Black-Listed Magazine

Roaring out of Hell by Melanie Browne

2012-01-17T09:36:00.000-08:00

I seek out your writing like

an insatiated sugar-cereal junkie,

a tired gambler at the last

Las Vegas flophouse,

sitting down with

whiskey I

read your poems

and I wonder about

your parents and your

siblings and, especially

the worthless X

did she bury your

heart in Siberia?

here, I'll take my

gold plated shovel,

we'll dig it

up for the bent

of it,

it's probably still

pumping underneath

all that frozen snow,

I'm sure it just needs

a slight dusting,

a nice toddy

and a shave,

a kick in the

O'l nucleus

Two Poems by Michael Ashley

2012-01-17T03:45:00.000-08:00

Mortal

is the way I am nervous

around sharp points

and bare edges

the line of your form

the tips of your fingers

the rim of your tongue

it is the fact I know

the damage that can be done

by just the slightest slip

this shit isn't learnt

or taught

it's instinct.

This Abstinence

makes me

want to scrape

the base

of my bowel

tear out

that turning wheel

crush it

to the tightest

ball--

I see

your eyes

and want them

pressed against

my pubic bone

again

I eat

my finger ends

the nicotine

around my nails

to skin

to cuticle

to bloody mess

I need

a drink

a cig

an orifice

in any order.

I’d Make As Good a Teacher As Time by Linda M. Crate

2012-01-17T03:30:00.000-08:00

They all ask me what I’ll do with my degree

as if English-Literature Bachelor is a title worthy

of shame; they almost cringe when they say it —

when I announce that I want to be a novelist they

smile and say ‘that’s nice’ as if they don’t think

I’m good enough to follow my dreams or they’re

worth following to begin with; I’m constantly

coddled and told that you should be a teacher —

they clearly don’t know that I do not like children;

or that I have a wit that rears it’s ugly head at the

first sign of a snarky retort; no, I’d make as good

a teacher as time, I’d end up maiming if not killing

all the pupils that had the nerve to cross me, I think

I’ll leave the teaching to people that love kids, I’ll

stick to griping and grumbling about how most

of them act as if they walked straight of Digrassi,

and expect us to not want to punish their bratty little

butts in the process, I’m of the opinion that writing

is a better day of spending my day than being two

degrees separated from raging at children under my

care, expecting me to remember them something

of greatness; I’d teach them the art of bitterness or

being lonely or cat lady 101, nothing much worth

noting after that, they’d be asleep before algebra.

FOOD FOR A FAILED ROMANCE by Richard Quigley

2012-01-15T08:43:00.000-08:00

That night the screeching telephone was some slack-lip

Siren, luring you into her brackish grip, thirsting to gush

Over the birthmark you called your trademark. A fruit

So swollen, juices almost run from it. You got up

From the table, the way you were hunched over like a child

On a throne of tied sticks. Soppy tyrant. Those days you

Exhausted on fearing the one who could take the mirrored

Slab from your mouth, the one with grime-slick handprints

Who could dirty your work shirt. You’ve been waiting too long

For your ride to come. Swallow your pride like I’ve swallowed

Your load. A bone surfaces in a butter cookie: hard-bitten,

Sweeter than you could have ever imagined.

Tribes Revisited by David S. Pointer

2012-01-15T08:33:00.000-08:00

In Tribes, Jan Michael Vincent’s

Marine recruit character told his

drill instructor that he didn’t equate

militarism with patriotism, and in

the decades since, I’ve come to

equate patriotism with a quest for

sustainable economic/environmental

justice, your left, your left right left…

Locked Psych-Ward, New Jersey, USA by Joseph Hargraves

2011-12-30T05:30:00.000-08:00

The first rays of sun illuminate a Fantin-Latour

Bouquet in the nurses station while forcing

Morning clouds to sing a coloratura extravaganza.

If I had friends, to heal me,

They would lower me through the roof

Of Peter's house in Capernaum

Into the lap of Christ.

Coontang by Catfish McDaris

2011-12-30T05:27:00.001-08:00

On tv the Turtleman, America's

answer to the Croc Hunter sat next

to Eddie Murphy talking about

catching possums & coons

Eddie tried to keep cool with his

goofy grin, but every time the word

coon came out of the redneck's

mouth, you could see him pissed

The Skunk Whisperers dressed like

varmint Texas Rangers went up on

a roof with a garden hose & sprayed

a coon in the ass to get it from a tree

Reminded me of Magnolia, a sex

machine with chocolate cantaloupes

& a mojo watermelon smile, she was

a stinky wet dream come true

I'd scrub both her nasty places &

armpits, then after fake orange juice,

vodka & bongs, we'd wreak havoc

like Thelonius Monk & Max Roach.

Oil and Water by Sarah Gamutan

2011-12-30T05:14:00.000-08:00

We walked in a wonderland

where beauty never slept. We

thudded like we ruled that time.

We were ambitious, we strolled

with high heels and an unimaginable

grin. No more meek faces. Oh, but we

missed something. Our shirts got muck

at the back while the front portion spelled

"Save water, Drink beer." Embarrassing.

My chap said, " If you bang into this

door, that means you're pissed. Drink

water instead!" Then, we went our

separate ways. I went to heaven.

T E N by Sarah Gamutan

2011-12-30T05:08:00.001-08:00

Some notes gave me

memorable stories whether this

room was loved or not. In this

room, I shared memories with some

musicians, lovers. Some of them were

cheaters, weepers, losers and mostly,

they were my counterparts. I hated the

scenery of unfinished tones, how they

didn't reach an octave, the way it gave the

worst sound in my ears - monotonic, copied.

Once, my counterparts considered music as

one boring college class that they blamed

how it defined different kinds of people,

how it caught lives of my fellows which

they hid for a long time. We asked them

to sing, dance, play and strum it the way

they'd like it. These friends, who got great

looks, married rich men, got impregnated -

those who lived their own lives. I liked

the way they meant their own songs, far

better than Mozart or any classical men

who got stuck on my head when they

were pasted on the wooden walls. I

knew I'd be like them too - loved

and cared that I'd sing songs

on my wedding, that my mates

would sing with me too, that

after 10 years, hopefully,

I'd be married too.

life is fixed by Linda M. Crate

2011-12-03T06:38:00.001-08:00

life spins backward

from the point of

origin from your

death which is as

certain as your birth —

just unknown by

human knowledge

which is limited

even in the most

wise words or

witty retorts, life

spirals backward

plunging us forward

into straights we much

rather avoid, sometimes,

but in the end are ways

we needed to take to

either grow or learn;

sometimes, both —

it’s a sojourn that

many take yet so few

take time to enjoy,

it has the brevity

of fog’s breath yet

many waste it chasing

after things that never

mattered anyway.

Black Seed by Black Seed by Donal Mahoney

2011-12-03T06:31:00.000-08:00

Every day the same people

at the same table

at the rear of the cafeteria.

The maiden, 35 at least,

is gray at the temples,

sour at the mouth.

The widow, 55, waves

a cigarette like a wand.

Girdled and dyed,

she needs no one now;

She ministers to a dog

and has a new apartment.

The accountant, 65, wants to retire,

his years of intemperance

tempered by a stroke,

his anger at everything

suddenly gone. The janitor, 60,

explains over and over

how over the weekend

he snipped from his garden

husks of dead sunflowers

and drove them out of the city

and into the forest

and there in a clearing

spread the black cakes

for chipmunks to strip,

black seed by black seed.

I, a young editor,

“with your whole life

in front of you,” they insist,

sit through it all,

Monday through Friday,

spooning broth, buttering slices

of rye, and praying that after

pudding again for dessert,

the phone on my desk

will explode too late

with a call I’ll take anyway,

and that after that call, I’ll rise

and take from my sport coat

a speech I wrote years ago,

a speech I’ll discard for two lines

off the cuff: “Here’s two weeks’ notice.

I have found a new job.”

A Cliché Letter to your Old Self by Jay Coral

2011-11-22T09:30:00.001-08:00

congratulations

you are a reformed pessimist

you look at your friends in Facebook

and you say to yourself

you're not so bad afterall

you are unmarried

no pictures in your profile

of academically superior kids

and huggable pets in your sofa

you are successful

at being a floater and a survivor

not that it matters

you recently overcoming an insurmountable odd

and thanking the Lord God Almighty for being your rock

but in your cynical middle age brow

you venerate the impression

that you feel for their suffering

and that sorrow is an equation

you share in the world wide web

ah happiness

you don't have a thousand dollar showerhead

but you are innocently happy

walking eating breathing fucking

on inspired lyrics of pop songs

isn't that what you want others

to know/think about you?

you are almost forty

and you wonder if you are any wiser

you wonder if they understand your poem

you wonder what they'll say to you

the next time they see you.

my life by Steve Calamars

2011-11-15T10:30:00.000-08:00

right now is

check-engine lights

and disappointed

parents

a lean muscular

physique and a

bearded face

i feel more like

a fighter than

a writer

pumping out pushups

over prose

6-mile morning runs

and shadow-boxing

in the park

kafka's death and

genius stretched out

across my brain like

the strings of a violin

my own pen touching

the page gentle as a bow

making a music that

never really escapes the

echo of his own . . .

Hate Department by Abigale Louise LeCavalier

2011-11-14T08:16:00.000-08:00

Cringing in a corner

doesn’t suit her,

much.

She does it anyway.

Waiting

for the feelings to change,

in bold breaths

breathing.

Slipping her eyes;

something less formal.

She has that “stay away from me” look

down pat,

because she cares too much.

Always the problem.

Her emotions burn

like cheap cigarettes,

cold.

Almost surreal.

And she can feel the sand

in her teeth,

the heat of her skin,

steam.

She knew this moment was inevitable,

tried to wish it away

with small gestures.

But it came just the same.

Two Poems by Billy Howell-Sinnard

2011-11-11T09:35:00.000-08:00

In The Smoke Room

glowing coil

in the wall

like an altar

a hole

big enough

to poke

a cigarette

Quasar paces

looks up

says cameras

and microphones

in the sky

follow him

i sit beside

the quiet girl

with sad eyes

who sees God

in the linoleum

she puts my hand

in the fire

between her legs

watches the door

for the devil

who prowls the halls

his keys jangling

Growing Older

Nothing seems so horrible

anymore in this new light

of waking up

on possibly our last day.

We learn to give ourselves

in ordinary ways

with what little we have left

like the fishes and loaves

when all is lost.

We've tired of looking,

content now with this

and nothing less.

for it to work, you’ll need to hide yourself away by Tyler Bigney

2011-11-11T09:23:00.000-08:00

I got drunk again

double fisting rum and cokes

at a strip club in a town

with a name I can’t pronounce.

They want my money, but I got none,

so some chit-chat

casual as warm breezes

will have to do.

you need to keep your wits,

keep the conversation quick.

ask questions.

don’t let them see

what’s inside of you

or what’s not.

play dumb,

make it so they don’t know

you came here alone -

your friends in the bathroom,

or got sick

and went home.

and this is your first time

in a place like this.

you’re enjoying the atmosphere. the music. the comfy chairs.

everything but them.

don’t ask them for a dance

and when they’re up on stage

look the other way.

distract yourself with the pinball machine.

don’t ever let them know

you could love them.

how you want nothing more

than to love them.

The Unbearable Solidarity of the Dead by Paul Hellweg

2011-11-11T09:07:00.000-08:00

Day four in Paris, hungover,

food coma this time,

no alcohol involved,

just despair, angst,

Big Mac, fries, pizza margarita, and

the excruciating loneliness

that, for me, always accompanies

lack of creativity.

Slowly waking,

espresso and coffee,

reading “The Wasteland,”

hotel restaurant packed,

tourists clustered together

as if afraid of being alone,

morning chatter on autopilot,

no one looking into anyone’s eyes.

I’m comforted to witness

what Eliot knew,

I’m not the only one

death hath slowly undone.

Snack and Caffeine Free Soda Break by Kevin Ridgeway

2011-10-31T09:05:00.000-07:00

The adult daycare sanitarium

for the full-time

and part-time adult insane

opened at eight o’clock each morning

A long line of glum faces

extending from the fleet of

white van trolleys to the front desk,

where you signed in

and they handed you

three loose stale cigarettes.

Two group sessions drooled on

in monotonous stupors until noon

when we dined on

Thanksgiving turkey

and imitation cranberry slivers

with a teeny weenie

2 percent milk Dixie cup wash-down

One more group—a choice between

substance abusers or finger paints

followed by

a snack and caffeine free soda break

all of us wearing

our broken people costumes

Our deflated hangdog face masks,

medicinal vapors

pouring out of them

on the outdoor picnic benches

drenched in bitter sun

sipping on what

amounted to bubbling sugar water

Stowing away our

meds in our cheeks

for a stoned winter

Some of us made it,

and some of us will be back

for another round

Two Poems by Jay Passer

2011-10-23T09:31:00.001-07:00

DRAWING FROM LIFE

in the back room of the old shingle factory

they draw furiously

and the model keeps running to the bathroom

to puke

and someone points out how poor the light is

someone else complains that the pose is too rigid

and yet another artiste resents that the model

is constantly running off to puke:

fuckin’ junky!

there in the dusty back room

of the old factory building

where every Thursday night

they draw furiously

as if invoking

the wrecking ball.

NOT A MORNING PERSON

I always end up

stuck in some room

with the lights off

pondering the infinite

shades of darkness

cast in a skull.

the ease in which

prone on my back

I ignore the alarm

of simply being

is enough to blind

every bird alive.

daylight slinks

through drab curtains

as I clutch for reasons

to keep up the farce

the utter travail

and insidious yearning.

I always end up

waiting for the bus

on some dirty street

sun and clouds

like the rent

hanging over my head.

the love of a nihilist asshole by Martin Leonard Freebase

2011-10-23T09:21:00.000-07:00

you are asking me meaningless questions

making me think of things that I would prefer to avoid

you go to work on me with an ax

having a wonderful time of it

singing or rather humming some forgotten tune

sometimes it comes out just like you want it

the mere mechanical business

greasing all of my gears

seeing to it properly

the discomfort is an aid

or a bit of a stimulant

an electric cattle prod up the ass

putting juice to your demonic nature

killing the thinking animal

it is bad to think

I would rather have you feel

I'm not selling hope anymore

it doesn't last

as soon as i open the door

out it runs down the street

and gets hit by a car

then I'm in the middle of the street

crying because hope is dead

eventually I stop buying the shit

and I rip out that part in me

where hope lived

at our feet is an underworld

the first light of the death angel

new ranks are thinning

a hungry tug of desire

your claim for broken substance

standing against the wall

dark whispers reaching down

different words from god

violated by the madness

the stain of a dream

that has always been

a good kind of crazy

one you can sink your teeth into

together again

like dogs and angels

two people across the street

filled with doubt and self-pity

a helpless blue

painted on your heart

it beats a sticky pink

like the gums of angels

before sin enters in

all up and down

deep into the creature

out of the bottom

without a name

hot shooting in a cold medium

out your eye

around the curves

sick with fear

we all know the sleep

in the cemetery of the soul

the curse of death is in the blood

no more locks on your doors

a strange sense of love

your prison is self-made

the truth is your rejection

half torn and numb

a lifetime of mutilation

fight the possibility

beat it out of you

like the raven's quarrel

everything possessed of searching

an unfamiliar turn

in the bitter celebration

an empty victory with spread legs

appearing as if by magic

pushed up so high

the bodies move as a miracle

grinding into each other

higher and high

a child of two continents

death weeps at noon

something real and impossible

the waste of a loaded laugh

here every morning

the people have words to say

but no one wants to hear

we only want to listen to the pretty

dancing images flickering on a screen

burning into our retinas

fabricating a lie in our brains

it is a hostile condition

in their little dresses

carried and deposited by ancient angels

we play upon the frozen rock

it fell from heaven

tiny paralel lives

caught under the massive weight

pinning us down

short and tiny breaths

huge depressions

free reign over your soul

we are weak and swept aside

it is a continual battle

so hard to separate

with see-through eyes

a lovely dance filled with horror

my slaughter house memory

a few more left-handed shoves

hammer beating brains

as true as your insides

the blues into your cup

nothing I could say

someone had stolen my tongue

and it was boiling in a pot of water

sitting on your stove of hate

me inside of everything

my shell shocked and wounded heart

sucking up all that is left

every little morsel

not a crumb for a mouse

trying to hide from my hunger

thinking like a witch or a devil

leaning out your window sill

utterly pressed and depressed

busted layers of angel dust

they come alive inside me

growing through me

reaching the outside world

reaching you

with vacant eyes

using their knives

down sidewalks with beautiful looks

ths is where you slumber

you look uneven

putting you on the floor

the lights are just right

accusing me of hypocrisy

someday you become a productive human being

just like superman

collecting all your gold stars

putting them in this feeling thing

a giver instead of a taker

you were invented

I was trying to be socially responsible

when I ignored you

and placed you in the straightjacket

pointing you towards the lie

afterbirth by Ross Vassilev

2011-10-23T09:07:00.000-07:00

there’s nothing

to do in this town but

scream

I don’t like squirrels

...(angels of blue sky

where the clouds are

gutted)...

I don’t like children

I like empty yellow

cardboard cups

that people leave

standing

beside lonely walls

sometimes

there’s a kind of soft

grey light falling--

tricks of light are

an illusion

they’re the Gods

trying to send out

a frantic S.O.S.

over the Internet

of Time.

The Green River Killer by David S. Pointer

2011-10-11T10:20:00.000-07:00

Once a California mother

repeatedly sold her 12

year old daughter into

prostitution then offered

the girl physical protection

against customer beatings

or other kinky abuse— and

that’s a lot more than any

of the Green River Killer’s

victims ever got, and Gary

Ridgway didn’t bother with

any acid bath body disposal

system, he just dumped all

the corpses atop the land

bodies nearly as numerous

as PCB barrels at a Super-

Fund clean up site in Holden,

Missouri then Green River

Gary reported to work

trying to save fellow

employees from a life

of inexcusable sin.

Timing Is Everything by Cynthia Ruth Lewis

2011-10-11T10:05:00.000-07:00

He wants to take me again tonight

but I am not in the mood;

I haven't been for a long time

but I allow his hands on me

in his clumsy attempt

to get me wet

his hands

like sandpaper on my flesh

and his cock like a red-hot poker

inside me,

pushing and thrusting

and trying to encourage the flames

and I feel nothing

but rubbing and scraping

and I want to blurt out

that I didn't love him anymore;

maybe I never did

and I am holding my breath

and biting my tongue

and fighting a scream

wishing he would finish

and get off me

so I could breathe

and find my voice

and tell him it's no good,

it's just no damned good

but he would probably misunderstand

my words and turn his back

while he nurses

a bruised ego

i’m a sucker by Steve Calamars

2011-09-27T11:19:00.000-07:00

for a bookworm

with a stupid booty

and thick inarticulate

thighs

that open like

suicide doors and

leave me hanging

on their every word

till my heart

turns cold and

my body

goes limp

brain dead

they run psychological

autopsies to determine

what moves me

only to discover

a sex drive that

has me on a

collision course

with hard hearts

and piercing intellects

from learned women

equipped with sharp minds

and bodies curvy as

chess pieces . . .

CLOSE TO PARADISE by Stephanie Smith

2011-09-06T08:53:00.000-07:00

The shit stains in the

toilet look like the

Hawaiian Islands

Cleaning that sucker

later on, you realize

that’s the closest you’ll

probably ever

come to paradise

Doctor, by Andrew J. Stone

2011-09-06T08:41:00.001-07:00

I’ve seen things lately, things that shouldn’t be here. I’m not hallucinating, not yet; I’m just

glimpsing creatures from the corner of my eye. In the bath, with freshly brushed teeth, the mirror

reveals a thing scurrying out of the frame. Or in my car as I turn onto Baker Place, a flash of flesh

shoots into view from behind the fire hydrant and disappears beneath the weeds. They follow me

into bed, wait for my slumber. I’m not paranoid, Doctor, nor am I creating these creatures. They

are real. I’m not sure how much longer they’ll just simply follow. Soon, they’ll consume my

disease.

Two Poems by Sarah Ahm

2011-08-30T12:45:00.000-07:00

Contentment

The salt in your eyes drips

rolling on your right cheek

a whole world of merry demons

as I drown,

pushing my way deep in the miser ocean.

Change

The summer breaks

shattering light,

rays burn

the likelihood of a smile

as barrenness fondles my hand.

Three Poems by Ford Dagenham

2011-08-24T08:28:00.000-07:00

MOVIE GARDEN PM

steel planes scratch straight white flames over the sky.

placing the coffee cup on a chair I pull the chair nearer

with

the

hand

that’s

not

holding

book.

out here in castle grounds the quiet of mowers and the fence kids loud cries of fun and quick horror

form

ambient

movie

will

call

The Sun Is Hot.

pages flare with nuclear glare and when the clock says

5 or 6 or 7 or 8 I will drink something harder.

inside

later

this

happens

and

lonely and empty things riot on the borders of plastic zen.

quiet finger-winds blow on yellow brick outside.

this forms an ambient movie I call

The

Witness

Mute

TV.

stare at the phone ringing like a fool in a movie

I call Black And White Coda.

ACCIDENT IN THE HOME

hammers from hard ground going at it in my head.

the

house

full

of howling dogs today.

whisky hangover again I never learn.

near gone gin bottle falling off the fridge

breaks

left index toe.

I say

CUNT!

28 times

then open some wine

and

watch

change

colours

and

swell.

NURSES

work in a hospital eye always out for a compassionate and giving nurse

with

sparkles

intelligence

her

tawny

eyes

but even all the rough and large ones have dull and bald men

drop

them off in the morning.

Teeth. by Devlin De La Chapa

2011-08-24T07:55:00.000-07:00

The movie star scribbled autographs, posed for pictures, shook hands with his counter elite, then

he went home and drank himself into a stupor. He despised his life. He loathed his wife. But he

loved his teeth. They were ultra white. Sleek. And perfect. His climb to stardom began in a “Close-

up” toothpaste commercial. His decline in stardom happened when he “air-jerked-off” while in a

rock band to a crowd of misspent youths who’s mama’s and papa’s tried to sue him for everything

he didn’t have. After a year of drinking and falling and getting back up, he stumbled into an agency

to beg the receptionist for a five to buy a forty but ended up signing a contract worth thousands

instead when the agent behind the receptionist jerked-off to the magnificence of his teeth. He was

now able to buy every forty in the liquor store around the corner.

New Job in a Small Office by Donal Mahoney

2011-08-17T18:19:00.000-07:00

Third day on the new job and Sue calls.

Will I hurry home and sit with our daughter

while she runs with Sean to the doctor.

I tell the boss why I’m leaving.

He says too bad about the boy and calls

the timekeeper who marks his ledger

and begins to keen for the parents

and for the deaf mute bobbing in the back room

stuffing envelopes and licking them.

I’m four tiles away from the front door

when my co-workers rise from their desks,

zipping their flies, changing their tampons.

They sing, a cappella,

“We’re all going with you.”

Except for the receptionist

who is eight months pregnant.

Her nails are chipping,

her ankles are swelling.

She sits all day, eyes

on the switchboard, ears in receivers,

her stomach a zeppelin

a moment from lift-off.

When the others rush out the door

it’s too much: She screams, throws her

breasts in the air like beach balls

and cries, “What soul among you cares:

For months my vagina’s been itching.”

Three Poems by John Tustin

2011-08-15T17:27:00.000-07:00

AWAY FROM ME

Little Chinese chicks in striped socks

on their way to school

away from me

Young teachers

in flimsy summer dresses

taking my baby

walking away from me

The rainbow of high school girls

outside Dunkin Donuts

chattering, waving their hands

silken legs, animated faces

turning their heads

away from me

On the bus

on the street

in the window

white and peach

and yellow

and brown and brown

As I age

as I wither

as I ponder

as my eyes darken

in dim energy and inactivity

they turn further and further

away from me

11 YEARS AND COUNTING IT ON THE CELL WALLS

I’ve never been to prison.

Never been locked up.

Never been on the streets.

Or had a tooth knocked out.

Never had cancer.

Never been in the hospital overnight.

But I have been married.

And that’s hard time.

THERE’S A MADMAN IN MY SKIN

There’s a madman in my skin

picking at the scabs

needling the scars

fingering the sores

There’s a madman in my clothes

getting jerked off by whores

hating them

calling them bitches under our breath

There’s a madman behind my eyes

eating subtle poisons

popping pills

not sleeping

There’s a madman in my bed

leaving come stains

and half-formed thoughts

obsessed with legs

with feet

with lips with hips

with eyes with thighs

There’s a madman beneath my heart

scratching our balls

talking to ourself

singing the same songs

to earless heads

to blank expressions

to canceled faces

There’s a madman in my smile

wearing a mask the world cannot look through

we cannot see beyond

eyes wrapped in gray gauze

with barely the strength

to hug the kids goodnight

There’s a madman in my skin

dying to get out

dying to die

Two Pieces by Michael Frissore

2011-08-15T17:10:00.000-07:00

Oven

They order scotch on the rocks until they shit Michelangelo’s David. He glances Wanna fuck, she

does a Groucho Marx impression using the tampon that fell out of her purse. There are dirt and

leaves all over the floor of his room, and a refrigerator, no door. In the kitchen he bends over

like her father – head first into the open oven. Like his own father. She can’t win here. She

spanks him and says Move over.

Wax

Her moustache is sexier than any man’s, including Rollie Fingers. Many hover, wanting to pluck,

thinking it’s painted on. Others ask her where Higgins and TC are. Still others are her son, her

mechanic, people who gave her blumpkins before she became a she. Their hands retreat, hoping

her ‘stache won’t eat their beards. She laughs because she knows this is a Woody Allen line.

Still it hurts because that’s how she lost her beard.

Two Poems by Zach Wilson

2011-08-14T20:18:00.000-07:00

Can I Buy Salvation With A Visa?

Fuck.

God says,

cash only.

And Donne says reason is our soul's left hand,

faith her right.

That makes me a paraplegic,

soul bled out from the screams

of my mother's womb.

Circumcision truly is a bitch.

And if final hope is

indeed flat despair;

I've been sleeping

in the palm of Armageddon

for far too long.

Don't wake me,

no.

I'll find my way back

to the crumbs of this

clumsy living

with a hand. - Yes,

thats all

anyone needs.

I flat-lined at hello

and waned

at goodbye.

Shortcut

Break a line,

maybe of poetry,

or geometric

axioms.

Break a line of power,

emanating electricity

or one of corruption.

Break a line of formation,

one of warfare,

or intellectual paradigms.

Break a line of genealogy,

or the expectation that follows.

For the art

of Breaking

is a freedom,

and Point A to Point B

is shortest distance

to nowhere.

Three Poems by Paul Hellweg

2011-08-14T17:37:00.000-07:00

Reading Bukowski Backwards

It’s been said we read to know

we’re not alone. Hungover,

breakfast at Mike’s Diner,

chipped-cup coffee, black, strong,

bring it on, bring it on.

Tried reading my favorite poet backwards,

caffeinated fields of asphodel,

my beloved skid row elocutionist

read like a Jedi Master, green,

wisdom for now, truth for the ages.

From the poem, the last winter:

“Now long too

waited have I,

on it bring, on it bring,

agree can we now ...”

Up, down, backwards, forwards,

direction matters little,

poetry inspires, words resonate.

Seeking affinity anywhere, I’m desperate

for the one and only message

every spirit craves, every soul needs, and

until I find it, I’d like another cup of coffee

and one more good poem, black, strong.

Breakfast at the Local Diner

Attractive young women peddling death,

cholesterol, bane of arteries young and old,

refined carbs, ticket to front-row seat

at the next diabetes fund-raiser.

Bacon, eggs, pancakes,

ample butter, extra syrup,

delectable as the servers,

sweet, friendly, earnest,

low-cut uniforms,

Wonder Bread breasts and

leave-me-a-big-tip eyes.

I only go there hungover,

these days all too frequent,

the artery-clogging fare and

a twenty-something’s smile

antidote to life’s pain.

This morning, that is enough.

God Is On Our Side, but Where’s Buddha?

June 1968, year of the Monkey,

mud-brick hooch thatched with rice straw,

dirt floor, dirt yard,

yellow-skinned babe toddling bottomless,

defecating anywhere, anytime the urge arises,

mama-san rushing over,

dangling babe by arms,

no Pampers, just mongrel mutt

delighted to eat the mess and lick clean

blissful baby butt.

Seeing that, on routine patrol,

armed with M-16s and

all the best firepower technology had yet

been able to muster,

we gagged and berated and condemned,

but mostly gagged.

They’re the Other, we thought, not one of us.

We’re civilized,

we have disposable diapers choking our landfills

and a proper sense of shame

when it comes to bodily functions,

not to mention B-52s capable of bombing

this shithole country back into the Stone Age.

June 2011, year of the Hare

three boilermakers thus far tonight,

desire strong to write a poem based on

the theme of forgiveness, but

whom do I forgive?

Them, for shooting me, or

myself, for allowing all that horror

into my life?

What I really needed was sufficient courage

to just say “No thank you, Sir”

when my dear uncle Samuel

requested my attendance

at his then current tea party,

the one in Southeast Asia,

3.5 million human beings destined to die

for the sake of our myopic national interests.

Old, young, male, female, babes without diapers,

they were the Other, them, not us, but

most of “them” didn’t have

the option to say no,

not when we brought the war

to their doorsteps and

didn’t even knock before entering.

Two Poems by Mike Meraz

2011-08-14T17:11:00.000-07:00

Somewhere Between God And The Devil

somewhere between God and the devil

each man searches

for his own niche, his own groove

in the pavement of life.

(some find it, some don't).

somewhere between God and the devil

each woman searches for a man

who has found his own niche, his own groove

in the pavement of life.

(some find him, some don't).

Cheap Ass Poem On A Friday Night Because I Was Bored

this is my

"now I'm really pissed off" hair cut

and these are my

"never been in your room" shoes

and this is my

"everywhere but in the national publications" pen

and these are my

"never will be immortal" thoughts

being read by your

"how does he get away with this shit" eyes.

For Gram Parsons by Melanie Browne

2011-08-11T16:40:00.000-07:00

Tonight I decorate

my bar with paper lanterns,

and listen to The Burrito Brothers’

Dark end of the street

I finish off a Bud Light

and staple the

last glowing orb in place

I stare up at

The lanterns,

their colors like

a dirty cantina

paper devils,

ominous and dangerous,

throw our silhouettes

around the room,

each one becomes

UFO-like,

Spinning off

Into the wilderness,

until it’s

only the night,

the imaginary stars,

and more

luke-warm beer

Twisted Or The 1,287 Word Sentence In William Faulkner's Absalom! Absalom! by Catfish McDaris

2011-08-03T16:31:00.000-07:00

I sat trying to think of titles

Pop That Thang

Pop That Ugly Thang

Jackalope Mambo

Mezcalito Mambo

Magpie Jones

Wolfman Funk

Naked Tattoo Douchebag

The Douchebag Gargle

Fingerfucking The World

I'd Love To Eat Your Mother

Vagina Jones

Horsedick Mambo

Bald Pussy Itch

Pussy Fart Blues

Nipple Cunt Funk

Something else came about,

I knew Burroughs had used

guns & paint to create, I'd try

something with a twist like

Chubby Checker's peppermints

I wrapped 50 thumbtacks & 7

shotgun shells in a roll of

aluminum foil & surrounded it

with 8 cans of spray paint in

rainbow hues, then I placed

Sheets of canvas in all directions,

surrounding the microwave & I

juiced it up with an extension cord

Just before I could crank it, my lady

came home, I was cursed in 3

languages & my rocket never

left my pocket.

scribbling like a symphony by Steve Calamars

2011-08-03T16:24:00.000-07:00

i feel these girls

out like rubik’s cubes

and then i feel them up

like braille picassos

almost reading their minds

i thumb thru their thoughts

and ear-mark their insecurities

getting inside their heads

i pour over past pains like

passports and catch a train

of thought straight to their hearts

where i piece together their

pensiveness like a puzzle

creating mental pictures of happiness

that thru their imaginations look

more like masterpieces and less

like the crudely traced knock-offs

they actually are—

And I didn’t want to be a writer, anyway by Melanie Browne

2011-07-31T16:40:00.000-07:00

And I don’t have a dick

And I have a husband and kids,

And I’m from the south

And I don’t hate Jesus

And I don’t care about gay marriage,

Because, frankly,

It isn’t that interesting,

And I like grits,

And I have a tattoo

On my shoulder that

Says Rebel Yell

And I put it out on the

Internet,

For no good reason,

I think I just wanted some

Attention,

Which is the same reason

I am writing this poem

if the spirit moves you by Mat Gould

2011-07-30T12:45:00.000-07:00

huddled away from a soft rain

waiting out its drifting hour

giving ourselves back to another day

spring was long over and somehow the summer was in the middle of ending

yet still full of long nights having an affair with the dallying sun

lovers that must part but are holding on

as they too are waiting out the drifting hour

I speak of such easily

all of this

waiting it out

waiting for what?

I am only certain of nothing so much as the drunken later-

Three Poems by Justin Hyde

2011-07-17T09:25:00.000-07:00

sociology

see the twenty-two year olds

huddled around the pool table

burgeoning dictators

cock-strong

ignorant like

bullets.

see the forty-five year olds

leaning over their beers in silence

smoke

mortar

the impotence of defeat

ringing in their ears.

see the thirty year olds

paranoid

caught on both sides

like deer

hung up

in barbed wire.

watch closely

the leopard eyed women

scattered amongst them

like leeches.

the old red barn

they'd bus in

blacks

from cedar rapids

to play horns

farmer was the sheriff's brother

no trouble there

back pasture full of cars

ames des-moines huxley bondurant

even see plates

from kossuth and wapsecon county

blacks would start

playin the horns

farmer selling milk pails

full of beer

for a quarter

ladies of the night

with blankets

working overtime

out in the pastures

we all got our

pickles popped

at the old red barn

then saturday night

sitting with our girlfriends

watching lawrence welk

in their parent's living room

heads still spinning

from cigarettes

the long hair

in sandals sold us

lawrence playing bubbles

or something else square

we'd be holding their hands

cause that's as far as

they'd let us go

one of us would start laughing

then we'd all fall in

what's funny? the girls would ask

what's so

all gone funny?

they'd get angry

stomping their feet

old dad

yelling down

from the top of the stairs

pipe down

or he'd

toss us out

with the cat.

cattle call

the people

are lonely

but their loneliness

is not sacred

not learned

or aged.

it's banal

like the inside

of a styrofoam

cup.

their love

is faceless

nameless

a blind

stupid force

two magnets

in a

clutch.

Three Poems by Leeroy Berlin

2011-07-07T05:42:00.000-07:00

the devil you know

there's a devil in the corner

in a dark, well-tailored suit

watching me. wears a fedora and

smokes a Dominican Upmann

eyes and ember glowing

he's not so fond of Zevon as I am

he follows me around

and likes to leap from the

dark places of the world,

grip me by the throat, and

make me listen.

there's a devil in the corner

he keeps telling stories

to no one in particular.

it’s just me, him, and the empty room

punctuated by a clacking keyboard

and a soft electric glow

that makes the folding chairs

and empty floor seem lonelier.

there’s a devil in the corner

he followed me last night and

snuck into the back seat of my car and waited

until I was whipping around the bend

he reached forward fingers tight

around my neck and screamed

because even the devil wants

to see an end to all of this.

there's a devil in the corner

and for now we drink together

and each beer wraps him in

a little more darkness

we're used to each other

and to the smoldering hate

familiarity breeds attachment

so I lift my beer and smile

Not tonight old friend, not tonight.

dead trees and ink

I'm sitting on the floor

surrounded by loosed sheets

printed with words I wrote

once

and remember

the tears

sweat

piss

jizz

and blood.

Writing one once

I tossed my laptop out a second-story window

furious that syllables refused to bend with me.

Another fell out, like some small thing lost in a suitcase,

from a week-long vicodin binge

self-prescribed for acute cardiac fracture.

I pick one up that's laying next to me and remember

how it stumbled from my fingertips

fifty-three hours after the last time I'd slept.

There in the corner I see the bastard

child of a bottle and a half of gin

and the realization that she wasn't coming back.

I poured into all of them

everything I knew de los cojones

but now I read them and

I don't feel what I used to feel

I see dead trees and ink.

It's like meeting a woman

you used to fuck

and when you told her you loved her

she left

meeting her years later and

you don't feel what you used to feel

you see this stranger who reminds you

that you can't get those feelings back.

miles of asphalt and heart-break

as I roll past Skirball

crane my neck to look

she lives down that road

half a mile, then a right

the house is just out of view from the 405

and it's not the smog

that stops my breath

or the shattering glass

crunch of steel

that stops my heart

but those things don't help.

HOW DOES A FELLA GET HIS GROOVE BACK? by Jason Ryberg

2011-06-26T09:42:00.000-07:00

Oh it’s all well and good
when the world helps a sad lady
get back on her feet again
and truly start to believe again
and laugh out loud
in the wide-open-like-a-flower,
sun is shining,
birds are singing
outside world again
and takes her out dancin'
and buys her drinks
and shows her the glittering path
to new and fabulous romance.

But, how does a fella
get his groove back,

his moves,
his verve,
his nerve to follow through
on the follow-through,

or, is he like a race horse
come up lame
or a ball player
that's lost his game,
for most intents and purposes, ruined?

That is to say,
once he starts losin'
(and losin'
and losin')
is he doomed
to keep on losin'
and with little hope
for some new precedent set
to stop his slow, grinding
wounded-submarine-on-the-side
-of-an-undersea-canyon-like descent
into the funky, foul-smelling pit
of compounded booganism?

And if (as some would say)
a man is his game,
his moves,
his groove,
and the groove
is what maketh the man,
then is a man that's lost his groove
less than a man;

maybe a bumbling, buffoonish,
fundamentally clueless
BeaverCleaver/CharlieBrown
hybrid kind of a man,

a mildly amusing Charlie Chaplin tramp
or Giligan-esque court jester always good
for a tumbling pratfall kind of a man,

maybe a skittish little Woody Allen
without the jokes or geeky, boyish charm kind of a man
or a poor Little Oliver with wide, hopeful
kitten eyes and empty bowl kind of a man,

a "right away, on the double, sir" kind of man,
an "of course I wouldn't mind
dancing your Cutty and water
over to you, sir" kind of man,
a "my lord, the Royal Chef assures me
your Hasenpfeffer should be ready
any minute now" kind of man.

And whereby and therefore (in accordance
with the universal laws of God, woman
and natural selection),
should anyone but this man's mama
really even give a damn?

And once the “It,”
Which so vitally composes and contributes
To “The Shit” (which it seems he must
At all times and with supreme
universal confidence
Believe himself to be), is lost
is there really any chance
of getting it back again,

any probability or possibility
of hope, left in Pandora's
little black grab bag,
for a monkey-boy to be a man again?

Or, is a man,
once his spirit and stature
have been properly dismantled
(and the parts all sold for scrap),
best led out back behind the wood shed
or to an open pasture, somewhere,
and the fabled diamond bullet
of clarity put through his head?

'Cause sometimes there seems to be
a mighty fine line between
the merely walking wounded

and the dead that just don't know
they're dead.

Two Poems by Stephanie Smith

2011-06-26T09:18:00.000-07:00

CORRUPTION

Your ignorance confounds me

I corrupt your closed-in world
with a shot of cum in your mouth

And some eye candy

The death of your friends

And everything you’ve known
to be safe and secure
and comfortable in your home

WHEN A MAN IS DEAD

When a man is dead
he does not rise
to check the morning mail
He doesn’t barge in
on his wife and her lover
lying naked in the bed they shared
before he put a pistol
to his head

Facing West by A.g. Synclair

2011-06-26T09:07:00.000-07:00

The Jazz station is playing Chet Baker
something recorded near the end of his life
he sounded like chocolate
if chocolate
was ravaged by heroin
and time.

In Europe, Jazz is revered
crowds jam darkened doorways
and tiny tables lit by unscented candles
at clubs like Ronnie Scott's
or The Vortex
which could also be a metaphor for all of this.

The shoulder cracks under the weight
I stop for a moment to consider the red sky
and why they jump from buildings
Baker, McCorkle....
they wore their scars
softly, I think

like rain.

The Party Animal #2 by Paul Hellweg

2011-06-02T18:31:00.000-07:00

Went to a party last night,
second time in as many years.
Room heavy, sweaty, warm,
jostling, bumping, squeezing through,
“excuse me” the most frequent words,
no place for a wallflower to hide.
Free wine, all you could want, but
ate dinner before, too full to drink,
too depressed to chat,
too self-conscious to flirt.
Wanted to leave immediately,
forced myself to stay an hour,
remembering my therapist’s words,
people unwilling to face their fears
risk living
isolated and withdrawn lives.

But what about those of us
who go out and brave
that bewildering world
other people inhabit, only to find
it’s not for us?

Two Poems by Ford Dagenham

2011-06-02T16:24:00.000-07:00

APPLIANCE TIMES MAY VARY

apparently my Time is NOW.
my Life; NOW.
in this weird slot straddling centuries
but
appliance times may vary.

radio on back door open occasionally a friend will call. her

again new black underwear.
listen to blackbird cry out flies slowly over.
Life Fire and the Death TV.
whisky flows softly to douse the burnout of my brain.
appliance times may vary.

I attempt Werds to not die useless
but its all coming out as barren self portraits
because
appliance times may vary.

Write New and Write Again- yes
tonight there will be drugs
but
tomorrow I work at the desk coffee cups and small lamp.
must Write Werds like burning forest painting ash on flowers.

must not die useless don’t know how long I have
because
appliance times may vary.

PLASTIC BUDDHA

these loose easy hot coffee days shine like a Mars.
but
the evenings!
the nights!
are slow cold
are stale tired
are difficult and stubborn.

attempt to file accurate reports when home safe.
but
uninspired!
dead!
awful blank head!
demented clock hands spin round I am sitting in the kitchen

hands still as stone.
midnight
comes
minutes
after
4 pm.

so light so late sky rich deep rock blue blooms black
when
the
orange
feathers
fade.
air is empty eager for autumn to rush in and die.

Two Poems by Donal Mahoney

2011-05-30T06:05:00.000-07:00

The Deli On Granville

I lived in the attic back then,
and late those evenings I had to study
and couldn't afford to go drinking
I'd run down to the deli and buy

bagels and smoked lox.
I'd watch the lame son
wrap each item in white paper
while his father, coughing at the register,

pointed to the cans on the wall
and screamed, "Serve yourself! Serve yourself!"
I'd grab a tin of baked beans and he'd smile.
Now, years later, I return to the deli

and find that it's closed.
The sign on the door confirms
what everyone else already knows:
There has been a death in the family.

Father: Every Morning of His Life

The cup he took his tea from
all those years was Army surplus,
made of tin. It whirred

to the spoon he wound in it
15 times per lump of sugar.
We who slept in rooms just off

the kitchen rose like ghosts
to the winding of that spoon.
In my house, now, mornings

Sue’s the first downstairs. She
scalds the leaves and wonders:
Will the winding ever end?

Three Poems by Sarah Marie Miller

2011-05-28T00:41:00.000-07:00

a moon painting in spain.

and the she

gets uncomfortably close

colors blurring the lines till they

become muddy hues muddy uncomfortable hues

til one day she sees a light raises her eyes realizes

art is her meditation realization of truth of life of getting
back to real to feel to remember to forget
she frowns a brown frown at the colors she has made
paints it black

starting from the neck of the dove who dared to
disappoint
in hungry dark chocolate hues
runs away

cries a glass of tears in your waterpark blues

homesick subterranean alien

moldementional.

everything in here smells old. moldy. filthy and covered in sweat from the seventies. sixties. my parents when they were my age and horny.
it is suede it is maroon. it is cracked and dry. it is my skin. it is my chimney stopped up for decades for fear of tenants burning the damn building down. utopia. thats what they called my apartment building. in nineteen twenty. when ladies had creme coloured lace gloves and wore perfume and crossed their legs.

whats that mold causes dementia.

(if i pull this last bit of nail off i will bleed.

i have to pull it off.)

kinkos.

in line with ipod ears buzzing signs flash buy this overpriced banner
a woman dressed to kill .herself. with some feathers and is that a clothespin sticking out of her head
a man with sportscoat and store-bought wrinkles ironed into the back of his stonewashed gap jeans

inside i am laughing at everyone and somber as can be

on the walk home i shoot out a first floor office window to push the button on the monitor of a computer left on overnight.

(to save electricity.)

A beautiful song, just beautiful… by William J Fedigan

2011-05-03T18:16:00.000-07:00

Michael says he sings to cancer, says cancer sings to him.

Michael says cancer is a woman. Michael says she loves him, says he

loves her.

Michael says she will kill him. He tells Jimmy:

-I sing to her, Jimmy. I sing a beautiful song, Jimmy, just

beautiful…

-OK.

-She sings to me, Jimmy. She sings a beautiful song, Jimmy,

just beautiful… Can you hear the song?

-Sure.

-We love each other, Jimmy.

-OK.

-She will kill me, Jimmy.

-OK.

Michael and Jimmy on Ward B, basement.

Michael on Ward because he sings to cancer, hears cancer sing

to him. Jimmy on Ward because he wants to kill self. Jimmy tells ER

doc he wants to kill self. Jimmy gets 14 days on Ward B. 14 days.

Jimmy likes Michael’s song. Beautiful song.

-My mother sang a beautiful song, Jimmy, just beautiful…I wish

you could have heard her…beautiful song, just beautiful…

-Delusional, doc says.

Doc puts Michael on different meds, heavy meds. Meds don’t

work. Michael sings beautiful song.

-Tell him to shut the fuck up! Mouse says to Jimmy. Anger issues.

-He’s just singing to himself, Jimmy tells Mouse.

-Fuck you and fuck him! Mouse says. Anger issues. Assault with

intent to kill.

-Any thoughts of suicide, Jimmy? doc asks.

-No. Feel good.

-Any thoughts of hurting yourself, Jimmy? doc asks.

-No. Feel good, Jimmy says.

Jimmy discharged. Jimmy out. Week later Mouse out. Jimmy

sees Mouse in park. Mouse looks for clean butts on ground. Finds clean

butt with good tread left. Mouse cleans it off, fires it up.

Jimmy asks about Michael.

-How’s Michael doing? Jimmy asks Mouse.

-The asshole’s dead, Mouse says.

-What?

-He’s dead.

-Cancer? Was it cancer?

-He hung himself with a bed sheet.

-What?

-He says over and over he hears his mother. She sings to me, he

says, it’s a beautiful song, he says, just beautiful… next thing doc and

nurses running around. Code Blue, crash cart…dead.

-Shit.

Jimmy walks away.

Jimmy listens.

Jimmy listens for her voice.

Jimmy listens for her song. Beautiful song, just beautiful…

Three Poems by Jonathan Butcher

2011-04-26T18:02:00.000-07:00

Spare Time

We walk over the pavements that display

a crude mosaic of chewing gum, needles

and half dead pigeons.

I know that mountains reside here, that

fields now entombed with concrete offer

a catacomb only visible through aged eyes.

As our coats hang loose, the change in

our pockets jangle, just enough ammo to

pass this free time, that we never hold

sacred enough.

It now frees us momentarily from the iron traps

that have become far more comfortable than

we ever anticipated.

No need now for those once consistent

breakouts, as the waters now run at our pace,

not theirs.

Morning Rush

That afternoon pacing towards work, in

frantic lateness I saw the gathered crowds.

He was spread across the curb; ironed

polo shirt, clean shaved, gelled hair,

knife wound in his left side.

The red river at his feet seemed to glisten,

reflecting the torrid tale of the hour previous,

as the air thickened within the crowd, like

a fog with the power to deafen as well as blind.

The crowd then dispersed, no two eyes meeting,

chatter suddenly erupted, as the help arrived

neither asking for or gaining assistance.

Within time's jaws we left him, in that waiting

room of ours, our responsibilities waving their

flags at yet another parade of delays.

Curtains

You hang oblivious, dust encrusted, a foul design

job, left over by previous irresponsible occupiers.

Hanging limp, like flaked skin, your rail fractured

like a soot covered broken spine.

When appropriate wipe away tears on your ends,

that are soaked into your fabric, and drank with gusto.

The cracked windows know you all to well, know

your almost smug like presence is really just

a cover for the secrets you hold.

And for all your time there, tying up the room,

you still don't fit the windows.

Two Poems by Jay Passer

2011-04-18T08:34:00.000-07:00

MORNING EXTINCTION

In the shuttered darkness

Of a kitchenette

I’m nodding in the morning

And the world resistant to

My leap out the window

Into emptied lake of street

Into welcome menace of mortuary stillness

Adrift and misanthropic

When the blam-blam alarm

And landing splat in a pratfall

Shattering café idleness

Of urban mamas yapping Chihuahuas

And babies with pinched pink faces

Fate of the free world bundled into strollers

Screaming WA-WA! cuddly soldiers-to-be

In training from the potty seat to guzzle the dream

At a ratio of tit versus

Miles per gallon

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Uranium to critical mass

That’s all you need to remember

No doubt about it, the world is nearing its finale

I hear trees whispering about it in foreign languages

Here I sit with dice and cup

I can’t afford insurance.

This, This is an African Moment by Amit Parmessur

2011-04-13T18:53:00.000-07:00

Lighting a crooked cigarette in a bus overfed

with bushed Sunday people. The young conductor

too effeminate to bring back order, with the smoke

stirring silent angry looks.

Sipping some stale

Coca-Cola while being already drunk, with the

body swaying to every whim of a hungry bus driver.

Watching then the tragic landscape

for a bit of elusive escapism.

Feeling too hot, and a bit frustrated

with someone’s beautiful wife sitting just in front.

Trying to swear in a language not resembling the

mother tongue but that of a faraway father’s habit.

Falling asleep after a few drags on the cigarette

that rebels and falls down

after being left alone between stinking fingers

as good as dry ladyfingers without balls.

Being laughed at by neighbors,

by well-dressed and perfumed neighbors

with intentions darker than lethal black ants.

Waking up to have a second drag on a cigarette

that is missing. Starting to

swear heroically, searching for the cigarette that

has rolled into someone else’s temporary territory.

Aggravating the situation by releasing

from the pocket a handful of stolen,

old and bent coins onto the ground, with them rolling

everywhere like the rapid shells of paralyzed tortoises.

After Pancakes (Cause and Effect) by Charlotte Beard

2011-04-11T01:46:00.000-07:00

During the car ride uninterrupted by

cell phone-talkers, my father's

pinky snare and index crash tapped

loudly on the steering wheel.

I played air-piano.

He silenced his other children in the back seat

so he could hear me sing loudly, in perfect-pitch,

gesturing during the chorus.

My sisters sat with their arms crossed, rolling their eyes.

My brother scowled and leaned his freckled forehead

against the vibrating window.

"Get over here, Fat Bitch!"

My brother, standing at the top of the stairs

psoriasis-covered arms

embracing a blue sleeping bag.

I ran up the stairs to the back of our makeshift line

behind my laughing sisters.

James began his face-first slide

onto the downstairs landing.

Three Poems by James D Quinton

2011-04-08T14:43:00.000-07:00

hell is other people

I find that nothing

ever gets beyond

anticipation

missing the freedom

of childhood,

the relinquishment

of responsibility

honesty dissolves

into telephone lies

nodding and smiling

nothing to say

blank blue eyes

three chord songs

blisters on my fingertips

hibernating in summer

fear of traffic jams

and exchanges

hopes and dreams of a young girl lost

daddy and mummy

must be proud,

twenty-something year old

daughter on late night telly

humping and grinding

in bra and panties

fake tanned flesh exposed

thrusting wildly at the camera

beauty lost

enhanced, airbrushed

disfigured with products and surgery

on explicit pictures

that can be sent to my phone

selling herself

(sigh)

it’s all in an evening’s work

I’m fascinated, not titillated

she gyrates, gestures

sound off, she talks

she shakes,

pulls at her body,

contorts her face

pretends she’s being…

trying to make herself alluring

waving a nokia

trying to get me to phone

£2 a minute and

£1.50 connection fee

and I want to call

and tell her about

Jesus, Gandhi

about another way, the light

about recapturing innocence

when the mike comes on

I’m surprised

her voice eloquent

she tells me what’s on offer

what the other girls are up to

signing off with

‘naughty kisses’

I look into her eyes,

I think I see sadness

I wonder what her

seven year old self

would say

if she where to see

her hopes

and dreams

lost

when love turns pornographic

rare, banished in the literati

the simplest language communicates

the most complicated feelings

slogans, red paint, brick walls

blood stains white cloth

Two Poems by John Tustin

2011-04-04T15:33:00.000-07:00

JOHN'S LIFE

The review are pouring

halfway through the season

of “John’s Life,”:

an unmitigated disaster!

A situation comedy more sad

than funny.

Poorly acted, sparsely staged,

the villain too evil to be believed,

the hero unlovable.

Like watching a car wreck

in slow motion.

The only bright spot

those two up-and-comers,

ages five and two.

Maybe they can spin off successfully,

giving viewers something beyond

a numb ass

and a bad memory.

HORSES ARE BEAUTIFUL

Horses are beautiful,

contentedly snorting, coats glimmering

as they eat their hay.

Cicadas are beautiful,

making chittering calls in the sycamores,

flicking lizard-like wings

for eagerly waiting lovers.

Sparrows are beautiful,

battling pigeons for crusts and turf,

losing and trying,

frenetically grabbing.

Pigs are beautiful.

Geckos are beautiful.

Suckerfish are beautiful.

People are not beautiful.

Three Poems by Stephanie Smith

2011-03-26T10:01:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-18T22:56:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-18T22:52:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-18T04:05:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-16T13:24:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-12T05:24:00.000-08:00

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

2011-03-09T13:36:00.000-08:00

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

2011-03-07T11:32:00.000-08:00

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

2011-03-07T11:29:00.000-08:00

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

2011-03-02T11:23:00.000-08:00

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.

Two Pieces by Luca Penne

2011-02-28T18:44:00.000-08:00

In the Flood Zone

Most of the roads go nowhere, the bridges out but replaced by flimsy plank excuses, the asphalt stripped to reveal boulders abandoned by glaciers eleven thousand years ago, before anyone had learned to read the bible. Downtown, dirt tracks intersect among buildings wrecked and lacking facades. Only the pharmacy remains open. Ken in white jacket disperses painkillers in blue, pink, and green. Behind the shops the canal sulks in muddy withdrawal. Beyond and parallel, the railroad high on its embankment still functions. Long freight trains from Canada rattle past. Nothing derails the rush of commerce, but the town no longer pulses with corruption. The realtors and selectmen have drowned, the lawyers have slunk away. Big houses built by speculators collapsed when foundations cracked and the wetlands had their revenge. Nothing left to brag about. The state and federal governments looked, promised, and left. The last adolescent lovers claim a half-toppled house for their noisy, feverish sex. The child they’ll abort will ghost above the ruins forever. But once the roads repave themselves and new speculators enrich themselves that spirit will tatter like a flag of surrender. The winter light hangs overhead in sallow tones unflattering to survivors.

Guppy Adrift

His brittle fins look frail as mica. “Throw that thing out,” you say. But guppy looks clairvoyant in death. Not like tea leaves, though. Instead of sinking he floats like a compass needle. He doesn’t point north but toward the sea. “Get that thing out of the tank before it poisons the other fish.” A pair of angelfish nose the carcass. Guppy swells a little, and then, as we stare at him, pops. Yellow scum leaks from the split seam. Disgusted, you scoop with your empty coffee cup and corral the mess. “I’m tired of cleaning up your little disasters,” you observe. The angelfish nose up to the surface, blowing tiny bubbles. They seem disappointed that the carcass has disappeared. I think they were happy that guppy bloated and died. You look at me sideways, hoping that when I die you’re far away, enjoying the tropical sun.

Two Poems by William Doreski

2011-02-26T14:31:00.000-08:00

Talking to the Hanged Man

The small crowd disperses. The air
hums with fragmented hymns. Sunday
always feels too vague, the hills
burdened with what Yeats called “autumn
glory” and others call “sorrow
of leaf-fall.” Somewhere a python
digests a full-grown man. Somewhere
a bomb erupts in a trash can.
Somewhere a mob of rapists
plots to ravish a tiny village
where the men have died in war.

Here in the brassy roadside weeds
of New Hampshire, plastic bottles
sulk unredeemed, little crimes
that define us. I consume
more than my share of culture,
but like the snake spend little time
with mastication and far too long
with digestion. This afternoon
the slant of light re-sculpts the trees
to suggest a Halloween terror
not even tiny children believe
but everyone wishes were real.

I recall the garage down the street
where a man hanged himself to prove
his love for his unfaithful wife.
More than half a century ago
I tormented myself by staring
into the dark of that ruin
until I saw the hanged man hanging
and forced him to catch my eye.
The creak of rope on rafter
still lingers. The whisk and shudder
of windy leaves across the highway
suggests many lost conversations;
but my foolish attempt to talk
to that hanged man is my only
instance of self-defining speech.

Guzzling Red Wine with Woody

A restaurant-bar off Broadway.
Guzzling red wine with Woody,
I rant about bell curves, pensions,

and the state of the arts. The waiter
blushes when I claim Boolean
algebra has sinned against the heart.

Woody nods, scanning the room.
His red hair has faded, leaving
his lumpy features exposed.

I want to explain why photographs
trump the landscape of the body
in a truly hedonistic world.

But the words become silt choking
a famous river in Europe,
and the English language resists

my palate, assuming sharp angles
derived from Greek. Woody sighs,
recalling his many lost loves.

They don’t stay lost, their faces
drifting over Central Park, their smiles
busy as chemical sunsets,

their angelic poses threatening.
I explain in sharp-cornered speech
why love between men and women

no longer seems as natural
as garnets blossoming in schist,
and describe a paradigm shaped more

like a haunted house, every room
glowing blue and uttering groans.
Woody doesn’t dispute me,

but we’ve drained two expensive bottles
of cabernet, and the opera begins
in ten minutes. The waiter, pleased

with his tip, waves us goodbye,
and our last tatters of small talk
leave hints of tears in his eyes.

Two Poems by Gordon Mason

2011-02-20T13:58:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I dream in Spanish

Sometimes I dream in Spanish,
an impression in my pillow.

Here I am a passenger
of my inner thoughts,

the tallest voice
in a village constructed

from bricks of my past.
I bite into fragile fruit

stolen from mute wasps
and sit in my guilt

with voices like fingernails
to pick at my neck.

Their words are my island’s
and I am the stranger,

chaotic with verbs
and letters of sleep.

Flight from Frankfurt

His head is buried
in Aldous Huxley;
his feet are buried
in twelve buckle leather boots.

Huxley is open
at page 23;
his right boot is open
from toe to instep.

Huxley in paperback;
sole in loose-leaf.

Two Poems by Stephanie Smith

2011-02-15T13:41:00.000-08:00

GUILTY

They say we all have to begin somewhere
A little speck captured in a sonogram
grows into the teenager
you want to slap in the face

I found my wife bathing in the sink again
I can tell she’s had sex with the neighbor
She can no longer sit in the tub because
the drain’s filled up with hair

She feels guilty and I feel guilty
for wanting to slap her in the face

They say we all gotta go sometime
and there’s no time like the present

I’m feeling guilty
as I clean up the blood in the bathtub,
scrubbing away all traces of her scent

THE PAST IS ONE SICK BASTARD

Imagine being
raped by your own past
and carrying the
cross forever
Why bother going on
when all the bars are closed –
and blood oozes out
from underneath the doors,
out of every single pore?
You can’t strip this skin,
this dirty skin you’re stuck in
And the past just laughs
and slaps your face
and wonders who
else you’ve been with

AM I WORTHLESS? by John Tustin

2011-01-30T13:58:00.000-08:00

My wife has called me worthless
innumerable times.
Because I did not perform,
did not negotiate,
did not meet her predetermined
criteria in some way,
in any way
(I take it
like a boxer
takes a right hook).

I have seen that look,
barely camouflaged,
in the eyes of my parents,
my teachers,
former friends,
employers:

The disappointment.

Because on the surface,
in the smiling beginning,
I seemed better,
smarter, stronger,
full of promise.
Shy but brave.
Capable.
Culpable.

I watched my mother cry
and couldn’t reach out to her,
hug her,
give her what she wanted.
I was a child
no matter what my age.

I cried once as she was dying,
once when she died,
and once after.

I have been fired from a job.
I have been asked
not to return
to a dozen places;
a job, a diner,
the Long Island Railroad,
an acquaintance’s home.

I have done things
I am ashamed of,
when clothed or naked,
and they burn my soul, these things,
until the smell of rot
comes from it.

But when my friend Emily
moved to Boston seventeen years ago
she wrote me a letter
telling me
there was a light around me
she could see
and it was a rare thing I had.

And either she saw something
or was lying to me
to make me feel good
and either way

when I think about it
the angels that
I blasted
out of the sky
with gunshots and words
and action
and inaction
rise and glow like the promise of heaven,
forgiving me,
waving glorious wings
of a slowly unfolding
rapture.

Oh,
I am something bright and beautiful!

Emily,
this poem is for you.

Two Poems by Billy Joe Howell-Sinnard

2011-01-26T17:53:00.000-08:00

side effects

the blue sound of conversations
a smokey blue threat
a blue thumb

the blue that's really black
the blue day and the blue night
a blue mirror a blue tattoo

blue smoke above the city
the blue moon in my head
the blue eaten food

blue tongue
naked blue lips
the blue pill under my pillow

This is Where I am Today, but There is a Tomorrow

Recoil and gun powder
shock to life,
words a grey residue
on the pure white page.

Poetry is suicide resisted,
the cocked gun turned aside,
bullets fired in the air.

Two Pieces by Sean Pravica

2011-01-25T16:43:00.000-08:00

A Good Cause

My brother rarely speaks. After giving a homeless man a dollar, he rubbed his chin before blithely recalling, “There was a day when I only had three dollars to my name. I was hungry and I was bored. Then I bought a forty. I wasn’t hungry anymore.”

He exhaled a satisfied breath for a time gone and over, saying, “And I wasn’t bored.”

A Stranger in Town

Rail thin, he wore a red and blue one-piece jumpsuit. He rubbed his crotch blatantly before traffic, but his placid blue eyes gave no indication of perversion, only relief.

It was impossible to peel my eyes away from his face, calm, serene, waiting at the crosswalk. I was sad to think I would see him only like this, from a car window and likely never again.

What I wondered second most was what his voice sounded like. What I wondered most was what his child was named, since he again carried the powder blue blanket warmly bundling up nothing.

be here now by Sean Pravica

2011-01-25T16:37:00.000-08:00

The hangover was strong
She was gone
And the money on the table
Went with her

There are moments in the day
Relentless with presence

Now
Its now
And now
There’s no escape

That pummel us into submission

The dark side of satori
It’s the sadder ending
To an old zen story

lorca by Steve Calamars

2011-01-24T15:21:00.000-08:00

soft clocks shatter
against hard times

as we crush cars
like accordions and
tear tanks in two like
tissue paper

because the muscle strains
in our chests
turned out to be heart ache

which turned into
heart burn and left
our insides scorched
as martian suburbs

so now we butcher
butterflies and assassinate
landscapes just to
feel alive

even though
we can hear our
deaths like
black violins

and see our futures
bursting like fire works
and femoral arteries

Sister Louisa by Melanie Browne

2011-01-08T17:57:00.000-08:00

spent her time
sprawled on the
floor of bookstores,
a goose quill pen
became her
secret companion.

I fear I love
the ink more
than I love
Jesus, she
whispered later,
as she sipped
coffee from a
chipped teacup
and nervously
tapped her fingers

in her sleep
her hands
became the
parchment,

in the morning
she scrubbed
vigorously the
raven smudges
from her palms,

after awhile
she assumed
Jesus didn't mind
the ink,
he was too busy
with the emperors,
and the kings,
the dukes. the lords.

when the other
sisters began to
gossip sister
Louisa quoted
Charlemagne,
she stared ahead
at the flat earth,
the quill pen
folded in her bosom

The Death Of King Arthurs Mare by Melanie Browne

2011-01-03T19:08:00.000-08:00

The poet read his poem,
a long one about the
death of King Arthurs Mare,

he slurred his speech a bit,
he rubbed his eyes,
and the legs
of his jeans,

Arthur was alone,
grieving for Llamrei,
the poet began,
and that whore
Gwenevere was
off fucking Lancelot,

The room was silent.
I could see that he
was tearing up,

Arthur wished he was
a wild boar,

the poet
took a drink of water,
gulping loudly into the
microphone,

so that he might rip off
Lancelot's head,

the moon that night
was purple,

and the night was cruel.
Arthur cursed the heavens,

Lancelot and Gwenevere
didn't last, however,
Gwenevere got caught in
the housing crunch,
was laid off from her job,
and started turning tricks
near the entrance to the
Lincoln Tunnel.

Arthur still weeps
for Llamrei and
sometimes Gwenevere,
but he met a cutie
from El Salvador-
they sell handbags
near Canal street.

After the poet
finished the reading,
I told him I
liked his poem,

he smiled
and asked me if I
liked coffee,
if I want to read
more of his stuff,

later he showed me
his notebook,
it's full
of poems about
Gwenevere,

her real name is Arlene,
he said,
she likes horses,

I just met her at NA

Two Pieces by Michael Frissore

2011-01-03T18:49:00.000-08:00

Three Cheers for Our Fathers!

Our daddies were all young once. Well, not mine. He’s from Ork. But our fathers who said it is what it is in Heaven worked hard
planting bubblegum in the sand. They beat the shit out of chickens with rakes and moved objects with their minds. Our poppies ate
their own shit and grew cocktail frank trees. Our dads used Uzis and AK-47s. They had no use for reading and writing. We accept that.
Our male persons who begot children ate dog food from a can and drank goat piss on the rocks. They let us drink it through a Krazy
straw. Our papas punched each other in the face and lay, loose as a goose, in quicksand. Our padres bought flamethrowers and burned
down the town hall. Our sires gave us marshmallows to roast. What could we possibly do, then, but run to the convenience store for
some chocolate and graham crackers.

Up

For the first seven minutes. You feel that shower spout ebbing and storming and drooling and burbling. Stronger than Jim Thome or God
because, come on, Thome never took steroids and what kind of ballplayer never does the juice. And God? Let’s be honest, if there
was a God why doesn’t he just show up here and buy a sandwich and a bag of Lays, maybe a Pepsi?

Then nothing. Then that broken towel rack and Old Spice deodorant and Bob the Builder on a LG television. Beauty lasts seven minutes.
Except for that spider you had to kill. That’s what I mean. Dancing and cranking it in the shower. That’s just silly, but still. It’s
something. Not as bad as a wedding with no open bar. If you must jack in the shower don’t try to fuck the shampoo bottle. Trust me.
Do it naked, lying down, standing up, whichever is comfortable. Call out the name of your silly God who doesn’t exist. Just don’t let
the kids walk in on you.

Two Poems by Ross Vassilev

2011-01-03T18:28:00.000-08:00

the meaning of life...

is white clouds and a lollipop.
the meaning of life
got lost somewhere in
dreams of Loni Anderson
and these pills that I'm taking
that make the room
lean first to the left
and then to the right.
what I'm going through here
is some kind of
unraveling of the spirit
or maybe
a Los Alamos of the mind.
I'm writing to you
from the other side
of something
and I'm staring at a clock with
no hands.
these pills remind me
of the dead
blackbird
I came across once
staring up at me
with its dead black eye
like lost soldiers
in long faraway forgotten wars.

still (more dead than) alive in some rathole somewhere in America

I'm still alive
cuz when I wake up
in the morning
I feel this pain in my right leg
like one of those hairy
crippled smith-Gods that
never shave, just sit around
playing with themselves
in the forge all day
dreaming of nymphs
and Goddesses
and high school cheerleaders
and I'm still alive
cuz I hate with the heart
of a true Bolshevik
I mean slitting throats
bayoneting the class enemies
setting fire to the churches
a real bloodbath orgy of
killing before sipping
my iced tea
this world is mostly insanity
like Maupassant going
mad
from the syphilis he got
from some Parisian whore
and Henry Miller laughing
at Parisian whores
and Apollinaire dying
a thousand deaths
living is a walking cancer
living is dying slowly
like the surgeon cutting
off one piece this month
and another the next
and I'm sorry if this poem
didn't cheer you up.

Otto by Wolfgang Carstens

2010-12-28T06:10:00.000-08:00

was one of the toughest
son-of-a-bitches
i’ve ever known.

he joined the German army
when he was fourteen,
fought on the front lines
at Stalingrad,

and despite poor clothing,
no provisions,
and the harsh Russian winter,
he never surrendered.

Otto was tough,
but tobacco was tougher.

even as cancer
ate away one hundred forty-five pounds
of solid muscle,
he kicked the shit
out of three healthy men
who’d dishonored his wife.

the last time i saw him
he was alone in his dark study
wearing his smoking jacket and cravat,
with a White Owl cigar
smoldering between his teeth

and that solitary tear
running down his cheek
told me all there was to know
about being tough

Two Poems by Justin Hyde

2010-12-28T06:00:00.000-08:00

ice water and a body bag

standing on the corner
of ingersoll
and 31st
leaning against
a fire hydrant
you conduct
a census:

95$

gone

straight into
thin air
like a cat fart.

two pitchers of bud light
six shots of jameson
an indeterminate fog
of butterscotch shots
with some flab bag
who took you home
and whose apartment
you now walk home from -

- lumbering
sideways
and heavy
like an
elephant trunk.

three months of sobriety
down the drain
quick as a brick
into a wishing well.

sobriety was sustainable
endurable
but there was
something false
it dried up center
like a patch
of brown grass.

there's gotta be
middle ground
a switzerland
somewhere in your mind
to plant a flag

some island
between ice water
and a body bag.

you cipher it
right there
as a city bus
passes you
and you puke
into an evergreen bush
in front of a
dentist office:

once
twice a week max
put a twenty in your wallet
leave the debit card at home
a couple pitchers
nice and easy
bend the mind a little
let it dip into your heart.

this is
the mindfuck
the drunk
parlays on himself.

what's news
young man?
asks a fogey
ticking down
the sidewalk
with a four prong cane.

anarchy
on a budget,
you mumble
penduling on.

the reading public

i read a-lot
mostly dean koontz,
says the middle aged homo
who works the cash register
at the grocery store cafe.

he's taking
a coffee break
with one of the waitresses
in the booth beside me.

she says she
loves twilight
reads them over
and over
didn't like the second one
but it's still better
than the movie.

most people read
for the same reason
they watch tv:

a facile means
of tickling
their banal impulse:

a little candle
of cheap smut
to warm the
bowl of cold oatmeal
between their ears.

give them schopenhauer's manifesto
a novel by celine
or a book of stories by chekhov

something that draws
real blood
cutting into the guts
of the machine

give them a
book of letters
from bukowski or nietzsche

or a biography
of thomas jefferson.

they'd furrow
their brow
like a donkey with gas

and toss it
into the garbage
after seven
and a half pages.

reclamation project by Justin Hyde

2010-12-13T16:08:00.000-08:00

take the drunk
from the bottle

he is left
with the heavy machinery
of his mind
hanging from a rope
like a busted tractor engine
in a barn.

he stands
at a distance

eying
the strange contraption
skeptically.

sunlight
coming through the windows
for the first time in years

frightens him
immensely.

My Last Thanksgiving by Catfish McDaris

2010-11-30T17:34:00.000-08:00

My lady was withdrawing
$60 from the drive up ATM
I was tuning in Steely Dan

A Nixon masked person
with a revved chainsaw
cut off her extended arm
& grabbed it & the money

Ripping my belt from my
trousers, I made a tourniquet
next thing I knew I was on
the floor in a store

A circle of frozen turkeys
were shooting dice with tiny
hands, several had cigars
puffing from their neck hole

They were cursing in Turkish,
sounding pissed off & flipping
each other the bird, looking
around I noticed I was naked

I had a cell phone, I dialed 911
the operator asked, "What is
your emergency?" all I said
was gobble gobble gobble

Waking in a pool of sweat
I saw a full bottle of 101
proof whiskey, reaching

To scratch my testicles
I trotted for the bathroom
to discover two tiny plucked
butter balls, I thought this
is worse than Naked Lunch.

these thick girls by Steve Calamars

2010-11-28T18:27:00.000-08:00

have me sleep walking
across tight ropes and
base jumping from their
high expectations
without a parachute

their plunging necklines
and cartoon cleavage
leave me feeling
light headed and animated

to the point where i'm
making assumptions and
drawing conclusions
without a trace of evidence

believing they'll find their
way to my bedroom and lose
their panties beneath
my sheets

only to discover later
that i had their signals crossed
and i'm bound to end up alone
for the night

with my mind in knots
and my heart hanging
in my chest like a
fleshy chandelier . . .

50/50 SPLIT by John Tustin

2010-11-20T16:41:00.000-08:00

Your words grind me down
the anabolic sameness of them,
like tires slowly
continually
decimating the street.

You are disappointing
daily
like the blackheads on my nose
in every morning mirror.

And now you are nothing more
than mosquitoes in the night
that are not worth
turning on the light
and searching for
to kill.

But you wrote this
poem
and many others
with your filthy mouth
and abhorrent actions –
I just put them down –
so I guess I owe you something.

Just not half.

Two Poems by David McLean

2010-11-15T14:07:00.000-08:00

thought gets tainted

thought gets tainted by the darkness,
like Pearl Jam say, and what you see
is determined by your capacity
for seeing, what lives free in front of us
and each shard of shattered nothing
that is there for us to touch;

and i would rather die than be a dead man
living his weakness, his pride and his stupid
weak children

thought gets tainted easily, except
where whales swim in us fragments
of nature, something at any rate
untouched, some body better
than man to love

a gross bundle

life in the too filthy flesh
is a gross bundle of rags
and stupid illusions,

a lump of psychic ugly,
a hairy monkey gibbering
under a dead man's bed

and up the staircase goes love
a reluctant foot, broken bones
and radical homelessness

wherever we are, lumpy
little bundles of fat flesh, death,
whitening scars,

life has wandered much too far

Going Dutch by Catfish McDaris

2010-11-11T17:51:00.000-08:00

Her loved waned,
like snow on a
warm winter day

I didn't know
what to do,
so I went to
a whorehouse

A young woman
led me to her room

She removed her
clothes & I started
crying, she took a
knife & cut off my ear

I felt a sudden urge
to paint sunflowers.

Her Vagina Looks Like by April Michelle Bratten

2010-10-24T20:09:00.000-07:00

Her vagina looks like
a giant inflamed mushroom,
swollen and offensive,

or the greasy insides of a pumpkin,
the guts, sticky orange stuck
to walls of fleshy white.

Her vagina will never smell like
wet-sweet earth, no,
because it has large protrusions,
little heads peeking,
millions of mouths gabbing,
dribbling their pus.

Her vagina reeks like
bottom of dead foot,
a rotting, rotting,
old and haggard piece.

Fatty-fat, it still talks.

It tries to force open
from its swell,
that willing thing.

It puffs up, irritated
to scratch me like a rope
and berate my smooth.

Oh,
femme-monster,
I tell you, leave,
leave my hawk-eyes!
Leave me, leave me,

for you have turned stupid
and inconsolable.

No more of your stiff scratch,
I want the silk-silky majesty of your leave,

you awful tack!

Happy Birthday Leah by Melanie Browne

2010-10-17T07:39:00.000-07:00

I don't think
we have anything
in common

the fact is,
I don't even
know who the
hell you are

but you must be
pretty special

You're so special
someone wrote
Happy Birthday Leah!
on the back of your
car with white shoe
polish,

It makes me want
to find a filthy
restroom
and hurl the rest of my
Big-Mac into the
nothingness

Leah I hate you so
much, I hope a bird shits
on your new
designer handbag

herein lies the difference by Rob Plath

2010-09-27T16:18:00.000-07:00

i lean my forearms on the rickety card-table
the table which upon i write for long hours
& gaze long & hard at my own limbs
i inherited the forearms of my father
hairy leg-breaking forearms of a german gangster
but strangely they taper into thin wrists
unlike my father's thick handcuff-rough wrists
& screwed on to the ends are soft palmed hands w/long fingers
unlike my father's big meaty pistol whipping hands
i swivel them, wiggling the thin digits
how they were made for the keys, the abc's, for creation
unlike my father's made for the trigger, breaking things, unmaking things

Waiting for Poems by Donal Mahoney

2010-09-27T07:24:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you sit for days
sucking yourself in
praying the right words
will fall in your ear
toboggan over the whorls
pierce the canal
and settle in your brain,
an embryonic delight.
Sometimes you sit for days
and finally the words come
and they're always a surprise
like the first tulip in April
or a sudden
orgasm for your wife.

FAME by Mike Meraz

2010-09-27T07:22:00.000-07:00

this guy in New Orleans
who chopped up his girlfriend
is now on the cover of the Gambit Weekly.
killing is a way to fame
and so is being killed
but before you are killed
you have to have some talent
or die in a totally gruesome way
there is no room for beginners here.

Reading Proust by Paul Hellweg

2010-09-27T07:18:00.000-07:00

Proust commented on
the anesthetic effect of habit
almost one hundred years
before I read his words.
I understand the wisdom
of which he speaks,
but his words are meant for other people,
ones whose lives are ordinary and staid,
not for poets, not for anyone
in touch with the great absence.

DANGLING by Stephanie Smith

2010-09-27T07:13:00.000-07:00

When I look at people
I see only their genitals
dangling like gold earrings
on sagging lobes
Ears they cannot hear from
because their egos are too large
it smothers their senses

When I look at people
I see only the sexes
split in two
in such a disgusting display
of division
and derision
it makes me want to puke

Two Poems by Ross Vassilev

2010-09-05T18:25:00.000-07:00

angels of mercy, angels of light

I remember
the dust of 9/11
in the blue Indian sky
over Manhattan
where hippies
and Yippies are still
putting flowers
in the guns of
American soldiers
where Diana Oughton
is still making bombs
in her top-floor
Greenwich flat and
suicide bombers
still wait in vain
for their 72 virgins
I used to live in
that place
full of the homeless
and the insane
a place that chews up
your soul
and spits it out
for dogs to
crap on
so did I cry on 9/11
like everyone
else?
the answer to that
is no.

the eagle has landed

death of the spirit as
a dove falls from the sky;
think of death
as a killer clown like
John Wayne Gacy
or Ronald Reagan;
Ronnie, I jerked off to
your daughter Patti
when I saw her
on the cover of Playboy
with some black guy
grabbing her tits
from behind; it didn't
take away from all
the carnage of
your dirty wars in
Central America but
it was something;
Ronnie, you were
Maggie Thatcher minus
the mustache; and when
I think of death
I think of you and
your big phony grin
like a Nazi death-head
with moussed hair.

Lost Garden by Jonathan Butcher

2010-09-05T18:13:00.000-07:00

Under the garden porch light, we speak in
hushed tones of it’s eventual arrival, as we pass the
bottle back and forth under the radio’s white hiss.

Overlooking the outstretched lawn, dotted with soiled
tables the garage on our left, drenched in mothering ivy
a green veined pandemic, crawling towards the midnight
clouds.

The dogs demand feeding, like lost children, much to
our annoyance, the peace disrupted by this brief responsibility
whose shadow we hope to evade a little while longer.

Even in this dark it finds it’s way, hurtling towards us, through
what we consider the remaining years, and still remains
green and light through all seasons.

Walking Down Prospect St by Diana Rose

2010-09-05T18:00:00.000-07:00

Walking down Prospect St
Lifting my cheeks to flowing raindrops
The deep melodic tone beating off of railroad tracks
I breathe deep, soaked to skin
So happy to be alive.

Mexican couple carrying
plastic bags of groceries
enough for tonights dinner
laugh as they pass
the wife balances a flat of eggs in one hand
smacks her husbands ass with the other.
Simplicity is the root of all happiness.

Lillac trees sway
to the breeze of speeding cars
Puddles splash up on
my soaked shoes as they squish squish squish
like a Kerouac haiku.
Funny the crazy looks you get
walking through afternoon rain.

Like the smile I got from you

Two Poems by Gary Beck

2010-08-23T12:19:00.000-07:00

The Nature of Cities II

The city of excess
produces waste,
pollutes the landscape,
poisons the waters, the air,
deludes us from awareness,
distracts us from action
diverts us with culture,
until sated citizens
perish from enrichment.

Images of Despair

War veterans
with artificial limbs
waiting in line
at a soup kitchen.

A homeless child
with running nose,
diseased eyes,
tattered jacket,
begging for change
on a winter street.

A bag lady
with filthy grey hair,
bedecked in rags,
rummaging in the trash can
for the evening repast.

London, Paris, Rome,
ancient cities,
these sights we expect,
but approved misery
is a painful surprise
in New York City.

Pussy and Wine by Maria Gornell

2010-08-23T11:27:00.000-07:00

I read you last night – nodded throughout
in that assimilation of resonance.

I still drank (the wine) tonight
barely concerned by inches of cock
or trips to ‘hit that’

Honestly? There isn’t one man within
a 100 mile radius I would bother
dropping by reserve for.

But the wine do make me open
laid bare emotion – hungering
for an intimacy I crave with
every fibre of my being.

I don’t do the date lines
webcams or chat shit
it all feels too, souless

But sometimes I have been known
to send a message in haste

Expose my vulnerability
tell all the world that I am
lying here pathetic
woman, pussy wet
without a hope in hell

It will be satisfied.

And so I scream to the moon
to every man (god) in sight

This cunt is not dead yet.

The Blues by LD Wilkinson

2010-08-16T19:31:00.000-07:00

so hard living
in suburbia
where tranquillity
comes out
of the trees
and out
of the birds
and the hosepipes
and dribbles
down the street
under ice-cream vans
and into
clean gutters
where even the shit
shines like diamonds

so hard listening
to my neighbour
telling me
you’ve really got to
get rid of that clover
pointing at the stuff
as if clover
is the new black

so I walk
into the city
and find
the smallest darkest
loudest pub
and buy the most
overpriced whisky
and sit
and tap my foot
to the blues
and wonder
what the hell
I’m going to do
about the clover