I will gladly pump my fist
I will jump and wail and jive
when not me nor you’s alive
I will sing and dance and bray
when we’re underneath the clay
when we’re underneath the dirt
I will faun and flounce and flirt
I will flirt with all the worms
when we’ve both lived out our terms
when we’ve gone to see our maker
I will play the drum and shaker
I will play the flute and fife
when we’ve given up on life
when we’ve gone to meet saint peter
I will buy a half-liter of coke
and we’ll mix it with rum and get drunk and make love after we croak
Katharine Battistoni lives in Austin, TX, with a typewriter, three guitars, and the complete works of e e cummings, if possessions designate character. She can be found here: crunchyfatt.tumblr.com and here: katiesolo.bandcamp.com.
a telephone call wakes me
7am
while I am following some jackass
across a busy highway,
both of us dodging cars
foreign jobs
some foreign city;
I lost the sandals off my feet
sand ankle-deep in the road,
the jackass leads the way;
what is “the way”?
I do not know,
but know
sure as shit
that this is not
it.
Wayne F. Burke’s poetry has appeared in a variety of publications (including “In Between Hangovers”). His three published poetry collections, all from Bareback Press, are WORDS THAT BURN, DICKHEAD, and KNUCKLE SANDWICHES. His chapbook PADDY WAGON is published by Epic Rites Press. He lives in Vermont.
you remember you
were told as a child
that you can always
wake up from any
nightmare
forty years later
unemployed
overweight
and alone
just more bullshit
from your youth
J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) has given up the farm life and is now trapped in suburbia. He’s been widely published over the years, most recently at Dead Snakes, Easy Street, The Stray Branch, Pyrokinection and Horror Sleaze Trash. You can find him most days bitching about only the things he cares about on his highly entertaining blog, evil delights. (http://evildelights.blogspot.com)
Andrew Taylor is a Liverpool born, Nottingham based poet. His latest publications are: Air Vault (Oystercatcher Press) and Liverpool Warehousing Co. Ltd. (zimZalla). His second full collection, March, is forthcoming this year from Shearsman Books. http://www.andrewtaylorpoetry.com
in-between moisturizing my forehead
and shaving my legs
a letter fell through the flap
of metal
onto our hallway floor
still
you screwing
undone
that jar of
Colman’s mustard
in the kitchen
smearing a tipped knife
onto a stale bagel
and eating it
your feet shuffle
snuffling in those day of the week socks
to retrieve that letter
and to bring it to me
showering me in crumbs
I read the date given
for my doctors appointment
the unspoken lingers
in the air
you break it
‘I’ll be off then’
Katie Lewington is a UK based writer and has been drafting, editing and rewriting her bio since she started submitting to literary magazines and journals two years ago. It isn’t as if she doesn’t know who she is, she just isn’t sure what is relevant. Her creative writing can be read at https://katiecreativewriterblog.wordpress.com or https://gumroad.com/katielewington She can be contacted through Twitter @idontwearahat
and the eureka act
of discovery
hear the musings
between your
fingers — crossed
and sweating;
may it never
shake the shit off
the zen
of the poet
living inside
you
and leave
your ass
in the air
with a
confetti
of your
rants
masquerading
as
poetry.
I was born and raised in the Philippines and currently lives in Dubai moonlighting as a manager of a band called Wonder Woman’s Electric Bra. My recent writings can be found in Napalm And Novocain, Dead Snakes, Paper And Ink Zine, The Odd Magazine, Midnight Lane Boutique and Guide To Kulchur. Also in Boston Poetry Magazine, Empty Mirror, Mad Swirl and Silver Birch Press’ Bukowski : An Anthology of Poetry & Prose about Charles Bukowski and the book for benefit Verses Typhoon Yolanda : A Storm Of Filipino Poets by Meritage Press. You can read more at deviationcummeditation.word press.com
It’s the end of the meal and I really need to get going.
A summer storm’s brewing, and I need to drive home
to get ready for company. I’m lingering though, not
wanting to leave, not ready to say goodbye to friends.
Stefanie says she’s spending the summer in Michigan
and asks me if I’m going to be up there anytime soon.
Meghan’s just come back from a conference and she
tells me about the weird workshop experience she had.
I’m sitting next to a rambunctious toddler who keeps
poking me with his chopsticks and gets a little scared
when I jokingly tell him in a monster voice to quit it.
You can see it in his eyes—that monster is frightening.
Isn’t it odd, and kind of crazy, but wonderful though
that we all ended up here, in this same room together?
Maybe that’s a trite observation. I can’t help but feel
it though. The world spins and scatters us in Detroit,
Pittsburgh, Kalamazoo, Greensburg, Black Mountain.
We walk past each other as strangers dozens of times.
But when we look back on that, it feels like a dream.
Before I leave the restaurant, we break open cookies.
Meghan tells us about her collection of paper fortunes,
how she keeps them all stashed away in a box. When I
show her what mine says, she goes, “That’s the best.”
Scott Silsbe was born in Detroit. He now lives in Pittsburgh, where he writes, makes music, and works as a bookseller. His poems have appeared in numerous periodicals including Lilliput Review, Nerve Cowboy, and Chiron Review. He is the author of Unattended Fire (Six Gallery Press, 2012), The River Underneath the City (Low Ghost Press, 2013), and the forthcoming collection Muskrat Friday Dinner (White Gorilla Press, 2017).
The Chihuahua & the monkey
are fighting on a video
uploaded to the Facebook
The monkey is playing with
the Chihuahua’s whiskers
and the Chihuahua has
had enough
and bites at the monkey and
the monkey jumps away and slaps
at the Chihuahua like a cat.
People are offended.
Jeanne says
“this is not a bit funny,”
Linda says
“This is disgusting behavior,”
Elana says
“you are sick in the head!”
Donna says monkeys are
vicious and “might rip body
parts off at any second,”
I guess Donna has
never fought
with her husband
and Jeanne has never
screamed at her sibling
and Linda has never provoked
a co-worker
all Mother Theresa’s
feeding the homeless
dogs and never
a case of the giggles
Melanie Browne is a poet and fiction writer living in Texas with her husband and three kids.
History is sometimes made in an empty (trembling)
glass.
History is oftentimes made at the expense
of the trimmed grass.
Ali Znaidi (b.1977) lives in Redeyef, Tunisia. He is the author of several chapbooks, including Experimental Ruminations (Fowlpox Press, 2012), Moon’s Cloth Embroidered with Poems (Origami Poems Project, 2012), Bye, Donna Summer! (Fowlpox Press, 2014), Taste of the Edge (Kind of a Hurricane Press, 2014), and Mathemaku x5 (Spacecraft Press, 2015). For more, visit aliznaidi.blogspot.com
I’m lost in my life, can somebody help me?
My brain’s gone missing and my heart is on empty.
It’s been far too long without love in my life.
Every day another little piece of me dies.
I’ve climbed every mountain and swam all the seas.
But my ears must be deaf to love’s melodies.
The search is getting harder the older I get.
They make it look so easy on my television set.
I’ll go straight down to Hell and kiss Satan’s ass.
I’ll drink 100 shots of whiskey from an aids tainted glass.
I’ll search the whole wide world from below and above.
I’ll do anything and everything to find my true love.
I’ve talked to the wise man on top of the mountain.
It took me forever but I finally found him.
Seeking his knowledge I begged for his counsel.
I asked my question and waited for his announcement.
But all I left him was perplexed and totally confounded.
No other seekers question had ever confused him.
So I jumped off the mountain to complete the illusion.
So now I’m left with my original thought.
Who is love and who is not?
That’s a question that is impossible to answer.
You can’t water a flower that’s not in a planter.
My name is Michael Joseph Patton. I am a 55-year-old divorced father of three lovely daughters.I work as a cook and like to spend my free time writing poetry, spending time with family and friends, walking in the woods or the beach and reading other poets.I am very new to the poetry world, having only written for less than 2 years, but look forward to many years of writing left in me.
In Between Hangovers 