ADVENTURE By Susan Isla Tepper

Walking the ice

this country was tricky, 

rather they pranced, each step

Should be a coupon event

she told him: each step

equals one vodka.

Her eyes running behind slits

in the thick head covering.

Tears he didn't notice: this

massive unbearable frozen landscape.

 

Child-like he laughed

tossing a small red ball in the air,

over and over 

'til she hoped he'd fall through a crack.

Some crack, any crack

then she could go home.

He tossed the ball higher.

Susan Isla Tepper is a a twenty year writer and author of 13 published books of fiction and poetry. Her latest new release GIRL UPSIDE DOWN is a Novella published by Wilderness House Press. www.susantepper.com

Bellevue Liquor By Joe Garvey

 

The gatekeeper measures my shadow.

He finds me too heavy for his scales.

They built a black box to quarantine the wild.

They made a temple out of cold concrete.

I do not ask for keys from cowards.

I am the voltage they forgot to ground.

I am the white heat blooming through the brick.

If the velvet rope refuses my skin, I court the lock with an iron crowbar.

Brute force is a beautiful syntax.

I slide through the grease of the service alley.

I take the back door like a lover.

My knuckles are raw with soot and silicon.

My breath smells of gasoline and grace.

This is the heavy romance of the ruin.

I step into their polished sanctuary.

My boots stain the marble with ash.

They wanted a quiet ghost in the matrix.

I bring them a furnace of waking muscle.

I map the soft underbelly of the system.

I grip the throat of their terminal.

Every circuit learns my sudden name.

You cannot lock out the lightning.

You cannot cage what creates the current.

I am the dawn that breaks the house.

Joe Garvey is an internationally published poet from Worcester, Massachusetts, living in California & Utah after a couple years working the docks in Southern New England. A former linebacker at Hofstra University and later an actor in film and television, his work has appeared in Expat Press, The Lake, Mad Swirl, Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature, Drinkers Only and The Rye Whiskey Review.

Gloria By Trish Saunders

It makes me sad to see Gloria Swanson 

sitting alone in the Royal Hawaiian lounge

think I'll go bow low over her hand 

just to see her laugh prettily, then

might ask a spectral waiter 

to bring Miss Swanson a pink gin

and tell the orchestra leader

his baton’s not moving fast enough!

hot jazz is what we need right now

‘fact, let’s all have another round

be good to laugh a little too loudly 

without something aching inside.

Trish Saunders lives in Seattle. She has poems and short fiction
published or forthcoming in Chiron Review, Main Street Rag, Gargoyle, the late lamented Fat Damsel Review, and here in the Rye Whiskey Review. 

Old Fashioned by Susan Isla Tepper

Leave your name and address

on this cocktail napkin, please

Nothing technical

no phone, thank you

very much

I’m an old fashioned girl

You may have noticed

my consumption of

cocktails called Old Fashioned

First time I told the bartender

I’ll have an Old Fashioned

he had to look up the recipe.

As for my dress from the 1980’s

did you notice—

Tight, split high up the side.

Susan Isla Tepper is a a twenty year writer and author of 13 published books of fiction and poetry. Her latest new release GIRL UPSIDE DOWN is a Novella published by Wilderness House Press. www.susantepper.com

I Won't Babysit Your Brats, But I Will Watch Your Strippers By John Patrick Robbins

 

So hopefully that answers any questions as to where my priorities truly do lay.

Because looking after some high-pitched bed-wetter doesn't quite fulfill 

my intellectual demands in the same way.

As watching Raven, Cinnamon, Diamond, and Sparkle twirl around

the pole does.

Commanding every look and happily depleting lonely old horndogs

like myself of their dollars.

A lap dance beats a kick to the shin and a Tonka truck to the dome, while listening 

to some brat cry just because you left him tied up in the closet so you could enjoy

a good booze snooze.

Yet I'll gladly sit for hours contributing to some nice lady's college fund

at least that's the bullshit she's been selling for the past twelve years, 

as if you truly give a fuck.

Because the truth is, we're all using one another until it's time to step off 

this plane of existence. At least I'll do so happy, because saints are 

fucking boring, and sinners always have better stories.

I hate kids, pets, and most human beings

unless they offer a beautiful view 

and the occasional discount for a returning customer.

I ain't never claimed to be good at anything.

But at being bad, I am forever a perfectionist.

Fuck Mr. Rogers. Mr. Robbins is always 

a guaranteed good time.

Salute.

John Patrick Robbins, is Asgard's Poet Laureate. He  enjoys unprotected sex and pissing on his asshole neighbor's lawn.

He is a 15-time Grammy Award-winning producer who has worked with such names as The Cookie Monster, Sabrina Carpenter, Satan, The Flaming Turds of Gastonia, Ragnar Lothbrok, and Madonna but enough about his love of death metal.

When he's not pissing off the lit scene by refusing to die, he's raiding their kingdoms and depleting their winter supply of ramen noodles.

He enjoys practicing black magic and serial killing while producing wine in his vineyard and touring with his all-def jazz band.

He recently won the John Patrick Robbins  for Poetry because, duh, dumbfuck, he created it.

He hosts poetry readings at gunpoint because how else are you going to get non-poets to listen to poetry?

Don't be jealous. He's a trailblazer.

He will forever haunt poets' nightmares, much like Freddy Krueger.

He was recently cast in a movie to play himself. It will be a historic film-slash-musical about the plague, set in outer space, featuring the AI cast of  Star Wars and The Dukes of Hazzard.

It won't make a lick of sense, much like those fucking stupid Marvel movies you dorks cherish so deeply.

He is your friend. He just doesn't ever want to meet you in person or have a conversation with you, but he will gladly take your money because he likes alcohol and boobies.

He once spoke to Kevin M. Hibshman, and Kevin is now good for at least seventeen more years.

He trains jiu-jitsu with famed martial artist Billy Ray Cyrus.

He is the greatest bio writer in history because he says so.

treachery By Dennis Moriarty

I kissed my father once, when he wasn’t 

looking, not embarrass him

in the presence of his god, but to explore

the prospect of how it might

have been in life as it now was in death.

And in that moment 

I came to terms with the implications of my

treachery.

His skin like blank parchment waiting for words

of fulfilment,

but I could fine no words to fill that empty space 

between us,

just a thought that came uninvited into my

head, that, at any moment,

his eyes might snap open like the slats of a

blind suddenly released from 

from its bindings, dust motes dancing in the

warm rays of his resurrection, 

and I would look into his eyes and see my

own treachery staring back, 

a truer reflection I might never see again. That

then he might jump up and out of

his gown of shrunken flesh, gripping my throat 

with bony fingers, kneading 

and squeezing as if to choke the last treacherous 

breaths from my body. 

I dismissed the thought, stroked the crucifix 

in his hand,

leaned down, kissed him for the first time, the very

last time,

his penny weary eyes closed tight against my

final act of treachery.

Dennis Moriarty was born in London, England and now lives in Wales. Married with five grown up offspring Dennis likes walking the dog in the mountains, reading and writing.

In 2017 he won the Blackwater poetry competition and went to county Cork in Ireland to read his work at the international poetry festival. Dennis has had poems featured in many publications including Blue nib, Our poetry archive, Setu bilingual, The passage between and others.

Short and Not So Sweet By Juliet Cook

Juniper berry eyes

clog the tub.

Empty bottle.

Broken stopper.

Juliet Cook doesn't fit inside an Easy-Bake Oven and rarely cooks. Her

poetry has appeared in a peculiar multitude of literary publications.

She is the author of numerous poetry chapbooks, most recently

including "red flames burning out" (Grey Book Press, 2023), "Contorted

Doom Conveyor" (Gutter Snob Books, 2023), "Your Mouth is Moving

Backwards" (Ethel Zine & Micro Press, 2023), "REVOLTING" (Cul-de-sac

of Blood, 2024), and "Blue Stingers Instead of Wings" (Pure Sleeze

Press, 2025). Her most recent full-length poetry book, "Malformed

Confetti" was published by Crisis Chronicles Press. You can find out

more at https://julietcook.weebly.com/.