BAR down the side By Susan Isla Tepper

Under the blankets all day

Mom nursing her bottle sings

snips of Irish tunes 

When school is out 

I go see Dad at his local

a brick joint the neon 

down the side

B

A

R 

He’s rough with me

hands me a crumpled tenner

for food, turns away, says

Go home, boy.

Susan Isla Tepper is a twenty year writer in all genres. Her most recent book, a Novel titled Hair Of A Fallen Angel, came out in the fall from Spuyten Duyvil Books, NYC. Tepper has also written 7 stage plays. Her third play titled EVA & ADAMO will present at The Tank, NYC, early fall. www.susantepper.com

Loss of youth By Alyssa Trivett

If you never made a paper football,

flicked it across a gum covered desk,

as your friend stuffed a Zero skateboard in a locker or 

had magazine tear outs plastered in your 

room of your favorite bands,

it’s loss of youth. Or is it?

Terrible eyeshadow.

Married couples who were friends,

now divorced.

The scar on your head from when you fell in the hall is 

now covered in curves of somewhat wrinkled skin and has faded.

Multivitamins.

Sunset afternoons without a jacket

as the day ran away and

our parents never knew where we were,

only that we existed somewhere in the ether.

Climbing and scaffolding empty houses,

Bill relieved himself in the corner bucket.

Trampoline thoughts. Broken wrist as I went over the 

fence.

Karate chops.

Softball cleats and chips of plastic pieces missing. Still 

have my mitt under my bed, no use but the relic that it 

is.

Put a note in that guy’s locker even though he never called me.

Asked a guy to a dance. He ended up living with a different parent shortly after that and never heard from him again.

Nickelodeon. Romantic comedies. Disney made for TV movies.

Vintage video games.

Gain of religion.

Some sort of pop punk and emo upbringing. One more Fall Out Boy show.

Scars from street hockey.

Still bad eye shadow. Makeup pads.

Wanting to make it big as a videographer someday. 

College degree. Years went 0 to 60 in a millisecond.

21, bottles of wine, beer, coffee. Nothing else. Only hope in my bloodstream and a light for those who need it.

Men don’t change.

Unanswered texts but don’t worry about that.

Loss of religion.

Seeing Bad Religion and The Academy Is 

at Riot Fest.

Hot Mulligan blasting.

Alkaline Trio. Thrice. Paramore. 

Midwest emo. Indie. Whatever.

Listen to music all millennium.

Focus on yourself, friend.

Count your blessings with cherished memories and VHS fast forward through the forgotten bad ones that should be left in a soppy paper cup in a parking lot somewhere.

I’ve been to more funerals than I can tally. Distance between friends and unintentional lines in the sand of only

 lost contact. 

Reconnecting, too.

Lift yourself into the next year.

You as well, friend, you as well.

Look up.

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 

Belly in Stop & Shop By Shannon O'Connor

In Stop & Shop, I halted

when I heard the song “Feed the Tree” by the band

Belly playing over the loudspeakers.

Belly in Stop & Shop?

I’ve heard Pearl Jam

and REM, even Nirvana,

but those are big name bands,

not like Belly

They were only half-famous

for one year in 1993

when their album, Star

was released.

People familiar with them

would be those who listened to alternative

music in that particular year.

Belly made one more album, 

then broke up, because it didn’t

sell as well as the first.

I don’t know what

warped reality I’m in

when I hear Belly

in the supermarket;

it’s like time doesn’t exist,

we’re living in a Dr. Who 

episode where there’s a blip

in the continuum.

Some things don’t make sense.

I have learned that accepting

some things don’t make 

sense is a way of dealing with

the spastic nature 

of the Universe.

The Gen Xers who go shopping

have money

(or the people in charge think)

they play music from our youth to inspire

us to buy more vegetarian chicken

nuggets and everything bagel cottage cheese.

Does it work?

My heart stuck in my throat when I heard Belly

in Stop & Shop, and it didn’t inspire me to spend,

it made me despondent that nobody else in the store

was reminded of that year,

the one I turned twenty, when I went insane for the third time,

I believed there was a Taco Bell

on the Moon.

I thought other crazy things, I was in touch

with God, and it was my destiny to save

the world.

It was long ago,

I’m better now, but Belly

popping up in the frozen food

section jolted me.

I hope it doesn’t happen

again. But everything is erratic,

and nobody can tell what otherworldly items

might hunt us down next

in the supermarket on an ordinary

day when we’re buying groceries.

It becomes a Madeleine 

when hearing “Feed the Tree,” from 1993 by Belly,

becoming swept back in time

and simply shocked 

it’s playing in Stop & Shop.

Shannon O'Connor holds an MFA in Writing and Literature from Bennington College. She is a fiction writer, but her roots grow from poetry. She has been previously published in The Rye Whiskey Review, as well as Oddball Magazine, Wordgathering, The Alien Buddha Press and others. She is the chair of the Boston Chapter of the National Writers Union. She lives in the Boston area, and listens to the music from her youth on occasion to be jolted, not always in a positive way.

Spiritus Contra Spiritum By Bruce Morton

(after a letter from Carl Jung to Bill Wilson, founder of Alcoholics Anonymous)

When the spirit is wholly

A ghost, departed, it is

Hard to raise it up again,

Dispirited as we may be.

Solace is often sought

In a glass of spirits distilled

From grains of amber truth,

Enduring fruits of the earth,

That reveal self to self.

Such knowledge will not

Quench for thirst is bottled,

Sitting there there on a shelf.

Better the bitters be spent

Without complement.

Bruce Morton divides his time between Montana and Arizona. He is the author of two poetry collections: Planet Mort (2024) and Simple Arithmetic & Other Artifices (2014). His poems have appeared in numerous online and print venues. He was formerly dean at the Montana State University library.

New chapbook, Olive-drab Khaki Blues, just out from Foothills Publishing. Available at.

https://foothillspublishing.org/bruce-morton/

Refuge for Corpses By George Gad Economou

few hours per day for escaping, a bottle of

rotgut open and some music; thoughts drift

away from the tediousness of life, new

dreams materialize out of the mist. for a

few drunken hours everything feels possible,

even the wildest dream ripe for the taking.

when the hangover comes, lost dreams remain

suspended in the mist, waiting for another

expedition to set them free.

within smoky barrooms great dreamers come alive,

in between the fifth and eighth drink, and they only

temporarily die when they’re dragged back to

coffins shaped like supermarkets, warehouses, and factories.

George Gad Economou has a Master’s degree in Philosophy of Science, currently works as a freelance writer, and has published three novels and two poetry collections, with the latest being his horror novel, The Lair of Sinful Angels (Translucent Eyes Press). His words have also appeared in Spillwords Press, Ariel Chart, Cajun Mutt Press, Fixator Press, Horror Sleaze Trash, Outcast Press, The Piker Press, The Beatnik Cowboy, The Rye Whiskey Review, and Modern Drunkard Magazine.

Why do I bother By Dmitriy Kogan

Why do I bother plugging the phone in?

if I’m waiting for good news, it won’t come

miracles do happen but

they never happen to me

so I might as well not bother plugging the phone in

Dmitriy Kogan is a short story writer and poet from NYC. His work has appeared in Stone of Madness Press.

Punk As Fuck By Kevin M. Hibshman

He grew tired of trying to be led by the dull and unimaginative.

Bullied by boorish clowns.

Irony is history.

The game is ludicrous.

Ask any day jobber or your local street hustler.

There's still sex but it is not dangerous in a good way.

His hometown became a foreign country and he does not speak the language.

He was never a flag waver.

He cut himself a slice of the surreal landscape blooming everywhere.

He sat in the barren fields and drank in thoughts from iconoclastic minds.

It was an engaging waste of time.

It's all bought out.

The money changers have decimated possibilities.

They are mean and sad and will do anything to silence their enemies.

The population, numb as always, frowned upon his peculiar excesses.

I cannot afford anarchy.

I cannot abide reality.

Let's get a good buzz going and rock out like they did during the 60's and 70's.

You know me.

I'm down for anything.

Just a big softie at heart.

Still punk as fuck.

Kevin M. Hibshman has had poems published in many journals and magazines world wide.In addition, he has edited his poetry zine, Fearless, since 1990 and is the author of sixteen chapbooks including Love Sex Death Dreams (Green Bean Press, 2000) and Incessant Shining (Alternating Current, 2011).

Cease To Destroy from Whiskey City Press.

His current book is Lost Within The Garden Of Heathens also from Whiskey City Press and currently available through Amazon.

https://a.co/d/aIBcNvy