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THE FASCISTS IN MY HOMETOWN by Garret Schuelke

 1: Celebration The fascists in my hometown of Alpena are holding a parade in honor of Trump's second inauguration.  ...laughing at everyone freaking out over Elon's Nazi salute. ...hoping police can now get even more brutal towards the homeless and people of color than they already were. ...pleased that the January 6th rioters have been freed. ...delighted that immigrants are afraid of themselves and their children being kidnapped by Trump’s gestapo, ICE. ...patiently waiting for food and gas prices to go down, and for their careers and small businesses to reach new heights of prosperity, in our newly energized Capitalist economic system. ...glad that student activists are going to be deported, and their protests promptly shut down. ...relieved that Christian America has *once again* been saved. ...looking forward to the woke public school system being demolished, and the public library being shuttered. ...optimistic that the long, painful fentanyl epidemic is finally about t...
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A COLD RAMBLER by Mary Bone

A cold rambler broke my heart. The horse I rode in on can’t be found. When the dust blew in from the prairie, I knew a storm was coming. There were only a few tracks  on the horizon.   Mary Bone has been writing poetry since childhood. Her poems can be found at Cold Rambler Blogspot, Literary Revelations, European Poetry Journal, The Academy of the Heart and Mind and other places. Upcoming poetry will be featured at eMerge Magazine.     
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FUCK THE DAMN BALLROOM by John Bruni

Tariffs, graft--BALLROOM! Epstein, greed, shootings--BALLROOM! Fuck the damn ballroom.
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DEATH OF EMPATHY by Lynn White

When empathy died the soldiers could dance in the streets they’d cracked wearing the underwear of the women whose homes they had destroyed. And dance they did with pride. When empathy was dead  the soldiers could take children’s toys from the rubble of their bombed homes and repurpose them as tank trophies mascots to be flaunted with pride while the street cracked under the weight. When they had killed empathy  the soldiers could shoot babies in the head or gut - they chose, and someone’s daughter 200 times,  or 300 - they could choose. And they filmed it with pride from the street’s rubble and cracks. When empathy was murdered the soldiers could capture children and imprison them in cages, one metre square, or whatever they chose until they told them  what they did not know and then laugh with pride in the smooth Israeli streets. When empathy was dead and buried deep down below the streets’ cracks and only silence could be heard Israel was supreme, a supreme being,...
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I WOULD BET by Jack Phillips Lowe

The concept of a fountain of youth is one that has crossed the centuries, as well as the globe. Yet, nobody  can agree on what it is, where it is and who has it, for sure. I step forward today  to submit an answer  to settle this ongoing debate— for I personally have tasted an elixir that has  shaved years off my life, in more ways than one.  Good people, hear  and believe me now! If, in fact, a fountain of youth flows somewhere  in our wide  and fucked-up world, I would bet  my last dollar that it tastes like cold beer from a freshly-tapped keg. But not  Bud Light.    Jack Phillips Lowe resides in the Chicago area. His poems have appeared in Cajun Mutt Press, Clutch 2025 and Bold Monkey Review. Lowe's selected poems, Flashbulb Danger (Middle Island Press, 2018), is available from Amazon. His most recent book, Brautigan's Blue Moon (Instant Oblivion Press, 2025), is available from lulu.com. 
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OGOPOGO TAKES A MODELLING JOB by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

The words are grinding ice and Ogopogo  takes a modelling job in the city. Fished out of the Okanagan depths by a kleptomaniac talent agent  who loses marbles by the bag. Picks up hitchhikers  with a pair of salad tongs, while their new monster signing makes pouty faces for the camera. Magazine poses  for the airbrush army. Pasted over highway billboards that used to show you your brain on  drugs.   Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Horror Sleaze Trash, Cold Rambler, Zygote in My Coffee, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Rusty Truck and The Oklahoma Review. 
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RED PURSE FULL OF MARIJUANA AND TEARS by Catfish McDaris

Kaleidoscope plumbago on a zephyr wind jasmine, honeysuckle, and lilac perfume wafting in the vibrating heat wave as I wait Rivers thunder mellow jazz ravens dancing in the banana trees, time is wiser than people, dying is just waking up on another tomorrow Tears of God the panther ate the rose, a delicious morsel of ghost, memory, rain, for two months I waited by the house in San Angel and Casa Azul Sitting for a cafecito and churro, a red purse full of marijuana appeared, soft hands covered my eyes, “Do you like mota, gringo?” she asked “When I was a hippie, I toked,” “What’s a hippie?” I told her as we took a taxi to a park where they trained bulls for the corrida. “When the matador kills them I feel their pain, like my accident.”   Catfish McDaris is from Albuquerque and Milwaukee. He writes to keep his sanity. Most of the time it works out. 
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