NEW! One individual poem by me AND two collaborative poems by Daniel G. Snethen and me appear in Misfit!

Happy New Year! I am delighted to have poems appearing within the wonderful Misfit Magazine again, surrounded by all sorts of other wonderful poets!

Issue No. 37, Winter 2024 includes my poem, "Hagfish Slime" AND two collaborative poems by Daniel Snethen and me, "Broken Balloons Seep Out of Our Mouths" and "Cosmic Conundrum of Camel, Cherub and Leech"! Thank you very much to Misfit and Alan Catlin!

http://misfitmagazine.net/archive/No-37/cook&snethen.html

***

"The closest I'll get
to becoming stuck
in a sort of container
is a fish being carried
through a thundering fair.
A slimy hagfish
on top a hot funnel cake.

Screaming instead of
quietly swimming
as they try to swallow me
or throw me away
or place me inside
where they think I belong today."

in my poem "Hagfish Slime"

Read more via the link above.

NEW in Winedrunk Sidewalk:Shipwrecked in Trumpland - "Pepper"

"All he wants to do is destroy
in order to feel like his body is stronger.
He can't control his own body, so he'll control others.
He wants to be the boss of broken body parts."

in my poem, "Pepper", appearing in Winedrunk Sidewalk: Shipwrecked in Trumpland today

more here - https://winedrunksidewalk.blogspot.com/2018/12/day-six-hundred-and-eighty-five.html

NEW in Red Fez - "Broken"

"Maybe a small ghost

had been attempting

to burst itself out of

that broken down brain egg

and float up and away."

from my poem "Broken" in Red Fez Issue 99

more HERE - https://www.redfez.net/poetry/suicide-broken-2503

broken god temp rises... (temp blog posting new poem)

so-called validity

everyone’s focus is different; you choose

to focus on being broken

(to use that as your excuse

when something doesn’t work for you

or when you don’t work for someone else)

so broken so broken so broken so

you won’t keep trying; you’ll back off;

you’ll temporarily hide yourself

(you’ll validate that as trying to heal yourself),

then you’ll suddenly launch yourself into

someone else to temp focus upon; broken god temp rises

everyone chooses how to refine/define

themselves and others.  i don’t think you’re broken.

i think you have a twisted wing span.

nobody else can hold you long enough

to glue you back together, because you don’t want them too.

you don’t want to be glued to anyone place.

you want to twitch, crack away,

not let anyone else stick to the way

you tension thread your own skin

then call its damage broken

as though something else dive-bombed you with needles