Afterdark By Jonel Abellanosa

I could recreate darkness in a lit room,

like screen saver in my closed eyes.

I nicknamed the intravenous opioid

bumblebee, because my desire to fly

left buzzes in my ears, sounds 

making me think of electricity.

Cough syrup would make my body

boneless as the emotion in timelessness. 

I’d taught myself the reflex,

automatic feel of mushroom

from the bed, my skull a habitable

planet. Memory is a gibbous moon,

making me remember decades later

every image, pearls of weightlessness.  

I’m still the sunflower 

without the bumblebee.

Jonel Abellanosa lives in Cebu City, the Philippines. He is a nature lover, an environmental advocate, and loves all animals particularly dogs. His poetry collections include, “Meditations” (Alien Buddha Press), “Songs from My Mind’s Tree” and “Multiverse” (Clare Songbirds Publishing House), “50 Acrostic Poems,” (Cyberwit, India), “In the Donald’s Time” (Poetic Justice Books and Art), and his speculative poetry collection, “Pan’s Saxophone” (Weasel Press). He loves to self-study the sciences.

Paris Notes by John Drudge

These are the footprints
The paths we walk
These broken stones
Beneath our feet
Across the bridge
Toward the bank
To sit and smoke
And talk and drink
There are things
And places
That move us
That make us bend
And twist through time
One thing then the next
One way to go before
One day curved into eternity
And then suddenly
No more

John works as a clinical social worker and is the president of a national disability management company. He holds degrees in Social Work, Psychology, and Rehabilitation Services and has studied philosophy extensively.  He is an avid traveler and a long-term student of the martial arts holding a 3rd degree black-belt in Kempo Karate. His diverse educational and experiential background gives him a broad base from which to approach many topics in his poetry. John currently lives with his wife and two children in Caledon, Ontario, Canada. 

I'm Not the Only Lush by Terrence Sykes

(A new rendition  --forgive me Herman's Hermits & Carpenters

I'm not the only Lush all over the world tonight
All over the world people just like us are falling over drunk
If you know what I mean
It's not just the two of us
It's everyone in sight
All over the world people just like us
Are falling over drunk

So listen very carefully
Get closer now before I have to pee
And I hope we will see
This isn't a dream
That the only sound you will hear
Is when I whisper in your ear
-I want another beer -
I want this buzz to last forever & ever

((to late to REFRAIN so let's sing it again))

We not the only lushes all over the world tonight
All over the world people just like us are falling over drunk
Yeah they are falling over drunk
L....u   ...s.....hhhhhhhhhhhh

Terrence Sykes is a GASP Gay Alcoholic Southern Poet & was born and raised in the rural coal mining area of Virginia.  Although he is a far better cook &  gardener – his  poetry - photography - flash fiction has been published in India, Mauritius,Scotland, Spain and the USA. ..Other interests include heirloom vegetable research & foraging wild edibles .

Bug Juice by John C. Mannone

When I winked at the lady
across the room, a dainty
ladybug landed in the middle
of my drink. She floated
her orange brown shell
with black polka dots inking
the scotch on the rocks —
ice-cold ether resigned her.
She left a bitter yuck,
a tincture of insect juice
spiking the Kilt & Castle,
but the buzz was far better
than that vetch of stale celery
dunked in a Bloody Mary
with house flies frantically
paddling their tiny fecal feet.

She winks back. Perhaps
I’ll try the red agave worm
in the bottom of the bottle
of Mescal. I hear it swills
an erotic magic: hallucinogenic
and sweet.

John C. Mannone has work in Adanna Literary Journal, Anacua Literary Arts Journal, and Number One, and in Artemis, Poetry South, Human/Kind Journal, Red Coyote, Blue Fifth Review, New England Journal of Medicine, Baltimore Review, and others. He won a Jean Ritchie Fellowship in Appalachian literature (2017) and served as the celebrity judge for the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (2018). He’s a retired professor of physics living between Knoxville and Chattanooga, TN. http://jcmannone.wordpress.com

By Noon by Susan Tepper

An erasure—

One day you’re gone.

Despite that you show up

for breakfast daily, 

even make the meal 

which is eaten without  

so much as a nod 

or complaint:

These eggs are runny.

Coffee is weak.

Toast tastes fucking burnt.

All would be welcomed:

An assurance: you live 

and breathe.

By noon your heart is

fist-bunched,

is an avalanche

out of control slide.

You dress to go hunting

in too much perfume, 

leather and spikes, 

any bar on any street 

a nice glass, reflective,

for pouring liquid nitrogen 

down a narrow pipe.  

Susan Tepper is the author of eight published books of fiction and poetry. Her most recent book just out in June is a road novel titled “What Drives Men.” It was shortlisted at American Book Fest Best Book Awards. Other honors and awards include eighteen Pushcart Nominations, a Pulitzer Prize Nomination for the novel “What May Have Been” (Cervena Barva Press, and currently being adapted for the stage), NPR’s Selected Shorts Series, Second Place Winner in Story/South Million Writers Award, Best Story of 17 Years of Vestal Review, Shortlisted 7th in the Zoetrope Novel Contest (2003), Best of the Net and more. Tepper is a native New Yorker.

You Oughta Be In Poetry. By Alyssa Trivett

Slap the tap dancin' hands

on the plastic toy keyboard.

Fire neuron lines 

standing in line

at the self checkout while someone buying a box of beer and cat kibble

can't seem to 

scan the barcode properly.

Pen about it to mope.

I purchased pens 

on Amazon,

they were cheaper than 

the $6.35 submission fee coulda used to

fill my tank up. Instead, I

slashed my own tires,

only in stanzas,

to have enough late night

comedy routine material to

make up another poem.

It's mostly a blessing, 

somewhat a curse,

in the way the 

3 AM hours seem to linger on

with words.

While you're swabbing the

bathroom floor and the poems build up...

to quote

The Lawrence Arms:

Fire away.

Alyssa Trivett is a wandering soul from the Midwest. When not working two jobs, she chirps down coffee while scrawling lines. Her work has appeared in many places, but most recently at Ex Ex Lit, and Duane's PoeTree site.

Sacrifice. By Dennis Moriarty

Oh high priest of opioids, tonight
My pain is sacrificial
And I offer it up without reservation.
Hold me upside down
Until I dangle above the chalice,
Force my stare down
Into the hall marked darkness below.

Watch me squirm and flap like a chicken,
Hear me squawk and cluck,
As I cling on to the light yet all the time
Craving the promise
Of oblivion you made me.
Oh, high priest of opioids, you have gave
Me your word.

And I in turn will watch as you free the dagger
From it’s blistered sheath
And hone the blade on the tip of your tongue
Until it flashes
And sparkles like diamonds in the whites
Of my eyes.
Hold me while I spin and twitch

My pain bleeding out to mingle with the
Hall marked darkness in the chalice.
And when the codeine turns to morphine,
The morphine to manic laughter,
I will thank you profusely for keeping
Your promise,
After all, pain is a sacrifice worth making.

Dennis Moriarty was born in London, England and now lives in Wales. Married with five grown up offspring Dennis likes walking the dog in the mountains, reading and writing.
In 2017 he won the Blackwater poetry competition and went to county Cork in Ireland to read his work at the international poetry festival. Dennis has had poems featured in many publications including Blue nib, Our poetry archive, Setu bilingual, The passage between and others.