Nobody Wants to Hear It. By Hugh Blanton

Physically and mentally sick

after a three day bender -

never leaving my room except to walk

to the liquor store for more beer and whiskey.

I had lost the shit job I hated -

but inexplicably I hated losing it.

The phone rings - it's one of guys from where I'd been fired.

He's inconsolable - but wants me to console him.

Not because I was fired - but because

Kurt Cobain has died. The news said it was suicide -

he doesn't believe it.

'THAT BITCH WIFE DID IT!' he screams.

I act as if I know what he's talking about -

not wanting him to know I've been sitting

and staring at the walls for the last three days

without turning on a radio or TV.

'You know how these things go.' I tell him

because it's the wisest thing I can think of

as I fight the reflexive urge to vomit up last night's

American blended whiskey.

I offer a few more cliches of comfort

and then he sniffles a goodbye - thanking me

for being there for him.

I use the telephone touch keys

to check the stock I'd bought two weeks ago -

1000 shares of a computer maker for twenty-five cents.

It's now worth two cents. It would cost me

thirty five bucks in commission to sell

twenty bucks worth of stock. So I don't.

I slog my way to the liquor store for more booze -

but the ATM says my account is overdrawn.

On the way back home I stop to look at 

a cat lying dead at the end of the block.

I recognize him as the stray I'd been feeding

off and on over the last year or so.

The first thing I do when I get back home

is pick up the phone and try to conjure up

the number of someone who might have

a sympathetic ear for me.

The dial tone drones on until a recorded voice says - 

'If you'd like to make a call please hang up and try again.'

I hang up without trying again.

Nobody wants to hear it.

Lying on the filthy couch I stare at the ceiling

wondering what Kurt Cobain's last thoughts

might have been in those last lonely moments.

Hugh Blanton combs poems out of his hair during those moments he can steal away from his employers loading dock. He has appeared in Bottom Shelf Whiskey, As It Ought To Be, The Dope Fiend Daily, The Rye Whiskey Review and other places. He lives in San Diego.

Mishmash. By Dan Provost

I am that tortured

boy that you look away from.

Yea, ruin…

Gives the gift enhanced

in blind detail.

Sunday, hatred

of me being meek.

I’m proud to

announce that I

died yesterday…

These words expanded

from my body and

fell through the sidewalk

Into the sewer…

Nobody cared…

Nobody even looked

for my soul that

flew away on the

day of my birth.

Dan Provost's poetry has been published throughout the small press for a number of years.  Some recent publications include: Ariel Chart, Poetical Review, Merak Magazine, Oddball Magazine, Deuce Coupe, Misfit Magazine, the Rye Whiskey Review, Cajun Mutt Press and the Dope Fiend Daily.  He has two books coming out in 2020.  Under the Influence of Nothingness by Kung Fu Treachery Press and Rattle of a Realizer, published by Whiskey City Press.  He lives in Berlin, New Hampshire with his wife Laura and dog Bella.

SNAPSHOT. By Brian Rihlmann

It all feels useless

and at these times

I want to make 

grand proclamations 

about how I’m done 

with writing and words

I’m done swimming 

in the shallow end 

I’m done with this 

endless circle jerk

with this pale photocopy of life

with society’s treadmill

with women 

with love

I’m gonna break up

with this bitch

finally...

and start over

crack open my cataracts 

and see the real thing

for once

feel myself 

melt away

into the bigger picture 

become more than

a self aware

self obsessed pixel

on a screen

I know better

than to say such things 

but saying them is 

a last defense

a frantic grab

at the wheel

a rickety bridge

built halfway 

across the abyss

Brian Rihlmann was born in NJ, and currently lives in Reno, NV. He writes mostly semi autobiographical, confessional free verse, much of it on the so-called "grittier" side.  Folk poetry...for folks. He has been published in Constellate Magazine, Poppy Road Review, and has an upcoming piece in The American Journal Of Poetry.

What I Would Have Told That Asshole that Made Me Walk into a Major Drug Buy at Nineteen if I Knew. By Ryan Quinn Flanagan

They’ll kill us in a second

if they sense weakness

and sure, there is the trouble of the bodies,

but anyone who has straight killers on the payroll

has likely thought of that,

there are many acids for that now,

notice how the bartender was in on it too

the juice heads working the door,

I bet we could be disappeared better than Earhart 

into the steaming rice bowl of Asia

in under an hour

   

a hundred dollars 

to end up ass-to-ass 

in an unmarked grave,

I think not. 

   

Fuck you Dan, 

and all your 

connections.

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly,The Rye Whiskey Review, Outlaw Poetry Network, Under The Bleachers, The Dope Fiend Daily and In Between Hangovers.

Pick A Door. By John Patrick Robbins

                         

The nights together riding those back roads was always magic.

As Jack and Elizabeth were both night owls and together they had found in one another, what they had for long missed in everyone else .

Jack knew every backroad there was for miles.

And as the hours passed as Elizabeth laid against him he looked to her knowing she was that missing piece to the puzzle.

"I love you baby."

Elizabeth said as they embraced .

"Sweetheart have you made your choice for tonight?"

"Please don't make me choose, you know I'm no good at it ."

"I beg to differ sweetheart you're  more than good at it, oh you're talking about choosing, yeah there's definitely room for improvement."

"You're  such an ass."

Elizabeth said as she laughed.

"How bout that one baby."

Elizabeth pointed to the quaint little house.

Just off Beckers road, which was an ultra isolated stretch of highway. 

Jack stopped the car just before the driveway, turned on his emergency flashers.

Elizabeth giggled with excitement as Jack simply shook his head and popped the hood.

She kissed him deeply.

"Goddamn I want to fuck you right now !"

"Don't get too worked up sexy, we haven't even begun this party yet and we damn sure don't want to get sloppy before the fun even starts."

Jack raised the hood and made his way to the tiny little house. 

It was the electricity that drove both himself and Elizabeth insane.

And as Elizabeth looked at Jack she knew it was the devil himself that had brought these two together. 

As Jack nodded to her as she knocked on the door and the act began .

The old woman cracked the door as Elizbeth began the spiel , Elizabeth looked like such an innocent little angel .

Who simply needed to use a phone to call a tow truck .

The old woman hesitated .

Then opened the door.

When the devil's at your doorstep the biggest mistake is answering in the first place.

The old woman would be just another victim.

And the starlight murders would claim another soul.

Jack and Elizabeth were truly birds of a murderous feather. 

And a true match made in hell.

John Patrick Robbins; Is the editor in chief of the Rye Whiskey Review and The Black Shamrock Magazine. 

His work has been published in Ariel Chart,  Punk Noir Magazine, Piker Press, Red Fez, Oddball Magazine,  San Pedro River Review,  The San Antonio Review,

He is also the author of Sex Drugs & Poetry from Whiskey City , Once Upon A Nervous Breakdown from Soma Publishing.

And If Walls Could Speak Mine Would Blush published under his pen name Frank Murphy  
from Syndicate Press.


His work is always unfiltered. 

An Ivory Tower Always Crumbles by Scott Simmons

Mankind’s ignorance sank eden into grief.
Our paradise forever lost.

Was it because God was completely unmerciful?
Or simply our own arrogance blinding us to reach beyond our place?

Regardless of the answer it’s not up for me to say.
However knowledge isn’t inherently evil, it only has a cost.

So always think about whatever your truly asking to know.
You may find the price far greater than what you wanted to pay.

Nothing in life is ever free. So was it worth it?

Scott Simmons is a humorist/poet from Houston Texas and is also the editor of The Dope Fiend Daily. His works can be found at Ariel Chart, Under The Bleachers, The Anti Heroin Chic, Horror Sleaze Trash, Duanes Poetree, Medusas Kitchen, and Drinkers Only. His "artwork" can also be found on instagram at deranged_texan

Blood In The Gears by John Patrick Robbins

                 

It was four in the morning the truck was loaded and Robert was ready to drive.

And a hell of a ride it was shaping up to be, besides the usual worries.

The sweltering heat, the worries over breaking down.

Or the assholes looking to rob the truck for its precious cargo.

Robert buried the fears as he sat there waiting for dispatch to give him the green light.

He knew it was risky but the job paid well and in 4022.

You didn't want to be without a job.

The world was dead, crops had almost completely ceased to grow, the rich hid in their overpriced tombs.

And the poor just struggled to survive.

The cities were overrated prisons and the open highways were chaos and certain death.

"Okay 22 you're clear to go, good luck drive safe."

The dispatcher said.

It was smooth sailing until you were outside the city slums.

And Robert was shifting gears building up speed.

Anything unlucky enough to get in his way was going to be crushed like a bug.

It was part of the protocol of driving.

Written in the rule book don't stop for anything.

And Robert understood.

You stop you die, it was simple as that.

He was a mile out of Austin the heat was already rising and it wasn't even sun up yet.

Robert just kept shifting gears and praying this old wreck didn't give out or begin to over heat.

And was grateful he hadn't ran into any gangs looking to play bumper cars on this highway to hell.

He listened to the engine and wished to God this old wreck had some sort of radio.

Of course with all the factories gone and only a few places inside the city walls, rebuilding the old wrecks he knew there wouldn't be anything such as new features and old sacks of shit.

These diesels were dinosaurs and fuel was as precious as gold and only the shipping companies had access to it or were supposed to that is.

The trip was largely uneventful aside from the usual camps of people beside the highway throwing anything they could.

They hated the companies and Robert knew if he broke down they would rip him to shreds.

This world had no humanity left within it.

And all Robert cared about had either died or was well on its way to meet the reaper.

He had paid a hell of a price to secure this job.

And fuck selling your soul to Satan! He sold his to the Transwick Transportation years ago.

But least he lived in an apartment not a cage, he was deemed a citizen not a vagrant at least he didn't live outside what was left of humanity's walls.

And as he approached the city limits of Houston finally he felt a tinge of relief. 

The plant was another part of the job he hated, the smell alone almost made him vomit.

A slaughterhouse has the stench of dried blood and death in the air.

And as he parked and shut down the rig he grabbed his clipboard and headphones.

It was the sounds that haunted him the most.

He never looked at the shipment.

He remembered the first time.

He remembered puking afterwards.

And why from now on sunglasses and headphones were a must.

He remembered the arms all reaching out from the trailer that once held cattle and pigs.

And since the world was in a death rattle now held people.

He remembered their cries.

He also could recall the cruel bastards that seemed to take great pleasure in unloading with brute force.

Using cattle prods and boot heels to rush these corralled doomed souls.

He also remembered the pleas of his family as they were whisked away to meet their death.

He saved his hide and sold his humanity for a job and a dingy apartment.

He understood population control far beyond the statistics.

He drank his dinner killing himself slowly.

Those cries haunted his thoughts, he was a cog in the machine and nothing more.

He led the lambs to slaughter.

He didn't fear hell he awoke to work in it every day.

Robert seldom had an appetite anymore.

John Patrick Robbins: Is the editor in chief of the Rye Whiskey Review, Under The Bleachers and The Black Shamrock Magazine.

He has been published in The San Pedro River Review, Red Fez, The Mojave River Review, Punk Noir Magazine, Piker Press, Oddball Magazine, Blognostics.

His work is always unfiltered and never censored.