The weekend shift would start at 10am, the previous night’s mishaps bleeding slowly from my pores, consuming both my flesh and the zinc covered counters that shone smuggly amongst the unsharpened knives and the heavy heated conjecture; always the root of our day’s routine.
The dash of crushed, spilt ingredients upon floor tiles, the lights that reflected from the flames that crossed my wrists, the nerve endings now too severed to care. the haze of fatigue across my eyes like the clingfilm smothering these leftovers, which we served up as the fruits of our toil.
A splash of blood diluted by dishwater clashes like car oil in back street puddles. Once again you await the orders, seemingly superimposed onto this chaos, your calm a reflective flame that allowed me a glimpse of respite, a measure of grace that justified the salt stains and meat scraps smothered across my payslip.
Jonathan Butcher has had poems appear in various print and online publications including, The Morning Star, Mad Swirl, Drunk Monkeys, The Abyss, Cajun Mutt Press and others. His fourth chapbook, ‘Turpentine’ was published by Alien Buddha Press. He is also the editor of online poetry journal Fixator Press. He also has a poem in Night Owl Narrative No.1: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CQVN1WPW
I thought I was safe late at night, but that delusion was quickly dispelled: the public radio station’s beg-a-thon continued even after midnight
September 21, 2022
They were too lazy or stupid to park their truck and trailer on the correct side of the street But they still got hired for the job because the work didn’t require the drive or intelligence to do so
Michael Ceraolo is a 65-year-old retired firefighter/paramedic and active poet who has had two full-length books (Euclid Creek, from Deep Cleveland Press; 500 Cleveland Haiku, from Writing Knights Press) published, and has two more, Euclid Creek Book Two and Lawyers, Guns, and Money, in the publication pipeline.
“You can draw what you want, you can read what you want, you can stay up late watching old monster movies if you want… But you will do this, you are going to do this: you need to learn skills for the real world!” My father was yelling at me, but it was not in anger, it was out of sincere exasperation.
I didn’t want to do it — no way, but I knew how limited my options were, and my dad had begun his argument with more gives than I had yet been granted, all at once. “Please,” he said. “Do this and then we will all get on with what’s left of our day.” I felt the redness of my cheeks, I felt hornet stings in my eyes, I felt my tears flow out the stressed dams of my eyes. He threw the rabbit at my feet…
And as shown, as told, I skinned the rabbit.
My dad was happy I did it. When my tears dried, I spent the rest of my day drawing.
I hated my dad that day but I have loved him for it.
Slackers
The secret of the slacker is they rarely make mistakes, so they can present well to management, and they rarely make mistakes because they don’t work hard enough or often enough to create opportunities for errors to occur. When hard working staff decide to work together, leaving the slackers to work with each other, none of the slackers will have a hard worker to hide behind, and be forced to work or else, they will create a third option for themselves, and will spend their energies not working, but work to make hard workers look bad.
The hard-working staff pick up the slack doing twice the workload which doubles the potential for mistakes. When the hard-working staff picking up the slack of the slacker, doing more work, and tiring faster, makes a mistake that shouldn’t have been their mistake to make in the first place, the slacker will point in fake righteousness and triumph and say, “See? See? There, I told you! Do you see?”
… As they stick their nose up some manager’s starfish.
Fires Of Summer
How did we sleep while our forests were felled by fires, homes were burned and lives imperilled?
True, you would not hurt a fly, but is it likely you would help it? You would await the arrival of another, to whom you would delegate the duty of aid.
As you wait for this one to arrive, you would watch the harmed creature writhe, all the while claiming inability to help.
If no one arrives for you to delegate to, you will stand idly by, as they say, and you will watch as life leaves it, without it ever dawning on you to feel guilt over your inaction, and lethargy.
True, you would not hurt a fly.
Ascent
She had the only private room in the ward. In there, a scent of something unknown, unfamiliar yet, inevitable greeted your entrance. You stood at the foot of her bed. She broke the silence between you, asked, if you remembered how she used to look and you did… She asked, if you remembered times she began to speak but did not continue… And you did.
It was hard for her to believe you remembered her beauty beyond the ravage of the malignant. Her dreams run dry: she prayed to drown.
She had wild blue-green eyes
not even cancer could steal.
Your bodies told you once, you existed.
Nothing was as sacred, as profane, as the fading warmth. Her flight left lingering a remembered scent of a perfume nameless and indelible.
You perpetuate the pedestal she flies from.
Route
Oncoming cars slow: I walk where pedestrians are not allowed. Many well worn roads cover our world. You might drive fast, while I walk along; you will see wind swept signs as swift blurs, only gaining sight in cracked rear view mirrors. I will see them all too clearly, weary at roadside. Dried clumps and flecks of dead flies loosen from grills, wipers, mirrors in swift passage. There are always live flies above road kill. Roads we choose may be under construction. A sniper upon an overpass may take aim and fire. Municipal bridges in derelict ridings may collapse beneath us as we cross. You drive. I walk. But if you break down, I will walk no further on
David Alec Knight grew up in Chatham, Ontario, Canada.
He includes his middle name in his pen name as a means of disambiguation, his first and last name being fairly common. It is in response to being ignorantly perceived as a pretension by others that he wrote the poem “Disambiguation”.
In 2021, David was recipient of The Ted Plantos Memorial Award for Poetry. His first book of poetry, The Heart Is A Hollow Organ, soon followed. His second book of poetry, LEPER MOSH, was published by Cajun Mutt Press in 2022. It featured his artwork on the cover. Cajun Mutt Press would also feature a portfolio of his artwork online, as well as publishing his first full color comic story online, WRATH: The Masks We Wear.
Recent poems have appeared in Verse Afire, Cajun Mutt Press Featured Poet, The Lothlorien Poetry Journal and Medusa’s Kitchen. Anthology appearances include By The Wishing Tree, Poets For Ukraine Volume 1, Love Lies Bleeding, Phantom Parade, and The Cajun Mutt Press Halloween Anthology Zine 2022.
David sees dark and light around him in equal measure and that is reflected in his poetry, whether exploring working class themes, neurodivergence, addiction, urban living, our conflict with Nature, and/or the effects all these things have on individuals and relationships.
“…scheming after the big score that would deliver them to middle management.” – Colson Whitehead, Crime Manifesto
“They call themselves ‘systems analysts’ but they’re just the usual gang of egghead white guys who want to run shit.” –Colson Whitehead, Crime Manifesto
So many of these dudes aspired to team leader, then branch chief, then division director and finally a commissioner in the Big Office on the eighth floor, big desk, office windows.
Oh, to be as unselfconscious as a dog, lifting its leg against a tree.
Charles Rammelkamp is Prose Editor for BrickHouse Books in Baltimore. Two full-length collections were published in 2020, Catastroika, from Apprentice House, and Ugler Lee from Kelsay Books. A poetry chapbook, Mortal Coil, has just been published by Clare Songbirds Publishing.
We hope y’all have a great time full of too much turkey, too much booze, too much fun, and too much damn family to last until next year! Sending positive vibes and Outlaw Gonzo Pirate Poet Love out to everyone today!
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