Susan Isla Tepper is a a twenty year writer and author of 13 published books of fiction and poetry. Her latest new release GIRL UPSIDE DOWN is a Novella published by Wilderness House Press. www.susantepper.com
Halloween in the pub,
some bloke just kicked
a black and white ball
through an elongated white
spiderweb of a net; Man
United vs Liverpool FC,
I think? I’m just a mere
Mortal, I well-traveled Yank;
but I have an edge on this
drunken lot, I know some of the slang,
it’s dimly lit
and sparsely populated in
here, isn’t it too chilly out
side for this to be going on?
The lady must be 50; but she
looks much older, fishnet stockings
and a leather jacket in this day in age?
Some bloke kicks a black and white
ball through an elongated spiderwebbed
net; the drunken few, ask
"When does karaoke start?"
Wayne Russell is a poet that's been twice nominated for both The Best Of The Net and The Pushcart Prize, he's the author of the poetry books “Splinter of the Moon” and "Waves of Lucidity", both published via Silver Bow Publishing, they are both available for purchase on Amazon in paperback and digital formats such as Ingram Distribution at your local bookstore and library.
Bright marks drawn across catastrophes
Our cosmic calibrated metronome keeps time
Dragging all intention through the threshold
Crafting tunes from dial tones
All our intention left hanging
Left fallow this season
All yield wasted in our vanity
Like brandy, decanted
Yet not yet enjoyed
Woven from branches, slow growth captivity
Time machine taxi cabs, their meter dials breaking
In daylight’s blue comparison
Our hours are melted and viscous
This extension, this interruption
Of all always obvious
Veer off the axis of our kind intention
With the external ache of friction setting in
We just clocked in at closing time
Hired to quicken the moments of consequence, inevitable
Binding eternal, wrapped in our fold of futility
Polish and tarnish, crack and repair
The smoke from our ongoing rush, its own certainty
Days and years and minutes pass
Fueled by all illusion
Our hours, melted and viscous
PW Covington was recently named United States BEAT Poet Laureate (2026-27) by the National Beat Poetry Foundation.
They travel extensively, encouraging free expression wherever they go.
Covington lives not far from where Historic Route 66 crosses the fabled Rio Grande River, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Welcoming nostrils,
the return of dusted-off smiles,
the hands raising plastic glasses.
The crank on the peanut machine
turns like a record.
Someone says drinking melted vinyl
fucks you up—believe them,
they’ve tried it.
Piano Man plays.
It’s relatable, not apropos:
There is no piano.
Only a carpeted stage
with a guitar tuned for Thursdays,
Billy Joel on an old TV,
laughter,
salted nuts tumbling from chins,
another epic story
the room keeps forgetting.
Joe Couture lives in rural Nova Scotia. Recent and upcoming publications include Main Street Rag, The Gorko Gazette, New Verse News, and Mad Swirl. His work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions 2027.
A mid-October day
crisp as an Italian cracker,
cold as a football game,
bright as a flashing,
jet in the sky
mirroring the midday sun.
Come on out, say the
blinding venetian blinds.
Wrap up in season’s wrapping,
step out cocoon-like
and stroll through this
prophecy of winter.
But I drank too much
last night to obey demanding
accoutrements. I stay safe
undercovers as cold slyly
slips into my cozy cul-de-sac.
dark pathos
on incendiary vinyl
liquor overflowing
I’m awed by what it takes to sustain
your rendering of chaos / & the hungry
hounds that bark at you in your own
backyard
you are your own jazz epicenter!
hypothesis of Etta James / recognizable
from a former life /
inscriptions upon the heart /
every emotion sung in a minor key
jazz ancestry / veined with gold
& amber / & sapphire blue
buxom curves & bare legs
in the summertime
you offer sanctuary
& there’s something
exquisite / about the bites
that mar
your
/ skin
The bartender with the pale skin and black eyes stood at the bar. A man walked in, messy, with paint-splattered clothes, wearing a hangdog expression.
“What do you have the will knock the lights out of me?” the man asked.
“That depends,” the bartender said. “How deeply do you want fall?”
“I’m having a hard time. My girlfriend left me and she’s taking our kid to Alaska with another guy. And I have to pay child support! I have to send money while they look at the Northern Lights and live in an igloo.”
“If you become someone else, nobody will find you.”
The bartender reached to the back of the bar.
“This is Pinot Gross. Drink this and it will transform you, you will become strong.”
“Isn’t it supposed to be Pinot Gris? That’s white wine, I don’t like that.”
“No, Pinot Gross is red wine, and it’s the reddest wine you will ever find.”
The bartender uncorked the bottle and poured the wine into a whiskey glass.
“Drink this and you’ll forget everything.”
“It looks like tomato juice.”
The man swirled it in the cup.
“Here goes.” He took a sip and coughed. “What happened?”
The bartender smiled and showed his fangs.
“Now, you are one of us. Enjoy eternal life.”
“Hey, I didn’t ask for this, I just wanted a drink.”
“Now you will thirst for eternity.” The bartender placed his hands in front of him. “We don’t have a manual, but you can figure it out. Don’t go out in the sun. Stay away from fire. Don’t tell anyone. You’ll be able to recognize your own kind.”
The man stumbled out of the bar. “I’d rather have had Pinot Gris.”
The next morning, before the sun rose, the man stood in front of the house where his girlfriend lived with their child. “I feel different. I am a creature of the night. I can’t tell her. I have to leave.”
He wrote a note in blood and left it in her mailbox. “I am going far away, and you won’t be able to find me. I’m not going to fund your new life with that man and our kid.”
He went back to his place and stood up in the closet.
“I need to get more Pinot Gross. When I wake up, the bartender will help me.”
He fell into a death-like sleep.
The next night, after sundown, he went back to the bar, but it had disappeared. In its place was a 7-Eleven. He went inside and asked the cashier if a bar had ever been there.
“This store has always been here.”
“But what about Pinot Gross?”
“We don’t sell spirits here. Do you want a Slurpee? We have those.”
“Pinot Gross is not a spirit, it’s wine. I became a vampire last night, and you’re telling me the bar never existed?”
“I think you need to leave.”
The man looked around the empty store. He reached across and grabbed the cashier’s neck and bit it.
The cashier screamed.
“You’ll give me my wine!” the man yelled.
“You can have a cherry Slurpee!” the cashier shrieked.
The vampire ripped his throat, drank his blood, then threw the body across the store.
He ran out of the 7-Eleven to the street where he climbed the side of a building.
“I am so thirsty,” he said to nobody when he reached the top of the building. “How can a thing like Pinot Gross exist? It’s not possible.”
He could see all around the city.
The vampires underground laughed at the new recruit. They loved to break them in with a horrible experience, that way, they would be tougher, like hazing on a college football team.
The man stood at the top of the building and looked at the sky.
A vampire flew up. “Hello,” he said. “Do you need help with anything?”
“I need a drink,” the man said.
“We can do that for you,” the vampire said.
He gently carried the man down to the street.
“Your new chapter is starting. We’ll get everything sorted out.”
They walked together to another bar where they sat and drank wine and tried to solve their problems. They didn’t, but the wine helped, because it was Pinot Gross, the all-knowing all-seeing elixir of life, the reason humanity dominates, unless we count vampires.
Should I switch to the seltzer water my dog slurps out of the foil bowl Jack fills— Right here, panting. Jack. And my dog. I'm so lost...
