SLICK by F.N. Wright

Blind Bob
as he was known
stood outside
the Filipino bar
I sometimes
frequented
when in this
unsavory part of
Stockton
& tried to
hustle me
as he always did
along with
everyone else
who came along
out of a buck
twenty nine
to help pay
for new dentures
I would laugh
good-naturedly
& wouldn’t give
him so much
as a plug nickel
but this time
I invited him
inside
bought him a
glass of wine
that was probably
only slightly better
than the bottle
a buck twenty nine
would get him

“What about my dentures?”
he asked.

I laughed & placed
a dollar bill &
four pennies on the bar
then I took a quarter
& said to him,
“There’s a dollar bill
& four pennies
on the bar.
I’m going to flip
a quarter into the air.
You call it before
it hits the floor
& if you’re right
the buck twenty nine
is yours & you
gotta free drink out
of it as well.”

I flipped the quarter
high into the air
& before it could
hit the floor
the slick sonofabitch
finished his glass
of wine, snatched
the bill & 4 pennies
off the bar
caught the quarter
in mid-air
& was out the door
in 4.4 time

“Slick sonofabitch
should be playing
ball somewhere
with hand-eye
coordination
& speed like that,”
I chuckled.

“Yeah, the Cubs
sure could use him”
Jimmy the bartender
mumbled sourly as he
picked up Blind Bob’s
wine glass & wiped the bar
with a dirty rag, “They
suck this year.

griff sd by todd moore

griff sd

i shot
harry’s
ear off
for the
buck
29 the
one
in the
fore
head
was
free

Black Lung Hallelujah by Scott Wannberg

Dig deep inside the hurt Earth
and when China finds you
tell all its people
you know a great place for them
to all stay.
The wars claim they are going in for the night
but for them the night never really rides up.
the night got pulled over for speeding
and the magician can’t find any rabbits in town
that will allow him to
pull them out of anything.

July 16 2009
Oh Susanna
Johnstown

Cooter Shorts by Misti Rainwater-Lites

I sat in my car baking in the relentless North Texas sun. My window was rolled down. I watched a skinny woman in cooter shorts walk across the parking lot to Freddie Boy’s Discount Market. She was smoking and talking on a cell phone. Her dirty blond hair was in a ponytail. She had a blue butterfly tattoo on her left ankle. She wasn’t sexy but she thought she was. She had two kids with her, a scrawny little boy in a saggy diaper and a little girl in a pink tank top and red pants. The woman stuck the cell phone in her purse and grabbed a shopping cart from the sidewalk in front of the store entrance.  “Don’t start whining for a soda. You can drink water when we get home,” she snapped at the boy.  They disappeared inside the store and I imagined the boy reaching for a cold bottle of Sunkist. The woman would slap his hand and he would cry until snot dripped from his nose. The girl would beg for a Jonas Brothers cd. The woman would say they couldn’t afford it. She came out of the store carrying one plastic bag. I imagined it contained a box of tampons, the skinny pearly kind.

19 Straight Whiskeys by Doug Draime

If I would have been

there at the Chelsea Hotel,

drinking

with Dylan Thomas

the night

they drove him away

in an ambulance.

I would have told him all

the fame and booze

was mutilating

his soul.

The hangers on, writers, editors,

other drunks, leeches, and the women

spreading their

nylon legs.

All of them killing him,

or watching him die

and doing nothing to stop it.

They say he said on that night

“I’ve had 18 straight whiskeys. I think

that’s the record.”

I would have told him all that shit was killing him.

I would have cut him off at 9 whiskeys.

But then again, maybe I might’ve

kept my nose out

of his business and matched him

drink for drink,

going on and beating his record

with 19 and

leaving with one of the

women before

the ambulance arrived.

19 Straight Whiskeys by Doug Draime

If I would have been

there at the Chelsea Hotel,

drinking

with Dylan Thomas

the night

they drove him away

in an ambulance.

I would have told him all

the fame and booze

was mutilating

his soul.

The hangers on, writers, editors,

other drunks, leeches, and the women

spreading their

nylon legs.

All of them killing him,

or watching him die

and doing nothing to stop it.

They say he said on that night

“I’ve had 18 straight whiskeys. I think

that’s the record.”

I would have told him all that shit was killing him.

I would have cut him off at 9 whiskeys.

But then again, maybe I might’ve

kept my nose out

of his business and matched him

drink for drink,

going on and beating his record

with 19 and

leaving with one of the

women before

the ambulance arrived.

COLD by Ross Vassilev

bony trees
and cold air
and the sun
a smoldering
cigarette.

i don’t mind
the cold or
the empty
street.

there’s
comfort in
loneliness

in my white
breath among
dark closed
windows.

i think of
the sun
going down

of the hare
and the
frightened
mouse

of sparrows
chirping on
a quiet ledge.

NIGHT GAME by Howie Good

It’s been a season of rainouts
and incurable diseases.

The bullpen under water.
The shortstop drunk on the field.

The manager fills out the lineup card
by drawing names in the air.

You push through the turnstile
like a lifelong fan regardless.

But better hurry and find your seat,
or you won’t see the pitcher

standing behind the mound
between warmup tosses

with his head bowed, weeping.

Chump Change by Rebecca Schumejda

She took the buck twenty-nine
in two-headed-coins,
the type you flip
when you want to prove
you have control
over your own destiny.

$1.29 by Alan Catlin

“A buck twenty-nine
that’s pretty cheap
for an operation.
What kind was it?”
I asked.
“A small one.”
he said.
“Must have been.”
“They know us there.”
“Frequent shopper
discount, huh?”
“Something like that.”
“All I got is a buck
and a quarter.”
“That’ll have to do.
I guess.”
“Big sale over
at the Buy Rite
Discount Liquors.”
“I know it.”
“Good luck, with
that.”
“Thank you kindly.”
It wasn’t much of
an operation but
it seemed to be
working.