Miners' Thirst By Gail Constable

If you looked closely 

Through dirty windows,

Sooted from the mine's

Coal piles, you could

See a scarred wooden

Table, chairs askew,

A long oak bar ran

Down one side, top

Stained with circles,

Metal rail for weary

Feet as grimy hands of

Working men grasped

Their pints, in one

Corner sat the company

Man who settled 

Accounts, doled out

Pence left, the wooden

Sign over the door

Announced the pub 

Though few could read

It, in the alley behind

The union organizer

Gave the signal, torches

Were lit, tossed through

The back door, spilled

Liquor burns, workers

Ran, it is all gone now

Yet if you listen very

Carefully in the wind,

You can hear the clink

Of coins, laughter

Drifting from those 

Who quenched their

Thirst at a pub called

Poor Man's Stand.

Gail Constable is a published poet, mother, grandmother and friend. Her second love is singing so she can be found weekly at her hole in the wall bar belting out tunes. Gail currently resides on beautiful Cape Breton Island in Canada.

ONE BARSTOOL AWAY By Jay Passer

 

old fat white American male poets

with baggy faded blue jeans

untucked button-down dress shirts

with ballpoint pens in breast pockets

trimmed white Santa-beards

plastic owlish glasses

like-new Panama hats

and too many Pushcart Prize nominations

make me want to

shriek

vomit

and murder things that are innocent.

old fat white American female poets

hair braided with hand-tooled leather clasps

necks liberally scented with patchouli

sporting loose paisley polyester print dresses

Birkenstocks or Doc Martens

and anything fucking else vintage

with Adderal smiles and splotchy skin

make me want to

run away

screaming

for my Mommy who died of cancer

15 years ago.

so, I hardly ever leave my place.

that way, I won't disgust myself

passing my own reflection

in some store window

sure to be smashed in the looting to come.

buy me a drink?

Jay Passer's work has appeared in print and online since 1988. Author of 13 poetry and prose collections, he is widely published digitally, most recently in Don't Submit!, Horror Sleaze Trash, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Fixator Press, and Piker Press. He's been employed as a dishwasher, barista, cook, warehouseman, courier, house painter, pet sitter and mortuary apprentice. Passer lives and works in San Francisco, the city of his birth.

“ How’s it gone ? “ by Graeme Lindsay

“And so we meet again, my friend, two blank pages problems staring over a pint or two, shall we discuss Politics, Economics, Religion, Philosophy, or shall we shoot the shit, whilst pissing in the wind, and watch the weekend worm its way into our bones, shall we toast the hunt master, Mescalito, Bacchus, Bomb Shiva Shanti, Buddha, Yesus, Marley, Scratch Perry, Seasick Steve, should we, shall we, would we,will we.

Let the dance begin and end in tears, let the hills grow beards, and the trees burn their shadows, let the Berserker inside feed and bleed, let the hashisheen free to

do what it does best, “

“ I only asked how’s it gone, get tae fuck, ya fuckin’ bam, “

Alone again, at the bar again, talking to my pint again ! My alpha male inner child would like to point out that I still got laid, that night.

The Tart, the Friday, The End.

 I'm  53,  a factory worker, living in the south of Scotland, I've been writing for some time.

drinking hard liquor at forty-eight By John Grochalski

 

you think

it used to be so easy

to throw it all away

the jobs

the cities

the bank account

but now?

drinking hard liquor at forty-eight

as the television advertises

erectile disfunction pills

blood pressure meds

life insurance

and tells you

at your age

to get your colon checked

you’re reminded

that it’s not so easy now

to give up on it all

that the world doesn’t want you

the way that it once did

that the world would

throw away a guy like you

if it could

no new jobs

will take you

no new cities

have anything original to offer

age and experience

are a trap

instead of some kind of freedom

sure,

you give less of a fuck

but no one cares about your opinion

anymore

anyway

or maybe you’ve just gone soft

and the fire that used to burn

is just a flicker of light

this liquor a salve

on the open wound

that is your existence

you lift weights

you run

but at the end of the day

you’re an exhausted zombie

on the couch

by nine

a shell of a soul

in front of a television

drinking hard liquor at forty-eight

doing the math

of your timeline

the years that came before

the ones you maybe

have left

unrefined gambling

with your own mortality

the good years

plucked away

without your full consent

and the anxiety

burns so rich

the self-sadness

such a wellspring

that it’s going to flood

you think

fuck it

fuck it all

you turn off the tv

and go to the fridge

to fill the slick tumbler

to the top

with more cold booze

because why not?

because it’s the way

it’s always been

the only way

and tomorrow?

tomorrow

doesn’t care

about tonight’s pity party

tomorrow is

coming for you, man

again

and again

and all over again

so suck it down

and suck it up.

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.

Tombstone By Brenton Booth

                                                                         

I went

looking

for your

grave but

couldn't

find it

until later

that

night,

in the

stark

reflection

of an

empty

glass

on the

edge

of

the

bar.

Brenton Booth Lives in Sydney, Australia. Poetry of his has appeared in Chiron Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Main Street Rag, Naugatuck River Review, Van Gogh's Ear, and Nerve Cowboy. He has two full length collections available from Epic Rites Press. brentonbooth.weebly.com

SO TIRED By R.M. Engelhardt

The world keeps

A' spinnin

People dying

People living new

Kids being born

Everyday

But nothing

Truly ever changes

Nothing is a miracle

Among the many who

Seek them 

It's like winning 

The lottery

Except you don't

And never will

So

Where are all the aliens? 

Where are all the flying cars?

Where is God?

Who is God?

And does he or

She even care

Or even know our names?

Maybe God is a hot

Blonde chick in a 

Flying car who you

Meet at the bar.

She buys you drinks

And then? The next 

Morning you wake up

Next to her only to realize 

That she was just one of those Grays

From a planet far far away

Who only probed you while

Your head showed you some

Beautiful illusion and then

When you report it they put

You in the local mental institution

(Where you secretly wait

For her return)

And take meds

But we get so tired and

We sometimes get

So bored with this world

That we just want to scream

Follow lunatics and elect them to

Office hoping that they will somehow

Start a war or watch the final conflict play out the final scene of that movie that never seems to end

It's no wonder that we all

Drop out at around the age of 80 because

We've waited for so so long

To just wake up

As the world just continues

Ignores us

As if we've never existed

At all 

Bored as Fuck

And waiting for 

The winning lotto numbers

To be announced

R.M. Engelhardt writes, lives & breathes in Albany, NY. He is the founder of Dead Man's Press Ink (1998), a small indie poetry publishing firm & is the original founder of the literary community group Albany Poets. Over the last 25 or so years his work has appeared in dozens of small press journals, anthologies & zines  worldwide and he is the author of roughly 16 books of poetry, such as " DarkLands" ( 2019 Whiskey City Press) "The Resurrection Waltz "(Infinity Press 2012) & "The Last Cigarette, The Collected Poems of R.M. Engelhardt" (Dead Man's Press Ink 2007) .  He currently hosts the open mic for poets "INVOCATION OF THE MUSE"  At Lark Hall and is also a supporter of experimental & Pagan poetry as well. 

His new book, " Of Spirit, Ash & Bone Poems*Parables" ( Dead Man's Press Ink) comes out and makes it's appearance in 2022.

www.gentlemanoutsider.com 

St. Amand of the Rural Rust Belt Bars by Karen J. Weyant

You gave up fine food and drink for this:

Wobbly bar stools, cracked plastic glasses

and old pool tables with chipped cue balls

that will never shoot straight.

     

The pretzels always taste stale even

though you open fresh bags for every shift;

the beer tastes the same no matter the brand. 

Every day, factory workers stop by with 

their slim paychecks, waitresses use tip money

for booze. Even a few school teachers,

their souls worn thin by the lives of their students,

slide in the front door, take seats near the back,

nurse bottles with their fingers tight around the glass.

Your old life was more comfortable, but you stay.

You serve up the alcohol, listen to all the problems.

And every night you think of the lives

you hope you have saved: the young cashier who masks 

her prescription drug problem by ordering Pepsi,

the gas station attendant who blows most of his money

on instant lotto tickets, always hoping for the big win,

the men who are weighed down flannel shirt, pay cuts 

and families who already need more.

The author of two poetry chapbooks, Karen J. Weyant's poems have appeared in Chagrin River Review, Cold Mountain Review, Copper Nickel, Crab Orchard Review, Fourth River, Harpur Palate, Pittsburgh Quarterly, Lake Effect, Rattle, River Styx, and Whiskey Island. She lives, reads, and writes in Warren, PA.