Better Than Starbucks!

Dementia

like visiting a prison

built

out of one-sided

mirrors.

she’s in bed

all the time now,

not moving much —

she might as well

be chained

to the wall.

you sit quietly

and tell her

about your day

to no coherent

answer.

sometimes

in the eyes

something flashes,

pacing

and banging silently

on the walls.

​

DS Maolalaí is a poet from Ireland, writing and publishing for 10 years. He published Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden in 2016 with the Encircle Press. He has been nominated for Best of the Net and twice for the Pushcart Prize.

​

​

​

DONKEY

When I got on the train

the man was talking

and I knew he would still be talking

when I got off in fifty minutes.

He

was mostly talking about Bob.

“Yea he is okay but you know”.

He said in a way that only people who are used to talking, talk.

He is still talking now

perhaps he never stops as long as he has someone to listen.

My mother would say

he could talk the legs off a donkey.

This guy could talk the legs off of thousands.

As I thought about this I took another look at him

and pictured him in a field

talking to a donkey with others behind

and a big pile of donkey’s legs all piled up.

He got off at Clapham junction

still talking

and once again I could see him in that field.

Marc Carver writes because  he has to write. He knows it makes him very lonely in the world, always having to step back, but at least sometimes he finds something worth sharing.

​

​

Promise

My next poem will sound like someone else.

It will be brave, change someone’s mind

about poverty. My next poem will be a recipe:

I’ll teach ‘em how to cook daddy’s squirrel

potpie, rub pork ribs the right way,

mash potatoes like a man and bacon—

wrap their vegetables tight. My next poem

will be skinny from smoking: a backyard

barbeque, some prayer candles and maybe

a firecracker or two. My next poem will

be patriotic: there will be guns in it, because

how else will it defend itself? My next poem

will destroy, fire wrongly, and kill a child.

My next poem will stand for brotherly love,

Philadelphia, like it belongs there. It’ll say

hoagies and jimmies and freedom. It will

reek of Yuengling, stumble through South Street,

steal Thanksgiving turkeys and eat bass

right out the Schuylkill. My next poem will be

a home-wrecker: the worst kind ever seen.

Crystal Stone is an MFA candidate at Iowa State University. Her poetry has appeared in various journals. In 2018, she gave a TEDx talk called, “The Transformative Power of Poetry.” Her first collection of poetry is Knock-off Monarch (Dawn Valley Press.)

​

​

​

Like Wind Invisible

I used to think I wasn’t there,

but now I know I’m invisible.

I blow in that woman’s ear;

I trip that man who scowls

at the sidewalk;

I contort faces at the 6 year old

pouting at the table beside me;

I bark at the pit bull cocking its head

for a better listen.

I skip through crowds of people

and almost touch them

so they startle backward

for a moment then hope

no one saw them flinch

as everyone looks at everyone,

but no one sees me

as I flip that guy’s hat

into the street.

I am invisible!

Diane Webster’s goal is to remain open to poetry ideas in everything. Many nights she falls asleep juggling images to fit into a poem. Her work has appeared in Philadelphia Poets, Illya’s Honey, River Poets Journal, and other literary magazines.