Scott Waters lives in Oakland, California with his wife and son. He graduated with a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. Scott has published previously in Cajun Mutt Press, Third Wednesday, Main Street Rag, Better Than Starbucks, The Pacific Review, A New Ulster, and many other journals. Scott’s first chapbook was published by Selcouth Station, and his poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
I thought I was safe late at night, but that delusion was quickly dispelled: the public radio station’s beg-a-thon continued even after midnight
September 21, 2022
They were too lazy or stupid to park their truck and trailer on the correct side of the street But they still got hired for the job because the work didn’t require the drive or intelligence to do so
Michael Ceraolo is a 65-year-old retired firefighter/paramedic and active poet who has had two full-length books (Euclid Creek, from Deep Cleveland Press; 500 Cleveland Haiku, from Writing Knights Press) published, and has two more, Euclid Creek Book Two and Lawyers, Guns, and Money, in the publication pipeline.
The film critic sat sullen-hearted in the suburban all theater wishing it was dingy hard boiled 1970’s decaying metropolitan porno theater instead There was a time when cinema was real more real than real itself reels of reality restoration of being resurrecting thought profound contemplation while jerking off to depressing Russian literature and French existentialism
amid cowboys snorting coke lassoing used cars at the sundance advertisements and say “no” to drugs propaganda and sports the trailers played which used to be the best part of going to the movies
franchise fatigued wars in the stars twilight of the superhumans stillborn resurrections from days of the future past toys from decades ago brought back into our neo-retro present chasing fleeting visions future tense spoiled by demonic nostalgia tainting something once there ever allusive
the film critic couldn’t quite put their finger on it
they packed a gun fully intending on using
it fondly reflecting on stolen solitary Saturday nights lime in a cheap imitation Mexican beer as short-lived domestic sipped lightly between bites of frozen pepperoni pizza a taxi driver flying over the cuckoo’s nest apocalypse now desiring a street car pale rider rom-coms played on fueling the fault in our stars hindering true romance for a lack of love
they’d never purchased snacks of this sort before a slim snap of spicy meat nut-coated rainbow iced cream bagged sticked
unlike Oedipus, there was no mother to fuck just the incest of greasy engineered populism for entertainment no kingdom to abandon but the wasteland at the zero-hour at this midnight theater
they broke
movie spectators, half on their phones glued idiotically to screens somewhere there or other
what do you want me to say? You know where this is going…the film critic gouged out their own eyes from the sheer banality of it all silently screaming having no real voice at all, crimson flood from sockets soaking where an erection had ever seldom been used
