Ellipsis By Manny Grimaldi

If you don’t find God 

on a freeway in Los Angeles, 

you’ve never had a spiritual experience.  

Remote qualification took place in 

a multilevel “tri-sexual” club,

where anything goes,

with a nice, nasty dance floor for

vehement grinding 

to pounding, loud industrial music.

Mommy and Daddy’s music.

Then, life in my 30’s, coming into Los Angeles,

with a Jeep was beach air and highway shimmer, 

Church’s Chicken and taquerias, 

cholos and señoritas eating 

my wife’s white chili out the back,

with the biggest jalapeños

her buck could afford, 

and pumping bass and popping screws

 in the back, Arlo Guthrie mash-ups 

with Ice Cube.

God gave her to me and God took her

away, although she said 

the Source would take me first, and nothing,

nothing but this, nothing 

but that I’m still most alive on asphalt spaghetti

where breezes blow from the West 

and the ocean will boil,

the sun takes a skinny dip 

and each nipple fizzles.

Manny Grimaldi is the author of Finding a Word to Describe You (Whiskey City Press 2025), Riding Shotgun with the Mothman (Boiled Egg Publications 2024), and the chapbook Ex Libris Ioannes Cerva (Boiled Egg 2024). He is co-founder and former managing editor of Yearling Poetry Journal. He resides in Louisville, Kentucky.

Harry Keller’s Kid by William Kitcher

The stranger sidled up to the bar, ordered a non-descript beer, took a lazy sip, and looked around the bar.

He seemed a little rough; his jeans were grubby and torn but not deliberately, his boots had holes, his jacket, unravelling at the collar and cuffs, covered a washed-out t-shirt that might have been blue at one time. He said to the bartender, “My name is Jim Keller. I’m Harry Keller’s son. Is he here?”

Annie the bartender stopped. Her years of endless day shifts had fine-tuned her skepticism.

Someone down the bar said, “Harry doesn’t have any kids.”

Jim said, “This shit is none of your business, whoever said that.” He took another sip, looked at the knots in the wood of the bar, then raised his head at Annie. “Is he here?”

“Look around,” said Annie. “What do you think?”

“If it was any of your... never mind. I’ve never met him. He abandoned my mother and me forty years ago. I didn’t even know about him until this morning. Deal with it.”

“Sorry,” said Annie. “He’s the big guy at the end of the bar. The one with the plaid shirt and Twins’ cap.”

Jim picked up his beer and the coaster, moved down the bar, and sat down beside Harry. Literally everyone in the bar watched. The silence had a hum to it.

Quietly, Jim said to Harry, “I’m not pissed off. Shit happens.”

The bar’s buzz returned to normal when the others realized they couldn’t hear details and went back to sports trivia and medical conditions.

“You left my mother. I get that. No problem. It wasn’t right for you at the time decades ago.”

“Your mother is Eleanor, right?” said Harry as he nervously pounded back the rest of his rye-and-water, and ordered another.

Jim stayed silent. Annie gave Harry an extra-large shot.

Harry took a big slug, sized up Jim’s scruff, and said, “What can I do for you?”

Jim said, “There’s nothing. I just want you to know that it’s all good. I hold no grudges. I guess I just wanted to meet you. And maybe we could become friends.”

“You’re a good guy,” said Harry. “It ain’t gonna make a bit of difference in the long run. Let me...” He trailed off.

Jim waited.

“Look,” said Harry. “I messed up. Everyone does, right? I am so sorry,” and he paused before he added “son”. Harry staggered a bit on his stool, recovered, then said, “I know this won’t make any difference between us, won’t compensate for anything. I’m sorry I was that coward. Let me do this.”

Harry took his wallet out, extracted all the cash he had, about $200 worth, and passed it to Jim. He said nothing else.

Jim took the money, stuffed it into his jacket pocket, pounded the rest of his beer, then left the bar like a dustball into the corner of a room.

Silence returned to the bar except for a few regulars failing to console Harry. The place dissipated into another time. The people calmed down without knowing why. There was a quiet that didn’t seem quite right. Semi-chaos, semi-normality, semi-everything flashed everywhere.

Some guy, smashing that vibe, hovered into the bar, ordered a beer, and said to Annie, “My name is Jim Keller. I think my father might be here.”

William Kitcher’s stories, plays, and comedy sketches have been published, produced, and/or broadcast in Australia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Czechia, England, Germany, Guernsey, Holland, India, Ireland, Japan, Nigeria, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, the U.S., and Wales. His stories have appeared in Rye Whiskey Review, Ariel Chart, New Contrast, Horror Sleaze Trash, Eunoia Review, Defenestration, and many other journals. His comic noir novel, “Farewell And Goodbye, My Maltese Sleep”, the second funniest novel ever written, was published in 2023 by Close To The Bone Publishing, and is available on Amazon.

Consummated Carnage By PW Covington

There is more space between my words

Than I intended

More outer space in my mind than inner space

Out of time

Reminds me of the plane ride home tonight

Our ecclesiastical conclusion on the concourse

Through the cliches of all blood sacrifice 

One journey

Many paths

Every minute

Every coin

Returned to the slot and dropped below

Blood and red wine mixing

Tailored clothes and lipstick

Every minute

Every coin

Sacrificed upon the altar of our vanities 

Eye shadow and frosted denim

Photo-editing phone apps

Synthetic opiates of the masses

Things taken along while traveling

A smear on the lens of 

Your space telescope cognition,

Mas o menos, more or less

A question of intention

And Day-Glo apprehension

Toll booth sacred dial tones at night

Flashing in infinity

A spark and tinder

Consummated circumstance of carnage

PW Covington was recently named United States BEAT Poet Laureate (2026-27) by the National Beat Poetry Foundation.

 They travel extensively, encouraging free expression wherever they go.

Covington lives not far from where Historic Route 66 crosses the fabled Rio Grande River, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Foreclosure: Victorian in Uniontown By Janette Schafer

Waves of bitterness,

pet dog and cigarettes

cling to dark wood,

seep into sledgehammered 

drywall. 

A shroud chokes

a misbegotten dream—

dust thick on the tongue

pushes into lungs.

I wrap my arms around

the intact banister.

I walk through crumbled plaster,

crunch shards of colored glass.

All houses hold a spirit

and yours is broken.

They lost you, so they hurt you.

I can’t collect your pieces. 

I can only hold this for a moment.

Janette Schafer is a poet, photographer, playwright, and realtor living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She holds an MFA in poetry from Chatham University. She is the author of three collections of poetry and the chief editor of two poetry anthologies. Her writing and photographs have appeared in numerous journals, newspapers, and websites, including Vox Populi, The Missouri Review, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Eunoia Review. She is a winner of the Academy of American Poets Prize.

Peek a boo__ By Merritt Waldon

Look in my eyes 

Together we rise

Flames of fire 

That never cease 

To burn

Isolation & cut off

From wherever you are

Feel you compare me to

A gnarly scar

I reached the high rise

Of names still nameless

Feelings dance quiet

Halls

There’s a hole in the universe

I stuff my tongue in

Loneliness blooms idle 

Boring loss of ecstatic fast 

Life

Madness sneaks a peak

Peek a boo

Merritt Waldon is Southern Indiana poet who has been published in Road Dawgz, Sun Poetic Times,

The Brooklyn Rail, Be About It Zine, River Dog #1, Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts, Americans & others anthology fourth edition, Crisis Chronicles, Cajun Mutt Press, Thye Rye Whiskey Review, and Fearless!.

At midnight Christmas night 2020, cajun mutt press released Oracles from a Strange Fire by Ron Whitehead & Merritt. He lives in Austin, Indiana.

Silent Battles in Loud Rooms By Heather Kays

I’ve mastered the art of nodding

in the right places—

of laughing on cue

when the room gets too bright

and everyone’s too drunk

to notice I’m breaking.

Music blaring,

voices overlapping,

smoke curling under exit signs,

and I’m here—

sipping something strong

to drown something stronger.

Someone touches my arm.

I flinch inside.

But I smile.

Because that’s what’s expected.

Because a quiet no

is safer than a loud scene.

I keep my back to the wall

and my face to the noise.

Eyes scanning for exits

like it's instinct—

because it is.

Because it has to be.

They say I’m fun.

Say I’m fearless.

Say I light up a room.

But they don’t see the fight

under my skin—

the war between stay calm

and run.

They don’t see the armor

stitched into my smile,

or how each joke I tell

is covering a scream.

This is survival,

camouflaged in glitter and gloss.

This is a battlefield

with no blood,

just breath

held too long.

And when I finally make it to the bathroom—

door locked,

music muffled—

I let my hands shake.

Let the silence scream.

Let the war catch up to me.

Heather Kays is a St. Louis-based poet and author passionate about writing since age 7. Her memoir, Pieces of Us, dissects her mother’s struggles with alcoholism and addiction. Her YA novel, Lila’s Letters, focuses on healing through unsent letters. She runs The Alchemists, an online writing group, and enjoys discussing creativity and complex narratives.

In a Montreal Bus Station By Chad Paretneau

Of course

it’s here 

you finally

have clarity

that you are

the asshole

in someone

else’s story

to be offed

offscreen. 

At least 

this means

you’ll be

fan favorite

for going

too soon.

Maybe by

story’s end

survivors 

will name

a new pet

after you,

one last 

tug-of-hearts.

Chad Parenteau hosts Boston’s long-running Stone Soup Poetry series. His work has appeared in journals such as Résonancee, Molecule, Ibbetson Street, Pocket Lint, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, Off The Coast, The Skinny Poetry Journal, The New Verse News, dadakuku, Nixes Mate Review and The Ugly Monster. He has also been published in anthologies such as French Connections, Sounds of Wind, Reimagine America, and The Vagabond Lunar Collection. His newest collections are All's Well Isn't You and Cant Republic: Erasures and Blackouts. He serves as Associate Editor of the online journal Oddball Magazine and co-organizer of the annual Boston Poetry Marathon. He lives and works in Boston.

Another Regular OD’d By Joe Couture

Third time this year.

Unlike the last time,

this guy’s still alive.

What’s more:

this time

I like the guy.

The last guy got

barred for life, 

which lasted

a year and a half.

He was terribly upset

he was not allowed back

except for one occasion:

The celebration of life

for his friend, who OD’d 

last year. Another regular.

Management felt bad 

he found her.

He’d stiff us on his tab;

once choked his girlfriend

in the Games Room; one day,

he robbed the place. But

when he died, the boys

shook their heads.

One said:

“It’s a goddamn shame, b’y.”

Another added, 

“When ya play with the bull,

ya get the horns.”

All agreed,

and blamed his druggie girlfriend.

But when his friend had died, 

one shrugged,

another gave a wry, 

“Big surprise.”

Their words were harsher 

the next month

when her daughter died.

The same guy

shrugged again, saying,

“One less crack whore.”

I remembered his smile

the night he took her outside,

“…for a walk.”

My first week

I met both women. 

They were friendly. 

They spoke freely

about how they never

smoke crack near

the baby.

Well, at least 

this guy’s 

still alive.

He’s crippled, but 

the boys say

he’ll be back to work

in a year’s time.

Joe Couture is a writer living in rural Nova Scotia. His most recent work is featured in or forthcoming from Dark Winter Lit, The Literary Underground, Eunoia Review, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, and The Rat's Ass Review. If you want to connect with him, try here: @rjcouture.bsky.social

Crooked Street, Like Your Heart By Trish Saunders

 

I waited a couple of ice ages for you, before giving up

to watch golden headlamps chase each other
down Lombard Street, famous Frisco
hairpin crush, back
when I thought we fitted together
like the 7UP can under your heel,
the Seagram’s bottle
sticking up from weeds.

I thought we co-depended perfectly,
two stunted begonias in one cracked
clay pot on your front porch
watching, enviously, the cars!
racing down Lombard Street.

Trish Saunders lives in Seattle. She has poems and short fiction
published or forthcoming in Chiron Review, Main Street Rag, Gargoyle, the late lamented Fat Damsel Review, and here in the Rye Whiskey Review. 

the blessing By Keith Pearson

 

go kneel by a clear stream.

thank your makers

for another day.

nobody truly wants to die

especially the dead.

you may think of it

as upstream but

it is really the past.

those whispers you hear

are the echoes of those

gone before urging you on.

'keep going keep going.

its okay to drink

the water here.'

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

 

Triad By Tony Pena / A Review By John Patrick Robbins

In Tony Pena's newest book, Triad, we are treated to a voice that is vibrant and, honestly, exactly what this poetry scene needs more of: something refreshing, genuine, and fun.

This book blends the perspective of a rock 'n' roll poet with barroom wisdom that has true soul, standing apart from so many poets who continue to regurgitate the same tired odes to Bukowski.

Tony's work is truly a breath of fresh air and one of the best poetry books I have read in a very long time. He writes with tremendous heart while keeping the work moving with lines that anyone can connect with, whether they are a devoted poetry fan or not. There isn't a single ounce of the pretentious drivel that seems to pollute so much of today's literary scene.

It's real, and that's what I dig most in a book. It's entertaining, too, with titles like "The Dark Side of Car Karaoke," "Turning Sexty," and "Horizontal Hutzpah." Tony makes it clear from the beginning that he wants you to buckle up, put the top down, and enjoy the ride. It's rock 'n' roll poetry, and it's simply great art.

Accessible and a hell of a read.

The book is broken into four sections: Dead of the Night, Thirty-Three and a Third Revolutions, The Shine of a Rebel Moon, and Bonus Tracks.

I love that approach because I've always believed poetry collections, when done correctly, should be structured like great albums, flowing effortlessly from one track to the next. In this case, Triad does exactly that.

Take the title poem, "Triad":

Though it may take two to tango,

things happen in threes and it may take all three to keep the dance hall of diminishing dreams lit by the electricity of creativity, allowing a menagerie of emotions to coalesce into the unique character of unconditional love.

Tony mixes pure poetry with what often feel like miniature stories, all told with a narrative flair I wish I encountered more often in contemporary writing.

When a writer can so effortlessly paint vivid pictures in your mind, they've got me hooked, and Tony certainly does. What we have here is a wonderful hybrid of poetry and storytelling, all wrapped in a rock 'n' roll spirit.

In another piece, "Playing House," we tag along on the journey:

When cutting school

Dahlia and Benji would

meet up and crash*

at the zombie house,

a barely standing bungalow

held together by cobwebs,

peeling plaster and ghosts of

Natalie Wood and James Dean.

Roasting marshmallows on a tiny

hibachi grill ripped off from Haggerty

Hardware, sipping warm Schaefer,

 and chugging cherry cough syrup.

Tony's work flows effortlessly and takes us back, inviting reflection in the best possible way while providing a much-needed escape during an era when we need one more than ever.

Triad is an outstanding book in any genre real, honest, soulful, and fun.

Pick up a copy and take the ride.

I promise you won't regret it.

John Patrick Robbins

Editor-in-Chief, The Rye Whiskey Review

To purchase a copy please use this link below.

https://a.co/d/06JQJNHs

A Fool's Message By Sergey Bielecki

The only testimony of my existence will be a cigarette burn on a fringed leather jacket that you will wear. Then there will be a stack of poetry books, which will eventually be lost and scattered. Then you, yes, you, have witnessed my death. This is a fact of life you will carry with you. You will love a woman who doesn't love you back, and you will love a man who is far too cruel for your gentle soul. These, too, are facts that must be held dear. You will meet the man—the cruel one. He will wear boots, donned in fringed leather. An embodiment of the 1970s, when a cigarette dangles out of his mouth. You, yes, you will be caught— not him, but you. When this man leaves you desolate, you, yes, you will meet a woman. Yes, the one who will never love you, she will have the eyes of a cat. And she will be your summer, for you know no better. She will caress you and introduce you to poetry. She will have you entranced, mold you into someone else. You, yes, you have learned nothing, for she will leave you just as desolate as before. So you drink cough syrup, yet still you lie awake, staring out your window. And, when you lift your head, your body will be bathed in the dawn of a day that never came. Still, though, you are desolate. Still you, you don't fit through the window, no matter how hard you push. So instead, you’ll drown in old poets and the greats. Smoke cigarettes, dress up to erase the childish parts of you that she loved and he exploited. You, little by little, will become a new man. Still you, just no longer a boy. Still desolate, her memory will never leave you, just as the boots on your ribcage and cigarette burns. You, you forgot the fact you must remember. The memories, the boots, the burns, and the desolation will leave you, yes, you, but only in death. Once again, you lay by the window; this time, you stay awake to watch the celestials play tag. You realize what a fool you’ve been. You remembered my stories. Yes, me, I forgot these facts, now I'm a man, and you're no longer you.

Sergey Bielecki is an LGBTQ+ writer born in Russia, with one book already published, and is being recognized by poets like Yona Harvey and John Hennessy. He has put his resources into creating a writing club at UMass Amherst, where he serves as chief editor. His other efforts are being put towards his magazine Polymenia for up-and-coming writers, where he will serve as one of three editors