 Poetry

IN THIS HOUSE IT TAKES A GORILLA SUIT TO BE SEEN

By Ewen Glass

Ewen Glass is a screenwriter and poet from Northern Ireland who lives with two dogs, a tortoise and a body of self-doubt; his poetry has appeared in the likes of Okay Donkey, Maudlin House, HAD, Poetry Scotland and One Art. Bluesky/X/IG: @ewenglass

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Issue 5 Issue 5 Poetry

EROSION

By Jack B. Bedell

Jack B. Bedell is Professor of English and Coordinator of Creative Writing at Southeastern Louisiana University where he also edits Louisiana Literature and directs the Louisiana Literature Press. Jack’s work has appeared in HAD, Heavy Feather, Brawl Lit, Moist, and other journals. He’s also had pieces included in Best Microfiction, Best Spiritual Literature, and the Wigleaf Top 50 long list. His latest collection is Ghost Forest (Mercer University Press, 2024). He served as Louisiana Poet Laureate 2017-2019.

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Issue 5 Issue 5 Poetry

DELUGE

By Chris McCreary

Chris McCreary‘s latest book of poems, awry, was published in 2024 by White Stag. He lives in South Philadelphia and on IG at @chris___mccreary.

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Issue 5 Issue 5 Poetry

SILVER HANDS

By Guy Cramer

Guy Cramer is a medical worker and writer from the Ark-La-Tex region. He has been published in a number of online journals, including Vestal Review, JAKE, Citywide Lunch, and elsewhere. He is on IG: @guy.cramer 

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Issue 5 Issue 5 Poetry

CHICAGO IN WINTER

By Mitchell Galloway

Mitchell Galloway lives in Gainesville, Florida. His work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Forever Magazine, The Panacea Review, R&R (Relegation Books), and Subtropics. He can be found on Instagram @mitchellgalloways and on X @mitchgalloways. 

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Across The Wire Vol. 6

2 Poems

By Ben Pease

The Steeple Bell

My father said it was nice, nice, 
that we had a chance to ask 

my mother what she wanted
a week before she died: 

service at the church, no funeral 
home, ask Gail about the song 

about the eagles (we never did), 
a simple meal, “Bury me next 

to my first husband—but not until 
you’re dead too, Rod—to mix

our ashes,” and then she pointed at me 
from the bed in the living room, 

(ghost bed I’d see long after 
it was removed) from that quiet mouth 

of hell, she said to me
“You’re in charge.” 

I tried to stop him 
but my father 

insisted on asking, 
“What do you want to be cremated in
  
the dress from Ben’s wedding, 
or the one from our renewal of vows?” 

The closet full of seasonal clothes
and the duck print sleeping bag 

where we placed my mother’s ashes
on the high shelf.

What Comes First

There’s no space for warmth here
between the double-paned hospital

window and the drive to the gold coast
where I lay out a sheet of plastic

and cut out rotted windowsills
as the snow hastens and stops

once I’ve made it halfway home
from work early. More hawks

than there used to be however
harried on their watch, the camel 

keeping the sheep, the draft horse 
eating its grass among the mules.

My wife lets out extended notes
of labor and a handful of my shirt

and after twelve hours of it
the hospital becomes familiar:

a loved one immobilized  
in an adjustable bed. Unsure

of the question, I watch
my wife riddle a physical

sphinx and come out of it
with not just her own life. 

Once I get to hold my child, 
her eyes grey blue, I observe 

my mother rising out 
of the unconscious, bewildered 

by her son become a father.

Ben Pease is the author of the full-length poetry collection Chateau Wichman: A Blockbuster in Verse (Big Lucks Books), a poetry-infused Dungeons & Dragons adventure module called The Light of Mount Horrid (Ghost in the Forest Games), the hybrid illustrated edition Furniture in Space (factory hollow press), and a few chapbooks. He is a co-founder of the Ruth Stone House and Sistrum Books. 

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Across The Wire Vol. 6

3 Poems

By Julián Martinez

Jesus

The Vatican’s senior accountant started locking her office door, ignoring emails. Calls. Knocks. From out in the hall, her colleagues of the Holy See heard sobs. Invoices needed to be processed. No one had any idea how much they’d gone over budget, if they’d gone over or if not, how close they’d gotten. When greeted on the stairs, she’d walk faster, graying head down. She’d jet out at odd times, once immediately after coming in and shutting her door behind her. “Boss Macabre,” The Pope dubbed her over coffee with a cardinal, according to a rumor. Dozens of theories proliferated. The HR director prayed for her before every meal. What no one guessed was that the sixty-five year old was months pregnant and suffering a nightly nightmare: Jesus enraged in Herod’s Temple, flipping the tables of the money lenders. Her child was obvious— his Second Coming had been prophesied. She’d never taken those stories seriously, but for the first time in her life, she surrendered to His power. She confided all this over the phone one night with her ex-husband, the con artist, the last person she’d been intimate with over a decade ago. He told her she should be institutionalized. That’s exactly it, she thought. I’ve become institutionalized. Her stomach sank. Then a kick.

Pussy

Wire taped to my chest, I stared at my crotch to avoid looking at the open shirt in the dresser
mirror’s reflection. Green boxer briefs with tropical flowers and flamingos on the waistband. The phrase ‘big pussy’ flashed in my mind. Imagining Big Pussy from Sopranos in the mirror instead of myself made it bearable to button my shirt— it wouldn’t be me kissing the neck of my crime boss wife, asking questions about slush funds pumped with funny money over slow jams at
Easter Sunday brunch. It’d be some other rat in my place. It’d be Big Pussy. I saw Big Pussy,
sauced on a boat, riddled with bullets that never paused for a reload by my towering wife. My dick stood up at the thought. “Wait, what the fuck? Why?” I asked my crotch. My FBI handler,
coming in from the bathroom, cleared his throat and tapped his watch.

Cleo

Her jeweled hands passed over the crystal ball like ocean waves. She told me exactly how I’m supposed to die— an infection in my skull after a fall from a stranger’s window. At one point, I asked her how she could be Miss Cleo when the Miss Cleo from TV had passed away. She froze, index finger tickling my palm’s heart line, candlelight painting the maroon of her nails a deep shade, and took a breath of the Nag Champa basement air. She exhaled with a chuckle and, dropping her Caribbean accent, she said, “it’s a persona owned by the company I work for, my dear.” I thought then that I’d fallen for a scam, but she proceeded to lay my life open like the tarot cards she had me shuffle. She knew me better than anyone ever had— every embarrassing habit, every good thing about me. She said I would soon go through tough financial times— this was a couple weeks ago— then yesterday my boss called me into the conference room and told me I was being laid off. Miss Cleo said I’d be falling in love sooner rather than later, which I found hard to believe, until the memory of her dark brown eyes and silky fingertips kept me up all last night. I came back for another reading this morning but the neon sign in the house’s window is gone. I called her company’s 24-hour hotline a dozen times but it was never her, the ladies’ Caribbean accents sounding forced and offensive coming out of them. They all said they were Miss Cleo, but the real Miss Cleo is out there. Not the real real Miss Cleo, but my Miss Cleo. I love her. I need her. I don’t care how I die anymore. I need her to tell me how I’m supposed to live.

Julián Martinez loves Chicago so much, he’s marrying her. Find him @martinezfjulian or martinezfjulian.com.

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Across The Wire Vol. 6

2 Poems

By Damon Hubbs

Brink


Gossiping with Alyson and Alys. 
Fika, visiting cake. 
Nobody is Swedish although Nadia is the type of blonde 
you’d kill a prime minister for. 
I read the papers and gamble on papal elections. 
To think of all the beauty and bloodshed, 
fuck it. I’m lying to myself and others. 
Artifice in loud terms. 

Nadia gives me a jagged hump
and I’m on the oozy brink 
when she starts talking about Irish writers 
and some esthetician 
in Palm Springs 
nicknamed Jack the Ripper. 
It’s strange how people cling together. 
Darling, don’t shoot until the subject hits you.

I’m barely awake when you call me Finnegan
stately, plump (picnic, lightning). 
I mock the myths I help create
make faces in the surveillance camera. 
Where we’re headed, where we are 
halfway down the coast I lost the comic timing,
pick up the phone like a cold kiss— 
yes, Nadia, the fire escape is burning

and I’m watching the deaf republic 
under a wild pack of stars. 
I’m thinking about the poet 
who dropped an electric toothbrush into her cunt
and fried my cock.  
Love after love after love 
I’m pissing like the Colosseum in full view
listening to the pretty tyranny of the wind.

Patagonia Picnic Table Effect

Somewhere between night and the morning after
queer shades of future dusk 
Berluti knot, orange wine, lips like an extra maraschino

we talk about art and Genet and the birdshit on the bench. 
“You should write a poem about birds,” 
she says, not knowing I’d sworn off bird poetry 

preferring to write poems about petite mort and 21st century malaise
clubby androgynous youth, gobs of spit, vape girls, egirls
empty theaters and red latrines, Aslan’s pin-ups, lui magazine

desire that isn’t explained, desire with a mouth like a dirty rest stop, 
Vogue Italia, dressing for the rapture, what it means to be exiled, 
what it means to be stripped of happiness, what it means to be stripped 

like a saint, murder holes, arrow loops, Divine’s funeral, my complete 
fear of list poems, biographies, throat cancer, my complete fear of Kathy 
Acker, Trazodone, nightstands, spotlights, Piss Flowers, the exquisiteness 

of tiramisu, the slippage between desire and disgust, the foil to her 
flamboyance, Stabat Mater, my complete fear of Connecticut, the 
insurance man, the cricket-impresario, tennis elbow, preferring to 

write poems about coupling, decoupling, parallelism, lines of influence 
and what it means to find a rare species, and another, and another —
Yellow Grosbeak, Thick-billed Kingbird, a nesting pair of Rose-throated 
Becards.

Damon Hubbs is a poet from New England. He’s the author of three chapbooks and a full-length collection, Venus at the Arms Fair (Alien Buddha Press, 2024). Recent publications include Apocalypse Confidential, The Crank, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Spectra, the engine(idling, Horror Sleaze Trash, & others. His poems have been nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net. 

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Across The Wire Vol. 5

You only Smile when I’m Down 

By Tim Frank

My revenge will be to live well.
I’ll sink my teeth into slabs 
Of steak,
Let the garlic butter ooze
From my lips
As Weiss beer bursts 
Upon my eager tongue.
I’ll dream of ice-cold water
Pooling around my feet
And watch the evening game 
While chaining cigarettes—
Blowing rings of smoke 
At the waning moon,
Creating new plateaus
Of beauty 
From my idle thoughts.
And yet, what good does living well 
Really do?
We cruise 
Through worlds aligned 
But are judged by different gods—
Indifferent gods,
Not worthy of our prayers.
You’re a phantom figure 
Beyond my vengeful reach.
So do your worst, my simple friend—
Set fire to your block 
Make your children cry

Tim Frank’s work has been published in Bending Genres, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Maudlin House, The Forge Literary Magazine, The Metaworker and elsewhere. He has been nominated for Best Small Fictions. His debut chapbook is, An Advert Can Be Beautiful in the Right Shade of Death (C22 Press ’24) and his second chapbook of poetry is, Delusions To Live By (Alien Buddha Press, ’25)

Twitter: @TimFrankquill

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Across The Wire Vol. 5

You’re Okay Champ

By Michael Pershan

Michael Pershan is a math teacher and writer living in New York City. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in BULL, hex, Outlook Springs, and The American Bystander. 

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Issue 4 Issue 4 Poetry

CANTOS FOR PSYCHOSOMATIC GOOGLING

By Lucas Restivo

Lucas Restivo is OPEN for representation and endowments

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Issue 4 Issue 4 Poetry

DRAGON OF THE DARKNESS FLAME

By Tyler Plofker

Tyler Plofker is a writer in NYC.

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Issue 4 Issue 4 Poetry

PIECES OF A MAN

By Uchechukwu Onyedikam

Uchechukwu Onyedikam is a Nigerian Poet/Photographer based in Lagos, Nigeria. BOTN, Pushcart Prize nominee. His poetry has appeared in Amsterdam Quarterly, Brittle Paper, Poetic Africa, Poetry Catalog, Sky Island Journal, Unlikely Stories Mark V, Spillwords, among other publications. He and Christina Chin has co-written and published two poetry chapbooks. He’s a contributor at Mad Swirl.

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Issue 4 Issue 4 Poetry

CONVERSATIONS ARE INESCAPABLE AND PRETTY TRAPS, OR, THIS IS HOW DUOLINGO THINKS REAL PEOPLE TALK TO EACH OTHER

By Rich Boucher

Rich Boucher resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Rich’s poems have appeared in The Nervous Breakdown, Eighteen Seventy and The Rye Whiskey Review, among others, and he has work forthcoming in The Literary Underground and Cul-de-sac-Of-Blood. He is the author of All Of This Candy Belongs To Me. Interestingly, he can’t stop looking at the sky.