The Whisky Blot
Journal of Literature, Poetry, and Haiku
Kingfisher, kingfisher What makes you so sure When you dive in So bravely You´ll rise up again Halcyon's dream Calms the perilous seas Kingfisher, kingfisher A treacherous stream Hides your turquoise body In a fortress of driftwood Your blessings, your death wish Foam into screams Halcyon's dream Calms the perilous seas On a fish bone raft Meandering through summertide He charts the unyielding waves Scours the souls for betrayal A lone tempest gently rocks you Cradle walls of different hues Martin is a young author whose drawer supply of poems has outgrown its dimensions, so he decided to start sending them around. Since his job in biomedicine is very evidence-based and scientific, he ventilates by writing poems and rock songs and by singing, screeching and moving in the choir of Prague´s RockOpera. He sings and plays the guitar in a metal band called Porcelain Shards. They shared debate around the flames,
a glowing fire, domestic shrine, thus sacred turf the site for pitch, that like the peat, the team was sweet, whatever referee had said. These Antrim sods of Ireland, North, that stood, still, watching Bushmills turn, Scotch planted, like the Black and Tans, as coppers in a sentry stance, stir dancing gold of liquor burn. As shots were fired and bellies gripped, bloodred vein creep of colour, cheeks, they laid down arms, await refill, the cause to weigh, old arguments, that giant step that staked the land. They look out, castle in the air - where all washed up, across the bar, in place of wake they celebrate, for who knows where the future lines, save all agreed that Bush retained. Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales from ministry in the Methodist Church due to Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including The Whisky Blot. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com/ . I am a moth and you are the light,
I think about you day and night. I am starting to realize that there is a glass, This not-seeable barrier I cannot pass. Just being there, you keep me warm, But now I realize, I am just part of a swarm. The same path every night I repetitively flew, So badly, I want to be next to you. Michael heath is a a registered nurse living in South Florida. He wrote this poem after his first heartbreak, 15 years ago. I have wasted so many things
In my life Love Time Money Youthful energy But I have never wasted A drop of whisky. Poured it very carefully, Drained every glass, Finished every bottle, The empties displayed like trophies. I allow it into my room every night. Better than sleeping pills, Kinder than a stranger’s caress In a cold room at midnight. Saul Bennett is a 43-year old poet from a small town in the North Of England. He is an observer in a working class dimension. He has had poems published in Moss Puppy, Roi Faineant, Vocivia amongst other publications in the U.K. and USA. He can be found on Twitter @SBennettpoet. No children allowed,
Said the sign on the door. Mean men, Drink in this bar. Wild women, Roam here free. They wear Too much make-up, And laugh too loudly. They have dyed hair, High heeled shoes, Long cigarettes between painted lips. Men with moustaches, Beards, Battered baseball caps, Crafty, knowing eyes. The children are not able to catch A glimpse of their future. As the sign on the door, Said they are not allowed. Saul Bennett is a 43-year old poet from a small town in the North Of England. He is an observer in a working class dimension. He has had poems published in Moss Puppy, Roi Faineant, Vocivia amongst other publications in the U.K. and USA. He can be found on Twitter @SBennettpoet. In the darkest recesses last night,
I managed to successfully resolve a number of open issues that had plagued me since my youth, no small task for a single night's work. I decided that the Hardy Boys had, once they were old enough, joined the LAPD, one made it to Lieutenant, but both were involved in an excessive force investigation and resigned and move to Idaho. Nancy Drew grew tired of crime solving and married a young Wall Street analyst, but decided to divorce him and got to keep the house in Greenwich in exchange for the one in the Hamptons which needed so much work. And as morning was about to dawn, I noted that Charlie finally sold the Chocolate Factory, took the money and invested it in a string of marijuana dispensaries and moved to a small island he bought in the Bahamas. Louis Faber is a poet, photographer and blogger. His work has appeared in The Poet, Alchemy Spoon, New Feathers Anthology, Dreich (Scotland), Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Erothanatos (Greece), Defenestration, Atlanta Review, Glimpse, Rattle, Cold Mountain Review, Eureka Literary Magazine, Borderlands: the Texas Poetry Review, Midnight Mind, Pearl, Midstream, European Judaism, The South Carolina Review and Worcester Review, among many others, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He can be found at https://anoldwriter.com and at https://bird-of-the-day.com. In another
Dust bowl town Under the worn Garments Of long conditioning Across a river of rock Immutable Beyond the tune Of our creating Into something unknown And impossible Agile And forgotten Through a crack In the faltering sky Where it’s hard to believe We can still live In wonder John is a social worker working in the field of disability management and holds degrees in social work, rehabilitation services, and psychology. He is the author of four books of poetry: “March” (2019), “The Seasons of Us” (2019), New Days (2020), and Fragments (2021). His work has appeared widely in numerous literary journals, magazines, and anthologies internationally. John is also a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and lives in Caledon Ontario, Canada with his wife and two children. a mourning dove sings prayers to the departing moon a monk sits zazen Louis Faber is a poet, photographer and blogger. His work has appeared in The Poet, Alchemy Spoon, New Feathers Anthology, Dreich (Scotland), Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Erothanatos (Greece), Defenestration, Atlanta Review, Glimpse, Rattle, Cold Mountain Review, Eureka Literary Magazine, Borderlands: the Texas Poetry Review, Midnight Mind, Pearl, Midstream, European Judaism, The South Carolina Review and Worcester Review, among many others, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He can be found at https://anoldwriter.com and at https://bird-of-the-day.com. Paradise is a sunny day
And a gently flowing river. Watching the sunlight reflected On the water. When I was a child, my Dad would Take me fishing On the River Trent and the River Ouse, You would never know what fish would come out. One day we caught an eel and we Couldn’t hold it for long enough to get the Hook out of its greedy mouth. My Dad eventually did it and the eel looked at me With beady, reproachful eyes, Before we placed it back in the water. It wanted to make me feel guilty. And then there was the time I was reeling in A small roach and a pike swallowed it and we Landed the green-speckled predator instead. It bit my Father’s finger, and he swore. We told my Dad’s friend and he laughed. His eyes like the water sparkled in the sun. River fishing is fantastic fun, But those days are long gone. Saul Bennett is a 43-year old poet from a small town in the North Of England. He is an observer in a working class dimension. He has had poems published in Moss Puppy, Roi Faineant, Vocivia amongst other publications in the U.K. and USA. He can be found on Twitter @SBennettpoet. What does it mean to be
planted in one patch of soil for your entire existence? To stand there forever because your lone leg can’t go anywhere. The struggle for survival no less bitter, overshadowed by this one’s leaves, out-drunk by that one’s roots. An orchestra of bark flutes played by each passing wind. The winds which one day will lay you out among the corpses of your kind to slowly become the loam in which you were born. There is a sort of horror to it all, so much beauty too, reaching for sky and sun like you really mean it. Putting the rest of us to shame who walk where we will heads down, looking into the earth and seeing nothing for what it is. Kurt Luchs (kurtluchs.com) won a 2022 Pushcart Prize, the 2021 Eyelands Book Award, the 2021 James Tate Poetry Prize and the 2019 Atlanta Review International Poetry Contest. He has written humor for the New Yorker, the Onion and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. His humor collection, It’s Funny Until Someone Loses an Eye (Then It’s Really Funny)(2017), and his poetry collection, Falling in the Direction of Up (2021), are published by Sagging Meniscus Press. His poetry chapbook, The Sound of One Hand Slapping, was issued in 2022 by SurVision Books. He lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The amateurs will be out,
tossing their cherry bombs in the street while a kid with a sparkler chases a dog down the driveway. The couple at the festival, numb from sun and cocktails, holds hands while staring at the night sky. The terrier seeks shelter in the bathtub while a woman out front passes out tiny flags which we’ll wave in the air drunkenly, insanely happy we don’t have to face the boss and his usual scheme tomorrow. Meanwhile, the ghost of a British soldier limps out from nearby woods as if emerging from a dream. Bruce Gunther is a retired journalist and writer who lives in Michigan. He's a graduate of Central Michigan University. His poems have appeared in The Comstock Review, East by Northeast, Modern Haiku, the Dunes Review, and others. summer has arrived time to get a pedicure sandals show my toes Lisbeth L. McCarty has a B.A. in Journalism (Professional Writing) and a J.D. in law. She enjoys free-lance writing and has been published in various genres. I pass the beer trucks,
the workmen staring at a curbside hole, the plastic grocery sack blown across the avenue like tumbleweed. Hands on the wheel, brain still raw from too much wine. At the gym we trudge around the track – minds numbed enough that we forget the lap count. This weather’s crazy we say, just like yesterday, but it’s not winter and that’s a victory, as is the nearby river with its small waves, waiting for a freighter miles and miles away. Bruce Gunther is a retired journalist and writer who lives in Michigan. He's a graduate of Central Michigan University. His poems have appeared in The Comstock Review, East by Northeast, Modern Haiku, the Dunes Review, and others. A short memory of winter
like childbirth they say sustains this oval year. A sleeping tree peers through window-frost still scares the children but so-what to icy winds: they’ll soon wither at the sight of July. That’s when the water barely moves. L. Ward Abel’s work has appeared in hundreds of journals (Rattle, Versal, The Reader, Worcester Review, Riverbed Review, Honest Ulsterman, others), including nominations for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Web, and he is the author of three full collections and ten chapbooks of poetry, including American Bruise (Parallel Press, 2012), Little Town gods (Folded Word Press, 2016), A Jerusalem of Ponds (Erbacce-Press, 2016), and his latest collection, The Width of Here (Silver Bow, 2021). He is a reformed lawyer, he writes and plays music, and he teaches literature. Abel resides in rural Georgia, USA. The horse is wearing blue.
The creek is drinking too much. The church is a deserted nativity set. The forsythia shakes its golden hair. The birds are trying to tell me something. Nancy Byrne Iannucci is a widely published poet from Long Island, New York who currently lives in Troy, NY. Defenestration, Hobo Camp Review, Bending Genres, Typehouse Literary Magazine, Glass: a Poetry Journal are some of the places you will find her. She is the author of two chapbooks, Temptation of Wood (Nixes Mate Review, 2018), and Goblin Fruit (Impspired, 2021); she is also a teacher, and woodland roamer. Visit her at www.nancybyrneiannucci.com. The angry waves crash over me
And knock me down Rolling Spinning Until I’m shaken Like a martini. I can’t touch the ground Or tell up from down So it’s possible that I’m floating Or I might be drowning But either way I can’t breathe. The sky has vanished As the breakers Refuse to relinquish their grip on me. Their tentacles Snake around my body And I struggle for air But instead, each gasp fills my lungs with briny water That stifles my cries for help. Soon, the fight seeps out of me And I tumble endlessly into darkness. Suddenly, something slams into my back I force my eyes open To find a life raft that has manifested like an apparition And whether it’s real or not I reach for it and pull myself in Just as the raging sea Comes for me. The swells lift me higher and higher Until I’m sure I’ve touched the sky And I’m now at the top of the crest Suspended between heaven and earth Where I reach for the clouds So tantalizingly close That I want to crawl over and curl up in them But without warning, like a roller coaster I plunge Slapping down hard as I’m baptized by the sea. I realize that the life raft has disappeared And I struggle to stand up Staggering like an air dancer at a used car lot As I wobble to the shore While the tide laps benignly at my feet Where I sink onto the warm sand And breathe. Nancy Machlis Rechtman has had poetry and short stories published in Paper Dragon, The Bluebird Word, Quail Bell, Blue Lake Review, Goat’s Milk, The Writing Disorder, Discretionary Love, and more. She wrote freelance Lifestyle stories for a local newspaper, and she was the copy editor for another paper She writes a blog called Inanities at https://nancywriteon.wordpress.com. She’s moving away from us
a few inches every year, the longest breakup in history, and perhaps by the time she’s free of our gravity we won’t even be here to mark the occasion, moving on ourselves through stranger pastures beyond this brief and precious thing called life to lands unknown and unknowable, the final mystery after love has left and what will it matter then without her quicksilver face to shine down upon us? Kurt Luchs (kurtluchs.com) won a 2022 Pushcart Prize, the 2021 Eyelands Book Award, the 2021 James Tate Poetry Prize and the 2019 Atlanta Review International Poetry Contest. He has written humor for the New Yorker, the Onion and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. His humor collection, It’s Funny Until Someone Loses an Eye (Then It’s Really Funny)(2017), and his poetry collection, Falling in the Direction of Up (2021), are published by Sagging Meniscus Press. His poetry chapbook, The Sound of One Hand Slapping, was issued in 2022 by SurVision Books. He lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan. and chip ice for
our drinks the old fashioned way binge watch murder movies and swim in over chlorinated pools We'll start a riot if they don't leave a bag of popcorn or if the Keurig stops working, Walk across the street to IHOP & stuff ourselves with pancakes Melanie Browne is a poet and fiction writer living in Texas. She has been published in many online journals and anthologies including Citizens for Decent Literature Press, Every Day Poets, and Poetry Superhighway. Find a place to be at 4 p.m.
to experience the rain, more predictable in July than a Yucatecan clock. I choose shelter under an oversized green umbrella at an outdoor café, securing my table and dos cervezas. This lasts longer than a one-beer rain. Turning on like a faucet, the jungle downpour soaks summer cottons to the skin in seconds. Neither waiters nor iguanas run through these water walls. Surrounded by my round water curtain, I drink cold lagers named Montejo and Negra Leon. They pour down as easily as the deluge. In minutes, I feel warm water flowing over my sandaled feet washing off the white dust of Mayan ruins. Finished, just as I drain my second bottle, the miracle repeats tomorrow, right on time. Susan Wolbarst lives and works as a newspaper reporter in rural Gualala, California. Her writing has been published in “thewildword.com,” “pioneertownlit.com,” “The Ledge Poetry and Fiction Magazine,” “Naugatuck River Review,” “Poetry Now,” “Yolo Crow,” “Valley Voices,” “Foliate Oak,” “Eat This Poem Anthology,” “The Christian Science Monitor,” and other magazines and newspapers. She self-published one cookbook. She enjoys messing around in small boats and cooking recipes from around the world in her three cast iron pans. She has an MA in fine arts from California State University, Sacramento. You cannot carbon date hate or deception
I overhear a man with oversized teeth and undersized eyes say to a woman with more body piercings than I could count this as a brand-new pick-up line at a pseudo-philosophical bar full of those who had given up on everything except the art of giving up. The woman starting her second dry martini (as I finish my first beer, the toothy man his fourth) claimed she talked earlier to a disguised scientist who cried and said there was prehistoric hatred and dishonesty. When she tires of the toothy man and turns her attention to a conversationalist with a cheerful gap-tooth grin I decide to ask a random sample of revellers in this pseudo-philosophical bar if they had seen anything blessed or sacred on any wall or ceiling the larger the sample the more chance for accuracy it took me a second beer to come up with this the dynamics of cogitation and inebriation are mysterious indeed. Canadian poet, fiction writer, and playwright J. J. Steinfeld lives on Prince Edward Island, where he is patiently waiting for Godot’s arrival and a phone call from Kafka. While waiting, he has published 23 books, including Identity Dreams and Memory Sounds (Poetry, Ekstasis Editions, 2014), Madhouses in Heaven, Castles in Hell (Stories, Ekstasis Editions, 2015), An Unauthorized Biography of Being (Stories, Ekstasis Editions, 2016), Absurdity, Woe Is Me, Glory Be (Poetry, Guernica Editions, 2017), A Visit to the Kafka Café (Poetry, Ekstasis Editions, 2018), Gregor Samsa Was Never in The Beatles (Stories, Ekstasis Editions, 2019), Morning Bafflement and Timeless Puzzlement (Poetry, Ekstasis Editions, 2020), Somewhat Absurd, Somehow Existential (Poetry, Guernica Editions, 2021), and Acting on the Island (Stories, Pottersfield Press, 2022). Evening windstorms shake down
the palm fronds and rouse the canyon’s clique of mangy coyotes to their brash and longing songs. I watch the liquid-amber tree’s reddened leaves waver like faltering words and go to ground. It’s fire season. Lightning has set aflame the mountain’s parched acres and the stinging ashes mute the mornings to a choked silence. Each night I look through myself out the window as the blaze gnaws at the backbone of the hill. Each morning I wake to the brown air lagging over the sun like regret. Chloe Coventry is a writer and ethnomusicologist living in the foothills above Los Angeles. caught in the whirlwind
of my own heavy heart, wishing to come up for air. tonight, a barred owl jars the silence of two am, asking a question we both know has no answer. you, too, spilled "why?" into a hollow void that spat it right back at you. i want to tell you that one day, your heart will fit in the hollow of your chest again, and all that you pour will be poured into you. outside, wind shakes the branches a little, and the whisper of wings tells me the one who held questions on his lips has stopped asking and gone away. tomorrow, i find blood in the same place under the branches – something is always sacrificed for the way a night-heart wanders. Mela Blust is an award nominated poet whose work has appeared in various literary journals such as The Sierra Nevada Review, Rust & Moth, The Bitter Oleander, and many, many more. She has written two books of poetry with a third on the way, and can be followed on twitter as @melablust. Baseball is the only game you can see on the radio.
—Phil Hirsh, The Chicago Tribune, 1985 The door knob’s gone missing. There’s no leaving today. And tomorrow won’t miss you until cool sunrise charts its early path. Get up. Draw your bath. Light will bleed through what was once a lock. Wait for afternoon: The radio proffers a task, a game to carry sunlight through drawn drapes, false doors. Hear Summer. No two plays are the same. Mark J. Mitchell was born in Chicago and grew up in southern California. His latest poetry collection, Roshi San Francisco, was just published by Norfolk Publishing. Starting from Tu Fu was recently published by Encircle Publications. A new collection and a novel are forthcoming. He is very fond of baseball, Louis Aragon, Miles Davis, Kafka and Dante. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, the activist and documentarian, Joan Juster, where he made his marginal living pointing out pretty things. Now, he works doing guy stuff, go figure. He has published 2 novels and three chapbooks and two full length collections so far. His first chapbook won the Negative Capability Award. Titles on request. A meager online presence can be found at https://www.facebook.com/MarkJMitchellwriter/ A primitive web site now exists: https://www.mark-j-mitchell.square.site/ I sometimes tweet @Mark J Mitchell_Writer they walked hand in hand blossoms fell like cherry snow April in Tokyo Haiku and photo (April 2017, Tokyo) by Shane Huey, editor. daisies in a blue vase under a summer sun dazzle on the soul · · · dive after the gale ‘where’s beauty?’ I ask the fish ‘insolubly gone’ · · · sea scales burst aflame ugly starlings flee southward in bright multitudes Joan García Viltró is a poet based in Cambrils, on the south Catalan coast. His poems often reflect Mediterranean mythologies and his concern with Nature struggling under human pressure. Published or forthcoming in The London Magazine, Green Ink Poetry, Punk Noir Magazine, etc. Highly commended in the 2022 erbacce-prize for poetry. |
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