Denis Robillard

Medical Exam, age 38
　
The doctor’s office is
a somnambulists soliloquy
revolving in a gelatin eyeball
not fit for Necromantics.
I’m half naked and strapped to “the chair”.
Waiting for my own little execution.
Doctor’s exams, I’m told
are always cold and impersonal.
In a few minutes,
a man whom I don’t know,
wearing a snow white smock
will be asking me to cough
and grope at my manhood
in the same impersonal manner in which
he was reaching for his morning
cup of coffee
his dreamy stethoscope
impinging upon my shy skin
searching through the fat folds
of my stomach and burrowing deeper
than my embarrassing
mechanical meat gurgles
that have remained at the surface.
“Pathump, pathump...”
The shy poet’s heart echoes back
flipping and turning inside
the monitor like an abused weather vane.
Dolphins at Marine land.
These irregular aortic lines
resemble a star cluster of fighter ships
joining a vast robotic fold
against a black hole backdrop
I’m lost at sea on this cold, cold
chair
the black prow of the
white liner looking
for open water.

*************************************
Eternal Snow Globe
　
I’m tired of wearing glass slippers
all the time around you and
having to account for
everything I say and do.

Take these words back with you
like a special delivery package
lay them gently upon your lap
and unfold them word by word

until you arrive at the beginning
again for the very first time.

I want everyhting to be an eternal
money back guarantee Christmas snow globe.
Forever.
****************************************************************************
Burning Beauty

With the machinery of day finally quiet
I ponder the moments, these days
become a postulant of heresy
break all the values in
my magnanimous heart
barter my old habits
in exchange for skin
throw ballast
into the frugal wind
become a participant
in the timeless adoration of your looks,
your Lux, appreciate
the weapons
of your beauty for what they truly are.
I flounder before you
like a vestal crab pinch
at the blue Kryptonic air
reach for a simple truth
found on your perfect body.
I’ve already thought of doing secret things to you.
The bush telegraph of desire makes holes
and my ganglions do not lie.
Burning, burning.

Your beauty
is the imprint of a newly minted coin
that I must learn
to circulate again.

********************
ROADING WITH RIEL

Roading, roading, roading
Wheels turning stones
Over back seldom used roads
Eyes roaming fields
Scanning for Riel and the boys
Another Frog Lake Massacre in the mind.
Gentle mind roaming at points.
Undefined.
A dry compass to pin prick
And hover into water.
I’m thinking about her clear blue eyes
An unseen lake never found.
A magical intersection
But sometimes only detritus and dirty leaves
But I must go
Re-orient my memory to solid land
Or go forever insane off roading.
**********************************************

James Babbs

Places I Remember

the Woolworths restaurant
in the mall
right next to the store and
no matter how many times
I asked my Mom
she never let me
eat there

the backseat of
my parents’ car
on our way home
gazing at the places
passing by the window
trying to remember them
wanting to come back
and see them
again
some day

the baseball diamond
next to the old high school
after dark when
no games were being played
and I sat in
the visitors’ dugout
beneath the falling moonlight
dreaming of
some other place

your house on the corner
the front door with
the knob on
the wrong side and
I always knocked
where the hinges were
waiting for you to answer
not too many years
before you moved away


Blue

I remember
how every wall in
her apartment was white
except the section
at the end of the hallway
that somebody had painted blue
I didn’t know
if that was suppose to
mean something or not
I never asked her about it
and we stopped seeing each other
years ago
but every now and then
I catch myself
thinking about
that blue piece of wall
but I never seem to
think much about her
don’t get me wrong
she wasn’t a bad person
it just didn’t work out
between us
for one reason or another and
maybe
if you went and asked her
she’d tell you
the same thing about me


His poetry collection, Dictionary of Chaos, is available from www.xlibris.com and my chapbook, Another Beautiful Night can be found at www.lulu.com.

Broken is Beautiful Falling by A.J. Kaufmann

in unconscious fascination
while floods go planting the city
and girls hum themselves as hope
pulling in small street tails
west-end truths
intervals of the homeless
and damaged deals
take the cabman where
consternation creatures
wild on the road
involuntarily
attach agonized tears
of neglected, vanished
blocks
to illustrated
remains of eyes
taking the city
by hurt
where broken
is beautiful
falling

Impact by Mike Meraz

those who are afraid of love
are the ones
with the most ability
to love
for they know
the height and depth
of love.

those who do not know
how to love

get married.

Leaving Galveston by Len Kuntz

We could hold our breath for hours, lifetimes it seemed.

Throughout the short sprawl of our youth we’d practice,

goofing beneath the canopy curled like a cocked trigger,

our eyes popping light bulbs,

tears running jagged down our chins.



That trick won me a way out, a swim scholarship.

I medaled and majored all because I never had to come up for air.

Now, I’ve sunk under the warmest water

and I can see through the thin-sheeted surface,

watching you color your lips and flip your hair,

knowing where you’re going

but not when you’ll return,

if ever this time.

Nanoville Altered by David S. Pointer

Nostril bound
nano-particles
crossing blood
brain barriers
wandering the
stress cracked
streets of her
thoughtshop
polluting invisible
head highway

Loitering in Front of the Microwave by Chris Butler

Loitering in Front of the Microwave



The answer to all of life’s dumb questions

radiate against my brain;

while I loiter in front of the microwave.



I stare vacantly at the sixty-seven cent

frozen pizza insistently spinning

in inconsistent, unceremonious circles,



perturbed to observe the plant and animal

byproducts combust, by

counting down for something to change,



still envisioning thermonuclear waves

undergoing similar molecular

decompositions upon the human skin,



as I stand in a stranger’s kitchen, questioning

the act of fasting a starved artist,

as I loiter in front of the microwave.




Chris Butler is a twenty-something nobody shouting from the Quiet Corner of Connecticut.He has previously published two chapped books, Emo (2010) and The War of Art (2010), and the upcoming collection Black Tits, co-written with the beatnik poet laureate of Cambodia, Randall Rogers.

Alone by Paul Hellweg

Alone



Sometimes I wonder

why I feel so alone

when really I’m not.

Each and every night

my demons show up

to haunt and tease,

chide and ride.

There’s enough of them

to drink all my beer,

play all my music,

ransack the cupboards

and freezer too.

Demons never clean up,

they always leave

trash on the floor,

dirty dishes everywhere,

movies, books, poems

strewn here and there.

They’re definitely callous,

these demons of mine,

they don’t leave till I collapse,

they never say goodnight

or goodbye,

they don’t say, “See you again,”

but they’ll be back,

and I know when.



Sometimes I wonder.

nine out of ten times by Steve Calamars

people do
shit with
their existence
and for
some reason
refer to
this as
a life . . .

Meditation on a Candle Flame by Howie Good

Best sometimes to ignore
what’s going on in my head

the joyful pops of static
and step off the curb

with the thousands who breathe
through paper face masks

the U-boats so close to shore
a chorus girl in a Miami penthouse

could see men die in flaming oil



Howie Good, a journalism professr at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of 19 print and digital poetry chapbooks, including most recently Half-Life and Other Poems from Ronin Press.

sickle by Ross Vassilev

the missionary who rang my doorbell
this morning
looked like a normal person
but then he started talking

he's only a small part
of the greater insanity:

the slasher movies
the homeless
the troops fighting overseas
for who knows what

growing up in America
in the 80s
watching family sitcoms
and Angel Heart
it's a wonder I can think at all

maybe that's why I'm unemployed
and listen to punk rock

maybe that's why I'm writing this poem.

flattered by Justin Hyde

fool or sage

we're all whores
for the
compliment.

it’s opium
in the
mechanism

a dab
of vivid yellow
through center

as

irretrievable
bits of soul
evaporate
through your asshole
like an old car
burning oil.

Classified by Ed Makowski

Classified

1 pair Ducati cam belts

for '98 900 ST,
brand new in packaging. My husband
left this world
from a bike accident and
a couple careless drivers
left me

The remnants I need to sell.

$32.07 each new, $50.00
the pair.

Call Janine

( ) -


Bio: Ed Makowski is a poet, artist, and writer living in Milwaukee, WI. He's looking for a job so he can buy one of those boarded up houses. More of his work can be found at http://edmakowski.wordpress.com/

Bungalow Couple Redux and A Day in the Life of Paddy Murphy, Broker by Donal Mahoney

Bungalow Couple Redux


They weren’t talking at all, back then.
Deep in that house, conceiving their dwarfs,
they weren't talking at all, back then.

And they’re not talking at all, right now.
Still in that house, rearing their dwarfs,
they're not talking at all, right now.

And they won’t be talking again.
When the dwarfs break out they’ll stay in that house,
not moving, not talking again.

A Day in the Life of Paddy Murphy, Broker


Riding home on the train he’s aware
that after supper, cigarettes, TV and beer,
a romp on the wife will cloak
the question for another day.
He’ll fear nothing, then, till noon
the next day when it starts all over again.
If his luck holds, he’ll survive
the ride home on the train, aware
that after supper, cigarettes, TV and beer,
a romp on the wife will cloak
the question for another day.

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. A Pushcart nominee, he has had poems published in The Wisconsin Review, The Kansas Quarterly, The South Carolina Review, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Commonweal, Revival (Ireland), The Istanbul Literary Review (Turkey), Public Republic (Bulgaria), The Panulaan Review, Calliope Nerve and other publications.

Fuck National Poetry Month and Caffeinated Lies by Paul Hellweg

Fuck National Poetry Month

I’ve never understood
National Poetry Writing Month.
Seems to me
if you need a prompt
to be in touch with
what you’re feeling,
you’re not a poet.

A poet is someone who
has things inside
that have to come out, and all
a real poet needs
is a mutilated heart,
screaming soul, and
bottle of whiskey,
prompts be damned.

Caffeinated Lies

Caffeine lies to me,
alcohol lies to me,
hope and love lie to me,
my paycheck lies too.
All offer a glimpse of salvation,
then renege, chuckling,
the joke’s on me.
Despair doesn’t lie.
Despair speaks its own truths
to any and all
willing to pay attention.
Despair never welshes,
never changes its mind,
nor takes anything back.
But to hold such glory in your hands,
you have to be
willing to listen, and
willing to forgo
everything else.

Paul Hellweg has had over 60 poems published since his debut in 2009. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and he won the 2009 Famas Poetry Prize. He thinks all this is pretty cool.

Everything Different and Aluminum Christmas Tree by James Babbs

Everything Different

the trees shrouded in mist
obscuring my vision
as it slowly gathers
on the windshield before
I turn the wipers on
70s-era Miles filling
the inside of the car
churning out
his electro-funk fusion
and it’s morning
and I’m driving back
from your place where
we made love the night before
something we hadn’t
planned to happen
and I’m, still, trying
to sort it out
recalling how
I barely said a word as
I got dressed and
told you goodbye
on my way home but
thinking about stopping
somewhere for breakfast
wondering whether I should
call you later today
or should I wait
afraid of
what I should say
everything different
between us now

Aluminum Christmas Tree

did anybody else have an
aluminum christmas tree
growing up in the seventies
with the light that had
this plastic wheel that turned
it had three different colors and
I wonder if they were all the same
I think ours had
orange and blue and green
what the hell were we thinking
I mean
whose bright idea was it
and then people actually went out
and bought them
set them up in their living rooms
you put the light on
so when the wheel turned
the colors reflected off the tree
you didn’t have to bother with
stringing up any lights and
I don’t think we hung
any ornaments on it
I remember seeing pictures
me as a boy sitting there
cross-legged on the floor
wearing my green toughskins and
the funny looking glasses
the floor cluttered with presents
this big grin on my face

Bio: I’m not a real writer but I play one on TV. I work for the government but don’t like to talk about it. I like getting drunk and writing. I don‘t like people who are rude. I like dogs better than cats. I like Fall better than I like Spring. I like it when the tomatoes start ripening. I don’t like okra and never did but I could eat lima beans every day of the week.

Some recent poems have appeared in my dreams and in-Barbaric Yawp, Gutter Eloquence, Opium Poetry, Zygote In My Coffee and ZYX. Thank you for your time.

simply drift away and in this void by J.J. Campbell

simply drift away

the wind is howling
today

squeezing through
these paper thin
walls

it sounds like a
cat crying out in
pain

i don't move
a muscle

apathy and
cynicism has
darkened this
heart past the
point of caring

especially when i
can close my eyes
and simply drift away
to some other tragedy
waiting to happen


in this void

i always wonder if
killing myself would
mean anything to
anyone other than
my family

and as i swim here
in this void of life,
despair, delusion
and mediocrity

i'm not even a
blip on the radar
of anyone

and i sense the
disappointment
in my soul

it wants to give
up as much as i
want to

but my brain is
selfish enough
that it needs it to
hurt more for them

the proverbial them

than it would me

time has
never moved
so slow



J.J. Campbell lives, writes and will hopefully die on a farm in Brookville, Ohio. He's been widely published in the small press, most recently in The Joint (Australia), FUCK!, ZYX, Zygote in My Coffee and Opium Poetry 2.0. You can contact J.J. via email at jcampb4593@aol.com

10:53pm by Steve Calamars

thick thighs
walk across
my apartment

brown hair
and a
pretty smile

she ends
up in
my arms

i just
want to
drop pin-balls

into the
machinery of
the universe

and simply
stop time . . .

Bio: Steve Calamars lives in San Antonio, TX. His first poetry chapbook, american violence, will be available April 2010 from New Polish Beat. He blogs @ dirtywordsoncleanliving.blogspot.com

all those mohawks killed punk by Ross Vassilev

riot grrrl is the only good punk left.

the rest is all crap.

the bands all sound alike:
same speed, same riffs
same singer, pretty much

no Exene Cervenka among them
no Lux Interior

they don't seem to know that
slow is BETTER than fast
like, say, Bikini Kill
or Alice Bag Band

they don't seem to get it
that the whole point of punk is
(or was, anyway)
to stand out
to be different
not to play the same music
that EVERYONE ELSE PLAYS

not one of those bands out there
nowadays
has any fire, wild creativity
like someone just escaped
from the asylum
or doped up on LSD

the last great punk band was
The Distillers

damn, I miss them.

Strain and Thursday by Shannon Peil

Strain

I didn’t agree with why he went
Or that he was going back
But I could appreciate his stories
What he had gone through
The look in his eye that acknowledged he’d seen war

At times I empathized with all he had seen
And the closeness to death
But others I wanted to scream at him
Tell him if no one agreed to go, none of this would have happened
So what came first, the soldier or the war?
What came before that?
The patriotism or the fear?

And his friends that died
Was it their fault they went
Or mine that I didn’t?

But we never mention any of this
I have a feeling he knows I’m not necessarily afraid of death
But I’m terrified of dying for the wrong reasons
And for the sake of friendship we talk of anything else we can think of.


Thursday



I contemplated spending today
among the coffee shop people
the café patrons sipping expensive drinks
the discussions you overhear are average
but occasionally surprising
kids gossip and whisper a little too loudly
explode into laughter and occupy corners
the elderly read newspapers and have gentle talks
everyone else discusses topics they barely understand
stroke each others egos and look down their noses

I contemplated spending today
among the midday bar people
hushed voices or silence and old jukeboxes
nod to the waitress who sees them ever day
and play pool until the evening
it’s noon on a Thursday and this song has played twice
since I’ve been sitting in the corner
and I’m never quite sure whether I’m being watched
this is just another place that I’m an odd sight

I spent today outside both places
smoking to calm the coffee, and the beer
more comfortable without being stared at.

Bio: Shannon Peil gets published occasionally but rejected more often. He edits for people who actually know what they are doing at http://amphibi.us.

syringe mauve light by Jack Ohms

in the purple vein light I find myself alone
and a young boy
maybe 12
he's pissed in one of the stalls and not flushed
the piss is like a light - flourecsent yellow-green
in the vein light, the thin vein light
he looks at me with my CARRIER BAGS
I lock the door
piss into his piss
into his piss
into his piss
it marbles in there
I flush
he's gone
the gap under the stall door is almost a FOOT
who the fuck needs to know where I am!

I drink from the taps
pick up my piss-bottomed carrier bags
and get out as jowel man comes in
looking me
up
and down
in the vein light
cunt looking over his shoulder
from the vein light
from the vein light
cunt always looking over his shoulder

Give me the Horn,Rain,today and After the Flood by Paula Jones

Give me the Horn


Keep your long wooden necks

and your nylon strings.

Throw your thin sticks to the sky.

Leave the cymbals tight-lipped,

toss the triangle, snap the bow.


Give me the horn-

pucker up and blow.

Press lips to the smooth brass

and blast your way through.

Let breath become throat

become mouth and song.


Purr the smooth black silk

of a single spoken word.

Scream like a wildcat

on a brick-faced wall.

Grieve the tears of a woman

in the close-throated night.


Pack away your flimsy reeds-

the new hero is horn.

Shine him with your sleeve,

finger his strong metal bones.

But mostly, let him dance

in the click of your heel.



Rain, today


They said it wouldn’t rain today,

the man on the tv told me;

accountant-faced

and smugly dressed.

They said it wouldn’t rain today,

but here it is;

as slow and thin

as memory,

as light as a sigh.


The dogs pace the

cold wooden floors,

whistling their discontent

through flared nostrils.

They said it wouldn’t rain today,

I tell the dogs,

watching my boots by the back door

fill up with rain,

and your limp shirt on the line.


The birds have left the sky

though I hear them calling still.

They said it wouldn’t rain today

but here it is

cold as kisses

warm as blood.





After the Flood



Laughter like a winter creek

sadness like a flood

I'm crying you a swollen river

bursting banks

tonguing cheeks


I'm filling up the belly

with this brackish overflow

brimming the cup

spilling the milk

tipping the ink


And this dark perfume

rotten, peeling bark

where once we lemon-sipped


Sink like a soul

made of smooth stone

and the sound, the sound

like a faraway kiss

Professorial Dirge by Donal Mahoney

In this college town
three girls of Spring are fresh bread
brown before the noon of May.

In pink and yellow frocks
with hair unfurling in the breeze,
they laugh and glisten in the sun.

Good daughters all, they wave
to an old professor on a bench
waiting for the end of day.

He waves back and smiles his best,
knowing girls like these, once close,
now wander many miles away.

Listen Closely,Quarantine and Abyssinia by Paul Harrison

listen closely

never presume
nothing is written
one thief was saved
the other forsaken

quarantine

sometimes
they look my way
as if i were contagion
the beautiful people
the people i hate
could love i mean
as if my smile
were blood borne
as if around my neck
read nil by mouth
and i were quarantined
in heavy water silence
as if just talking
meant crossing
a knot of crime scene tape
and i the victim/suspect
was spilling his guts
all over their dream
as if this beating heart
this lonely hunter
was rancid meat
past use by dates
and best before
as if somehow
i was different
indifferent to it all

abyssinia

strange
fish
twitching
upstream
belly
side
up


Bio: paul is an irish guy living in perth, western australia, the world's most isolated city. fragments of his bio can be found at http://thelastdisciplefirst.blogspot.com/ or you may have read some of his shit here and there.

Blue House,Burning The Tree and What I Saw by James Babbs

Blue House

she’d be sitting on the porch
when I walked by and
when I got close enough
she’d smile and wave but
never speak until
I said something first
then I’d make my way over there
leaning against the rail
enjoying the way she kept
pushing her hair back
behind her ears and
how she threw her head
back and opened her mouth
whenever she started to laugh


Burning The Tree

he knows it will take hours to burn it
so he begins in the morning to give himself
plenty of time before night falls
he cut the tree down last fall
after most of it had been
blown down by the wind
the trunk rotten on the inside and
it had been losing limbs for a long time
the way some people lose their hair as they age
after a storm passed through he’d go out and
gather the limbs from the lawn
but now it’s almost gone and
he hears the songs of the birds and
the sound of Johnny Cash playing in his head and
now and then the passing of a car or
the high-pitched squeals of children
out riding their bikes and having fun


What I Saw

what I saw
when I drove past
were his shoes sticking out
from beneath the blue tarp
EMTs waiting next to
the ambulance and
the lawnmower silent
against the tree
where it died
after running out of gas




Bio: I work for the government but don’t like to talk about it. I like getting drunk and writing. I like Fall better than I like Spring. I like it when the tomatoes start getting ripe. I don’t like okra and never did but I could eat lima beans every day of the week.

Some recent poems have appeared in-Abbey, Gutter Eloquence, Underground Voices, Verse Wisconsin and Zygote In My Coffee.

Geppetto’s Burden,A Poem for a Cow,A Snake in My Bathroom and Ants by Paul Hellweg

Geppetto’s Burden


I’ve seen all too many older drunks
with noses that look like a
Proboscis Monkey on steroids.
Now every time I take a drink,
I run fingers along my snout,
hesitantly,
feeling for new growth,
dreading what I might find, and
I remember Pinocchio,
the innocence of my childhood under siege,
thinking, my god,
could it be?

A Poem for a Cow

Driving down Interstate 5
snacking on turkey jerky,
I pass a cattle truck.
All the cows stared at me
as I stuffed another piece in my mouth.
I tried to explain
it wasn’t beef, but
I don’t think they understood.
I also don’t think they know
where they’re going,
but then,
neither do I.


A Snake in My Bathroom

Opened the door
intent on taking a leak,
saw a gopher snake curled up,
imitating one that rattles.
Startled the snake,
but not as much
as it scared the shit out of me.
I scooped it up
with broom and bucket,
walked it out
a couple hundred yards
into the forest,
turned it loose,
thinking,
I wish all my fears
could be so easily
and conveniently
emancipated.


Ants

Camped at Movie Stringer,
drinking Scotch and water,
sitting on a rock,
ants all over the fuckin’ place.
I was afraid they’d get into the Scotch,
but it doesn’t seem to interest them.
I guess the ants of this world
don’t like to drink,
one more reason I do.


Bio: Paul Hellweg has had over 50 poems published since his debut in 2009. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and he won the 2009 Famas Poetry Prize (sponsored by Literary Chaos, an online magazine). He thinks all this is pretty cool.

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.

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.

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.

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/

Kayan and Never too close by Aline Rahbany

Kayan

We can sit there for hours
In our favorite bar
The hub of people like us
Sipping our wine
Smoking our lungs off
Observing other people
Their gestures and how they dress
Observing and analyzing
Thinking that we know it all
Thinking that we are, at it, the best
Observing and criticizing
Yet failing to see ourselves
Our gaps and misfortunes
Our inabilities and imperfections
During moments
We are god
And god is us
Watching and waiting
To make his move
But that move is what we miss


Never too close

He was slow speeding
His body to reach mine
Crawling, face down
Thoughts up high
Just to touch me
To feel my skin
I was lying next to him
Yet, so much efforts was put
For his hand to reach me
I was out of energy
Out of words to guide him
Through my curves
I lost my sense of direction
Long ago
And he failed to use his
All the efforts tired him
He fell asleep
Right under my arm
Head on my pillow
And I was lying there
Eyes wide open
Wishing I could watch his dreams
Maybe in his dreams
He was actually touching me


Bio: When I am not dreaming, I am another 24 year old distorted person living in Lebanon and indulging in –down to earth – humanitarian field of work for the past two years. I have been published in Shoots & Vines, Opium Poetry 2.0, Black-Listed Magazine, Calliope Nerve, the NOT and Crisis Chronicles.

Unraveling and Redemption by G.D.Anderson

Unraveling

After he shattered the longneck
on his foot emerging from the car
the young doctor in the emergency
ward looks pissed off, ‘You’re lucky
mate, you didn’t sever an artery’.

Now stitched up & on his back deck
beer in hand
it strikes him that something is amiss.
Some aching twitch of doubt.
The late summer sun of the escarpment
slowly sinking into his arm.
.
Between drinks, he sits in the dark
his mind sniffing in straight white lines, unraveling.

The sweet pulse of his long improvised desires
now sprawl wasted,
like the mangled wombat corpse of his thought.

Redemption

One year ago they carted
him off the train at Springfield,
a quart of Canadian Club
whiskey in his lungs. When he

sprang to life six weeks later
in intensive care he reckoned it was a miracle
he had survived. Yet soon he was back
on the grog on a permanent blinder

& now he lies immobile on the bed
arms outstretched, a long plastic
tube feeding him oxygen.

He confesses to me
gasping for each goddamn breath
pausing every few words,
‘I thought I’d turn to… gawd
on my deathbed…
but now…
I’m more convinced
than ever…
It’s all…
gawd’s a fucken sham.’

Lately, I try to keep this little piece of him alive
his mocking defiance
his refusal to be bluffed
to give in to false hopes
to the shameful bullying of fanatics
& mythologizers

I try to keep this little piece of him alive
where the hypocrites can’t reach him
where his ugly, cruel death
can now resurrect, purify him.


BIO: G.D. Anderson lives in North Wollongong, Australia. He has published hundreds of poems since 2002. Some new material can be found at Black-Listed Magazine, Asphodel Madness, The Legendary, The Stray Branch and many other fine magazines. He blogs at: http://georgedanderson.blogspot.com

Safeway by Jack Ohms

Safeway

Bagging canned soup, frozen peas,
just-add-boiling-water sauce
and something for the long weekend,
I smirk to see the teenagers
huddled against the plate-glass window
of the supermarket foyet,
not sensing the urgency of Time.

From under tousled, bleach-dry hair
in bedroom-studied boredom
they watch, grin, sneer and nudge each other
as down the numbered line
old farts fumble cash and cards
and three-for-two-bit cut-out coupons,
then totter, gathering, to snoring cars
and bull-nosed buses to blank estates,
or taxi's ticking over awaiting the elderly
with their barely-a-portion ready meals,
carbolic soap and tinned peaches
swinging like quickening pendulums
between zimmer frame and bingo wings.

They snigger at the way we look, dress,
scowl and hobble about our daily 'business';
our almost totally meaningless movements -
because they know: they've seen the clear,
bright vision of their youthful senses
and it has not told them a lie and I
like to watch them watching us,
as the security guard in antique volume green
hoofs them out into the cold afternoon,
over the tired and endless truckscape;
bankrupting, writing-off their precious identity
against our out-moded machinery;
sending them to Sunday-coloured idleness
until their time comes to stand in line
for want of anything much better to do.

The porridge oats go through with a BLEEP.
I pay up, smile and quietly - and to myself -
wish them well and walk the long drag home
to re-fry yesterday's beans and rice,
stir in those frozen peas and light a fire.

To The Sentimentalist,The Life Of A Writer,AS I LONG TO AVOID THAT HUGE WRECKING CREW CALLED LOVE by Mike Meraz

To The Sentimentalist

“your heart’s door. may I come in?”

it’s run down and cold
there is nothing here
but dirty dishes
and old linen cloths
hanging from stained
windows and doors
to keep the onlookers
from peeking in.

“your heart’s door. may I come in?”

oh, there is a madman
in here rummaging through the
corridors
hanging from the ceiling fans
drool hanging from his mouth
spewing out curse words and
love songs
confusing the passers-by.


The Life Of A Writer

I am in bed
and I can hear the boats go by
along the Mississippi.

I ate Raviolis today
and worked a hard 8 hours
for 9.25 at Matassa’s Market.

there are special things
I must take note of:

the 500 dollar computer
my father bought me
out of the blue.

the way the wind has seemed
to carry me along these past
two years.

my health, although, it was failing,
has seemed to come alive again,
not by nursing it, but by hard work
and diligence.

strength through resistance
is often the key to longevity.

I am in bed
and I can hear the boats go by
along the Mississippi.

such a calming sound of life,
not a crowd of chattering zombies,
but something working its way slowly
down a huge stream,
a destination incomplete,
but keeps going, in the silence,
alone:

the life of a writer.


AS I LONG TO AVOID THAT HUGE WRECKING CREW CALLED LOVE

AS I LONG
TO AVOID THAT
HUGE WRECKING CREW
CALLED LOVE
I TAKE THE OTHER SIDE
OF TOWN,
I SHOP AT THE WRONG
SUPERMARKETS
(AVOID THE SPECIALITY SHOPS),
TAKE THE BUS,
NOT MY CAR TO WORK,
EAT THE WRONG FOODS,
THOSE LOADED WITH FATS ARE FINE,
AVOID ALL EXCERISING, DRINK
LOTS OF BEER, ROAM AROUND
HALF-DRUNK WHILE WHISTLING
“DON’T STOP BELIEVIN’”
WHILE
TRYING TO COURT A GIRL
ON THE 7TH FLOOR
OF THE FINANCIAL BUILDING
TRYING TO CASH
A BAD CHECK.


Bio: Mike Meraz is a poet from Los Angeles who currently lives in New Orleans. He is the author of two books of poetry Black-Listed Poems and All Beautiful Things Travel Alone. Both are available at Lulu.com and Amazon.com. He is also the editor of Black-Listed Magazine.

even hell and back,lerry and i should have drank more by J.J. Campbell

even hell and back

your hatred is a
beautiful light
that blinds me
every time i fall
to my knees

i always wanted
my love to win
this war

and as i lay here

another night

alone

i realize losing
is one sour fucking
taste that is hard
to get rid of

no matter the
lengths one is
willing to travel
to


leery

there's a
few stray
cats that
hang out
by the big
barn out
back

they are
always
leery of
me when
i set out a
little food
and water
for them

they are
smarter
than they
even know


i should have drank more

another morning
where i had exactly
no intention of ever
waking up

and after my third
trip to the bathroom
in the first hour of
being awake

i once again proved
myself correct


Bio: J.J. Campbell (b.1976) lives, writes, but mostly dies a little each day in Brookville, Ohio. He's been widely published in the small press over the last decade or so, most recently at Opium Poetry 2.0, Zygote in My Coffee, AlternativeReel.com, Art:MAG and FUCK!. J.J. also had had many chapbooks published over the years. You can contact J.J. via email at jcampb4593@aol.com or via his homepage http://sites.google.com/site/losersincsite/

I was so hungry I almost ate your jacket and The twitter Writer by Melanie Browne

I was so hungry I almost ate your jacket


The one with the

pot leaf designs,

I almost ate

your jacket,

the one you left on the

floor by my side

of the bed

the one you wore

just the other

day to cash

your tax refund

and I was a little

embarrassed at first

and you teased me

and said don’t be

silly kitten,

you called me kitten

which seemed kind of

silly and stupid,

but I played along like

I liked it and said

meow and purr

and stuff like that,

That jacket is

a little itchy

by the way,

I know

because I wore

It to visit

my friend who works

at the adult video

store, the one

that has all

those lesbians

That work there.




The twitter Writer



Is very serious

about his literary

aspirations



these aspirations

might or might

not include

“classy”

women who

like to

read small,

bite size

bits about

shoes, opiates,

or the

small mole

on his favorite

porn star’s neck



Bio: Melanie Browne
Co-editor of Leaf Garden press
http://melspoemsandsuch.blogspot.com/
http://leafgardenpress.com

Essence and Existence and Let Any Agnostic Provide a Reply by Donal Mahoney

Essence and Existence


Part readily the skin
and readily the pulp,
as readily the tongues
wild apples bore,
eviscerate the cores,
and watermelon spit the pits
they cannot swallow.
Let this be done before
the tongues
wild lemons bore
find no cores.



Let Any Agnostic Provide a Reply

after reading too much Aquinas

Would an aphid reside in an onager’s ear
if the onager’s master spoke Twi?
Or a Gascony scop with a leper elope
if a civet leapt out of a tree?
You doubt it? Read Thomas and see.

Would an addax in Denmark gyrate
if an emu in Sweden bore freight?
Or an eland in Chile complain
if jerboas in Goa refrain?
You doubt it? Read Thomas and see.

For really I thought ‘twas the onager taught
the aphid the tenor of Twi, and that
Gascony scops with Norwegians eloped
when Danes had lepers to tea.
You doubt it? Read Thomas and see.


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, Pirene's Fountain (Australia), Opium Poetry 2.0, Asphodel Madness and other publications.

just warming up by Steve Clamars

i punt bullets into the earth’s atmosphere

that fall back to the surface with the weight

of boulders

reducing tokyo, barcelona and new york

to little more than empty craters



i sprint and kick tanks across the planet

like field-goals

hunks of metal raining down on the streets

of paris and seattle



i cock back and hurl mini-vans reckless

as hail-marys

rubber, glass and steel crashing thru rooftops

in lima, omaha and berlin



i toss up telephone poles like free-throws and

fade away

like giant tooth-picks pummeling the pavement

of toronto, houston and washington dc . . .




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 http://dirtywordsoncleanliving.blogspot.com/

Bio: Ross Vassilev

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

dig? by Ross Vassilev

worms devour the night
as the Tao drinks wine in a tree
he’s no help at all
just like the rest of you.
humanity, you remind me of
the headless mice my cat
leaves in the yard
or the pigeon’s head
she once left by the door.
while Nazis bury Jewish gold
at the ends of rainbows
the angels
of our better nature
are tied to trees
and sodomized
the angels
of our better nature
have slashed their wrists
and hung themselves
with piano wire.

lost by Ross Vassilev

the stars are
drunk


and this moth
circling the room
is even more lost
than I am.


my family came
to America when
I was 3

before that
I had a country
to call home


but with the fall
of Communism
that country
is gone now
forever.


it starts to rain
outside as
the moth tells
me about fate


and things lost
and left behind.

small paradise by Ross Vassilev

staring at grass
and red brick
mellow
afternoon light
of Ohio autumn
the point is
just to be
like the white clouds
and the sparrows
sometimes
the only sound
is a girl’s
rollerskates
on the pavement.