Cutting Down on Drinking By George Gad Economou

“have you ever thought of quitting?” Christine

asked. “quit what?” I asked.

“drinking; at least so much.”

“I’ve cut down since I met you,” I retorted.

“right,” she scoffed. “since noon, you’ve

emptied a bottle of bourbon and two six-packs of beer.”

“5% beer,” I pointed out. “normally, I’d go for stronger

beers, like Elephant. and would have

added a few gin cocktails in the mix. see? I barely drink anymore.”

“Jesus, George,” she groaned. “I just want you to

be healthy, to live long enough to…to I don’t even

fucking know.”

“don’t worry, love,” I reassured her as I cracked open

another bottle of Jim Beam, “even heavy drinkers live

longer than teetotalers. I’ll be around for a long

fucking time.”

“right, sure.”

“no, trust me. I’ll be the one burying you.”

“that’s reassuring,” she giggled.

“you’re the one that wants me to live long enough; figured it’s

because you didn’t want to go through the

hustle of having to bury my bourbon-reeking corpse.”

“not what I was worried about.”

“why are we even having this conversation then?”

George Gad Economou has a Master’s degree in Philosophy of Science, currently works as a freelance writer, and has published three novels and two poetry collections, with the latest being his horror novel, The Lair of Sinful Angels (Translucent Eyes Press). His words have also appeared in Spillwords Press, Ariel Chart, Cajun Mutt Press, Fixator Press, Horror Sleaze Trash, Outcast Press, The Piker Press, The Beatnik Cowboy, The Rye Whiskey Review, and Modern Drunkard Magazine.

Fifty-three By Cliff Aliperti

    It was the night before Adrian Price’s fifty-third birthday. On the bright side, Ida had agreed to go out with him to celebrate. On the dark side … fifty-three. Yes, certainly worse than fifty-two, but to Adrian Price’s mind, worse even than fifty-four, fifty-five, and etcetera, because those more accomplished numbers just seemed impossible to Adrian.

    This was because of the friends he had known.

    You see, Adrian had become a regular at this one pub upon his twenty-first birthday, such a long, long time ago. In doing so, he joined his good friend Frankie, four years Adrian’s elder, who had already been a regular and of legal drinking age those preceding four years. In that time Frankie had cemented his own standing and befriended a few of the older souls who frequented the joint, Irish in name, run-down in general.

    After Adrian’s twenty-first, he became every bit the regular as Frankie was. In those days, the two young men drank there at least four nights per week, sometimes as often as seven. In doing so they made several barroom acquaintances. Chief among these were an older handyman, Wayne, and a waiter, Lionel, more Wayne’s peer than that of Adrian and Frankie. These four men sat shoulder to shoulder for many hours most every evening, several times even closing the place as a quartet at four am.

    And now, on the eve of his fifty-third birthday, Adrian Price was the only one of them left. All of the others dead. Each dropping off every so often. All of them at fifty-three.

    Most nights, back in those prime years, their four heads just bobbed lower by the hour, eight elbows all that kept their rubber necks propped up, conversation slurred by the tick of the clock. But then there was the occasional outstanding night. A night so different that in later months and years it provided one more round of storytelling for those sinking drunken skulls.

    There was the night Shillelagh’s had set up the bouncy boxing distraction prior to a big Holyfield fight, and Adrian and Lionel tapped at each other with the oversized boxing gloves until Adrian decided to impress the girl at the bar—who turned out to be Ida—by throwing all of his weight behind a spear tackle that sent Lionel home with a wrecked back compounded by a chip on his shoulder that remained for several weeks. Ida ignored Adrian that night, but came around soon after.

    There was the night Wayne hit at the track and wanted to share the wealth, but only Frankie was around, so the two of them befriended two complete strangers, who they took to calling Adrian and Lionel, since they were already too loaded to remember their real names. Wayne had spent all the winnings on these ungrateful tourists before Adrian even arrived at one am, and Lionel an hour later. Those two didn’t even get to meet their fill-ins, who had departed the moment Wayne’s final winnings were spent.

    Another such night was the night of the scratchers.

    It began innocent enough when Wayne, the eldest man and a regular dreamer on dollar lottery tickets, smacked his palm over the bar and shouted to the trio, “Five hundred dollars! Round is on me!”

    Still mostly sober in this hour slightly after dinner, the four men clinked glasses and joked about what Wayne was to do with the rest of his winnings. Yet before they even finished their complimentary drink, Wayne slammed his palm to the bar again, and this most mature, typically most reserved member of the unofficial group, not ordinarily given to obscenity, shouted, “Holy shit, another thousand dollars!”

    “Buy me one, Wayne?” simple Kenny Chazzen, a real doofus, somewhere between Adrian and Frankie back in high school, asked from a few stools down.

    “Hell, Billy, buy everyone around the bar one,” Wayne called to the bartender.

    “Impossible,” Adrian said. “My mother scratches them things all the time, and I know you don’t get two hits like that all in a row.”

    “Check it out,” Wayne said, thrusting the ticket in Adrian’s direction.

    Adrian looked the ticket over. He had not seen this particular ticket before among the stacks of his Mom’s losers. It was a Monopoly sponsored ticket, and the one Wayne showed him had three Illinois Avenues scratched off.

    “Match three like properties,” Adrian read.

    Adrian returned the winner to Wayne, and said, “I’ll be right back.”

    He leapt off his barstool and headed for the door.

    “Where’d you get those?” Frankie asked.

    “Gas station next door,” Wayne said.

    Frankie was behind Adrian with a twenty dollar bill at the ready, while Adrian exercised slightly more caution and only spent ten.

    By the time Frankie had rejoined them at the bar, Adrian said, “Holy shit, five hundred!”

    “Really?” Wayne asked.

    “Three Ventnors,” Adrian said.

    Lionel was off his barstool and next door without a word.

    Over the next forty-five minutes, Wayne had four winning tickets totaling $7,000, Frankie had three winners at $2,500, Adrian three at $2,000, and Lionel, who had spent fifty dollars because the gas station attendant claimed he could not break his bill (most definitely a lie, since Frankie had only just paid with a twenty, and Adrian a tenner), had seven totaling $8,500.

    “That’s my rent for like most of the year” Lionel said, “plus miscellaneous drinks.” He downed his beer and ordered another.

    That’s when Billy the bartender rained on their parade. Actually, he shit all over their heads.

    Billy swept up his tip money, extra generous given the circumstances, and asked to see one of the winning tickets.

    “I guess you guys are headed to Mineola to cash out tomorrow, huh?”

    Mineola was where the state lottery offices were located. They paid out the big winners, anything from six hundred bucks up to those smiley bastards posing with oversized checks.

    “What do you say, fellows? Day trip?” Wayne asked. The others agreed, every one of them happy to bang in sick at work.

“What time you guys coming in tomorrow?” asked Kenny Chazzen, already whoring his pride for free drinks. Fucking Kenny Chazzen.

    “I’ll save you the trip,” Billy said. “Like properties. Three like properties.”

    “Yep,” said Wayne. “Which one you have there? Oh, see, that’s three Tennessee Avenues at $500.”

    “No,” said Billy. The bastard.

    “No?” said Wayne.

    “Three like properties, in this case, would be Tennessee, along with St. James and New York Avenue.”

    “Go on, Billy.”

    “I’m serious, Wayne.” Billy grabbed an empty glass and began walking away, singing, “Sorry,” like he was playing that other board game and rubbing in it.

    “It’s not true, is it Wayne?” Adrian asked, eight beers adding to his sense of panic.

    “I don’t know,” Wayne said, making the rare move of pulling out his readers, sliding them to the tip of his nose, and staring intently at the back of the ticket.

    “Well, that does make more sense,” Frankie said.

    “Shut up, Frankie,” Adrian said.

    “I’m impressed by Billy knowing the Monopoly board so well.”

    “Shut. Up. Frankie.”

    “He pulled out St. James and New York Ave like he was moving his top hat around the board just a few minutes ago.”

    “Shut the fuck up, Frankie!”

    “Boys, I think we’re out of luck,” Wayne said. “Three like properties defined as a grouping of traditionally color-matched Monopoly properties. Billy’s right.”

    “What about Boardwalk and Park Place?” Adrian asked, somewhat desperately, his beer spilling over the side of his mug as he gesticulated, somewhat wildly, with both hands.

    “What about them?” Wayne asked.

    “There is no third property,” Adrian said, his glare defiant as he struck this very true point.

    “Did you have Boardwalk and Park Place on one of your tickets?” Lionel asked.

    “No.”

    “Then shut the fuck up, Adrian,” Lionel said. Slammed his drink and left for the night. Super pissed. Lionel was out fifty and fifty further from making the rent that in his mind he had just paid off for months in advance with rounds and rounds of drinks to spare.

    That’s pretty much how they all looked at it in the moment. They weren’t out ten or twenty bucks (or in Lionel’s case, fifty); they were out the thousands they had already come to accept as belonging to them. Wayne’s vacation: gone. Frankie’s down payment on that motorcycle: gone. Adrian’s visit to the massage parlor with the bad reputation: Gone. Well, that last one happened soon enough anyway, but the point is, all of the fellows had been dreaming big that night.

    The next night Wayne, Frankie, and Adrian were in their usual spots without a mention of what had happened, nor any wonder as to Lionel’s whereabouts. They knew. The guy was pissed and probably pissed at the bunch of them. Lionel rejoined them two nights later after apparently cooling off. Wayne tried to make amends by buying him a couple of rounds. Nobody mentioned lottery tickets. Not for another three months, not until Lionel had caught up on his rent, which was a trouble in any normal month, and the others had relinquished their fortunes from their imaginations. Only then could they all have a true laugh about what had happened.

    Something wild like that went down every year or two, scratchers night having been the most notorious since it managed to simultaneously make fools out of all four men.

    One day Wayne stopped coming to the bar, and it was Lionel who told Adrian and Frankie that Wayne had died. Just fifty-three he was. Never a word about any illness to the boys, who had just believed Wayne had been eating healthy, drinking a little less, and shedding weight. Hell, Adrian had recently remarked to him about the sudden twinkle in his eye. Apparently, according to his wife, Wayne had known about the colon cancer for awhile, but had refused further medical treatment, perhaps out of stubbornness, perhaps out of fear. At any rate, this was long before the government white coats had lowered the suggested age for colonoscopies from fifty to forty-five, so even if Wayne had been semi-on-the-ball about such things, he probably wouldn’t have caught it in time.

    Lionel passed five years later, also at age fifty-three. Of the group he was the one most befitting the drunkard tag, as he always was, to excess, on every evening. Adrian and Frankie assumed his liver had given out, but they later found out it was just a run-of-the-mill, semi-boring given the speculation, heart attack that took Lionel.

    Years passed and every so often Adrian and Frankie would speak of Wayne and Lionel.

    “So weird that they were both fifty-three when they died,” one would remark to the other.

    Yet when Frankie’s diabetes caught up with him, stopping his heart at age fifty-three, Adrian had nobody to confide in over the coincidence. Well, there had been Ida, but such dark talk would have spoiled their main purpose for meet ups. And there were guys like Billy the bartender or fucking Kenny Chazzen, but Adrian didn’t really have reason to speak to them about anything at all anymore. It had been twenty years between Lionel’s death and Frankie’s, add another five for Wayne, and the coincidence of fifty-three was quite enough to cause fear in forty-nine year old Adrian’s heart every morning subsequent to Frankie’s mortal departure.

    In fact, after Frankie died, Adrian quit drinking, quit smoking, quit soda, cut back on carbs. He dropped seventy pounds before he was fifty, and another thirty before fifty-one, settling into a svelte one hundred seventy pound frame by age fifty-two. His cough was also gone as the cigarettes were out of his system by that time, and a daily exercise regimen replaced the nightly bar stop, so his muscles toned and tightened. Despite a few nagging reminders of his age, Adrian appeared to be in relatively good shape, though he still dreaded his coming fifty-third.

    One the eve of said fifty-third, Adrian took Ida to the best restaurant in town, a German place, and the pair ate in style. Adrian and Ida had been on-again off-again for almost thirty years now, both of them remaining single and stubborn in their ways. They had never made a serious attempt at a relationship because they both knew each other well enough to know it was doomed to failure. If the visitor did not depart the host’s rooms prior to noon the following day, they would be at each other’s throats by the next dinner bell.

    But this was nice. Adrian and Ida were both working-class people, but they were both capable of dressing to the nines and doing up the town proper, like respectable adults, as they would still put it well on into their middle age.

    “We haven’t done this in so long, Ade, let’s make a real night of it.”

    “What do you suggest?” Adrian asked, slightly concerned as he eyed the restaurant’s bill. He’d regret his broiled sole if it hadn’t been so good. And if Ida’s Hungarian goulash, and every other entrée on the menu, hadn’t cost exactly the same.

    “Let’s hit up the Shillelagh,” Ida said, the quartet’s old nightly stomping grounds. “Have one in Frankie’s memory.”

    Adrian grabbed his water glass is gave it a little shake, side to side, the ice cubes clinking one another.

    “I haven’t had one of anything, in a couple years now. Cept coffee and ice water,” he said, taking a big gulp of the latter.

    “And I see how fun you’ve become,” Ida said. “C’mon. Get yourself a Coke, and stare at it if you have to. I want something stiff.”

    Adrian raised his eyebrows.

    “It’s your birthday, Ade. Doesn’t matter if it’s stiff or not, I’ll take care of you.”

    “Not that old, Idee. Not that old. Quite yet.”

    Adrian didn’t recognize the bartender when they entered Shillelagh’s, which made it feel like four years well spent avoiding the place. If goddamn Billy had still been pouring drinks and shouted, “Hey, Ade, good to see you,” time would have evaporated in an unhealthy way. There’d be a beer on-the-house and clamped between Adrian’s paw before Billy would have even offered a handshake. The less familiar faces the better, Adrian thought, in terms of retaining will power and keeping away after tonight.

    And so, he cringed, when a voice from the past called, “Hey, Ade. Ida girl,” as the pair were removing their coats.

    Adrian turned as Ida shouted, “Kenny Chazzen,” a bit too happily before running over to give old Kenny, the jerk, a big hug.

    “Hey, Kenny,” Adrian said, holding tight to his barstool and managing a half-hearted wave down to him as Ida pecked Kenny’s flabby cheek.

    Fat, bald, shabbily dressed, Kenny still at least had all of his teeth (or so it appeared), but this disheveled low acquaintance held Adrian’s eye with a gleam and a glint that Adrian found damn unsettling.

    Adrian didn’t want to come off as a total deadbeat by asking the unfamiliar barkeep for an ice water, so he figured he’d live some and ordered himself up that Coke that Ida had mentioned. Then he called down and asked Ida what she was having.

    “Whiskey Sour,” Ida said, causing Adrian to shiver as he turned to the barman to make sure he had heard her.

    “You should go over and say hi to Kenny,” Ida said, slinging an arm over Adrian and leaning over to sip her drink.

    “I thought I already did,” Adrian said.

    “You know what I mean,” Ida said, giving his shoulder a shove. But once Ida sat on the stool next to him, Adrian wasn’t moving.

    They sat over the bar chatting, oblivious to outsiders, except whenever Ida raised her finger to order another drink. During those moments, as the bartender served her, Adrian would peer down the bar and lose himself in the disturbing shine of Kenny Chazzen’s eyes. He’d swear that every time he did so, Kenny smirked back at him and those eyes actually twinkled. Gave Adrian the shivers, those eyes did.

    “So you think you’re going to make it,” Ida said, somewhere along her third drink.

    “Me? I’m drinking Coke.” Adrian squeezed her thigh. “It’s been awhile, but worst I’ll get is maybe a sugar high. Question is, are you going to make it?”

    “Oh, I’m just getting loosened up, old boy,” Ida said, which Adrian had to admit, sent a little thrill running through him. “But I meant, make it to fifty-three.”

    Adrian glanced at the clock. “Already have,” he said, pointing.

    “One o’clock, oh boy,” Ida said, throwing both arms around Adrian and slobbering over his mouth.

    “Save it for the home front, Idee,” Adrian said.

    “Happy birthday, Ade,” she said. “But that’s not what I meant.”

    Adrian turned and looked at her. He shrugged his shoulders.

    “You know,” she said. “Frankie.” Adrian’s heart dropped, but he didn’t respond. “Lionel. That other old guy.”

    “Wayne.”

    “Yeah. I barely knew him. But also fifty-three.”

    “You know about … fifty-three? I told you I was worried about this?”

    “After Frankie’s wake, you did. Of course, you were shit-faced.”

    “Christ, that’s the last night I was drinking.”

    “Told me the whole story from jump,” Ida continued. “Jesus, Lionel and that Wayne guy too. I still think of them as old men, but here we are now. I hadn’t realized they all checked out at the same age until you told me.”

    “Well, then you know what’s on my mind.”

    “I tell you, it freaked me out, but shit, Ade, I chalk it all up to coincidence. Look at you.”

    “I’ve got sciatica and I’m pre-diabetic,” he said, putting name to those nagging reminders.

    “Well, dumb ass, you’re also fifty-three now.”

    “Point taken,” Adrian said. He sipped his Coke. “But. So were they. I didn’t realize it till I made it, but fifty-four is the actual win. The challenge none of those boys could meet.”

    “You’ll get there, Ade.”

    Adrian shrugged. He wasn’t so sure. Who would be?

    “Ever tell you about scratchers night with the fellas?”

    “Monopoly tickets?”

    “Were you there?”

    “No.”

    “Guess I’ve told that one too then,” Adrian said. “It was Lionel who really cut the matter to the bone. Said, ‘You know, some people never get to be winners. I never even get to pass Go,’ he said. Self-wallowing, but still.”

    Ida just looked at him.

    “You know, pass Go, collect two hundred dollars,” Adrian said.

    “I get it,” she said. “Beats Community Chest, I guess.”

    Adrian shrugged.

    “I’ve got to go pee,” Ida said. She caressed Adrian’s cheek. “What’s say we split when I get back. See if we can work around that sciatica back at your place?”

    “There’s worse ways to go,” Adrian said, happy that she was trying to cheer him up.

    Kenny Chazzen wasted no time. The second Ida had passed him, he was off his stool and on his way down to greet Adrian, which he did, his big mitt smacking over Adrian’s shoulder.

    “Happy birthday, Adrian,” he said.

    “Oh, Ida told you, did she?”

    “Fifty-three,” Kenny said. The bar was dark, almost too dark, but Kenny’s eyes lighted up the small area where Adrian sat.

    “You think fifty-four is in the cards?” Kenny asked.

    “What? Of course,” Adrian said, none too sure.

    “I mean, I remember Frankie,” Kenny said. “And I’m old enough to remember Wayne and Lionel as well. Fifty-three, Ade.”

    Adrian physically removed Kenny’s hand from his shoulder and looked him in the eye. “How old are you, Kenny?”

    “I was fifty-five last month.”

    “You see? It can happen.”

    Kenny clapped his hand back over Adrian’s shoulder. It hurt. His eyes practically high beams burning their way into Adrian’s mind; his perfect teeth grinding as he spoke: “I can get you over the line, Adrian.”

    “Kenny,” Adrian said, prying at the larger man’s hand without success. “You’re hurting me, Kenny.”

    “Just let me eat your soul, Adrian.”

    “Kenny, get the fuck off me,” Adrian shouted, jumping from his bar stool and shoving the man, practically into Ida, who was returning from the ladies.

    “Jeeze, buddy, what’s up your ass?” Kenny asked.

    “Ade, what the hell?” Ida said.

    “All I did,” Kenny said, suddenly lowering his voice, “was ask birthday boy here if he wanted to do a couple lines, or maybe smoke a bowl.”

    “This asshole is over here manhandling me and talking shit,” Adrian said. He tossed a fifty on the bar and downed the rest of his Coke. “C’mon, Ida, let’s go.”

    “I’ll meet you outside,” Ida said, glancing at Kenny as she did so.

    Adrian paused and added three dollar bills to his tip. A buck for every year of his life. He began to step away before stopping to add another dollar. You never know what might get you over that line to fifty-four. Then Adrian walked towards the door.

    “Happy birthday, asshole,” Kenny shouted. Adrian flipped him the double-bird without bothering to turn around as he made his way through the exit.

    Once he was safely outside, Adrian rubbed his shoulder, and upon reaching his car he turned on the interior and pulled his shirt down to have a look. Already black and blue, but the bruise, it wasn’t shaped like Kenny’s big ham-hock, it was more of a slim five-fingered talon with five tiny eddies of blood cropping up at the edge where Kenny’s fingernails had bit him.

    He covered up as Ida got in and slammed the car door shut.

    “Bastard’s got a hell of a grip,” Adrian said. He could barely see her in the dark. Couldn’t read her mood.

    Turned out, Ida’s mood was real good. It was a long night. Adrian crawled from bed the next morning, took a piss, and turned on the television when he returned to the bedroom.

    The curtains were drawn and the TV provided the only light. The local newscaster talked about the horrific crash that decapitated one Kenneth Chazzen three blocks from the Shillelagh bar early this morning.

    “Jesus Christ,” Adrian said, sitting up straight in bed. “Ida, you hear that?”

    Ida was quiet.

    “Idee, you hear that, I asked? Kenny’s dead.” He turned to look at her.

    “I heard you.” Ida said, her voice flat. “And I feel terrible about it.” She rolled over and exhaled deeply.

    “I mean, it’s too bad and all,” Adrian said after a moment’s reflection. “A real shock. But c’mon. Kenny Chazzen? Why would you feel especially terrible?”

    “My last words to him. I called him a fucking scumbag.”

    Adrian looked at her.

    “He lifted the singles you left on your tip before the bartender saw them. A shit move, right?”

    “Oh well, hopefully he bought me a little time.”

    “What’s that, Ade?” Ida asked.

    “Nothing, babe.” Adrian sighed. “Twinkle of death in Kenny’s eyes tonight, you notice that?”



    END

Cliff Aliperti is a Long Island-based writer who wrote about classic film for several years at his site Immortal Ephemera. His fiction has appeared in After Dinner Conversation, Fiction on the Web, JAKE, Squawk Back, and elsewhere. You can find more about Cliff at cliffaliperti.com. Twitter/X: @IEphemera.

The Strength of Nature By April Ridge

You know, sometimes 

I will get really frustrated with life,

thinking back to times when 

things seemed easier for me.

They weren't necessarily easier. 

I think that once enough time 

has passed 

from a period in life, 

that you're likely to 

elaborate your memories:

to glamorize,

to blur the suffering; 

the trials of time that 

you may have experienced then,

because your current situation 

strikes so loudly within.

In these times 

where I feel hopeless

I try to recall the strength of nature.

The turtle I witnessed 

crossing a six lane highway 

a couple of summers ago:

the fastest I have ever 

seen a turtle move. 

I like to imagine 

his or her little face, 

taut with tension:

little turtle teeth 

gritted against the odds, 

little turtle arms and legs 

flapping maniacally against hot asphalt.

I never saw it complete its journey, 

but it was in the lane 

closest to the shoulder.

The odds are six to one. 

For days afterward,

on the way home 

I would look in that area 

to see if the turtle had made it. 

I celebrated in a small victory 

each time

I did not see 

a broken turtle shell 

askew 

on the side of the highway.

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. 

Sandalwood & Cedar By Walden Quinn Caesar

Breathing in the smoke

To ground myself

Sometimes it's just 

Too hard to be

Around

Anybody

But this sandalwood

Has me feeling

A little more

Within my body

A bit more

Calm

And he kisses my cheek,

Fresh out of the shower,

I can smell the cedar

Almost as strong

He puts his arms around me

And I don't know 

If I'll ever truly know

Peace,

But I think

This is something 

Akin to it

And there's no one else 

I'd rather share

My space with

Here, in a little corner

Of our room

Breathing in

The sandalwood & cedar.

Walden Quinn Caesar is a nonbinary poet, novelist and author living in Southeast Indiana with their family. They have had a chapbook, novel and hybrid novel published by Alien Buddha Press, have a full length poetry collection due in November and just published a chapbook with Jude Miller. They've been published in numerous online and printed anthologies, and are the creator, editor and reviewer at Walden's Poetry & Reviews.

those poems By Keith Pearson

he handed her a book of poems.

she leafed through the pages

and said

what is this

it makes no sense.

he said it’s not for now

it’s for later

sometime when you are alone

and want nothing more than

to be with someone

you cannot be with.

then you will understand.

so she put the book away

until there came

such a night.

she remembered the book

and took it down from the shelf

and as she began to read

everything

became

quite clear.

for d

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

Coco Lovelock by Rich Boucher

Maybe about a hundred people know about this place, but you only ever find not even a dozen troubled souls on any given night here. Directions are pretty easy - if you get off the Brantley exit from I-39, go left towards where there's no light at all and you'll come to a dead end. If you go straight through the dead end, even though you think you might not ever make it back, that's where you'll find this place. So go straight through. I love watching people get into hassles here, sipping a cold one and measuring strangers out of the corners of my eyes. Jay, who gave me my first real job, bought me my first real legal beer here, and I'll never be able to forgive him for that and nor will I ever be able to thank him enough. This is the kind of place that people with sterile, squeaky-clean Comet kitchens have no idea about and could never imagine. Decades of beer stains on the floor, snot streaks and blood smears in the bathroom sink, every chair and bench wrought in unidentifiable black wood with hundreds of roughly-knifed initials on anything you'd call a table here. When I find my place at the bar, I nightly re-discover that I’m made of expired muscle and atrophied honesty. Somebody once told me that this place was built over what used to be a Native burial ground, which is hilarious, considering how much of the walking dead laugh and get into pointless tough guy fistfights here. Over at the pool area, the sharks move slowly around the suckers who move slowly around the island of green felt. I am free to hate who I hate out loud here; the only thing it costs me to be here is time I don't have, but I'm in so much debt as it is that the effort to care isn't worth it. Clouds of smoke, red Marlboro, drift for months at a time over corrupted atmospheres of cheap, purple perfume in this room, this place, this world. I’m not your tour guide, but let me say that on partly cloudy days, you can tell that even the sky is ashamed of this place - another reason why I love it so much. Make yourself comfortable, take a bribe or give one. As for me, my best guess is that last night was a Friday; this is where you would have found me, my pockets full of copperthroat restlessness and enough cash to be here for about four or five hours. Only thing I know for sure is I tried to make some time with that exquisite blonde bartender again, the one who only barely looks old enough to be here herself, but I left after failed attempt Number 23; resignation is a registered trademark of futility. Your first name is really Coco, I asked her. When I use a question mark, it really stinks up the room. She snapped her gum and looked at me like the people at the Apple store look at homeless people. Yup, it’s Coco, like I told you already about five times. I promised her there was a big tip in it for her if she would tell me her last name. Lovelock, she said, it’s Lovelock. I left her the rest of every paycheck I’ll ever earn and headed for the door, a cashmere noose around my neck and the click-clack of the pool game behind me suddenly loud enough to make me duck.

Rich Boucher resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Rich’s poems have appeared in The Nervous Breakdown, Eighteen Seventy, Menacing Hedge, Drunk Monkeys and Cultural Weekly, among others. Rich recently served as Associate Editor for the online literary magazine BOMBFIRE. He is the author of All Of This Candy Belongs To Me, a collection of poems published by Jules’ Poetry Playhouse Publications. Peep richboucher.bandcamp.com for more. He loves his life with his love Leann in the perpetually intriguing Southwest.

THE PERFECT PINT By Gregg Norman

Below a trap door behind a scarred bar

steep steps descend in darkness

where the Guv’nor draws the perfect pint

of his brewed-on-site Guiness.

He ascends as a spirit rising

from a yeasty grave, the pint

securely held in his beefy mitt.

I can smell the malty, hoppy bitterness.

There is a slow swirled mouthfeel

of silk and velvet

from the cocoa-dark mahogany

elixir in my glass.

Gregg Norman lives and writes in a lakeside cottage in Manitoba, Canada, with his wife and a small dog who runs the joint. His poetry has been placed in journals and literary magazines in Canada, USA, UK, Australia, Europe, and India. He is a 2024 Best of the Net nominee.

The Insides of a Poem By Manny Grimaldi

after Joseph Ceravolo

I needed your beauty

to create a poem about you,

but you said the loveliness was mine,

not yours.

Grandmother laughs,

flow tears trace her furrowed

cheeks, gardens of mirth

densely grown, young boy another ode?

another song? Stop to think—

just in case you both are wrong?

I’ll share this with you

when it is time to say, everything goes

so well, so very well in my mind.

I’ve proven sentimental—

leapt to love, my cheeks a blush vermillion

a million embarrassments on my heels.

I require your art

to create another poem about you—

perhaps a perfect and closer rendering.

Lines broken, stating clearly

something simple—very near

to your country’s shores, 

or your wistful eye 

and a sudden cache of photos

topical and tropical, rainy and dreaming

away to slow marimbas 

and storms before sunshine, 

rainbows, and rain again. 

Manny Grimaldi is a father of two beautiful children that receive letters in the mail from him when he isn’t with them, and a Kentucky poet. He is the author of the full length poetry collection Riding Shotgun with the Mothman, and chapbook ex libris Ioannes Cerva (anonymus scriptus). During the year he also serves as managing editor for Lexington, Kentucky’s Yearling Poetry Journal under Workhorse Writers.

ALL OR NOTHING By Glenn Armstrong

The children’s schoolyard singing

held the sky aloft. Some recited 

“Rapper’s Delight,” while I choked 

up on a stickball bat, a masking tape

grip wound around a broomstick. 

I’m Popeye the Sailor Man  

I live in a garbage can 

I turned on the gas and burned off my ass   

I’m Popeye the Sailor Man

I crouched down in front of the spray-

painted zone. The white rectangle

contrasted with the red brick wall. 

I waited for the pitcher’s first throw. 

Marijuana, marijuana, LSD, LSD   

Jimmy Carter makes it 

Ronald Reagan takes it   

Why can’t we? Why can’t we?

Outfielders idled by the chain-link

fence. They expected me to either hit

a home run or strike out. I swung

and missed. The other kids played

Double Dutch, freeze tag, 

or flipped baseball cards.

Whistle while you work   

Hitler is a jerk   

Mussolini bit his weenie   

Now it doesn’t work

I whiffed on the second pitch,

too, but I tightened my grasp. 

The Good Humor man glanced

as the Pinkie Ball sailed

over the fence.

Jingle bells 

Batman smells   

Robin laid an egg 

Batmobile lost its wheel  

and the Joker got away

 Glenn Armstrong enjoys reading old pulp fiction and piloting the way back machine. The result is sometimes poetry. His work has appeared in The Beatnik Cowboy and The Rye Whiskey Review, among others. He lives in San Diego. 

Haven’t Felt This Cold In Years By Trish Saunders

That tale you told of our old farm on Swans Trail Road disturbs me. 

I don't know why you keep giving these stories daylight.

Stop rewriting our past, won't you? It's like bargaining with particle physics. 

Roads leading to our house might fall off maps; dishes in the cupboard 

could disappear.  

Knife-fighting wind, stone-cutting wind, butt-biting wind--

I wonder if that isn't Grandpa growling

from his grave, wanting to correct your trash-talking, 

set things straight, like his best plow lines. 

Can't you still see his old Chevy up on cinder-blocks?

If we'd known the wooden bridge was frail, remembered that

Grandpa's glasses were broken, were stepped on for fun. 

You've stopped listening, I see. Put down your pen, won't you?

Look up from the table, please. 

Trish Saunders writes poems from Seattle and Honolulu; she has poems published or forthcoming in Eunoia Review, Galway Review, Pacifica Poetry, The Rye Whiskey Review and Medusa’s Kitchen. 

Hangover By Kent Fielding

As a young man, I used to tell people

All good things involve sweat 

And of course, I meant workouts

And spicy food, and sex 

(Skin upon skin, steam bath-like rooms,

Damp hair, the taste of salt on the tongue,

Wrestling, moaning, collision rough sweat).

I suppose I even meant hangovers.

I used to find satisfaction in those after-mornings.

The survival of poison, the body’s ability

To remove toxins, to purify itself

With its own water – holy perhaps. 

As all survival is holy.

Kent Fielding – educator, editor, poet, activist – co-founded White Fields Press and the literary renaissance with Ron Whitehead in 1992. Fielding is an Honorary Kentucky Colonel, a BP Teacher of Excellence, an Alaska Teacher of the Year Finalist, 2021 Alaska Speech and Debate Coach of the Year. He has taught in the Marshall Islands, at Jefferson Community College, University of Alaska Southeast, Mt. Edgecumbe, Skagway High School, and at summer institutes in Turkey and Latvia. Author of a book of poetry, Chief Iffuccan, a chapbook, The Revolution is About to Begin, and a broadside “Museums” (Cheek Press 2023), his work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, The Asheville Poetry Review, The Jefferson Review, Pavement Saw, Modern Haiku, The Beat Scene, Frisk Magazine, Boog Literature, Night Owl Narrative: A Cajun Mutt Rag, and Tidal Echoes, among others.

Cruise #1 By Wendy Cartwright

It’s even more what I thought it would be than what I thought it would be,

a reggae band and a hip-hop DJ,

a guy eating an ice cream cone doing the electric slide,

and a dyke salsa dancing to Usher.

But the engine’s breathy hum

and gravity’s pull as we rock,

the cool salty breeze and lapping crests

romance me as the sun draws toward the horizon.

Life always throws me curveballs

what once lured me in

and the things that scared me so

are now a juxtaposition.

Wendy Cartwright is a poet/author/reporter/columnist/weirdo out of Columbus, Indiana. Her travels have taken her as far as Mayan Ruins and as near as the filling station. Her undiscerning tastes allow her to find creative fodder regardless of location. She has been published in various print anthologies and been featured in online publications. With three self-published books, she has the most of anyone on her block.

spectator sport By Chris Dean

I watch the butts pile in the ashtray,

one, two…three.

I should quit. Again.

But I lie to myself about the when.

I lie to myself a lot.

It's a hobby. A national pastime.

A goddamned spectator sport.

I tell myself I'm gonna do better today,

less anger, less self pity.

I'll laugh more and be productive.

But my softening body knows the truth,

that I'll sit on the couch,

pretend to drink herbal tea

that will turn cold as stone in its cup

and stare at an empty screen

hoping the empty has transference.

I'll talk to the creaking floorboards 

as I move back and forth 

between kitchen and couch,

I'll hold conversations with sleeping cats

and I'll argue with the damn flies

that buzz through screenless windows

I refuse to close.

I'll make up stories for them

that I won't write down

and pretend I'm creating greatness.

Then, exhausted from my hectic day,

I'll curl up with something

stronger than myself,

light another smoke

and make mental lists of ways

I'll avoid facing life again tomorrow.

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. 

PYRAMID PRISON By Strider Marcus Jones

in detritus metronomes

of human habitation

the ghost of Shelley's imagination

questions the elemental,

experimental

chromosomes

and ribosomes

of DNA,

reverse engineered

that suddenly appeared

as evolution yesterday.

her monster mirrors dark wells

of monsters in our smart selves,

the lost humanity and oratory

that fills laboratory

test tubes

with fused

imbued

genes

to dreams

of flat forward faster

distinction

to disaster

and barbarism's

ectopic extinction. 

this is our pyramid prison,

where all souls

and proles

climb the debased

opposite steps of extremism,

like Prometheus Unbound,

defaced

sitting around

the crouching sphinx

abandoned by missing links.

free masons of money and wars,

warp the alter of natural laws,

so reason withers

and wastelands rust-

no longer rivers

of shared stardust

in the equal symphony of spheres

in space,

filling our ears

with subwoofer bass,

definitive

primitive

medieval

evil

waste.

Strider Marcus Jones – is a poet, law graduate and former civil servant from Salford, England with proud Celtic roots in Ireland and Wales. He is the editor and publisher of Lothlorien Poetry Journal https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/. A member of The Poetry Society, his five published books of poetry https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/ reveal a maverick, moving between cities, playing his saxophone in smoky rooms.  

His poetry has been published in numerous publications including: The Huffington Post USA; The Stray Branch Literary Magazine; Crack The Spine Literary Magazine;The Lampeter Review and Dissident Voice.

Retro Love By Rita S Spalding

funny how old thoughts

bring up new 

a love from long ago

the first

eyes bluest of blue

curly hair

laugh that filled the sky

he wanted more

than i could give

if i could return

to that night in the fields

when stars were violins

and his eyes were the stars

if we could only return 

to the peach tree

by the acre garden

fruit waiting to be plucked

unwrapped

what does save yourself

really mean anyway 

if i had said yes on that night

after all maybe it would’ve 

been the very thing 

that saved us both 

from those heartache and tears

that chased us through the years

his grave still catches my heart

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.

Consolation By James Kangas

On the day after the election

Patty went down to our coffee shop

where Ken, the owner, had brought in

a bottle of bourbon for those

who needed it, he said. Patty had

a couple of slugs for her anxiety

and then a couple of espressos

to get her day moving towards 

something tangible, something 

beyond our big fat burst balloon.

James Kangas is a retired librarian living in Flint, Michigan. His work has appeared in Atlanta Review, Chiron Review, JAKE, New World Writing, North Dakota Quarterly, Rye Whiskey Review, West Branch, et al. His chapbook, Breath of Eden (Sibling Rivalry Press), was published in 2019.

Time Goes Boom By Jay Passer

Time goes by

People get married

Bombs detonate

Babies are born

Vapes

Cars

Guns

assembled by robots in factories by night

Arrests made

Anthills stepped on by sex-crazed atheists 

Spirits ascending up

Souls descending down

The spiral staircase of yin and yang and

vice versa

From pigment, to paint, to

daguerreotype 

To film, then video

Newspeak digitized

Pigeon shit droppings on your hot dog bun

Kids quit playing doctor

play lemmings instead

Shopping mall land mines

Ghetto grenades

99% of the time

I stay out of it

leaving spoken word to the

comfortably deranged

Ice Capades, fire breathers 

State funerals, peasant baptisms

the Circus of ancient Rome was no picnic at the park

Severed arms and heads by the cartful

Legs chewed off by tigers

Say

It’s your birthday 

turkey day, 

or Dia de Los Muertos

D-Day

D-Day?

Like when your country is invaded by hostile armed forces?

Featured in black-and-white footage

so you can’t smell the fear

I stay

out of it

Auction house incest

Deforestation parades

What occurs to me naturally 

could vaporize an elephant 

Say minds could be read

I’d instantly be institutionalized 

Here comes Fed Ex

Can you sign for this?

Sure thing

Say

Can I fuck your daughter?

It’s a date

Cars speed by

Helicopters overhead

Aliens combing the Earth for priceless resources 

Sewers operating unconsciously

Oceans with indigestion

Landfills brimming, toilet tissue optional 

Dumbass, d’ya think

you actually wash 

your own hands?

Ever consider

maybe you're just watching them

wash each other?

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.