Have another round, boys,
The time's on me.
Use the good time
While you can, boys,
In morning you will see.

Don't ponder vain dreams lads,
They thicken in your blood:
Leave it on the rocks, sir,
For there it will inspire,
For certain something's sensed.

          Keep me alive
          Don't let me die
          Tonight.
          If I stayed at home
          I wouldn't be
          Too tight tonight.
          Sensing delight in drinks
          Tonight's by me.

Let your insights falter,
Slip another disc.
Stay seated where you are boys,
Don't bother to resist.
Thrill your lungs
With tapered incense,
The myrrh of barroom bliss.

          While rambling through
          The ale and lager
          We remain serene,
          And all too soon
          I lie alone
          In sober company.

The last of six children
You made your way late
Through the humdrum of life
In the Volunteer state
Strapped to the hollows
Where your daddy and kin
Pulled coal from the mountains
And mine shafts within

The hum of the smokestacks
And the fog of the earth
Wore at your senses
And questioned your worth
While the cracks in the family
Like the cracks in the hills
Were as easy to slip through
As fortune’s goodwill

So you took to the bottle
And you took to the boys
With a thirst for the throttle
And the late barroom noise
While your mama and daddy
Sat at home by the phone
Sendin’ prayers for their youngest
Toward the gold plated throne

The folks down in Loudon
Remember too well
The night you rolled through
In your dust caked Chevelle
And the way it spun out
On a stray slab of ore
And careened down the *****
For the cold valley floor

The dirt in those hills
Never merited much
Beyond the black rock
Buried deep in its clutch
But the same soul that sprawled
Beside granddaddy’s grave
Was the same soul consumed
By the soil that day

When the April rains whisper
Their song to the pines
And the distant train whistles
Its lonesome steel whine
Deep in the thunder
Behind the grey hue
Your memory glistens
Like the late morning dew

The last of six children
You made your way late
Through the humdrum of life
In the Volunteer state
Pining for something
Your voice could not name
A dream and a dreamer
Too restless to tame

My grandfather was not a boxer
but he loved to fight, throwing
punches at the faces of hard men,
left and right hooks, uppercuts
in barroom brawls and alleyways,
with hands the size of iron trivets,
forearms cut with ropes of muscle.

Eventually, after decades of stitches
and bruised knuckles, after his hair
turned white and his eyes clouded,
he would shadowbox in the garden
behind the dilapidated potting shed,
swinging slower, less light on his feet,
but safe in that manicured square
ringed by boxwoods and evergreens,
the bees in spring buzzing applause.

My grandmother would watch
him from the kitchen window,
in a sweater she always wore
regardless of the weather,
and wonder what he was fighting
against, or, perhaps, fighting for.

And that’s how my grandfather died:
throwing a final right cross in the air
before dropping to his knees at last,
knocked out on a mat of green grass,
washed by an unexpected downpour,
water collecting in opened red tulips,
loving cups in full bloom, the first
ten drops of rain counting him out.

Standing in that garden decades later,
I know I am no fighter.
Approaching old age, hands in pockets,
I watch for signs of unexpected weather,
worry about things beyond my control:
car crashes, cancer, electromagnetic pulses,
the minutiae of a thousand apocalypses.

Is the future drawing back
a left hook I will never see
coming? Will a haymaker
hit me like a hammer,
unmaking my family
before the final bell?

And suddenly I realize:
maybe I should have
learned to throw
a ******* punch.

Hobos don't ride box-cars,
Cowboys don't wear white;
The cavalry's dismounted,
Is there anything left to write.
I could subjucate my life,
Get involved in a barroom fight;
Have my memory confiscated,
In an internal war of strife.
If my father'd been a minister,
Or I laid my head in the oven,
Would they record I was sinister,
And died so lacking loving?
Could it end by a mad mosquito
Who ****** the blood of life.
Would they read my paltry droppings,
And understand the offerings
Found scattered on the floor
Next to the body
Of work.

this alcohol
has drunk me
so efficiently
i am one of those empty bottles
rolling around the barroom floor
collecting dust
until they come to take me away
clean me up a bit
refill me
only to be
drunk
again
i am that little bottle
that says
drink me

All that is left of me
A soldiers PTSD story
by
Jude Kyrie


I sit in the dark barroom.
The smell of whisky and beer
sings like a dirge.
It’s a room where
hearts go to die.

I know why I am here.
Its my burden.
I know why she left me ….I know why
I remember the wedding.
I pull a creased photo
out of my pocket.

My God she is beautiful.
I must not go there anymore.
I am out of tears
now just the pain stays.
I look at myself in the picture.
So young and handsome.

My dress uniform white and gold
I am the brave soldier
she always wanted.
We look like movie stars.

Then I went to war
I can still see the carnage.
The roadside bombs
Children bleeding in the streets.
Women crying for dead
husbands and sons.

They followed me home
like ghost.
And when I slept
next to her beautiful body.
They came in my nightmares.
And made me scream
and weep like a child.

I lost my soul
In that war.
And one day
I lost her as well.

The bartender leans forward
and shows her tempting cleavage.
But all I want is another drink.
Perhaps one more
will take me a place
called oblivion.

The barkeep saw him coming, like a drowning man for water
With a look that said he’d been this way before

He looked like he was searching for some thing he might have set down
At a bar or at some all night liquor store.

He finished looking over at the ladies in the corner,
And found a stool and ordered up a drink.

The barman knew a talker when one walked into his barroom,
And he said, “You have a tale to tell, I think.”

The stranger took a sip, and he reached into his pocket,
And set a golden Double Eagle on the wood.

And he coughed behind his smile, and he ordered up another
And he looked up at the barkeep, “Listen good.”

“I made a wager with a stranger at a crossroads down in Texas
Though my Papi would have said that was unwise

He bet a shiny golden dollar against a simple drop of blood
That I'd find myself a love that never lies

Well I looked upon that dollar and I found I was quite thirsty
And that shiny piece of gold looked like a beer

So he took a drop of blood and I took that golden dollar
And a million miles older, wound up here.

Now I’ll pay you for your kindness, with these mugs that runneth over,
With this shiny golden dollar on the bar,

But I’m telling you the truth, for I never was a liar,
That **** coin never seems to travel far.

You put it in your till – go ahead and do it now –
And close it up and pour me one last brew.

In the morning count your take, and I reckon that you’ll find
That gold piece nearer still to me than you.

It’s happened oft before, in every Texas dive,
In every bar and beer hall where gold buys

And I’ve had a drink in each, and I’ve looked around for love,
And I’ve never found a love that never lies.

I’ve never found that love, ‘cause I finally figured out
That once I find her, he will take my soul away.

So I pour myself from here, and I pour myself to there
And I don’t give many folks the time of day.

A pretty maid will chat if she sees that golden dollar
But they never seem to stay a second round

And iffin that they should, and I almost had one offer,
I’m careful not to come back through that town.

So I’ll thank you for your beer, and for hearing of my story,
And for pouring them so heavy and so fine

But I’m sure it’s close to closing, and the evening is a hot one,
And you have your bed to find, and I have mine.”

And the barkeep said good night, and he wished the guy good morrow
And he thought about the tale he’d heard all night.

And just for ***** and giggles, he opened up the teller
And he found out that the old grey coot was right.

There was no golden dollar, in the till nor on the counter,
Though he was certain that he’d put it there secure.

So he shook his head in wonder, and he thought about the story,
And he wondered how the old man could be sure

The barkeep thought of searching for what he didn’t want to find,
And if he’d only look in smoky halls of beer

And he realized what he’d seen, as the fellow’d turned to leaving
In his eyes, what he had noticed was a tear.

And he understood the horror of the crossroads bargain wager
And the lover with the coin who drunken lurched

For as often as he told it, that he hoped he’d never find her,
It was plain enough to see, that still he searched.

Chad Abushanab
Halloween


For Halloween this year I’ll be a man.
I’ll work my hands to ****** rags and use
my fists to prove which truths I understand.

I’ll paint my face into a mask of bruise,
like coming home after a barroom fight.
A man should fight, my father said, and lose

sometimes—his beaten brow will mock the night.
I’ll swallow up the pint of Cutty Sark.
I’ll stumble home and fumble with the light.

He said the bottle barely leaves a mark
burning away the places where you’ve bled.
On Halloween, I’ll drink the autumn dark.

I’ll be a man the way my father said.
On Halloween, we’re closer to the dead.
His teeth were crooked and his hands were red.

↔

Chad Abushanab is a PhD student at Texas Tech University. His poems and essays have appeared in Raintown Review, Bayou Magazine, Jellyfish Magazine, and Colorado Review, among others. He is the managing editor of Arcadia.

I could meet a million people tomorrow
But none of them
Will ever be you
And I hate them for that.

I tried to get through this night
Without your ghost in my bed.
I couldn’t.

I keep having barroom fantasies
Of your stupid, perfect lips
And my hunger for them.
I’m ravenous.

You’ve followed me like
An everlasting echo
That I will never outrun.
I will never find
Someone so utterly divine as you again.
You are nothing more
Than a lucid dream,
But that’s more than I am to you.

my blue sky dream forsaken
i now chase the ever faster rabbit
of promised fairy tale
his pronounced face forever plastered on billboards
and barroom halls wanted posters
after all don't we all wish at some point or another
to chew the gristle of god's little plan for each of us  
to get down to the furry bones of 'who am i really'

get to recognize your soul's signature
they say its your subconscious self speaking through your actions
they say that there is a devil inside every mans heart
but iv seen the better half of lesser men
iv beheld the man who holds the other above water till
he can swim on his own
get to recognize your soul's better nature
live for that
for in the end of your days
you will weigh out the pro's and con's of your life
and its the love given that outweighs your darkest days

so this early sunday morning i chase that faster rabbit
with a handful of questions that have always troubled my soul
should i have gone left instead of right
should i have put a ring on her finger instead of letting her go
all the questions that that have always troubled my soul
looking for the same rabbit as you
the one that breeds discontent that keeps you awake at night

Crash unbridled gates. Grind organs
through the rosy calm of tolerance.
See misfits shuck the beasts
in bed with bliss. Type up and tack
to this new daily mess the bounds
of what went by 'neath private barroom
skies; no looming spy will fix you
flint to burn the friendly waters,
flicker honor out to disarrange
and scold some rhyme too bold
for comfort-answers, dumb-fit, fumble-
grounded in some sliver too uncouth.
Tape pageless trees for truth;
blog-sift the spheres, watch darkness' evil
ears upend and train the tuner on
the lips extolling groundwork kisses
(sparkful dominance upstaged
by passion turned to stone:
reserves gone sour, hour unknown.)
Mist-choked misnomers
acting onerous and blinking out of phase:
de-stage the structure. Anchor down who stays,
who pulls the latest polls. While blind-spots
clutch white lace like arguments,
make space to process what flies past
as ****** rats stay the course,
a maze in grace.

All Thats Left Of Me

I sit in the dark barroom.
The smell of whisky
sings like a dirge.
It’s a room where
hearts go to die.
I know why I am here.
Its my burden.
I know why she left me ….I know why
I remember the wedding.
I pull a creased photo
out of my pocket.
My God she is beautiful.
I must not go there anymore.
I am out of tears
now just the pain stays.
I look at myself in the picture.
So young and handsome.
My uniform white and gold
I am the brave soldier
she always wanted.
We look like movies stars.
Then I went to war
I can still see the carnage.
The roadside bombs
Children bleeding in the streets.
Women crying for dead
husbands and sons.
They followed me home
like ghost.
And when I slept
next to her beautiful body.
They came in my nightmares.
And made me scream
and weep like a child.
I lost my soul
In that war.
And one day
I lost her as well.
The bartender leans forward
and shows her cleavage.
But all I want is another drink.
Perhaps one more
Will stop me thinking.

To all who served and suffer with PTSD .
Blessings
Jude

I sit in the dark barroom.
The smell of whisky
sings like a dirge.
It’s a room where
hearts go to die.
I know why I am here.
Its my burden.
I know why she left me ….I know why
I remember the wedding.
I pull a creased photo
out of my pocket.
My God she is beautiful.
I must not go there anymore.
I am out of tears
now just the pain stays.
I look at myself in the picture.
So young and handsome.
My dress uniform white and gold
I am the brave soldier
she always wanted.
We look like movie stars.
An officer and a gentleman.
Then I went to war
I can still see the carnage.
The roadside bombs
Children bleeding in the streets.
Women crying for dead
husbands and children.
They followed me home
like ghost.
And when I slept
next to her beautiful body.
They cameto me
in my nightmares.
And made me scream
and weep like a child.
I lost my soul
In that war.
And one day
I lost her as well.
The bartender leans forward
and shows her cleavage.
But all I want is another drink.
Perhaps one more
Will stop me thinking.

In my heart there’s a room where you linger
Soft shoulders where I go to cry
The a crack in a dark shuttered window
And a tree where the nightingales die.

A sliver of fading moonlight
falls soft on a valley of green.
My heart wants to drown
in your pure light
In a place where true loves never been

I want to light up your faded parlors
If you look you will find me there
I will be wearing a coat of forever
A rose growing wild in my hair.

But you fade in a darkened barroom.
Where men go to die of the blues.
All I bring you are two dozen teardrops
To pour on your soul to bloom.

words click in my head
liars dice in a barroom cup
spill fact or fiction

Where the Nightingales die.

By
Jude Kyrie

In my heart there's
a place where you linger.
Soft shoulders where
I go to cry .

There's a crack in a
dark shuttered window.
And a tree where the
Nightingales die.

A sliver of melting twilight
Falls down on a meadow of green
My heart wants to
drown in your pure light.
In a place where
true loves never been.

You fade in a darkened barroom.
Where men go to die of the blues
I bring you two dozen teardrops
To pour on your soul to bloom.

I will light up your faded parlors
If you look you will see me there.
I will be wearing a coat of forever
A rose growing wild in my hair

So carry me down to your rivers
let me bathe in the pools of your sighs.
Here's my heart here's my soul
there for you now.
Forever until all time dies.

Where there was once
noisy trips to the beach—to sneak away
with each other in the surf and plant
kisses on the tops of each other's ears
—there is now only silence.

Where there was once
loud lines of poetry brought to life
in the screams of youth—in anger
and in sadness and in love
—there is now only silence.

Where there was once
dance floors and dresses—
the music of a million lovers
clasping hands and setting their
feet in steps against one other
—there is now…

The inventory is unpacked
and counted up from each of those
long hours I have carried since
those pale blue cottages on the beach,
since the barroom poetry readings
and the holiday dances.
The shell no longer sings the ocean.
The sounds that filled the vessel
have all but gone away
from us now.

Those drunken nights and barroom fights
  now seed my fallowed ground

Where women spurned and lovers churned
  rule memory’s lost and found

Those wasted days and sleepless years
  like wine have aged within

Fermenting each unwritten page
  —reharvesting my sins

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2018)

In my heart there's
a place where you linger.
Soft shoulders where
I go to cry .

There's a crack in a
dark shuttered window.
And a tree where the
Nightingales die.

A sliver of melting twilight
Falls down on a meadow of green
My heart wants to
drown in your pure light.
In a place where
true loves never been.

You fade in a darkened barroom.
Where men go to die of the blues
I bring you two dozen teardrops
To pour on your soul to bloom.

I will light up your faded parlors
If you look you will see me there.
I will be wearing a coat of forever
A rose growing wild in my hair

So carry me down to your rivers
let me bathe in the pools of your sighs.
Here's my heart here's my soul
there for you now.
Forever until all time dies.

Accessible twenty four hours a day
seven days a week,
fifty two weeks a year.

Spring 2022 Curtain call at
Highland Manor Apartments unit b44
framing Mother Nature nook
ever changing scene unfolds
analogous to storybook.

I espy (hear and see)
while sitting at table
housing Macbook Pro
plethora of wildlife
on a band dinned patch of woodland,
yet slated to resemble cookie cutter vinyl city
that sprout like mushrooms and/or toadstools.

Yours truly bares witness to fauna
(most likely oblivious
to encroaching urbanization
most often becoming endangered
and/or extinct creature if lucky
enough becoming cherished, loved, valued
property of zoo keeper),

who rarely encounter **** sapiens
while innocuously and innocently
buzzfeeding, kickstarting pinteresting
linkedin with rites of Spring
fawning, matchmaking, twittering
regarding instinctual self survival tactics.

At a safe distance removed
our perch (chance) analogous
to one way mirror,
whereby yours truly and the missus
watch the nature channel live
never tiring at random antics
exhibited by aural and visual
courtesy spontaneous unrehearsed
Animal planet productions.

While astutely, fascinatingly, keenly, quietly
observing semi, quasi, pseudo... wild kingdom
flashback in space/time continuum occurred.

I observed banned band
of untamed ruffians and outlaws
use wildland as hideout from y'all
sip pose zid smart alecks
who would be surprised country bumpkin
like me can rattle off...
courtesy nasal twang

(or because of) Schwenksville drawl
which can pose difficulty understanding
attributed nysc with submucous cleft palate,
hence droning voice of mine
in tandem with puny size
found yours truly scapegoat
bullies taunted and teased

I felt analogous being
just another brick in the wall
until sharecropper mama and papa Joad
headed west Okie dokie
with truant steering da wheel
driving off into sunset via UHaul
passing zee monotony

doodling Yankee went hoo(t)'n and hollerin
across this country tis of thee
imitating moost every doggone animal
earn'n chump change telling tales tall
like dis here mumbo jumbo
his birthplace home to countless
life forms large and small
some skitter, slither, scamper,

jump, hustle, hop, fly, crawl
and we even encountered
mighty big beef eating fellas
who beat up punks
getting in barroom brawl
adieu fromm simple folks,
cuz nuttin else to write dat's awl!

I'm going to hold my darkness over your head.
I'm going to make you feel small and stupid.
My history will become the mountain you must climb.
I don't wonder about it anymore:
I'm the worst.

Always you want two things; it's never enough.
Two things which can't be had at once.
Always.
Of course I'll ask you how.
Of course I will.
Two things. Always.

I've been ******* hunger desperate and shelter poor.
I've been a hard luck, street wise,
charity case with no coin freely given.
A mean little ****, tempered in tragedy and shame.
Most my time was spent in various
states
of decay.
In urban squalor and late night tattoo parlors.
Picking my monster up off the sticky barroom floors.
Returning to nothing and knowing,
all the knowing,
neglect measured in pounds of
what am I to do about food this week?
All that knowing and twice that knowledge of abuse.

You don't care.
This is about your precious ******* feelings.
This has little to do with plans.
Nothing to do with me.
Feelings.
Let them be your unremarkable guide.
Let them.
Always.

I'll hang my history over your head.
Every ******* time, I'll do it.
I know it's wrong.
How could you argue a point
that could possibly quell my fear?
Because I am afraid, you know, I am so afraid.
I am one bad week, one bad decision away.

I am within reach of returning.
Always.

Don't argue with me, love.
Please.
I don't wonder anymore:
I'm the worst.

I burned myself down
To light up the other's room
Forgot that my flame was way too bright
And burned up the whole ******* room
Still miss the days I used to sleep at 10
Never knew when it shifted to 4
Never knew this is how my life will bloom
Turned to a disaster it goes boom
Sitting on the edge in a barroom
Instead of holding onto the glass
My hand's holding  onto my own doom
On my mind is the dust on a few old simooms.
I'm always a student
Never stopped the learning
It's the life for which I'm paying the rent
Failure is my earning
Unstoppable blaze of mine is bright burning
Got the table-turning
Enemies are now running
Blood stopped the draining
Got fighter on my forehead as and engraving.
Falling a thousand
Getting up puls one
My backfoot's stood strong on my land
My life's been a rand
Lived on the edge always on the end.

I have contemplated the meaning of life
As if contemplation imparts meaning or depth
As if meaning imparts meaning
or depth.

Then in linguistic merriment
I leapt
Ad Infinitum
Ad nauseum
Ad lib
Ad absurdum
Life as a language
Ad verbum
And round and round I went
Always Looping back to myself
Then in one grand sweeping motion
I deferred to you
Life
Where and then
I came to rest
Always different
Yet always the same

I have contemplated the meaning of life
As if there were somewhere to be
Someplace to go
A vagabond’s journey
How funny
A lesson learned
A righteous rule
A digital ballroom
A barroom brawl
Y’ all
A loveall.
And I have contemplated the meaningless of life
Just something to do
Perhaps better than nothing  
Nowhere to go
No roadmap to get there
Except
Here where
You are
Life
Love
I am.

In my heart theres
a place where you linger.
Soft shoulders where
I go to cry .
Theres a crack in a
Dark shuttered window.
And a tree where the
Nightingales die.

A sliver of melting twilight
Falls down on a meadow of green
My heart wants to
drown in your pure light.
In a place where
true loves never been.

You fade in a darkened barroom.
Where men go to die of the blues
I bring you two dozen teardrops
To pour on your soul to bloom.

I will light up your faded parlors
If you look you will see me there
I will be wearing a coat of forever
A rose growing wild in my hair

So carry me down to your rivers
let me bathe in the pools of your sighs
Heres my heart heres my soul
There for you now.
Forever until all time dies.

Slow-going wheels roll further
Slow men walk the earth chewing french fries
Slow night diminish slow, with an embarked illusion
Slow me, drinking slow, from the bottle that no shining fear dive deep down
With ******* my life dangles, my hands weak and wildered
With somebody in my mind, I slowly, subconciously **** myself
Somebody betrays somebody, denies her name, or his
Denies the carnaval-looking blur of a dreadful pain
Carnavals, haven’t been to carnavals for years, but I know how they dismay
I’m aware of myself at some degree, it satisfies me for I can look up and stray
I’m aware of the passion of my source of pain, yet I don’t know
It makes me shiver like an aimless stone
Pain walks upon the geography

Slow rhymes mask my voice through an unwalked scenery
Slow songs hit my soul like the smell of gasoline, each night, tonight
Tonight I struggle to find my bed in guilt of missing one more day, being loss of control on one more chance
One more glance, I prayed my dandy days to be, yet I don’t believe
And I don’t trust in anything that I admire, that I’ve never had, tonight especially
My abilities burn, burn, burn to a crimson coldness, I can neither get cold nor freeze
Every dismal day has something to teach, but I’m stone deaf and blind since the birth of my criminal being
Said that I’m one old tryer, one slow man that died earlier, living via senses
I’m breathing for nothing, as I sensed, at least that’s a good thing I guess
Tonight, I’m breathing my own graceless dirt, I’m breathing someone that will become me of some other kind
Pain barks its all greed

I was told of slow massacres of liberty, and I saw it with my bare eyes
I was told of slow tensions that could shape an affair from my fears of love, but I didn’t mind until the time I got clipsed to the iron bars as I tossed to someone’s wall
I got clipsed to myself all along the snipers’ castles where the mushrooms just fix to die, the point I always teased myself
There’s always been slow approachings to a mind’s eye felony
There’s always been a slow matter of time to catch the agony of others’ existence, even when I appreciated with someone that didn’t mean to mean good, or meant to be fine
Decades sewed blisters on my elbows, knees, my manhood, my ******* manhood
And my functional sides started not to make a beneficial man out of me, it’s clear tonight
I see a barroom right across the buildings in front, it boils with such huge river of crowds, but I don’t really want to walk there because of pain
It pours my skin down to the ground like as an axe shaving me off me
The air’s already blue now, blue as a kidnapped kid’s wishes from the little circle of life
I’m blue but I can’t get mixed up to the airwaves as long as I try to sharpen myself
I try to sharpen myself with the most lobed piece of stick, and this causes everything I abandoned to be a nightmare in my sleep, and my daytime ramblings, and it causes a killing pain
Pain disregards

Slow strings of reality judder this up that down, clang all the faith one man has once althrough his wasted life
Slow links of chain drags the cruelty from the claws of a cryptic eastward state
There’s no boundries through from everything I know to nothing I don’t know
Idols and spooned clowns look the same, sleeves of lies put them onto an act and they resurrect on my small buzzing TV
Everything can make a man commit suicide, as far as all I’ve learned from life
As far as I can teach, amountless glasses of whiskey solves that if someone looks for an easy way out
To get away from the streetlamps that targeted you, to brick up some brand new shelter against the interrogations, to be on the lam, to run, slowly
To leave the other sycophants on the midway, to break some glasses, to craft some endless rebellion, are the other options I guess
To bless someone that don’t even care, and then the lifelong heart attacks...
I don’t pay to much to my custody of survival, I have my own property on this sphere
I can pull out some dignity, as I have it on my mind, and this just gives men like me pain
Pain doesn’t tell much these days, it just attacks and attaches and grabs me by taking firm steps towards my bones
The unbreakable threads of my shadows push me to same pathetic nosedives, tonight I feel it intensively, befriending with pain
Pain, it speaks my eulogy
Slow pain, it wrecks my fantasies