card shop carl by John Grochalski

card shop carl

is excited to see me

whenever i come in the card shop door

i used to be suspicious of carl

but have since learned to live 

with his exuberance and adulation

card shop carl is

tattooed and scrawny and haggard

he’s been to rehab a few times

and looks like he’s endured some other tough shit

he brings up his years in the military a lot

carl was stationed in berlin in the 80’s

so berlin is touchstone for him

everything that ever happened 

that was any good in carl’s life

happened in berlin

the booze

the women

tripping on LSD in kreutzberg

driving 160 km on the autobahn 

while fucked up on pills

card shop carl’s bucket list

is to get back to berlin

he likes to talk about rock and roll

and the writing of the beat generation

carl goes through all of the dead shows he’s seen

while i look through baseball cards

tells me, you should’ve seen jerry, man

card shop carl talks so much

sometimes i lose track 

of the cards i’m going through

or the money that i’m going to spend

once i ended up spending fifty bucks

most of my paycheck goes to the card shop

the other half goes to the liquor store

so i have to maintain a financial balance

card shop carl is off the sauce

we don’t talk about the booze

unless the drinking happened

somewhere cool in berlin

card shop carl laughs and says to me,

what are we doin’ man?

and i don’t know how to answer

he’s fifty-five and works in a baseball card shop

i’m forty-six and still buy baseball cards 

to the untrained eye

we’re either men of grand delusions

or men of immaculate leisure 

in reality

we’re men whose best years

are starting to get left behind

so i let carl talk

as i sift through cards

try and get out of the store

without spending another fifty

pretend to be fulfilled 

by my conspicuous consumption

like carl is his berlin memories

and the wonderful silence 

of momentary anonymity

as i head toward my other friends

at the local liquor store.

John Grochalski is the author of the poetry collections, The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out (Six Gallery Press 2008), Glass City (Low Ghost Press, 2010), In The Year of Everything Dying (Camel Saloon, 2012), Starting with the Last Name Grochalski (Coleridge Street Books, 2014), and The Philosopher’s Ship (Alien Buddha Press, 2018). He is also the author of the novels, The Librarian (Six Gallery Press 2013), and Wine Clerk (Six Gallery Press 2016). Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where the garbage can smell like roses if you wish on it hard enough.

21ST CENTURY POEM by Jay Passer

Django played with 2 fingers

escaped the nazis

by riverboat

Made a book

out of cold creeks and chocolate

Reached out across time

before Hollywood

head shots

and

smog-infused sorbet

after 

dreamless pandemics

Django was a Gypsy

I am a Jew

with arthritis

Make pasta with chocolate

disgusting my neighbors

it’s just as well

My broke guitar

strumming Love Me Do

Django the infinite Beatle

Made a book

out of 

toilet paper

instructions complete

on You Tube

Jay Passer's work has appeared in print and online since 1988. He is the author of several chapbooks and has appeared in a bunch of anthologies. His latest collection, they lied to me when they said everything would be alright, from Pski's Porch, is available at Amazon. Passer lives and works in San Francisco, the city of his birth.

Youthful honesty amongst the green by Giovanni Mangiante

I tried writing a poem about nature while at the park,

no cigarette breath, no cheap coffee,

no mental illness, no drunken babbles,

nothing.

It was just me sitting on a park bench

looking at the flowers, the trees,

the kids playing with their parents,

random birds and butterflies

and peace, so much peace

“Mom? Mom!” I heard a kid say,

I saw that he was pointing at me,

he must have been five years old or maybe less

“Mom, look at that man!”

“What is it with the man?” asked the mom

“His nose is all fucked up!” he replied

I stood up and walked away, wandered around the city

passing through bars with busted neon signs,

dead grey buildings with one graffiti scribbled over another,

prostitutes and deranged looking vagabonds,

then I stood in front of a parked car, and looked.

I took a good look at my reflection on the side window.

Yes, alright, my nose was fucked up.

Giovanni Mangiante, born on March 17th, 1996, is a bi-lingual writer from Lima, Peru. He has work published in Panoply, The Anti-Languorous Project, Dream Noir, Punk Noir Magazine, Minute Magazine, The Rye Whiskey Review, Eunoia Review, and has upcoming poems in Down in the Dirt and Open Minds Quarterly. In writing, he found a way to cope with Borderline Personality Disorder.

withdrawal by Ben Newell

As of late

I’ve been plagued 

by night sweats.

I awaken 

to find my legs slick

and slimy with perspiration,

my bedding soaked.  

I really need 

to wash these sheets—

They smell sour,

smell like an old jock strap. 

A woman would never

put up with it.

But it’s been years

and God knows how many beers

since I’ve had a woman. 

Ben Newell dropped out of the Bennington Writing Seminars during his first semester, eventually resuming his studies at Spalding University where he earned an MFA.  His first full-length collection of poetry, Fuzzball, was recently published by Epic Rites Press.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926860667/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_c8rnDbWM37NAQ

stuck in neutral by J.J. Campbell

think back to random cigarettes
on the floor of some shitty car

all the cute teen girls that hung 
around for the free drugs

you were the cool one

because you never needed a 
fake id to get liquor or beer

you remember when the love
of your life laughed in your
face when you said you 
wanted to marry her

spin the bottle but the bottle
was replaced with a bullet
and you only played with
your imaginary friends

sometimes you could get
high enough to put a neon 
star on top of the sun

sharing a bottle of vodka
with your crush from the
eighth grade knowing
the rest of your life was
going to be stuck in neutral

do you think any of them
actually give two shits that 
you’re alive

a fragile ego requires a few 
extra bottles on nights like 
these

J.J. Campbell (1976 - ?) was raised by wolves yet managed to graduate high school with honors. He's been widely published over the years, most recently at Red Eft Review, The Beatnik Cowboy, Synchronized Chaos, Horror Sleaze Trash and Cajun Mutt Press. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)

Nice People Swallow by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

We were all insanely drunk

and I started massaging her male co-worker

by the front door.

In a black shirt with red lettering 

that said:

Nice People Swallow.

She worked at this sex line 

that let under-aged girls get off 

in the Hartford area

and I guess they wanted to look 

half-professional on this night.

Taking out that functions hall 

along the Queensway.

All those white table clothes

with spotty cutlery.

Handing out trophies 

no one could remember.

And the way we were all so obscenely drunk 

and ruined the whole thing.

Clapped too loud for nothing 

and made a mockery of the dance

floor.

Even for a sex line 

that didn’t advertise.

Both of them fired

in the coming 

weeks.

Always in a way 

that the sodomists  

could cover their asses.

Which made things harder on us,

but never enough to care.

I still had my silly box store 

stock boy gig.

Tying my hair back 

and most of my opinions.

Doing the job I had to do 

for as long as we 

needed it.

Too poor to go anywhere,

you close ranks.

Meet lips with crimson lips.

The 84 year old landlord down the hall.

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly,The Rye Whiskey Review, Outlaw Poetry Network, Under The Bleachers, The Dope Fiend Daily and In Between Hangovers.

Well on his way to dying.

And Just Before..... by Doug Holder

Just before
the fourth gin and tonic
and lime
when fragments
can still be put
in a narrative line
when the tremor
in my hand
is still
for a short
time.

And all these stumble bums?
well--
they are
all pals of mine!
Now---
wouldn't
that fourth drink
be a bloody
crime?

Doug Holder teaches Creative Writing at Endicott College, and is the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press. His work has appeared in The South Florida Poetry Journal, the Cafe Review, sPoKe, Constellations, The Toronto Quarterly, and many others.  Holder's latest book of poetry is " The Essential Doug Holder: New and Selected  Poems." ( Big Table Books). The " Doug Holder Papers Collection" resides at the University at Buffalo Libraries.