Hangovers

A world-wide experience–
Perhaps cave dwellers
quaffed remedies like mastodon blood
for the pain of sloshing down boozes.
The Roman poet Pliny–ate fried canaries,
raw owls eggs – but died of fumes from Pompeii.
Birds may be the key – the Assyrians
in the time of the cruel Sennacherib,
who was certainly a drunk, chewed
ground bird beaks mixed with myrrh.
In medieval times, maybe even the monks
slurped raw eels and cracked bitter almonds.
Placidly the Chinese sipped green tea – and still do.
Maybe the worst, Mongolians recovered with pickled sheep’s eyes.
But the Japanese only pickled savoury plums.
The good old Wild West – Prairie oysters, raw egg yolks
Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce, salt, and pepper.
A football player I knew slugged down five yolks daily
before he was thrown off the team.
You might want to avoid Puerto Rican bars,
cuz of their preventive deodorant—
lemon slices under armpits.
Bloody Marys are quite common now,
but Hemingway downed Bloody Beer.
I’m sure there are many more, maybe you have a favourite?

But if you’re a lush, a souse, a binger,
no matter– none of them work.
So you’re sitting at your special bar
or home with your favourite elixirs.
You know, you know, damn well you know–
The best and only cure is to cork the bottle.
Good luck!

History of Spanking

Mrs. Furness, my second grade teacher,
long dead now, told my mother,
“If I believed in geniuses, he is one.”
Made me her pet, skinny me, buck teeth,
owl glasses, unruly cowlick,
left in charge of the class
when Mrs. F. went to the Ladies Room.

Watched over her desk, stopped
kids from messing around.
Janie did, despite my protests,
stuck out her tongue.
Class clown, tipped over
the inkwell on all the papers,
fled to her desk just in time.

“Who did this!.” screeched Mrs. F.
“Who did this!,” spit my name.

I was mute. Janie and the class
prayed I would not tattle.

What would the kids do?
Push me off the monkey bars?
Flip me off the Teeter-Totter?
Refuse to play?
Billy once spit on Stuart.

Mrs. F., arms akimbo, glared:
“Either you tell who
or I call your Father.”
Terror squeaked out, ”Janie.”

She dragged her up front,
flashed her ruler, whipped her,
ripped her dress,
sent her to the office,
the class yelled, cried, glared.

It is said: Spare the rod, spoil the child.
And they spanked, switched
and whipped, even beat
until Dr. Spock—the Dr. Seuss for butts—
said: Wrong thing to do.

In Texas, they allow paddling again.
Triumphant Mrs. F., arms akimbo,
smiles down from above.

Late Night Martini Talk

In 1981, a noted editor,
martini under a small lamp,
yawned, turned the manuscript over,
snapped off the light,
Took the last sip, tongued the olive,
went to bed, after signing
the letter informing
Gabriel Marquez his story
submitted to the New Yorker
would not be accepted.

Marquez won the Nobel Prize in ’82.
I suspect that same editor
is now quietly sipping a martini
by that same lamp, intoning,“I fucking
rejected, Gabriel Marquez,”
nodding, “I fucking…”

My story was rejected by said mag
last year. I suspect martinis ahead
for another poor fool.

Legions of Angels

Though many think Him deranged,
insane—healed lepers, walked on water,
dispelled demons, raised his friend
from the dead, then, the same for Him,
most would not call Jesus a liar.
Intimate with attending angels ,
famished and broken in the desert
when they rushed to minister to Him

He responded to Pilate—
If He asked the Father,
God would send forth
twelve legions of angels,
(approximately 5,000 x 12 = 60,000),
to rescue Him right then and there,
eschew the blood and pain and death
of the old rugged Cross—
was He scared or out of His mind?

Instead, if He spoke Truth—
indeed, when released to return,
He will be joined by those angelic Beings—
horses charging from the sky,
brandishing swords and fire.
Understand the difference
between Truth and falsehood,
between reality and illusion
and know that a great cloud of witnesses
will burst forth with legions and legions
of angels and others—soon.

Cornucopia

You can’t slip and fall on sunshine.
Wagon trains never go East.
Weeds don’t know they’re weeds.
I didn’t know flowers went to Heaven.
Nailing my heart to the roof of my mind.
Bull in a china shop and you are the china.
Shoving toothpicks into the cuticle of your soul.
Sludge of a different colour.
My life is so much thinner than thick.
I was annoyed at the moon.
There is no punctuation in dreams.
Eventually it is naked and sags.
The comedic timing of an owl.
Everything has a penultimate day,
even The End Of The World.

Vern Fein is a retired teacher and community organiser of outreaches to those in need who has decided to write now because Vern has the time and strong inclination to do so. Vern has published a number of poems and short non-fiction pieces.

Lions fire from the ochre riverbed,
you stand in white among the sun trees,
you dress in linen sand,
burnt perfume and your red furs
linger on the river air,
you arise on a ladder of clear stones
to gather fragrant branches,
you silver thread the light on water.
I seek the dynasties of your silence,
a drop of my lamp oil falls
like a water bead on the shard of a mirror
resembling the cenotaph of a queen.

John Swain lives in Le Perreux-sur-Marne, France.  His most recent chapbook, The Daymark, was published by Origami Poems Project. 

You can find more of John’s work here on Ink Pantry.

Back in Business

Time to sit on my porch,
read the newspaper.

The sun is well into
its spring U-turn,
sends warm rays of regret
for its winter absence.

A bee lands
on a breeze-tossed petal,
induces a golden butterfly
to join him.

Dogs no longer just walk
with their masters.
They seek out each other,
circling and sniffing.

A mockingbird
on a rooftop
advertises his wares
in borrowed song.

Windows open.
Chimneys are silent at last.

It’s the season
when my fancy demands
it be turned to something.
Not love, necessarily.
Lazing’s a good second choice.

Like Father, Like Son

A father, Frank
going straight after a long history
of drug offences –

and a son, Matt
out on bail
after a stash of cocaine
discovered in his car by cops –

that’s the family scene,
the one where Matt
sneaks in and out of the house

or stays up in his room,
eats his meals alone

and then,
when they do run into each other,
their tongues freeze up

but two pairs of hard angry eyes
make contact,

as they both look deep
into each other,
see the same festering hungers,
the same wretched desires,
the same pathetic appetites
that adulterate the family blood –

and they turn away in a shame
disguised as a superiority –

“he’s turning out
just like me,” thinks Frank –

“I’m turning out
just like him,” thinks Matt –

from the disgusted looks
on both their faces

you would never know
they just agreed on something.

These Fine Children

They are perfect,
middle of the night
sleeping,
middle of the day,
thumping volleyballs
across a net.
Their faces are
pure and lovely,
just like yours
at that age.
The photos
on your dresser
are a history
of how these
moments came to be:
your sly glance
through the
slightly ajar bedroom door,
your full face
at the parlour window.
God’s creation?
Maybe.
Your creation?
Is there any doubt.
At night,
alone at the kitchen table,
coffee and a cigarette,
a bottle of pain pills…
if only their father
were alive to see this.
For all their glory,
triumphs know
their place.

Flowers for a Friend

The river’s all dolled up,
with the sheen of skyscraper lights,
some stars sprinkled here and there –
the Hudson must be on its way
to someplace special.

Your face flashes out of all others
like a sudden appointment I’ve forgotten to miss,
and the sirens – God, the sirens –
it’s the sound of cops looking for something to do.

Someone (you?) says something.
It’s hard to tell in a crowd.
But I listen.
And I believe.

A woman’s selling flowers
that are so outrageously perfumed,
like they’ve been reading French novels
and wanted everyone to know.

I buy a bunch,
hand them to you.
You take them like you’re accepting
a bill you already know you can’t pay.
The river keeps going.
We don’t.
Not yet.

Passerby

You bring me pleasure.
Ironic that.
You could be a harpy,
a bigot, a child murderer,
for all I know.

You could be fool enough
to think that
a lovely face,
long straw-coloured hair,
a lithesome figure
in a fluttering blue cotton dress
is enough.
Let me tell you.
It is enough.

Yes, in my friends,
I want all the virtues.
But I look for beauty in my strangers.

Someone in the Fog

The fog is thick
but I can just make out a person
up ahead of me.
Not the features,
just the shape.
Not the way of living,
just the presence.
I see what must be a head
but not the knowledge.
And a torso
but no scars.
Limbs
but not what they bear up.
I’ve just reached an understanding
of who and what I am.
But with other people,
the fog rolls in.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Midnight Mind, Novus and Calliope. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Levitate, White Wall Review and Willow Review.

You can find more of John’s work here on Ink Pantry.

I have spent years
warding off evil from my chest.
I’m convinced that my heart —
once plump, pulping,
and dramatically impaled
by Cupid’s bow —
has since flattened
into a planchette.

I drag my planchette heart
across ouija boards —
and spell out your name
though I’ve buried you
a thousand times.
More incantations:
“R u here?”
“I still <3 u.”
“Gimme a sign.”

Not that you answer.
I swallow the sting
of my séance
being seen-zoned.

Arshi Mortuza is a writer and educator residing in the Greater Toronto Area. She is the author of One Minute Past Midnight and Pressed Flower. Her work has been featured in numerous literary outlets worldwide.  

When the tomorrow
comes as a light at first,
and in the dark the darkness burns,
it explodes in flower loops
your soul.
Without seeing,
without waiting!
This autumn
shares fruit scent,
even though the type is pushing towards winter,
the leaves fall,
when the loops are ready to be born.
Without seeing,
without waiting!
I touch this autumn,
it burns my hand
and the day becomes sad.
When I smell
I feel a spring breeze.
Without seeing,
without waiting!

Nikollë Loka was born in Mirdita on March 25, 1960; graduated as a teacher at Luigj Gurakuqi University of Shkodra; master’s degree in pedagogy at the University of Tirana, doctorate in history of education at the University of Tirana. Author of ten poetic volumes in Albanian and three poetic volumes in Italian (two of which with co-authors); included in the anthology “La Poesie contemporaine albanaise”, “L’Hartmattan” publications, Paris 2024. In addition to Albanian, his poems have been published in Italian, English, French, German, Arabic, Romanian, Swedish and Macedonian. Winner of several literary awards in the country and abroad. Included in the Lexicon of Albanian writers 1501-2001, editions “Faik Konica”, Pristina 2003 and in the Encyclopedia of Italian language poets, “Aletti Editore” Rome 2021.

You can find more of Nikollë’s work here on Ink Pantry.

The Squirrel

I thought the squirrel had died inside the tree so I poked at it
with a stick. It didn’t move, so I poked inside the hollow
I thought it was trapped in, poked it again. Something grabbed my stick
tugged it with teeth and tiny hands, and so I pulled
the stick back out. Weeks later

three tiny tails snaked out of the hole next to the first squirrel’s
twisted and wrapped around their mother’s tail as though
they had to cling to her even out here. I never saw
their little faces, never saw anything but the tails
growing thicker and redder and fluffier with each day.
The mother would only come out at night
to gather food for them, I never saw her leave her post.
I spread crackers with peanut butter for her in the kitchen
carefully placing them just below her nest as an offering
a plea for forgiveness.

One morning, all four tails were gone. The hollow
gaped at me, abandoned, from my old birch tree.
I put more crackers in the garden, put them in the branches
near the hollow, chased stray cats from my yard and
kept the dog inside, but I never got to see those little squirrel children
never got to see who had made their first home in my yard.

The Mouse

My husband calls me into the kitchen to show me the mouse
that has fallen into the sink during the night. “I think it’s dead,” he says
just as it begins paddling half-heartedly in the water once more
one last, futile effort to find some purchase on the slick porcelain basin
one impossible final effort. Its eyes are dull, flat, black
minutes from the end. I reach down into the water,
pull the little creature up by its tail
take it outside. “Make sure it’s dead,” calls my husband from the house

not wanting to be a part of whatever I have planned. The mouse
struggles feebly in my hand. Its eyes don’t see me. I have never
seen eyes like that before, half goggled, oblivious
like two dull nail heads jammed into its face.
I carefully set it down in the garden, place its feet on the dirt
let go of its tail. “Please don’t come back,” I whisper
as it struggles for life, for balance
before springing off into the undergrowth.

“Please don’t come back.”

The Myth of Correspondence

To fully understand the pictures I have sent you
first, fill a bathtub with water and ice
get into the tub with all of your clothes on.
Only then should you shake these photographs out
of this careful assemblage of paper.

This is the only way you’ll be able to understand
the shades of weather that separate us, the only way
to separate yourself from your envelope
of tropical breezes and permanent sunshine.
I will speak to you through the ice bruising your skin
a frigid wraith clinging to you from too far away.

Tuesday

On a perfect day, I would be able to open my back door
find nothing but jungle waiting for me, sunshine filtered in through the leaves
of trees I’d never seen before, the calls of unfamiliar birds coming at me from all angles.
On a perfect day, I would hear snakes in the undergrowth,
monsters rustling just out of sight
hear the low rumble of a tiger or a jaguar breathing a warning shot
close by, perhaps as close as the cooling shade beneath my back porch.

But this is not a perfect day, and I have not been transported
to a random scene from a Kipling novel, have not been transported back in time
to march with Herodotus or Alexander through lush jungles untouched by civil war
am not looking for new species of birds with Audubon
or stumbling into and through the ruins of Machu Picchu with Bingham.
I am just digging holes in my own back yard for tulips and daffodils
wishing I could be anyone but me.

Mouse Trap

The little mice watch me from their prison of tin and plexiglass
inside the live mouse trap I baited the night before. Four little mice
with pointed noses and trembling whiskers
eyes black and bulging against their dark brown fur.
I wonder how I must appear to them, this giant thing
that they spend their days avoiding, rushing from one dark corner
to another at the sound of my footsteps, and now
there’s nowhere left to go, they wandered into this baited box
and now I have them in my curious grasp.

I tap on the little plexiglass window and they
rush to the corners of the box,
cram themselves into the entrance chute, their thin black tails
twitching and curling, hanging out in the open. I imagine
what it would be like to keep them as pets, these stinky little mice
what it would be like to train these wild mice to live in a cage
to eat only when food is offered, and only what I alone offer them
if eventually, they would learn to anticipate my arrival
at the door of their cage with joy, or if
they would always be just as terrified of me as this?

Holly Day’s writing has recently appeared in Analog SF, Talking River, and New Plains Review, and her published books include Music Theory for Dummies and Music Composition for Dummies. She currently teaches classes at The Loft Literary Center in Minnesota, Hugo House in Washington, and the Indiana Writers Center.

You can find more of Holly’s work here on Ink Pantry.