Almost by Daniel W. Wright

I get sick of people talking about ALMOST
as though ALMOST is some kind of victory
"I almost asked them out."
"I almost got that promotion."
"I almost went to that show."

Oh yeah?

Well, I almost just scratched my balls
a few minutes ago
but I didn't
and they still itch

A poet of the no collar work force, Daniel W. Wright is a mid-western son who loves and loathes the red brick town that surrounds him. A longtime writer of wild nights and whiskey tributes, Wright speaks for the lover in every loner. He is currently the author of five chapbooks of poetry, the most recent being The Death of the Ladies Man with Bad Jacket Press. His work has appeared in the Gasconade Review as well as underground zines Bad Jacket and Crappy Hour

Tennis Scapegoat by Ethan Goffman

I suck at tennis
Diving for loose balls I plunk them clumsily against the net.

Springing forward to unleash my killer backhand,
I splotch the ball against the edge of my racket
Miraculously, it wheezes over the net,
to the great glee of the slobbering giant
who waits on the other side
smashing a killer blow.

I suck at tennis.
Why do I keep at it?
when I could stay at home,
watching from a safe distance
the magnificent champions born to play the game
and remain
a safe distance from my ineptitude.

Isn’t that the American way?
Hours upon days gawking at the dazzling professionals
dancing like angels across the court
while you slouch on a couch
growing a killer gut.

I suck at tennis;
I provide a useful service
heroic almost
to the weekend warriors
who can feel, just for an instant,
that they are part of a line of greatness
Borg, Navratilova, Federer, Serena
wielding their battle axes
striking another killer blow
against another hapless challenger.

There is no Hercules
without a hydra
no Beowulf
without a Grendel
no Rama
without a
demon king.
Villains are the deep heartbeat
of history and myth!

Still I most resemble
that shuffling goblin Gandalf kills without a glance
On his way to battle the Nazgul.

No one is a hero
without someone they can slay
No champ without a chump.

I provide a useful service
as an extra
in a cast of thousands.

I am a tennis scapegoat.  I exist for a reason.

Still on rare occasions I surprise.
Somehow my desperate lunge
sends the ball bouncing off the cord
careening to the other side at an angle
impossible to return.

For an instant I am a champion
Game, set, and match!

Ethan Goffman accidentally

became a poet by tagging along with his wife, the far more talented, harder

working, and prettier Marianne Szlyk, to poetry workshops.  He is still not sure how, but somehow his poems have

appeared in BlazeVox, Mad

Swirl, Madness Muse, Ramingo’s

Porch, and Setu.

Play Nice Or Play With Yourself. by John Patrick Robbins

I never was a social butterfly or the type of person that  concerned himself with the opinions of others .

When people run to me and say .

"Hey you know what so and so said about you?"

Or any other social media slant  I largely had the same response .

"Who gives a shit ?"

Confidence keeps me insulated and the booze usually for the most part happy .

And in all truth most people will be ever so eager  to kill your buzz but only if you allow them to.

It only effects you if you acknowledge they exist.

And unless your buying the next round or are a old friend then I suggest you get a life .

Because I am far to busy drinking mine away to give a flying fuck about yours .

Cheers asshole .

                 John  Patrick Robbins Aka Coyote .

Is the chief warlord and president of the Frat
He enjoys drinking and holds the title of drunk of the year seven years straight .

When not being driven insane from fellow writers he finds time somehow to write as well his publications include .


Punk Noir Magazine , Ariel Chart , Beatnik Cowboy , The Mojave River Review , The San Pedro River Review , Blognostics , Red Fez , Horror Sleaze Trash., Better Homes And Gardens , Angry Old Man Magazine,  Hustler and Ladies Home Journal.

His work is always unfiltered .

Ken. by John Doyle

Ken

fosters thoughts and dreams,

murder, annihilation, 

all a moment's ripple

within the fetal badlands of his smile -

one faithless semester.

If a smile is what it is

I wonder then which semester

he sat like Robert Wyatt on that window-cill

looking down at the judgmental colours

of street-dancers and perfect flesh,

Jesus and his galleons of switchblade bikers in

a flash of blue-jean lightning.

I wonder how many times they called him Fatso,

before he stood like folklore's sack of ancient bones and held back seas,

a prism made of numbers, a batch of code

he crawled into beneath an ice-cold shower

and clutched the darkness of the womb

and all those smiling souls he would make pay

with strings of silence.

I wondered until Friday. There was a free bar for fallen staff -

I met Marco one last time, Paul I'll see again three years later.

El Clasico spits and screams from the digital venom of the T.V. screen

and Paul tells me - Fatso was a mercenary, nothing more; that we kind of knew -

a few hours into year zero and the ticker tape was knee-deep

on a beer-stained floor.

I can't imagine Fatso on horseback in Texas in 1894,

protecting livestock hours before they give birth,

he was more a plantation owner

named Claude Dupree,

focusing his pout 

on dusted strings of death-punctured soil

long before the id, the ego and the superego had been conjured,

losing all contact with human essence

John Doyle became a Mod again in the summer of 2017 to fight off his impending mid-life crisis; whether this has been a success remains to be seen. He has has two collections published to date, A Stirring at Dusk in 2017, and Songs for Boys Called Wendell Gomez in 2018, both on PSKI's Porch.

He is based in Maynooth, County Kildare, Ireland. All he asks is that you leave your guns at the door and tie up your horses before your enter.

Midwest Bloodbath. By Rathnar Kilbane

                

As I sit by the fire of poets burning and breath in the smells of skinny jeans and chapbooks .

I think of my wives back in Iceland .

Olga , Ursula, Oksana and Margo.

How I thank the Lord of death and happy endings for the peace of mind distance gives .

Although the food in these savage lands cannot match Olga's stuffed wolf surprise.

I have slaughtered many poets on my tour and written a new collection from the blood of my victims I will title.

Rainbows Need Butterflies As Trolls Need Flesh Of The Dwarfs .

I have hunted these lands .

Seeking the evil troll but apparently overlooked her I would ask a female poet but the last one I ravished I fed to my hounds .

And as they sing songs of my great conquest I yearn for drink and more violence.

As I seek a publishing deal for my newest collection.

Why they all these publishers scream like women and run at just the mention of my appearance I cannot say .

Course maybe if I quit killing so many people along the way they would lighten up .

These strange people I cannot fully understand .

But I have killed many and the children now applaud my arrival and the recent drunkards in some nameless tavern.

Applauded me for killing those poets who were destroying there buzz.

With there ramblings and pissing and moaning over their feelings .

But my journey is far from over as I hunt the bitch dwarf of total insignificance.

Across these lands .

A reporter stopped me as my armies marched through the Midwest.

"Rathnar you just slaughtered another group of poets at yet another open mic , where are you heading next ."

I looked to the sheepish male holding his microphone and replied .

"To hell my friend but I might also stop off at Disneyland to conquer that rat Mickey Mouse's kingdom and ravish Daisy Duck."

Killing is simply part of the poets lifestyle to me.

Conquer you later .

Rathnar .

Rathnar Kilbane 

Is the poet laureate of Iceland he has conquered many savage lands and open mics.

When not pillaging he enjoys watching musicals and snuggling under covers on a cold night in Iceland. 

He is currently seeking a publisher for his new collection and promises not to kill anyone that rejects him anymore that is .

Body Positive Mauritius. by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

A scrape on the wall

and I find a matcher

on my skin

the tuning fork is really

sucking all the hot air out of wrinkly

balloons these days

making body positive Mauritius

overthrow its government

again

troops deployed in the streets

like burping pylons

women screaming

because there is nothing

else to do

the goats have all the milk

and the motorcycles hoard

all the petrol…

I was thinking of making a sex tape

next Spring and sending it out to the

Canada Council for the Arts folks

for funding  

   

even though I am a straight white male

which never bodes well.

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a male gigolo for hire.  Presently residing along the sunny shores of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba where he spends his days drinking discount Tequila and accusing chemtrails of being "sky farts."  His work can be found both in print and online in such joints as: The Rye Whiskey Review, The Dope Fiend Daily, Outlaw Poetry Network, Horror Sleaze Trash, and Under The Bleachers.

Sick by Bruce Hodder

Opening my door
this morning, dreaming
of a big win
on the lottery tonight,
I put my foot
into a pile of sick
left by late-night drinkers
on the street
outside my house.
That’s three quid’s worth
of sandals ruined.
The gangster boys
in baseball caps
from the Northampton
slums of L.A.
say “Ahh, bro!”
and slap each other,
laughing.  I glare,
but what can I do?
I’m a grey old man
with bad knees
and puke stains
on my sandals.

Bruce Hodder lives with Michelle in Northampton, the most statistically average town in England. He has been published in quite a few magazines over the years, most recently ‘Academy of Heart and mind’ and ‘Winedrunk Sidewalk’.