by George Taxon

In a trough,
an ingrown pyramid
scheme thrives.
A glitch?
Glib. Soluble.
In a stagnant pool of bliss.
Sapiens.
Who?
Me, trying to float,
trying to leave this rocky
ocean behind.
It’s dark down here
on this shelf,
where the deflated myths
of the past continue
to settle.
Up above,
I’m not sure if I belong,
my dreams won’t hold
water,
slapped together with rust
and artificial tears.
Damn.
Another dawn,
and I taste mildew
in my bubble
of joy.
O breathless turtle,
counsel me,
instruct me how
to crawl.
My appetites are insatiable,
my flaws gurgle in
this state-of-the-art net.
I am in the dark,
yet I see nothing
but blue.

George Taxon is a writer who has worked as an antiquarian bookseller, medical editor, and administrator. He lives just outside of Boston, Massachusetts.

by Mike O’Brien

I
Crouching on his haunches,
The Sea Policeman looks into the lifeless eye of a cow
It had wandered too near the edge of the crumbling cliff above
When it fell onto the shingle It must have landed with a real thud

II
He holds the barnacle encrusted frame of a child’s bicycle
Look at his boots sinking into the watery sand
Look closer and you can see the tidemarks
Six inches above the cuffs of his trousers

III
In earnest conversation with two men next to a small fishing boat
He points to the rope that one of them is holding
The other has a pipe in his mouth
A dense mist obscures the horizon

IV
A family holiday at Scarborough
He stands awkwardly on the beach with his wife and two small children
His eyes are distant – thinking of his beat
The real seaside

V
He examines the contents of a broken wooden crate
They are scattered over the smooth pebbles
Bottles, some smashed
Some intact and containing a greyish brown fluid

VI
Notebook in hand
Licking his pencil
He towers above a couple of crying kiddies
Between them is the partially decomposed remains of a seal

VII
He is standing outside of a stone church,
His helmet under his right arm,
Surrounded by ancient gravestones
Their inscriptions worn to illegibility by the salt air

Mike O’Brien is a largely cheerful sort of a chap who enjoys writing and performing poetry. Some of his work can be found at zoomburst.substack.com. He has also dabbled in publishing other poets, who can be found at sixtyoddpoets@substack.com. Instagram @obrienfeatures.

by Conor Gearin

If I was a
lavender seed, on
gravel or on good soil.
If I was a gull on kitchen
scraps or a pile of
confiscated weed. If I was
a weasel. Or trout.
Setting matters
as much as the species.
In a brook over
blue-gray stones or
the Cuyahoga River
between flare-ups. I can’t
picture a creature without
a place. Then I think of decisions:
where the possum that is me
will get the next garbage scraps,
where are enemies, how will
I hide. The place. The hedge,
the French drain, the tunnels
in the shrubs’ low boughs. If I
was another kind of life, all I see
is questions of where, and scarcity.
I don’t look at my wings. I don’t
look at my lustrous ursine coat.

Conor Gearin is a writer from St. Louis living in Omaha. He’s the managing producer of BirdNote Daily, a daily radio program and podcast. His work has appeared in The New Territory, Chariton Review, ONE ART, Frozen Sea, Mochila Review, The Oxonian Review, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. He’s on Instagram @conorgearin.

by Mathew Yates

nerve-raw as ever you saw,
busted up blue & blooded

like the catfish on the dock,
like the predawn stumble of a

cooper’s hawk hatchling unto the underbrush,
thrust into a corner the color of sky,

falling even on the ground, buried alive
in clouds & condensation & rain,

the mud-flooded drain at the end of the street,
fear-stuck as you’ve ever been struck,

up to your chest in shadow & muck,
there is a cavern in a chasm underneath

the earth, where if you think alone long
enough, you can transform into dirt, or,

curled up green like a seed, you can
reach for the sun like a newborn weed,

or, nerve-raw, fear-struck, full-wept
as you’ve ever been swept, unsleeping like

a burnt log in a bog from an unanswered
sacrifice, like the corpse in the cress,

feeling like the first to ever feel a thing,
full on frightened, stuck-eye on the wall,

you can stagger in place
to no place at all,

rigid as the ridden obsession,
ragged as the wrong-turn road,

crumpled up & creased like the crust of the earth,
& fetched further in yearning than river for rock,

than shiver & shock for a comfortable body,
than the quivering stop for the start of a cry,

rigid as the soaring wing,
ragged as the last flooded dale,

here to take to task the rake
for refusing to let dead leaves decay,

here to worship the maggots in your wounds
for keeping you company in a lonely world,

to keep company in a lonely world
can be a kind of necromancy,

a kind of return, a way back, a recollection,
nerve-raw & rigid, ravenous, in fact

Mathew Yates (they/them) is a disabled poet & artist from Paducah, Kentucky with roots in Mississippi & Appalachia. Their poetry & art can be found in Protean Mag, Ghost City Review, Malarkey Books, Barren Magazine, & more. They live in Indianapolis. They are on Twitter @m_yates on twitter and their website is mathewyates.com.