The Night is Heaving. By Kevin M. Hibshman

My spirit is squirming like a toad in a jar.

I am so tired I can't even feel my face anymore.

Sleep is some far off place my body has lost the directions to.

It's alright.

I got a feel for this well-traveled road.

It's called “insomnia” and I have been down it many times before.

Where is the reset button for my mind?

Who is sitting on the remote?

This night is pale and heaving.

I think it's time you all were leaving.

It's like that feeling you get when the air is too close for breathing.

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).

People Are Different Writers Are Worse by John Patrick Robbins

We sat at the bar and the conversation just fell into place.

We spoke about our jobs all the normal kill the time and hopefully catch a buzz bullshit.


"Has your writing ever got you laid ?"

I didn't bat a eye with my reply.

"Three times, the first lasted nine years the last was eight."

"What about the one in the middle?"

I lit a smoke, handed my friend of the moment one as well and lit it for her.

"Well the third was an editor."

She looked at me puzzled.

"So I give, What does that mean"?

"Well she took months to  accept me, Fucked me once then just as soon forgot me."

"Was it any good?"

"Well any sex beats no sex my dear."


I ordered us two more and we kept joking. The night moved well.
And soon she went home with me things looked up.

She stayed the night.

And stole a book of mine.

I never heard from her again.
Until I read about our encounter in some oddly named ezine.

Apparently she was a critic.

I would fill you in on the details but needless to say it wasn't a rave review.

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

His work has been published in. 1870 Magazine, Romingo' s Porch, Heroin Love Songs, Punk Noir Magazine, San Pedro River Review, San Antonio Review,  Red Fez and Piker Press. 

He is also the Author of If Walls Could Speak Mine Would Blush published under his pen name Frank Murphy from Syndicate Press. 

His work is always unfiltered.

https://www.amazon.com/Walls-Could-Speak-Would-Blush/dp/1678199206/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=If+Walls+Could+Speak+Mine+Would+Blush&qid=1595552825&sr=8-1

To Take Home by Susan Tepper

The day I anticipated death

was cold and gray

the way a death scene

might be staged in a movie.

I left my house  

wearing warm clothes  

in anticipation of 

how things would play out.

Not one to give in easily

last moment 

I’d grabbed a black cashmere

scarf to loop fashionably.

Got some coffee then chose

a table where the wind was

least likely to pummel me

each time the door opened.

Near closing time my favorite

counter man offered me

free bagels to take home.

I declined.  Because really

what was the point. 

With it coming on fast 

like a spike driven ear to ear

out the other side.

Susan Tepper is the author of nine published books of fiction and poetry. Her two most recent titles are CONFESS (poetry from Cervena Barva Press, 2020) and a road novel WHAT DRIVES MEN (Wilderness House Press, 2019) that was shortlisted at American Book Fest. Other honors and awards include eighteen Pushcart Prize Nominations, a Pulitzer Nomination by Cervena Barva Press for the novel ‘What May Have Been’ (re-written for adaptation as a stage play to open in NY next year), shortlisted in Zoetrope Contest for the Novel (2003), NPR’s Selected Shorts for ‘Deer’ published in American Letters & Commentary (ed. Anna Rabinowitz), Second Place Winner in StorySouth Million Writers Award, Best of 17 Years of Vestal Review and more. Tepper is a native New Yorker. www.susantepper.com

The Rescue. By Ryan Quinn Flanagan

We were getting drunk and stoned

down in James’ basement.

While I hoarded the music player 

by the pool table that people 

fell asleep under. 

And this drunk chick brought in this cat 

from the backyard,

probably someone’s house cat that 

had gotten out, but it didn’t have any tag 

so this idiot convinced all the others that it was wild

and should be released back into nature

and even though I knew it complete bullshit,

we all piled into that van.

No one fit to drive,

but someone must have been at the wheel

or fossil fuel-based propulsion 

doesn’t work.

Driving to the outskirts of town,

the van didn’t even stop.

Just drove past this heavily forested area

with the side door opened up 

so Fluffy or whatever the hell its name was

could be tossed out and introduced 

back to the wild.

   

You realize it’s the height of bear season?

I said.

And there’s coyotes and rattlesnakes 

and starving wolf packs.

But no one wanted to hear it.

They had rescued a cat and released

it back into the wild.

Back into its natural habitat.

Then we drove back 

to that basement where the whole 

mess had started.

More drugs and drink than ever.

A slobbery hook up 

in the back room 

making a baby when 

they didn’t even 

know it.

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.

Check Ryan's newest book from Marathon Books.

The World Will Not Stop Bleeding

https://www.amazon.com/World-Will-Not-Stop-Bleeding/dp/B08DSSZN8W/ref=sr_1_30?crid=3JE2R9DACFVRR&dchild=1&keywords=ryan+quinn+flanagan&qid=1596643940&s=books&sprefix=ryan+quinn+%2Caps%2C188&sr=1-30#immersive-view_1596845172835