Artist By Alan Catlin

 He said

 to me:

 "If you're

 such a

 fucking

 great artist

 why do

 you do this

 I mean 

 what are

 you here?"

 I guessed

 I needed

 the money

 Starving for

 my art didn’t

 appeal to me

 much

Alan Catlin spent 34 years in the trenches working bar wars as a barman in nightclubs, restaurants hotels and local neighborhood Irish bars.  He writes a lot too. 

Caretaker by Jonathan S Baker

for Tohm

You're worried about 

what I'm going through

as you hang your head over the toilet

and I sit comfortably on the side of the tub

and the dog watches you from the safety of the doorway.

We had so much fun tonight,

puzzle pieces and rum runners.

Even now, I'm happy we are all together.

You're not done yet.

You're kneeled there spitting, 

waiting for the last bit

So, I read to you from Tohm's book 

a poem about a time when he was sick,

vomiting and shitting forever,

but still felt like jerking off

and I hope that helps.

Jonathan S Baker lives between the river and the rows of corn in Evansville, Indiana.  They are the Author of Cock of the Walk (Laughing Ronin Press, 2022) and co-author of Contemplating the End of Insomnia While Inside The Postmodern Mausoleum (EMP Books, 2022).  They are also the editor and chief at Pure Sleeze Press.

Days by David Painter

It makes no difference as I unscrewed the cap.

It could be Monday for all I care

I watched the amber liquid fall

and kiss the ice in the bottom of the glass

clacking some with its sudden warmth.

Looking down I thought is two fingers enough?

My mind shot back the answer as I

continued to pour.

It is early morning, but already it’s hot.

Most days start like this,

even the sun makes a beeline for the ice

no drought to cool itself off.

I pour another hoping that

this one will last longer.

The mailman drops off the mail

a few read, past due, then he

melts into the heat of the day.

Sitting on the front porch even the

occasional breeze is warm.

I pour another just to cool off.

So. it goes most days,

the sun eating my ice

and me trying to stay ahead of it.

David Painter is a Northeast Ohio poet and photographer. His aim is to capture his point of view on the world through nature, culture, architecture and history.

Dave’s love for photography began in the 1970s with the purchase of his firstMinolta SLR camera.Through his keen eye, Dave became a member of the Cleveland Photographic Society and the Chagrin Valley Photography Guild.For the last decade, Dave has added poetry to his creative repertoire. Expanding his interests to the human condition, fiction and history; his favorite era being the Civil War. Much of Dave’s poetry is inspired by his photography; the perfect marriage of his two passions.

Dave is a member of many poetry groups including Allegory Alley, Scribbles Writing Organization, Poems and Unpoems, Writers Writing Poems and Out of Your Write Mind. Additionally, he is active in The Pixel Photography Club and the local historical society.

Dave was born and raised in Charleston, W.V. but has made the Greater Cleveland area his home for the past fifty years. He is married with two kids.

@davepainterphotography

Quiz Kids Just Do It by Harris Coverley

In terms of pub quiz etiquette, the Poon Tang Clan were the very worst. Every time they won—which was fairly often—and the result was announced over the mic, they would all stand up whooping, unzip their trousers, and slap their dicks on their table in unison, chanting their team name. The barmaid would return their quiz sheet, laughing like it was nothing, telling them, “Come on, come on now, put ‘em away, you’ll get us shut down again…”

When our own team, the Foxy Stoats, happened to win they’d make a scene, accusing us of cheating, spraying beer into the air. They’d come up to us, their cocks out, and slap them on our table, going: “OI! OI! OI! OI! OI! OI! OI! OI! OI! OI!” And the barmaid would return our quiz sheet, chuckling as always, saying, “Come on, come on, be good sports now…”

“OI! OI! OI!”

The sight of those pale white members hitting the wood before our eyes was bad enough, but since we shared the crisps and peanuts on our table by opening the packets fully as a spread so anyone could take from wherever they were sat, we were anxious not get any penile sweat or loose smegma in our hard bought pub snacks.

One time when this was happening we’d got a 55 out of 62, our highest ever score, so I was particularly pissed off at their usual stink-making.

Gary, their de facto leader, I found especially obnoxious, so as he slid out his limp grey sausage skin of a lady-poker and smacked it down, I took a drink of my ale and then slammed the pint glass on his glans.

He yelped and swung his right arm at me. I ducked and bent the edge of the glass into his shaft as he whimpered.

The other Poon Tangers were too horrified to do anything, while the rest of the Foxy Stoats and at least half of the pub hooted and cheered.

Gary got his hands around my neck, squeezing, but I just twisted the glass tighter into him.

My demand was clear: “I don’t want any more dickmeat on this corner table you greasy motherfucker!”

“What’s going on here Sam?!” cried the barmaid as she returned our sheet.

“We’re sick of it,” said Jules, a fellow Stoat. “He’s just giving him a lesson!”

“Release him Sam or you’re barred!” she shouted at me.

“Release this cocksucker?” I said as Gary’s hands tightened about my throat. “He’s the cunt with his lil’ shrimper slapping against the table!”

“YOU BASTARD!” he screamed, and he finally got my windpipe to collapse. At this I at last released his todger, but not before dragging the glass against his glans, crushing his Jap’s eye—or, to use the correct medical term, urethral meatus.

Free from my pint he fell to the floor in agony, whereupon on pure impulse I kicked him in his still exposed parts.

“Hope you’ve learnt your fuckin’ lesson you fuckin’ perverted son-of-a-bitch!”

Bob, Gary’s second in the Clan, slapped the back of my head, so I threw the rest of my pint in his face. He swung for me, catching my ear, but I got him in the guts with my right fist. Another Poon Tanger grabbed my shoulders from behind and pulled me back, the chair tipping. On the floor blows thundered down, but I slid my chair into his shins and he dropped, his jaw a perfect target for my knee.

 Harris Coverley has verse published or forthcoming in Polu Texni, California Quarterly, Star*Line, Corvus Review, The Oddville Press, Better Than Starbucks, EgoPHobia, 5-7-5 Haiku Journal, Scarlet Leaf Review, and many others. He lives in Manchester, England.

The Man Who Loved Cats by Jeff Weddle

The man who loved cats
also loved his wife
and smoked small,
imported cigarettes.

He sometimes recited his poems
in odd places
and often drank too much beer.

The man who loved cats
was very old
but only a fool
would step outside with him
if the invitation were offered.

He played the horses regularly
and could often be seen at the track
where no one noticed him,
just as he preferred.

The important things
were his wife and his poetry,
the horses,
and maybe the cats
more than the rest.
.
And when he died
the cats grieved,
as did a few people,
and that was plenty.

The poems stopped
the only way they could,
and he was remembered
for a time,
then mostly forgotten,
as were the poems.

Do not mistake my meaning.
This is the happiest of stories.

This is how it’s done.

Jeff Weddle is a poet and writer living in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He won the 2007 Welty Prize for Bohemian New Orleans: The Story of the Outsider and Loujon Press, and has also received honors for his fiction and poetry. Jeff teaches in the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alabama.

Mr Albion by Nick Gerrard

It’s late, it’s raining, it’s Tuesday night. The Queen’s head stands alone amongst derelict land and boarded up rows of houses.  A little light standing out in the rusty coloured sky. An old Union jack flaps, tattered on a pole hanging from above the creaking sign. 

Thought I’d pop in to one of my old haunts. Was my local for years. We lived in the next street. They’ve mostly gone now; the streets.

I take my half glass to the bar.

‘Do you have any mild, you know old style mild.’

‘We have draught dog bolter bitter and Ape ale.’

Jesus.H.Chirst!

‘Just half a lager then.’

‘Would you like Czech or wheat?’

‘Just the old kind!’

The guy with a beard and a hair bun smirks and pulls me a Staropramen. 

‘Two quid to you mate.’

‘Two quid for half a lager!’      

‘Welcome to modern Britain old man!’

I take my half and sit on a chrome backed red leather seat.

I looked around; no telly to watch the footy on, just some repetitive music blaring away. Difficult to even chat in here!

There are groups of well-dressed students I groups knocking back shots and laughing too loudly.

‘Last orders gents and ladies!’

It’s only ten thirty! I thought we had all night drinking these days. 

I sink me half, put on my battered trilby and my tatty Mac over my thread-worn stripped suit, and tie; pull up my collar…’Good evening.’ And push out into the thick drizzle. 

I stand at the bus stop; the bus is late as they always are these days. It takes eight stops till I get to my neighbourhood. There is a little more life here, though I don’t know anyone anymore. 

But it all makes me angry and nostalgic. An Asian shop, open all hours. One time they shopped for us now they have taken over the shops that closed at five-thirty and half day on Wednesdays.  Now they can take our money anytime of the day.

I kick the kerb with my ancient scuffed brogues; once they had always shone. 

A Greek Kebab shop stands where Alf’s fish and chips once stood. I look at the menu; no fish and chips…I spit on the pavement and light up a Woodbine.

My health’s not what it was. Doc says I’ll croak it if I don’t stop the fags but, he don’t care really. 

And I let it be this way; it was my fault.

I remember when the trains ran on time (But I had supported privatisation)

I remember kids in the street playing safely, kicking a ball; now their grannies gets kicked in the head for their pensions. The once proud working man controlled these streets along with the rolling pins of the mothers with crying babies wrapped round their middle. I had wanted the unions destroyed, the young sent for national service; wanted a throw-back to the glory days, when our unfurled flag smothering everything. 

Now the road seems filled with rounded shouldered men staggering past boarded up shops to get home or to a bedsit to sit alone with another can and some reality programme about people on benefits. I pass an alley and sees kids, 12, 13 dealing; they look up at me with red skunk eyes, give a toothless grin and carry on. 

-What the fuck you want old man?

I walk away slowly and hum to myself… ‘There always be an England’…Got a bloody tear in me eye, saft sod! 

I get back to me two up two down. Roll up pages of the The Daily Mail and get a coal fire going. I get the coal from a garden centre these days; a product of bloody Poland. I had believed the promises of Thatcher about not closing the pits. I should have listened to Scargill, I know now don’t I?  I read the front page of a Sun; ‘Read the messages of the missing girl!’ Jesus, who wants to read that? That’s not fucking news!  I throw it onto the fire.

On the telly, the prime minister is denying that he lied to the nation again, fucking idiot he is! Sold us a promise of being free, out of Europe, now we have no workers to pick fruit or load baggage at airports and every one on Short term contracts,; wages so low they need benefits too and food banks; breaks my heart, but I fell for it didn’t I. It’s my fault! I voted for these Etonians. Why did I believe they would help the working man? When I look back now I see it was them! It was them that did all this! They promised me a Great Britain And I got a shite Britain. I am sorry! Sorry for the families struggling, the kids with only gangs and drugs to look forward to.  

I change channels. On the other channel a programme about the most successful criminal gangs of Northern England, then a film about D-day. I watch with a lump in me throat. And begin to cry again. This happens a lot these days; maybe loneliness? The doctor gives me some pills for me nerves, they help a bit. I turn it off and pour a scotch from a half bottle, one of my few treats these days. I pull back the curtains. In the house opposite an argument is going on, I can feel the fists coming. I looks out down the road at the rusting statue of the steel works standing as a memorial, where I worked till they shut it down. Not profitable any more they said. And I looks further down to the now silent docks, nothing going in or out these days. I take off my suit and clothes and get under me tatty old patchwork quilt, Gladys had hand sown. I turn the lamp off; take a last look through the gap in the curtains at the horizontal rain battering the window and close my eyes.

Nick writes Gritty realism or social realism or as he likes to say 'Working-class kitchen sink drama! ‘ His short stories, flash, poetry and essays have appeared in various magazines and books in print and online. Nick has five books published available on Amazon and elsewhere. His short novel out last year, Punk Novelette is all about a group of friends growing up with punk in the 70s in the UK and the effect the movement had on their lives. His latest short story collection is Called Struggle and Strife; fifteen short stories covering the political and personal struggles of today, yesterday, and the future. Stories of casual workers, holocaust survivors, refugees, slum dwellers, and trade unionists. Tales of protests and fight-backs against oppression, and the daily battles of ordinary people. https://nickgerrardauthor.wixsite.com/books

Fighting Spirit By Dan Provost

Observance does not

serve as a buoyancy

to punching out belligerent

assholes in a dive bar—

 

The jalopy of words will appear

when the time is right.

 

 

Dan Provost's poetry has been published throughout the small press for a number of years.  Some recent publications include: Ariel Chart, Poetical Review, Merak Magazine, Oddball Magazine, Deuce Coupe, Misfit Magazine, the Rye Whiskey Review, Cajun Mutt Press and the Dope Fiend Daily.  He has two books coming out in 2020.  Under the Influence of Nothingness by Kung Fu Treachery Press and Rattle of a Realizer, published by Whiskey City Press.  He lives in Berlin, New Hampshire with his wife Laura and dog Bella.