The Bad Barkeep by Ken Gosse

Angrily
berating
customers’
decisions;
expelling
formerly
garrulous
high-paying
inebriates;
jealously,
knowingly,
laughingly
mentioning
neurotic
offenses;
provoking
quarrelsome
reactions;
senselessly
tenacious;
unyielding,
virulent
wantonness.
X: Crossed off.
You’re So fired!
Zapped, sapped, scrapped!

Ken Gosse usually writes light, rhymed verse with whimsy and humor. Sometimes it’s darker. He was first published in First Literary Review-East in 2016, and since then by Pure Slush, Spillwords, Lothlorien Review, and others. Raised in the Chicago suburbs, now retired, he and his wife have lived in Mesa, AZ, over twenty years with rescue dogs and cats underfoot.