Blues Hotel by Sterling Warner

Two Jacksons or

Four sawbucks

Up front—$40.

No credit cards, no I.D.;

Beyond, beneath,

Battered neon lights

The Blues Hotel

Weathered time’s ravages

Struck cords of commerce as

Hookers dispense advice

Like ATM machines—

Service for a price.

Soiled linen, wafer thin sheets,

Feel and look like pillow drool on flax

A ceramic throne, standard toilet,

Sits on splintered two-by-fours,

Wax ring resembling a smashed plum

Sinking like a rock in thick mud when seated.

Yellow halos ripple over textured ridges,

Plaster summits, on the

Sparkling stucco ceiling where

Snow seeps through the roof

Dripping tears into a closet

That seldom houses luggage.

Here on Colfax, cops draw down on

Wendy’s customers—mistake naive

Travelers as “King’s Table” players—

Denver’s whorehouse clientele,

Crack den magistrates.

One’s next-door neighbors’

Fists pound paper-thin walls like

Meat tenderizers pummeling flesh or

Jack hammers cracking concrete;

Rattling door handles twist, turn

Voices chant incantations, grunt outside

Demand immediate admittance—

Ready to fix a need, a place to

Tie down before daylight resumes

Kickin’ flop house reality,

The Blues Hotel’s legacy, above,

Below, and on all sides of every room.

An award-winning poet, author, educator, Sterling Warner enjoys writing, fishing, boating, and hosting/reading at open mics. Widely published in literary magazines, journals, and anthologies such as Anti-heroin Chic, Gleam, and Synchronized Chaos, his poetry/fiction collections include: Rags & Feathers, Without Wheels, Edges, Serpent’s Tooth, Flytraps, Cracks of Light, Halcyon Days, Abraxas (2024), and Masques: Flash Fiction & Short Stories.

Will I Even Recognize the Music by Merritt Waldon

Thoughts slide down the wall behind me

Slowly moving, drying to the wall

Sky percolates with rain

I take a piece of paper & wipe the thoughts off

The wall

Once dried they will be the perfect

Song for boredom sang by birds,

Television, traffic, & of course

Blown out thoughts

I now think of finding the page years from now

Will I even recognize the music

Merritt Waldon is Southern Indiana poet who has been published in Road Dawgz, Sun Poetic Times,

The Brooklyn Rail, Be About It Zine, River Dog #1, Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts, Americans & others anthology fourth edition, Crisis Chronicles, Cajun Mutt Press, Thye Rye Whiskey Review, and Fearless!.

At midnight Christmas night 2020, cajun mutt press released Oracles from a Strange Fire by Ron Whitehead & Merritt. He lives in Austin, Indiana.

I am Spitballing and a Huckster by Mark James Andrews

I am riding shotgun playing 

second fiddle in a season in hell.

There once was love lost and lust

for any man, woman or beast.

I am far gone into Rimbaud madness

having a heart to heart with Satan.

I am gallivanting all over town

arm around the hip of a Tristessa girl.

There once was druggie romance

that put a spell on you in the streets 

of Cholula with hushed promises 

to never tell about that winter week.

I am hamster-wheel spinning

rat racing in factotum days.

There once was nights blotto

malt liquor and Tuinal capsules

half reddish orange

half turquoise blue.

I am swaggering for no reason 

down and out in Paris and London.

There once was a day spent 

with tramps in the workhouse 

sporting as half diamond dog

flexing as half man.

I am tapping out near the end 

deep diving in the Book of Job.

There once was a man in the land

of Uz and you might say born under

a bad sign but still the final word

was always supreme with Yahweh.

I am spitballing and a huckster 

with my final play to trick the dust.

There once was gamble and chance 

carp fishing on Xanax in a lava lake

I am done with being nickel and dimed

with rope burns still fresh and hook baited.

Mark James Andrews lives and writes in Metro Detroit. He is the author of five chapbooks. The latest is At The Ice Cow Queen On Mack from Alien Buddha Press. His poetry has appeared in Chiron Review, Nerve Cowboy, Hiram Poetry Review, Slipstream, Respect: The Poetry of Detroit Music and many other spots.

DICK by Wayne F. Burke

A middle-aged man with a pot belly, wearing a pork pie hat and sunglasses, stood at the edge of the woods nearby a swimming hole. A bath towel was slung over the man’s shoulder.

     Huge granite boulders surrounded the swimming hole. Sparkling river water shimmied and gleamed over the boulders.

     Two girls stood on a boulder. Each wore a bikini bathing suit.

     Two adolescent hussies, Dick told himself. One girl taller than the other. The taller one more developed than the shorter, but the shorter, Dick noted, had quite a can on her.

     He dropped his shorts and underwear to his ankles in the yellow scrub grass and weeds.

     He squeezed out a dollop of Vaseline into his palm.

     The tall girl looked over at him. He yanked on his joint as the thing stiffened. “Come’on,” he said, “take a good look you little bitches!” He rubbed himself vigorously.

     The taller girl spoke to the shorter girl who glanced at Dick. “You little cunts,” Dick said, “you know you want it!” He held his cock up straight, like a flagpole. “Look! Look at it! You teasing cocksuckers! Bitches!”

     The shorter girl turned her back to Dick. Dick ran his ran his hand up and down his joint; he was giving it to her up ass and she loved it, he told himself. “You love it you little bitch!” he said.

    The taller girl stared.  The shorter girl bent to pick up her towel: her legs spread. Dick felt himself start to cum: he tried to hold back but could not. He swooned, his legs shaky. The taller girl watched his jizzum water the ground like rain drops. You little slut!” He said. “Come and lap it up!” He squeezed out an extra blurt—just for her…

     Dick cleaned up, pulled up his shorts and underwear. He walked back the way he had come--through a path in the woods to a gravel-covered country road.

     He felt empty, dull: his groin over-heated and uncomfortably damp.

     A State Police car was parked along the roadside. Two State Troopers stood beside the car.

     “How you doing fella?” one of the troopers asked.

     Dick swallowed the saliva in his suddenly dry-as-toast mouth. “Oh pretty good.” He had to force the words out. “How about you fellas?” he asked, rallying.

     The slightly buck-toothed trooper’s telescopic eyes bored into Dick’s head.

     “What’cha got there?” the trooper said, nodding to the tube of Vaseline in Dick’s front pocket.

     The other cop, thin-lipped and stone-faced, stood with thumbs stuck into his service belt.

     “What? This?” Dick showed the tube to the cop. “For the skin, you know…I got dry skin and--” He made a motion as if applying the cream to his chest.

     “We know what you use it for,” the stone-faced cop said.

     The bucktooth cop smirked.

     Over the cop’s shoulder a bald eagle flew between tree tops.

     Dick knew they would find his other lewd & lascivious charges. Knew he would not be able to talk his way out of this one. Knew he did not have money enough to keep from going to jail…

     Beads of sweat crawled like fat bugs from off his scalp.

Wayne F. Burke's poetry and prose has been widely published in print and online (including in DISTURB THE UNIVERSE). He is author of 8 published poetry collections, one short story collection, and 3 works of nonfiction. He lives in Vermont (USA)