The Whisky Blot
Journal of Literature, Poetry, and Haiku
Cicadas Sing cicadas singing strong drink and a warmer night summer, welcome home Summer Ditty crickets play a tune outside the window, bright moon Shining through the night Michelle Olivier is a registered nurse by day and a poet by night. When she's not saving lives, she has her nose in a book or a pen in her hand. I find myself in again and again ready to turn left at the intersection where I learned left turns listening to a song from those same late early years singing along half wrong learning or remembering —remembering learning—the lyrics as my car climbs a familiar road my hands not so much steering as rereading this hill: the sameness of the slope and the humidity, as if seasons stay put and we keep visiting them, as if melodies and dashboards were time-travelling machines in the silence between songs, I am here at the stop sign (another left) surrounded by green and memory between the playground and the swim club between the library and home beneath the blue June sky and despite the renovations everything seems just as it was only more so—the insects louder, the leaves denser —the ghost breeze swaddling all the years between then and then compressed compressed in now, turning again as I learn to remember learning the way home, the way through this growth and warmth, this summer Ceridwen Hall is a poet and book coach. She helps poets and novelists plan, create, and revise compelling manuscripts with one-on-one coaching and inspiring feedback. She holds a PhD from the University of Utah and is the author of two chapbooks: Automotive (Finishing Line Press) and Excursions (Train Wreck Press). Her work has appeared in TriQuarterly, Pembroke Magazine, Tar River Poetry, The Cincinnati Review, and other journals. You can find her at www.ceridwenhall.com. now thunder rolls in, as well as birdsong the rustling of wet leaves, a distant ambulance the neighbors’ flute practice, traffic, a few stray moths-- all disrupting or becoming thoughts memories and dreams, meanwhile, leak out into the wide green world where horses run in the dusk and geese land on ponds, where cars circle the hill and deer rip new lettuce from gardens and people pause in the warm dark before a storm where summer insists on growth and some of us call this hope Ceridwen Hall is a poet and book coach. She helps poets and novelists plan, create, and revise compelling manuscripts with one-on-one coaching and inspiring feedback. She holds a PhD from the University of Utah and is the author of two chapbooks: Automotive (Finishing Line Press) and Excursions (Train Wreck Press). Her work has appeared in TriQuarterly, Pembroke Magazine, Tar River Poetry, The Cincinnati Review, and other journals. You can find her at www.ceridwenhall.com. Dusk colors the sky; a precocious preschooler. Look! It earned a star. Art; life flat-lining. Seventeen beats. Three straight lines. Heart breaking. Yours. Mine. Light/dark. Different? Two sides of the same thin coin. Dawn; like night and day. Renate Wildermuth's poetry has been published by The Postcard Press, Poetry Jumps off the Shelf and the online journals Mannequin Envy and Literary Mama. She is a freelance writer for The Albany Times Union. Her articles have also appeared in Adirondack Life Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Miami Herald, and The Charlotte Observer. She has been a commentator for North Country Public Radio and have appeared on New Hampshire Public Radio’s Word of Mouth program. Her creative nonfiction has been published by Syracuse University’s journal Stone Canoe. She teaches German at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. What I ask is a memory. What I get is a story about the sun. The smell of seagulls, sand, oarweed, the smell of rot, outfielder stats, the sheer fountain of brown waves over the feet of an unwanted son. I get chatter of divorce, tubular daughters, the smell of pot, talk of war, and its harsh tentacles hanging in the air. Some sky writer’s joke about drunk co-eds, a pun that echoes down the OC boardwalk meat. The heat is not the illusion, but the joy is, unseen as it is. Unwanted sex running down legs, long hooks of sweat fall into blankets, into the bookbag hidden with beer. My wrinkled hands go thick and vampiric. Some days you drink for meaning, some days to keep the world in place. Today the booze’s burn keeps the blood interesting, I focus on getting through, the skin of my arm becomes an ocean of anger I always understand. C.L. Liedekev is a poet/dreamer who lives in Conshohocken, PA, with his real name, wife, and children. He attended most of his life in the Southern part of New Jersey. His work has been published in such places as Humana Obscura, Red Fez, MacQueen's, Hare’s Paw, River Heron Review, amongst others. His poem, “November Snow. Philadelphia Children’s Hospital” is a finalist for the 2021 Best of the Net.
We promenade our dreams down streets of life, places we lean into when darkness rolls over. We wave at wee folk, wasps, and the woman whose just discovered whiskey, distilled like so many other intoxications. We open our mouths to June dry - manatee mermaids and lightning bugs show up on floats telling stories we believe. We cheer mystic mentors who step simply on the warm, round womb beneath us and toss diamonds and stars to us on sidewalks, hands open. Karen Pierce Gonzalez is a San Francisco Bay Area writer whose chapbooks include True North (Origami Poems Project) and the forthcoming Coyote in the basket of my Ribs (Alabaster Leaves Press), Down River with Li Po (Black Cat Poetry Press).
After waiting through an extra hour of traffic (three lanes becoming one, road repair---black asphalt patches amidst gray concrete) I am in the garden. In front of me white flowers appearing to be daffodils are contained in a brush of foot high greens. In the center of the gaggle lives a spread of shorter grass. Adult trees with white flowers, and a red Japanese maple border the meadow’s western wall. While I feel less than perfect--- it is a perfect day; blue sky, no clouds, cool breeze. A carnival of color in front of me. As I gaze on this scene recollections of dismal days past bubble into my consciousness. In those times I stopped believing. Today, in the gentle garden I find a bit of hope. Ed Krizek holds a BA and MS from University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA and MPH from Columbia University. For over thirty years Ed has been studying and writing poetry. He is the author of six books of poetry: Threshold, Longwood Poems, What Lies Ahead, Swimming With Words, The Pure Land, and This Will Pass All are available on Amazon.com. Ed writes for the reader who is not necessarily an initiate into the poetry community. He likes to connect with his readers on a personal level. Kayacks and paddleboards glide across. Gentle Breeze. Sunny day. Children play in the shallows screaming about the cold water. Pleasant vibes from all. The lake is a sanctuary from daily troubles. Content to sit on the shore. I watch. Life goes on around me. While others paddle and glide sitting in the shade is glorious and restful. Perhaps this feeling is what is meant by equanimity. Ed Krizek holds a BA and MS from University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA and MPH from Columbia University. For over thirty years Ed has been studying and writing poetry. He is the author of six books of poetry: Threshold, Longwood Poems, What Lies Ahead, Swimming With Words, The Pure Land, and This Will Pass All are available on Amazon.com. Ed writes for the reader who is not necessarily an initiate into the poetry community. He likes to connect with his readers on a personal level. crushed a lanternfly beautiful harmful creature please don’t kill the trees warm summer morning each dewdrop is a prism shattered by footsteps shaft of white moonlight spikes the fine lines of her face it should be raining sun kissed early summer's sun broken by my sago palm retribution burns cabin dance hot, sweaty, sticky your perspiration now mine you dance next to me Sabrina Sanchez is a writer and artist living in Charleston, SC. The former Editor-in-Chief of The Troubadour, she is currently working on her first chapbook, all my dead birds. Tea Time the perfect moment one pot of tea, two teacups, and a rose garden First Song a startling sound robins sing to fading stars just before dawn breaks Gibbous a separate thing far above this wilting world the half-melted moon Carolanna Lisonbee is a writer, English teacher, and globetrotting adventuress from Utah. Her first collection of poetry is WISP OF FOG MOMENT. Her poems have been included in the collection TEA-KU: POEMS ABOUT TEA, by Local Gems Press, and her translations of Chinese poetry appear in issue 10.1 of the journal Reliquiae, published by Corbel Stone Press. She posts on Instagram as carolanna_joy_poetry, and writes #ScienceNewsHaikus on Twitter as @carolannajl. The wind chimes jabbering dances across the lake,
the water a conduit, copper wire electrified by glass the wind is toying with, an alert to the air’s mischief, black sky bullies its way through the back door. Soon the pelting starts. Wrathful raindrops dump from belching clouds. Thunder announces lightning contestants that jab the dark, pummel the afternoon’s serenity into submission. The storm nature’s villain. The character that forces everyone to shelter inside. Hide from the anger, uncontrollable crying, bellowing intimidation. But a voice, a streak of blue, breaks the sky. Hints the yelling, the pounding tears, electrocuted remarks, will end. Submit to a clear unclouded truth. Doug Van Hooser's poetry has appeared in Roanoke Review, The Courtship of Winds, After Hours, Sheila-Na-Gig online, and Poetry Quarterly among other publications. His fiction can be found in Red Earth Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, and Bending Genres Journal. Doug’s plays have received readings at Chicago Dramatist Theatre and Three Cat Productions. More at dougvanhooser.com. The Poet’s Mirror I Spirits assail under cover of dark to suborn the poet’s ink how close are prayer and poetizing wrestling the ineffable the half-finished poem is a blind man feeling his way on a dark night or a lover groping with passionate hands toward his consort’s bed how the autonomous words blow where they list the bell of the Sorbonne, the guttered candle the frozen inkpot warn against the Promethean stroke which re-orders the world The Poet’s Mirror II The poet indites his hope of immortality in evanescent tracery of loneliness, love and loss; concupiscence and copulation synecdoche for life itself. Lloyd Jacobs is a former surgeon and university president, now writing daily. His poetry has been published in The Wallace Stevens Journal and The Main Street Rag as well as by other small magazines. We slump under the calm sky, By the bank of the Thames, And weep like grass in a lagoon. Waves crash against us, In the gleaming quiet of the tide Like dawn against darkness. There in the pool of blood, We piece our shadows together, Ebbed in a world of struggle. We cry; we wet the shores Of the bloody Thames, With streams of our broken dreams. We lie on the porch of the sea; Waiting to float along, Slinging towards hopelessness. In the blurred distance, A wave of lifeless bodies litter Upon the waveless sea. Our tears fall like raindrops, Painting the sea yellow, And the sky purple. I hear the hum of the wind In a cocktail of gold and red, And a gloss of floating grief. But nothing grief can stay Upon the tidal sea and moon, Upon the strait of change. I return to my sacred home Where gold leaves strewn the floor, And feel hope surge like a tide. Jonathan Ukah is a graduate of English living in London. His poems have appeared in various journals and anthologies, including the Ohio State University anthology, Dwelling During the Pandemic, published in May 2021; the Poet Magazine's collection on Ukraine, published in April 2022, the Discretionary Love magazine, State of Matter magazine, etc. It is raining and I am listening to Jazz Noir The heavy rain comes down the whisky pours into my glass The sky is dark the crystal tinted amber The rain and whisky soothe the parched places It is no longer raining I am still listening to Jazz Noir and I feel it The whisky spills into my glass I drink it again and I feel it too Shane Huey writes from his home in Florida, where he resides with his wife and son. His works have appeared in Black Poppy Review, The Chamber Magazine, Raven Cage Zine, Purple Wall Stories, MONO., Open Leaf Press Review, Haiku Journal, 50 Give or Take, and Cold Moon Journal. He is also editor of (and occasional contributor to) The Whisky Blot. Salty, sultry air,
sugar sand, sun-sparkled sea, sets my sling back chair. Beach cottage palette, unholy guacamole, purple, pumpkin, pink. Bud Light, Bud Lime, Blatz, Budweiser, Boddington, Bass. Sunburned beer bellies. Bud Light in my hand. relaxed in my sling back chair, toes dig sugar sand. Donna Meares is a native of Atlanta, Georgia now residing with her husband in Grass Valley, CA. Having worked as a social worker, she pursued her interests in writing after the birth of her first child. She engages in volunteer work and enjoys bonsai gardening, Zumba, and baking seedy sourdough bread. Her poetry and articles have been published in various magazines and she is the recipient of First Place Prize in America's Best Poetry Contest. It is where mama's pain met with mine, That our salty tears melted into one ice. It's detox from the love men have come to, The kind of love the world has come to. There are butterflies asleep in every belly, That take flight when love sprouts in them. Caution my child mama warned, Lest they by violent swift, bruise your delicate flowers. I wall defenses round my emotions, Containing all my bastard shame from ill loves. And a prize for the best of men, Or for the new boy shinning miracles over my securities. We now hold hands a bit longer, I am a little careless about my badge of woes. He becomes a tired poetry, In sync with the shape my body makes on his sheet. Butterflies have escaped my belly walls welting no flowers, To give grace a double majesty. Chidozie Okonkwo is a creative writer and performing artist. His works have previously appeared on Brittle Paper, The Lowdown Station, Eduquest, Akuko, Trinitas, Judelucan, and elsewhere. He was educated at University of Nigeria Nsukka where he studied English and Literary Studies. You can find him on Instagram @pengod1. (Excerpt from magazine’s current issue:)
FAQ’s Q: Your article states: “Only a loon would drink moonshine too soon.” But can’t I slurp hootch with my Fruit Loops? A: NO! No hootch before NOON! For belting down Ballantine, a.m. might be fine, but don’t savor White Lightnin’ till afternoon time: At four, say, or three, or at six, perhaps nine, five’s good, so is two — even one — we don’t mind. So, sip some with hors d’oeuvre or truffles at seven, but guzzle Glenlivet if it’s not yet p.m.’n Tonia Kalouria is an Ohio Poet who tries to bring some rhyming whimsey to offset a few moments of the daily dirge. Her work appears in The Society of Classical Poets, Lighten Up Online, The Asses of Parnassus, The Lit Vegan, Tigershark, and several anthologies, including Quoth the Raven and Love: Lifespan Vol. 4. She can be reached at tvk423@aol.com. Tiny tear drops of amber hued liquid Roll back along the sides of cold glass After I have taken that first bitter sip That warms the insides of my mouth And flows, scalding and wetting my throat Permeating my very soul, like answered prayers of the devout. They ask me how it feels, the aftertaste. They wait for me to talk of flavours, notes These connoisseurs of whiskey, Scotch, malts who constantly need to know, Of all that need not be talked about. And I the supposed sorceress of exquisite words Fail. I fail to tell them ... It tastes of a secret rendezvous on winter nights, It tastes of fleeting memories of clandestine kisses, And sepia toned conversations at stone lined firesides, It tastes of thoughts that run too long or end before they truly form, It tastes of elation and sorrow, It tastes of the remembered, the forgotten, It tastes of history, it tastes of tomorrow. Swapna Sanchita is a poet, a writer, and an educator who studied engineering in college and went on to obtain a degree in management. Her collection of poems, Des Vu was published in June 21 and was a bestseller on Amazon India. She has contributed to a number of anthologies and journals. Swapna lives in Ranchi, India with her husband and two sons. It’s such a heavy darkness humans forge within that crucible of us and them; endless nights and days with dismal mornings pass, as foes devolve from abandoned friends. Echoes only prove sounds once existed - even those that hinged on novel sources. Meaning can’t emerge from mere insistence, no matter how masterful one’s course is. Each simple act of choosing sides has costs, with no attention paid to other’s ways; we lose more than we pocket when no trust is tendered. There is much to be displayed, as shown in one rich root from Arabic; when we forgive, we set each other free. Rick McElhany is a retired Data Processing professional who was once described by a colleague as that rare mix of person who one could imagine wearing both a poet’s beret and a pocket protector. He has had short stories and poems published in regional publications and online journals, including Potpourri, Thorny Locust and Flora Fiction. as I jaywalk, I dodge cars like bullets, hoping that Darwin was wrong Roméo Desmarais III (he/him) is an established poet, musician and visual artist living in London Ontario, Canada. His publication history includes the only Pride month feature in last year’s oddball magazine. Roméo is 2Spirit, belonging to the Indigenous group Muskrat Métis. When performing spoken word, he introduces himself by bellowing: I… AM… RoMeO-HoMeO ô£ tHę MåRtïÃñS >{:) –his pseudonym since 1991. He believes that puns in poetry are underrated, that haiku on human nature are still inherently about nature, and that humorous and light-hearted poems are needed now more than ever. www.romeod3.ca. dragon breathing fire heart the cornerstone of hell the mother-in-law Anonymous writes from his home, just north of Hell. He sometimes can't sleep at night knowing intimately the terrors that roam our world in the darkness. Photo by Shane Huey. Taken while writing in the personal writing studio of Ernest Hemingway. Key West, FL, September 2021. Tell your tale again old man
While we sit here by the sea Tell of hot sun and dreams lost to sharks And places you longed to be Speak of the crowds thrilled by the bulls And the blood that darkened the ground Speak of the bars and drinks shared with friends While the maidens gathered around Speak of the lions that roared out their challenge And hot winds that blew so free Tell of the scars crossing your cheeks And confess how the scars came to be In the afternoon we may speak of death And of the bell which always tolls We may speak of these things into the night While the sea continues to roll Care not what others may offer to say They have lived a coward’s dream They know not what we speak of They find you too extreme George M. Stamps is freelance writer living in Kentucky. He is a lover of all things Hemingway. I aspire to the scientific mind. But limitations compel me to live as a poem. Held apart. Married to the word. Divorced from the world. My perceptions snapshots of a darkened room. Images of obscurity. I long to live at the collision point of language and thought. Where meaning is codified. Where communion begins. If we truly understand a concept’s implications we can grasp the worlds potentials. Then we consciously enter into a dance with reality. Born in Norman OK in 1951, Jack has worked as a bus driver, bartender, warehouse lackey, freelance illustrator, laser animator, graphic designer, art director, and middle school art teacher. Presently, he is a potter and ceramic sculptor living in the North Georgia mountains with his wife and dog. He has had poems published in The RavensPerch and Rat's Ass Review. from the broken page you crawl forth tangled lines of hope and hurt reaching from what was to what will be the bent and battered masterpiece abandoned to the junkyard the anthem of a generation buried beneath bullet holes come my darling and remember what is beautiful soft twirls across the kitchen floor powdered kisses from an eyelash your broken heart still beats stitch it up so you can sing icy fists slam at the window the fire crackles we lock the doors come quickly now take a sip before the tea grows cold Sarah Dittmore (she/they) has spent the past decade traveling the world and writing stories of the people and places she encounters along the way. As a queer, neurodivergent writer, Sarah is passionate about literature that accurately showcases often underrepresented or misrepresented voices. Read more of her work at www.sarahdittmore.com. |
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