They Called Him Norm By Matthew Ussia

because he looked like that guy from Cheers

but that was before he got a giant scar

across his whole face 

from flipping a car

at over 100 miles per hour

somewhere in Maryland 

but that was after he got expelled

though he still came up most weekends

to perform his famous frat party trick

of drinking until his heart stopped 

when the LifeFlight copters would come

on Saturday night we always shrugged

Oh, that's just Norm

lately I've been asking around

he was a nice enough guy

but no one remembers his real name

so we'll always have to wonder

about the slim possibility

that he lived

Matthew Ussia is director of Duquesne University’s First Year Writing Program in spite of the fact that he got a C- in freshman writing and was rejected from Duquesne’s MA program. He is also an editor, podcaster, post-doom thereminist, softcore punk, postpunk backup singer, social media burnout, and sentient organic matter. His second book, Saturday Night on Earth, was published by Alien Buddha Press in 2025. His first book, The Red Glass Cat, was published by Alien Buddha Press in 2021. His writings have appeared in Mister Rogers and Philosophy, Future Humans in Fiction and Film, North of Oxford, MadSwirl, Trailer Park Quarterly, Anti-Heroin Chic, and Pittsburgh Quarterly among others. More information can be found at www.matthewussia.com.

The Inevitable by Connie Johnson

it’s when I dove into the wine of memory 

each sip revealing what I told you so righteously 

jazz turbulence  / & I reflect on everything 

caress my ear 

with notes of clarity / clear water

w/ waves of  nostalgia 

& Nina Simone!

tears   overflow     into distant waters 

Immortality! / & everyday this becomes 

more clear to me 

I’m no high priestess

I never implied that I 

was built for this

o soul baptism

I always knew 

I always knew

I always knew

you’d make me 

drown

Connie Johnson is a Los Angeles, CA-based Pushcart Prize nominee whose poetry has appeared in San Pedro River Review, Syncopation Literary Journal, Cholla Needles,  The Rye Whiskey Review,    and Writing in a Woman’s Voice. Everything is Distant Now (Blue Horse Press), her debut poetry collection, is available on Amazon; In a Place of Dreams, her digital album/chapbook, can be found at www.jerryjazzmusician.com    

Distant Shores By Leon Drake

I keep your name

in the glove compartment

with the old receipts

and a map

to somewhere

we never went.

Funny how

you can spend years

trying to get somewhere

only to discover

you were already there.

We became

distant shores

not enemies,

not strangers,

just two pieces of land

with too much ocean

between them.

Sometimes at night

I still look toward

the water

as if you might be

standing there,

waving.

And sometimes

I wave back.

Not because

I expect you to see me,

but because

some goodbyes

deserve

a little kindness.

Leon Drake is a Toronto based poet.

His work has been published in Fixator Press, The Literary Underground, The Rye Whiskey Review, Spill The Words Press, Horror Sleaze Trash, Sava Press and The Crossroads Magazine.

Another Broken Mirror By Juliet Cook

Then the mirror began to hate me.

Me and the mirror were smashed.

Stale breadcrumbs, vodka and glass 

falling down into another 

bathtub coffin.

Dripping blood, then drying out, 

unless I keep bleeding inside

my cracked glass coffin until 

blood covers my body and mind.

Bloody grim fairy tale entrapment

in which I visibly bleed out or else

I just disappear. 

Juliet Cook doesn't fit inside an Easy-Bake Oven and rarely cooks. Her

poetry has appeared in a peculiar multitude of literary publications.

She is the author of numerous poetry chapbooks, most recently

including "red flames burning out" (Grey Book Press, 2023), "Contorted

Doom Conveyor" (Gutter Snob Books, 2023), "Your Mouth is Moving

Backwards" (Ethel Zine & Micro Press, 2023), "REVOLTING" (Cul-de-sac

of Blood, 2024), and "Blue Stingers Instead of Wings" (Pure Sleeze

Press, 2025). Her most recent full-length poetry book, "Malformed

Confetti" was published by Crisis Chronicles Press. You can find out

more at https://julietcook.weebly.com/.

After Hours By Barry Basden

The Katy Did closed

and we followed

two girls in a red Chevy,

flirting at stoplights

until we scared them home.

A man in a bathrobe

stepped into the yard.

You boys go on now.

There’s nothing here for you.

I moved toward him

and his hand lifted.

When I saw the gun,

I forgot everything else. 

Barry Basden lives with Bean, his little rescue terrier, in the Texas hill country where, among other things, he drinks good wine and occasionally writes.

QUEASY By Susan Isla Tepper

When I found out

he was the kind of guy

that ate the worm

I recoiled.

Just thinking about

all our tequila kisses

made me queasy

made the walls spin.

But for the worm

there was everything

girls look for in a man.

When I told him to back off

he got teary.









Susan Isla Tepper is a twenty year writer in all genres. Her most recent book, a Novel titled Hair Of A Fallen Angel, came out in the fall from Spuyten Duyvil Books, NYC. Tepper has also written 7 stage plays. Her third play titled EVA & ADAMO will present at The Tank, NYC, early fall. www.susantepper.com

Ellipsis By Manny Grimaldi

If you don’t find God 

on a freeway in Los Angeles, 

you’ve never had a spiritual experience.  

Remote qualification took place in 

a multilevel “tri-sexual” club,

where anything goes,

with a nice, nasty dance floor for

vehement grinding 

to pounding, loud industrial music.

Mommy and Daddy’s music.

Then, life in my 30’s, coming into Los Angeles,

with a Jeep was beach air and highway shimmer, 

Church’s Chicken and taquerias, 

cholos and señoritas eating 

my wife’s white chili out the back,

with the biggest jalapeños

her buck could afford, 

and pumping bass and popping screws

 in the back, Arlo Guthrie mash-ups 

with Ice Cube.

God gave her to me and God took her

away, although she said 

the Source would take me first, and nothing,

nothing but this, nothing 

but that I’m still most alive on asphalt spaghetti

where breezes blow from the West 

and the ocean will boil,

the sun takes a skinny dip 

and each nipple fizzles.

Manny Grimaldi is the author of Finding a Word to Describe You (Whiskey City Press 2025), Riding Shotgun with the Mothman (Boiled Egg Publications 2024), and the chapbook Ex Libris Ioannes Cerva (Boiled Egg 2024). He is co-founder and former managing editor of Yearling Poetry Journal. He resides in Louisville, Kentucky.