You've seen her a hundred times
With a hundred faces
But she's always the same
Always at the bar
She's there when you arrive
And she'll be there when you you leave
There beside the fullest ash-tray
Lighting another cigarette
With fluttery fidgety fingers

Her lipstick is far too red
And not quite straight
Too much make up to hide the lines
Which show all the more
As she cracks the mask to smile
Her hair is too yellow
And her eyes are long lost grey
The arc which her glass follows to her mouth
Is restless and constant

As the evening wears on
She will talk too loudly
She may even sing out of tune
She will laugh too shrilly
When nothing is funny
But sometimes
When it's late
She sheds silent messy tears
As she rocks on her bar stool
Because there's a reason
This woman at the bar
Has a story as real as any other
And it matters just as much

                                    By Phil Roberts

Before you help me,
you better help yourself first
because they tell me it’s unhealthy
for you to be my nurse.

© Matthew Harlovic

Safe Harbor

The picture is gray and colourless.
Shades of black pervade the photograph;
We are left to ponder at the real colors hidden therein.
Can’t you imagine what it was though?
See that vast horizon stretching like some
Big blue tarpaulin providing shelter to the Earth’s surface.
White foamed caps blinking, disappearing near and far.
The rock in the foreground beneath them becoming baked in the late August fever.
Rays of melted sunshine barred only by
Lofty lackadaisical puffs of moisture meandering across their endless plains.
Their bodies warmed by rock and soft smooth skin alike,
Recovering from the liquid ice from whence they came minutes before.
Simple refractions and reflections of light from millions of miles away dancing across
Infinitely changing patterns of molecules, ultimately landing on light kissed exteriors.
Two forms interlocked with passion’s grip,
And the sound of a breeze drifting sweet nature song into their minds from the Invisible Shore.
The taste of another being suffusing their mouths, searing their fingers, and engulfing their lungs.
It smells like warm crushed leaves, crashing waves, and contentment.
The beginning of autumn and the beginning of the end.
Fall into this image and continue with us.

Can’t you see them that evening?
Their emotions viciously tearing at their muscles, motions motivated by coursing chemicals.
Feathery sheets envelop them in the irony of the burdens to come.
Cluelessly they explore their youth in
Perfect rhythm; Imperfect beings consumed in all the wrong parts of life.


Now can you not recognize them?
Their despondent expressions are not unlike your own.
Weary faces from broken hearts.
Crushed by the movement of time, the fleeting feelings
They once had the chance to caress are nothing;
Nothing but the relapses we relive in sparks of neurons,
Electrified like the moments once were, flashed back to our mind’s eye.

Step back out into reality.  Pause.  Reminisce.
Where is that Unseen Shore?  That refuge for the rest of our existence?
Is it but a figment of our imagination?
The breeze of the trees, the whole continent behind you, is
Hidden yet holds everything real and true.
Without it would we not be left to drift through the blue expanses of the oceans of doubt?
Is our Safe Harbor not in those we love?
These questions threaten to drown us, but
Who are we to know the answers?

Dishes surround us,
Verdigris embraces lusterless metal
And I look at you with an air of vertigo
I’m on the edge of understanding but there’s
An invisible wall.  
Or is it a ceiling?
So this is what it feels like to be restrained
Shackles of my mind rattle against their firm anchor
Society crushes these spikes deeper into my skull
The taste of defeat suffuses my lungs.
I breathe in your disdain and still understand nothing
Of what I’ve done or am doing.
I go forth ignorant and blissless
Straining to overcome the walls in my head

Two thousand odd years ago today
a Hebrew freedom fighter
was brutally and mercilessly tortured
before receiving a
summary execution.

Happy "Good" Friday.

What happens when
a 400 year old
hillbilly vampire
from outer space
comes to Gig City
on April Fool's Day
with a guitar and
a bad attitude?

We will soon find out...