DRAWING ROOM By Michael N. Thompson

 

Professional day drunks

and former child stars

unable to find work

congregate well before noon

inside this strip mall gin mill

like it’s a prayer service

Grim faces clinging to faded glory

tell barstool lies to anyone else

punch-drunk on nostalgia

An addict shooting up

in the men’s room

is just as common

as a cheap whore giving head

next to the dumpster out back

Not even the L.A. riots

could keep this place

from opening at six a.m.

Watered-down whiskey

has no curfew

As if the Drawing Room

wasn’t filled with enough sadness,

someone put five dollars worth

of Bob Dylan songs on the juke

 

Michael N. Thompson likes bacon, cats and fantasy football.  His poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals including Word Riot, Toronto Quarterly and San Pedro River Review. He is the author of four poetry collections, the most recent being A Murder Of Crows published by University of Hell Press

Shanidar Z By Rita S. Spalding

orange poppies on zala’s grave

placed with love upon a heart

cradled in her hand a stone

curved and carved and pressed tight

fingers stretch across all night

are we so different than 

the old poppy holder’s hand 

then and now compassion moans

bones and rigid brows define 

ancient ribbons bleed and wind 

reconstruct and gave a name

she picked flowers in the rain

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.