Three Poems by Stephanie Smith

DISPOSABLE YOU

pieces of you
splattered
on the bathroom wall
by the tampon dispenser

parts of you
discarded
in the garbage can
in the corner

disposable you
who didn’t want you
anymore?



JUST BECAUSE

I do your laundry every Thursday
because I know you won’t
I put up with the bloodstains
and the stale perfume
on the collars of your workshirts

Just because

Last week I cooked you chicken
while you sat cross-legged
in the backroom
and smoked a bowl

I didn’t even question
the corpse you brought home
and stuck in the closet
behind boxes
of old photographs

But I sleep with a pillow
between us now
A blade beneath the mattress

Just in case



THE VOYEURS OF A DREAM GONE BY

I dream of sex with a movie star
(I’m not saying who)
and a group of voyeurs
(in all sizes and colors)
One with a saw
determined to cut me in two
And I wake up feeling
so dirty and violated
like the victim of a jealous rage,
a bloated corpse tangled in bloodstained sheets
who the cops won’t find for a week

one of the fucking problems by Rob Plath

they usually go like this:

Sassafras Review

We only accept poems that gently perch in the editorial staff's heart and twitter there for weeks.

We only read submissions in the Spring. Staff apologizes for the small window of time.
Tweet, Tweet, Tweet! LOL.

Taboos: pessimism, atheism, inappropriate words, drugs, sex, violence, hatred, homosexuality
existentialism, urban blight, reality, and so on.

These are big No-No's at Sassafras Review. Be NICE! :)

Send us your wonderful poems! We'll get back to you in about a year .
P.S. We adore rhyme!
P.S.S. We adore daffodils!
P.S.S. We adore semi-colons!

Send your poems to: editors@sassafrasreview.com

Sincerely,

The Editors:
Mary Kay Smith-Strudell, John Patrick Gray Smith III, Barbara Susan Woodard-Kasey

how do you write so much, he asked by Rob Plath

cut yr cable wire

burn yr shitty choice of books

call it quits w/yr wife

abandon what's left of yr family

abandon what's left of yr friends

erase yr so-called education of lies

damage at least one of yr internal organs

study the loneliness of the planet as if it were a science

have yr skin madly itch head-to-toe 24/7 for 8 months

but live closer to yr bones than you do to yr flesh

study yr irregular heart beat upon the mattress

in the silence of a pitch black tiny room

wake up alone each morning & run yr index finger

along the blade of a straight razor

eventually, make a time machine & go back

& make yr father into a fucking monster

live beneath his roof until human blood drips from its beams

& then let me know how yr production rate increases

if it does, i have another list for you then, motherfucker

Two Poems by Paul Harrison

today and maybe

only for today
it is these things
that bring us
closer, nearer
that keep us sane
and longer here
and tho tomorrow
these things may disappear
or be forgotten
or turn to ash
i have known
these things
again
and marvel
in their splendour



spoiler alert

the poet
dies at
the end.

Two Poems by Melanie Browne

Flower

He was the kind of
guy who wanted
me to wrap
my hands
around his throat,
in spite of the frostbite,
he wanted me
to do something
with all that
energy,
the night he
pulled me
to the ground
he dropped his
cigarette,
after he
finished,
I found it,
and stuck it in
my hair like
a degenerate
flower



The Suggestion

She suggested that
the next time I saw
my lover, he
might appear to
me as a monster,
a manifestation,

a ghoul of some kind,
so I tried to avoid him,

I studied
the large eye spots
on a moth that
had pinned
itself to the
ceiling in an
absurd manner,

it was larger
than any moth
I had ever seen,

I was glued
to the beauty of
the ugly creature,
and never again
saw my lover,

who I heard
was once sighted
walking around
the gorge near
Mt. St. Helens,

not wearing any
clothes and
reading
Kierkegaard

act 4 by Justin Hyde

i didn't sleep with him
i fucked him
there's a difference,
she says into the phone
explaining that she met an old friend
they did some blow
spent the night together.

she's so sorry
loves me
can i ever forgive her?

we're not even dating

we've been
on and off
in some quasi lust
span of boredom
for a year and a half.

i don't want to be with her

she's a unidimensional flake

a simulacrum

a sub-par mother
to a three year old
who runs around
like a feral dog.

so why is my
cell-phone
in a hundred pieces?

why is my
front door
torn off the hinges?

why am i ready
to throw myself in the river
like every other
sucker through the centuries
who let a whore
drop down
into the substratum
of his heart?

Her Name Is Love by Mike Meraz

trying to be strong,
trying to be brave,
I make and accept
phone calls from women
who in most cases
could knock me out
with one decisive blow.

I am a sucker for a good body
and a good soul.

we talk for an hour,
speak ghetto,
make plans to see each other at ten,
then hang up.

I fear the authority
of street knowledge
and the ability to seduce
without speaking.

her name is Love.

she says she wants to hold me
in the darkness of some night.

but I am not a good cuddler.

I can't sleep less than two feet
away from anybody.

she'll have to wait.

Brown Spot by Phil Ginsburg

My brother had a brown spot on his back
When he was a teenager
Over the years it got bigger and browner
He rubbed it and it bled
And then one day we found out it was melanoma
At the age thirty one it killed him

My parents were devastated
My brother was the constellation of the family
He was a lawyer, then a judge
One of the youngest in the state

I knew what my parents thought:
Why him?
Why not the other one?
Why him, who made us so proud?
Even I said, “Why him?”
It should have been me
It’s the black sheep that deserves the brown spot

But after my brother died I found some stuff buried in his closet
Stuff judges put people in jail for
Pictures of women, the kind you see in bondage magazines
Stuff my brother was into on weekends that would have killed my parents
If they had known about it

I burnt those pictures in a pot one night in the backyard
All my brother’s bondage went up in smoke

Like my parent’s dreams.

For Crying Outright by A.J. Huffman

You strike a pose.
Spreading your arms
in mocking.
But three times
the banshee scream fails
to complete the rotation.

You open the window.
Again.
Hoping the midnight wind
will curb the echo.

But the hollow widens instead.
Rushing to meet your fist
the moment it cracks
like glass.
Or the clock
that bleeds for you.
But never quite gets the timing right.

back then by Justin Hyde

i needed love

& someone to talk to.

having neither

i dropped down
into this alternate chamber
within myself

here

where light
& sound
trickle faintly
as into a well.

what's wrong?
ask the
various women
unlucky enough
to come into
my life.

i try to
explain

we dance around
the ineffable

their hearts
become
brittle

thread-worn

washing
down-river
like dust.