Kevin Grauke
Winter 2026 | Poetry
Three Walk Into a Bar Called The Future
A joke, a riddle, and a pun walk into a bar. The gray barkeep says he doesn’t serve their kind, not anymore. Our kind? The joke is puzzled. And what kind would that be? The gray barkeep continues cleaning gray mugs and glasses with his enormous gray rag. I don’t want any funny business is what I mean, he says. Someone, meanwhile, can be heard moaning under the pocked pool table. But being funny is our business, says the riddle, though no one can hear him over the graffitied jukebox. Someone tall has dropped quarters in the slot to hear Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” again. The riddle then sits down at the bar and starts to cry. Silently, the joke and the pun join him in tears. Welcome to the new year, says the bartender. He shakes onto each tongue a dose of bitters.
Kevin Grauke is the author of the short-story collections Shadows of Men (Queen’s Ferry Press) and West of Destry (Cowboy Jamboree Press). A third short-story collection, Bullies & Cowards, is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press in 2026. An essay collection will be published by Belle Point Press in 2027. His poetry has appeared in such journals as The Threepenny Review, The Cincinnati Review, The Minnesota Review, Ninth Letter, and The Louisville Review. He teaches at La Salle University and lives in Philadelphia.