coffee – Cajun Mutt Press

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 05/31/24

May 31, 2024 James D. Casey IV

Sobering Up

a small wooden pub with a beer tap on every table;
four beers in, I was already feeling the effects.

I pictured Emily sitting across from me, instead of the friends
I’d gone out with for a couple of beers; how we’d have broken all
the pub’s records
(they had a screen on the wall, the all-time record was 35L
by a group who knows how large),
how we’d have loved the ability not to chase down
bartenders more willing to flirt (or drink themselves to a stupor)
than do their fucking job.

few beers in, and my liver began protesting; growing soft,
losing my former championship shape. am I still
a pro, as a few bartenders used to tell me?
do I still have it?

the answer’s probably no, it hurts.
no more chasing the perpetual drunk while able
to function amidst the cloud of inebriation.

I sit sober now, too, recalling the hangover mornings
of pro wrestling and vodka-and-orange juice,
barely able to breathe, let alone walk,

and yet, I’d always find myself back to the bars come afternoon.
I needed the drink; I still need it, I just don’t have it anymore.

speeding towards the age of 28, just a couple of months to join
the CLUB, despite my being no musician, nor exceptionally talented.

I smell bourbon; the bar across the street, a fancy establishment
for Lamborghini-driving motherfuckers, is about to open.

I should go talk to the bartender about the possibility of replacing him.
could I work in a bar, without drinking myself to oblivion every night?

once, I just drank bars dry. oh, the irony, having to be the sober
man serving drinks to carefree drunks and rich assholes.

the coffee’s strong, I’ve nothing to do but dream of other nights and days,
early afternoons of tequila, late nights of bourbon.

I might be going out tonight too, with friends once more. and after a few beers in,
I’ll be ready to be tucked in and soundly sleeping. no more
aimless wandering through the dark streets, drunk, ready to fuck and punch.

lighting a cigarette, in the blue smoke once more I see
Emily’s eyes. almost sense her lips on mine. tasting cheap bourbon
and even cheaper cocaine.

love, I failed you; doing the one thing I promised I’d never do
the night before we went to the abortion clinic and lost it all.
I’m growing up, getting old as fuck; paying the price
of years-long stupors and failed love affairs that’d never replace
what we had.

it’s alright; I’ll just drink my coffee for now, try to make it
in the sex-novel business. soon, and certainly long before I make it to 30,
I’ll either be next to you in the Devil-dealing poker table,
or, in a rundown strip joint, drinking pimps under the table
and comforting dancers that are just too sick of cheap assholes.

Currently residing in Greece, George Gad Economou has a Master’s degree in Philosophy of Science and is the author of Bourbon Bottles and Broken Beds (Adelaide Books), Of the Riverside (Anxiety Press) and Reeling Off the Barstool (Dumpster Fire Press). His words have also appeared, amongst other places, in Spillwords Press, Ariel Chart, Cajun Mutt Press, Fixator Press, Horror Sleaze Trash, Outcast Press, The Piker Press, The Beatnik Cowboy, The Rye Whiskey Review, and Modern Drunkard Magazine.

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 05/27/24

May 27, 2024 James D. Casey IV

STRETCHING OUT

turning over,
yawning
into morning

coffee and cigarettes
foot steps upstairs

church bells
pigeons swarming

city stretching
vehicles competing
concrete and tar

damp alleys
wandering voices

sidewalks
overflow

Dr. Singer has had over 1,200 poems published on the internet, magazines and in books and is a Pushcart Award Nominee. Some of the magazines that have accepted his poems for publication are: Westward Quarterly, Jerry Jazz, SP Quill, Avocet, Underground Voices, Outlaw Poetry, Literary Fever, Dance of my Hands, Language & Culture, The Stray Branch, Tipton Poetry Indigo Rising, Down in the Dirt, Fullosia Press, Orbis, Penwood Review, Subtle Tea, Ambassador Poetry Award, Massachusetts State Poetry Society. Louisiana State Poetry Society Award. Readers Award Orbis Magazine 2019. Arizona State Poetry Award 2020. Mad Swirl Anthology 2018, 2019.

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 05/31/23

May 31, 2023May 31, 2023 James D. Casey IV

Sticking It to the Man

“This thing couldn’t have fallen apart faster if you’d bought it at Ikea.”
– Mick Herron, Slow Horses

An intransitive verb meaning an act
of civil disobedience to protest
the capitalist establishment:
Chris, Ken and I decided
to “stick it to the man.”
Also, poor college students,
we could use the extra dollar
for more worthwhile purposes.

Not that it was a “plan,”
more like a spur-of-the-moment decision:
having drunk our cups of weak coffee
in the booth at Lum’s,
high on the joints we’d smoked earlier,
the Stones’ “Street Fighting Man”
coming tinnily out of the jukebox,
we walked out into the winter night
without paying for our purchase,
bold as banditos, feeling righteous,
a blow against the oppressors.

A block away, having already forgotten our deed,
the manager surprised us, his own righteousness
seething like a steaming coffee urn,
suddenly looming into view,
blocking our path, threatening to call the cops.

Above all we didn’t want to cave,
but we’d been busted, for sure,
mumbled something about temporary forgetfulness,
handed over the cash,
trying to tell ourselves
we hadn’t done something stupid.
We were just the oppressed proletariat.

Charles Rammelkamp is Prose Editor for BrickHouse Books in Baltimore. Two full-length collections were published in 2020, Catastroika, from Apprentice House, and Ugler Lee from Kelsay Books. A poetry chapbook, Mortal Coil, has just been published by Clare Songbirds Publishing.

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 04/12/19

April 12, 2019April 12, 2019 James D. Casey IV

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Coffeehouse Romance

I see you,

alone,

reading Raymond Carver

at a table for two.

Straight, black hair—

lightly greased—

falling in your face.

You brush it away,

saving a page

with your right thumb,

I notice

the smoothness

of your hands,

the fullness

of your fingers.

Your eyes

are lost in ugly life–

I think they are brown.

The angles

and curves

of your face

sing

in their own silent poetry.

You turn a page.

I long

to dip my face

into your cupped hands

and drink in

the smell of you.

To taste the sweat of your palms.

To kiss the fingertips

that have touched

the sum of your parts.

You catch my eye

so I look away.

You keep reading.

I wonder–

for a moment–

what it’s like

to be that chair.

You close your book

and get up to leave.

Passing me by–

warm—

smelling

of faded cologne

and sweaty jeans,

I devour you

at every inhale.

You leave me,

unaware

that for a moment

you

were everything

that mattered—

my cathedral–

and with the ghosts

of fingerprints

lingering

upon my tongue.

David Estringel is an avid reader, poet, and writer of fiction, creative non-fiction, & essays. His work has been accepted and/or published by Specter Magazine, Literary Juice, Foliate Oak Magazine, Indiana Review, Terror House Magazine, Expat Press, 50 Haikus, littledeathlit, Down in the Dirt Magazine, Route 7, Setu Bilingual Journal, Paper Trains, The Elixir Magazine, Soft Cartel, Harbinger Asylum, Open Arts Forum, and The Good Men Project. He is currently a Contributing Editor (fiction) at Red Fez, editor/columnist at The Good Men Project, and an editor/writer at The Elixir Magazine. David can be found on Twitter (@The_Booky_Man) and his blog, The Booky Man.