Power Play
A Panthera of writers coalesce
Hunger and the Hunted - Edward Swafford’s narrative entrée
She feels it in her marrow
Confiding in beset incorporeal bulwarks
It’s bullish
This beast speaks in incoherent tongue
Yet she’s lynx-eyed — LIPREADING
Each and everlasting word, every single
Suffused day
Duality virtuality meet and mete the meat
Groundhog days (repeating and retreating)
She strums thinning skin, her own?
Cautionary chalk confides, portioning
One perfect circle ⚫
Stepping beyond these lines at her peril
Nonpareil is her reflect, obsequious toy
Cloying rehashed
Splitting into perfect prosodies
Loathing inflections of who she was¿?¿?
Yet those sounds within EARSHOT
Spacing sequestered sentience, a blanching
Bleaching equals and sums and zeroes and
Ones = an eonian entity told her so
Phlegmatic by some fucking miracle
Control is compromise
Cabalistic mantras cannibalize woken day
Night knows no difference, not for her
Defiance nourishes
Sabbatical sustenance paces as a keepsake
Pleasured starving coverts to dopaminergic
Determinism, survival is secondary
Victory never spoils.
HAIKU:
Double nor nothing
Transfixed twin mutterings
Never grow older
© Edward Swafford 2025
Dream Misery - Maisie Archer’s oneiric Quatern
soft wish-weary dream misery
we promised no regrets, heartache
left behind, rockabye rhythm
empty train car, lone china cup
tea milky-sweet, warm on our lips
soft wish-weary dream misery
painted stars, gold-bronze fading pale
twilight mirage, the end in sight
flicker fragments of hope, moonlit
gaze, questions unasked unanswered
soft wish-weary dream misery
impossible consolation
muddled memories trapped in time
endless loop, desire unfulfilled
reality dim, here alone
soft wish-weary dream misery
The Foo Balk - Jozef Cain’s brew of mysterious origin…
many moons ago,
i saw orange orbs
in the sky, over a bay.
but they were disappointed
that i was their witness.
this husk of a man.
where are iris and hermes? they asked.
though, i hadn’t an answer for them.
no passion for their presence;
and i wouldn’t tell anyone the mystery.
until now:
show us the face of your god,
and we will show you
the chamber of secrets.
show us the sceptre of athelstan,
and we will order the sphinx to submit their key.
i have never known the gods,
and no longer seek what you’re offering.
i only want for meal and drink.
i have no allegiance to nations,
nor access to locked doors.
i am but a pleb with nothing to pledge;
go shine for another.
we chose you for a reason…
© 2025
Repeated Rehearsals - H. R. Sinclair’s exploration of self/love/hate
He covers his intentions at crossings so as not to disturb traffic, failed attempts of courage hidden in plain sight as he daydreams dreams of not himself, but himself separate silent and squashed, so as not to have to raise his head and look up too high. She hangs her arms too long across her chest with stature tall and hunched and too tall to not fear heights, so she looks down and peers beneath her lashes and hair draping over her face in futile attempts to shrink her outside for what she knows to hide on the inside. He sits all day and smiles at times at florescent screens screaming information at his garish green eyes; lives unlived by him and life untouched by him and people never to be met by him as he sits and rarely smiles anymore in the darkness of his fluorescent room. And she drinks most nights on nights in and on nights out, she drinks some more, to find some body to sleep with or just next to in hopes she forgets who she’s been made to be - or to take away what has been taken away from her. Some seem loud for all eyes on them, then some seem quiet to be never seen again — but then — some balance both beings in desperation while wanting really neither fate, rather a muffle on their boiler room of exhausted existence teeming tight in their cranium cage. Then two of the same meet only sometimes and these kindreds touch and one sees one and they see one another and sparks fly until those sparks die. Ink spills on their skin just as quick as blood spills between them, memories half-made in foggy love.
A Rudiarius for Love - Pixel Floyd’s marital concessions
First thought, best thought
— Allen Ginsberg
A cold draft sweeps
in the mirror, an effigy weeps
a candle loses its fight
the night gets colder still
What flickers my will
from my goodnight pill?
Just some gaslit creep
letting every sin seep
the blood-brain barrier,
the visage of your will —
turning rights to wrongs,
believing you’re superior
You hung the cross
on my door
while I slept
on the floor,
as if your beliefs
bleed through
in divine osmosis
A cold draft sweeps
through again
Counting sheep
in my penance didn’t work —
so I turned to Trazadone
to take the edge off,
to sleep alone
Sigh —
how I lie,
masking symptoms
as if I’m to bear
the blame —the one who needs fixing,
the broken whose truth
remains unspoken
Who checked out first
from our hostel,
our love nest
turned apostle mission
To spread the news:
Look who’s right or wrong
In this?
A Rudiarius
with love scars
But let us be clear —
Where we go —
into this battle of egos —
there is never a victor,
only victims left standing
with two kids at the center
Let us lift them up
on a pedestal,
the fulcrum of our attention —
balance their needs
against ours
But the truth of the matter is:
What tips the scale
in separation
is the bitterness
that taints
the innocent
And now, I am a visitor,
not a father,
my offspring, a guest
in this home
turned hostel —
where the cold wind
flickers the flame.
A Rudiarii
for fight sake
never sees freedom.
Either way, the door swings —
Open.
If the fight is in the heart,
it can never be free.
Cursed Myself in Cursive? — Elena’s cross-examination of love and torment
Maybe I cursed myself in cursive maybe I held on way too long to an idea of my booklets of sorts unscathed, feelings unobtrusively unobscured to the ringlets of ivy of my childhood garden, to that very first longing look traced back to elementary school. Maybe I cursed myself in cursive by singing along to songs of love lost, to the prophecies of stories left to unfold, never unfolding, always holding on. Maybe I have cursed myself in cursive to the misery of a lack in reciprocity. Why is there such a duality in mutuality? They want me for a short time, then avoid my presence for weeks. They have another, yet feel welcomed in infidelity’s hug. Maybe I have cursed myself in cursive with my Achilles’ heel being the story of star-crossed lovers. I even tattooed it on my right foot. Should have gotten tickets to another movie, the one where the girl falls for the kind man, he’s available and doesn’t mess around. Instead, I prefer the plot twists. I like to fall for friends who never know, or who constantly make amends with their girlfriends. And then I purchase another ticket, oh hey, it’s to the movie where I am surrounded by good guys and I’ll never admit it when I ditch them, but they don’t make me feel a thing. Is it too much to ask? Get me away from this curse. I will pay any fee, right in the seat of a love affair that ends with two lovers who align in the quicksand of time. I hate the one-sided stories. They question my beliefs, ‘cause who am I if not a woman who would die for a sacrifice?
© Elena W. (Decoratingwater) 2025
A Miserable Fall — Jill Eng’s abstractions on love and yearning
Would, be a future to dance under grief. You bathed in sunlit despair with the perfect sound of taste. I watched in an order of light. Wanting all.
Then, where? Not in the stars to align. A dismay of unbearable flight. Missing with absence beyond what called. Hushed with a foreign tongue gone rogue.
Why, as a thought. Knowing well the steps pattering the descent from what spoke of ascension. Miserable fall to leave us away from song. Give again, perhaps not.
Wrong, or right? As was for the times of what was a be. No doubt of essence. A shining pattern sewn into the webs of our existence(s). One and two. We were given that fire.
How, but. A maddening concoction wanting to drink obsessively. A stare of great merge. Conditions crept a wedge to challenge the base of eternal equilibrium.
Do we sleep? Somber inch toward hovered calculations I tread out of sync. Beneath a curtain that lost its spread. You felt something of creation. Now I don’t know.
© 2025
Revelations II — E.R. Davis’ Surrealist Frog Gospel
The walk to water
was never farther
than since
the frogs
rose
to tell tall tales
of the salamanders
and what they did
under the cover
the absinthe green
pond scum
of seven veils
layered to mask
the whole
of the bottomless pool
the same
primordial soup
the white-bellied gods
once slithered from
to escape the pursuit
of killer whales,
that is according
to the dolphins
as told to the toads,
who'd never
gone to oceans
so what do they know,
but as I'd never gone beyond
the light mirage
that shimmers
in a mocking dance
past the final row
where the high corn
won’t grow
on the last ledge
of existence.
Here we remain,
the god stain,
we bleed diamonds
to keep our flesh
in these purgatory plains,
the flat geometry
we must mix
with the frogs
and toads and talking
skeletons whose
yellowed ivory jaws
slide along the mandible
as they remark
non-stop
on what
a strange time to be alive
but since they're dead
credit must be extended.
As for the frogs
and the lies
they spin,
to speak
of these sins
is impolite in good company
so now I must sew
tiny patches
in the knees
of the slacks
the frogs sport
to better suit
their base urges
to stir trouble
slow to a boil.
Plagues are never
what they seem,
and the walk to water
never farther than
when one desires
to avoid conversation
with the salamanders.Thank you for reading! It’s an honor to host these talented scribes in one potent post.
 | A guest post by
|
 | A guest post by
|
 | A guest post by
|
I see what you're doing. This a cafe, I'm trapped, feasting on the delectable spread, and can't even feel bad about not having the key. So much brilliance, I need a nap right now.
I loved them all but of course Harry and Jozef with the audio.....😍I love love love the contrast with the two audio recordings