We Haven’t Paid the Tab (2021, 63Channels Press) By Glen Feulner and B.K. Kovich

We Haven’t Paid the Tab (2021, 63Channels Press)

By Glen Feulner and B.K. Kovich

Review by Timothy Gager





It’s always interesting when friends from the early days of the internet, (back when you met people, rather than yell at them) stay in touch. I’ve known Glen Feulner on the internet for nearly 20 years, back from a site called Art Conspiracy. In this collection Glen and B.K. Kovich, who knew each other from that same site, and from the journal 63Channels are brought together in a new book of poetry called, We Haven’t Paid the Tab (2021, 63Channels Press)

The book is divided into three sections, the first two are each poets work standing alone, and the third section is one where the poets write together. What I found were two distinct voices on their own, which made me question how the collaborative section would work. What I found was that it worked and offered some nicely detailed poems to digest.

In Part I, Glen Feulner’s Epoxy, the work showed some good ranges in style and subject matter. Feulner plays with work which is very simple, such as in the poem Ride, where a man and woman ride, anticipating more than that---Feulner weighing in with the line “neon lights color you beautiful.” Feulner also can go deeper when he writes more complex, which he does equallywell. My favorite poem in this section is Causas Perierat which concludes with this wonderful verse:

This rise, the fall, the sweet & plain

Causas perierat, The thrum of souls

Caked in mud, nature lent war paint

Dawn breaks and morning dew betrays her





His poem Last Rite arouses the work Shakespeare, with themes and characters conjured advantageously. Feulner like Shakespeare is a writer who paints the world, knowing full well how it should work, while identifying its detours because the world as known, tends not to cooperate.

The section ends with an epic poem, Epoxy, a work of eight pages of free verse and free association describing how the poet’s world tries to remain glued together while everything he knows and experiences try to unravel him.





The second part of We Haven’t Paid the Tab is from B.K. Kovich, is a much grittier read. Somewhere Between Alcoholism and Madness, is themed by drinking too much, longing for connection, destroyed relations, insomnia, loneliness and despair. Yet, within those themes there is some very sensitive even sweet moments.

The section opens with the titular poem which opens with the narrator in full blown insomnia from alcohol and madness, describing his Morpheus…Bukowski.

Another poem which grabbed my attention was Alone a poem that anyone who has been morbidly lonely can identify with. Here Kovich identifies with the homeless while walking home from a night of drinking, and the rain washes the tears of the narrator rather than those destitute.

An abundance of homeless,

Hopelessly seeking shelter.

From the rain,

The rain...

Refusing to wash away

Sobbing, sniffling tears

Of despair.

Alone.





After this a poem Fleeting blindsided me with tenderness followed by an about face. It is a homage to a woman who sparkles, but at the end is the one to wear the horns. Bam!

Other poems I enjoyed in Kovich’s section were Baudelaire Thorn which hooks us with rhymes and beauty, yet, as Kovich indicates, the rose still will have its thorns. Additionally The Canonical Her works in pure meta, as the muse is the poem within the poem. Kovich runs in meta-form often: poems are in life, life are in poems, and poems or poets are in other poems as we;;.

The book concludes with the combined work of Feulner and Kovich which they named Clockwork Faith. Their collaborative effort, for me, came from two distinct voices merging which challenged me as a reader to solve the mystery of whom I thought wrote what part of each. This engaged me as a reader in a positive way. For example, Hope Bleeds I guessed verses 1 and 2 were Feulner’s and verse 3, Kovich, but, of course, I couldn’t know for sure.

Faded & tattered

Passed through countless hands

Ink bleeds into each palm

Becoming part of a new tale




Forgiven lust

Labeled "Forgot me not"

Hand over hand over heart

Awakening hope




Pulsing through throbbing temples

Brittle psyches grasping blindly

Shedding inhibitions

Fearing final destinations





Poems such as I Will Take the Plunge seemed more Kovich influenced, but a real beauty, Muted Notes, both poets are playing and writing in a very unmuted way as shown in the opening stanza.

The smooth arc

the bridge that leads to the chorus

the choir of voices

whispering you’ve failed




All in all, I found We Haven’t Paid the Tab worthy and interesting, as there is enough here to satisfy many different kinds of poets. I would love to hear them read this work together at some point in some venue which would add an extra something to this poetic experience.