new poetry 2025

“Hello, My Name Is” by James Croal Jackson

NEW POETRY

(publicdomainpicturesdotnet)

Hello, my name is Hello.
Yes, it rhymes with yellow,

mellow, Jell-O. You know.
I don’t talk much, I just drink.

Put me in a taxi, call me Buddy,
take me anywhere. I don’t care.

Home is the bottom of a bottle,
the last drop a farewell kiss

before I blast into space,
my veins full of rocket fuel.

Can you turn down the heat?
My tongue’s a rag dipped in oil.

What do you say, candle?
You are my only friend

in this dark room.
My words are an old car

that won’t start. A clunk here,
a sputter there. I need a tune-up,

a shot of WD-40 for the rusty hinge
of my mouth. I walk these streets

a ghost, invisible to everyone.
Don’t pretend you know me.

You don’t know my name.

James Croal Jackson is a Filipino-American poet working in film production. His latest chapbook is A God You Believed In (Pinhole Poetry, 2023). Recent poems are in ITERANT, Stirring, and The Indianapolis Review. He edits The Mantle Poetry from Nashville, Tennessee. (jamescroaljackson.com)

“a non-writer for the new yorker” by Ken Kakareka

NEW POETRY

you won’t see
a passage of
my writing
featured in
the SAT.
you won’t
read
a paragraph
and think:
the fuck
did i
just read?
some writers
try
to confuse
you
with their
pretense
and
deranged syntax,
but i aim
to be clear
and simple.
so if you
read
the new yorker
and think
this writer
sounds like
a self-serving
asshole,
pick up
my work
instead.

Ken Kakareka is an American writer of works of fiction and nonfiction, such as BULLSHIT (Anxiety Press, 2024) and Summer of Irresponsibility (Alien Buddha Press, 2023). His novella PARIS IN ALL ITS GLORY is on its way with Anxiety Press. Ken’s work has appeared or is on its way in numerous rags including Gargoyle Magazine, The Disappointed Housewife, and Foofaraw. He has been nominated twice for a Best of the Net. A list of selected publications can be found at kenkakareka.com.

“Blue in Green” by Ben Macnair

NEW POETRY

c/o coloredvinylrecordsdotcom

It is 3am in the morning,
in a student house.
Someone is playing an old Jazz LP,
but it means nothing to them.
They are just playing it,
because they think they have to.
The students are out reading poetry.
They talk about their journey,
and their voice,
and how 40 year old poetry is really, really,like cool,
but Shakespeare is nothing to them,
because they forgot about him when they left school.

Miles played Blue in Green,
in the 1950’s, but it still speaks to me.
More than the students whose voices are new,
digging away at the same old ground.
For all of their talk of breaking boundaries,
they are getting headaches from banging
their young heads against old walls,
and in a few years, when new students come,
and talk about their journey, and their voice,
Miles will still talk to me,
because there is something to be said
for keeping it simple.

Ben Macnair is an award winning poet and play-wright from Staffordshire in the United Kingdom. Follow him on Twitter @benmacnair.

“Neon” by Ken Kakareka

NEW POETRY

image c/o amazon.com

at
the end
you
can say
you
showed up
every day.
whether
beaten,
fatigued,
hungover,
uninspired,
or rejected –
you
didn’t let
any
of it
get
to you.
you were
unrelenting
when
so many
big
neon signs
flashed
RELENT.
and that
is how
you won.

Ken Kakareka has appeared numerous times at Fast Pop Lit.

His publication, Bullshit, is available at Amazon.

An Excerpt from “On the Killing of Brian Thompson and the Coronation of Luigi Mangione” by Bud Sturguess

UPCOMING POETRY

I passed Elevator A

A squad of uniformed inspectors

wearing aviator shades in all colors and tints

were struggling, rather comically,

to fit a guillotine (labelled “Exhibit B” – evidence)

The implement of hell was due

for a photo shoot with Court TV at 3 o’clock

I gathered from their angry chatter

about this uncooperative chopping block.

COMING SOON to New Pop Lit!

“Ubi Est?” by John Zedolik

NEW POETRY!

(photo by RiddiMRyder)

The town’s pizza joint that once held primacy of place
moved long ago and now rules across the road and down aways,
and if you didn’t grow up here, you wouldn’t sense a trace

of the hearty business that used to flourish in this space,
now a blocky cipher that dreams in its latter days
among the dark hemlocks in this bypassed place,

whose needles weave stark shadows, and the walls enlace,
perhaps a proper end in which the elder can laze,
and the long course of its catastrophe, trace

as eighth-century monks might ponder the disgrace
of men in God’s crimson eye as the Norsemen raze
their chapels, bell towers, and every holy place,

why the clanking ovens no longer grace
its innards with a comforting blaze
and the aroma of dough has vanished without a trace,

but perhaps it’s better not to keep apace
of these migrations, no need to craze
the benign, brooding senior in his place,
hiding on a street, both long faded to just a trace.

(photo by MJ Barnes)

John Zedolik an adjunct English professor at Chatham University and Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, and has published poems in many journals– including previously at our main site, here.

“Wild” by Hal Wright

NEW POETRY

(painting by Frederic Remington)

We came to this place,
crowded with stingers and rattles and fangs,
because we too had chaos in us
That miffed chainsaw buzz
booming in our brains

Let me tell you what it was like:
the discontented, the outcast, the felon, the dreamer
discordant with society
living by our own hands, and just barely.

A fist in the jaw hello,
A tenth whisky goodnight.
Gunshots pop down Main like little shouts of joy
Hell, why didn’t everybody go West?

The Tetons stand on the cloud’s shoulders
If you chew a scoop of earth, you’ll chip a tooth on gold.
If this wasn’t Shangri-La,
Surely it was the next hamlet over.

But who needs Big Rock Candy
When we got this sunset?
And when the horizon gulps the glow—
Jesus! Ain’t we got stars!

***

Hal Wright (he/him) is a queer writer whose work has been published in Ninth Letter, The Hunger, X-R-A-Y, and elsewhere.

“Train Life” by Ben Macnair

NEW POETRY

It is a question of economics
where the price you pay gives you the best seat,
and the best seat gives you the best experience.


Train Life


It is a question of timing
where we will not announce platform changes
until three minutes before a train reaches you,
and the new platform is a full pelt run away


Train Life


It is question of chance as to whether or not
your carriage contains a group of school children in a shouting competition
or your carriage contains a group of babies in a crying competition
or a group of teenagers looking for like, an easy like man, stereotype.


Train Life


The man opposite you is raising his eyebrows,
his flares his nostrils as Lisa from accounts tells everyone
she is on the train.


Train Life


All the people.
So many people,
wanting to get home,
or to work so they can afford a home.


Train Life


reading the newspaper,
hoping for something other than
the same clowns in charge,


Train Life


leaves on the line
cold, insipid tea,
frost on the windows,
and the muffled clap of gloved hands,
the shuffle step of cold feet,
and an announcement saying the next train
is delayed for another ten minutes.


Train Life. . .

Ben Macnair is an award winning poet and play-wright from Staffordshire in the United Kingdom. Follow him on Twitter @benmacnair.

“Getting Home” by Corey Mesler

NEW POETRY

You walk the familiar steps
like a familiar. There
are cracks in the concrete
and ants in the cracks.
There’s a garden hose on
fire, its stream a dragon.
Above you gargoyles
gargle your name and
the porch shifts like an
ice floe. The key still
fits the lock and the
family that greets you,
half-heartedly it’s true,
resembles your real family.
Getting home is only the
first step. Step four or five
is you must become yourself.

COREY MESLER has been published in numerous anthologies and journals including Poetry, Gargoyle, Lunch Ticket, Five Points, Good Poems American Places, and New Stories from the South. He has published over 45 books of fiction and poetry.  With his wife he owns Burke’s Book Store (est. 1875) in Memphis.

“nature” by Ken Kakareka

nEW pOETRY

the one
thing
you should
never fight
is
nature.
if it
isn’t
meant
to be
why
will it
into
existence?
if it
is
meant
to be
why
deny?
it is
a battle
you will
lose
9 times
out of
10
and the
one time
that it
tricked you
into
believing
you won,
it will
haunt you
like the
carcass
of
a rotting pig.

***

Ken Kakareka has appeared numerous times at Fast Pop Lit.

His publication, Bullshit, is available at Amazon.