Tonight By Jake St. John

I was driving 

on a silent stretch 

of highway 

stars littering 

the landscape

I began to think 

to myself

about the origins

of all things

I started asking 

questions in the stillness

as trees passed by

my windows

what came before

what comes next

what's behind the curtain

what if the universe 

didn't exist at all

what would be 

in it's place

what would it all be 

and for a brief second 

it was.

 

Jake St. John lives in the woods on the edge of the Salmon River. He is the author of several collections of poetry including Lips Leave Scars (with Jenn Knickerbocker, Whiskey City Press, 2023) Ring of Fog (Holy and Intoxicated Publications, 2022), Night Full of Diamonds (Whiskey City Press, 2021), and Lost City Highway (A Jabber Publication, 2019). He is the editor of Elephant and is considered an original member of the New London School of poetry. His poems have appeared in print and online journals around the world."

Big City, Big Moon By Trish Saunders

Nobody called this place the Big Easy when I lived here 

a couple of hurricanes ago, on some

street I’ve forgotten. 

I’m back, and taxiing down the Rue de Rivoli,

hoity-toity name for such a dingy street,

all old flats and warehouses

and I know

people inside are not living,
not a soul could survive

In all that grey. 

The famous river, though--

 doesn’t it shimmer at night:

Come on in!   

The water’s fine. 

Ha, ha! Fooled you!

That train whistle’s like an arrow going through me.

I leave you with my uptown club membership card 

good for one free bourbon a month,  

long as the doors remain open,

which I hope is another hundred years.

A pair of black candles for the next storm. 

Softly, the Louisiana rain

Trish Saunders writes poems and short fiction from Seattle. She has been published numerous places such as The Rye Whiskey Review, Pacifica Poetry Review, Mien, The American Journal of Poetry and many others. She appreciates them all

I Could Give You 51 Reasons by Connie Johnson

 

To suspend belief out here in this

Harlem lounge, captured by James Van Der Zee,

Black & white: aspirational. I marvel at your features

So stark and dapper in your sharkskin suit.

 

Count up the reasons jazz gives us this feeling

Hand the bottle around the table.  Your eyes are

Ever watchful, tenor sax a jackpot

Prize after prize after prize.

 

What’s on the menu: oysters, fresh killed broiler?

Electric, smoke-filled, all your business told in a

Saxophonic cry. Remembering the taste of Four Roses

They all heard you say the drinks are on you.

 

Pose like the winner you are, jazz the reason

We preen and sway. I whisper Billie when you

Call me honey.  Give me your full attention, baby 

Nobody’s starving for love tonight.

 

 

Connie Johnson is a Los Angeles, California-based writer whose  poetry has appeared or will be forthcoming in Iconoclast, Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, Jerry Jazz Musician, San Pedro River Review, Cholla Needles 85, The Rye Whiskey Review, Shot Glass Journal, Voicemail Poems, Misfit Magazine, Mudfish 23, Exit 13, Glint Literary Journal,  and Door Is a Jar.    

Proof By Chad Parenteau

God proves

own existence

hating you so

fucking much

too often for

randomness,

earth moving

enough that

you must 

be favorite 

dumping spot

of universe. 

Chad Parenteau hosts Boston's long-running Stone Soup Poetry series. His latest collection is The Collapsed Bookshelf. His poetry has appeared in journals such as Résonancee, Molecule, Ibbetson Street, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, Off The Coast, The Skinny Poetry Journal, The Rye Whisky Review, Nixes Mate Review and the anthology Reimagine America from Vagabond Books. He serves as Associate Editor of the online journal Oddball Magazine.

Walk On By Alyssa Trivett

Start the caffeine engine.
Read the daily bible verse,
spritz out the door.
Nothing to see here but the rain,
in the words of Matt Skiba.
A bit of brightness finally
pours through blinds today.
I let it in.
Morning fresh air.
My key clicks and clacks
like railroad tracks switching.
Before kickstarting the boxcar,
I look in the rear view mirror,
there are two glass shards still imprinted in my forehead from the accident.
Walk on.
Keep your eyes fixed on the new sunrise.
Sunlight hits the dash,
and today is a new day,
welcome it.

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 

Going Mental By Alec Solomita

My short-term memory

has shriveled to a New York minute.

Except for a few foreign scammers

my phone is as noisy 

as a Trappist monk.

When once I was just avoided,

I’m now ghosted equally

by friends and family.

I lie in bed in the morning

(and afternoon), quibbling

with Dorothy Parker

about her poem “Resumé.”

My recycled liquor bottles

and sweet smell of cannabis

frighten the neighbors,

who act like I got the Covid.

I order dinner in because

I’ve started to hate the sun.

I go out at night 

and half the bartenders

in town see me and say,

“The usual?”

Maybe it’s my negative attitude.

I had a friend who believes

That there are ways to behave

superior to others

like all that idiot pablum

on Facebook: 

“Wake up and be awesome.” 

“Everything happens

for a reason.”

“Everyone has an 

equal contribution

to make.” 

They all remind me 

of my favorite line

from the greatly misunderstood

Philip Larkin, someone who 

spoke the truth and didn’t

tell you that your day

would be improved

by making your bed

in the morning.

“Death is no different

whined at than withstood.”

The truth at last!

Alec Solomita is a writer working in the Boston area. His fiction has appeared in

the Southwest Review, The Mississippi Review, Southword Journal, among other

publications. He was shortlisted by the Bridport Prize and Southword Journal. His poetry

has appeared in Poetica, MockingHeart Journal, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Amethyst Review,

The Lake, The Galway Review, and elsewhere, including several anthologies. His poetry

chapbook “Do Not Forsake Me,” was published in 2017. His full-length poetry book,

“Hard To Be a Hero,” was released by Kelsay Books in the spring of 2021.

In All Earnestness at the Liquor Store By Tracy Mitchell

What is it you’re looking for? The clerk asks.

What is it for which I look? I chastise.

She seduces I must be a writer—   

Depends on what you write, she says.

Some take the absinthe, but their seedy texts

slosh in the placenta, and their greedy characters

only grow uglier.  Kafka knows, Poe suspects.

Pointillists do gin, she says, and are usually quiet adroit– 

but their task is the tedious rush to finish a draft

before the question arises – what’s the point?

If you wish to entertain your mates with Irish verse 

which will seem to predate Yeats, then poteen – 

poteen will blend your Irish blood and lead your pen 

into a glen in Aghadoe, Aghadoe, Aghadoe

a deep and secret glen in Aghadoe.

Contrarily, Vodka Jello Shots will launch your perfect leap

to a raging screed, while Meade will plunge you deep

in legend  – soggy saga-bound predilection to score 

the generations to pulp and sleep with fantasies of yore.

SciFi inevitably follows from Tequila; romance and horror 

of course from the untoward,  unchecked  swilling 

of Cabernet.   And Hemingway, you see what that 

got him – the goblet of black Cuban rum he kept refilling.

She pauses and furrows her brow:

Which brings me round to you, my dear– I can tell, 

I can smell the verse you are dying to smear 

through journals and websites and in every ear  

to steer poet folkways toward image and tear,

toward digital darknesses quaint and queer

to serve up nonsense on the point of a spear – 

the mixture for you I deduce without fear – 

to write  your Dada - doo-doo, the prescription is clear – 

one bourbon, one scotch and one beer.

Tracy Mitchell is a Colorado writer nurtured in the tradition of Minnesota poets. His free verse is largely inspired by sacred vagaries of cosmic happenstance, and wonderments of the human experience. Tracy is a contributing member of Poetry Society of Colorado, Florence Critique Group, and The Tangled Branch (online poetry community). His work has appeared in Dream: Tales from the Pikes Peak Writers [Anthology II] , Quill & Parchment, Lake Region Review, Poetry Society of Colorado Showcase, As the Kettle Wolf-Whistles (Anthology), and Califragile (online contemporary journal).