Story Title: Cheers To Forever
 Written By : Dennis Mann
  
  
 It's precisely those nights when you feel the beginning of a new life when your heart beats at an uncontrollable speed, when you never get tired of flashing your perfect white set of teeth to the random guest that attends your wedding solemnization.
  
 She descended the stairways as a sea of eyes stared at her, but her focus was only on the man whom she would be spending the rest of her life with. Her champagne sleeveless gown caressed the floors as she made her way down like a slow train that never wanted to reach its destination.
  
 Her man in a blue-black Tux was radiating sparkles of shimmering light under the magnificent chandelier. The point came when they had contact, and it seemed the two would never want to separate for a minute: their hands bound by love. They walked closely while smiling guests all dressed fashionably in white for the Night Party.
  
 Just six hours ago, the couple said a big yes to each other and wore a wedding band to signify their long-lasting bond. The newlywed husband couldn't stop smiling as he danced with his wife.
  
 "Kobie, I love you," Adelaide uttered, her eyes in deepest sincerity and her voice in complete innocence.
  
 "You are my royal lady, and I love you so much, dear," Kobie said as he revealed a gap-toothed smile.
  
 The happy guest rushed on the circular dance floor and moved their waist to the live band by Kwabena Kwabena, 'Royal lady.'
  
 Adelaide dropped the hands of the man she loves and joined Kwabena Kwabena closely. Kwabena Kwabena seized the opportunity to be an excellent performer as he played the trumpets to only one valid guest—the bride.
  
 But clearly, someone wasn't happy that everyone was in a merry mood. "Ermm, thank you, thank you." Funny Face said. "The night is very young, and there is still plenty of time to dance." He coughed in a joking way. "This is a fantabulous wedding of my main man, Kobie. Ekom adi y3 a kye."
  
 Everybody laughed.
  
 "Kobie has been a friend in those times I thought I had no friend. You know people believe since you are a celebrity, you have lots of friends and have no problems. They lie. They lie baad!"
  
 The guest laughed again.
  
 "Kobie has been there for me countless times. I can't start counting. I love you, bro." Funny Face turned back and gazed at Kobie. "This is no gay love."
  
 The men in the crowd roared from behind.
  
 "I love you with the love of a mother. Your new wife shall bring you peace-"
  
 The crowd cheered, Amen.
  
 "—And beautiful children."
  
 "Amen," chorused the guest.
  
 Adelaide, seated close to her husband, gazed at him for a second, and they both got close like a magnet drawing them together, and they kissed.
  
 Funny Face managed the party very well. He cracked everyone up. Kobie was glad to have listened to his wife to make Funny Face the master of the ceremony.
  
 A burgundy Range Rover Evoque parked outside at the entrance of Villagio Heights. Smokes exhumed from the double steel exhaust pipes. The giant oaken doors opened, and Kobie stepped out with his wife in both arms, wrapped like a child as he descended. He dropped her carefully and opened the car door, and helped her into the car.
  
 Kobie turned back and waived the increasing number of guests at the entrance. Kobie kicked start the accelerator, and the sports car hummed slowly away with a 'Just Married' tag at the number plate. The growing guest waved at them as they faded in the pitch dark night.
  
 The newlywed couple drove on the H1N1 road leading to the Tema motorway.
  
 "Honey, do you think we should go to Holy Trinity Spa tonight? Considering the journey, let's sleep tonight and start our honeymoon tomorrow?"
  
 "No, dear, I want us to get there tonight so we can rest and begin a wonderful life ahead of us from tomorrow."
  
 "Okay. Anything you say, dear. I know your eyes are lazy in the evening; that's why I'm saying that."
  
 "You have nothing to worry about, dear. We shall be fine."
  
 Soon, not long, as they just passed the motorway roundabout, a long truck skidded terribly and crashed the sports car. The car was crushed instantly to a corner. Kobie and Adelaide lay unconscious with blood spilling from their head.
  
 It was not clear if they survived.
  
  
  
 Dennis Mann - Author
 
 Email: authordennismann@gmail.com
 
 Instagram:
 https://www.instagram.com/persiux5
 
 Facebook :
 facebook.com/authordennismann
 
 Call/WhatsApp:
 +233247654113
  
 
  
 
 Wide Reading Among Kids (WRAK) is a children's literacy program in Ghana. We encourage readers to support this program. More information on WRAK here. 

 Wide Reading Among Kids 
 
 Instagram: @widereadingamongkids
 
 Facebook:   www.facebook.com/widereadingamongkids
 
 Email: widereadingamongkids@gmail.com
 
 Call/WhatsApp: +233247654113
 
 Website: widereadingamongkids.org

  
   

John Thomas Allen is 38, loves stained glass, and loves imagery for imagery's sake.  He also enjoys giving single dollar bills to crack addicts at real carnivals, igniting charity balls for people who don't work, and entertaining strange strangers online. He admires the work of Peter O Leary, Bernadatte Meyer, and Mina Loy.


The Carnival Tarot

I was there the night the carnival tarot began
  In a glass mosque of magic satin 
flooded with fireflies 
     winding the meditation boxes 
   to a focus levels flooded without grounding 
        To a focus level split in the screaming   
        sonar whistles 
     dew drops of dim deja vu, 
         beads bodiless with worlds shed aflame
           echoes of billiard halls in their boozy spider glass 
           echoes of hobo clown gangs split in galleys  
               of long handed shadow  
           echoes of orchestrated lightning in black boxes 
           echoes of paint chips patterned after a decayed 
                  glass marquee in downtown LA
              The third eye all smoke  
                and thus frying the Om…
   now with the dowsing snakes hushed buzz. 
     The fleecing syncopation of All In All   
                            All At Once
    Before falling they’d seen ameythistine temples,
               rising tide of movie monsters eloped
                   from the moving pictures 
                   in the singular monstrosity of self possession
         gravity’s cells swallowing each free breath of even
                                 air.
      In the EVP library’s soundscape, the voices freed
      the dead’s sound bytes inside holofoil crypts.
       The pale swan arms, bonding afterlives, braille echoes on the No. 5
      pencil 
      She sang the Hours with carnie ministers, crowned ghosts.
        The icons were flooded out with sound mirrors the body 
                                        of a saw
      Refracting icons in the library’s reading room 
         Howling and nude in caged specters of lightning, 
               eyes smoked like a blue owl
                     a  dribbling decoy of light.

 
 
 
ODE TO MULES, CATBIRDS, INSECTS, AND GOD
  
  
 Interspecies friendships?
  
 They’re great, aren’t they?
  
 A bonding of pure affection
 sometimes unequaled in human civilization.
  
 A mule wearing a snorkel and goggles enters
 the high school convocation flopping rubber 
 flippers against the smooth terracotta tiles.
  
 You gotta love that!
  
 [Yeah]
  
                           *……*
  
 A catbird screeched high above a tulip poplar
 near the local middle school earlier today,  
 then warbled hieroglyphs before entering 
 our forsythia hedge and vaporizing  
 inside its prickly branches.
  
                     *……*……*
  
 I wonder if we pay enough attention to insects?
 We mostly complain about them, but they’re 
 preoccupied day in day out with whatever’s 
 required to evolve their DNA.
  
 Sounds a lot like us, eh?
  
 And what about lusty zebra mosquitos
 who just want to our be blood brothers?
  
 We shouldn’t overlook such things.
  
                    ◄   ◄…..►   ►
  
 What’s the last thing that goes
 through an existentialist’s mind

 when he smacks the windshield 
 at 90 miles an hour?
  
 That’s right, God.
  
  
  
  
  
  
   

 

 THE NIGHT JOE WATSON & I DOUBLE-
 DATED TWO BEAUTIES FROM THE 
 THRIFTWAY SUPERMARKET
  
  
 I told Joe, pick whomever, but I prefer 
 the Italian in a canary one-piece 
 with poppy white collar.
  
 So, he picked Meg.
  
 I liked Meg.
  
 I liked Meg a lot with her tamarind
 arms, bronze legs, & eyelashes like 
 dragonflies haunting my dreams, 
 but, alas, I was mesmerized 
 by the Italian Aphrodite broiled
 to perfection in a canary one-piece 
 with poppy white collar. 
  
 So, off the four of us cruised, two
 of us ending up below the spidery
 legs of the Lake Worth pier.
  
 That night kisses like wild bruises 
 migrated from lips to necks 
 to shoulders in the casual blink 
 of a full moon’s penumbra 
 tattooing hair, flesh, 
 monkey blood, & bones. 
  
 I told Joe, pick whomever, but I prefer 
 the Italian in a canary one-piece 
 with poppy white collar.
  
  
  
  

Alan Britt has been nominated for the 2021 International Janus Pannonius Prize awarded by the Hungarian Centre of PEN International for excellence in poetry from any part of the world. Previous nominated recipients include Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Charles Bernstein and Yves Bonnefoy. Alan was interviewed at The Library of Congress for The Poet and the Poem. He has published 20 books of poetry and served as Art Agent for Andy Warhol Superstar, the late great Ultra Violet, while often reading poetry at her Chelsea, New York studio. A graduate of the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University he currently teaches English/Creative Writing at Towson University.

Only Fragments Found 

I wonder how can I tell my child that we are humans? 

Everyone is pointing and shouting at 
The blacks, the Asians, and the Arabs. 
I don't understand who is inferior or superior. 

Am I lazy to remain silent? 
Like a warrior widow. 
Maybe I am insane to resist the awful travesty? 
Bush promised me that he is going to establish equal opportunity and peace for my country. 

Since the war started only fragments found 

Everyday is another kind of tragedy  
Nobody dreams of being a comedy  
Although, most of the soldiers are crazy. 
I learn about peace and not preferable race  

Undesirable faces must be wiped off the earth  
We are not corpses yet, we must record our existence
The sadness and massacres must be in history books. 

If our stories are miserable then you can laugh at me  
If our memories are from the past then slaughter my life  

Those bullets holes on the wall of my grandparent's room, They will not be erased, 
hold my hand and let me breathe fresh air. 

10/12/2021 Bleeding Heart Poet 

Ageless Love 
 
The two teens were walking home along a forested country road.  She looked at him and said “Duke, your fly is open.’ 
 
After looking around and not seeing anyone, he zipped up. 
 
“Sandra, you’ve got pine needles on your skirt butt.  I’d be pleased to wipe them off.” 
 
They had made a slight detour on their way home to a place in the woods which they thought of as their spot. 
 
As they approached her place she asked “Do you suppose your parents know?” 
 
“They either expect or know, but I’m pretty sure they don’t mind.  My mother made sure that I respected girls and very pointedly insisted I carry condoms after she heard some of my end of our phone calls.  I don’t know what I said that clued her in – mothers are mysterious.  My father saw us together once and said ‘That Sandra is a fine girl.  You couldn’t do any better.’  What do your parents think?” 
 
“My mother gave me the talk too.  I mentioned that you had been walking me home.  She gave me a look, but didn’t get nosey.” 
 
As Duke dropped Sandra off at her place, the parents made a big deal of inviting him in for a coke.  Despite the seeming innocence of the treat, he felt like he was under a microscope. 
 
An old man woke up in his sickbed from a beautiful dream mumbling “you are my sunshine, my only sunshine” and first looked over at the picture of a young couple on the headboard at the opposite side of the double bed, then at the medicines lined up on his end table. 
 
“Sandra, I had another one of those dreams.  This time we were in high school a few years before we got married.  People thought we were too young, but we raised two fine children and stayed together until death did us part.  I should have been the one who parted, I miss you so much.  It isn’t the only dream.  Sometimes I dream about us watching one of Jeff’s baseball games, or Betty’s dance recital.  I give you most of the credit for how they turned out.  We must have been good models; they now have fine families of their own.  The grandchildren don’t mind hanging out with granddad, or if they do they hide it well.” 
 
“Some of the dreams aren’t as good, but I always wake up from ones in which you start to show symptoms.  That was hard enough to take the first time around.” 
 
“The kids try to fix me up with someone from time to time.  I know they thought they were being kind to a lonely old man, but the memory of you is better than any woman.  When I did go out a few times, the dates were driven off by my talking about you.” 
 
“The dreams have helped me survive.  I took up painting and have gone to community college classes.  I volunteer in the local park, run a wheel chair at the hospital and teach a class on writing so I don’t feel completely useless.” 
 
“The hospice people say we won’t be separated much longer.  Expect me to join you in about a week.” 

J.J. Campbell (1976  ?) is old enough to know where the bodies are buried. He's been widely published over the years, most recently at Mad Swirl, The Nerve Cowboy, Terror House Press, The Rye Whiskey Review and Horror Sleaze Trash. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
with a little umbrella
 
snowflakes in the
air and the smell
of a never-ending
winter piercing
the gray skies
 
i used to love
this shit
 
the weather
perfect for a
fat guy fashion
show
 
now, arthritis
and back pain
run my life
 
i could fucking
use a sandy beach
and a drink with
a little umbrella
right about now
------------------------------------------------------
the beautiful dark souls
 
wondering where
the black angels
are
 
the beautiful dark
souls meant to take
me on a wild ride
and conquer the
world
 
that soft brown
skin still dances
in my dreams
 
kisses me gently
on a private beach
in some tropical
land
 
clues me in when
privilege rises its
ugly head
 
hopefully, i still
can be a lucky

soul
---------------------------------------------------------
a russian conspiracy against me
 
i am convinced every
woman i meet online
is part of a russian
conspiracy against
me
 
the first one that i
figure out is actually
real and not part of
that mafia
 
i'm going to surrender
to and let life finally
start to breathe
 
of course, by the time
that happens, death
will be the more likely

scenario
------------------------------------------------------------
madly in love with me
 
my former muse likes
to think that she used
to be madly in love
with me
 
anytime she would
tell me that, i always
wondered if she knew
she was talking to me
 
of course,
it's my own damn fault
for allowing a beautiful
woman to use me for
as long as i did
 
thankfully, i woke up
before the gun found

the inside of my mouth
----------------------------------------------------------------
in over forty years of life
 
a cloudy, damp
valentine's day
 
perfect
for someone
who hasn't
had someone
really love him
in over forty
years of life
 
these are the
days where
suicide is
a cliche
 
drowning
sorrows in
alcohol is
a waste of
time
 
and there
isn't a porn
out there that
adequately takes
care of all the
pain
 
i'm sure someone
else has it worse
off than me
 
that's little
consolation

anymore

Richard Chetwynd taught writing and literature at Emerson College for 30 years, is the author of several chapbooks and a full-length collection of poems, Heroic Age, as well a collection of short stories, Turkey & Peacocks.