Gnashing Teeth Publishing

| words that get in your teeth

Contact Tracing by Yrik Max Valentonis

I use my favorite songs as ringtones because I don't plan on answering...
telemarketers don't keep me company
Spam Likely is my only contact
I grew up with Green Stamps but my friend had the Green Book
My family isn't Jewish yet my Grandparents spoke Yiddish at home
Esperanto was supposed to be the language of the future
	Ebonics at school
	Spanglish on the streets
	Pinyin at the shops
It is too easy to allow a title to become a definition and a definition be exclusive
My Grandparents lived through the Great Depression and World War 2
	Fascism
My parents lived through the Korean conflict, Vietnam war, and the Cold War
	Communism 
I lived through the trickle-down economic recession, the dot-com bubble bursting, and housing market crash
	Capitalism
Ebola, Avian Flu, and a reemergence of the Bubonic Plague, AIDS, and COVID-19 pandemic
	Anti-Vax
my house is painted green and blue to disappear into the lawn
there is no doorbell only a camera to watch you
a locked obelisk door in a field
I have withdrawn

BIO: Yrik-Max Valentonis’s poetry collection Cranium Theatre and novella 120 Days of Gomorrah are available from Alien Buddha Press. He has work in several anthologies including Heat the Grease We’re Frying Up Some Poetry from Gnashing Teeth Press. His photo essay about writing an erasure poem is available on their YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl5NLz8FIEw

Goodnight, Taj Mahal by Andre Peltier

Deep below earth, clay and sand, deep below roots and aquifers, it lies in wait. Like that silent coyote stalking her white-tailed deer through the brush, it waits patiently and

contain by Megan Cartwright

verb past tense: contained; past participle: contained 1. have or hold (someone or something) within. Similar: hold carry To have and to hold in our own microcosm, constructed of hope.

Listening to Words by Mona Mehas

Listening to words out of touch cross lily pads, one to the next my rules, a tiny picture frame debt of honor, repay the gift. Headlights illuminate the path listening

Blooming by Elizabeth Gade

Some days are easy and some days are exhausting the days you have to dig through the muck inside take more hits than a heavyweight prize fighter cling to life

Pomegranate Rose by Laura Peña

I want to feed this delicacy To my concubine A tiny spoonful at a time I want to watch the luscious sorbet Linger on the tip of her tongue Melt

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