Oh No, Not Another Massacre by Don Matthews

We are a happy familyEnjoying Christmas funAbout to have our turkey(Bang) shot with our gun Johnny got an AK9 for Christmas……It was on his wish list…… We go to church on SundayHave our guns all blessedPriest he does the honours(Pope was once our guest) We gave him a demonstration in the churchyard…… Neighbours were not…

Flame of Hope by Vignesh S Raj

Darkness descends on meA sense of being lost is feltAs I stand looking helplessGoing back is not a choiceFor my trail couldn’t be seenAnd the path ahead seemed blurryWhere do I go from here?I look up at the gloomy skiesWishing it would light my hopeOnly to see its darkened faceThat refuses to open its starry…

Cover Me by A J Wilson

undress me furnish me with pure alcohol caffeine is too temperate for me as are the sermons at the rectory where the laity get high on preaching but lectures will not save me or them merely leave me grasping rasping for oxygen rich air just cover me over that’s my only prayer. -A J WILSON…

Baudelaire by Dawn Pisturino

when i saw you there lying on the cold stone slab your virgin beauty pure as white marble i remembered why i loved you and all the promises we made you no longer see me except in dreams far away you no longer hear me except when celestial angels open your ear with a golden…

HAPPY HOLIDAYS! A Festive Break at MasticadoresIndia.

Hello dear writers and readers! I wish you all a very blessed and safe holiday season. MasticadoresIndia will be taking a short publishing break from December 26th till January 2nd. We will resume publishing from January 3rd, 2023. A very happy and prosperous new year to you all! See you soon and don’t go too…

Special Delivery by Joni Caggiano

The giblets of a turkey never got me worked up. Thoughts of stuffing, long-necked turkey soup, or even giblet gravy didn’t dance in my head.  Instead, my mouth would water when Mama breaded and fried up those turkey gizzards, yummy! Our menu included lots of small lobster tails with the usual seafood trimmings.  Sides included…

A Life to Choose by Shobana Gomes

I don’t know why the world is weary now, weighed down by fighting, torching fires ignite huge flames of discord. I try to look away, but those images keep repeating in my mind, tortured souls that once fought wars, now lying in tombs that some may never know or hear of, buried under the earth’s…

Bureaucracy Gone Mad, Again by Don Matthews

A mother here in Adelaide Her council made their mark By fining ’cause magician Birthday’d in their park No-one was offended No-one did complain Bureaucracy it just went mad (Here we go again) More concerned they were to Uphold the letter law The other side was unimportant It’s spirit they ignored Rules are for the…

Flightless by Bharath Upendra

For years, I waited for the fated day – when I finally run away from this world, until I don’t exist for anyone, anytime, anymore. The farther I ran, the more I understood how fate works. Every day, I’d dream of freedom, of a life that doesn’t feel like life; one that makes us feel…

Angels Outlined by Jeff Flesch

I find you in the smallest particles of earth, where you left me to fend off the dark confused, and bewildered I drew upon the night sky, angels outlined with tears shed before they began to leak from eyes smaller than anyone noticed behind a heart growing stronger, and stronger the more I learned how…

The Price of Fish by Tony Ashenden

Pray hard for men who hunt the deep sea in their cockleshell boats out of Clyde scour the swims of Poseidon’s green head filling iced holds with dead alive eyes where the buffeting wind screeching is God’s angered ethereal Hand fear is the shake of riveted plate   and love is a church locked up on…

Muses aren’t only for Writing by Bogdan Dragos

“Muses,” he said, “aren’t only for writing and painting, and stuff like that. That’s just what the world likes to believe. But me, I use my muse as inspiration for pranks. This is my art.” A few days ago he dressed in ragged clothes and got his face dirty with soot and went around a…

I Got Trouble. My Intestine Gets in the Way by Don Matthews

I’m just a poor struggle-ing poet I know I’ve got it down below The trouble, gets caught on my intestine My metaphors get stuck and can’t show I’m told I do well writing nonsense A genre few bloggers blog on I bought training books from my op shop To build up my knowledge upon You…

The Angel on Broadway by Nigel Byng

“Oy! You hold ya horses now.” She shouted at the driver while standing in the doorway to the bus. I ran, half asleep, dropping my half-eaten packet of chocolate digestives. I didn’t care. I grabbed a seat and promptly tried to get back into that napping phase like a lazy alligator. “Simpletons. Every one of…

Odysseus by Michael L. Utley

I saw Odysseus sprawled on the sidewalk between The squalid little deli and the boarded-up All-night video place whose weather-stained Posters advertised GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS Amid obtuse indecipherable graffiti and A fallen constellation of multi-hued shards of Broken glass that crunched underfoot like Bone fragments The patina of snow about him Pristine in its absence…

Lady of Strength by Joni Caggiano

the glimmer of hope hiding in the reflection of earth’s regal eyes last petal of a floret hangs heroic in cold wind star visits dipped in chocolate sings to me lady, of perpetual strength I fly toward the sun cirrus clouds as wings my chariot flies to the echo of prayers going skyward  -JONI CAGGIANO Joni’s…