A Certain Kind of Woman By Connie Johnson

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

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

The Bottle at the Back of the Bar by Shannon O’Connor

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.

Shannon O'Connor holds an MFA in Writing and Literature from Bennington College. She has been previously published in The Rye Whiskey Review, as well as Wordgathering, Oddball Magazine, and Alien Buddha Press. She lives and writes in the Boston area, and has been known to dress in costumes when it is not Halloween.

Zombie Night Thomas L. Vaultonburg

On Tuesdays

we showed zombie movies

in a bar by the river.

 

Two hundred and fifty people

sometimes came to watch

the dead refuse

to stay dead.

 

The living were less reliable.

 

They promised to pay tabs,

start bands,

leave their spouses,

get clean,

come back next week.

 

Some did.

 

A roller derby league

began in the ladies' room.

 

I don't know if that's

what you'd call a miracle.

 

But I've been to churches

where less happened.

Thomas L. Vaultonburg is a poet, novelist, and publisher from Rockford, Illinois. He founded Zombie Logic Press and co-founded Wolf Twin Books. His books include Submerged Structure, Flesh Wounds, and Vanished Roads (2026).

SHE SAID By Mike Zone

She said

“I love it 

when you drink

you son of a bitch”

Lifting sundress

Over her head

My grandfather’s starter pistol in my mouth

We don’t remember cotton fields 

But can imagine endless groves of poppies

Whiskey and gasoline out our pores

Strike a match during sex

Bullet kisses

Stardust blasted skin

Moonscape delight

Until morning

She was a witch

I was a stone mason

Foundations & curses

In ancient times

From mud huts to skyscrapers 

Voices from the Fire among pre-Cambrian trees

Molecules entwined across the universe 

In this shirt

Smelling her sundress

grandfather’s starter pistol in mouth

Towards the end of existence 

Interstellar monk

Upon the floating cathedral garden

Climbs upon her

Tree of life

Golden flowers blooming

Desolate nirvana

“I love it  when you drink 

you son of a bitch”

Broken ego

Bourbon bottles

On the bathroom floor

Rainbow glass 

Center

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.

No Rounds By Chad Parenteau,

My body’s a 

Shirley Temple

doomed to 

glacial fade.

I’ll be the guy

at bar’s back

who stays 

far too long

not one night

but over years.

Watch you

all drop off,

turn mirror

on me last,

dead by self-

inflicted boredom.

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.

The Chukker By Bob Humphrey

it was my second home

the clientele diverse

artists, college professors, bikers

gays, hippies, Nam vets, misfits

they called it the Chukker

and the unspoken theme was acceptance

art covered the walls and ceiling

live music as diverse as the crowd

local bands and big names too

Widespread Panic, Sun-Ra

Gatemouth Brown, Johnny Shines

behind it all was a base of patrons

who were there night after night

and became known as the Chukker Nation

but nothing stays the same

people die and energy moves on

and a bar has a life and death too

just a sidewalk and grass 

in that space now

but magic was alive there once

and then like magic

it was gone

Bob Humphrey is a retired accountant, farmer and poet who lives in rural Alabama with his wife and three dogs. Previous poems by him have appeared in Beatnik Cowboy and Sacred Chicken.

His Indestructible Human Spirit By Philip Gaber

He wanted to know what I did in my spare time. I told him I did a little writing here and there. 

Books & Literature

“So you drink much or…?” he said.

“Do I drink much?”

“I know a lotta writers’ drink. I was just curious.”

“I mean, occasionally.”

“Nothin’ like Hemingway, though, right? He was a drinker. Believed life was a tragedy and knew it could only have one end.”

“That’s right.”

“Had high cholesterol and high blood pressure and an aorta inflammation.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Mm-hmm. Died July 2, 1961, at 5 AM from a self-inflicted gunshot blast to the head. You’re not that conflicted, are ya?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Ya think the more conflicted a writer is, the more talented they are, or…?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Ya think mental illness diminishes or enhances a writer’s ability?"

“I have no way of even…”

“Yeah, I do a little writing myself.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Just some poetry you know, short stories, nothin’ major. Working on a screenplay about Walt Whitman. I’m totally into Shakespeare. I mean, if you gotta have a writer as a role model, ya know what I mean? Like he frames everything I write and how I live my life. Like whenever I’m describing a character, tryna get it right, in my mind, I’m linkin’ them to, like Iago or Hamlet or Ophelia or Macbeth or Lear, you know, it helps me to structure my own characters…’ course, Shakespeare stole many of his plots from the Greeks. Or was it, Christopher Marlowe? Marlowe was killed in a tavern brawl on May 30, 1593.” 

“Really…”

“Yeah. Hamlet was an interesting character. I essentially agree with him when he says, you know, that basically, life’s a piece of shit ’cause there are so many assholes out there makin’ it so fucken unbearable for us, so what’s the point? And I suppose many people would say his saving grace is that he doesn’t off himself…’cause he says, what does he say? ‘Something after death’ could be worse? Somethin’ like that? Anyway, I dunno; who knows? Whatever, right?”

“Mm, interesting…”

“Yeah. Well, very cool. always good to run into a fellow scribe…” He checked his watch. “Yo, I’m late for my shock therapy session. Lots of things goin’ on with me emotionally. Workin through ‘em though, with the help of my savior, yo,” and he gave a thumbs up.

“That’s good news for you,” I said.

“It is. Definitely, God is good. But ya know what I’ve learned?”

“What’s that?”

“A lot of defining moments that build or break your character happen in the blink of an eye,” and he let that one hang in the air for a while. “Well, good luck, man, keep writing. You know, sometimes it’s all we have…” 

He walked away, whistling.

I walked away, unable to blink my eyes.

Philip Gaber is an American writer based in Charlotte, North Carolina. He is the author of Between Eden and the Open Road (2012), Epic Sloth: Tales of the Long Crawl (2013), and the novel Jonny Zero (2026). His work explores alienation, work, humor, and the absurdities of ordinary life.