Red Fox

By Lynn White

᠅

He struts across alleys
as if he owns them
tail held high,
white tip gleaming
in the moonlight.

He doesn’t like wheelie bins,
but sometimes
just sometimes
they’re over filled
and he can lift the lid
and feast on the leftovers
of another’s life.

He easily scales the wall at number 27,
The man there leaves him chicken
with lots of the crunchy bits
that his vixen loves.
He likes this man.

He speaks to him sometimes
and says he’s writing a poem
that will make him a famous fox.
His vixen will like that as well.
He gives a special swish of his tail
as he struts his stuff across those alleys.

᠅

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She has been nominated for Pushcarts, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. https://lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com and https://www.facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/

Knave

By Joan McNerney

᠅

Full of himself flaunting
his black leather jacket
covered with silver studs.

Bling hangs from his bulging neck.
Flashy zircons, cheap cologne,
tattoos, piercings, purple hair.

Puffed up, he struts across alleys.
Headlight eyes scoping
each corner searching prey.

Lugging a bag of tricks loaded
with brass knuckles, chains,
zip guns, switchblade knives.

His hands move like claws
through shadows with
crooked nails buffed blue.

Fearful…
Hunched in the doorway
you shuffle out smoke
from fluted nostrils

Opening his cavern mouth,
smacking wide lips, the knave
drains cocktails of ruby red blood.

᠅

Joan McNerney’s poetry is published worldwide in over thirty-five countries in numerous literary magazines. Four Best of the Net nominations have been awarded to her. Her books The Muse in Miniature, Love Poems for Michael I & II, At Work and Light & Shadows are all available at amazon.com.

A Ghost

By Nick Cooke

᠅

I am going to pass
you by, O tense spirit
of times long fled.

Hunched in the doorway
you shuffle out smoke
from fluted nostrils

like a conscious warning
not to approach, even if
sixty metres away –

with a host of mislaid souls
blotting your sightline –
I’m invisible to you

and your shades reflect nothing
beyond the vaguest sense
of a need to mask

the littleness behind them.
It’s churlish relief to note
some ageing puppy weight,

much as I, more palpably, have gained,
for causes I once ascribed
to your not so good self.

I cried until my throat closed.
Why exactly your thread,
ragged but persistent,

kept hauling me across
coal and high tide,
is a riddle known only to

the waves of vapour
as they merge with the air
between frame and eye.

᠅

Nick Cooke has had around 75 poems published, in a variety of outlets including Acumen, Agenda, Ink Sweat & Tears, the High Window Journal and Dream Catcher, along with around 35 poetry reviews and literary articles. In 2016 his poem 'Tanis' won a Wax Poetry and Art competition.

Tatiana

By Joey Colby Bernert

᠅

Tanya,
I remember your perfume,
before I remember your touch.
Diamond rings flashing under kitchen light,
gold anklets, platinum studs,
a crown assembled from debts and lies.
You strutted, not walked.
Your cackle filled the house,
a laugh so wide it seemed to shake the walls.

Your voice was pitched high, elevated,
every word a dagger.
You knew our weaknesses
and spent cruelty like currency.
Friendships: sabotaged.
Private moments: mocked.
I could not even shit in peace
without your screaming filling the air,
sometimes at me, sometimes at shadows.

You locked me in the green room,
the guest room no guest would enter,
closets sagging with clothes no one wore,
magazines yellowing in piles,
garbage of another life abandoned.
I cried until my throat closed,
until no sound could pass.

You said I talked too much.
So you taught me silence,
four walls, locked doors,
hours carved out of my body.

Empathy is not strength but a slow leak of shame.
You never leaked.
You were lacquered and polished,
Beatles on the stereo,
Eminence Front on repeat,
while you staged your brilliance
for parties, for church, for the mall,
anywhere an audience might gather.

Your jewelry cost more than food.
Your laughter cost me years.
Even now, I struggle to reconcile
the woman in red lipstick,
walking like she owned the world,
with the mother who believed
glamour was the same as love.

I write this to say I remember.
Not with forgiveness,
not with love,
but with the clarity of someone
who has survived you.

᠅

Joey Colby Bernert (any/all) is a disabled, queer, and neurodivergent clinical social worker, statistician, and MPH student. Joey is the Editor in Chief for the Orichalcum Tower Press. They are a recovering heroin addict and alcoholic. They work to with rural populations to provide treatment for substance abuse.