Worry by Meg Barton

What if
You were teleported
Into Ancient Greece, or Ancient Babylon,
Or the court of King Alfred
Appearing at their fireside like
A vision
And you told them you came from the future
And they said
“Tell us something to help us
Something our minds haven’t conceived of”
And the teleporter voice said
“You’ve got two minutes left”
What on earth would you say?
What would you tell them?
And if you said
“My mind’s gone blank”
And they said
“OK tell us, at least tell us
A joke that we haven’t heard before”
And you couldn’t even think of that
Not a single one.
Your big chance to save the world
Or alter the course of history
And you messed up.
How embarrassing would that be?
Sometimes I worry about this.

Meg Barton lives in Oxford, and has been published in a few magazines including The Interpreter’s House and Lighten Up Online.

 

Give the Dinosaurs Guns by Keith Welch

I think to be a dinosaur would be a lot of fun
all the roaring and the stamping and the weighing many tons
I think I’ll build a time machine and send them what they lack
the Triassic and Jurassic times were awesome and on track
But Americans we know what’s best and let me tell you son
What the lizards didn’t have back then was lots and lots of guns
For a stegosaurus chilling out was apt to find some trouble
Facing predatory neighbors who approaching on the double
wanted nothing more than mouthfuls of his leathery backside
Without a Glock that horny beast had little but his hide
to fend off inconsiderate approaches of that sort
but a stegosaurus strapped is thus prepared for a retort
So imagine if you will a prehistoric paradise
where Rand-ian T-Rexes live and exercise their rights
and hadrosaurs will bellow that they’re libertarian
and all the tiny raptors are concealed-carrying
Then at last the dinosaurs will know the simple joy
Beloved so well by each surviving little girl and boy.

Keith Welch lives and works in Bloomington, Indiana. His work has been published exactly once (actually twice, now – Ed), possibly in error.

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sex in the year 2075 by James Woolf

“hello travis – i’m elaine
we photo-eyed – the aeorotrain?
quickie text beam to your brain – remember me?”

“my dear! of course, so pleased it’s u,
those eyes, that smile, all shiny new
is there something that u want to do? – enlighten me”

“just read your thoughts about my thong
u seem to come on pretty strong
at least u turned this womb-chick on – u fancy me?”

“i marked those thoughts as – NOT FOR OTHERS
(mind-book settings clearly buggered
must get to that before my mother!) – come visit me”

“well now i’m sure u feel this way
i could atomise at yours today
then we’ll act dirty, what d’u say? – please answer me”

“suppose my dear we could have sex
but have to change my x-ray specs
can’t see through any clothes from Next! – what use to me?”

“had just the same with my last pair
could not peek at all at boys down there
only saw stray curls of hair – u’re flashing me?”

“just realised cannot play obsceners!
am not attached to working penis
my latest one is at the cleaners – forgetful me”

“that’s a bugger, travis, shoot!
could pick a prick up though en-route
know of a place that sells some brutes – u yessing me?”

“no – let’s pass on all groin-based relations
not keen on shop-induced gyrations
could we just have a conversation? – that’s suiting me”

“what kind of girl d’u think i am?
u want to talk with no wam bam?
is this some crass insurance scam? – u’re kidding me!”

“why does a natter so offend?
just want to get to know my friend
u womb-chicks drive me round the bend – old-fashioned me”

“u sleazy and pervacious prat!
‘just a natter – just a chat!’
didn’t married people once do that? – quit stalking me!”

James Woolf is a writer of short stories, scripts and adverts and occasional poems. ‘R V Sieger – additional documents disclosed by the Crown Prosecution Service’ was highly commended in the 2015 London Short Story Prize and will be published this month. Ambit magazine will be publishing another story later this year. He was shortlisted in the most recent Fish Flash Fiction competition. Prior to this, his plays have been produced in various off-West End venues including The King’s Head Theatre, the Arcola and the Theatre Royal Margate. Two radio plays have been broadcast including ‘Kerton’s Story’ with Bill Nighy, Lesley Sharp and Stephen Moore. He also write adverts for Black and Decker.

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The Rotter Above by Gary W. Hartley

Before my time
the guy upstairs

lay dead for a fortnight
before anyone
clocked it

This appears to be
a common thing
in Wood Green

The epicentre
of mountainous mail
pile-ups

decaying neighbours
and shrugs

It’s really quite renowned for it

One local deceased got a
sympathetic documentary
portrait – an empty fame

the guy upstairs did not.

See, apparently he was
some sort of
neighbour-from-hell
megatwat

So I guess,
that explains that.

Gary W. Hartley is also known as Gary From Leeds. His debut collection ‘Your Attempt to Enjoy These Poems is Considered Unsatisfactory’ is out now on LSL Press.

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Aphids – A Tabloid Week by Norman Hadley

GREENFACED INVADERS TARGET UK GARDENS

IMMIGRANT POPULATION SOARS 300% IN A WEEK

FATHERS WHO NEVER KNEW THEIR YOUNG

THE SINGLE MOTHERS SUCKING BRITAIN DRY

BORN PREGNANT – THE SHOCKING TRUTH

LADYBIRD STRIKE FEARS – LATEST

NO ENGLISH ROSE SAFE

Norman Hadley is an engineer and mathematician who writes poetry, short fiction, children’s fiction and cycling-related nonfiction to keep all the hemispheres occupied. He’s produced five poetry collections so far and frenetic participation in Jo Bell’s “52” project has generated sufficient material for five more.

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Don Juan Between The Cantos by Marcus Bales

Juan wandered off into the wood
Before he broke his fast or said his prayers.
He followed hunting paths until he stood
Disoriented, breathing morning airs,
And watching luscious Little Red Riding Hood
Come jiggling down the path, and all his cares
Of finding some way back to camp were gone.
He contemplated what found him at dawn.

He smiled and then most eloquently bowed.
She curtsied “A wolf! But you’re not scary, though.”
“I’m wounded you’d say such a thing out loud —
You shouldn’t …” but she cut him off mid-flow:
“My grandma told me all about your crowd:
You’re ‘Mad, bad and dangerous to know’.”
Taken aback, well, what could Juan do
But try to tell her that it wasn’t true.

He spoke a while to make her understand
He posed no threat, and said that they were done
With their encounter. He smiled, politely bland,
And said he’d treat her like a novice nun,
And go another way. She took her hand,
Til then inside the basket, out with a gun,
And said, “Oh, no! The Big Bad Wolf can’t fail!
You’re gonna eat me, just like in the tale.”

She poked him to a shady clearing where
She said they wouldn’t be disturbed, and spread
A blanket down. She gave a saucy stare,
Took off her hood and dress, and smiled and said
That she could see his interest growing there.
She had him strip to see its pulsing red,
Then put away the gun, kicked off her drawers,
And said “I knew those tales were metaphors!”

An hour later they lay side by side
Breathing hard and covered in their sweat
Juan thought her wholly satisfied,
And so she was til she began to pet
And kiss him trying to arouse his pride
And get again the gift girls want to get.
She shook his floppiness; he writhed a bit;
She frowned when not much sturdy came of it.

“What the hell is going on out here?”
The deep and manly voice was very loud,
Its owner stepped into the clearing. Fear
At once so shrank the gift that was half proud
Inside her fist that she could only jeer
“Apparently my wolf thinks three’s a crowd,”
She tossed his pants to him and turned away,
And cooed “Perhaps the woodman wants to play.”

She lifted up her ankles wide apart.
The woodman dropped his trousers with his axe,
And Juan, grateful, heavy around the heart,
Admired her as she embraced the facts —
And Riding Hood herself gave a little start
At what would surely plumb her to the max.
A certain focus entered their proceedings —
And Juan crept away beyond their heedings.

It wasn’t long that Juan had the blues
Because he had, before he’d done his creep,
Enriched his clothing with his shirt and shoes
And took the basket, too, without a peep.
All he had to do from there was choose
A path to camp to get some needed sleep –
And leave behind the glade that now was rife
With pleasured cries from she who’d saved his life.

Although, of course, he also had the gun
Where Riding Hood had hidden it again.
Ideal for when you’re sort of on the run,
A thing that happens every now and then
Whenever the pursuit of having fun
Has landed you in some vice-ridden den
Where “Sorry” and a smile at toes you step on
Will only get you by if you’ve a weapon.

But out there in the wood no den of vice
Was likely to be found. Instead his fears
Are though he’s dressed and armed he’s twice
As lost. But it’s not long until he hears
The trickle of a stream and in a trice
The sounds of making love don’t reach his ears
As, though his downstream walking gets him damp,
It isn’t long until he’s back at camp.

And oh! the wild adventure he can’t tell!
For who’d believe that even Juan’s luck
Would run to having nubile maids compel
Him in the middle of the woods to fuck
Them senseless, then they save his life as well?
It sounded like the sheerest jive and shuck,
So Juan told a tale so highly glossed
It sounded like he’d simply gotten lost.

Not much is known about Marcus Bales except he lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and his poems have not appeared in Poetry Magazine or The New Yorker.

 

Anorak by Gillian Mellor

The first time he tried it on it felt all wrong.
So, he left it a while, studied pictures
in magazines before buying tickets to ride;
waited on draughty platforms hoping to make
connections. There were no names. He knew
them only by number. When he rode them
20002 whistled loudly, 37688 roared like a lion.

He bought himself a house by the lineside.
Slept by them, dreamt of them, threw
open sash windows to gawp at them,
took photos, joined forums, paid for
models, inhaled their scent: Diesel
and Heavy Braking his favourites.
He rattles off numbers of Virgins
bemoaning they pass by too fast.

Gillian Mellor lives near Moffat in Scotland. She has had poems published on and offline and can be traced to The Moffat Bookshop on the days they let her out.

 

Kissing by Josa Young

Wasn’t even her best nipple
In medical terms ‘shy’ Grade 2 inverted
No amount of hungry babies (5)
Let alone him as they flirted
Could leave it extroverted

Josa Young is a novelist and copywriter. Her two novels One Apple Tasted and Sail Upon the Land are out there somewhere being read. She was a decent poet up until puberty, and has taken to verse again as all the creative frenzy of childbearing has faded.

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Letter to Film Review Magazine by Robert Beveridge

After bashing Coppola’s dryly-edited film,
Gina hinted in Journal Klasse,
“little mister nice, overly-plotted,
queerly risqué.” Shot towards
Ulster. Very wild.

Xenophobically yours,

Zeno.

Robert Beveridge makes noise and writes poetry just outside Cleveland, OH. Recent/upcoming appearances in Chiron Review, Riverrun, and Third Wednesday, among others.