We wanna give everything a number.

We wanna celebrate Columbus even though in this glorious technology age we know he
was both murderer and rapist.

We wanna paint walls in public government buildings puke green always.

We wanna have Burger King and McDonald’s compete forever,
Sprint and Verizon,
Coke and Pepsi.

We wanna hurt the animals, immigrants, the sky, 
we wanna slash the minimum wage workers when they’re already resorting to food stamps.

We wanna vote for ignorance, the color orange, and the old America.

We wanna be nostalgic instead of educated, 
we wanna assume because it was good for us, 
it was great.

We want to keep saying, “This is the greatest country in the world.”
It sounds pretty.

We wanna play with respect, truth and integrity, 
until the words are tattered and meaningless, 
stripped of their former glory, 
they’re just sound bites on the evening news.

We wanna turn our backs on women, Mexicans and Muslims.

We wanna care about ourselves cause that comes easy.

We want freedom of religion but not really.

We want freedom of speech; we want people saying things, 
forever.

Really, we want convenience, this is America,
what we want we get,
any means necessary and we want it now.

We sabotage ourselves, 
we played ourselves.
When you chose fear and blame you screwed us.

I love this country, but it doesn’t love me back,

I love as I breathe, but how many breaths do I have left

and when I run out will I be revived or will I be discarded?


Author Bio:
Tesa Blue Flores ​is an aspiring poet and sex and marriage therapist. She hopes to get a book published by the time she can legally drink in this country. Her favorite poet is Charles Bukowski and she has a line from It's Ours tattooed on her wrist. She hopes to face rejection as many times as he did and still not give up.

Remember; we know everything about you. Yes; your rights are preserved, but we know the places, conversations, and another things more than what you conceive. We work hard to safe people. We work to serve you, so we know everything about you.
​
They said: You have unlimited liberty to refrain from answering, because you were condemned from the start. You know; we are in time of privacy respect, and these satellite and internet are not for spying, but for taking beautiful pictures to the galaxy. They always say: we will live in a white world, but you don’t see anything but this redness, so where is these whiteness which they talk about it. May be the clothes had been run out. I heard; that in China cheap workers, so why they don’t make a factory for purification of their white worlds. 


Author Bio:
Anwer Ghani is an Iraqi poet and literary theorist, born in 1973 in Hila city, and he lives in Iraq now and worked in a hospital as consultant physician. He has collections in Arabic in e-book form (Language 1) 2014, (Language 2) 2015, (Language 3) 2016, and many books in poetry criticism in Arabic and in e-book form with unique ideas and post-stylistic criticism. He is the chief editor of a literary magazine (Tajdeed) deals with Arabic prose poems, and the chief editor of a literary magazine in English (International Prose Poem journal). He writes the polyphonic (multi-voices poems), mosaic (mirror language poems), abstract poems and expressional narrative poems.

It is not
I want to be a writer.
Nor I am writing.
Nor, “Do you think I can write?”
It is
since I began to scribble
words came flooding into mind
like water over fall
to tell story
to leak feelings from heart
sprinkled on page
until I felt heard
whether words be read
or held
on white page.
It is living
written on scraps of paper
or typed, click upon tick
on white-blue screen.
It is nights of fear
scribed in finger-slicing
detail not relived
but understood.
It is carving
joy that spilled out soul
in head-thrown-back
laughter
seared with light.
It is story that penetrates ears
Finding way to heart
and without thinking
I am wrapping with words
to help you recognize yourself.
It is reality I cling to,
not volume
of published or purchasable work,
when you ask “What do you do?”
And I reply,
“I am a writer.”


Author Bio:
Jill Dyer wants to live in a world where words are spoken with candid precision, weak-in-the-knee’s laughter occurs daily, and flip-flops and shorts are considered high fashion. As a writer, she’s been spotlighted on Her Heart Poetry, Red Tent Living, and as a finalist in the OCW poetry contest. When she’s not scrawling feelings on white pages or reigning as queen amongst her family, you can find her hiking Oregon trails, dreaming of cramming six people into a tiny house on wheels, or drinking red wine by campfire glow.

Discover more about Jill at jillinked.com. She can also be found on Instagram @jillinked and on Facebook.

These darker days made me paranoid,
hovering over me like never before.
As no lover is there,
to sing for me the happy chores.
Surrounded by millions of colors
nothing giving me any comforts
Hearten up my fears, 
as the days are so drear,
one night flames of love sparkled inside my soul.
Time passed and feelings vanished;
I was and will be
all lonely
in a lonely world as a whole.


Author Bio:
Maria Sani is a Pakistani citizen, presently living in Islamabad. She is a book reviewer, freelance editor, author and poet. She mostly writes her poems in Urdu. Through her words she aims to bring change in society.

If someone has never seen a rainbow how do you describe how it makes you feel?
Will the words you use ever really do it justice? 
How can you be sure they really understand what it means to you?  
Perhaps it will mean something else to them.
Something greater or less significant. 
But no less important or relevant than what it means to you. 

Maybe it doesn't matter if they understand.
All that matters is that you told them.
That you shared how you felt and someone listened.
It might not be important to know how they feel.
But then perhaps it might be.
Something wonderful might happen 
You may have the same feelings.
Or find you are able to reflect upon theirs and then yours. 
They might have even thought of something you haven't even considered. 

I don't think it matters any which way 
Except in this way
You are not alone.
You may not have shared feelings
You may not have understood feelings
But you will always have people to tell
People to listen
And people to help
And after all
No rainbow is the same.
So why should we be?


Author Bio:
Rachael lives in Plymouth. Writing poetry has always been something been quite private for her; but she thought she would put it out there! She works for a mental health charity as a recovery worker and is studying an Access course part time in order to get to into university next year and starts her Social Work degree.

Damn, damn, damn, damn.
Ah, Molly, where are you? Surely the facts are not in dispute.

Out there in the icy universe, there is nothing.
Oh, Molly! Molly? Get out of my mind.

Just slip a suppository into position. Now let science soothe the troubled rectum.
Live by the guts, die by the guts.

Will I be able to get rid of you with a little style, a little panache?
The search for style often results in a want of feeling.

Suddenly, you are not just aging. You are irrevocably dying.
Hi, diddle-diddy. Ta-tum ta-tum ta-tum.

We live in a state of unacknowledged but mutual exhaustion behind which we scream, 
silently. Shouldn’t everyone live as if they were about to die, not next week, 
nor next month, but now?

You’re not a husband or son, you’re a goddamn jailer. Eyes like marbles.
I’d say style is feeling.

I want, I want, I want. I would like…I, I, I, first-person singular.
There we go: the tremors, the warnings. 

Once death seemed like a gentlest earthquake of the system, but now gathering force 
over the years.
I just thought lying alone in bed that a middle-aged man’s fantasies are not humiliating, 
and I will not reject them. 

I haven’t been bored with you; self-eliminating, yes.
I’m not a person. I’m a fucking construction. Yours.

After dreams, nothing in waking life can have such intensity.
One thinks: ho hum.

Mugged? Yes, mugged. This city’s definitely falling to pieces.
Nothing can compare with the memories of childhood.

There is a terrific fire across the city. The sky is red for miles.
What do you make of it? What do you make of love?

In the end, I shall call for morphine. I am not heroic, oh, no.
Finally, one loses control of everything.

There, there. That’s better. You look very cool this morning. Very lovely.
What do you think of Bangkok? Palm trees, beaches, that kind of thing?

Damn, damn, damn, damn. Don’t deceive yourself. Death creeps on.
A little more venom, children, a little more violence.

I just thought we could blow each other’s brains out, if we had a gun.
I thought we’d make love, if we had the desire.

Something must have gone wrong at some early stage. It could be childhood.
Then what is this huge, huge sense of spiritual emptiness?

Death, no problem. Stop. My son, an emotional cripple. Stop. By all means 
descend on him. Stop.
He is tragically incomplete. He admits no rage.

Yes, when was that first Russian thing – Sput-something – nik: Sputnik?
I once knew a Victorian.

Some would say you are your own worst enemy. 
I’d say you are your only best friend.

One last thing, after this strange and marvelous thing we’ve had. Just leave. 
Now, please. With neither kiss nor touch. With my blessing.


Author Bio:
David Lohrey grew up in Memphis. He graduated from U.C., Berkeley. His plays have appeared in the UK, Switzerland, India and, most recently, in Croatia. In a Newark Minute and Sperm Counts were translated and produced in Estonia (2016). His poetry can be found in Softblow, The Blue Mountain Review, Otoliths, Cecile’s (The Hague) and Quarterday, His poem “Muddy Water” has been selected by the Limerick Arts Office to appear in the Stony Thursday Book for 2016. In addition, recent poems have been accepted as part of anthologies published by the University of Alabama (Dewpoint), Illinois State University (Obsidian) and Michigan State University (The Offbeat). David is a member of the Sudden Denouement Literary Collective in Houston, Texas. Recent fiction can be read in Crack the Spine and at inshadesmag.com. His book The Other Is Oneself, a study of 20th century literature, was published this year in Germany. He is currently writing a memoir of his years living in Saudi Arabia. He teaches in Tokyo.

Mellifluous wandering lemonade
Mellow yellow
Seeping, creeping
Down upon the crumpled napkin
In a geriatric lap.

Spread thin like marmalade on toast
The crusts removed for dentured teeth
My two cents for your two pence
Indentured servitude
Brought forth upon this nation
By foremothers and their fornicating boys.

Little bee stings prick the palm
Buttered muffins burn the hand
The toaster's acting up again. 

Cows cry out from seeded loaf
Germination, duplication
Cough into your elbow
Twenty seconds
Happy birthday 
Soap, warm water
Stop the spread

Cut off the gangrenous limb and let it rot.

Any last requests
I'd like a woman, blonde 
Single 
Good looking
Twenty-five.

Happy birthday.

Men play poker doggy style
Front to rear
Inhaling fragrances of shit
I'm far too old for you. 


Author Bio:
Shayleene MacReynolds is a grad student at California State University Northridge, working towards her Master's Degree in Creative Writing. A Bartender, writer, editor, and Social Media savant for a local restaurant, Shayleene is concerned with all things human, both enamored and intrigued by the emotional connections forged between us. Her writings explore the capacity for connection that we maintain as human beings, and the vast responsibility we owe to one another to connect better, to love better, and to be better. 

I remember reading in a few different places
That the pupil of one’s eye expands up to 45%
When looking at someone you love
Well I stared in the mirror, to see for myself
And you know what the funny thing was?
I could have sworn my eyes stayed just the same.

Well, I had the presence of mind
To know for me, that this would never do
So I tossed up aires, and put on a farce
To let the world outside see me
Smiling gayeley back at it
But the mirror still lied 

My how that mirror lied!
Even when turned to face away
I could hear glass lips pursing
Those old grey eyes
Never meeting an honest gaze!
Ugly little thing never telling truth

A smile a dour frown
Vibrancy put through by force
Never saw the looking glass
Little things, little things
No mind to them
The child’s a fibber

Not long and I was soon fed
Full of that glass’s nonsense!
Smooth skin, a youthful totem
Scaled, peeling, drying
A smile killed on that glass
A heart pierced on that glass

The old coot in that glass is a nasty one indeed
Laughing, laughing, laughing
I don’t quite see what the joke is
One should not find joy in telling untruths!
That senile bean motions closer
Peeling open my eyes

In the gloom of the room,
The dust settles on small canyons over the glass
Cracks through our face
Ancient, crooked face, sallow pupils
Many times, many times over
Smaller than I had ever remembered

But the fissures mend
And the glass melds to one beautiful tapestry again!
A healthy beam of white frolicking
Pupils small or not, smile wrong way up
And you know what the funny thing was?
I realized the mirror had been upside down the entire time!


Author Bio:
Andrew Stewart is a high schooler in Iowa who is dabbling with poetry. 

     One student angrily thrust his hand in the air: “I am a Yugoist. My parents are Yugoists. So were their parents. This is my truth and I resent you asking me to challenge those beliefs.”

     And the Teacher scratched his expanding stomach and asked: “Tell me, Rush, do you have a car?”
    This set the student back a bit, but his anger was still in his reply: “Damn straight. I got a ’97 Dodge Stratus.”
            “You buy the 4- or 6-cylinder?”
            “Six. The fours tend to blow the head gaskets.”
            “How did you find it?”
            “What’d’ya mean?”
            “Did you buy the first car you saw?”
            “No. I checked out a dozen other cars before I bought it. I went on the Internet
       and looked at the safety ratings. Checked Consumer Reports and Kelley’s.”
            “What kind of car do your parents own?”
            “A 1995 Chevy Malibu.”
            “So you own a different model than your parents?”
            “Yep.”
            “Then don’t you think you should choose your religion as carefully as you did your car?”

Author Bio:
Dr. Bill DeArmond is Professor of Mass Communication and Film at Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas. This month he has the lead story in Diodati #3 (available from Amazon) and a poem in the premiere issue of Tiny Tim's Literary Review.

tee eff double yew
no burnished hand to grab a few
fistfuls of my woodbrown hair
            ((MIDASTOUCH ME TO STRAIGHT GOLD))
melt me down /
                              in town i'm sold
                        and from the witty conspires
                                    of the forests and the breaks
                                    i'll raise a thousand ires
                                    poison a thousand lakes
                        if only forth to drive her
                        and catch her in my net
                        o her muscles! o her jaws!
            kiss me & i will swoon ~
and we will fall in plainest view
of all the booing crowd.
 
one half of waifu is
            a moaning why:
            BREAK FORTH IN SOLEMN REEEEEEEE
                        HOW COME SHE AIN'T MINE?
                        HOW COME SHE AIN'T WITH ME?
 
my hair, yes, wove to gold
storefront, yes, tired as mold
                                    midas ain't in,
                                                she's down below
                                    soaking her gills.
doubt she'll see you. she likes me
only, and i'll have it no other way
 
oh,
            you'll wait.
                                    i see.
                        O MY FRAGRANT LOVER ///
                        (called down the stairs,
                        heartflung, headlong)
                                    break open my bones
                        and drink deep their
            cargoed sin!
until i'm midased out
and quantified to cart
                                    and to bin.
​