The Unrequited Essence of Not Breathing by P.A.Levy

i was already dead inside
when i considered committing suicide for
the first time

until a do-good samaritan up to no
good found me weighted
on a bridge
she said her name was codeine
with razor sharp loathsomeness i called her
slut
using a car battery attached to nipple clamps
she shocked my heart

defibrillated
she fucked life back into me
rode the throb of a pulse to the impact
of a car crash

i went down on codeine
washed away the bitter after taste with kerosene
i asked her if she fancied playing
with knives
share a self harm game of
cutting peep holes in our skin
glimpse inside our rib cages
see the beat within

but she said
not tonight luv i’ve got a headache
turn over and swallow sleep

Three Poems by Kevin Ridgeway

Be Good

when I was a small child,
my mother came home
from a yard sale
carrying a doll
that looked exactly
like me

“It looks just like you,”
she said, hugging it

whenever I was bad
out came the doll
she would throw it
against the wall
and I would scream in pain
“be good” she warned

years later, I came home
from a bad marriage
and many other troubles
she pulled out the doll
by then bearded and
pot-bellied, just like me
“be good” she repeated
and she plucked a beard
hair from its chin
as I winced in pain



His Holiness

the Mexican family
on the corner
is having a
barbecue;
I walk past
them and one
of the men
yells out
to me
“Hey Jesus!”
due to my
long beard
and hair—
this gets a
huge laugh
from the women;
I wish I WAS
Jesus, then I
could turn this
lukewarm bottle
of water into
some strong
red wine,
flirt with
their women
and steal
them all
away from
them
but I’d
come back
the next day
to heal them
of their
hangovers
and give them
and
their dogs
a pat on the head
goodbye



Marriage Inequality

up
the
ladder
to the
loft
where
we kept
our dirty
little secrets
where you
would
bawl
and
shout
and
my
angry
head
smoked
I fell
down
that
ladder
and
I
broke
us

Three Poems by Rob Plath

THERE’S NOTHING WORSE THAN TOO LATE

quit
counting
yr
fucking
demons

refrain
from
fingering
yr
scars

instead
go
gaze
at
yr
angels



this lens

i can’t help holding yr death up
to everything

you die again w/each season
you die again w/things
you’ll no longer witness

death isn’t the approaching winter
or a dark shrouded figure
death is this piece of glass
fashioned from yr absence

death is this lens i keep
holding up to everything



of pure joy

i hear my landlord yelling at the dog thru the wall. look at all this hair! it looks like a fucking barber shop floor! i’m gonna get rid of you! & i picture the old boy standing there wagging his whole backside, reminding humans that the coat of his frame is composed of magic strands of pure joy.

Three Poems by Ford Dagenham

AT 38

i am a stranger to myself
tired and drawn and stubbly and old-
my age ENORMOUS

like i landed suddenly in my future

enormous alien hands
clutching
the
maintenance meccanno of the soft machine.

working again
in
the hospital.  all my clothes are too big now.

he’s looking at me from behind deep glass
in
the
dark
light
of
a service lift mirror.

HELLO YOU i am saying.



WITHHOLDING MOON

all this/the drunk rubbish/the drugs and whatever
this
is
what
i do
in
the mystery of it all
under light night skies of silence and diamond
when
it all feels glorious and like there’s answers just in front of
us
in the dark sky – just there



BREAKINGDOWN 

those bleak mornings SHIT!
those 3 AMs when i held the dread inside me
as still as i could
with a balled up pillow.
those panic steps to the toilet bowl FUCK!
and
those nights JESUS! – the stale tv/pointless books/nothing for me/even music MUSIC! was irritating and trivial.
those morning dew fields like holograms in the science museum
and
the sunrise views like they’re
painted
on
a
flat wall.

those forced Saturdays going out anywhere at all
with all the cigarettes all the time.
all
those slow steps thru CGI nature 1000 miles away.
the world so solid and heavy on my soles pushing up!
and
those cold Sundays MY GOD!
they
wouldn’t end
and
never started.

that frozen up white noise in my head – couldn’t think
so
i
ran . . . tears hidden in sweat.

those moments CHRIST - those moments
when
FUCK ME!

i
was
sure
i’d
lost my mind.

Two Poems by Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal

DRINKING EARLY

I started drinking early.
I gave up on the day.
I sought oblivion in
a bottle and a few more.
I didn’t answer my phone.
I didn’t open the door.
I didn’t log onto my
computer.  I just drank.
I ate salted peanuts.
It was my only food.
I drank until I could
not drink anymore.



I HEARD YOUR VOICE

I heard your voice
on the answering
machine.  It was
an old recording.
You don’t call me
anymore.  You met
someone and I am
out of the picture.
I don’t know why
I don’t erase it.
Perhaps it is just
a reminder for me
of what I lost.  I
need to learn to be
good to myself.

The Bad Night by Holly Day

the secrets
of motherhood
elude me, even now, after years
of practice, of
learning to deal with
late-night temper tantrums
too little sleep. every time I think
I’ve figured parenthood out

the rules change and I have to
start all over again.
my mother
keeps telling me
that the worst is yet
to come but I’m not
sure I can imagine things getting
much harder

than this.
someday it will be over.

The man visits the cafe almost every day by John Yohe

The man visits the cafe almost every day and enjoys
the girls who work there and know his name and what he drinks
and smile seemingly sincerely when they see him and he sits in
the corner and reads books of poetry or philosophy but never
risks making a fool of himself by asking any of them if
they would like to really talk though not sure which
would be more embarrassing a girl two-thirds his age saying no
or saying yes and finding nothing to talk to her about
but still also enjoying the tight jeans they wear
almost as much and sometimes more than his books
oblivious to a woman two tables over a few years older who
is too inhibited to talk to him but sees him looking
and grows a bit more bitter but decides to eat
a slice of pumpkin bread with her maté latte anyway

AFTERNOON CADENZA by Brenton Booth

Wednesday afternoon
dreaming of beautiful
women in short skirts
though Beethoven and
a day off from work
seem good enough:
if we all just accepted
what we now had as
enough—
the economy would fail
and people would flourish,
I still think of those women
though
even now that the cadenza
has begun and its Nigel
Kennedy behind the notes:
I suppose no one is perfect
and that’s what keeps
everything as it is.

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About Me

Black-Listed Magazine is an online literary magazine. We publish on a rolling basis: weekly, daily, sometimes hourly. Send submissions here: blacklistedmagazine@hotmail.com