At Charmaine’s Pool Table By Isabelle Bohl

in the house built by her father’s own hands,

Chris tells us he’s played there since he was 17,

before he catapulted past a windshield,

before the coma.

He stutters first, but soon

words flow smooth

as moonshine from jars

and the two players start taking aim, talking trash.

Watch this and sheeits

fly when he sets sweet line-ups,

sinking solids with an eye

on who’s calling the shots. My friend

looks out for this neighbor,

even when he’s fixing to rile her

Sweet Lord with coarseness.

Nah, that’s not your shot, and I told you so’s

rewind time.

We don’t know when we are.

Wannanother ass whoopin’?

The game’s real with chance brotherhood

no one wants to end. The jigger

I poured him after a first beer for DTs

stands full.

Hey, I’m just saying, man

And Charmaine—

delighted her father still gathers people

in his basement years after he’s been gone—

leans to me and whispers,

“See, everyone is everything.”

Isabelle Bohl is a retired teacher who lives with her husband in the Northern Adirondacks of New York State. So far, her poems have appeared in Quartet Journal and the anthology Voices (2024).

Alone to the Alone By Alex S. Johnson

For Kari Lee Krome 

Life can and 

will 

snap your 

heart like a

dry pine

Bough.

The rainbow sweeps its

rippling 

wings above

the ribcage of

form

It feels insane sometimes. Not 

trusting, not 

daring to

Trust.

The robes of whore death

rustle 

the Pope has spoken his 

sonorous 

mouth detached like a 

furry saucer from the

teacup.

Merrit Oppenheim I am 

ready for my 15 seconds

of

absurd 

fame. 

Marcel Duchamp I am breathing hard.

My ironic fossil dive bombs

off a 

Cliff of

roses.

Sister, I stand 

next to 

you in

silence.

As we walk 

the pathways

As our hands flower into

blasts of 

stars

As birds like grace 

notes

render themselves

music. 

It's more quiet now than

I recall.

There's a softness that

divides this

sorrow like

A mysterious Nancy Drew

passageway through

The library 

Archive of new beginnings.

Echo the cheering section 

Echo the soft and

rapturous 

communion.

Time sits comfortably on

a stoop 

Swigging a bottle of angels. 

Alex S. Johnson is a retired English instructor, disability rights activist, author, editor and publisher (Nocturnicorn Books). He is known for his highly unusual poetry style which combines influences from Dada and Surrealism to hip hop, black metal, industrial noise, T.S. Eliot, Walt Whitman and Rimbaud. His books include the acclaimed collection The Death Jazz, Bureau of Dreams, The Doom Hippies and Bizarrely Departed. His work has appeared in such venues as Horror Sleaze Trash, Black Noise, Bizarro Central and Cease, Cows. His upcoming books include The Junk Merchants 2: A Literary Tribute to William S. Burroughs, featuring a roster of luminaries including Poppy Z. Brite, Caitlin Kiernan, John Shirley and the co-founder of the iconic Goth rock band Bauhaus, David J. Haskins. Johnson ilves in Sacramento, California with his family. 

Double Tap By Michael E. Duckwall

 Sick smile, angry eyes. A bloody machete

in the skull of another who's no longer alive.

Undead friends are the hardest to kill. Still

I can't take names, I can't refrain, I might be insane.

These undead family, friends and enemies.

All of them are out to get me! My machete drips

crimson red. The infected, undead now dead

walking this earth no longer. My eyes won't unsee

what they've now seen. My smile is no more

I am still angry. I guess I need another drink

to forget this ever happened. Then the judge

drops the gavel and the jury doesn't think

insanity fits the bill. Locked away, because the dead

came to life and I had to kill, t’was an adrenaline thrill.

Crimson red from toe to head

double taps for good measure. 

Michael E. Duckwall was born and raised in the Ohio Valley. He was a featured poet at the 10th and final Gonzofest in Louisville Ky. Michael’s first chapbook of poetry "The Ramblings of a Recovering Poet" was published by Pure Sleeze Press last July and recently had an illustrated chapbook “7.2 SkullQuake” published by Cajun Mutt Press. He also had his work included in a limited edition handmade chapbook “Kraken Nuts” co-authored with Chad M. Horn. Michael has had his poetry, artwork and photography in a handful of magazines and anthologies, along with numerous online features.

The Bear by Keith Pearson

Bear held court Sunday mornings

At the end of the bar

The best restaurant in town.

The only restaurant in town.

The Sunday paper spread out on the bar

Empty mimosa glasses

And a plate of Canadian bacon

The bartender keeping both coming.

‘Papa P!’ he’d bellow ‘pull up a chair!’

To the chagrin of the few bluehairs in town

Having brunch instead of church.

And he’d pick my brain about

Movies Music Politics

Drugs

My daughter

My wanderings

Until it was time for me

To go.

Happened every time I came to town.

I didn’t know his name was

Paul

Until he was dead.

In a dream he asked

‘Please keep my chair swept clean.’

The bartender keeps that stool empty

Every Sunday.

-          For Jake Hemming

keith pearson was born and raised in new hampshire and works at a local high school in the math department.

The Coward By Jay Passer

I got a coffee at the WeHo Starbucks 

You know the one right by the cusp of Beverly Hills?

took a complimentary shit in their bathroom

(the code is 98765 in case you’re wondering)

But there was nowhere to sit down

besides the music playing inside being annoying as fuck,

outside a hobo’s smoking nasty-ass smelling re-rolled generic cigarettes 

with my leg acting up a chair would be nice

to sit down and whatever,

enjoy my coffee? Isn’t that a thing?

On the sidewalk by the Pavilion’s parking lot I stood by a pillar

contemplating the sheer insignificance of reality 

when an enormous butterfly flitting about the blossoms of a canopy of purple bougainvillea 

caught my eye

Yellow tiger-striped, awkwardly fragile

I stepped closer for a closer look at

something real or straight from a brought to you by this or that’s conglomerate documentary 

But not unlike the fluttery critter’s life My experience was cut short

by some multimillionaire driving a brand-new Bentley

demanding the parking space 

where I was standing

I wanted just then quite badly

to hurl the scalding coffee in his face

it would’ve brought me joy,

sociopath bliss perhaps

But instead 

I walked away

avoiding jail for yet another day

The poetry and prose of Jay Passer has appeared in print and online periodicals, magazines and anthologies, in subterranean basements and men's room stalls, cave walls and space shuttles, since 1988. He is the author of 15 collections of words, symbols, diatribes, missives, isms, schisms, rain drizzles and blood fizzles. A cook by trade, he's also dabbled in daubs, photo-montage, reverse Feng shui; while failing at mortician's apprentice, news butcher, and criminal savant. Passer's most recent chap, Son of Alcatraz, was released in February of 2024 from Alien Buddha Press, and is available on Amazon.

A Toast To Lust By Rita S. Spalding

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 poems published in numerous anthologies and magazines. Her first book, Abstract Ribbons, was published in 1992. A second book, The Eighth, is currently at a publisher. She has received awards for poetry from Jefferson Community and Technical College, Elizabethtown Community College, National Library of Poetry, Kentucky Monthly Magazine and the Kentucky State Poetry Society. In 2024 she was a presenter at the Kentucky Writers Celebration in Danville and Historic Penn’s General Store, the Last Insomniacathon and she gives poetry readings regionally on a regular basis.  

After The Bar By Cate Davis

Remember how we staggered then found our rhythm? Down the empty road the only sound our mud-caked soles scraping the pavement and the occasional flare of your cigarette. 

Your puffs were always more deliberate than mine. I thought you were trying to make a point about the serious/unseriousness nature of life. 

But still, we leaned into each other just like…best friends. 

To bed with us! All sheeted and dry thanks to me. We washed down the night with stale chocolate and flat beer. We shed our boots like corsets. We undid the other’s buttons one by one like it was just a favour. 

You passed out in ten but I couldn’t sleep so I crossed the creaking floors with impunity to the kitchen to fry some eggs to beat off my hangover just as the sun came up over the field. 

The sun sang an aria while the birds gossiped and the dandelions wept with dew. 

But I was the only one who knew. 

Cate Davis lives in Toronto where she drifts between writing and far easier activities but always ends up back at the keyboard. Cate's poems can be found in the Poetry Super Highway, Red Eft Review and Black Moon Magazine (forthcoming).

uniform of seduction By Chris Dean

Uniform of seduction,

face painted to disguise.

Encased in the armor of illusion,

you see exactly what you get.

Nothing of my heart.

Nothing of my soul.

Nothing of the mind

that is mine and mine alone.

The curl of lips too cold for truth,

the touch of hands too hungry to hold.

I'm not looking for forever

or some sweet future with you,

only for forgetfulness

in the small deaths

that linger until night fades

into the morning’s light.

Chris Dean is a storyteller, spoken word artist and self-proclaimed Magpie Poet who writes from the heart of Indiana where they live with their husband, dog and too many cats to mention. 

Their work has been featured online, in multiple print anthologies and they are the author of two books of poetry, Tales From a Broken Girl and We're All Stories in the End, published by Storeylines Press. 

As The Old Crone Weaves Her Web By April Ridge

Those late nights that echo back,

they don’t give the same song

as was sung the night before.

I can’t recall the words anyway.

Lost upon a long-gone wind,

the lyrics, silver spun into the hems of

the being I’ve become

that has calmly moved on 

from the wasted nights,

the excruciatingly bright mornings

that pounded at the door so insistently,

although when I answered,

those thuds at the door forgot 

what they were asking for.

Youth spent and put away

on the shelf

for safekeeping

as the old crone

weaves her web

inside my chest,

hoping for prey.

April Ridge lives in the expansive hopes and dreams of melancholy rescue cats. She thrives on strong coffee, and lives for danger. In the midst of Indiana pines, she follows her heart out to the horizon of reality and hopes never to return to the misty sands of the nightmarish 9 to 5. April aspires to beat seasonal depression with a well-carved stick, and to one day experience the splendor of the Cucumber Magnolia tree in bloom. 

Graybeards By Ken Gierke

Never alone, even now,

he enters the bar

with measured steps,

his companion close by his side.

Once settled into his usual seat

at the end of the bar, he glances down

as he drops the leash to the floor.

His dear friend raises a muzzle, gray

from their many years together,

to briefly lock eyes with him

before settling in with no desire

to be anywhere but by his side.

It’s been a hard-learned lesson

to never let him be out of sight.

He’s always been there,

just as she was. Until she wasn’t.

Both have known a lifetime with her.

Sensing his sorrow and owning it,

just as he does, there can be no repeat.

When it’s his time to leave,

he will not be alone.

Ken Gierke is retired and transplanted to mid-Missouri from Western New York. 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, Rusty Truck, Trailer Park Quarterly, The Gasconade Review, and River Dog Zine. His poetry collections, Glass Awash in 2022, and Heron Spirit in 2024, were published by Spartan Press. His website: https://rivrvlogr.com/

Drinking with Grandpa by Brooks C. Mendell

    “On our first date, your grandmother gave me a hickey the size of a plunger.”

    I waited.

“She grew up on a farm,” he added. I nodded, as if that explained everything, and returned the bottle.

Grandpa sipped, thumbed his ring, and storied on. At times, we paused from passing the bottle to quietly reapply sunscreen. I listened for the rhythm of his spirit.

“Grandma was tough. She’d have gnawed King Kong’s toe to protect our family,” said Grandpa. “God, I miss her.”

END

Brooks C. Mendell writes and works in forestry near Athens, Georgia. His stories have appeared in venues such as Maudlin House, Spank the Carp, and The RavensPerch. www.brooksmendell.com