Roses & Cognac By John Patrick Robbins

It was in 1949 on January 19th that the infamous Poe toaster visited Westminster Hall and Burying Ground.

To leave a bottle of cognac and three red roses upon Poe's grave.

In this silent homage, to a man whose words have now turned to legend, and whose suffering was the greatest example to be elite, you will be alone.

As art is the coldest mistress that exists.

It's a fitting Gothic scene, that mysterious man in blacks appearance and beautiful tribute.

 

As any writer can only hope to exist eternally with the hearts of strangers, as we largely die within obscurity.

A grave stands mere paces from the bar where he embraced a final drink.

In a morbid sense of dark comedy titled The Last Stop.

Was it fate you shall remain tethered to the mystery of the Macabre, or the sadness in knowing the brilliance you displayed was mired in tragedy?

 

As you rest in a city that extinguished your flame to spur a legend of whispered rumors and total strangers to honor your memory.

As your greatest critics lies only served to build to the brilliance that never was intended to be exploited by merchants all using your likeness to sell trinkets.

 

As you died penniless, as it's said upon your deathbed, when asked, did he have any friends he would like to visit him, he said.

"His best friend would be whomever would blow out his brains with a pistol."

And as I read that quote many miles in a former residence in Richmond, Virginia, within a cramped little room which also held a bottle of cognac from your toaster, I felt only pain, as others merely saw this as a tourist attraction.

Roses and cognac sit now under glass in a home where a legend once stood unappreciated, a fellow editor, a kindred spirit.

Art is a cold mistress indeed.

I stayed there till closing out of respect and maybe out of a shared realization and deeply connected pain.

The bottle's fire holds my passion as great pages hold a spark, those lines shall reverberate endlessly through the fabric of time, as the mysterious stranger and I have much in common, we are merely honored to share a shadow.

Blessed be the nightmares of wings unto a midnight's ritual.

You hold the hope, casting light.

The pages, if that ink is sacrificed to mix with blood.

May just somehow outlive the temporary pain of our existence.

John Patrick Robbins is a Southern Gothic writer his work has appeared in Fixator Press, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Horror Sleaze Trash, The Dope Fiend Daily, Piker Press and Disturb The Universe.

His work is often dark and always unfiltered.

Low Tide Jazz By Joe Garvey

The harbor is a smoky room tonight.

Chains knock

against rusted hulls.

A buoy rings once

out past the fog.

The tide slides down the scale

like a tired sax man

leaving the stage.

Rusty boats lean into the pilings

like bassists into the wood.

The wind sharpens a reed

against the jagged edge of the pier.

The water pulls back slowly

revealing black mud

and the smell of things forgotten.

Salt is the only witness.

It records every debt

in the grain of the docks.

It keeps the score.

Down in the gut of a trawler

an engine cools

with a patient metallic click.

A drummer packing his kit.

One radio whispers through static

inside a bait shack.

A dog shifts

in the bed of a truck.

Diesel breath.

Cold coffee.

Then the men come.

They do not talk.

They exhale

ghosts of diesel

and cheap burnt bean.

The water offers nothing.

It waits

like a stone faced bouncer

for the room to empty.

They climb the hill

one heavy beat at a time.

And when they reach the porch lights

they carry the rhythm with them

deep in the grit

of their boots.

Joe Garvey is an American poet from Worcester, Massachusetts who lives in Narragansett, Rhode Island. A former linebacker at Hofstra University and later an actor in film and television, he writes about labor, salt air, endurance, and the quiet machinery of modern life. His work has appeared in Expat Press, Mad Swirl, Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature, and The Rye Whiskey Review. His writing can also be found at https://poetking.substack.com

Every Time at This One Poetry Reading By Chad Parenteau

A woman still

wearing corsets,

drinking wine 

from a goblet,

takes up time

on the mic 

to say I’ve 

never been shit.

She mumbles

in her cup 

while I’m 

halfway home

telling myself

that was not 

about me and

nothing ever 

will ever be

ever again. 

Chad Parenteau hosts Boston’s Stone Soup Poetry series. His work has appeared in 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 Oddball Magazine and co-organizer of the annual Boston Poetry Marathon. He lives in Boston.

Skulls In Winter by Susan Isla Tepper

The stop and start and bend

each corrosive twilight

 

People in this place

are inclined to forgive:

Skulls from stray dogs and

foxes unearthed 

make for good ashtrays and

catchy conversation

on the bars and table tops

 

Where people drink ‘til their eyes

roll back in their skull.

 

My father, who liked his pint

or three used to remark 

about the beauty in the upward climb

on the road back to my house

after an evening.

 

Gone now, I drive it alone—

 

The low mountain gazing down

brownish in the street lamps

seems abandoned 

to the hawkish winter.

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

This Heart of Mine By Don Monaghan

Chrissy, I can't explain why, 

I mean I've over-heard the talk;  

saw you dancing to the Black Keys’

"Tighten Up" the other evening,  

I know the merry-go-round has spun 

too fast a time or two for both 

of us, but before last night  

I would have said a skittish heart, 

like anything fragile, 

is too mindful, too highly attuned 

to be snared, it's why tigers

succeed only once in twenty hunts

—the wary are that quick— 

But there's still the one time, right? 

I mean this heart of mine 

acts like last night's kiss is the only watering hole 

left on a sun hardened African plain, 

I'm dancing around here like a marooned mariner 

back on mainland after years with only 

a tattered picture to remind of good times,  

if you phone this evening and my caller tune 

has suddenly changed to "Wild Thing"

or I answer singing "Girls Like You" 

I'm okay; don't go worrying I've gone 

loco, I'm feeling in tune with the world,

it's twenty two degrees outside, snow is falling 

four inches an hour, but I'm clam happy, 

like this morning when I heard the weather 

man joke how if we could only see beyond 

the clouds the sun and sky would be 

the most beautiful yellow and blue.

Who knew, Chrissy. Who knew.

Don Monaghan has been published in The Boston Literary Magazine and The Ravens Perch. He resides in Upstate NY.

Warming Up to the Task By Ken Gierke

A 30-foot wood ladder, solid

and heavy, braced against the house

waiting for paint. Not the siding.

Asphalt shingles can last for years.

fortunately. The window frames

of a two-and-a-half story house.

Windows done, Grampa yells up,

Come on down for lunch!

And inside for baloney sandwiches

in his second-floor apartment.

I always rent out the downstairs.

Who wants to live up here, where it’s hot?

Before I can take my first bite, 

he tells me I should have a beer,

then opens the door to his attic.

He keeps his Schmidt’s on the stairs.

Two sandwiches and Have another beer!

later, I’m back under the hot summer sun.

Painting the attic vent first, I then shift to

a lower point, if twenty-two feet up is low,

and start on the eaves and fascia, working

my way to the peak at 32 feet. Two warm beers

in thirty minutes on a hot summer’s day,

with a ninety-year-old man holding the ladder.

What could possibly go wrong? With a slight wobble

in the ladder and sweat pouring off of me, I slap

that oil base on like there’s no tomorrow,

scoot down the ladder, lower its extension, and lug it

to the garage as he says, Do the front tomorrow?

I think I’ll stick to water for that side.

Ken Gierke is retired and lives in Missouri. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming both in print and online in such places as The Rye Whiskey Review, Poetry Breakfast, Amethyst Review, Silver Birch Press, Rusty Truck, Trailer Park Quarterly, The Gasconade Review, and River Dog Zine. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and his poetry collections, Glass Awash in 2022, Heron Spirit in 2024, and Random Riffs in 2025, have been published by Spartan Press. His website: https://rivrvlogr.com/

Let Me Help You with That Headache By Theresa Rogers

   

For Betty 

  

The Advil’s in my bag, well it was before and so it must be now and – oh, loose mints!  

“curiously strong" ones in a red-trimmed tin. Trying to be old school. Cheers! 

Thanks for meeting up with me again. It’s been a while… So here’s my expired passport. 

Why is that still here? Reminds me of when we drank mojitos at the Hemingway bar 

in Old Havana. Pure sugar-rum. (No, I won’t give away our secret when your husband 

shows up). But remember sitting on the black wooden stools and all those young men

offering to take us dancing after hours at the Salseando Chevere and then marry us, 

por fa-VOR? Oh, he’s coming now? —still can’t find those pills. Anyway, we declined 

and went back to the Hotel Tejadillo bar together. Alone, of course. I mean just us.  

Oops, hardly need these anymore. Huh, an old mirror. Remember that party 

when we rolled up bills and sniffed that powder right—I should just give up.  

Except you still have that headache….Oh you’re leaving so soon? One more? 

Theresa Rogers is a Vancouver-based poet and teacher originally from the U.S. Her work has appeared in the Cape Cod Review, English Bay Review, Uppagus, Cape Cod Times poetry page, Cathexis Northwest Press, Sheila-Na-Gig and other venues. Her first book of poems, Fragments and found things, will soon be published by Kelsay Books, 2025.