Dashboard Horus: A Bird's Eye View of the Universe

Jeffrey Bryant is a Pushcart-nominated queer poet from Los Angeles. His work has appeared in the LA Weekly , LA Times , Poetic Diversity, New Verse News , Poetrysuperhighway.com , Synkroniciti, Quill and Echo, Tension Literary, Journal of the Plague Years, Coiled Serpent, Altadena Poetry Review, Shadowplay, Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts, Cholla Needles Literary Journal and Tender Hearts Club . He will appear in a forthcoming photography book of Los Angeles poet portraits from Moon Tide Press. His debut collection The Catacombs of Vanished Lovers is out now on Cherry Pie Press. @thecherrypiepress A poem that could be about Oakland ----- I carry my favorite ocean  with me on the plane,  saltier than bags of nuts,   and drink bottomless coca cola,  its ice cubes  dying in a vat of corn syrup.  I moan the safety lecture back word for word in my best Jayne Mansfield,  aroused by the idea of holding my ankles  if the engines fail,  taking ...

  Michael La Bombarda is a poet and fiction writer who has six books of poetry for sale on Amazon and has most recently published in the Lothlorien Poetry Journal and Oddball Magazine . He is retired and lives in New York City. SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT I was a French-Italian kid Who thought he was Haitian-Italian. I was Haitian when my relatives Were around and Italian-American With my Italian friends, and Haitian-Italian when a black uncle Was around who was not my uncle. That said, my friends were a good Bunch of guys, but I would not pick Them again, and I would try Being more studious, I think. It’s no wonder I took things to excess And screwed up my life, but you can’t Screw up your life without help from some Other people who limit your choices. Either deny myself and have a house, A family, and a good-paying job, Or try to create a life of books, Thoughts, and writing these days. It all seems clear on paper— The choices I made and didn’t make, But life is not all that understandabl...

  Colonel Kurtz Slows to a Stop Dr. Robert Hudson has seen a lot of patients who’ve said he’s the only person that listens to them. Some accuse him of listening just because he gets paid to do it. Technically that’s true, but he knows he’d do it for free. People have good stories. Hudson hasn’t owned a television since 2006. He says there’s no point. The stories told in his office are the best entertainment. And Clay Chalmers’ story, he thought, was pretty entertaining. In their first session Clay told Hudson he didn’t have anyone to listen to his innermost thoughts anymore. His parents had died young, he’d never said how, so Hudson suggested Clay write his thoughts down and send them to himself. “I don’t really believe in the mail system,” Clay said. Hudson rolled his eyes. “Tell the truth, I don’t really believe in listeners anymore either.” Clay wrote the letter anyway, and the following week he brought it to the office. “Open it,” the psychologist said. Clay did and, without he...

Bio: T amara Madison is the author of the chapbooks The Belly Remembers (Pearl Editions) and Along the Fault Line (Picture Show Press), and three full-length volumes of poetry, Wild Domestic , and Moraine (Pearl Editions) and Morpheus Dips His Oar (Sheila-Na-Gig). Her work has appeared in Chiron Review, The Worcester Review , A Year of Being Here , One Art , The Writer’s Almanac, and many other publications. Her memoir-in-poems, Russian Honeymoon (forthcoming, Fernwood Press), chronicles the 15 months she spent as a very young bride as part of a US Information Agency exhibit in the USSR. Time Zones and Soldiers In two weeks I have crossed so many time zones: European, Pacific, Eastern Standard. Dazed by weeks of jet leg, I hardly know where I am. Now I’m surrounded by so many new faces, people I’ll soon know well. I don’t even try to learn their names. But at Heathrow, I spy Frank Zappa waiting near us in white bell bottoms, familiar mustache dripping down his chin. Pan Am to Mo...

Fin Hall, International Beat Poet Laureate (2024-2025) is from New Pitsligo, in North East Scotland. Hall a multi-published poet, filmmaker, producer, editor, curator, publisher, and performance poet. He has published over 700 people in his anthologies.   Coney Island Avenue Cobbler Surf Avenue onwards to Brighton Beach After the compulsory dogs at Nathan’s Lipstick, roller coaster smear Remembering that you said you never realised the roller coaster actually went up and down.  Borsch for lunch, with Russian family diners, Gifts for the head of he table  Kiss on cheek, mafia style, Just off the boardwalk Overhead like the French Connection The rattle, rattle of the trains  Standing halfway across the road  Just watching.  Listening.  Old guys in doorways, Looking like they have been there and seen it all Sidewalk smiling  Busy and bustling  Not far from the Vostochny Bazaar  Another side street FedEx delivery Where the elderly key ring c...