We're the Ezine dedicated to all things barroom. We are slightly off what others consider the norm and always the last to close the bar. If you prefer the local dive bar to the glitz of some overpriced club then you're our kind of people. So welcome grab a drink and enjoy.
Sunday, July 31, 2022
A Meaningful Relationship by Colin Deal
Saturday, July 30, 2022
The side road of somewhere by Emalisa Rose
Friday, July 29, 2022
Beer Laced with Hallucinogens by Mark James Andrews
Thursday, July 28, 2022
CEMETERY OF LONGSHOTS by Michael N. Thompson
Wednesday, July 27, 2022
Southern Latitudes by Jake St. John
Tuesday, July 26, 2022
Mason the Dwarf by Brenton Booth
for the first time at the
bar and told me he had
found God, Mason the
dwarf rushed across
the room to us. "The
Devil made me!" he
yelled at Bill finishing
his full glass of vodka
with a single angry gulp.
Mason was a regular.
Always sat alone,
drinking vodka. Waiting
at the door every morning
when we opened. Moving
his tiny legs as fast as he
could to get to the bar
and order his first drink.
He never spoke. Just
drank. Sitting in the same
spot at the end of the bar.
At closing time every
night I'd have to carry
him out, leaving him on
the bench outside. "Will
you be OK here Mason?"
I'd say. "GET THE HELL
AWAY FROM ME!" he'd
scream. He constantly
played the same song on
the jukebox, Mariah
Carey's "All I Want for
Christmas is You." When
he got really drunk, he'd
play it again and again.
Tapping along with his
tiny hands and feet: until
everyone but him was
sick of hearing it.
Sunday, July 24, 2022
PITTSBURGH POEM by Dan O’Connell
Benigno Numine (official motto of The City of Pittsburgh)
For some reason my girlfriend’s writers conference
is in pittsburgh this year, so, with google map result
for bars of pittsburgh printed out, I walk
trying to get a feel for this erstwhile iron town
on my first of five hotel days’ free
beginning downtown at The Yard, a brick-walled
‘burgher’ and sports bar of no interest. I have 2 pints
and cross the fort pitt bridge and prized confluence
to scour the southside’s famous strip of saloons
on carson street named for an inurned environmentalist,
but am disappointed with Urban Tap’s weak well drinks and
clientele of mere kids dressed like kindergarteners,
and Jack’s, Foxtail and The Flats because they’re not open yet
though its already noon
Soon discovery a dr. mcgillicuddy’s chalk sign
outside an unnamed establishment and find,
after my eyes adjust to the dark, empty red leather booths
with black ashtrays sliced for smokes – you know the kind –
and a jukebox next to a cigarette machine like a time-warp
and a bar as long as I’ve ever seen, two veteran drunks
discussing american presidents from johnson on:
“asshole” “yup”
“asshole” “indeed”
“asshole” “yes sir”
“asshole” “that’s right”
“asshole” “big one”
“asshole” “CIA asshole”
“asshole” “a-hole”
“asshole” “asshole sonny boy”
“asshole” “asshole got no color”
“asshole” “traitor asshole”
“asshole” “stinky old asshole”
I have 3 sutter chardonnays and take the bartender’s directions
to the blue bridge, make a left at the county jail,
stay on the boulevard of allies which will lead to The Eagle,
a fried chicken place with local brews I should try
Sounds easy, but after turning at the landmark (newly released inmate
asleep on the lawn) I get lost navigating detours around
the destruction site of a defunct shopping mall, wind up traversing
andy warhol bridge, take in the revitalized allegany river
once clogged with coal boats, drop a hundred bucks
for steak-on-a-stone and 4 penn hazy’s at Northshore Tavern
in the five o’clock shadow of heinz stadium
then, staggering now, make my way over saint roberto clemente bridge
back toward downtown and destination Rebel Bar
where along the way I trip on one of pittsburgh’s high curbs,
scrape my palms bloody on broken glass, getting a feel for the city
Saturday, July 23, 2022
Friday, July 22, 2022
Cribbage by Keith Pearson
The lights went out about nine so they lit two ancient hurricane lamps and played cribbage by the flickering light, a penny a point and double for skunks. Howard broke out a jar of his orchard cider and they drank as they played and the storm raged outside, lightning across the black sky, water churning against the dock. Tom let the old man cheat yet still had him, up thirteen cents and pegging, when one of the lamps ran dry and went dark, leaving barely enough light to see the board. Howard grinned and said Be easier to whip ya in the dark but when he reached for his peg the other lamp blew out and now there was only a faint dancing glimmer from a candle on the kitchen counter. Tom watched the old man hold his hand over the board, watched the subtle shake there. Then Howard pulled his hands into his lap and slumped back into his old leather chair. Tom watched his chest rise and fall though he could not hear his breathing over the storm outside. Then Howard took a deep breath and leaned forward and held his grizzled face in his weathered hands and began to talk.
I might a told ya this cribbage board come from my old man, that it was somethin he carved down east before he come here in the thirties. if I told you that it was a lie. Never told anyone and only Bert Neely knew how it come to me and that only cause he was there and knew the fella I got it from and how I come to have it, and I’m thinkin the story died with him when he passed last spring. Some day I hope it’ll be yours, and you need to know where it come from, the truth, not some story I made up. This was in Korea in 1953 near the end of that war and I remember thinkin bout nuthin but livin to get home to my mother and bein more scared every day that last bullet would find me, and if Bert was here he’d tell you he felt the same way, cause its all we ever talked about as a way to keep sane, jokin how it’d be just our luck to get shot in the back on our way out. well, we were assigned to help a bunch of Canadian soldiers, young kids the U.N. thought should be there, and they were more scared than us. Bert and I were barely in twenty and they thought we were old timers, hard as nails vets. Couldn’t a been anything further from the truth, but these kids from Canada didn’t know that, and didn’t need to know it either. They’d a followed Bert and I into hell, and one night they did. We got orders to support a mission to secure another hill near Old Baldy that we’d been up n down a hundred times, and I still couldn’t tell you why, but one more time we geared up and set out, a March night cold as that water out there, snow in the air, ground half frozen, half mud. We were supposed ta be rear support but the Commies had circled behind us and cut us off. They could walk across that frozen ground without a peep while ya could hear our fat feet crunchin in them old boots a mile away. Then a flare go up, and the shit let loose from there. Those Canadian boys never knew what hit em, frozen out there in that flare light, and we tellin em to take cover and they just stood frozen and the Commies cut em down like reeds under a scythe. Bert and I were in the trees by then and we dragged in the kids we could, but most of em were dead fore they hit the snow and those still breathin were chopped up good. Then as quick as they come those fellas slipped away into the night and we were there pissin ourselves and nuthin but dead and dyin Canadian boys. There was this young fella smooth faced as a kid and we’d pulled him into the trees but he was shot in the chest and the gut and bleedin out quick.This kid grabs my sleeve and pulls his kit across his body, his chest all torn up, and pushed the kit into my hands and then he died. I had lost my gloves in the excitement and my fingers were so cold I couldn’t feel shit but I tucked that bag into my pack, and don’t ya now when we got back and thawed out and stopped shakin I opened that kit and inside was this cribbage board. It was a long time after I come home I could look at it, then one day when Bert was over I brought it out and we played a game or two in that kid’s honor, and after that played most every Saturday night that way and never mentionin where it come from for almost sixty years. But I know every time Bert looked at that board he saw that kid all shot up and dyin, and how we were the lucky bastards and didn’t have no more right to be than them Canadians, but somehow we did, and remembered that luck and good grace every Saturday night, and a few nights in between. I never thought I’d tell anyone, not even Martha, bless her I told her enough we ain’t spoken of since, but you got a right to know. Some day I’ll be gone and you’ll be layin out this cribbage board with a drink or two and playin with your kids or a buddy, I want you to raise that glass to me and ta Bert and to that Canadian kid I never knew cept his initials same as my father’s carved into the backside a that board.
And that was when the power licked back on. We put away our glasses and the hurricane lamps and blew out the candle in the kitchen and Howard put up the board. He went off to bed and I sat the rest of the night listening to the water slapping the dock and when the storm finally moved out I watched the moon in the clearing sky and the dawn creep into the new day and heard Howard snoring in the back bedroom, and thought how blessed I was. I don’t need to tell you Howard died some months later and I never saw that cribbage board again, have no idea what became of it, and never had the courage to ask Martha about it. But now you know, even if this isn’t that board, and I think it’s your turn. Hold on. Let me get us another drink before we play.
Thursday, July 21, 2022
The Process of Moving By Cord Moreski
It’s as if the universe
needs to sacrifice something
during the process of moving
in order to transition
and to begin new again
it could be as little
as a few coffee mugs breaking
or a vinyl record
cracking at the bottom
of a cardboard box
or it could be as big
as a diamond ring
washing down
a sink drain
or a family heirloom
shattering by the side
of a U-Haul.
This evening
it’s just the pieces
of this moment
this final glance
at the sunset splashing
into my bare living room
before I finally trudge
to the front door
with the last box
in my hands
then back out
into the world
to begin new again.
Wednesday, July 20, 2022
That Time I Took Off the Rose-Colored Glasses By Skaja Evens
You told me that you fall in love
With anyone who shows you kindness
I did
Yet you didn’t fall in love with me
I wondered why, for awhile
And now, some time later
I can say I am glad you didn’t
Whether you realized I deserved better than you could offer, I can’t say
But I am glad I didn’t become enmeshed
We’d never be good together as a couple
We barely were as lovers
Though you did remind me that I can’t settle
For half-assed groping
And half-realized orgasms
My apologies for sounding harsh
Though I’m not really sorry
I didn’t sign up to watch your
self-destruction
Skaja Evens is a writer and artist living in Southeast Virginia. She runs It Takes All Kinds, a litzine published by Mōtus Audāx Press. She’s also been published with Spillwords Press and The Dope Fiend Daily. She can often be found listening to music, considering the impossible, and enjoying her cats’ antics.
Tuesday, July 19, 2022
John L Bar By John Harold Olson
Monday, July 18, 2022
ABSTRACTIONS by Susan Isla Tepper
Sunday, July 17, 2022
Saint Elmo's Fire By C.S. Mathews
that dance across the bows of ships
in tempestuous storms
casting ghost light on the damned
as men frantically fight to right a sinking vessel
to survive
Saint Elmo’s fire
is also the name of a song
that plays in victory
though so many ships failed
crews died
beneath these ghost lights
am I alive
when, in early light,
I see spectral orbs dance about me
is it in my eyes
the halo that forms around me
perhaps a distortion of the very air
and in closing my eyes
I see it imprinted there
on the inside on my lids
pulsing
rhythmic in its absolution.
and I often wonder if I can hear it
a soft hum of particles excited into motion
or if I'm merely breathing
I often can't tell If I breathe
if air exists
is it all just in my mind
if I still myself long enough
resist the urge to inhale
the ghost lights appear
growing strong with every second
until my vision is filled with light
and darkness
it's beautiful
are there realities beyond this
were the spectral flames but guides
that called sailors into night
bright with stars
as water replaces air
if air was ever there
until they saw true beauty
why won't my body let me go there
Do I need a flaming guide
to reach the other side?
would drowning do?
there has to be something better than this
A Spiders Web By Mary Bone
Purple was the color of an intricate web, perfectly embroidered. A talented spider worked all morning hoping to inject venom Into a helple...
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near the on-ramp of I-10 in Crowley, Louisiana we unload our band equipment into the back of Gozzlebeck’s not the real name of the bar but a...
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Diamond hair Bathe in bourbon and butter You are my Sunday prayer You are everything You are all You are life Rita S. Spalding has had poem...
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there is a woman who is sometimes at my local café sitting outside with a glass of white wine and that’s not too unusual but i always notice...