it claimed it was a non-smoking unit but it reeked of stale smoke and there were cigarette burns in the bedding and the refrigerator was about a meter from the bed
and there was a towel in the freezer and a toaster and coffee pot were on top of the water boiler and there was a hat wedged behind the tv and the toilet seat
was cracked and someone had left infection ointment in the vanity and given the number
of bugs and other hungry organisms in the room you got the impression the owner of the hotel was a believer in the sanctity of life
he was a little old indian man a kind old man with the most elegant hands you’ve ever seen but when I called him to complain the phone just kept ringing and ringing so eventually I gave up
and had a little whisky and watched bonanza then lay down on top of the mattress and slept with all my clothes on.
M.P. Powers is a Floridian living in Berlin, Germany. He is the author of The Initiate (Anxiety Press, Fall, 2023) and Strange Instruments (Forthcoming ’25). Recent publications include the Columbia Review, Black Stone/White Stone, Stone Circle Review, miniMag, and others. His artwork can be found on Twitter and Instagram @mppowers1132
So after another shot or three of Bushmill’s Irish Whiskey, chased by a couple of Natty Lights, I found myself standing in the middle of a large and flat green field.
Standing out there with me were John Lennon and George Harrison, looking just as they did on the cover of the Sgt. Pepper album. Standing out there with them was a fat gopher. Seriously.
So, John and George and the gopher and I spent some time together frolicking about the green field, much like the Beatles did in A Hard Day’s Night— only without any music playing. After a few minutes, I stopped and asked where the music was.
“Copyright issues, mate,” said George, with a stone face. “We weren’t going to shell out all those quid just for you. You ain’t Mick Jagger, after all.”
“Still,” I said, “it’s nice of you Brits, keeping your green fields watered, weeded and mowed just for frolicking. One never knows when the mood for a ripping good frolic will strike one, truly.”
George Harrison shook his head. “This is a cricket pitch, professor. I swear, you bloody Yanks think everything’s about you.”
I noticed the gopher, which was crouched nearby licking his privates. “Nice gopher. Just like your song. ‘I am the gopher, coo-coo-ca-chew.’”
John Lennon squinted through his glasses. “Sodding hell, George! This twit doesn’t even know the damned song. It’s a walrus, you kettle-head!”
“Why the gopher, then?” I asked.
“I thought he came with you,” said John.
“I thought he represented your basic, more animalistic impulses,” said George.
It was my turn to shake my head. “You guys aren’t what I expected. You’re quite a pair of Sour Sally’s. Whatever happened to all that peace, love and flowers stuff?
“We only trot that out for real fans,” said John. “George, this git is a bore. Let’s go teach the gopher to meditate.”
“Right behind you, John,” agreed George. “And as for you, Yankee Doodle— if you’ve any more frolicking to do, you can bloody well do it with Davy Jones and Peter Tork.”
The gopher glared at me. “Naff off,” he huffed, trailing after John and George.
I woke up on the sofa in my front room. I took out my phone and conjured up Daydream Believer on YouTube. I preferred the Monkees, anyway.
Jack Phillips Lowe is a resident of the Chicago area. His poems have appeared in Clutch 2023, Bold Monkey Review (Australia) and Poetry Super Highway, among other outlets. His most recent book, Flashbulb Danger (Middle Island Press, 2018), is available from Amazon. Lowe is currently working on a new poetry chapbook.
He’s pouring one out On Saturday night For his buddies Who are trying To remarry, Not focusing on All those Divoroces But pondering The ones That have Yet to come.
Taylor Dibbert is a writer, journalist, and poet in Washington, D.C. He’s author of the Peace Corps memoir Fiesta of Sunset, and the forthcoming poetry collection Home Again.
I met a man at your party, who said he held a key that could open the latch of any door, anywhere in the world and watch the red mess living creates hatch from its own detritus and then lock it inside again, letting it punch-pummel cold walls, its voice unheard as its vowels slit themselves from stale rooms as he drank low-ball whisky chasers while casually talking to me— in the way he’d touch me later and slide his tongue over my mouth keying my breath with kisses’ silence to smother me with his history and his story sucking at almost all I had to say.
Jenny is a working mum and writes whenever she can amid the fun and chaos of family life. Her poetry is published in several printed anthologies, magazines and online poetry sites. Jenny lives in London with her husband, two children and two very lovely, crazy cats. You can read more of her poems at her website: https://www.jmiddletonpoems.com
february, lemmings scurry up powder mountain snort blue air dip fine wine firelight boogie very-white shapely sloped alps ski vacation it’s called here
foggy town paris the poor stick around, stocking grocery store shelves, sweeping rue de funk afterhour sip the slippery slopes of alley cheap booze
keep your powder dry store king hollers over zoom gloom to the working crew
alphonse takes a horse-size piss scratches his daily double, lady luck shines him a quarter moon over three cent town – takes another shot and says fuck the alps
Poet and musician Michael D. Amitin graveled the roads of the American West from California- east through the smoky burgs and train depot diners of Western Colorado where he lived before moving to Paris, France. Amitin’s poems have been published in Poetry Pacific, California Quarterly, and others.
