Ever So Slightly Insane by Dennis Moriarty

I am Charles Bukowski resurrected
And bad
Dylan Thomas on a bender pissed up
And ever so slightly mad.

I hate public school types and the house
Of Windsor
Wouldn’t piss on Boris Johnston if he
Were on fire in the desert.
I loathe country music that’s not played
By Cash
And rap is for fantasist, the would be
Gangsters
Bringing terror to the mean streets
Of their minds.
I have fucked up and spewed up while
Sitting alone drinking neat whiskey,
Listening to gun fighter ballads and old
Prison songs.
Sometimes I’m Keith Richards pilled
To the gills and all coked out.
But mostly I am a bar room poet in a small
Valleys town
Spouting words in exchange for applause.

I am a pissed up old fart, an argumentative
Old pain,
Overwhelmingly fragile, and ever so
Slightly insane.

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.

Hollyfuckingwood by John Doyle

For Carey Floyd

Another town
another atom bomb,
another station wagon,
another boy called Jody
sliced in half under its wheels,
another episode of the Flintstones,
another cousin with no face and no name
gathering the petals of her life
in an apple-green shin-length dress.
Another country singer's
head rolling down the highway like tumbleweed,
another Chevrolet mowhawked
by juggernauts driven by Chet
who tells his wife from a nearby phone-booth
he may be late for dinner;
Sgt. O'Malley waits nearby, Sgt. O'Malley
is polite and understanding.
Another rocket built by boys in nearby gardens
frightens horses drowning in technicolor illusions
and the memories of Randolph Scott 
once perched like Julius Cesar
on their spines,
another chief sits unconscious on the white-washed wood
of pretty 19th Century American construction and design,
another war is won by a smaller country
with smaller tits and smaller cocks
and not a single microbe or strain of Rock n' Roll music,
another Irishman who married another Irish woman
stands on the steps of the cathedral
in photographs of St. Joseph's 128 feet high 
and made of stallion-coloured stone and the immaculate
deceptions of priests with robes too loose and morals even looser,
another bullet kills another rusted can,
a different boy called Jody comes back to life
only to die again when another bullet backfires -
another day, another dollar;
Holly would, no she wouldn't, that's what all the boys said,
and the sheriff proud and tall in his pointy boots walked away;
his boys,
all of them;
gosh he was mighty proud

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 ente

Decay by Kevin M. Hibshman

Tread lightly
The man asleep, curled up in the doorway could be in
the middle of a very very prophetic dream
He wants to be wax
Climb him carefully
Listen to me
The afflicted will gift you in charcoal, ash and rust
One glance will inflict you voluptuous with its dusty stare that does not rub off
Come this way, you say
What a scream
What a scene laid out before me in blue moon neon
A silver-winged shimmer
A broken-toothed psalm
Burning gold leaf in a dead letter box
You are propped up on the elbows of an obsolete bone structure
Please excuse me

I am experiencing repeating phenomena with all these colliding strangers
collective particles
DNA and the flesh
the flesh is no firmament
the flesh is but a slow decay

Kevin M. Hibshman has had poems published in many journals and magazines world wide.

 In addition, he has edited his poetry zine, Fearless, since 1990 and is the author of sixteen chapbooks including Love Sex Death Dreams (Green Bean Press, 2000) and Incessant Shining (Alternating Current, 2011).