Serving up poetry like ***** and ginger ale
(with a ***-soaked crook and a big fat laugh),
the anti slow-soul-erosion antidote to...normality

way up ‘high’ on a ledge, overlooking the mountain range,
got my Stetson on, canteen full of ***** and ginger ale,
matches in my pocket, Chris Stapleton in my ears, and
a *** soaked blunt between my lips to get even hi-higher

a big fat laugh crosses my lips, creases my face, it’s time
to lean up against that big tree, light myself up, strategize,
how to get even higher, how to get down, how to do both
simultaneously, at the same time, without dying too slowly

the sunrise cheats, clods of plain ugly clouds covered it up,
i know it’s on account of me accumulating, stuff, bad poems,
delayed gratification of not confronting the situational, at the
cellular level, though the intersection with macro-international
clusters of men destructing their corner of the world surely
ain’t helping, but the drip into veins cools the paining’s ardor

the woman is edgy, debating if it’s that time, to give up, to snap
that towel across her face like a forgotten hotel wake up call request,
should-she take the truck and go visit her sister in Ashtabula
for a week of *******’ and staying longer, a couple of years more,
and me muse what i recall from living alone, and how it was easier
and so much harder that the shakes begin but that don’t stop,
but adjust the *****/ginger ale ratio, and things seem fuzzier
and for that I am eternally grateful for the miracle of potato
distillation

could do much more additive, but you don’t got the patience
like I do, so, forgive in advance and here’s hoping that maybe

someday you’ll learn this craft and the  extreme patience it
requires, how to savor a word, its conjunction with the one that
comes before and after, the combinations that make a verse, a stanza
sobering beautiful that it robs your breathtaking sensors, a scar minder to, for god sakes, ****! **** that trip to trite, give us something to shout about,

exhale on the moraine morass, that’s the other side of, yup, over
the rainbow that landed on the peak, cause a peek, is just the start of a trip downwards sloping doggy on my hands and knees and yeah, i’m drunker than I care to deny so I’ll head back down, or roll down, to find out what my next adventure will take, maybe I’ll chase after her,

and fall on her neck with sorries, sorrows, and kisses, besides,
now that I’m done, the sun decides to show a couple of cracks
and that’s some kind of of sign to wrap this sonata up and try a
new fugue, letting its contrapuntal composition tune cleanse me
and
save the day, and a corner of the world, hell it could even spread
like somethings good, successful  counter terrorism, zero shootings in New York and Chicago, forget, yeah, what they call that?  oh yeah,
peace on earth.

just maybe.

Small Tales
by Michael R. Burch

When Artur and Cai and Bedwyr
were but scrawny lads
they had many a ***** adventure
in the still glades
of Gwynedd.
When the sun beat down like an oven
upon the kiln-hot hills
and the scorched shores of Carmarthen,
they went searching
and found Manawydan, the son of Llyr.
They fought a day and a night
with Cath Pulag (or a screeching kitten),
rousted Pen Palach, then drank a beer
and told quite a talltale or two,
"till thems wasn’t so shore which’un’s tails wus true."

And these have been passed down to me, and to you.

According to legend, Arthur and Kay grew up together in Ector’s court, Kay being a few years older than Arthur. Borrowing from Mary Stewart, I am assuming that Bedwyr (later Anglicized to Bedivere) might have befriended Arthur at an early age. By some accounts, Bedwyr was the original Lancelot. In any case, imagine the adventures these young heroes might have pursued (or dreamed up, to excuse tardiness or “lost” homework assignments). Manawydan and Llyr were ancient Welsh gods. Cath Pulag was a monstrous, clawing cat. (“Sorry teach! My theme paper on Homer was torn up by a cat bigger than a dragon! And meaner, too!”) Pen Palach is more or less a mystery, or perhaps just another old drinking buddy with a few good beery-bleary tales of his own. This poem assumes that many of the more outlandish Arthurian legends began more or less as “small tales,” little white lies which simply got larger and larger with each retelling. It also assumes that most of these tales came about just as the lads reached that age when boys fancy themselves men, and spend much of their free time drinking and puking! Keywords/Tags: King Arthur, boy, boyhood, *****, drinking, beer, ale, tall tales, Wales

She reaches for the bottle of ale
           ...empty
Just like her heart
         For she has poured out her love
    To someone who wouldn't catch it.

‘TERENCE, this is stupid stuff:
You eat your victuals fast enough;
There can’t be much amiss, ’tis clear,
To see the rate you drink your beer.
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,         
It gives a chap the belly-ache.
The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
It sleeps well, the horned head:
We poor lads, ’tis our turn now
To hear such tunes as killed the cow.         
Pretty friendship ’tis to rhyme
Your friends to death before their time
Moping melancholy mad:
Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad.’

  Why, if ’tis dancing you would be,         
There’s brisker pipes than poetry.
Say, for what were hop-yards meant,
Or why was Burton built on Trent?
Oh many a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse,         
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God’s ways to man.
Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think:
Look into the pewter ***         
To see the world as the world’s not.
And faith, ’tis pleasant till ’tis past:
The mischief is that ’twill not last.
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair
And left my necktie God knows where,         
And carried half way home, or near,
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:
Then the world seemed none so bad,
And I myself a sterling lad;
And down in lovely muck I’ve lain,         
Happy till I woke again.
Then I saw the morning sky:
Heigho, the tale was all a lie;
The world, it was the old world yet,
I was I, my things were wet,         
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew.

Sasha wakes me with a soft and slender touch.
Five long, black, fingernails,
Move sly and slow as sleepy snails,
Carving curvy pink ski-trails,
Down the middle of my back.

I want you…
She whispers lip to lip,
… to wake up and **** me right now,
And she tickles my ear with the tip of her tongue.


It’s these dreams, she murmurs,
Last night I was locked in a small room,
One window,
Distant noise from a street,
A king size bed with a clean red sheet,
Five men, alpha males of every age,
Soft talkers with rough hands,
Each had their way with me,
In every position, every act imaginable,
Sometimes two and three at a time,
My ecstasy was paced and deliberate
And seemed to go on for hours,
Despite every satisfaction,
I begged them to continue,
Insisted they use their mouths, hands, words,
My ****** was perpetual,
An endless spring tide,
Each swell higher than the last,
There was a moment I was sure
I would suffocate from pleasure.


Was I one of them, I asked, hoping I wasn't.

No but I felt you somewhere, watching, she sighed.

You need to take me now and quick, she said,
This is a rare opportunity,
A celestial arousal
Jesus, this ****** is from God, she said,
Bend me anyway you wish.
Recall every fantasy you have ever had.
Now is your time.


Lay on the mattress, I ordered,
Stomach down flat
Spread your legs,
Arms up above your head,
As if you are about to dive into the sea.

Grasp the sheet with your fingers.
I will enter you in one motion
You will feel only the ******* and my body weight
We will rut.
My knees will push you open,
My hands will find the center of you,
You will barely have to move.

I will come if you touch me
With any bare skin, she said,
And pushed the blankets to the floor.

I am possessed she confessed,
Turn me into anything you wish.