Medicine for Thirst and Pain By Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal

I draw a smile on my bruise.

I drink a cold beer for the pain.

I heard it is like medicine for

thirst and pain. I heard that

water is only good for thirst.

I know sometimes pain cannot

be measured. I drink another

cold one. Tonight I think I can

imbibe an entire lake of beer.

The bruise needs another smile

or a shining moon with stars.

I drink another cold one. Soon

I will fall asleep, dream of palaces,

wake up on the wrong side of the bed.

Born in Mexico, Luis lives in California and works in the mental health field in Los Ángeles. His poems have appeared in Ariel Chart, Fearless, Mad Swirl, The Rye Whiskey Review, and Unlikely Stories.

Despair hopes you know__ By Merritt Waldon

Despair hopes you know .

I feel it in my heart 

The spot behind the bullet hole 

Shot by muses once when I was twelve 

Straight through to the meat

Spirit poem of this wild

Primal self

Inside 

Never wilting song

For Beauty's 

Despair

----

Merritt Waldon is Southern Indiana poet who has been published in Road Dawgz, Sun Poetic Times,

The Brooklyn Rail, Be About It Zine, River Dog #1, Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts, Americans & others anthology fourth edition, Crisis Chronicles, Cajun Mutt Press, Thye Rye Whiskey Review, and Fearless!.

At midnight Christmas night 2020, cajun mutt press released Oracles from a Strange Fire by Ron Whitehead & Merritt. He lives in Austin, Indiana.

i will not turn you to stone By Scott Ferry

these snakes are tame

they are part of the show

they bite me from time to time

when i oil them with kerosene

i haven’t thought about how

i am different for a long while

i still remember when i got a thrill

from my own aberrations my own feral will

i have forgotten how to act surprised

the light is just the light not god

these eggs are my prayers

i have hoped they will never hatch

i took out my mirrors in my mind

and all i have are seeds roots towering pines

all i have is a wreath of kindling

and few sacred embryos

i am not a monster

i am not your mother

i have saved everything

for you

 

Scott Ferry helps our Veterans heal as a RN in the Seattle area. His most recent books of poetry are Sapphires on the Graves (Glass Lyre, 2024), 500 Hidden Teeth (Meat For Tea, 2024), and dear tiny flowers (Sheila-Na-Gig, 2025). More can be found @ ferrypoetry.com.

Image by Sarah Petruziello.

 

HELP! By Mike Zone

Outside the auto parts store

The sun shines toward approaching eve like a high noon western showdown 

Something off camera grinding

Rapidly approaching 

It ain’t Gary Copper as the clock strikes and the footsteps stop

GOD DAMN, I JUST WANT TO TEACH MY COWORKER HOW TO CHANGE SPARK PLUGS

I grab the wrench just in case

As the crackhead reaches underneath his shirt, teeth grinding like a rusty chainsaw

Pretending to be at the task at hand

“Hey guys I found this baby squirrel outside the crackhouse over there! I just bought crack!”

He thrusts the fuzzy living being in my befuddled chum’s hand 

Eyes closed. Paralyzed.

“If I leave it in the front yard the crackheads will stomp him, I’ll get some napkins or rags from that store over there to wrap him up”

Yeah man, Google says you should just put them back where you found them”

”Nah, man you may as well put him under your tires and run him over if you do that! The crackheads will stomp him!”

He doesn’t come out with napkins

“Damn Mexicans won’t help me! I’m on crack.”

We’re in a Mexican neighborhood not on crack

He’s in a Mexican neighborhood chewing crack rocks, having just bought crack from a crackhouse handing us a crack baby squirrel by association rendering us racist by association

We got this, brother 

He nods, grinding more teeth, I don’t want to punch him have my fist bitten getting infected by crack venom

In turn gnashing my teeth spewing crack venom

“I just got out of prison for killing my friend, why do Ifeel this way?!”

He sips from a bottle of vodka as if it was a job well done and goes 

Hobbling into the not quite sunset

It could’ve been good, bad and ugly 

all at once

Swinging a wrench at a crack maniac frantically trying to change spark plugs before the police arrive…

“DON’T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT MY JORDANS ARE WORTH MORE THAN YOUR SOUL!”

He wasn’t wearing shoes

Of course we did what Google said

Mike Zone is the Editor in Chief of Dumpster Fire Press, the author of Fuck You: A Fucking Poetry Chap, Shedding Dark Places (almost), One Hell of a Muse , as well as coauthor of The Grind. A frequent contributor to Alien Buddha Press and Mad Swirl. His work has been featured in: Horror Sleaze Trash, Better Than Starbucks, Piker Press, Punk Noir Magazine, Synchronized Chaos, Outlaw Poetry and Cult Culture magazine.

in the park By Stephen House

the town i’m currently living in has a park where homeless people hang out / it’s clear they’re homeless as they have bedrolls and bags and shopping trolleys of possessions with them / i pass through the park a few times a day / coming or going from where i’m staying to head to the beach or main street / i’ve noticed a guy in the park who drinks a six pack of bourbon and coke cans every day / he begins at about eleven in the morning and usually finishes late afternoon / while he’s drinking his six pack he listens to music on a portable device / sometimes after drinking a few cans he starts dancing / and he’s a good dancer too / often later in the evening he drinks wine with other park people / things can get chaotic / the group sometimes become loud and shout / occasionally a fight takes place / 

this morning i noticed the bourbon and coke guy coming out of a bottle shop in the main street with his six pack / he was with another guy who also had a bourbon and coke six pack / they were laughing and chatting / this afternoon on my way back from the beach i saw them together in the park singing and dancing to music / they were smiling and looked happy / that made me smile / they waved to me and i waved back / heading home this evening after having dinner out with a mate i saw both the bourbon and coke guys drinking wine with some others in the park / they didn’t look happy / no smiling or laughing / someone in the group was shouting / no music or dancing / i continued walking home / hoping a fight wouldn’t happen / but thinking there was a good chance it would //  

Stephen House has won awards and nominations as a poet, playwright, and actor. He’s been commissioned often, with 20 plays produced, many published by Australian Plays Transform, and produced nationally and internationally. He’s received international literature residencies from The Australia Council for the Arts to Canada and Ireland, and an Asialink residency to India. He’s had two chapbooks published by ICOE Press Australia: ‘real and unreal’ poetry and ‘The Ajoona Guest House’ monologue. His poetry is published often. He’s performed his acclaimed monologues widely. Stephen had a play run in Spain from 2019 to 2022.

Blue Note By Mark Gibbons

Listening to the soft and sandy

Coltrane saxophone washing 

over me, I drift off, misty 

on this bar stool. Old visions 

clouded in a blanket of blue 

smoke, waft in the backbar mirror. 

Waiting for life to begin 

or end, I finish my drink 

to order one more, spend 

what I have till I'm down 

to change on the bar, then slip 

out the back door, Chet Baker 

still crooning in my ear. 

Melancholy folly is all that's clear 

wandering down the alley, 

wondering why I'm here, 

and where I parked the car,

whether it's worth the risk 

of finding it, or if it will get me 

somewhere I want to be,

drown this dark dream 

and my thirst to understand

man, me, help swallow this fear, 

maybe manifest a lover,

make my mother reappear 

to hold my hand, slow-sing me

off to dreamland and show 

me the way to go home—be

someone to watch over me.

Mark Gibbons lives in Missoula, Montana. The author of 13 collections of poems, he earned an MFA from the University of Montana and is an editor for FootHills Publishing and Drumlummon Institute. His poems have appeared in a variety of journals, and he was named Montana Poet Laureate in 2021. Over the years, he worked a variety of blue collar jobs and teaching gigs in order to write poems and stay in Montana at all costs.

 

What I Learned by Chad Parenteau

For years 

education

was just 

a host of

self-titled

masters 

screaming

over me

until I did

something

they hated

a bit less, 

still hoping

to have me

hang my

self up

over desk

or bench

so they 

could leap

up from 

worm work

to say Yes,

you finally

learned 

something.

Chad Parenteau hosts Boston’s long-running Stone Soup Poetry series. His work has appeared in journals such as Résonancee, Molecule, Ibbetson Street, Pocket Lint, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, Off The Coast, The Skinny Poetry Journal, The New Verse News, dadakuku, Nixes Mate Review and The Ugly Monster. He has also been published in anthologies such as French Connections, Sounds of Wind, Reimagine America, and The Vagabond Lunar Collection. His newest collections are All's Well Isn't You and Cant Republic: Erasures and Blackouts. He serves as Associate Editor of the online journal Oddball Magazine and co-organizer of the annual Boston Poetry Marathon. He lives and works in Boston.

Her Body Was a Bar Fight By Heather Kays

She wore her bruises

like rings on a boxer’s hand—

earned, not explained.

Lips like lit matches.

Men burned just to get near her.

None ever stayed lit.

She kissed like revenge,

the kind that cracks your knuckles

and still leaves you cold.

He said she was wild.

She said, No, you.

He didn’t ask twice.

She let him undress

her like a pulled trigger—fast,

thoughtless, and deadly.

Her laugh broke glasses.

Her silence shattered mirrors.

Both cut when they fell.

She loved like whiskey—

sweet at first, then just a burn

you beg to forget.

Heather Kays is a St. Louis-based poet and author passionate about writing since age 7. Her memoir, Pieces of Us, dissects her mother’s struggles with alcoholism and addiction. Her YA novel, Lila’s Letters, focuses on healing through unsent letters. She runs The Alchemists, an online writing group, and enjoys discussing creativity and complex narratives.

The Prong By Bruce Morton

Morality being the intoxicant that it is,

You find there are holes punched by awl in

The Bible Belt to accommodate the prong

Of hypocrisy. For goodness slakes a thirst that

Knows not the bounds of a dry county or town.

Ordinance and line have been drawn to make

Inconvenience convenient. Roads that lead back

To abstinence are clearly marked by crosses

In the barren ditches and culverts, the curves

Of the arc of righteousness carved round with

Dangerous swerves. It is staggering to think

That you can drink what you could not buy--

Longnecks cloaked in brown-paper sackcloth  

Or discreet cocktails stirred and sipped at home.

Bruce Morton divides his time between Montana and Arizona. He is the author of two poetry collections: Planet Mort (2024) and Simple Arithmetic & Other Artifices (2014). His poems have appeared in numerous online and print venues. He was formerly dean at the Montana State University library.

To Saint Jake of Johns By Billy Finnegan

Idk what it is you want me to 

talk about here not 

sure what I’m doing. 

I left before I found a voice 

and been whispering ever since. 

Do I talk about the leukemia that 

Bruiser Brody’d through my system like so many Japanese crowds? Or wax poetically upon a page when waxing folically has been my strong suit these past days? 

I’m not sure what comes through pages anymore, I have 

so many questions and so little time to spend on them. 

Is there reason to search for truth? 

Better off waking each morning to feel my highs and lows stretch through my toes and 

breathe a new light through shades of gray. 

If at all comfort taken through texts and updates whenever 

my phone pings with tales of your adventures and support. 

I guess that’s for the best 

while I wrestle thoughts like so many elbow drops from life’s top rope. 

Years travel and time ticks with so many itches I haven’t got enough fingers to scratch 

but hey, thanks for being a friend, Dorothy. 

Yours truly, Rose. 

   -Billy Finnegan

Billy Finnegan, the self-proclaimed “Pirate’s Poet”, is the founder and co-editor of …like this, a poetry zine circulating through out New England. Finnegan’s poetry has appeared in …like this, Elephant, Rootdrinker, Temper, Siren, Flying Fish, Fell Swoop, Out of Our, and various broadsides through Benevolent Bird Press. He is a member of the New Bedford Poets as well as a frequent participant in New Bedford’s Whaling City Review

butch By Keith Pearson

for years he lived

in a broke down van

behind smiths tavern

swapping his art 

for shots of whiskey

or selling it on

our city streets

for whatever anyone

would give him.

sometimes if he 

liked your face

he would pull something

from his worn leather bag

and put it in your hand.

then one day

the van was gone

and so was butch.

for years his work

hung in windows

around town or

flapped from poles

where he had tacked it

not caring he was 

giving it away.

keith pearson was born and raised in new hampshire and works at a local high school in the math department.

Lockdown, Day Three By Ace Boggess

Sun is out after days of clouds

that left their grief as a parting gift.

I step outside, & pollen marshals troops.

It scratches my throat. I cough &

think, Is this it? Have I died &

not yet figured it out? God,

why does my brain corrupt

a peaceful moment in the light?

Even here in my comfortable prison,

the virus that can’t reach me does

 until I panic at a bead of sweat,

a little ache, a misspent breath.

 It’s a beautiful morning

to write my own obituary.

 Somewhere else, it’s raining—

each drop a survivor of the storm.

Ace Boggess is author of seven books of poetry, most recently My Pandemic / Gratitude List (Mōtus Audāx Press, 2025) and Escape Envy (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2021). His writing has appeared in Indiana Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Hanging Loose, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes, watches Criterion films, and tries to stay out of trouble. His forthcoming books include the poetry collection, Tell Us How to Live, from Fernwood Press and his first short-story collection, Always One Mistake, from Running Wild Press.

To purchase My Pandemic / Gratitude List Poems. Please use the link below. 

https://a.co/d/eu9HG43

Summer in the City By Douglas Richardson

Three Mickey’s 40s

two in the fridge

one in hand

his back to the kitchen window

Murphy bed vertical

Travis Bickle moon

shit’s going to get ugly

in one to four hours

on his way upstairs

neighbor lady said

maybe tomorrow will be better

he has no idea

what awaits him tonight

from the snake pit

to the shore

Douglas Richardson lives in Santa Ana, California, with his wife Jen and cat Wes. His poetry has been published in The American Journal of Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic, Black Poppy Review, Cajun Mutt Press, The Ekphrastic Review, Hobo Camp Review, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Medusa’s Kitchen, The Nervous Breakdown, The New Verse News, Straight Forward Poetry, Trouvaille Review, Poetry Super Highway, and others. In 2013, he won the Poetry Super Highway contest with his entry, “Notes from the Graveyard Shift.”

 

 

Sphere of Influence By Rita S. Spalding

if your hands can reach me

then let them pour gold honey

from tip to tip and across my thighs

to dream is itself a dream of touch

standing on a rugged cliffside 

i see you below in the water waiting

your lips parting with my name

spread across them in silence

your arms stretched through horizon songs

waiting for the sun to go away 

so you can pull my darkness

into the wet mouth of your hungry night 

Rita S. Spalding studied in London and graduated summa cum laude from Murray State University in December 2024. She is recipient of the 2025 Murray State Outstanding Senior in Sociology Award. She has been published in 18 Calliope anthologies, National Library of Poetry, AX-POW Magazine, The Heartland Review, Kentucky Monthly Magazine, Keeping the Flame Alive, Fallen, Rebirth, The Rye Whiskey Review, Walden’s Poetry and Reviews, Poet-Tree Magazine and Kentucky Humanities. Her first book, Abstract Ribbons, was published in 1992 and her two most recent books, published in 2025, are What is Beauty, and The Eighth.

Rita was formerly director of Women Who Write, where in 2006 she helped to establish the annual Kentucky Women's Book Festival, and had the pleasure of meeting writer and activist bell hooks. She also served as panelist for the Dorothy Clay Norton Fellowships at the Mary Anderson Center, and was on the committee to nominate Maureen Morehead as the 2011-12 Kentucky poet laureate. 

The Red Dress By Alyssa Trivett

I sold the dress I wore

to that former friends’ wedding, the one I had on when he picked me up.

The weight on my heart of getting rid of it was more than enough

although it was my favorite.

Wore it to my work;

to a former place of worship.

If life experiences

reflected on us physically,

my knees would have

more grass stains than a Taking Back Sunday anthem blaring over

high school morning announcements.

Sold my favorite Tom Waits album.

No longer chasing yesterday’s

dug up ghosts. Or him.

Now I run around a lake

since jiu jitsu ruined my shoulder

and I know if I try, try again,

I’ll be the female version of

Riggs from Lethal Weapon

with a magic trick of trying to pop my

shoulder back in place.

So I listen to the band

Saturdays At Your Place,

finally decorate my work cubicle

after 2.9 years of employment ,

and in my standard break from life/afternoon of extraordinary circumstance where I’m hiking in between forest preserves typing a formerly broken heart

into my phone’s notepad…

the world isn’t so bad,

the dress will find a new owner

who will cherish it.

I am in the sweltering sweaty armpit map of suburbia, on an open path.

Swimming pool blue sky.

My first cross country meet for the year is coming up for filming…

so I buckle up. Shoelaces tight.

Alyssa Trivett is a wandering soul from the Midwest. When not working two jobs, she chirps down coffee while scrawling lines. Her work has appeared in many places, but most recently at Ex Ex Lit, and Duane's PoeTree 

The City of Both Directions By Jonathan Butcher

Another corner turned, decorated 

with delicate carvings, which cast shadows

that put our weakened forms to shame,

they gloat how we'll never match their longevity, 

never catch even a sliver of it.

We restrain from our usual impervious

actions, the shots and half filled glasses

slowing our pace, a steady stagger at dawn, 

my lungs sweetened by the pollen strewn

from this tree entangled pipe.

The vastness of these buildings that have

no fear of turning to ruins, their innards

a tapestry of stained gold and candle light.

The various leaders were unable to scar

this grandeur, whatever side of the fence 

they perched on.

These gargoyles bathed in gothic, 

cling to each corner, and almost smirk,

as we gasp at mosaic pathways, 

and scrape up our hangovers with what's

left of our breath, and file each photo neatly

away, to give time for each one to slowly fade.

Jonathan Butcher has had poems appear in various print and online publications including, The Morning Star, Mad Swirl, Drunk Monkeys, The Abyss, Cajun Mutt Press and others. His fourth chapbook, 'Turpentine' was published by Alien Buddha Press. 

He is also the editor of online poetry journal Fixator Press. 

The Old Town Nothing By Dan Provost

 I witnessed ten years of

flames running over

& extinguishing former saviors

into a flicker of unforgettable fire.

 

Hometown feelings of lost

filler—dust settles around

your feet as calming walks now

equate to a lonely end.

 

Few self-proclaimed heroes left

at old local hang outs, appearing

sickly as they creep by the

cash register, ready for a foretold death.

 

My name?

Now numb.

Fleeing toward the familiar boulevard corner.

 

Where young pearls roam about.

Faces I’m not acquainted with.

 

I keep to myself, smoking a cigarette, observing the new breed, lacing the

new strain of Bellingham chosen.

 

Taking a last drag, I flipped my Marlboro to the ground, waved goodbye & headed to the bar.

Untethered from the townies.

Who have no idea of my aging identity.

Take a fin from the wallet to buy a beer.

Start my swallowing of forgetful tears

toward the old backyard.

 

No longer a friend in sight.

 

Dan Provost’s poetry has been published both online and in print since 1993. He is the author of 17 books/ chapbooks, including All in a Pretty Little Row, released by Roadside Press, in November 2023. Notes From the Other Side of the Bed will be published by A Thin Slice of Anxiety Press in early 2025. His work has been nominated for The Best of the Net three times and has read his poetry throughout the United States. He lives in Keene, New Hampshire with his wife Laura, and dog Bella.

Doe in the Parking Lot By Gabriel Bates

There she is,

pacing around the dumpster.

I watch through the window

of my apartment

as she panics

at the sound

of her own hooves

on the concrete,

then darts

for the nearest thicket.

And as the white of her tail

disappears into the greenery,

I realize that we have

something in common—

neither of us

Were meant to end up here.

Gabriel Bates is a poet living in Pittsburg, Kansas. His work has appeared in several publications, online and in print. Keep up with him at facebook.com/gabrieljbates

TUB GIN By Tim G. Young

my olives marinated in the gin of my martini

carefully set on the unusually wide edge 

of my pink eagle clawed bath tub

in my kitchen

previously also along the wide edges i placed

and lit as many candles as i found could fit

tall round short and fat

before the bubbles commandeered the tubby sea

the flames and water combined for a spectacular dance

so caught in the trance of a fiery romance

i picked up my martini and finished in one gulp

olives stranded on the bottom green with envy

Tim is a published author and singer/songwriter. Originally from Easton, Pa. But the real formative years were spent

 in NYC. After a long run we loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly, Hills that is. Not true, but I like it. Actually the wilds of Arizona.

high & low By Stephen Ground

floating upside down at 30,000 nightmares,

crumpled napkins & empty minis of brown

litter my sticky tray down to the grimy carpet

& my bare, sweat-slick toes. but as my soft-

boiled skull spins like warped vinyl & my

twisted guts quiver a spirited mambo, the

real question is whether a slightly shook can

of lukewarm brew could conceivably lower

my heat—because every time I crack a tab

like an innocent neck, it’s already the final sip.

Stephen Ground is a writer and filmmaker based in Treaty Six Territory [Edmonton, Alberta].

gone By John Grochalski

tonight 

i sit here in this bar

drunk on vodka

and memories

your obituary on my phone

thinking about those nights

of indestructible youth

when we drove around the city aimlessly

sucking on cans of beer

stealing pitchers of beer

swimming in rivers of beer

thinking time was infinite

and that the muse

would forever be

at our

beck and call.

John Grochalski is the author of the poetry collections, The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out (Six Gallery Press 2008), Glass City (Low Ghost Press, 2010), In The Year of Everything Dying (Camel Saloon, 2012), Starting with the Last Name Grochalski (Coleridge Street Books, 2014), and The Philosopher’s Ship (Alien Buddha Press, 2018). He is also the author of the novels, The Librarian (Six Gallery Press 2013), and Wine Clerk (Six Gallery Press 2016).  Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where the garbage can smell like roses if you wish on it hard enough.