Blurry By Arvilla Fee

Funny how your face

looked so much better

in the dim light of the bar

after a couple of shots

funneled their way 

through my esophagus,

funny how comical 

you were—how clever,

your voice a shade louder

than the clink of beer mugs

and Bennie and the Jets

blaring from the jukebox

but in the harsh slant,

of the mid-morning sun,

I could see your frown lines,

the hardness of your gray eyes

as you stared hawkishly

at my own imperfections

and just like that

you weren’t comical 

or clever,

your head just a tin can

with one loose marble,

and me

with bad taste in men.

Arvilla Fee lives in Dayton, Ohio, teaches English for Clark State College, and is the managing editor for the San Antonio Review. She has published poetry, photography, and short stories in numerous presses, including Calliope, North of Oxford, Rat’s Ass Review, Mudlark, Remington Review, and many others. Her poetry books, The Human Side and This is Life, are available on Amazon. Her third book, Mosaic: A Million Little Pieces is due to be released this December. Arvilla loves writing, photography and traveling and never leaves home without a snack and water (just in case of an apocalypse). Arvilla’s favorite quote in the whole word is: "It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” ~ Henry David Thoreau. To learn more, visit her website: https://soulpoetry7.com/

CIVIL DAWN By Dan O’Connell

When the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon 

and there is enough light for objects to be distinguishable.

Awake with the first dawn light

astounded

at how much I drank last night. 

Dan O’Connell is a four-time award winning poet, and multiple finalist and honorable mention. His poems have appeared over eighty times. He is the author of three full-length collections of poetry, and several chapbooks. Find Dan O. at www.danoconnellpoetry.com

In the Sun, They All-Pass By Michael Lee Johnson

In the bright sun in the early morning

Gordon Lightfoot sings

when everything comes back,

to shadow thin, thunderclaps—

and drips of rain.

The coffee pot is perking again.

Even though Gordon has passed.

I experience a mix of life.

A blender of the plurality of singulars

mounting movie moving frames

all returning to memory and mind.

The echoes of insanity, a whisper

schizophrenic, Poe’s haunting verses.

The romances of Leonard Cohen

are hidden in foreign hotel rooms,

lost keys, forgotten scenarios

and forgotten places.

All silence skedaddles

away from death stolen

those leftover tears of a lifetime—

now expired on earth—

seek through

pain abstains.

Michael Lee Johnson, a renowned poet from the Chicago area, has gained international recognition with his work published in 46 countries or republics. His several published poems, each a unique and compelling piece, have been nominated for 7 Pushcart and 7 Best of the Net nominations. Join his journey. He spent 10 years in exile during the Vietnam era. Michael has over 334 poetry videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@poetrymanusa/videos

 

Them Voices.. By Michael E. Duckwall

 

I tried talking to myself, they say

ten different voices in one head

means “Schizophrenia?”

or however you spell it.

The voices say “My spelling is fine!”

You can “Fuck off!”

if you think otherwise.

Them voices, they’re something.

At least they make me smile

sometimes. This life

it's beating me down

to the point of thoughts

that we don’t talk about.

Do you think them too?

A question that’s forbidden.

How many of us just want to leave?

“Exit, stage door left!”

Get straight the fuck out of this chaos

this life. I tried talking to myself.

I wouldn’t listen.

They wouldn't listen.

We never listen.

Michael E. Duckwall was born and raised in the Ohio Valley. A featured poet at the 10th and final Gonzofest in Louisville Ky. Michael’s poetry, artwork and photography have been in a handful of magazines and anthologies, along with numerous online features. He has a couple of chapbooks in publication and one limited edition co-authored chapbook you may have missed out on.

FAIRBANKS By Kent Fielding

  with a line after Bukowski

The swallows are rough today like ingrown toenails

As I wake hung-over again, again in a room I do not

recognize and things missing from the night 

as if someone broke into my head and robbed the house

of all the pictures that hung on the walls,

of all the laughter that clung to the air.

Out the cabin window, light builds and builds

I do not wish to go out. Thin white birches

with blinding green leaves threaten me

with their silence, with their stillness.

Yesterday as the May snow receded back into the sky

And winter traveled far North, I found

A case of beer that had been lost in December

Covered by darkness and ice. Forgotten because

I was drunk and had put it down to pee

Peed and forgot to bring the case inside

Forgot that I had just bought twenty-four more.

Twenty-four more bullets to put into my head.

Yesterday, I brought the re-found treasure inside, 

Spent an afternoon drinking the warm, stale yellow

The taste reminded me of water mixed with mud

I forced myself to drink it, to gulp it down

because there was nothing, and no-one

I loved as much as being alone and being drunk.

Kent Fielding – educator, editor, poet, activist – co-founded White Fields Press and the literary renaissance with Ron Whitehead in 1992. Fielding is an Honorary Kentucky Colonel, a BP Teacher of Excellence, an Alaska Teacher of the Year Finalist, 2021 Alaska Speech and Debate Coach of the Year. He has taught in the Marshall Islands, at Jefferson Community College, University of Alaska Southeast, Mt. Edgecumbe, Skagway High School, and at summer institutes in Turkey and Latvia. Author of a book of poetry, Chief Iffuccan, a chapbook, The Revolution is About to Begin, and a broadside “Museums” (Cheek Press 2023), his work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, The Asheville Poetry Review, The Jefferson Review, Pavement Saw, Modern Haiku, The Beat Scene, Frisk Magazine, Boog Literature, Night Owl Narrative: A Cajun Mutt Rag, and Tidal Echoes, among others.

A Bar, In Time Of War By Trish Saunders

One of us is drunk. One is quiet. That’s me. 

No empty tables, or offers to share,

so we’re loitering by the door, 

when up flies this gorgeous bird, lingers a moment, leaves.

Hold that thought, I say, plucking

a twenty from my purse,

I’ll get us a table  

& quick like that, our hostess whisks

white tablecloth over picnic table, Sit here. 

Ships’ masts are glittering in the harbor. 

Night winds lift the cloth hem. 

I am so tired of this fight, truce, fight, make up,  

I have forgotten what these ancient grudges are,

all these years we could have been comforting each other.

A single, long horn blast from the harbor. 

 

Trish Saunders has poems published or forthcoming in The Chiron Review, Pacifica Poetry, The American Journal of Poetry, Crossroads Magazine, among other places. She lives in Seattle, formerly in Honolulu. 

November 11, 2024, Tuscaloosa By Jeff Weddle

Once, I was young

and spent my hours

in cheap bars or backyards,

throwing horseshoes, shooting pool,

sleeping on couches, usually broke,

and going on lunatic drives

across the country with great friends

who were at least as crazy as I was.

I fell in love with so many women,

fast and hard, mostly with no love returned,

and pined in my gut for everything I wanted,

but never had and couldn’t name.

I didn’t notice the years

piling up and my hair falling out

and the ungodly bloat

I got from the oceans of beer

and drive-through hamburgers

and all the other awful things

I did to myself.

Now, I am old with bad knees,

bad shoulders, fading eyes.

So many friends have fallen into the grave.

I am ancient, often sad,

with no roads calling me

but the one that takes me, every day,

from home to work and home again.

I wouldn’t know which way to turn

if they did.

 

 

Jeff Weddle is a poet and writer living in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He won the Eudora Welty Prize for Bohemian New Orleans: The Story of the Outsider and Loujon Press and has also received honors for his fiction and poetry, including being named the first State of Alabama Beat Poet Laureate (2024-2026) by the National Beat Poetry Foundation. His work has appeared in Albanian and Spanish translation. Jeff teaches in the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alabama.

 

Urgent Care By Todd Cirillo

    For Jake St. John

Businesses and schools

are closing early today

due to an early winter apocalypse. 

I am terribly ill

fighting whatever it is

the best I can. 

I’m happy for work to end early

as I drive home

but sick at the thought

of another dark night 

with canned 

chicken noodle soup 

alone. 

I drive past places shutting down,

lights being turned off

and the roads emptying out

as clouds roll in 

and temperatures drop.  

I see no improvement

in health or prospects.

I simply want to get better.

Up ahead, there’s a red sign 

lit up in the darkness

with parked cars underneath

that reads, “Lost Love Lounge.”

Perhaps it’s the fever,

the heartbreak or poor luck 

but I swear it says

Urgent Care

and I’ll take that

over soup

any day. 

Todd Cirillo was born of bastard lineage. He has many books and misdemeanors. Books include: Sucker’s Paradise, Burning the Evidence, ROXY, Three for the Road, Kisses from a Straight Razor, and his latest, Disposable Darlings. Misdemeanors will remain unmentioned. His poems have appeared in numerous national and international literary journals, magazines and on cocktail napkins everywhere. He is editor and co-founder of Six Ft. Swells Press. Todd lives in New Orleans, Louisiana where he seeks out shiny moments and strange wisdom while looking pretty.

My Computer wants to 'Verify if I am human' By Doug Holder

This is what my computer tells me--

Is this an insult, or rhetoric that it spews?

An ontological question,

Coming from some fuse

Sometimes during

my dark night

of the soul

I wonder

If I am embodied

or an ethereal ghost

But the morning light

Streams in my faith

From the bedroom window

yet again.

The computer has

A nefarious rotating circle

That surrounds my visual plane....

I check my pulse

I feel the flesh and blood,

The flashing synapses

Of my brain,

The crooked life lines

That are traced on my hands.

The circle stops

its maddening cycle...

The cold metal and steel

Pulsates with judgement

And gives me redemption

After the many years I have prayed

I have been saved....

Doug Holder is the co-president of the New England Poetry Club, and the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press. He teaches creative writing at Endicott College, and his work has appeared in Molecule, Soul-lit, Worcester Review, South Florida Poetry Journal and more..

Co-President of the New England Poetry Club

Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene   http://dougholder.blogspot.com

Ibbetson Street Press  http://www.ibbetsonpress.com

Poet to Poet/Writer to Writer  http://www.poettopoetwritertowriter.blogspot.com

Doug Holder CV http://www.dougholderresume.blogspot.com

Doug Holder's Columns in The Somerville Times

https://www.thesomervilletimes.com/?s=%22Doug+Holder%22&x=0&y=0

Doug Holder's collection at the Internet Archive   https://archive.org/details/@dougholder

You Got A Lighter? By Alex Kemp

The words used to come so easy, but now writing seems so hard.

Did I kill off the empathy left in me?

Or did I just leave it at the bar?

Like a discarded pack of smokes, forgot there was still one left

We swore we’d be in Nashville by now

But we’re still staring at the beach

The longer I stare at you

The longer you wait for me

Not much left of those Broadway dreams I see

I’ll split the gas money with you if your friend will still let us crash

They’ll never understand us

Bartender’s bumming me a smoke, he said he’ll share his pack.

Alex Kemp (she/her) is a poet and film writer. Her work focuses primarily on the southern working class, memory, grief, and exploration of interpersonal relationships. Currently, Alex lives between Brooklyn, New York and the Alabama Gulf Coast. You can follow her on Instagram @_alexiskemp

EMPTY BOTTLE BLUES By Richard Collins

This house stifles me. The kitchen in particular 

is like the bottom of the sea.

    — Yannis Ritsos

I bring down a relic from last Thanksgiving

a shapely bottle of green Chartreuse;

only the bottle-green fumes are left.

Thanks, Eric, for that, that stroke of genius,

your only one and, unlike your suicide trick

with the pistol, repeatable. 

      That night’s refrain:

My life is so ridiculous, ridiculous…

Shut up! we shouted, like a Euripidean chorus,

though all in fun. Only monks and spermatozoa

have the right to be such flagellants.

Their golden green-and-white liqueurs

and softly rounded tonsures

license their penetrance and penitence. 

Eric the Boring, Eric the Red,

Eric the Bald, Eric the Dead,

only his bottle-green fumes are left.

It’s time to make a run to the bar.

Richard Collins drinks in Sewanee, Tennessee, where he enjoys the poetry of describing whiskeys, his current favorite being "dusty warehouse floor" (Nelson's Green Brier Sour Mash). He has lived in Cucamonga and Venice Beach, Bucharest and Baton Rouge, and for many years New Orleans. His recent poetry appears in Alien Buddha Zine, MockingHeart Review, Paper Dragon, and Shō Poetry Journal. His books include John Fante: A Literary Portrait (Guernica Editions) and No Fear Zen (Hohm Press). Claim to fame: presenting Merle Haggard with his honorary doctorate when he was dean at Cal State University in Bakersfield.

Under the Rapids By Rita S. Spalding

Dressed in a cascade waterfall 

Skirt splashing with turning twirls

Orion smoothly across my breast

Truth of awen across my abdomen 

Warm lips pressed against tastes of love

We dance this dance prayer to the universe 

Rita S. Spalding has had poems published in numerous anthologies and magazines. Her first book, Abstract Ribbons, was published in 1992. A second book, The Eighth, is currently at a publisher. She has received awards for poetry from Jefferson Community and Technical College, Elizabethtown Community College, National Library of Poetry, Kentucky Monthly Magazine and the Kentucky State Poetry Society. In 2024 she was a presenter at the Kentucky Writers Celebration in Danville and Historic Penn’s General Store, the Last Insomniacathon and she gives poetry readings regionally on a regular basis.

Encounter with The Boss by Susan Isla Tepper

My first encounter with The Boss was in Newark Airport. A short guy lugging a suitcase and a big acoustical guitar up to the check-in counter. He wasn’t The Boss then, and wouldn’t be for maybe another ten years. I knew a struggling musician when I saw one. I wouldn’t be working this airport job if I was a big singing star.

Trailing slightly behind him was a short, dark-haired woman also carrying a guitar. 

Dressed in my red uniform, I could be a bitch. Back then people without power seldom exercised their bitch qualities. But in that airport (which happened to be my second job every day), thanks to my almost-ex-husband holding the money strings— I drove the hour and a half north up the parkway, put on the red uniform. That was after working 9 to 12 every morning at Betty’s travel agency.

 If I was really tired, like that particular night, I could dish it out.

“So you’re a musician,” I said looking The Boss up and down.

He made a small laugh. “Yeah.”

“Well where do you play?”

The Boss mentioned some well known spots in Jersey. A few I had actually played at myself.

“Yeah I know Lock Stock & Barrel,” I said. What I didn’t say it was a try-out. That I snagged a guitarist friend and we did 3 sets for free. And even though I got a standing ovation from the bar crowd, after singing Jesse better than Janis Ian ever could in her dreams, I didn’t get the gig.

I was still really pissed about that.  

“Let me see your tickets,” I said. They both looked grungy and tired themselves. “Pittsburgh? What’s in Pittsburgh?”

“I do weddings and bar mitzvahs when I can get them,” said The Boss.

Jesus, I was thinking, weddings and bar mitzvahs. I’d rather put on the damn red uniform for my bread.

Susan Isla Tepper has a new Novel out titled “Hair of a Fallen Angel” from Spuyten Duyvil Books, NYC. A twenty-year writer, she’s authored 12 books of fiction and poetry and 5 stage plays. Youtube video for her new novel: https://youtu.be/W2HVIc4NrqY

In This Grave Lies Alvin P. Smith, Not Yet Six Years of Age By John Doyle

A carnivorous wind greets your long-gone lips

which leave time behind,

so I'll clasp sound from stone

which speaks of things like German measles, rubella, stray bulls,

perhaps a bullet unfortunate not to make its target of soda pop bottles 

on fence posts instead

which look on railroad tracks that go to that city your brother

says he'll make his fortune in, 

now it's his turn to make mom and pop proud

Half man, half creature of very odd habit, John Doyle dabbles in poetry when other forms of alchemy and whatnot just don't meet his creative needs. From County Kildare in Ireland, he is (let's just politely say) closer to 50 than 21.

Unc By Wanye F. Burke

Grandma fell on the

sidewalk and

lay still while

half of the town drove by her;

it was a truck driver from

out of town

stopped

and helped her up--

she walked home

on a broken hip

and called her son

who was upset at being bothered

but became eager to help

when he realized

that he might be able to steal her money

while she was in the hospital.

Wayne F. Burke's poetry and prose has been widely published in print and online (including in THE RYE WHISKEY REVIEW). He was nominated for a Pushcart by THE DOPE FIEND DAILY in 2022. He lives in Vermont (USA).

Away By Rodger LeGrand

at the limits of how my ears 

can’t work as eyes, but I try 

not to not see with them your voice 

and the sorrowful notes that dance 

from between your lips in swirls 

and dips of sorries or hellos, 

a cadence of warms and colds 

or colds and warms, bereft 

and darker than the night,

which has already engulfed the moon 

and which now wraps around the glass puffs 

of your breath as you laugh 

and turn away

Rodger LeGrand is a Pushcart nominated poet and the author of several collections of poetry, including Studies for a Self-Portrait (Big Table, 2019) and Bells (Finishing Line Press, 2025). His poems have appeared in many literary journals, including Ravens Perch, Evening Street Review, The Cortland Review, and the Boston Literary Magazine. He has taught at MIT and Penn. Currently, he designs humanitarian education courses at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative.

A Neighbor in West Hollywood By John Drudge

“This ain’t no Lindbergh baby” 

She would say

Holding her belly

With a cock-eyed smile

Like they do in the south

When the sun goes down

“You won’t catch me

In no forest tonight sugar

I don’t need no more sin” 

He always smiled

Back at her

Although he didn’t know 

What she was talking about 

Most of the time

But she was funny

In a tragic way

And she was always 

Nice to him

For a hooker

From the strip

In the lobby

Of a motel

Off sunset

Behind the Copper Penny

John is a social worker working in the field of disability management and holds degrees in social work, rehabilitation services, and psychology. He is the author of four books of poetry: “March” (2019), “The Seasons of Us” (2019), New Days (2020), and Fragments (2021). His work has appeared widely in numerous literary journals, magazines, and anthologies internationally. John is also a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and lives in Caledon Ontario, Canada with his wife and two children.

In The Spirit By Jake St. John

And now 

Christmas spills 

its reds

and greens 

over America

and we hope

or pretend

that all's right 

with the world 

no bombs 

missing 

intended targets

no guns 

in schools

or malls

or theaters

or anywhere else

for that matter

no poverty 

for those

with bootstraps

and a dream

no fascists  

only 

angelic smiles

of holy men 

speaking kindness

and love 

seeking monetary

donations

and promising

the gift of salvation

all while the seasons’ lights

blink shadows

off the dilapidated face

of the homeless shelter.

Jake St. John lives in the woods on the edge of the Salmon River. He is the author of several collections of poetry including Lips Leave Scars (with Jenn Knickerbocker, Whiskey City Press, 2023) Ring of Fog (Holy and Intoxicated Publications, 2022), Night Full of Diamonds (Whiskey City Press, 2021), and Lost City Highway (A Jabber Publication, 2019). He is the editor of Elephant and is considered an original member of the New London School of poetry. His poems have appeared in print and online journals around the world."

Not Even Onions Make Me Cry By John Patrick Robbins

I always admired the old farts who seemed forged by fires of foreign shores and broken hearts.

Whose coffee was always black as night and graced with the taste of bourbon.

Whose scars had stories as the hosts rather tell you to fuck off than share.

Who looked off into the distance and somewhere far beyond the bullshit of trivial conversations.

Who seemed to hold secrets that would break the modern sensitive types.

My heroes were all, in truth, broken in some way, as so am I.

Busted knuckles, missing teeth.

Stories that would die with the  hosts, sunken ships of valued knowledge.

Faded tattoos with barely legible names.

I admired those men as, for some odd reason, their company I was permitted to share.

Mainly because I knew when to shut the fuck and listen or just when to play the right song.

Understanding takes depth. Unspoken compassion is rarely more valued than some prick politicians ' sugar-coated lies.

I admire the forsaken soul. I, in turn, have become one of them myself.

Saltwater within my soul, a storm’s tormented memories, my unspoken burden.

I stand more so a lighthouse than a pillar.

Even within the darkest storm’s depths, there is always a glimmer of light.

I am the last of a very much dying breed.

And endangered species scars and addictions.

But none are left to listen as we are moments to a bygone kin.

If only you would shut the fuck and listen

You may learn something.

Nothing but the pages shall remain.

JPR, is a Southern Gothic writer.

His work has been published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Disturb The Universe, Fixator Press, Horror Sleaze Trash, Punk Noir Magazine, Spill The Words Press, Impspired Magazine, Piker Press and the Dope Fiend Daily.

His work is often dark and always unfiltered.