THE F-WORD DILEMMA

THE 'F-WORD' DILEMMA

how many times can you use the word 'fuck' in a single poem
without critics tellin' you to shove it up your ass

but hey
these days shit so often hits the fan that writing about birds and bees
is like writing about the beautiful white sands in Iraq

--Jakub Schoenhof-Wilkans: bilingual poet/writer/journalist/songwriter/blogger from Poland.  His works have been published in various magazines/newspapers/netzines in Poland as well as in the American journal Breadcrumb Scabs.

INCEST

INCEST

details so spicy it's hard to swallow
without a proper dose of capsaicin dissolver
too hard and too thick to grasp
with your teenage palm and comprehension

cool down
soften his hard heart
with a glass of whisky on the rocks
and then just jump
smash your brain against his
stiff
hard
cock
--Jakub Schoenhof-Wilkans: bilingual poet/writer/journalist/songwriter/blogger from Poland.  His works have been published in various magazines/newspapers/netzines in Poland as well as in the American journal Breadcrumb Scabs.

Untitled #15

Untitled #15

…In this headless night, how I love the vapours of my death in this violent, cascading blindness, drunken with spasms, intoxicated, decapitated oh how I love, in this dry gallery, upon the wrenched bones of darkness, ejaculating sparks of flames from an abyss of absent shit, I am the regalia of the pit and the cracked sky’s death, as it burns out, pregnant with frozen loss, my absent tears are love, I am within, without, spitting gilded sunlight, dragging my flesh from a grave of decaying flowers, I laugh, I know no answers, I spill my own blood upon ice, I am no longer here, yet I bathe, there is nothing here, in the birthing of funereal bruises of petals, upon the flesh of abjuration, my vacant eyes stare at the sun, I am not yet blinded by emptiness, in a rage of scarlet teeth still I tear at the meat of nothingness, within these cylindrical walls, my existence moving toward brutality, towards the ends of night, my fingers are paralysis, I am the meat of one thousand agues, one thousand grieving widows, I am death in the sunlight, I scatter severed lips to the bloody earth I dream, here, now, and never before as the pulse drags the corpse from an eternal grave of silence, words defecating their lightless pageantry, I am sliver, tooth, and absent tongue, my death I refute, embrace, the winds caress my denuded eyes, tombs like black ice shatter as the abattoir beckons, bends in intoxicated light out of reach and desolately beautiful I shatter, there is nothing more, I laugh to myself, I spit I am love overflowing, my blindness is of scars, of rot, of kicking up autumn leaves in the morning sun, I dream, spine of electrical storms, something has dressed in regalia this flesh forever fading away, beneath the gallows of the sky at night, yet something in the nothing lingers, something in my absence, I laugh yet I fall into that same abyss beneath a vault of sky, so runs the current of  absolution, the pornography of self, scattered flowers in the gutter, in the pissoir of night, to dance in barren circles as the cleft sun rises, licking the cold steel of the blade, fading from one death to the next, breaking upon the rocks of fruition, nothing more than stone etched without purpose, erased, slashed out…

--Michael Mc Aloran was Belfast born, (1976). His work has appeared/ is forthcoming in various print and online zines, including Carcinogenic Poetry, Sex & Murder Magazine, Horror, Sleaze & Trash, The Medulla Review, Media Virus, In Between Altered States, Graffiti Kolkata, Prothomoto, Tehlia, Pratishedhak, Negative Suck, Danse Macabre, The Stray Branch, Counterexample Poetics, Heavy Bear, etc. In the past year he has authored seven chapbooks, including 'The Gathered Bones', (Calliope Nerve Media), 'The Black Vault', (Calliope Nerve Media), 'Debris', (Erbacce-Press), 'Final Fragments', (Calliope Nerve Media), & 'The Death-Streaked Air' (Virgogray Press-forthcoming).

fact-OID

Every year hundreds of books are threatened with removal from schools and libraries across the country. Since 1990, the American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom has recorded more than 11,000 book challenges, including 460 in 2009.

Even though most of these challenges are made with the best of intentions (protecting people or children from difficult ideas), banning books prevents the freedom to choose and express opinions. Challenged books range from Mother Goose stories and the Harry Potter series to classics like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

--From LULU.com

Untitled #9

Untitled #9

…A bouquet of severed fingers, offering a final caress in the night, emasculating joy torn from the book melds with the smell of fresh blood, I feel nothing in my flesh, the shutter snapped down in dislocation, then rage spits leaden bullets at the obscenity of the sky in the deliria of my deathliness, bones kiss bone, fragile foetal flowers bleed in the denuded moonlight, something sickly crawls up the spine like vines of teeth, my touch, my beloved my astral scars, the blood comes to my mouth and spills forth into the parched soil, the desolate earth, yet I am concrete cold, the vomit-drenched city streets of early morning isolation, there is nothing left, I whisper unto myself, I curl up into a ball in corners and I wait, I am waiting for something I know not what I am waiting for, the surface of the walls peel away to reveal the searing meat, I am kaleidoscope, I am the absence of reason, my shiv glints in the night’s gilded charms, there is nothing to be found and all questions have erased themselves, tunnel of endless dark, the candle slashed out in my blood and in my sight the teaming shoals of foreign traces of memory, I am dead, I am alive, from one minute to the one preceding, from where was my laughter still-born, unto what chamber does my silence dissipate, I have not spoken a word in days, I have nothing left to say, the cavern of the mouth spills leeches of impotence, my scars are timeless, my flesh is nothing but shit to become, I looked at you and found the same question, as if it could matter what else in that could be in how and ever now, I breathe, you are the laughter give me back my rage from out of this spent night in which the severed light cuts sharp shadows like daggers into the flesh, with a razor’s clinical smile, I elect, I concede in virulent absence, I observe myself seeping into never having been, where once was this, you are the dead sun, the fragrant laughter, fuck it I cut myself I bleed my teeth chatter I remain silently the sharp sting in the cleft fist a broken stamen, your lips part and yet still I am dead, the words they mock us, a smile can obliterate, a silence…kill…I devour my shadow as it speaks, as it lends a severed ear to the cleft winds, I will live alone, my limbs severed, crawling about on amputated dreams, -our stitches define us, the sky will not cease to be, and I will be gone, having felt for nothing, and having dreamt of less...

--Michael Mc Aloran was Belfast born, (1976). His work has appeared/ is forthcoming in various print and online zines, including Carcinogenic Poetry, Sex & Murder Magazine, Horror, Sleaze & Trash, The Medulla Review, Media Virus, In Between Altered States, Graffiti Kolkata, Prothomoto, Tehlia, Pratishedhak, Negative Suck, Danse Macabre, The Stray Branch, Counterexample Poetics, Heavy Bear, etc. In the past year he has authored seven chapbooks, including 'The Gathered Bones', (Calliope Nerve Media), 'The Black Vault', (Calliope Nerve Media), 'Debris', (Erbacce-Press), 'Final Fragments', (Calliope Nerve Media), & 'The Death-Streaked Air' (Virgogray Press-forthcoming).

Really, Really Lost

Really, Really Lost

Plath
put her head in an oven
F. Scott's
generation was lost
Frost
starred off into space admiring what would later be destroyed
Bukowski
drank like a champ
people
were raised
by the generation that was lost
then they raised another one
so we are essentially fucked
since we decided
not to pull over
and ask directions
 
--Maxwell Baumbach is a poet from Elmhurst, IL. He edits the Heavy Hands Ink publication, has a youtube channel (Youtube.com/MaxwellThePoet), and likes sports. His first chapbook, "Suburban Rhythm" was recently published by cc&d through Scars Publications. It is available as a free read.

It Must Be Hard To Be You

It Must Be Hard To Be You

it must be hard to be you
with those infinite expenses
that your mom gives you
that her dad gave her

your
part-time job
must be intolerable

oh
and your car
is low on
gas

those sweatshop workers
must be so much more grateful
for what they have
after seeing
how rough life is
for you

--Maxwell Baumbach is a poet from Elmhurst, IL. He edits the Heavy Hands Ink publication, has a youtube channel (Youtube.com/MaxwellThePoet), and likes sports. His first chapbook, "Suburban Rhythm" was recently published by cc&d through Scars Publications. It is available as a free read.

Recommendations

Recommendations

 

mr. gladeview

you have to

pick up

Grisham’s

new thriller

the broker,

you will love it

larry 

have you read

Klosterman’s

sex, drugs, and

coco puffs?

it will

crack you up!

hey teach

thought

i’d bring you

Delillo’s

underworld,

best book i’ve

ever read

i am not one 

to burn a book

but 

the bottom

drawer of my desk

is running out

of room.

--In 1983, Lawrence Gladeview was born to two proud and semi-doting parents. After two middle schools and losing his faith in Catholic high school, he graduated from James Madison University, majoring in English and having spent only one night in jail. He is a Washington D.C. poet cohabiting with his fiance Rebecca Barkley. Lawrence is one of two editors for MediaVirus Magazine, and more than thirty of his poems have been featured in print and online publications. You can read more of his poetry on his website, Righteous Rightings.

Shake Up

Shake Up

It felt like the retractable edge of the universe, but really it was the edge of the black table at Margaret’s Small Restaurant, with peeled layers of paint, and the two stylish young women with long hair were holding onto the edge of the table for as long as they could, their hands starting to feel emotionally rusty, especially the severed one that Margaret was holding as she stood next to the table, hunkered over and a little pale.

Margaret’s theatrical severed hand was named Matilde, always said with a sophisticated faux French accent, She named all her plaster severed hands, and she had five. She had started collecting them as wry humor therapy in the last few months. Though she had two perfectly good hands, she rarely left home without a plaster one, and loved to use one to shake hands with strangers, especially with new customers at her little restaurant. This hand was able to hold onto the edge of the shaking, shivering table better than her own, because of the curvature of the fingers and their unbreakable inertness.

The uncommonly unstable situation at the table where Margaret was attending was a small, gentle earthquake, common to San Francisco, the kind of thing that really bonds people together and makes everything seem unusual. It’s almost like a truth serum, making people open up to each other who may never have had the courage before. The kind of thing that makes everything seem like a lucid dream for awhile.

“Darling”, Margaret said, emboldened to use the word because of the tremor, “it was not long after you came here from Iowa that I started suspecting it was You. You’d come into my restaurant a few times before I was sure, but those looks you gave me were so hot, and so familiar in an edgy sort of way I kept thinking about you. That’s why I asked about your Iowa accent. I don’t get many people in here from my home state, anyway, but it was more than that. It was when you gave me the look of slight ferocious irony that I recognized you from the pictures I’d seen on the computer. You were the one, weren’t you, that my boyfriend, Rick, fell in love with over the internet? You were the one in the pictures on the website that he tried so hard to keep secret. Why he didn’t just tell me he wanted to break up and date you, I don’t know, but I guess you know by now how bizarre he is whether you actually ever met him in person or not. You were the secret girl that made him break up with me by making up all those stories. You’re Mandy, aren’t you?”

She had been waiting for a nod, some sort of indication, and it finally did come, as the young woman seated at the table started blushing the color of her rose wine that was jiggling dangerously in the glass with the aftershocks.

“ And you know which stories, don’t you, Mandy? The ones about how he was a serial killer. About how he liked to track down women and chop off their hands. About how they never knew what hit them until they saw the gleam in his eyes and then it was too late. Slice. Snuff. Bango. I know he’d never actually do it, but it still creeped me out. I told half of Iowa City about it. He could have just been normal and told me he met someone on the internet he wanted to date instead, but no, not Rick. He had to give me nightmares about how he was going to make a snuff movie, and how he never drank a martini unless it had a dead man’s heart valve floating in it for extra panache. I asked him if he wanted to go kill my mom together, to see what he’d do. To test him. But he said no, he can’t have an accomplice, too dangerous. Clever. Very clever.”

“Yes, that was me,” Mandy said. “I’m sorry. I’m that girl.”

“You’re really hot.”

“So are you.”

“ Maybe we should get together sometime. Have a drink. Someplace nicer than this hole in the wall. I can bring Matilde…..Or not.”

And so they did.

They ended up at Margaret’s house, which was compact, filled with pictures and vases and figurines. “This is my great aunt Martha,” Margaret said, pointing to a dried pink rose in a vase, very dusty. “Actually, it’s my friend’s aunt Martha, but she gave it to me. Whenever she goes to a cemetery when someone dies, she takes a flower. This one happened to be there when her aunt died. So she named it “Aunt Martha”. Somehow, it keeps me company.”

Her new girlfriend, Mandy, explained that she understood. She said she didn’t usually go out with living people and had an affiliation with the dead, herself. She liked to go on dates with dead writers, as she’d always describe it to her social circle. She had a particular favorite named Nancy Ruggles, a novelist who had died years before. She would take her books with her to read over coffee, or a Grand Marnier. Her friends knew this about her, and would be happy to find out she was actually dating a real live woman, whether she was morbid or not. They would be proud, and a little surprised, though she was very pretty. Her dark hair hung over one eye, making it hard for her to see, but worth it because of the noir mystery affect.

She told Margaret about the glories of the novelist Nancy Ruggles. They started double dating Nancy. Getting double shots of espresso and reading Nancy’s books aloud to each other. They both became nearly equally obsessed with her novels, and would softly, dramatically, seductively recite a sentence to each other from a Ruggles book, while kissing each other between words on the belly. On the thigh, if it was a particularly brilliant line. They both eventually started drinking decaf coffee with hazelnut milk in it, and sweetened with agave nector, because they wanted to be more healthy for each other. Margaret stopped using her plaster arm as often. They became dedicated, more svelt than ever, their skin glowing with more life, double dating Nancy’s books, as they delighted in telling all their friends, and then one full moon night, they called up The Guy. Rick.

The guy who had so cleverly claimed to be the mass murderer in order to get out of the relationship with Margaret, so he could date Mandy who had, however, moved out of Iowa and because of the truly dreamlike nature of the reality, ended up in San Francisco, just as Margaret had months before. They called him one night around three in the morning, and both talked into the phone at once. Matilde the plaster severed hand was made to dial the phone, painstakingly. The fingernails were painted especially red for the occasion, and it was wearing a ring he had given her.

Rick was shocked to hear from either one, much less both at the same time. And when they told him they had left him and found someone better, a dead woman writer who wrote stories about sorority girls who had sledding accidents and found out the meaning of life through being good sports about it, never complaining about the pain, who never over-ate, who went to bed at ten, he was even more surprised. He didn’t know what to say. The mass murderer lines weren’t going to work, as he had only used that story with Margaret. He had told Mandy he was a philanthropist lawyer who did a lot of pro bono work. He made a sound that could be almost any word, to give himself a little more time to think.

His calico cat walked across his head at that moment, as he lay there, speechless, holding the phone. It butted his ear with its head, wanting to be petted. That knocked the phone out of his hand, and when he recovered it, still not sure what to say, Matilde, the plaster severed hand, had already hung up the receiver.

And the two moist women, Mandy, and Margaret, were making out, both wearing mesh stockings for the occasion, which became slightly snagged and unwearable again from the experience of intertwining so enthusiastically, but neither one cared, or ever brought it up at all.

--Tantra Bensko teaches Experimental Fiction Writing through UCLA Extension, and her own Academy. She has won various honors such as the Journeys Award from Cezanne's Carrot. She is the author of Watching the Windows Sleep, put out by Naissance Press. She publishes Experimental Writing, including exclusive work, by various authors, exemplifying the genre

Approbations 707

Approbations 707

—after Anouar Brahem’s For No Apparent Reason

Light
                        disguised
shadowy rendition

                                                alphabetic compulsion
(mirror, talk into the blasphemed turbulence of desecrated
                                                 values)

relearning lunging particles of acrobatic motions

            ambulating
                                                varied pedigrees
among wandering virtues

cultivating multiplied demise                           with
fashionable

                                                postulations
divided renewed by
unheard delirium
neon in backtracking   pardons
hearsay deliberate seared                     anatomic mastication.

--Felino A. Soriano (b. 1974, California) is a case manager and advocate for developmentally and physically disabled adults. He edits/publishes Counterexample Poetics, www.counterexamplepoetics.com, an online journal of experimental artistry, and Differentia Press, dedicated to publishing e-chapbooks of experimental poetry. As a poet, he has authored several collections of poetry, including Among the Interrogated (BlazeVOX [books], 2008), Search among the Absent Found (Recycled Karma Press, 2009), Apperceptions of Reinterpretations (Calliope Nerve Media, 2009), Delineated Functions of Congregated Constructs (Calliope Nerve Media, 2010) and r (please press, 2009). The internal collocation of philosophical studies and love of classic and avant-garde jazz is the explanation for his poetic stimulation. Details are at his website, www.felinosoriano.com.

Superstition

Superstition

A boy behind the counter pours
my name into my coffee where
it bottoms and buoys up cream
clouds of vowel (read: a pillow
warm day stirring smoke-break
sparrows).

--Meaghan Russell lives outside Baltimore, Maryland. She has previously published poetry in Calliope Nerve and The Sound of Poetry Review, and has work forthcoming in The Bitter Oleander and Skidrow Penthouse.

quoteABLE

"The Lord is close to the broken hearted and saves those crushed in Spirit." --Pslams 34:18

High Noon in Downtown Chicago

High Noon in Downtown Chicago

St. Peter's in the Loop

Two minutes more, Father Cal,
and you will hear another
of my strange confessions.
Right now, I'm outside
watching the rain on my glasses
running in rills.
Once inside I'll confess
the usual stuff
with a few variations,
none essential,
all accidental,
the same plot,
the same ploys,
the same frenetic tale
I have always to tell.

Next week, I promise,
it will be different.
Next week, I promise
I'll fall on the kneeler
and whisper
through the grille,
"Father Cal, it is I.
You know the rest."

Next week, I won't make
another list in the diner
across from St. Peter's.
Next week I'll swig
on a milkshake instead.
Father Cal, you and I
will both profit.

--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 Prize nominee, he has had poems published in 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), Calliope Nerve, The Osprey Journal (Scotland), Pirene's Fountain (Australia) and other publications.

Mus (the mouse)

Mus (the mouse)

I was tired again, with moderate-to-severe hunch pains --Thom Jones

vacor
a rodenticide that looks like corn
destroys the beta cells of the pancreas
causing instant diabetes
followed by chest pains
impaired intellect
coma
and finally death
don’t feel sorry for me

pity tracks the diabetic
with severe hypoglycemia
like a homing device
I will develop an incredible thirst

an overdose of strychnine
destroys the nerves
and causes convulsions
the sick cannot bear bright light
it is a prolonged death of utter torment

shrunken thymus glands
a swelling in the cranial cavity
shrivelling of the adrenal glands
yet some men
drink huge amounts of coffee

--SJ Fowler (1983) has had poetry published in over 60 journals & magazines since the beginning of 2010 and his first collection is released later this year by Veer books. He is a member of the Writers forum poetry group and an employee of the British Museum. He edits the Maintenant interview series for 3am magazine introducing contemporary European poetry into the English language. www.maintenant.co.uk

Corva (the crow)

Corva (the crow)

And the crow shouted back: “Crow yourself!” --Daniil Kharms

I maintain imbalances
though I may return balance to imbalance
depending on your view
I introduced female circumcision
but worse
worse
for we are an androcracy

I introduced subincision
in which the urethra is cut
so that the organ can be opened up longways
and pressed against the belly
to look like a…

it resembles the bleeding…
adopted freely by men
so they nigh arrogate themselves female wisdom

…of their own free will
a secret society is formed
I am its leader
its member are idiots

--SJ Fowler (1983) has had poetry published in over 60 journals & magazines since the beginning of 2010 and his first collection is released later this year by Veer books. He is a member of the Writers forum poetry group and an employee of the British Museum. He edits the Maintenant interview series for 3am magazine introducing contemporary European poetry into the English language. www.maintenant.co.uk

To The Vote (State Censored version)

To The Vote (State Censored version)

(Some posts cut for public morale)

The Life Forum – UK Section – Mandatory Voting - Governmental Bills – Voting Closed
Thread: A Bill to tackle those on BENEFITS/ SCUMMY neighbourhoods
View poll results: Should this Bill pass?

Yes 13, 452
No 8, 356
Voters: 21, 808. You have already voted on this poll.

#1
Minister for Home Affairs

[A
BILL

To remove certain individuals relating to the use of benefits from the land comprising the former counties of England, to make provision for the extermination of any human remains from the land.]

This Bill is put forward for public consummation.

#2
Asbo

First post! Yes!

#3
Trevor Marnock

Finally the government do something about layabouts who cost hard-working tax payers money.

#4
Minister for Justice

Re - Asbo
That’s spam. Please surrender to the Online Castration Department for removal of inadequate posts.

#5
Marx Fan

What is this, some sort of Orwellian state?

Marx Fan

#6
Minister for Justice

Re - Marx Fan

Actually, I think you will find this IS an Orwellian state.

#7
Justice Lover

LMAO! Pawned.

#10
Minister for Justice

Just to let you all know, Marx Fan has been banned, and we are tracing his ISP.

#11
Mr Cromwell

Another example of the idea that people on benefits must be made to suffer or be exterminated. The working man should have a working wage, and those on benefits be given enough to survive on.

Marx Fan

#12
Oliver

An interesting Bill. It seems there are two outcomes from this debate. Either a vote of “NO” is cast, and humanity postpones its eternal shame briefly, or a vote of “YES” as is the norm, and forever more this day will be cast as one of infamy.

“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”

You may recognise the quote. It is from the original Human Rights Act, so shamefully thrown out by this government three decades ago.

I will vote NO, I will vote NO publicly and loud, and implore the rest of you to do the same.

We can only succeed if we make a stance.

#13
John Alexander

Re - Mr Cromwell
LOL! Self-merkdom! You signed under your old account! Fool!

#14
Patriotic Lion

Aghashhdhfhhsahdhfhshsfhshfhfhg What an idiot!

#15
Minister for Justice

I have nothing to say on the matter.

Marx Fan.

#16
Patriotic Lion

Ahahdhfhghgghhg! Very good, Minister!

Marx Fan

#17
Minister for Justice

Marx Fan’s sock has been banned. His punishment has been uplifted to inhumane execution.

#18
Lucy M

Anyone who votes the wrong way in this poll should be eaten by crocodiles.
This is not a threat because I am not a crocodile.

#22
Paul Robes

My taxes are going down the drain. I have to work a 12 hour day, feed four kids, pay for an ex-wife, and live in a bedsit with two other hard working honest mates. This woman down the road, she has no kids, an unemployed husband, Sky TV, a swimming pool, a pet anaconda and a private army. All on benefits, taking from my hard working pay. By voting YES, I hope the government will set the anaconda lose on the rest of the scum in the neighbourhood, drown her in her own swimming pool, nationalise her private army and give me her Sky TV. Because I am entitled to it.

#23
John Alexander

I agree with Paul Robes. I pay my taxes. Why should I have to pay someone elses? If you can’t get a job, and with 73% mobility, I can’t see why anyone who bothers can’t, then you should face extermination. It is the only logical step forward for us to progress as a society.

#24

Rich

Only those earning 40k a year should get benefits. Tax benefits!

#25
Guy Fawkes

Re - Paul Robes
This sort of thing exemplifies the process by which the big businesses exert their power over the masses.


#26
Bonfire Builder

Build a bonfire! Build a bonfire
Put the homeless on the top
Put the scroungers in the middle
And we’ll burn the f***** lot!

#27
Minister for Justice

Re - Bonfire Builder
What a lovely song.

#38
Marx-Fan-Fan

Voting on the lives of millions and we haven’t reached a second page. I am ashamed.

#39
Minister for Home Affairs

Voting closed. The Bill has passed. Thank you for your support.

#40
Minister for Justice

Clean-up operations will now commence. Please be patient.
This thread will now close.

Writers Notes – All spelling and grammar errors are intentional. Except for any here, which would show me up. For more on Swiftian satire, you can wait until I write some. Alternatively, read Swift. --Michael s. Collins

500 Miles

500 Miles

Death is a highway in the Trans-Pecos
where painted white road perforations
blur into single lines.

At night prehistoric things fly into the windshield
over and over until the wipers have smeared
so badly you have to pull over somewhere
in the five hundred miles between nothing
and nowhere.

There are no carwashes in Hell, just a two pump
gas station stuck so far back in time that you can’t
fill your own tank and forget about a credit
card slot.

You want to order a sandwich inside
but the cat perched atop the counter suddenly
turns your stomach at the thought of barbeque
and fur balls.

Dawn begins creeping over the low mesas
and you stand outside your car as the wind
blows dirt into your mouth.

The kind of grit only a cold beer will wash away
but you can’t buy it until noon so you grab a luke warm
soda from the back seat where it’s nestled
between a tote bag and a half eaten bag
of Doritos.

Just a half day left of Chihuahuan desert
before you can finally wipe the dust from your eyes.

--Carly Bryson writes from Houston, Texas. Her work has appeared in Calliope Nerve, Shine, Carcinogenic Poetry, and Poets Against War.

quoteABLE

"...It tolls for me." --W.A.S.P.

JUST BE QUIET

JUST BE QUIET

Up in the air
I hope the bomb
does not come
crashing down.

You talk to me
in ambiguities
and I am not
prepared for what
may befall me.

Maybe someday
you say you might
decide we might
have a future.

I wish I could
move on, but these
voices in my
head persist.

Without little
warning you drop
by to give me hell.

In the middle
of something I
curse at you to
shut the hell up.

Everyone just stares
and either I
smile, laugh, or cry.

If only I could
just stay silent,
if only you
could just be quiet
or go away.

-Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal has appeared everywhere online and in print. :) He has a new chap coming out with Kendra Steiner Editons called Digging A Grave.

DISTORTED

DISTORTED

Were you ever someone?
When you learned to write did
it always feel like work?

Teachers corrected you.
In History class your
face became distorted.

Over the years you showed
little love for life. You
declined to embrace it.

You stepped on the rose and
spit on Shakespeare. Short a
horn or two, you were like

the devil or the spoiled
child expelled from hell.

--Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal has appeared everywhere online and in print. :) He has a new chap coming out with Kendra Steiner Editons called Digging A Grave.

REBELLION IN THE SKY

REBELLION IN THE SKY

There was rebellion
in the sky. Birds of
different flocks
gathered together
to drop bombs on us
like in High Anxiety.

Wearing a new hat,
new clothes, and new
shoes, some of the victims
were in for a rude
awakening. The birds
left their imprint on them.

I did not go out that
day, but the bombs
ate away at the paint
on my car. It took
hours to wash all
the windows clean.

--Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal --Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal has appeared everywhere online and in print. :) He has a new chap coming out with Kendra Steiner Editons called Digging A Grave.

Approbations 712

Approbations 712

—after Sam Rivers’ Downstairs Blues Upstairs

Mansion of movement
            s
            l
              a
                n
                  t
                                                                

                                                                  p
                                                                e
                                                               t
                                                              s      ▲

                                                               upward
                                                reliant ambulation
medical proximity
attaching hankering for elevated  body-model method             breathe
allowance construed rising twirl mode caricature of
self and the self born following now’s version of

                                                            sedentary
                                                demise.

--Felino A. Soriano (b. 1974, California) is a case manager and advocate for developmentally and physically disabled adults. He edits/publishes Counterexample Poetics, www.counterexamplepoetics.com, an online journal of experimental artistry, and Differentia Press, dedicated to publishing e-chapbooks of experimental poetry. As a poet, he has authored several collections of poetry, including Among the Interrogated (BlazeVOX [books], 2008), Search among the Absent Found (Recycled Karma Press, 2009), Apperceptions of Reinterpretations (Calliope Nerve Media, 2009), Delineated Functions of Congregated Constructs (Calliope Nerve Media, 2010) and r (please press, 2009). The internal collocation of philosophical studies and love of classic and avant-garde jazz is the explanation for his poetic stimulation. Details are at his website, www.felinosoriano.com.

You Are Her

You Are Her

To know the token,
to feel the philosophic flow,
to wander and wonder,
carefree and uncurbed,
to list and capsize
in a field of liquid mirth --
this is the missing ingredient,
the runner gone over the railyard,
the stanza slipped starward
beyond the steerage.

Murmuring through a headset,
stippling a memo with sand and syntax,
our indigenous disingenue smiles and yawns.
Gazing into the machine,
she finds only a scripted existence,
an alien and blank filter
staring silently back,
into the abyss that is
the cradled worker.

--John Pursch lives in Tucson, Arizona with his wife, Teri, and their two cats, Sky and Miles. He is a systems analyst at the University of Arizona’s Lunar & Planetary Laboratory, supporting several NASA missions. His work has recently appeared online in Clockwise Cat. You can follow his work at www.twitter.com/johnpursch.

Kyle Muntz Reviews The Evolutionary Revolution

The Evolutionary Revolution is a strange piece, which, rather than having any kind of concrete presence, occupies itself by investigating various margins (aesthetic, conceptual, linguistic). Surprisingly, this isn’t an experimental novel, but Lily Hoang’s subversion of structure (if we were to diagram this plot, it would look, unsurprisingly, like a large spiral, cycling in and out of connectivity), and even her treatment of single sentences certainly emerges from an experimental mindset. The result is a work born from the late stages of fusion, continually reinventing not just itself but the tradition it emerges from.

The Evolutionary Revolution is about an Earth made entirely of water, with a fertile moon: a landscape more mental than physical, mirroring the psychology of its occupants while simultaneously being changed by it. This vision of the world bears no similarity to our own, but is simultaneously its continuation and origin, the foundation and end result of the western mindset. Our familiar words—“man”, “storyteller”, “prophet”, “merman”—no longer mean what we presume them to mean; or rather, our definitions don’t exist yet.

Hoang’s language is permeated with a subtle sense of irony, a deliberate lightness. Her control is so deft that on occasion, it’s difficult even to recognize the strangeness of the narrative at hand. Impossible images and ideas ricochet across the page, juxtaposing a series of complexly connected narratives. Their intersection (alternating between the aquatic earth and a contemporary version vaguely similar to our own, complete with ipods and word “dude”) forms the foundation of this essentially understated epic.

Though at times it feels like one, and all the familiar parts are in place, The Evolutionary Revolution is not a fairy tale. Rather, Lily Hoang explores the late stages of myth in a society where it no longer exists—one that has destroyed language, come disconnected from narrative. The result is distantly familiar but quintessentially new. The loose spiral winds outwards an elaborate mesh of textures and sensations, invigorating contemporary mythology, or maybe creating a new one.

This new novel shows Lily Hoang’s work continuing to grow. Each progressive piece offers something new and fresh, but here, she might even have evolved. The prose is polished to the point it seems almost to gleam, but the material is also especially interesting as fantasy; the degree of invention on display is staggering in itself. The Evolutionary Revolution is sure to be one of the most interesting things published this year—or any year, for that matter.

A Fleet Of Shadow

A Fleet Of Shadow

In an unfamiliar meld
of rigid steel and red bricked mould,
she kindles to the portents of summer.
Whilst he sits upright on the bedclothes,
hastily buttoning a pleated shirt
and cobalt, bootlegged jeans.

She feels in vain for the mellow
plume of melting prints, as bowed fingers
trail the contour of her cheekbone. They
coax her head in sideways motion, where
she observes his movements by the
inflections of gilding light.

Fleet shadow, in rearward tilt,
steals through a tapering space, an
arm outstretched in blithe, parting gesture. A
limp sheaf of paper wealth, tossed from his palm
as though torn paper scraps, strew the
surface of his bedside table.

As prompt footfall treads its patter,
a spill of contemplation seeps by
word amongst the bleed of his benevolence.
“Save me from tomorrow,” reels their whisper,
through the remnants of hollow consort, and
the silt of a gin sodden tea cup.

--Lewis Humphries resides in Birmingham, United Kingdom. His publishing credits include Twisted Tongue Magazine, Tales from the Moonlit Path, Conceit Magazine, Everyday Poets, Ghostlight, Foliate Oak Literary, Bare Back Magazine, Franklin Christoph and The Blinking Cursor.

WINDOWS TO BE BURNT

WINDOWS TO BE BURNT

Slides and a floe
Jabbers jotted out for fingers
Soluble nimbus
Petrapole rounds
Weeds are gone...
Freed beyond the calender

Plumbous rolls inside my shoe...
Get a track done
Drool through the machineries & scars
On a motorhouse day
Run like a goddamn memphis crab

Radio synagogue...who, the man scrambles the negatives
Kills the west
I crave for a dodogram

Doughy filthy diazepam
Lord of Semitic
I have a tower to speak through...

--Swadesh Misra is a poet,photographer/graphic artist,independent film maker, and musician living in Calcutta,India. He has been working mainly on alternative & experimental literature since 2002. He has published 11 issues of the literary magazine PRATISHEDHAK (Brain Blade Nuisance) & is involved in the new age indie literary-creative movement in Calcutta. Recently Misra has formed a third line theatrical & creative group/club called Night In Istanbul in Calcutta. Misra published his first book 'Laal Panshala' (Read Dead Ginmill) in 2009.

Poultice

Poultice

A spindling tree grows through the lake's wound
where its fallen leaves poultice the root.

Detritus of vapor where sky becomes water
like the coupled god abandons its dual.
Nets pull bait fish from the shallows,
I leave the sails flapping
as the space of earth prevents reentry,
larvae raft on acrid petals until dawn.

The weather tower hill erodes into the shore
through pressure of each day changing- she veils

--John Swain lives in Louisville, Kentucky. His chapbooks, Prominences and Sinking of the Cloth appeared from Flutter Press and Set Apart Before the World Was Made appeared from Calliope Nerve Media. Full of Crow published his ebook, The Feathered Masks and a forthcoming chapbook, Burnt Palmistry.

Mullein

Mullein

Called to the rock
where I could not journey further,
she gazed into the river,
but could not see within.
Sun burnished the underside of sky,
tearing out our little breaths
where the air was singed.
We still vibrance
like a sage becomes a leopard,
denizen of four worlds here.
The mullein blooms in ecstasy,
I hid myself with its leaves.

--John Swain lives in Louisville, Kentucky. His chapbooks, Prominences and Sinking of the Cloth appeared from Flutter Press and Set Apart Before the World Was Made appeared from Calliope Nerve Media. Full of Crow published his ebook, The Feathered Masks and a forthcoming chapbook, Burnt Palmistry.

A Natural Solitude

A Natural Solitude

I fingered the trident lines
of heron steps
in dust of sand over the mud
where river devours land.
I shed the weight of my flesh
and took new robes of earth
as you inspired the trees
naked and graceful in pure movement.
The chained blue arms of wind
held the pierced sun aloft,
we separate from light's embrace
and resume a natural solitude.

--John Swain lives in Louisville, Kentucky. His chapbooks, Prominences and Sinking of the Cloth appeared from Flutter Press and Set Apart Before the World Was Made appeared from Calliope Nerve Media. Full of Crow published his ebook, The Feathered Masks and a forthcoming chapbook, Burnt Palmistry.

quoteABLE

"I will litter the world with words." --Nobius Black

With Great Pop

With Great Pop

be something
crack this one
here is an excuse for an epiphamy

You should see the view from this window.
You should have seen the color of the rocks in the ocean that I saw last fall.

I ordered lobster again one summer to exclaim, "I still don't like lobster."
There would have been merriment in some crowds. Instead it was met with,
"Yes, I knew you didn't like it."

I have purchased Ghirardelli Twilight Delight 72% Cacao dark chocolate with
food stamps; deposited a $2,854.93 check and then eaten tortillas with Soyrizo
all day.

I fall into perils like this.

After announcing I plan to visit India after receiving my degree I move into a house full of roommates from India.
rejection of this series has inspired me to work on it

bio:

"I don't actually exist when I'm not writing." -HP Tinker

--E.C. Well is a bit terrified by some of the things that he has encountered. He attempts to maintain a fierce and penetrating devotion to truth, justice, and finding a way. Do not assume you identify. His view is from a perspective that requires most to step far outside of the lines that have for some time been "lives". The result is usually something far crisper and desirous; far more simple to achieve than believed; and far more tantalizing in its complexity. Self-recommended doses of these can be found in the words of his conversations and the things they describe.

Gratiating

Gratiating

I like to sit around and do nothing.
I like to lie.
I usually don't even tell people I am busy or that I have been working.
I wait and wait.
People rely on me and some admire what I make.
Sometimes I slip duplicitous or multiplicituos lines into my work.
The lines say that I that think something is rotten or that I do not like someone.
In Shakespeare it is revered. Today,
it has become old and enslaving.

-doesn't even taste good sometimes, but it tastes like so much of the fine things.
I have to eat like anyone, so maybe that is why the system has begun to nibble at my words.
Shelter is a desirous asset in today's world, especially for those with noses and minds.
Perhaps that is why we are all doing the things that we do.

bio:

"I don't actually exist when I'm not writing." -HP Tinker

--E.C. Well is a bit terrified by some of the things that he has encountered. He attempts to maintain a fierce and penetrating devotion to truth, justice, and finding a way. Do not assume you identify. His view is from a perspective that requires most to step far outside of the lines that have for some time been "lives". The result is usually something far crisper and desirous; far more simple to achieve than believed; and far more tantalizing in its complexity. Self-recommended doses of these can be found in the words of his conversations and the things they describe.

Admission

Admission

This says I know of You:
I know of You.
My knowing and writing this, that references that in your life, says I don't care;
I don't care about You.
-or that I think this is more important than for You to be sheltered.

-by the fact
this says it.

bio:

"I don't actually exist when I'm not writing." -HP Tinker

--E.C. Well is a bit terrified by some of the things that he has encountered. He attempts to maintain a fierce and penetrating devotion to truth, justice, and finding a way. Do not assume you identify. His view is from a perspective that requires most to step far outside of the lines that have for some time been "lives". The result is usually something far crisper and desirous; far more simple to achieve than believed; and far more tantalizing in its complexity. Self-recommended doses of these can be found in the words of his conversations and the things they describe.

quoteABLE

"And these lungs have sung this song for too long, and its true I hurt too, remember I loved you!" --Hollywood Undead

Story of a Generation

Story of a Generation (originally appeared in poeticdiversity, December 2009)

All history is the story of rebellion, for without rebellion there are no stories to tell. Without rebellion there is only tradition, the stories told without telling. Without rebellion there is no generation, just as every generation has its rebellion.

My generation’s rebellion was domestic, which isn’t to say it wasn’t authentic (because it was), which isn’t to say it was honest (because it wasn’t, and because fooling yourself doesn’t make you any more clever than a fool).

***

"Strip off your shirt and bra," the male doctor instructed.

Winston performed as told and continued explaining how one week ago today he began feeling and emptiness in his chest cavity, a sort of throbbing dullness, a sort of phantom pain. "It’s probably nothing," he reassured himself to the doctor. "But I’d rather be safe."

***

Our demands -- for the tradition of rebellion demands demands -- were, of course, also domestic. We demanded the families in the family montage, the pictures in the picture postcards, the dramas in the network dramas that only end in hugs or to-be-continueds. We demanded easy money; we demanded easy sex; we demanded easy lives. We demanded risk without consequence, love without risk, and riskless adventures. Pan left, life goes on, everybody smile, click.

***

The doctor showed Winston the x-ray. "You haven’t been imagining things," the doctor said. "All of your internal organs are missing."

"What?"

"Check the usual places first -- maybe they snuck off for a swim in the tub. Your stomach might be in the ‘fridge. It’s anybody’s guess, really."

"I’m not sure I understand."

"I wouldn’t worry too much -- you seem to be doing fine without them. I’ve been thinking about having mine removed, actually. Lose some quick pounds."

"I think I’d like to see another doctor."

***

Our rebellion, like most rebellions, failed. "Too many variables," we’d say later, or "There’s no way we could’ve known." In other words, it couldn’t have been our fault. We didn’t do anything wrong.

"Yeah, I did leave towels in the sink. And you didn’t put out last night. What about it?"

***

Winston was on his way home when he checked his pulse at a stoplight. No luck. He scoffed.

Entering his apartment he tossed his keys on an end table and went to the refrigerator. His appetite was as pallid as it had been all week but it was almost lunchtime and he wasn’t one to skip meals. He opened the door and saw his stomach (he assumed it was his, at least) wrapped around some potato salad. He closed the door, blinked a few times, waved his hand in front of his face, and reopened the door. The stomach had moved on to the eggs.

Winston walked into the bathroom to take a leak and splash some water on his face, but quickly noticed a heart (his heart, surely) enjoying the toilet bowl as its own private whirlpool. The seat was up and the heart was holding a string that had been connected to the flusher, and was flushing it again and again. Not wanting to disturb his heart, Winston pulled back the shower curtain to use the bathtub drain, only to find his spleen and pancreas swimming laps. The water was still steaming.

Winston felt faint.

He stumbled to his living room sofa and blacked out.

***

Everything was empty, so nothing could hurt.

--Robert John Miller's work has recently appeared in Camroc Press Review, Bartleby Snopes, and Long Story Short. He lives in the Midwest. You can read more at http://bobsoldout.com.

quoteABLE

"How bad you figure it'll get?"

"As bad as it can. Got the grit for it, Pilgrim?" --Garth Ennis