Nathan Thanki: The John Hewitt

I watched a man hit another man

across the head with a pint glass

the last time I was here.

Didn’t like something about him –

the way he spoke, the way he looked

when he picked up his pint.

My old friend Arthur used to say

this is where all our free thinkers drink.

That’s why it’s one small room, divided.

We’re all full of jokes and

we’re all full up of this anger,

never sure which.

Nathan Thanki is a human ecologist and writer living between North Belfast and Fusagasugá, Colombia. His poetry has been published in The Stinging Fly, Four X Four and Panning for Poems. His prose writing can be found at nathanthanki.substack.com. 

John Popielaski: Looking on the Bright Side

The four apocalyptic horsemen

could arrive today and a majority

of mortal witnesses would hold

their phones up to record

the entertaining deviation

from reality and then continue

zooming to their crucial destinations

or deciding to go solar

after waffling for years--in short,

the mortal witnesses would then continue

having faith that four imposing

horsemen are just horsemen out

to exercise their restless horses.

Otherwise they're giving in

to one more version of the poor guy

with the handmade sign who has been

trying to persuade us that the end is near

for so long no one can remember

when we weren't fairly warned.

John Popielaski is the author of That Special Something from Sheila-Na-Gig Editions. He has poems forthcoming in Cutleaf and Rawhead.

Howie Good: MRI

The worst thing about an MRI isn’t the claustrophobia. It’s the terrible racket that accompanies the claustrophobia, roughly equivalent to the combined noise of chainsaws, barking dogs, Chinese gongs, and motorcycles without mufflers. Meanwhile, the worst thing about undergoing a CT scan with contrast is the bottle of radioactive dye, in original, raspberry, or lemon-lime flavors, they make you drink. A shadow on a scan can indicate cancer. I have about a 60 percent chance of surviving five years. Maybe you have noticed at the beach that when a wave withdraws, tiny air holes open in the sand. It’s only right, I think, that under the surface there be a hidden world swarming with ghost creatures at home in the dark.

Howie Good's latest poetry collection, True Crime, was published by Sacred Parasite in Berlin this year.