carpe noctem

forget the disappointing daylight
and that job that destroys your soul
flip up your only window and
wait for the night to roll you
out onto the anonymity of city streets
where darkness and neon lights
offer you their midnight bargains
where you can move, breathe and run
freedom in the coolness that shadows bring
redemption by the crowd for all you've done
not a child of darkness but it's welcomed denizen

river saviours

come with me to the river's edge
among the armour stone and stunted trees
at nightfall when it's darkest there
listen to the long ships sailing
to oceans and to river ports
their props and horns a Symphony
to we strays that wait for saviours
on river edges promising salvation
without condition or comitment

astral

i call down darkness
to cover me in its understanding
with cold caresses cover me
sing me raven lullabyes
under clouds of black tresses
as blankets for my own
there to sleep, dreamless
the setting moon as witness
to the rising of my soul

sacrifice

in his full youth and alone
before  the grave that waited
he journeyed fields where bent light
revealed grace and peace of summer storms
became a voyeur to the spaces
inhabited by animals and man
touched their gods in their devotion
discovered new consciousness
and took delight in their sensualities
a purity and vulnerability in their seduction
of their ceremonies to appease the constellations
bodies painted with brightness
their souls in dancing frenzy
that touched the memory of time
and he in their fluidity could only stand
transfixed haunted in their surrender
unable by birth or nurture or dogma
to meld into the unfolding spectacle
of man and God and space itself
as the limitless sky caressed the processions
with the light of the appeased constellations
finally in surrender, enchanted
limbs in movement in mad laughter
into the world of ghosts and gods
in the fog of smoke and scents and gestures
he was touched by the exquisite
awakening into the necessary world
his journey into new origins beginning

Joseph A. Farina is a retired lawyer in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. drawing from his profession and his Sicilian Canadian back round, he is an internationally award-winning poet. Several of his poems have been published in Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine, The Wild Word, The Chamber Magazine, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Ascent, Subterranean Blue, and in The Tower Poetry Magazine, Inscribed, The Windsor Review, Boxcar Poetry Revue, and appears in many anthologies including Sweet Lemons: Writings with a Sicilian Accent, Canadian Italians at Table, Witness from Serengeti Press and Tamaracks: Canadian Poetry for the 21st Century. He has had poems published in the U.S. magazines Mobius, Pyramid Arts, Arabesques, Fiele-Festa, and Philadelphia Poets. He has had two books of poetry published—The Cancer Chronicles   and   The Ghosts of Water Street.

If you would like to be part of The Chamber Magazine family, follow this link to the submissions guidelines. If you like more mainstream fiction and poetry with a rural setting and addressing rural themes, you may also want to check out Rural Fiction Magazine. 

i find the courage 
and go to the place of my before 

breathe deep 
as i cross industrial wastelands
as smoky grit envelopes me 
blizzards spew trauma in my mouth and eyes 
and speeding desperados calling mean 
hurl toxic glares in my anxious path

i pass naked seekers 
gathered at dark tunnels 
gesturing me back in to game the play 
ignore lurking leering ghosts 
who spin at me with dancing need 

i flee from where i dwelt in trap 
but now leave near behind

he is sitting in an empty shrine 
outside a shut-down city
on his garbage-strewn way 
footpath couch beside him
smoking magic 
and sipping on a warm can of lust 
engrossed 
in watching a scrawny creature 
picking through an overflowing bin 

i sit next to him
i came back to see you i whisper 
he offers me a puff of green 
i shake my head in no
i need to ask you 
why you never tried to show me 
why it was left to me 
to escape the nowhere hole
to see if any strength to run remained
to discover that absent willpower 
i could never gather up
to know if i was more than me 
and the chaos i sucked in daily 
i want to know why you didn’t show me 
what and who it was 

he stands and paces 
bangs his hand 
on burning prayer graffiti walls 

stop avoiding true and tell me why 
i shout in pleading cry

he ends his racket 
and slumps to ground 

we watch the creature rip apart 
a wasted dream 
it’s dragged from the bin 
eyes glazed 
as greedy mouth gulps perished now
slimy blood of once 
spilling over all that never bloomed  

he looks into my face 
and i sense a sadness so real
i see someone i have never seen before 

i don’t know why i didn’t give you 
when and why you were 
he mutters
as the creature skulks away 
with fear remains 
dribbling messy trail 

i stand and look up 
to a smiling just realised sky 

and stepping gently away 
from where i never began
i say goodbye to my before 
and float away

as he fades screaming 
into nothing now remains

Stephen House has won awards as a poet, playwright, and actor. He’s received international literature residencies from The Australia Council and Asialink. His chapbooks “real and unreal” poetry and “The Ajoona Guest House” monologue are published by ICOE Press. His next book drops soon. He performs his acclaimed monologues widely. http://apt.org.au/author/?authorinfoid=58 

If you would like to be part of The Chamber Magazine family, follow this link to the submissions guidelines. If you like more mainstream fiction and poetry with a rural setting and addressing rural themes, you may also want to check out Rural Fiction Magazine. 

At Home

in that old house
that now shivers
next to the idling
wrecking ball
There they lived
the elderly couple
they befriended
nearly everyone
They never traveled
at least at home they'd
rest
all the time all day long
So we were the ones

the ones wrong
when after many days
some years ago
a squatter emerged
from the home
the home of that elderly couple
He needed to find food
nothing left in the freezer
How was that old couple
I remember a neighbour ask
Very quiet,
he said
so very peaceful
and not at all
like this sunny day but
dull, porcellaneous, gray

No trouble at all. They were
at rest
at rest when
I moved in

The Car

I love my broken heart
she said
I'll love it until the day I die
If you don't believe me
she said
Just remember he's
the one now
forever in bed
Because of my broken heart
she said
I can walk and sing
He was in that car that night
not alone, not alone
she said
If I could choose again
and again and again
the broken heart I'd take
she said
the broken body suits him
now he's all alone, alone
she said.

Bio pending.

If you would like to be part of The Chamber Magazine family, follow this link to the submissions guidelines. If you like more mainstream fiction and poetry with a rural setting and addressing rural themes, you may also want to check out Rural Fiction Magazine. 

The silent land eludes me,
Hidden by a veil of smoke;
Created by my burning memories,
And the flames on my soul;
The visitor spoke of peace,
An eternal sense of calm;
But she lays beneath poison ivy,
Covered by funeral flowers’ dust;
I converse with the devil henceforth,
Play around on the grave with her;
Blaming her for the noise in my head,
But never burying her instead.

Akshita, is just another teenager trying to find her place in the world. Passionate about writing she calls her pieces the extensions of herself. Her work has been published in magazines like Masticadores India and Masticadores USA. She welcomes visits to her blog: Anthology of Akshita’s Thoughts.

If you would like to be part of The Chamber Magazine family, follow this link to the submissions guidelines. If you like more mainstream fiction and poetry with a rural setting and addressing rural themes, you may also want to check out Rural Fiction Magazine. 

slow

when I saw her
[lying face up] [breath shallow and slow]
I knew it was time. 
as I approached, one tear rolled down her temple and slowly around her ear.
I reached out to catch it 
with the tender pad of my finger
but when my skin touched hers
I thought I heard a whimper
(or maybe a moan)
fall out of her mouth. 

that made me angry

I don’t like when they do that
I thought she was different
	better
than the others
	all the ones before

though she couldn’t turn her head
her eyes found mine
and for a moment
my breath became very hard to catch

I had to turn away then, giving her only my back upon which to stare
opening the cupboards, I pulled down my supplies
[my tools]
jostling them a bit so she would know what I was doing, what was coming.
when I faced her again, tray in hand, 
her eyes were closed, wrinkles forming at the corners from her effort

she would not open them again

I leant down 
(softly)
	whispering -you were my favorite- 
(gently) 
	brushing my lips against her eyelids
(slowly)
	pressing the damp cloth over her mouth and nose

I laid two fingers against the delicate spot on her neck, my thumb resting under her chin.
I held the cloth, my fingers, [my own breath]
until I felt her heartbeats 
slow
       slow
	       stop

Suzanne is currently permitted to share residence with her 16-year-old cat. In between brushing and feeding Miss Poo, Suzanne enjoys trying new recipes, listening to audiobooks, writing, and drinking wine. Her works have appeared in 1807, Bartleby, and Children, Churches, & Daddies. 

If you would like to be part of The Chamber Magazine family, follow this link to the submissions guidelines. If you like more mainstream fiction and poetry with a rural setting and addressing rural themes, you may also want to check out Rural Fiction Magazine. While you’re here, why not drop by The Chamber’s bookshop?

“Q. Could intimacy with robots lead to greater social isolation? 
Short answer: Of course. But you knew that.” 
- Gina Smith, “Full Monty: Our Sexual Future with Robots, Detailed” 


touch me with your plastic lips  
and hands of cold rolled steel
then make me feel your molded hips
and gasp with breath unreal


your algorithms make me hot
I kiss your naked code
Just offer me your circuits taut
I’ll hack your pleasure mode


Spent within your toaster arms
an emptiness I feel
Though tempting are your hardwired charms
why can’t I make it real? 

David Newkirk is a retired attorney living in Kansas City, Missouri. His poetry has appeared in
The Chamber Magazine, and his fiction has appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, Amazing
Stories, Literally Fiction, Fiction on the Web, and other places.

If you would like to be part of The Chamber Magazine family, follow this link to the submissions guidelines. If you like more mainstream fiction and poetry with a rural setting and addressing rural themes, you may also want to check out Rural Fiction Magazine. While you’re here, why not drop by The Chamber’s bookshop?

Pretty Blood

You will open, like the
rose blossom, bitter,
but still necessary:
a slow mineral stream
so like night, so dark.
This is to give
such nourishment, as if
from soil, to wake
poor, essential
fiends such as I,
and your very own,
almost to breathing.

A Moon, Shattered

We cried, and we clawed at the sky,
but the ocean drew fast on.
No longer content in their drawing 
and rushing away, it swallowed
every shard of light, 
and nothing and no one
persisted, not so much as
a sigh, or bedtime prayer.

Beloved of Salamanders

I'm never leaving them
in their calm nest, and 
cloud-ring of golden eyes.
We all belong together.
You can fade, or self-bury,
in mud, or snow,
and we will reach from them both
to touch spring fingers,
cool and gray in satisfaction.

The Tribe: A Dream

Seven black kittens dropped
from the warm night space
of their great mother, mewling
in a crescent of 
waxing, waning. Grasping
was the power of their
claws in which no heart could win,
only perish in the bright
slash of stars.

Eyes in Springtime

How well you love in green,
if only moss that never fades
among brookstones and felled trees.
The water rise to pearls of ice
opening like notes from schoolgirls,
and reading thus:
"I was betrayed."
"I will surface, in the hunger of worms,
awaking in your sight."

Meg Smith is a writer, journalist, dancer and events producer based in Lowell, Mass. In addition to previously appearing in The Chamber Magazine, her writing has appeared in The Cafe Review, The Horror Zine, Dark Moon Digest, and many more. She is author of five poetry books and a short fiction collection, The Plague Confessor. She welcomes visits to megsmithwriter.com. 

If you would like to be part of The Chamber Magazine family, follow this link to the submissions guidelines. If you like more mainstream fiction and poetry with a rural setting and addressing rural themes, you may also want to check out Rural Fiction Magazine.

Death

You were death 
cold and silent 
a staring Medusa 
a heart of stone
kissing my eyes (blinded)

You were death
roaring loudly 
an aegis shield
a clouded mind
drowning my breath (suffocated)

You were death 
inciteful and hissing 
a fire to the deities 
a flame of humanity 
branding my flesh  (burning)

You were death 
invisible and crying 
a passage to hades
a helmet of thoughts 
bleeding my veins   (dying)

You were death 
a journeying breeze
a sleeping  dawn 
a keeper of winds
devouring my body  (passing)

I am dust
scattered through air 
lamenting my soul
falling into your aching arms  (dreaming)



Solitude 

I am lost to this world, where
light reflects human form.
I have travelled beyond reality into
a mirage of shadows.
Encased in fear, dark forces hold me fast,
My struggles are in vain.

I am lost to this world, where 
hearts beat in a human frame.
My vitality lost, coldness instils, for
blood no longer flows to vessels.
A savage force tears me apart, 
stagnant pools of sanguine now lie. 
I am lost alone without a heart.

I am lost to this world, 
where intimate touch triggers hope.
Where sensations bind human hands 
in synaptic connection, my tears now 
fall as crystal droplets.
Tears shredding moments of life, 
frozen upon porcelain skin.

Haunted scenes hold me in a shrine,
I strain to see past the quiet.
I am lost to this world, 
where angels have left me 
in solitude and dark.



Vultures 

I'm cut from the earth,
Yet rooted in madness
Straining to protect a world
Caught inside graves of greed

Lands forlorn weep
Struggling in a world of fire 
Vultures of wisdom fly in darkness 
Where everything dies

A bird dropped some eyes into
A fragile human mind 
Planting seeds into hands to
Create the trees of life

The stronghold, the bark shudders 
A world encased in illusion
Winds of change unravelling 
Leaves into open minds 

Take my eyes to a higher plain 
Wash toxic tears from our lands
Seasons burning, a swift deliverance 
Shedding reasons into spiralling eyes

I'm cut from the earth
Bold and beautiful 
Fragile under a cracked sky 
Don't let me sleep again 
Screeching vulture's cry

Uncaged days lament 
Darkness complete 
We to need to survive 
Falling ashes of our lives

Sinead is an Irish poet who explores the human condition through surrealism and dark imagery. Sinead has had many poems published in magazines and also has two solo collections self published. She has a loyal following on Instagram @sineadmcgpoetry where you can also see her love for artwork and music. 

If you would like to be part of The Chamber Magazine family, follow this link to the submissions guidelines. If you like more mainstream fiction and poetry with a rural setting and addressing rural themes, you may also want to check out Rural Fiction Magazine.

murky memories slide in daily
about my muddled stint  
here
years ago 

i grasp on
fearful 
but well-prepared

performing my show 
wasted
in a run-down bar
to drunk after midnight audiences 
three nights a week 
for a month

a twisted thing
with the body-builder security guard
from the twenty-four-hour club

and the passing friendship with a famous painter 
who i’ve heard has died of cancer
and how one dusk we sat on a silvery lake
in a broken boat 
drinking whisky from the bottle
and making up poems about what we were feeling
in the very there of then 
as a pair of white swans glided with us 
blue heron called above us 
and the sky turned orange-pink and whispered to us 
through our thoughts and words 
if life ended now
we’d know we’d experienced
far beyond what many ever will
a heart-felt bond between two misplaced artists 
un-restrained creative chaos 
and life pushed as far as possible 
regardless of judgment and consequence
by those who live to box and punish

and these hazy fragments i decipher
through anxious bouts of reflection 
crawl closer bit by bit 
i thought they had vanished forever 
and a single tear dances down my cheek 
as a messy recollection of waking up in a dirty gutter 
savagely appears 
shocks to remind me
makes me flush burning hot 

and if you’ve never jumped on a train 
of indulgent destruction 
to find out who you are
and lost almost everything 
to a washy game of anarchy 
punctuated with humiliating dysfunction 
you can never understand 
about coming back 
slowly and gradually

and coming back 
is what i’ve done 
since then
i think

Stephen House has won awards as a poet, playwright, and actor. He’s received international literature residencies from The Australia Council and Asialink. His chapbooks “real and unreal” poetry and “The Ajoona Guest House” monologue are published by ICOE Press. His next book drops soon. He performs his acclaimed monologues widely.

http://apt.org.au/author/?authorinfoid=58 

If you would like to be part of The Chamber Magazine family, follow this link to the submissions guidelines. If you like more mainstream fiction and poetry with a rural setting and addressing rural themes, you may also want to check out Rural Fiction Magazine.

I had cashed my check
just a half hour before
and though her kiss
tasted of a fetid shore
she'd long naviagated
I opened my billfold
emptying ½ of it
money I earned in cold
blooded stupor when
the wine had its say
and i took them bills
and left them far away
inside her undrgarments
telling me how closely she still shaved
I who once went to church
for sins that remain unpaid.
I demanded crucifixtion
though there are many ways to die
each of them outlined in all
the pitfalls of her eyes.
Later, I watched her shoot up
raw whiskey had me vomit blood
the end for both of us was close
we raced to with half open eyes.


________________________________



Full Time Trouble

She always needed a fixer or a diversion
to grease the fall
high pointed heels necessitate
when rescue's cheap
or a prelude to a darker segue
full of surprise.
“No cab, we'll walk” she always says, just
to target needed eyes.
The streets are her mood music
rising above the chaos.
I'm already thinking of past and
present sundry delights.
That come with her wrapped
in sin and negative charm.
When a crack head pulls out a knife
two blocks from club.
She pulls out a gun and waits till
he's run half a block.
Shoots him in leg, “I love to watch them
limp away” she says.
We walk fast to her place around more
corners than her last.
A patrol car passes “don't you love sirens?”
she asks-not a question.
Later, I'm almost sure that I haven't
fallen for her again.
As she kisses me full and hard on lips
then everywhere else.



__________________________________________



For Marilyn Monroe.

No brighter
star eclipsed
us so
quickly
before.
Tantalizing
a small
universe
with glitter
or fantasy
in such
a brave
doomed
headlong
arc
burning alive
toward ash.



______________________________



Alluring Poison

Sharon fights the urge
To fight through an
invisible barbed wire
3d blitzkrieg of sound
that is the Ramones
in a bar and order
more whiskey.
Singer Joey the leather
wearing preying mantis
of punk echoes
off dank dirty walls from
a spit shined jukebox she's doing lines on.
Alternately eating the free popcorn
Joey ate with endless handfuls
½ empty as time
fate would not grant him.
The sneer in his voice
on her lips as a loser keeps
eyeing her braless tits…
under a Ramones t-shirt
and won’t fuck off.
She clenches her fists
wanting just a little
violence…
high on the coke and ready
to accelerate to dealing
pain with fists
karate/MMA classes have stolen
subtlety from.
But the loser's
told to leave.
Sharon nods to bartender
then closes her eyes
for seconds/ minutes.
when a hand grabs her ass.
Enraged. she scans the
crowded bar wanting to fuck
someone up bad.
A habit like the coke
she finds hard to
kick.
Just another asshole
touching her as they
have since she was eleven.
She sits back down
orders another drink
with a smile of alluring poison.
Couldn't god just give her this?
A little revenge...
Nothing particularly lethal
just a quick beat-down
with an ambulance
taking her victim
to a room -
where doctors look and say “oh shit.”

Rp Verlaine lives in New York City. He has an MFA in creative writing from City College. He taught in New York Public schools for many years. His first volume of poetry- Damaged by Dames & Drinking was published in 2017 and another – Femme Fatales, Movie Starlets & Rockers in 2018. A set of three e-books titled Lies From The Autobiography vol 1-3 were published from 2018 to 2020. His most recent book, Imagined Indecencies, was published in February of 2022. He was nominated for a pushcart prize in poetry in 2021 and 2022.

If you would like to be part of The Chamber Magazine family, follow this link to the submissions guidelines. If you like more mainstream fiction and poetry with a rural setting and addressing rural themes, you may also want to check out Rural Fiction Magazine.

Inane ambition perpetrated
by scoundrels injecting evil
into the body politic
needs to be obliterated.

Oppenheimer’s ghost
is toast of the town,
comes and goes 
exactly as it pleases.

Coastal cliffs crack off,
victims of cold rain,
although in two months 
high heat will cause pain.

Intolerable solutions
that defy evolution
are here to stay
no matter what we say.

It’s as if rogue weasels
mate with boll weevils
destroying cotton crops
while the public wanes.

Merwin’s drunk
escapes his furnace,
stumbles down the street,
gets arrested for vagrancy.

Longing after Thoth
just adds to the loss,
and embalming but delays
inevitable decay.

With nothing left to steal
they were still insecure
so looked to the sky
for some God to deify.

We’re strapped to a wheel
whirling infinitely fast,
undeterred, spurred
by the titanic blast.

Thomas Piekarski is a former editor of the California State Poetry Quarterly. His poetry has appeared in such publications as The Journal, Poetry Salzburg, Modern Literature, The Museum of Americana, South African Literary Journal, and Home Planet News. His books of poetry are Ballad of Billy the Kid, Monterey Bay Adventures, Mercurial World, and Aurora California.

If you would like to be part of The Chamber Magazine family, follow this link to the submissions guidelines. If you like more mainstream fiction and poetry with a rural setting and addressing rural themes, you may also want to check out Rural Fiction Magazine.

Dead Quiet                                                                                    

my body has been slowly diminished
my heart quickly fell victim
the ventricles soon consumed
no pain
just an awareness
of a thousand mouths
the dead can’t forget the world
rain seeps in insidiously
dripping so slowly through
the coffin joints and cracks
the summer heat sits stubbornly
on the decaying brain
 My first death anniversary
 not much left to celebrate
 a skeleton, soon to be
disjointed, not 
shiny and slick
as a Halloween 
counterpart but
a bag of old bones
to be shaken
 one bag quite like another.
I could be Hamlet
but more likely Yorick
or just a minor role
you’re thinking
at last he can RIP
I don’t like to disappoint you
a graveyard’s a lively place
they’re digging graves
close to me
 someone’s leaving flowers
then there’s the courting couples
 the most disturbing of all
 I think by the second
 anniversary
 it will be quieter
 I’ll have almost 
 completely
  gone



 Night Voices

 The house is darkness itself.
 Ancient beams stretch stiffly
  Across white plaster ceilings.
  Behind my bed, a portrait-
  A young girl in fragile blue-
  Moves restlessly, imprisoned
  behind the frame’s gold bars.
  Whispering, secret gossip,
  Here the listless dead,
  Huddled round the cold,
  Brick fireplace, speak
  Of old tragedies:
  Sheep lost in deep snow,
  Ploughmen, drowned in floods.
  Outside the yew trees brood,
  Dour, dark in the east wind.
  Loose, leaden panes
  Chatter glassily of scenes
  Of past bloodshed.
  Footsteps sound softly
  Tiptoeing up narrow stairs,
   Seeking long gone rooms.
   From far away haunting notes
   As pale, skeletal fingers
   Press yellowing keys.
   I turn to sleep,
   Behind me, the past
   Lingers…



OUT OF THE SEA

Green slime clings
to skeletal forms.
Mouths slowly drip
dark blood
onto the sand.
Webbed feet
long talons sharpened
on flesh and bone
claw their way
over sea-wet stone.
Moonlight creates
a white-washed path
over a rough and
storm-driven sea.
One by one these
Monsters of the deep
each cast looming
shadows over
the midnight beach.
In the dark
they crawl their way
to grass covered graves
where the dead lie
wrecked sailors
saved from the storm.
Skeletons, the rotting
 dead snatched in 
the moonlight
to be devoured
to be digested 
by knife-like fangs.
As daylight dawns
into the waves
they return to sleep
back to darkness
in the depths
of the deep. . .

Sarah Das Gupta is a retired teacher who lives in Cambridge, UK; She has taught in UK, India and Tanzania. Her interests include: equestrian sports, the countryside, Medieval History and Ghosts. She has had work published in a number of magazines and anthologies: ‘Paddle’, ‘Dipity’, ‘Dorothy Parker’s Ashes’, ‘Cosmic Daffodils’, ‘The Flying Dodo’, ‘Waywords Lit; Journal’, Pure Haiku’, ‘The Plumtree Tavern’, ‘Sciku’ and others.

If you would like to be part of The Chamber Magazine family, follow this link to the submissions guidelines. If you like more mainstream fiction and poetry with a rural setting and addressing rural themes, you may also want to check out Rural Fiction Magazine.