Hands that Tremble By Leigh Doughty

‘I’m not an alcoholic,’

he told himself most days.

As each day he clung on  

with fierce talons to the fact that

he never drank until five o’clock

and that showed courage and

strength to fight the day.

If his hands would shake then 

so be it.

And if his mind could only scream

to have another drink,  

any drink,

as long as it had that magic spirit,

then so be it.

If he could just get to through the afternoon

idling his hours away,

like a senile workhound

refusing to give up. 

Just to make it to that heavenly release

that came at five on the dot.

Then he wasn't an alcoholic 

Leigh Doughty is a writer and a tutor from Lincoln, England. His previous work is in the Nuthatch and the Subliminal Surgery.

What could have been? By David L Painter

It was not so much as to who he was
but what he might have been.
Somehow the time seemed to have slipped by
until thirty  years had passed.
Years of rising
each morning clenching a black lunch pail
spending ten hours down in the steel mill
only to return at the end of the day 

When he was Twenty two
and much to his surprise,
that girl with auburn hair and big doe eyes said yes.
Still it wasn’t too late, he had played
the game all his life
from little league to high school.
Everyone said that he had a
good glove and a decent stick.
He had been offered a chance to play
down Tupelo way, minor AA.
It won’t be long he told his young wife,
but he just had to take the chance.

 However as dreams sometimes do,
they go by the way of a
headfirst slide into home plate
as the ump calls “You’re out.”
And the dust settles over
the rest of his life.

That two hundred a week
wasn’t enough with a baby on the way.
He could always play another day.
After all, everyone says that he had
a good glove and a decent stick.

Saturday night in front of the T V screen
as the flicker of black and white
dancing across his face,
perhaps down by the ocean where the
water washes him clean,
or at the corner bar where the foam
slides down his empty glass.
Maybe it’s the cry of a new born child and
the laugh of a happy wife.
Still in all, the question remains
What if ? If only.
Everyone said that he had a good glove and a decent stick.

David is an International published poet.He is a member of the Inner city writers’ group and penned in the city.His works have been published in Sweetycat Press,Piker press, Rye Whiskey Review,Clarendon House, Spillwords Press,The Writers’ Club,and  Dyst Literary Journal.as well as The World  of Myth,Every Writer,Ohio Bards and Academy of the Heart. He is a member of Ohio Writers Group and West Virginia Writers Group. His book of poems Thoughts Alone the Way  is available on Amazon  

The Tears of a Thousand Men By April Ridge

The impending doom looms over our heads

as we sit and discuss strategies

to prevent the lingering failure from succeeding in

shutting the doors on this popsicle stand for good.

As the coins slip out of worn, splayed fingers

the lights dim slowly,

the room becomes chilly with neglect.

The floors are four layers of eroding laminate tile,

laid by three different owners over the years.

Older than most struggling grad students

back for their second degree in old bar floor topography.

The north and west walls painted barn red,

the east wall, a horrid mauve creation mixed from three paint 

cans,

laid onto a false rock wall,

bordered in a tan grout.

The south wall is weathered brick wall inserts

scrubbed last summer to remove the decades of tar

built up from when you could still smoke in a bar.

All the stools are missing the middle ring,

the rubber stops chewed away by the decaying steel,

nicotine and whiskey and

the tears of a thousand men.

April Ridge lives in the expansive hopes and dreams of melancholy rescue cats. She thrives on strong coffee, and lives for danger. In the midst of Indiana pines, she follows her heart out to the horizon of reality and hopes never to return to the misty sands of the nightmarish 9 to 5. April aspires to beat seasonal depression with a well-carved stick, and to one day experience the splendor of the Cucumber Magnolia tree in bloom.

Poets Who Drink By Gail White

They would leave the writers conference

for the nearest bar

or simply sit up late in somebody’s room

until they had recited

all the poems they knew by heart,

or argued lines into shape.

I know this only from envy.

I was never invited.

Gail White, a contributing editor to Light Poetry Magazine, has been writing poetry since she learned to print. Her latest chapbook, Paper Cuts (Kelsay Books), was nominated for the Eric Hoffer Award. Her work appears in numerous anthologies, including Nasty Women Poets, Love Poems at the Villa Nelle, and Killer Verse. She lives in the Louisiana bayou country with her husband and cats.

Divergent By Corey D. Cook

Snow falls in the divorce 

lawyer’s parking lot 

as papers are signed.

 

Lives divided.

 

Soon the asphalt 

will be dotted 

with footprints –

each set a sovereign 

and solitary ellipsis.

Corey D. Cook's seventh chapbook, Passing Cars, was published by Maverick Duck Press in 2023. His work has recently appeared in Cajun Mutt Press, Freshwater Literary Journal, Last Leaves Magazine, One Art, and Stone of Madness Press. Corey works at a hospital in New Hampshire and lives in Vermont.

Bartender By Arvilla Fee

her hands are rough, red

too much soapy water

too many dipped beer mugs,

but they have a certain elegance,

a way of moving like butterflies,

swiftly lighting from mug to tap,

grabbing bottles, swiping the counter

with a clean white cloth;

she’s thin with long, dark hair,

a lotus tattoo on her shoulder

where her black tank exposes skin;

her bright blue eyes are alert,

in tune with every movement

around her, at constant attention

to meet the customers’ needs,

and yet there are faint purple shadows

resting like little half-moons just beneath,

and her bright smile belies the ache

in her back.

Arvilla Fee teaches English 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, and many others. Her poetry books, The Human Side and This is Life, are available on Amazon. Arvilla loves writing, photography and traveling, and she never leaves home without a snack and water (just in case of an apocalypse). For Arvilla, writing produces the greatest joy when it connects us to each other. To learn more about her work, you can visit her website: https://soulpoetry7.com/

 

 

 

Charlie Tells A Story To Jimmy by William Kitcher

Hey, Jimmy! Good to see ya. Grab a stool beside me, and I’ll buy ya a beer. I gotta tell ya about last night after ya left. Maggie, get Jimmy here a pint, will ya? On me. Thanks.

I tell ya, you thought you were drunk! Well, you know I can drink, right? Even through those times I told ya about. Remember when I was lookin’ in that store window, and I saw my reflection, and it was the face of some kinda demon. I swear it was Old Patch himself. I kept movin’ my head, thinkin’ somethin’ behind me was makin’ the picture, but no, it was me. I got closer to the window, and it turned into me again, so that was a relief, but man, that was weird. Yeah, another demon, I know, it’s a theme with me. And I ain’t even religious. Another pint for me, please, Maggie.

Well, that was nothin’ compared to last night. People were weird all night. We were watchin’ the game and it was really bad hockey, remember? And I said the league should get rid of five or six teams and disperse the players and the hockey’d be better. And Eldon said, and I don’t want to say the word he said ‘cause Maggie doesn’t like that kind of language, Eldon said, “Screw you and your socialism.” Well, what the hell does that have to do with socialism? Some people gotta buy a dictionary.

And some people, they can’t stay on a conversation. They take the last thing you say and go from there. I was talkin’ about Neville Chamberlain, and called him a lapdog. And then they started talkin’ about dogs! Never did get back to World War Two.

And that guy who said he was a scientist but didn’t know that water expanded when heated. Jeez, it was like a six-headed snake in here last night.

So everyone left, and I was here alone with Maggie. That’s right, isn’t it, Mag? Oh right, there were some people at that table over there.

So this guy comes in and sits down, right where you’re sittin’, matter of fact. Thanks, Mag. Don’t look at me like that. Lemme tell the story my way.

Anyway, so this guy comes in, and we start talkin’. Nice fella. Knows about hockey, knows about politics, movies, books, whisky. We had a right good yammer. A coupla times, Maggie told me to quiet down. More than a couple, Mag? Haha. Yeah, I guess it was more than a couple. And I’d certainly had more than a couple, so I guess I was talkin’ kinda loud, you know how it is when you’ve had a few. So, this guy, never did catch his name, and I, we kept talkin’, for a long time. Finally, Mag told me I had to leave. She was nice about it, weren’t you, Mag? A couple more pints here, please. On me. Thanks.

So I said to this guy, I have some great scotch at home, I live near here, do you want to try a great single malt? Thanks for the beers, Mag. Yeah, I’m gettin’ to the point of the story.

Anyway, we get back to my place, and the guy starts lookin’ at my books. And we were talking about books and writers. I was in the kitchen getting the scotch, and he was still lookin’ at the books. He’s really well-read. Knows all about Borchert and Lem and Borges and Machado de Assis and Tiptree and Southern.

And I was pourin’ the scotch and thinkin’ how weird it was to meet this guy, a really good guy, not a prick like Eldon or that yahoo scientist. Some people are still good people.

So I went back to the living room and he wasn’t there. I looked in the dining room. No. Looked in the sun room. No. And I thought, no, he’s not in my bedroom, is he? That’d be too weird. So I looked in there. He wasn’t there. But it was weird. The front door was still locked from the inside. So was the back door. So where was he?

And then it hit me. That guy was me. He’d never been there at all. And I figured out why Maggie had been tellin’ me to shut up. I’d been hallucinatin’ the guy. Pretty funny, right?

Jimmy, you want another? Mag, two more, please. Nah, don’t worry. I’m gonna have only six or eight tonight. I don’t wanna get in the state I was in last night. Maggie, you can confirm that’s Jimmy sittin’ there, right?

Bill’s stories, plays, and comedy sketches have been published, produced, and/or broadcast in Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Czechia, England, Germany, Guernsey, Holland, India, Ireland, Nigeria, Singapore, South Africa, the U.S., and Wales. His stories have appeared in The Rye Whiskey Review, Sledgehammer, Rio Grande Review, Close To The Bone, Rock And A Hard Place, The Sirens Call, and many other journals. His comic noir novel, “Farewell And Goodbye, My Maltese Sleep”, the second funniest novel ever written, was published in October 2023 by Close To The Bone Publishing, and is available on Amazon.