Listening To It by Ian Lewis Copestick

I awoke at 2:30

really needing a pee

now it's 3:45,

and the birds

have started to

sing.

I have rolled a

cigarette, had a

couple of drinks.

Now, I sit here

listening to the

birdsong. It's a

sound that I have

always loved.

If the birds are so

excited about the

new day, perhaps

I should be too.

I am sure that they

are a lot wiser than

I am. 

Ian Lewis Copestick is a 49 year old writer (I prefer that term to poet ) from Stoke on Trent, England. I spend most of my life sitting,  thinking then sometimes writing. I have been published in Anti Heroin Chic, the Dope Fiend Daily, Outlaw Poetry, Synchronized Chaos, the Rye Whiskey Review, Medusa's Kitchen and Horror Sleaze Trash

Virgolicious by Frank Murphy

She said as we laid in bed in the early morning.

"Baby, I just want you to go about your normal routine so let's have whatever you want for breakfast."

Something in my vacant lot most called a heart skipped a beat.

"Well sweetheart, I knew you were a keeper when I first met you.

I mean few woman can truly appreciate fresh escorts in bed.

You have exquisite tastes my darling."

My exquisite bed companion went dead silent before bursting out in laughter.

She was one of the few that got the joke and was far from the punch line.

What lay in the cards nobody truly knows.

But from what I viewed between these sheets horizon,  it was a beautiful site indeed.

Salute.

Frank Murphy, lives in Kill Devil Hills North Carolina.

Where he pens his pages and chases death and publication one rejection at a time.

His work has been published in.

The Black Shamrock Magazine, Spill The Words Press, The Rye Whiskey Review,  Drinkers Only .... Oh yeah and this lovely publication you are currently reading.

He enjoys a stiff drink and good music and fine asses.

But then again who doesn't?

butterfly whose head is the moon by Tanya Rakh

 

Tanya Rakh was born on the outskirts of time and space in a cardboard box. After extensive planet-hopping, she currently makes her home near Houston, Texas where she writes poetry, surrealist prose, and cross-genre amalgamations. Her writing has appeared in numerous journals including The Gasconade Review, Redshift 4, Literary Orphans, Fearless, Yes, Poetry, and The Rye Whiskey Review. Tanya is the author of two books: Hydrogen Sofi and Wildflower Hell, new editions of both available from Posthuman Poetry & Prose

Comfort Food by Lauren Scharhag

Stage 3

Manageable for a time, they say, with diet and medication. 

First, they take away salt. Avoid pre-packaged anything. 

Labels can be deceiving, so double- and triple-check.

Even low-sodium is too much sodium. 

We are still so bewildered by the diagnosis, 

we barely stop to think about how strange it is, 

that such an essential thing could spell harm for you. 

Then, they take away potassium, and there goes 

the salt substitute. We say goodbye to corn, tomatoes,

cucumbers, broccoli, leafy greens, mushrooms, 

bananas, oranges, chocolate, so many things. 

We soak potatoes for at least an hour. 

There are lots of tomatillos, which we learn

are not in the nightshade family, and therefore safe,

lots of pesto and salsa verde, lots of 

popcorn balls and Rice Krispies Treats.

Marshmallows are the only sweet you can have.

(It will be many years before we can stand them again.)

For the first time, you crack a cookbook. 

On good days, you start experimenting.

Then comes the steroid-induced diabetes, 

the Cushing’s Syndrome, your head so enlarged, 

you frighten your nephews when they come to visit. 

You can no longer manage the stairs. 

Your body hair falls out. You shake. 

Even your feet swell so you can only wear slippers. 

At Christmas dinner, you sit at the table with us, 

but do not eat. You aren’t really here.

Stage 4

If you ever hit Stage 4,

it must’ve only been a pitstop,

a border-crossing into some 

unimaginable territory

where the rest of us can’t follow.

Stage 5

End stage. 

Months pass in a blur 

of hospital beds and transfusions,

needles and tubes, and pills upon pills. 

The weight melts off as the nausea overtakes you.

Now, facing the long haul of the transplant list, 

we have time to consider these essentials. 

Nothing could have prepared me for the horror 

of watching someone who is unable to eat.

I research all the tips for cancer patients:

setting the table with flowers and linens, 

cooking your favorite foods, popsicles, drugs.

You were a vegetarian in the time before, and now,

they expect you to take at least nine ounces

of animal protein a day. So I buy shakes. 

We make big batches of egg salad.

(A trick bulimics know: 

if it’s going to come back up anyway 

best stick to soft things.)

On the rare occasion that you have a craving,

I run out and get it for you.

If you eat half, I consider it a victory.

Marijuana is still illegal, but someone 

brings us a joint. At last, you eat.

I don’t care about the law.

You eat. 

Transplant

With your new abundance

of time, you watch cooking videos.

You start with bread.

Before I know it, you 

are turning out beautiful loaves.

In three years, we find

there’s nothing you can’t do, no dish

you can’t master: baguettes,

pillowy croissants, arepas,

chocolate babka, Three Kings bread,

homemade pizzas and pasta, sushi, 

dumplings, and biscuits the way

your grandma made them,

roasted pork belly and braised short ribs.

For Valentine’s Day, you surprise me

with a filet and lobster tail.For every holiday, we happily gift you

kitchen gadgets, welcoming you back

to a world of appetite. Every artist knows

that sometimes, you have to die

in order to create, and you have died

several times over. But now, my love, 

you live, and not just on bread alone. 

You live.

Lauren Scharhag is the author of fourteen books, including Requiem for a Robot Dog (Cajun Mutt Press) and Languages, First and Last (Cyberwit Press). Her work has appeared in over 150 literary venues around the world. Recent honors include the Seamus Burns Creative Writing Prize, three Best of the Net nominations, and acceptance into the 2021 Antarctic Poetry Exhibition. She lives in Kansas City, MO. To learn more about her work, visit: www.laurenscharhag.blogspot.com

Throwing Ice Cubes In A Bonfire by John Patrick Robbins

Addiction can at times, be like an all too familiar friend and new found enemy.

For it is only when you stop feeding the habit.

Do you truly taste its wrath.

Like a lover scorned with a taste for vengeance and slow deaths promise.

It will do everything to gut you to the very marrow of your existence.

Taking something once beautiful, to embrace only a battlefield.

As we are left to reminisce alone by the fire.

Over those we can not forget and should of never betrayed.

An ice cube from a tumbler has about a snowballs chance in hell.

Love is a bonfire that consumes all even with the truest of intentions.

The wolves never howl for the emptiness of a still night.

For the lone wolf cries to the winds and memories.

Of those that will never howl in return.

John Patrick Robbins, is the editor in chief of The Rye Whiskey Review and Black Shamrock Magazine.

He is also the author of Death Rattle & Roll.

His work has been published here at the Dope Fiend Daily, Punk Noir Magazine, Fearless Poetry Zine, Piker Press, Lothlorien Poetry Journal,  Fixator Press, Schlock Magazine and The San Pedro River Review.