NEGOTIATIONS by Kevin Peery

They say
the devil
stays in
Cleveland
when Chicago
won’t take
him home

So
I’ve been
sittin’ here
alone
at The
Greenhouse
Tavern

Wonderin’
just how
much
I’ll have
to bluff
before
we begin
negotiations

Three Poems by K. W. Peery

CROOKED WAYS

There’s a
one lane
bridge sign
with seventeen
bullet holes
propped up
against a
salvage yard
Monte Carlo
with its ass
smashed in

And every
now n’ then
I’ll catch him
standin’ inside
that crooked
ole fenceline
where he’s likely
still searchin’
for a better way
to explain
just why
he did it

____________

 

EZ8 MOTEL
(For Stretch)

When
housekeeping
discovered his
lifeless body
in room 120
at the EZ8
Motel

The
Sunday
paper
was still
untouched
next to
an overflowin’
ashtray
filled with
Winston
100s

And a
fifth of
Old Crow
he’d drained
after his
final show
at the
Silver Fox
Starlite
Lounge
in Bakersfield –

Ole Stretch
always said
he’d just
put one
in his
own
head

Instead of
dyin’ slow
the way
his Daddy
did

Strugglin’
too hard
to breathe
with that
goddamn
COPD

And a
stack of
hit songs
nobody
was willin’
to pay
to hear
him play
anymore

____________

 

TURF WAR

We
would
sit n’ sip
St. Ides
every
Saturday
night
on our
North Park
balcony

Just
listenin’
to the
turf war roar
along those
blood soaked
side streets
out in
El Cajon

Knowin’
all the
green ER
nurses
from
Grossmont
would be
belly up
to the bar
at Pete’s
Place
after their
shift was
over

Talkin’ shop
with all the
off duty cops
about suckin’
chest wounds

n’ just
how much
goddamn
damage
a 9mm
hollow point
can do to
vital organs

____________

 

BIO:

Americana songwriter and Kansas-City-based storyteller K.W. Peery is the author of ten poetry collections:
Tales of a Receding Hairline; Purgatory; Wicked Rhythm; Ozark Howler; Gallatin Gallows; Howler Holler; Bootlegger’s Bluff;
Cockpit Chronicles; Hillbilly Hand Grenades; Hellrasier’s Hieroglyphics. He is founder and co-editor of The Angel’s Share Literary Magazine (Shine Runner Press).

His work is included in the Vincent Van Gogh Anthology Resurrection of a Sunflower, The Cosmic Lost and Found: An Anthology of Missouri Poets (Spartan Press),
Best of Mad Swirl Anthology 2018 and the Walsall Poetry Society Anthology, Diverse Verse II & III.

Peery’s work has been published in The Main Street Rag, Chiron Review, San Pedro River Review, The Gasconade Review, Big Hammer,
Blink Ink, Rusty Truck, Mad Swirl, Veterans Voices Magazine, Outlaw Poetry, Mojave River Review, The Asylum Floor, Horror Sleaze Trash, Ramingo’s Porch,
From Whispers to Roars, Culture Cult Magazine, The Rye Whiskey Review, Drinkers Only Magazine, Under The Bleachers, The Dope Fiend Daily, Punk Noir,
Mutata Re, Ariel Chart, The Beatnik Cowboy and Apache Poetry.

Credited as a lyricist and producer, Peery’s work appears on more than twenty studio albums over the past decade.

Website: http://www.kwpeery.com

Three Poems by Kevin Peery

LONESOME LUKE

The
Oak Hill
police
found some
empty
Falstaff cans
and handwritten
lyrics
to the
last song
ever penned by
Luke the Drifter

They
were
scattered
in the
backseat
of that
baby blue
Fifty-Two
Cadillac
convertible…
as
Jambalaya
rattled
softly
on the
radio

____________

 

ROCKIN’ RANDALL

When
the
snow
collapsed
on
Ajax
Peek…
Rockin’
Randall
fell
five
hundred
feet…

And
it
took
him
almost
two
years
to
learn
how
to
talk
and
sing
again

____________

ELEVEN YEARS

They
say
ole
Lefty
drank
himself
to
death
in
July
of
75…

But
all
evidence
suggests
he’d
been
walkin’
toward
the
spirit
realm
for
at
least
eleven
years