Sunday, February 21, 2010

foolish enough to believe by J.J. Campbell

foolish enough to believe

three in the
morning

searching for
the words

another empty
for the floor

and it becomes
apparent why
death is so fucking
attractive to any
of us

foolish enough to
believe at the end
of this page is a
better tomorrow

Bio: J.J. Campbell (b. 1976) lives, writes, but mostly dies a little each day in Brookville, Ohio. He's been widely published over the years in the small press, most notably at Thunder Sandwich, Nerve Cowboy, Zygote in My Coffee, Underground Voices and Chiron Review. You can contact J.J. via email at jcampb4593@aol.com.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

The Last Honeydew,The Morning After,Public Housing by Donal Mahoney

The Last Honeydew

On the way home from work
I buy the last honeydew
in the window at Meyers.

Tonight the wife
will cut it in half
and with elbow bent

scoop the pulp
like ice cream
from its golden shell.

She will savor its juices
as I do the cherries
on the sundaes of her breasts.


The Morning After

When she sees him in the morning he’s
all foamed up and in the mirror shaving
so she stands behind him, saying,
“Bill, your father was a ladies’ man--
that's why you have this way with women.
Deirdre, you kissed once, light on the lips.
Bridget, ah, the melon of her hips
you kept inviolate, whole, entire.
But since your father was a ladies’ man,
you will be a priest instead.
You'll never fill a woman,
never watch her swell,
and she will be the better for it,
won’t she, Bill.”


Public Housing

The rattle
in the walls
would stop,
I’m told,
if the litter
in the halls
were edible.
Night after night,
tin after tin
the rats squeeze in
to feast on
their reflections.


Bio: Donal Mahoney, a native of Chicago, lives in St. Louis, MO. He has worked as an editor for The Chicago Sun-Times, Loyola University Press and Washington University in St. Louis. He has had poems published in or accepted by The Wisconsin Review, The Kansas Quarterly, The South Carolina Review, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Commonweal, Public Republic (Bulgaria), Revival (Ireland), The Istanbul Literary Review (Turkey), Poetry Super Highway, The Panulaan Review, Opium Poetry 2.0, Asphodel Madness and other publications.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

those students are damn lucky,she harvested,illiteracy is freedom by Ross Vassilev

those students are damn lucky

when the Athenian peltasts
defeated the Spartan hoplites
at Sphakteria
Bettany Hughes held my hand
during the whole bloodbath

she’s a professor of Classics
at some British University

she’s a beautiful brunette
with an ass so big
and tits so big
she oughta be in porn

then she told me about how
when Menelaos found
runaway Helen in Troy
he was gonna kill her
but then she showed him
her tits and so he forgave her

so the story goes

Bettany, I wish you’d show
your tits

now that’d be something
to see on PBS

the Classics were never sexier.


she harvested

saw a photo
of the poet Anne Sexton

she had the face
of a real slut

many of her poems
say as much

her best poems
are about fucking and
a long one about her stay
in a mental hospital

(yes, she had problems)

the rest are boring shit

some critic wrote
that many of her poems
are “unfinished”

those are the only ones
worth reading, you prick

well, she ended up
committing suicide at
age 33

another sad story

but those poems
and that photo
will outlive the Gods.


illiteracy is freedom

when I was
busting my ass
at Walmart
I often considered
how it was
that I was the one
doing all the
goddam work
while the Waltons
lived in big
white mansions
and flew to Milan
every weekend

well I guess
it’s all part of
the general injustice
of things
like American troops
in Iraq shooting
pregnant women
and joking they
just killed 2 birds
with one stone

I know a little
about things
and understand
much less
and there’s people
who understand
things a lot more
than I do and
they write books
about it all
that no one ever reads.

Bio:Ross Vassilev was born in Bulgaria and now lives in Ohio. He's a poet some of the time and the editor of Opium Poetry 2.0 and Asphodel Madness blogzines. He's been published here and there.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

my wife is my barber by Steve Calamars

my wife is my barber

and has probably helped me get more
women than i could have ever gotten
if left to my own devices

she cuts my hair, shaves my face,
chooses my colognes, mouth-washes
and breath-mints

she even picks out and styles my clothes
i’ve always been indifferent to
these kinda’ things

if left in my own natural state, my hair would
grow, i’d smell like ass and my shirts would be
little more than a collage of strains

but she likes me better polished and civilized
and it turns out other women do too

so when i meet a sexy new one who
can’t help but show interest in my
sleek, refined veneer

and a couple of weeks pass before
her interest turns to curiosity and her
panties drop and my ring slips off

i run my fingers thru my hair and down
along my smooth shaven face

take a whiff of my fruity cologne and thank
god i have such a dedicated barber who takes
such an interest in my appearance—

Bio: Steve Calamars lives in San Antonio, TX. He has a B.A. in Philosophy and works in a grocery store. His first poetry chapbook, American Violence, will be released April 2010 from New Polish Beat. He blogs at http://dirtywordsoncleanliving.blogspot.com/