A Matter of Mental Health
Nine mindful scribes
Cheat Day - Debdutta Pal
Yesterday I met someone new
who knew
nothing about me
and my mouth didn’t string
any sentences I might regret
or get jump-scared by
on typical Tuesdays
in between tea leaf memories
breaking up presumption
to corroborate I’m still listening.
Last night I broke away
from pressing screens
adjusting my pulsating vision
to stare at blinking airplanes
and I breathed in the strokes
still life painting of a city’s moment
where you’re merely a passerby
existing in a comforting blur.
The previous hour clipped
at minute forty-five
and I turned over a lined page
balancing three table legs
listing tasks I knew I could turn
into linked blocks of ice
leave them preserved permanently
in disposable trays of candid closure.
This week I simplified simple
gripped dunes in my fist
knuckled against the bigger picture
closed chasms with industrial tape
told me a bedtime story
the loop of starting and concluding
is enough
should be enough
to cancel critical culture.
Every night I read
gripping mediocre fiction
escaping into someone else
flaws, patterns, and neural waves
when thoughts churn currents
I lean on my balcony
don’t linger on the lit cigarette
snap a hazy picture on my phone
registering mindfulness.
Yesterday I left my house
mornings are effective
for crowd control
saw myself reflected in windows
sighed the image was similar
to everyone, anyone else
spoke to a stranger
watched it happen in reverse motion
like I was a character I made up
pretending she’s the one in control.
© Debdutta Pal 2025
Heart in Cage, Mind in Gutter - Julie Radford
cherry red Fred Perry
shirt loose, pale skin
wrapped around weak bones
insides grey, hard, dirty & muddy like stones
nothing ever felt as cold
eye sockets like holes
smiles turned into grimaces
she used to play all these roles
mother, daughter, sister, friend & partner
her body making menaces
her mind a martyr
colors fading all that was left of her
cherry red Fred Perry.
© Julie Radford 2025
Noetics of the Muse - Edward Swafford
Running on brazen faces far from YOU
the musing force of preternatural abstract
thought transference
reading minds a deed apart, together again
interweaving one nonverbal cue times 2X2
aligning my six senses with syzygy
STAR… POWER…
That’s who I am to you, an outshone miser
bruises replace misery tact
tactile brushing lays Terpsichorean sway
telepathy holds us in time and place
valance yes, clairvoyance balanced to know
the omniscient difference
between occult knowing and oracles, no?
Predestination pulls strung-laced loveless
limbs, telepathy from first breath to
outlasted kismet, such trains primordialism
the cannibalizing seer outlining my body
from desired distances of decades or more
manumission prophet
spoken words precomposed, luck much
is me
Shamanic syndrome mimicries Stockholm
escapism is fatalism
I am your etheric conduit, identity ELICITS
in empyrean ebbs yet flow is peace
sheets like straw lure and lull analogously
your allure, pantheistic parenthesis pain
pasts syncretized to present plangent circles
We repeat, I compel.
© Edward Swafford 2025 - Originally published in The Howling Owl sans voice reading. It’s been sharpened with the Swafford pen, and perfected for Black Coffee Poetry.
Origin - Maisie Archer
Look close, but you’ll never find me
rummaging through open purses
fast fingers in the restroom line
busy airport, my arrival
will be my departure from you.
Look close, but you’ll never find me.
The driver, my name in his hands
you know I’m gone before he calls.
Handful of passports, who am I
a girl untethered, wings unfurled.
Look close, but you’ll never find me.
Did I exist for you at all?
Openly hidden in a crowd
pretend smile shed, hope in my heart.
I am my own invention now.
Look close, but you’ll never find me.
© Maisie Archer 2025 - Originally published in Scrittura, and sweetened with fresh awareness for Black Coffee Poetry.
Foe to Friend - H. R. Sinclair
Suicide weighs on the mind with an
inviting smile,
like Chessur so alluring yet
intentions in plain sight.
Ignore reality and slip away
down the hole of darkness.
There must be something
at the other end?
Until the day,
pray these days away
or better yet
bury them before yourself
with pain lesser than that inside.
Self-medicate before that
dastardly friend
wakes up all too early.
There’s no time to waste;
If time’s purpose seems to be
to waste away
-what it does so well-
then let it.
In smoke and in liquid
not barely wanted but
needed to make it to the next:
”You okay?”
“just tired”
So suicide sits there
at the back of the mind,
unbalancing the scales,
one last decision to make,
one decision that’s mine
not outsides
or out of my control but
totally in control of the outcome.
Control your life with Death.
That option sits there like the
ice cream parlour when the diet
just doesn’t cut it anymore.
A tempting cigarette in the back pocket,
its damage known but brief relief all too good.
Like the difference between a
coffee in the morning and
no more mornings at all.
That alluring decision waits
in its spot in the mind.
It made its bed unkept and unmade,
it loves to sleep in the mess
smiling with no face,
knowing nothing will change,
just waiting
for the day.
© H. R. Sinclair 2025
HOMEGROWN - Annie Lure
The bar is called Homegrown.
Its men are homegrown
on Evil Genius and Party Crasher.
Est-ce que tu parles français?
The man in Barbour jacket
hypostatizes Provencal glasses
in my printed scarf.
No, I’m not French. I toss
my car keys like contraband
on the table. He reads Camille Paglia,
that academic siren, he tells me.
Civilization is contiguous to savagery.
His hand twirls like a prima ballerina.
The frat boy’s prehensile fingers
vis-à-vis the cleavage recall the hunter
arrowing an elephant. Two tables to our right, a gazelle
grazes on Vegemite. The toothed vagina, I quote
is no sexist hallucination. And she’s right.
The upside-down glasses on the bar rack
clink like succubae over the men’s heads.
Every man is lessened post-coitally inside every woman.
The gaze of the acrylic woman on the wall,
like a Papin sister, bludgeons his heart.
We are not afraid of women. His mouth is
Anne Sexton’s car fuming carbon monoxide.
I can drug you. I flaunt my mouth like a magician’s
unbreakable glass. And then slice you up.
Sure, you can do anything, he eyes the capped tooth ashtray.
But men are not a priori afraid of women’s overpowering them.
“Meat is Murder” by The Smiths cleaves the air.
The table is derealized as citadel.
I circumambulate it atavistically like a groundskeeper.
The light from the fixture butcher-papers his face.
I sharpen my finger on his pulse:
Do you want to know where I am from?
and grab his dick as if it were minced meat.
My breath palls his lips like the roses
my grandmother thieved when I was eight
from our neighbor’s garden so she could syrup them for me.
© Annie Lure 2025
Rib - Jozef Cain
all i had left was saliva
to spit on the dirt
where i spawned;
for all the pure water
was in me now,
flowing through my limbs
turning to vinegar,
and spirit
— clamouring —
i took that lousy loam i made,
and pressed it, squished it;
hoping the adulterated drips
would fertilize the earth
where my naked body lay
— nothing —
so i bore down both fists
into the ground;
until blood was drawn,
and tears were falling
from my empty eyes
— still nothing —
a few tears turned into wells,
i howled and bawled
until my ribs protruded
from my flesh;
i ripped one out,
and stabbed this new barren bog
where my naked body lay
— still —
© Jozef Cain 2025
Sensing My Love Scent - Ute Luppertz
I disappear and forget -
Who I am, Who I was, Who I will be
Obsession and Longing
Purple Emerald Juice drips from the Garden of Eve
Sweetness of Salt Drops
The Push, the Pull
Seduction, Ache, Gasm
Drink it in!
Looking through the Veil of my Shadow
Gazing at the Dark Moon
Blinded by the Intoxicating Scent of the Balloons
Do you see me? Peekaboo!
Waking up
From the Dream —
Birth of Innocence
I remember
Pureness of Soul
Deep like the Emerald Sea.
© Ute Luppertz 2025
Sullen Children - Adrian Njoto
Shame is both soft and abrasive when you’re raised to be mute. Learned helplessness does wonders for the graceless children scraping for meaning under their mother’s taboo. Why suffer for the truths when the lies feel just as good? Dad’s supposed to be dead or in therapy. But he opts for neither. A moon-shaped scar I branded on my head and named Salvation — the thing I wish I could receive from the God who demonizes me. It was for the love of family that my sister and I withstood daily beatings. We’re at best, jaded, but at most, corruptive. We share the same strangeness: the mind-bending ability to dissociate while talking. We both miss the confiscated freedom of thinking, in the likeness of those women before Woolf could write. We know we’ll never be free in our earthly bodies. Her words tie our necks in ribbons, their golden strands snare us in glorified victimhood, devoid of wisdom. Is it too late to learn about gratitude? We wish to be immaterial when our lives become satirical. We blame the metaphysical while hoping to be ethereal. The only way is to cry ’cause we’re not allowed to sing. The only way is to cry ’cause we’re denied beings. Fear and respect blur. Faith holds no allure. It’s funny when our minds limit our movements — as if we’re buried neck-deep in the pit of God’s sense of humour.
© Adrian Njoto 2025 | A guest post by
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This is balanced better than the best cup of coffee in the world.
What am I saying? This is the best coffee in the world.
Such a fresh, impactful collage of work 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤