Jane – even after she went crazy ... By Bill Gainer

Hey kid, 

you never call 

you never write –

not even a postcard ... 

but yeah 

I still love you –

think about you 

now and then 

look for things 

you've left behind 

in those old haunts. 

A picture, a scent 

a note on the wall. 

I miss you. 

Here it is your birthday 

again, 

and I'm celebrating 

alone ... 

a glass of beer 

a shot of bourbon. 

It don't warm me 

the way you do. 

But hey baby 

nothing does. 

Until we're close again 

Happy Birthday –

miss you 

terrible.

Bill Gainer is a storyteller, a humorist, an award winning poet, and a maker of mysterious things. He earned his BA from St. Mary’s College and his MPA from the University of San Francisco. He is the publisher of the PEN Award winning R. L. Crow Publications and is the ongoing host of Red Alice’s Poetry Emporium (Sacramento, CA). Gainer is internationally published and known across the country for giving legendary fun filled performances. His latest book is The Mysterious Book of old Man Poems. Visit him in his books, at his personal appearances, or at his website: billgainer.com. 

AFTERHOURS AT THE COCONUT by Puma Perl

There was an afterhours club named The Coconut
Or at least that’s what everyone called it
It leaned up against an abandoned building
You had to knock twice on the red door
Not that they ever turned anyone away
Unless you were eighty-sixed for cheating at cards
or shooting up in the bathroom or cursing out the owner

Every time I went to The Coconut someone sent me a drink
Jameson, straight up, no lime, water chaser
No one would tell me who my admirer was
I finally figured out that it was a guy named Stretch
He looked a little like Steven Tyler or Mick Jagger
In a mean manly multi-racial kind of way
He never talked to me, just sent me my drink

Turned out I reminded him of his dead wife
A couple of people said I looked like her
He was raising their two daughters alone
There was always a girlfriend around to watch them
so he could sit at the bar and solemnly drink
intriguing women with his romantic grief,
his brave fatherhood, his big hands

It was easy to locate his ex-girlfriends
They were all over the Lower East Side
He’d beaten them all, and when they left
he stalked them until he found the next one
Ella, the dancer, told me a story

Stretch was on his way to The Coconut one night
She said she’d like to go out too
He put on his jacket, fixed the hat he always wore
She said she’d like to go out too
It happened so quickly
She didn’t even know how she got to the floor
As his boot came down on her neck
She looked at his kids, watching quietly
She looked in their eyes
Oh, my god, she thought, before she passed out,
They’ve seen this all before

After Ella finished talking I went to The Coconut
Told the bartender to send Stretch a drink
Stretch didn’t like a defiant woman
Even one that reminded him of his dead wife
Mother of his dead-eyed children
Her image concealed in coconut mirrors
Her voice singing to him from the jukebox
Her hand on his shoulder when he played cards

When he left that night, he looked straight at me
Memorized me, then killed me in his head
His wife’s spirit exploded inside me, she screamed
Go with him, you’re the one he’ll love
Save my daughters, take care of my man
You’re the one, that’s what all his girls thought
A whiskey was set before me, some other guy sent it
I nodded thanks, feeling like someone’s pale memory
And Stretch, he was out there, roaming the streets,
chasing ghosts until he found the next one.

Photo by Ellen Berman

Puma Perl is a poet and writer, with five solo collections in print. The most recent is Birthdays Before and After (Beyond Baroque Books, 2019.) She is the producer/creator of Puma’s  Pandemonium, which brings spoken word together with rock and roll, and she performs regularly with her band Puma Perl and Friends. She’s received three New York Press Association awards in recognition of her journalism, and is the recipient of the 2016 Acker Award in the category of writing.

Some Kind Of Victory. By Ian Lewis Copestick

How does wisdom accumulate ?
I don't know, but I really don't think
That it has anything at all to
Do with time. Looking back
I was probably wiser at 12
Years old than I am at 47.
Plus, the older you get, the
More your brain cells die. I'm sure
That I read somewhere once upon
A time that every drag on a
Fag that you have it kills so
Many brain cells. The same
With every alcoholic drink too.
So, not for the first time, I wonder
How on Earth I've managed
To make it past 30.
I'm getting close to 50.
If I make it I will consider it
Some kind of victory.

Ian Lewis Copestick is a 46 year old writer (I prefer that term to poet ) from Stoke on Trent, England. I spend most of my life sitting,  thinking then sometimes writing. I have been published in Anti Heroin Chic, the Dope Fiend Daily, Outlaw Poetry, Synchronized Chaos, the Rye Whiskey Review, Medusa's Kitchen and Horror Sleaze Trash.

No More Poetry. By Mike Zone

Poetry and I are dead

together

no longer sorrowful brothers

nor joyous lovers

Poetry, you’ve burned me out

accentuating feeling, accelerating whimsy

ultimately murdering emotion

Poetry, without the fear and anxiety I provide

along with your bleak hope and stark observations holding slivers of fleeting hidden happiness…

well, we’re both dead

I’ve buried you

cremated my soul

“Fuck the essence of living” I say

Poetry, I’m dead

Poetry, you’re dead

She sneezed, her eyes lit up and the colors of ink stained skin turned

and what hadn’t been right for years

had been right this time

Damn you

the dirt disturbed

the fire ignited

and Poetry said, as we lay there 

living

“you cannot escape thee.”

Mike Zone is the author of A Farewell to Big Ideas, Void Beneath the Skin, Better than the Movie: 4 Screenplays and Fellow Passengers: Public Transit Poetry, Meditations and Musings. A contributing poet to Mad Swirl and contributing writer to the graphic novel series American Anti-hero by Alien Buddha Press. His poetry and stories have appeared in: Horror Sleaze Trash, The Daily Dope Fiend, Outlaw Poetry, The Rye Whiskey Review, Synchronized Chaos and Triadæ Magazine.

Tonight At Last Call, J. Calls Me His Brown Liquor Girl, Again, By Alexis Rhone Fancher

his voice dark urgency, like when we were attached.
I let him grip my hips, slow dance me back to that lust, 

to the parking lot, his car,
my tube top a trophy in one hand, 

a bottle of Southern Comfort in his other. 

He pours that sweet Joplin down my throat, 

guides my hand between his legs. Drives 

to the Malibu motel with ocean views,
vibrating beds, and once more, our delicious thrashing, 

complimentary KY where the Gideon should be,
the insomniac waves rocking us long before my marriage, 

and now after.
When I ask him which part of me he loves best, 

J. answers: What’s missing,
tonguing the place where my nipple had been. 

He doesn’t mind the mastectomy scar,
the one my husband can’t bring himself to touch. 

First published in RATTLE.

This poem is a persona poem, written in the voice of the author's beloved friend, Kate, who died of cancer in 2014

Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in Best American Poetry, Rattle, Hobart, Verse Daily, Plume, Tinderbox, Cleaver, Diode, Poetry East, Pirene’s Fountain, Flock, Duende, Nashville Review, 

Mead, The Pedestal Magazine and elsewhere. She’s authored five poetry collections, most 

recently, Junkie Wife (Moon Tide Press, 2018), and The Dead Kid Poems (KYSO Flash Press, 

2019). Her photographs are featured worldwide. A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Alexis is poetry editor of Cultural Weekly. www.alexisrhonefancher.com

The Ghost of Your Past. By Wayne Russell

I pop another antidepressant,

but nothing seems to help erase
the ghost of you, nothing seems
to eradicate the memories of us;
especially at Christmas time.

The loneliest time of the year is
now, as the lovers stroll down by
the footpath, rosy cheeks and smiles
illuminating the dull winter day.

Smiles and happiness make me think

It makes me think of us, not so long
ago, in another time and space, making
plans, our conquest of the stars and of
newlywed dreams.

The good times for me have ceased to
be, this is the ice age in my heart and
I carry it with me wherever I may roam.

I visit the kids every Sunday, they are half
of you and half of me, I see you with him,
your new better half.

It sickens in so many ways to watch the
two of you out of the corner of my eye,
you act as if we never were, you act as
if I was just a bad dream; that you have
now awoken from.   

Wayne Russell is or has been many things in his time upon this planet, he has been a creative writer, world traveler, graphic designer, former soldier, and former sailor. Wayne has been widely published in both online and hard copy creative writing magazines. From 2016-17 he also founded and edited Degenerate Literature. In late 2018, the kind editors at Ariel Chart nominated Wayne for his first Pushcart Prize for the poem Stranger in a Strange Town.

Pour me a Drink, Seven Toothed Bartender. By Dan Provost

I’m stiff

sober.

A minuscule of

a man-- that looks into the shadows 

when weathered and

steely lifers stagger into the tavern from 

the elements of the north country.

I stare gingerly, say nothing

to those who pass me by…

Casually tragic,

A look of anger pasted

on my craggy face…

The people up here are

friendly, wanting to make

your acquaintance.

Na, I need the bird

to put me in a cordial 

mood…

Whiskey and a 

good jukebox to relax

into infinity.

Just box me up

and play an

                old Skynyrd 

                                 tune. 

The words are dead.

The mouth is cold.

And the outlook is

nothing entertaining.

Dan Provost has been published throughout the small press for many years.  He is the author of nine books and lives in Berlin, New Hampshire with his wife Laura