EIGHTIES ELEGY By Philip Ash

Whaddaya want for a buck? Subway token accesses

all Five Boroughs. Warriors! Come out to play-ee-ay!

Pierce Manhattan’s underbelly like how a grave worm

devours a corpse. Smoke! Smoke! Crack! Crack it up!

Forbidden Planet near Union Square: purchase latest 

Heavy Metal or Judge Dredd comic. I am the Law!

Don’t laugh at the longshoreman wearing that dress 

within SoHo’s West Boondock. 6’4”, full of muscles.

PiL rehearse in a loft across the street unless eating 

N. Carolina style ribs. It’s not a Monopoly game.

Silver Diner’s open 24 hours for a coffee or burger,  

4 a.m., post-clubbing. Skim Voice music listings.

Trendy late ‘80s line forms for CBGB’s Sunday hard-

core matinee (party started with Warhol’s Factory). 

Punk is dead! So are Andy and Jean-Michel Basquiat. 

Grow your hair long. Go home. 

Philip Ash surfs the Dark Wave spectrum in your dreams. His work has appeared in Fixator Press and Beatnik Cowboy. He lives in San Diego.

All Our Yesterdays By Brenton Booth

When I was twenty-one attending 

drama school, our female 

Shakespeare teacher gave the 

whole class a Macbeth 

monologue to learn and deliver, 

in front of the entire class 

six weeks after. She had won 

many awards for her 

Shakespeare performances over 

the years, doing regular 

film and television gigs. I put 

off learning the speech 

until the night before, memorizing 

the complete part after 

midnight, on good speed, and 

whiskey. The following day, 

she was totally brutal. With not 

a kind word for a single 

heartbroken student, following 

their best attempts at 

Macbeth's final, timeless words. 

I went second last. Moving 

onto the compact stage with a 

wicked, pounding hangover. 

Reciting the words, I still remember 

to this day. At the end of 

the monologue, the entire theatre 

was silent. An instant fear 

violently attached itself to me. 

"Robert, you are the only 

student I have ever taught, who

will convincingly play this 

role, or any of the other epic 

Shakespeare parts. Bravo!" 

she calmly declared, triggering 

the entire room to a mad, 

deafening applause. I left the 

school not long after. 

Choosing poetry and instinct 

over theatre and teachers. 

Unpublished until I was thirty-three. 

Never forgetting that day.

Brenton Booth lives in Sydney, Australia. Poetry of his has appeared in Gargoyle, New York Quarterly, North Dakota Quarterly, Chiron Review, Main Street Rag, Naugatuck River Review, Heavy Feather Review, and Nerve Cowboy. He has two full length collections available from Epic Rites Press.  

Revere Beach By Doug Holder

City of tanned, brawny shoulders

Diversity is not linked with perversity 

Local Michealangelos sculpt the sand

Into castles

Where no royalty resides

And disappear with the elements

But don't we all...?

I heard there was once a wooden rollercoaster

On this first public beach

Bikers like sentries

Lined outside the bars

Fried dough

The manna of the street.

Now..

A ton of Goya

In the markets

Beans, rice

And all that exotic spice

Piles of pescado

A bazar of sardines...

My own tongue

Is a foreigner here

I hear the staccato

Of Spanish

That musical rush of words

So flush with emotions.

The Jewish Delis on Shirley Ave 

Are gone

Katz's Dr. Brown's Cream Soda

The solid blocks of knishes

The endless brisket on rye...

Revere Beach

You are still straight, no chaser.

But the micro apartments pock

The street

For the fleet—footed commuters

And their computers.

Revere Beach

Wind swept by the seminal ocean

The gulls scream at this gray-bearded

Whitman

Munching on a bagel

As he slouches to

The sea.

Doug Holder is on the board of the New England Poetry Club and teaches creative writing at Endicott College. His latest poetry collection is " I ain't gonna wait for Godot, no more" ( Wilderness House Press)

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

Big man By Ron Riekki

I was bartending

at a golf club,

which is like cooking

at a laundromat,

and the customers

weren’t there for alcohol

and they weren’t there

for golf

either,

but were there

to get away

from jobs

that were as boring

as middle school

study hall

and they’d walk in

with their neat-shirted

bodies

that hadn’t seen running shoes

in years

but they could ride

a cart

and have someone else

carry their clubs

with such grace,

such agility,

where they rarely

crashed the carts

or dropped the clubs

they weren’t carrying,

and one day

one of the guys

came in

and he told me he was a millionaire

and told me he just bought

a 3-D TV,

that it made the 3-D better

than film,

that films

made 3-D look like shit

and he said the TV

was the size of an outhouse

or something like that

and he said that

he was the first person he knew

to ever buy one,

pointing around the room

saying

I guarantee none of these schmucks

can go home tonight

and watch House of Wax

like you’ve never seen House of Wax

in your life

and I said something that I forget,

and he sipped a couple drinks

and walked away,

out into the Vincent-Price dusk

and I looked at his bill

and his money

and the professor

or whatever he was

stiffed me on the tip.

Gave me nothing.

Not a penny.

Just enough for the drinks

and that’s it.

And I wanted to punch him

right in his Blu-ray

and I wanted to shatter his

3-D glasses,

but he was gone,

probably watching the crappy 2005 version

with Paris Hilton

failing at acting

in such vivid

detail.

Ron Riekki has been awarded a 2016 Shenandoah Fiction Prize, 2016 IPPY Award, 2019 Red Rock Film Fest Award, 2019 Best of the Net finalist, 2019 Très Court International Film Festival Audience Award and Grand Prix, 2020 Dracula Film Festival Vladutz Trophy, 2020 Rhysling Anthology inclusion, and 2022 Pushcart Prize.  Right now, Riekki's listening to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' "Technically, Missing" from the Gone Girl film score.

Mixing By Robert Thomas

The shaker top is twisted away

Metallic foreshadowing whirl

The shaker was lifted

With mock deliberation

From a rank of shakers

Polymorphous and slick

Give me cold!

From its dark frozen nest

I dig out a flask

Of thick freezing gin

Wrench it right out

Admire its patina

That it grew while it nested

That numbs the fingers

Now to move quickly -

A handful of cubes

Plucked from the bucket

A neat retro ice bucket

Insouciantly tumbled 

That distinctive sharp cackle

Into the shaker

The awaiting shaker

Followed close on

From a right-proper jigger

By four parts of gin

Thick freezing elixir

Two halves of a lemon 

Compressed with numb fingers

Two parts of Vermouth

Cold French dry Vermouth

Two parts of Cacao

White and not dark

Seal the shaker

And abuse the air

In confident rigour

With ice-cracking metal

Ice tumbling and crashing 

That back-and-forth smashing -

The shaker then forming

Its own cold patina

Give me cold!

My darling nearby

Thirsty and waiting

I twist off the cap

Fill two frozen glasses

Shake out the last drop

Make a thin flow of ice

Herbal

Fruity

Sweet

Sour

Rich

Cold

Numbing

Gone

... shall I mix another?

Robert Thomas writes poetry and short stories and is currently working on an alternative history novel. His poetry has appeared in Paper Plates, Autumn Sky Poetry, Witcraft, Panoply and The River, and his fiction in The Mythic Circle, Dark Horses and Fabula Argentea. He also likes camping and canoeing and cooking. His published works can be found at robertthomasauthor.com.

Reunion By Mike Casetta

A treasured friend

since our high school days,

back when Vietnam  

was percolating

& a draft

was coming

& civil rights

was brutally unfolding

& great men

were being assassinated

& rock & roll

was exploding

& alcohol flowed

like crazy medicine

& many doors

of perception

were opening

& God was free

from the constraints

of all religions,

 

is arriving today

on a shuttle bus

from the airport,

a 90-minute ride up

the mountain.

I am grateful

not having to drive

into the big shitty

in the valley

to go get him.

I’m excited. We

regale exceedingly

well together.

I have one book of poetry titled, The Certainty of Looking Elsewhere & many poems published in many small presses over many years! . 

THE ENCOUNTER By Michael Minassian

A woman sits next to me

at the bar, and glances

at my pint of ale.

I hear her say, the same, 

then I turn to her

to say good choice.

But she points to the clock,

you have 30 seconds to recognize me.

Running through several scenarios

from my past, I wonder 

if I slept with her,

or brushed up against her poetry.

One-night stands less embarrassing

than workshop frictions,

collaborative writing,

or open readings.

When I glance in the mirror,

the woman is gone,

her empty glass on the bar.

I never find out who she is.

My past crowded with characters

in the topography of memory,

uncertain landscapes

that belong to someone else.

MICHAEL MINASSIAN is a Contributing Editor for Verse-Virtual, an online poetry journal. His poetry collections Time is Not a River, Morning Calm, A Matter of Timing and Jack Pays a Visit, are all available on Amazon. His collection 1000 Pieces of Time was released October, 2025 by Sheila-Na-Gig, Inc. For more information: https://michaelminassian.com