exiles

by John Grochalski

b.j. looks happy

in the window
of the new bar

drinking his bud

talking to don
who’s keeping watch
over the basket of cheez-its

when i walk in
it’s like the mayor
has shown up

shouts and pints lifted

i think
well, i’ve finally made it

but to where?

i take a seat next to b.j.

the new bartender
gets me a beer
after i tell him what i want

this is something that i haven’t
had to do on this street
in almost four years

i ask b.j. and don
what happened at rooney’s

but instead they tell me
where everyone else is drinking now

b.j. says
they want to have one
last go round at the old joint

but because it’s closed down
the cops will probably come
and cart us all off to jail

so it’s going
to be a picnic instead

everyone from the joint

their families
their kids

reunited

he says he’ll email me the details
when he knows for sure

then jr slaps me on my back
and starts to talk to me
about books

while i take a good pull
on my draft

look around

trying to remember
where the bathrooms are
in this new joint.

The Sea

by Roger Butterfield

I wanted to be higher than you one time,
Not knowing
What that would mean.

Knowing hasn't changed much,
Only from where I'm looking.

An Election

by Rhonda Miller

Limes like sweet jam store in my fridge,
And yet I cannot quit thinking of
the dead pig.

Fire drifts through me,
Burning all images besides
the dead pig.

Books line the shelves
My eyes scan,
But all I read is
the dead pig.

Desperate women cloud the depths of my synapses,
Opinions, reasons, words of encouragement,
But damn it, all my thoughts are of the God damned
dead pig.

Who's running for president?

Hitching A Ride From A Rodeo Bum Four Hours Out Of Eugene

by Richard Hartwell

Sleepily watching, passed and passing,

Riding broken mud flaps’ roostertails,

Drunk-driving U.S. 10l like an asphalt bronc-buster,

And 2 a.m. lies swapped with a cowboy,

Between brown-bagged sips of yesterday.

Alone with last summer’s saddle-tramped truths,

I’ve been drunk-driving highways everywhere,

Drinking forward, dreaming backward,

Drowsing, dropping off, and

Dropped.

Another seven-second ride, ended,

Day before tomorrow.

I Know About Love

by James Babbs

for supper
I’m eating a fried egg sandwich
wheat toast
spicy brown mustard
two slices of baby swiss cheese and
I know about love
I know what comes after
the way it feels
sitting alone at the kitchen table
but I don’t know
what I should call it and
what does love have to do
with a fried egg sandwich
what does love have to do with anything
and I fry the eggs hard
because
I like them crispy along the edges
placing the cheese on top
letting it melt in the pan
until the eggs get all cheesy
hot and greasy
before I put them on the bread

FORTUNES TOLD

by Jeffrey Park

Fortune Teller, reveal to me all my futures.
Will I meet someone nice, will she be
tall and dark and handsome? Will she hurt
me or will she lift me up and carry me on her

shoulder over vast and unseen landscapes –
Or will she leave me to perish or worse,
to live on and pour out my spirit bit by bit
in an endless seeking for revenge – Will there

be fame? Fortune? Ill gotten or deserved?
Show me the precise place on the path
where I must set my foot, the days on which
I need to wake up early to catch that inspired

sunrise. Take me to the wide window where
I will see it all spread out before me like
a shimmering field of grain; with your fingers
on my back spell out the names I should

call myself, the spot where I should pitch
my tent. Give me assurance, sure knowledge
that my horses will win the race on that
morning, my chickens will all come home

to roost. Tell me all, leave nothing out. Put it
down on paper, tuck it in an envelope
and slide it under my pillow tonight, stamped
confidential, sealed with a clairvoyant kiss.

The Clothesline

by Sarah E. White

Looking out the window
I see my clothesline
A week’s worth of laundry hangs there patiently waiting
Waiting for the next gust of wind to toss it
This way and that
Seems like we’re waiting for the next gust to blow into our lives
I watch it now blow carelessly in the breeze
Rippling and rolling
As the wind blows through it
Undulating wildly against the unpredictable breeze
Flowing with it
Just going with the flow
Like an invisible wave cresting, then crashing into a gentle wind
Being moved by it
Propelled ever forward
Elevated then dropped
Bounding about around its ripples
Letting nature change its shape and course
Over and over again
A current of life and energy pushing it aside
Left and right
Forward and back again
If only I could be so moved
So flexible, propelled
Such lovely grace, unseen yet felt
Simply allowing the wind to blow
Permitting the breeze to pass over me
Being free to dance wildly
Casting my worry and cares out with my laundry
Setting them free into the breeze

THE WAY OUT OF HERE

by Lee Stern

Maybe the way out of here is the best way to go.
And we should follow the clowns,
who seem to have a grasp on what’s going on.
If we stay where we are,
native grasses may not bloom every autumn.
And every summer, when we ask where they’re coming from,
a different answer
would mean that a different portion of the day would become ours.
I say we get out of here as quickly as possible.
I say we gather up our favorite coins and disappear
like the rabbit that discovered a positive universe was already here.
Waiting to bring solace to our hearts.
And music to the touching of our brains.

The Hickory Tree

by Robert E. Petras

Sun-crowned,
golden leaves twinkling
in the breeze,
tawny bark furled
along its gilded sleeve,
the hickory tree flashes
its autumn jewels;
for the briefest moment
I can see
through the eyes of God
and he is wearing
amber-tinted glasses.

Unemployment’s Huffs and Puffs

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

drkarenjoy@yahoo.com
Unemployment’s huffs and puffs
Appear user-friendly when
Otherwise occupied by
Westerly shops’ winds
Or saintly assemblages of
Inevitable social situations.

Last gap measures largely
Terminate even fail-safe relationships
Whereas if, alternatively,
Presented front and center,
Such hagiography
Would disappoints even itinerants.

Habituations, alone,
Like those beyond my doorstep,
Blown down by antediluvian actions,
Succeed in landing
Chump change, temporary
Status, plus a little lunch money.

Easels

by Jason E. Hodges

Easels in the meadow
Van Gogh on the hill
Memories of madness swirl in the blood red sky
Razor in one hand, ear in the other
For the whisperers spoke too loudly at times
Adjustments had to be made
Tone down
Tune out the racing of the mind
Sunflowers wilting, withering without water, while the artist transferred them to canvas
Locked them forever in layers of paint
Smearing them back to life with his bristled stick brush
Blurry bright colors bursting with energy
Creativity dripping from each drop of the painting
Raining with life
Flooding out of his mind
The creative floodgates did open
For the artist understands time is just what it is
Time
It’s quickly running out with each second wasted
But slowing to a craw with each second lived
Moving way before man started counting it
Moving, just moving
Is all it’s ever done
Whether we’re here or not
But the artist is a master at feeling the moment
Feeling all the intensity of the world that’s around him
A second lived was more than others live in a lifetime
Van Gogh the painter of the people
Lived one brushstroke at a time

The Mad Ones

by Damion Hamilton　
　
On the parking lot of the bar, two in the afternoon
You notice the battered car, dented up body of a Ford escort,
No hubcaps, plastic in two of the windows,
It yells a story to you
A familiar story
　
Head into the bar
2 O’ clock in the afternoon
　
It’s a nice, sunny, warm Saturday afternoon too
　
And before you came, you wondered what
You would do this day,
　
A day off from work
　
Some people might have went fishing, or
Camping or to a park to enjoy the
Weather
　
But not you
　
You enter the bar, as you have entered it
A couple of thousand times before
　
It’s dark in there
On a sunny Saturday afternoon
Its dark, smoking dreary and smells like
Sex
　
You order your beer, get it and sit far away
From everyone
　
Ur trying to hide
　
The girl dancing on stage, reminds you
Of a starved cat on meth.
　
She’s dancing hard
　
Aint nobody watching
　
The music is loud and very bad,
　
As she yells out, “fucker.”
　
You sip the drink slowly
　
You have no better place to be
　
　
The girl dancing is mad--they say
She cant work regular job, when I
See her, she always threatening to
Quit
　
She’s been saying that for two years
　
She walks over you and asks for a dollar
You want to tell her something funny, or sexy
But am too damned depressed to do it
　
You stay and drink a couple more
　
Until its less sunny outside
　
You leave and head back to a beat up
Old 96 Pontiac Grand Am, no hubcaps,
Dented body, trashed insides
　
Ur a Mad One Too

Satin and Grace

by Donal Mahoney

Here in Chicago I sit
in the sun of an Indian Summer
high on the Water Tower waiting,
chapped hands in a visor
over my eyes, hoping I see
you in that gown,
all satin and grace,
float like a feather
back to Chicago.

I don't care if you stop
by Confederate streams
to pick phallic rocks
on the way from Savannah
so long as you rise,
release all your hair,
take to the air
and float like a feather
on to Chicago

because this is the last time I'll sit
on the Water Tower waiting.
I'd rather go blind than see
you in that gown,
all satin and grace,
laugh like a loon,
turn in the air,
then float like a feather
back to Savannah.

Animale

by Anthony Ward

I’m mortal
Irrepressibly indestructible
Able to do anything
Go anywhere
Where nothing can harm me
Nobody can hurt me
I’m practically inhuman
Almost an animal
Ineffably desirable
You cannot refuse.

Under the Stars by Powell River for Ed Roop

by Ben Rasnic

Sometimes in summer
I miss the country
night air
where the only sounds
are the incessant chirping
of crickets
or the thick sploshes
when flashes of smallmouth bass
breach the surface
of Powell River cascading
moss-covered stones
beyond the flickering light
of campfire
as I lie
in my sleeping bag
& stare at the sky,

finding comfort
in the permanence
of constellations.

something different than the usual shit

by Stephen A. Rozwenc

maybe a baby blue elephant trunk
gently slipping beneath
the flimsy lingerie
of the terribly shrunken
collective imagination
to tease loose
a few suicidal Kewpie doll politicians

they could be cleverly disguised as nuclear armed sex toys
like Saddam Hussein
or Donald Trump's
opalescent crooning

they could five bored girls
flossing with thongs
in Spanish
on TV

but
they should never be confused
with the only transgender war fear button
not punished incessantly by the composite Hurdy Gurdy man
to get himself re-elected
to the exalted missionary position
of president
and Chief Mortician

la la la homophobic ha ha ha
do you believe America's Euro curio shop cure
should stop

all you have to do
is kick and scream at a few well chosen 16 million dollar a year
basketball you-know-what's

with the voice of your heart unstrung like a pearl

Telephone Love of Decades Past (A Carol)

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

My passing thoughts linger, frame you.
Love’s snapshots flicker in review.

Your equations’ call abided,
Certain company’s divided,
By Ergo’s links, such noise’s quieted,
Sums mutually construed.

Heart sports flourish, occasions find
Voices rub simple, ‘near always entwined
Miles rules, but feelings bind;
Telephones join the voice of two.

My passing thoughts linger, frame you.
Love’s snapshots flicker in review.

Across the mountains our words dance,
Not fused by sight, they’re our romance.
Your nod, your smile, your special glance,
Animated our set hitherto.

Now, in dreams, our fingers touch,
They link, they hold in lovers’ clutch,
With words we grope, we stroke as such,
Greater times when we’re renewed.

My passing thoughts linger, frame you.
Love’s snapshots flicker in review.

THE REASON THE STORM

by Lee Stern

The reason the storm was so bad
was I didn’t ask for it to be easier.
I kept my mouth shut and that was the problem.
If I had gotten down on my hands and knees
and prayed to God, believe me,
the storm would have been easier to take.
There would be a few little flourishes of the wind
and that would be the end of it.
Tomorrow they would have said it was a little insignificant uptake in the draft.
And so what was the big deal?
Tomorrow they would have said other things
to take away the pensive quality of today,
meaning, that if I had only said something, I would have known
better than anyone else in the world.
I would have been there for the last one
of the brilliant first circles that I saw.

Call and Response

by Brittany Fonte

Two rings, then three. (Serendipity?) She, in Chi town; he, in their town: Both hold space with desperate arms, alarmed, facing fifteen years of macramed marriage, and fears of losing an identity (or even that inkling) they created before regular sex, baby cravings, whittling siren-sex, that ex, careers of consequence….

She wonders, whiling while tones tone in a loaned hotel room of well-loved beds, if she can be content, alone, with one man; he can never be all she needs. Cannot. As fish need more than a tank, her heart sank when he forgot: her birthday, their anniversary, the condom, milk. He is not a chef, is not Hugh Hefner.

But there are never three in such a first world country of Christian zip ties and Velcro marriages, bold-faced lies of Mrs. and Ms. There can’t be three while the pope still breathes; the tethers of Steinem-feminism miss Lincoln’s nose, picks bare, there. There cannot be three, meant to be, while two boast such a lofty percent: 50. But she knows men.

She knows 50%, surely, is more than what should be, must be behind locked doors, just as those sex surveys roar: Mothers—even whores— do not make love three times per week, not even alone. There is simply no time to moan with Jif and jam, drop off and pick up, soaps and stones, rinse and dry. Dry. She knows, three rings in, he has company. She casts a line to fantasy, too.

Then, “Yeah?”

His common syllable darts, starts a chain of Cain images. It’s quiet. Jizz-us. His mind flits to cover: that old girlfriend from ninth grade and her blonde mother, the swimsuit model from France, the Fed Ex woman’s tight pants, the front man and teenaged stage hand of the metal band he saw—just once—live, also a few lines from a do-me movie he paid $8 for when he couldn’t get laid. His wife often had a headache.

She says, “I’m here. Safe.” And the miles weight her haste to get to once-hidden alone time, “Me Time,” the mini bar or a drink at the open bar without the children shooting par into porcelain vases, or cleaning Sharpie mazes—on the wall— and a hungry husband. A dozen pared phrases and that’s it. Shit- is there nothing he can do? (Sigh.) “Love you.”

“Yes.” And he IS happy, means his merry sign off, even while mind-mapping the miles that stand between him and Hollywood, him and his truant, television third.

When I Smoke

by Anthony Ward

When I smoke
I feel like I’m home
No matter where I am.

The bus shelter is my home.
The park bench is my home.
The shop doorway is my home.

When I smoke
I am never alone.
It warms me with its company as I shiver in the street

When I’m walking through the night
Incessantly awake in the darkness.

When I smoke
I can watch the world go by
As if I’m no longer a part of it.

The Beloved

by David S. Pointer

He wrote her
chick-lit ripperology
poems—embroidered
a new blood soaked
bed sheet, and hand
built a plywood kissing
booth adjacent mausoleum
birds near her mother’s
coffin, and always
rolled straight home
after killing his own
lustful feelings over
at the coroner’s den

Anais Nin

by Jason E. Hodges
　
Oh Anais
I still hear the sound of your voice calling through the backstreets of Paris
Your words of desire spelled out the complexity of being lost
Lost somewhere between Henry and June
Smeared lovingly there
Like perfume between two wrists of hands bent backwards
Intoxicating are your aroma of words
For your thoughts did wander
Along with your touch
The softest touch your hands did give
Like a violinist, a violinist of love
Dragging her bow over the heartstrings of need with the utmost perfection
Making the instrument moan in the wee hours of morning
Playing each note with the press of a finger
The sound of feelings flowed in the night
Through the dark shadowed streets of Paris
You embraced the inside of your soul as much as the outside of your body
For looks fade and tarnish while the soul grows wiser
Diaries of your soul awash with your craving to live life as you saw it
The wanting of Henry but the needing of June
Was your thirst, your appetite
Stripped down and bent backwards
Two legs wound into one another as much as two minds
Connected so strongly Anais and Henry, two writers pushing their pens late in the night
Like a river of words drenched in desire
Sensuality you embodied
A lost land few ever truly see in a lifetime of living
Beauty made up your very being
No concept of time, of money, greed, of belonging to the boring
Ms. Nin your work will transcend the standards of writing for centuries to come

Poorly-lit paradox

by Susan S. Keiser

When you return to a place,
(if you ever called it home)
arrive after dark
and travel incognito.
It's better that way,
to slip into the past alone,
inverted pyramids shook free.

They will find you
with their question marks
much sooner than you think.

Trap moonlight in your skirts
while there is still time
for silver to pool
in a bowl of lap and legs

and wander the curve of night.

Coda

by Perry L. Powell

Many of us

normal lives

underneath

            strangenesses.

A roof leaks.

An old couple

persists.

This is what

breathing becomes.

In the morning

another reason

on warm sheets.

An eclipse ends.

The moon remains.

Old Hat

by Darryl Price

Sent you a hat. I thought it might keep you
warm in the middle of a snow storm,or couch.
As you'll see my words right now are all acting
out like a good many glassy-eyed marbles. They'll oh so
coldly clank in my case that is against one another's
bulky light bulb heads constantly or else like to sit
quietly in a small bark Indian satchel I might sometimes
keep in a desk drawer, with the staples, waiting to
be played with. Like I said. The next unlikely story
of a long time lonely volcano of my type finally

getting to go off gets told in this book with
a thousand cheering voices shouting in my veins. Hooray for
beer! I suppose it's hard to actually hear what's being
said in there sideways. You might not even like this
art game being played over you in that particular library.
We're all anxiously holding our cards and our pistols at
arm's length. Those young guys all look pretty finger happy
to me. I must admit I don't really have much
else to send you in the way of cool greetings
from this here saloon from my rickety exile's chair, because

that's what life is, compared to being around you all
the time. Sorry, but my bum's just a little sore
from all the hours of thought given over so far
to this bit of hat. And as if you're some
kind of living planet up there alone in the sky,
and everyone else is a moon like chunk of mush,
instead of some kind of living song we can't stop
humming. What a jackass I am. That sounds silly, but
I'm prone to leave it in simply because it came
prancing out at you that way. Perhaps there's some truth

to the practice since it began to shake its sad
little riderless shape after the very thought of you, as
they say. 'Bout the only thing they've said that I
do agree with. If I could I'd want to be
fully living and dying present in your lovely presence. That's
what I meant to say. Yeah I know how much
it sounds like a broken record. Pretty stupid. Used up
to all gone again,brother. Old hat. That's what I'm
talking about here anyway. I need to shift it on
over into something a lot more interesting, more to the

feel than that blubbering slow beat of a goofy sound.
Believe me I would if I could, wouldn't I? So
here's just another, for whatever reason you want to imagine
it, kind of sentence for you. Yeah you've already got
several of those in today's mail. I'll bet it's a
daily thing too. At least by now you'd think. You
are at your perfect point of self. And your game
is all about the choosing. Oh this one and maybe
that one. How could it ever be a me, that
poetry guy, when I'm a million emotional miles away, stuck

like a rock between a word and a sentence, like
a comma or one of those brake stomping periods? That's
not much to look at, even on a page like
this one, or to bank your only happiness wish on.
I know. I only want it to be more like
a perfect day landing softly on your brown skin like
a barely felt set of butterfly feet, or a cool,
cool breeze swiping its long fuzzy tail across your sky
opening smile, or an ocean, any ocean will do as
long as it's morning,like a cup of delicious blue

and green and white striped dreams, lifting sweetly into the
bluest blue on your horizon, just waiting to happen for
you, and with you. And me. At least that's the
dumb founding hope I seem to be holding onto like
a man who lives in a lighthouse walking around and
around the rocks for the umpteenth time still looking to
find his lost set of keys. So, Universe, do you
think you could see fit to give her this note
for me in one of your amazingly synchronising ways? I'd
like there to be birds involved, maybe a new dolphin.

Witching hour

by Susan S. Keiser

The pins drop
at regular intervals
in this hollow house;

it's last call for travelers,

glass slipper memories
of mist-shrouded passage.

In silence you hear them,
ideas that pace
the corridors of night,
self-mobilized thoughts,
each anxious to adhere to

a dream,
any dream,

and a hope that it will last
the night.

Harvesting Pumpkins

Donal Mahoney

From villages in Iowa,
Indiana, Minnesota and Nebraska
and from towns in the Dakotas,
Wisconsin and Michigan,

there stream to Chicago in spring
parades of lithe girls
looking for boys
who will look at them

but who find instead
the men who will wine them
through summer,
who will wait until fall

to thresh in the fields
one summer can ripen,
the men who will watch
till a pumpkin falls from the vine.

This is the courtship
village girls dream about,
laugh about, hope for.
Come fall, these are the men

who fill silos of girls
from Elkhart and Davenport,
Ely and other small places,
lithe girls who in spring

come to Chicago looking for boys
who will look at them
but who find instead
the reapers, the men.

Dread or Something

by Perry L. Powell

The false choices or the only choices:

which to choose, which to decline, which to ignore?

Feeling your way along the dark corridors

past the locked doors and the unlocked ones,

you can't escape looking over your shoulder,

can't escape that sense that you are followed,

but by whom, by what, you may never know.

Well perhaps this is a grand adventure,

perhaps a grade-b horror show, perhaps just

another day in a life, you know... Still

what’s a life for? How have we come to be

here in these halls, stumbling along with but

our own misconceptions for a road map―

where these howling dogs are not just for the blind?         

The Short Story

by Brittany Fonte

SETTING: Many weeds grow green in the Mid Western wilds of cows and plains, mosquito-filled lakes and conservative politics. Wisconsin happily barters in cheese curds and whey (sown by serial killers), the twin Dakotas dapple in deer ticks, dust and durable durham wheat. My Minnesota, though, touts corn and soybeans, also gun racks, goys, and cheap ale. Ice fishing holes, sans crops, are stuffed with mammal heads and hookers as company-come-tail. I was raised here, shallow soil et al; “gay” meant “jolly,” only in the way it was used in famous Broadway musicals recreated at the local (Norwegian) rec center. Here, lefse is rolled as much as Mary Jane, and Mary Jane marries men.

CHARACTER: Mary Jane married three men, maybe high, but I hoped for more. I held Ellen a hero without a hampering cape, or male hormones. Nineteen and nit-witted, I coddled visions of karaoke love songs in my mind of minimal focus and tone deafness. Feeling powerful with temporary parental leave, and teenaged volcanic panties primed in electric shocks, I panted after—preyed— on pretty coeds without guilt, without redneck perceptions, concepts of “perversity,” or narrow-minded prattle. Until.

THEME: Until Eternity: This is what I promised her. I kissed her once, offered, “Until we meet again.” Until the clock struck twelve and my spring break curfew counted, I held her hips until the cows came... I thought of her driving home, got a speeding ticket from a dyke who couldn’t see me for who I wanted to be. I thought: Until the fat lady sings. Until the end. Later, I told my parents until I was blue in the face: I loved her. Juliet and Jolie-Pitt. They were silent. They wouldn’t accept it, not until Hell froze over. Sex equaled guilty until proven guilty.

POINT OF VIEW: Guilt from Her. Mom. The old-fashioned. The bigoted. The Christian Right. The Focus on the Family, not mine. The Majority. The Man. The Commandments. The hope for a grandchild. The neighbors and what they might say, have said, have seen over a privacy fence. The hurt I might contend with. The discrimination. The “phase.” The idea of tab A and slot B without silicone accoutrements. The slut. The family friends who will not accept me. The façade. The children with no father. There is, also, God.

PLOT: My God, Thanksgiving came gifting and I, riding shotgun in my mother’s shuttle van, thinking of tofu turkey and brown buttered biscuits (basic human rights) showed my cards: I shouted, “I’m in love. With a woman.” Torrential, tyrannical screams ensued, and then my ride was wrought with the most soundless of nauseated silence.

(
)

It was clear I would not break breads of bartering, then. There was not one loaf for all, and I had to bide my time until a foreign taxi could return me to sender, reset my sexuality, tally all of my wrongs as a child and all of my tuition costs.

CONFLICT: The cost is more than I have

Speed Balls

by Kevin Ridgeway

Pacific cool school jazz
provides the soundtrack
to the home movies of my elder men
wandering around the garbage strewn harbors
their souls and withered eyeballs
pecked by seagulls

None of them played jazz
or wrote or even sang
but they huffed and puffed
every drug under the sun
that shriveled them to
toasted premature skeletons
pumping speed balls
in the backseats of bruised Cadillac’s

Some of them are dead
some of them are jailed
unmarked graves filled
or waiting in the
overgrown grasses of
decayed ghetto burial grounds
strewn with dirt, glass, blood
shoes dangling on overhead power lines

Some of them roam free
but those are the guys who play the blues
and drink two fists to oblivion
buried in plastic desert huts
every so often they get blown toward the Pacific
and my side of town
asking for money
and a bed at a spin dry clinic.

I’ve participated in these mad Olympics
of slow burning death,
these days I prefer the spectator’s life
behind 3D glasses

The Lane

by Denny E. Marshall

Moving signs adjust beams stationed to glow
Traveling down the lane of questions road
Seedling of direction planted to grow
Real time vanishes as picture clouds slow
Secret currents paddle, hidden oars row
Bridges of answers rides a heavy load
Moving signs adjust beams stationed to glow
Traveling down the lane of questions road

The Staircase

by Mike Perkins

as I
climb the
joy of ascent
descends to this
paralyzing feeling
of impending disaster
so I find some poor excuse
anything will do that allows me
to go back down yet one more time
deluding myself that it is only temporary

The Bar Of Words

by Jason E. Hodges　
　
United at the speakeasy of words
Words spoke softly in the mind of the poet
On their way to work
Around the coffee table
Silently combed over and over
Rearranged and tossed about
Notes of thoughts that surround our everyday life
Are gathered up and pushed out of a pen
Scratched franticly out
For desperation to express for an artist should be the same as to breath to a drowning man
Punched keys convey these feelings onto the screen
Then sent with the click of a mouse
Zooming with speed through the wires of the web
Underground
Along street-ways, highways, and byways
Across oceans of deep water blue
Sent up to bounce off the floating metal dish in the stars
All words on their way to the emporium of thoughts
To the speakeasy of poets
Warm words of substance and meaning
Flow as smooth as brown liquor
The saloon of desert ships in the city of The South
The bartender of poets picking the words of the day for display
To be looked upon by the eyes of the world
To wonder what someone else has wondered
To take in
To undo the puzzle
To see how it is put together
Expressions from lives lived near and far
Far and near to the bar of words they go

A Woman Walks Into A Bar

by Mark Reep

Zips or Myhalyks or the River Bend, that kind. A scarecrow or two hunched down at the end, watching an afternoon game with the sound off. The bartender’s no youngblood either. The table bears its scars– stains, cigarette burns, the usual– but the pockets are tight, no gimmes. Rolling Rock, she says, if you’ve got it. No glass.

She does her stretches, takes her cue from its case. Racks nine balls and breaks, taking something off, driving the four into the corner.  Plays the rest as they lay. Racks the balls again, breaks.

She’s working on cut shots when the bartender brings another Rolling Rock unasked.

On the house, he says. Pleasure to have you here.

An ageless little guy, fifty or seventy, and he knows who she is. Or was.

Thanks, she says. He lingers. She drinks some beer.

Saw you once at Mohegan Sun, he says. You beat that Black Widow girl four straight games, ran the table on her twice. You took a picture with me, after. Wondered if you might remember.

I’m sorry, she says. It’s been a long time.

Sure, he says. It surely has.

Her leg’s tingling, all the way up. She puts her beer down, does some more stretches.

Heard you hurt your back, he says, watching. Always wondered what happened, after that.

She straightens, shrugs. You’re looking at it, pretty much.

Listen, if you’re lookin’ for a game or two– Probably wouldn’t be no more’n gasmoney, but I could make a couple calls if you want.

She nods. Thanks, she says.

Well, I’ll leave you to it then. You need anything, you holler.

●

The tingling in her leg’s become a buzzing. She puts her cue away, takes her empty to the bar.

Gonna go get off my feet awhile, she says. Be back in a couple hours.

Got a old couch in the office, he says. I catch a nap there sometimes. You’re welcome to.

She looks at him. He shakes his head.

Ain’t like that, he says. Door’s got a good deadbolt. I’ll show you how to lock it, you can stretch out, take it easy.

Somebody calls for a draft. He goes to pour it. Makes change, wipes down the bar on his way back.

Don’t imagine you’re real trustin’, he says. I was you, I wouldn’t be either. Nobody’ll bother you. You got my word.

She nods. Thanks, she says. I appreciate it.

●

Someone’s knocking at the door. It’s dark out. She looks at her watch. Almost nine.

Be right there, she says, and starts getting up.

●

He’s brought a sandwich. Ham on whole wheat, mayo, mustard. Plateful of chips, a pickle. Another beer.

Thought you could use a bite. Nothin’ fancy.

Fancy’s overrated, she says. Thanks.

He turns on the desklamp, surveys a wall of cheaply framed photographs. Takes one down, wipes the glass with his shirttail.

Guess it has been awhile, he says.

She’s chewing, lifts an inquiring eyebrow.

He perches on the sofa’s arm, shows her: Crazy nineties hair, the Black Label vest she’d always worn, those years. Whatever happened to that vest. That skinny kid, all of it still in front of her. No clue.

What I always remember, he says, that last shot, you didn’t watch the nine go in. Everybody standin’ up to see would it get there– Time it fell, you’d walked away, you were already takin’ your stick apart.

I was a kid, she says. I was cocky.

Show me one ain’t. You knew you had it.

Yeah. I did. Well, I was pretty sure.

He likes that. She tells him what Jeanette said when they shook hands: Girl, you just kicked my ass, you know? Surprising her, laughing– What’s your name again?

I was right there, she says. Showing him with a thumb and forefinger: That close.

Yes you were, he says. And you will be again.

She makes a dismissive gesture, drinks some beer.

Hey, he says. You still want it, or what?

Wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t. Dunno if I’m being realistic, though.

Realistic’s overrated. Better finish that sammich ‘fore it gets cold.

●

When she comes back from the ladies he’s gone. She takes the photo down again, studies it. The clips on the back turn easily, and she slips the photo from the frame. It’s been awhile since she signed anything, and she rummages in the wastebasket, smoothes a crumpled envelope to practice on. No words seem right, say enough. She tries again.

Inside Sunset

by Denny E. Marshall

Sun peeks into
Cracks between blinds
Dust infected rays stream
Across room light to light
Cloud mixed colors glow
Right outside the room