Month: October 2018
John D Robinson
Hitting Home
The wine is hitting home
and it’s a good place to be
right now
at home with a couple of
bottles of diablo’s
chardonnay and the poems
offering themselves up
like cheap whores or
fallen angels taunting
and teasing like a 1950’s
censored Elvis:
the wine is hitting home
as millions of strangers
around me starve and
fall victim to oppression
and injustice and abuse,
as animals are hunted
and forests burned and
slashed, oceans poisoned:
it’s a good place to be
as the wine hits home,
numbed and fucking
useless against the
relentless mad swirl
of the world,
just for a while
as the wine hits home,
it’s a good
place to be.
C.M. Crockford
I Saw This Horrible Evil Entity and Now I’m Pretty Much Done
I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here. Well to make a long story short, I…witnessed a massive, ancient cosmic creature emerge from the sea and I’m pretty much done. Donezo. I mean with life: like physically, mentally emotionally, I am out. Once you’ve seen an ancient monolith emerge from the depths you can forgot posting pictures of your dinner on Instagram or hanging with old frat buddies, am I right?
And I had a life too! Like, interests and shit – foosball night at Ruby’s was the best! At least until understanding my hollow, miniscule place in the universe made me completely lose any interest. I cannot emphasize enough how much seeing a tentacled beast deity emit a blaring roar then slink back into dark waters changes you, for better or worse.
…It’s all worse. I cannot make that more clear.
After all, at the time, I was an explorer, swashbuckling my way through intrepid lands, searching for the unknown…fine, I was a tourist, but I madethe effort to learn bits of Peruvian and whatever the other language was. Of course I’ve stopped caring about other cultures, or really about anything an hour after the great malevolent god emerged from its slumber. Eh, maybe half an hour after. “Time is a flat octagon” or whatever that Texas guy said in that show. I saw like one episode but I hated the Yellow Queen bullshit.
So, in hindsight, yeah, I probably shouldn’t have wandered onto that mysterious beach late at night, but shit man, it looked really cool! Even with the cloaked priests chanting some weird Arabic language and those dark clouds overhead. How was I to know they’d all kill themselves and awaken a huge octopus?! Just my luck. I even got locked up for gibbering about “the slumbering darkness below” or whatever I was saying. I blacked out eventually.
So as you can see from our surroundings I’ve been technicallydeemed insane by the state. You say “insane”, I say “prophet of the coming doom” – you say “Tomato”, I say “Tomata”. I guess I can’t complain though, especially being that I’ll be a tortured, helpless plaything for the Old Ones any day now, so the sanitarium really isn’t bad. Que sera sera. Plus the food here is pretty good, especially the pudding. Did you try the pudding? Excellent distraction from the oblivion that awaits.
Anyway it was great talking to you and thanks for the visit. Hope your story goes well. I’m going to go patiently wait for the inevitable alien hellscape in my room, get some more pudding beforehand. Have a good one! Hope the many tentacled Gods kill you first instead of enslave you!
Arthur Graham
All the Whores in Amsterdam
You could say
I’ve been around
and I’ve traveled
far and wide
in my search
around the globe
for god knows
only why
I’ve seen
all the sights
and I’ve done
most the things
and I’ve had
thrice my share
of lovely ladies
and fun flings
Still I wouldn’t trade
a night in your arms
for all the whores
in Amsterdam
Shot by Baker: Amy Ling
Ben John Smith
Nice Days
The copper gives me a
speeding ticket and a
two hundred and
sixteen dollar fine.
He says
Have a nice day
and pats the
roof of my car.
The road to this point,
after about 3 or 4 hours
of flat foot driving
has been paved with,
at the very least,
one million
road kill
kangaroos.
Nice days are like this.
Even in all its irony.
Nice days are the ones
that back door you
while reaching around
and cupping your balls
like a tea spoon
cradling an emu egg.
Dead kangaroos and
speeding fines.
It sounds like the
perfect title
for a really bad
poem
about
nothing.
Rodney Gardner
Multitasking
I heard the other day of a study
Devaluing the art of multitasking
Ignoring its benefits
I simply can not agree
And belittle the exuberance
Of riding my bicycle
Talking on the phone
Drinking a beer
And pulling my member
As I think of you
And all of the bullshit
you put me through
Johnny Scarlotti
Highway 16
She claws his face
and reaches over his lap
to unlock her door
through the master control
and he almost swerves off the road into a tree
He’s forced to slow it down
He tries to punch her unconscious in the process
But she gets it unlocked
and lunges out of the car
while he’s still going at least 30 mph
He looks back and watches her hit the ground
Tumbling
Like a cigarette
Saw her orange heels flipping about
Like embers on the blacktop
This isn’t the way it was supposed to go
Shit. He turns the car around
Sees her staggering barefoot
Into the dark forest
Damnit
He pulls the car over
gets out
and goes in after her
Shot by Baker: Jayde Helena
Jay Passer
There Is Only One Color
put your finger in it
like a shark-toothed gingerbread house
get out on the street
despite the conspicuous absence
of French Symbolist poets
plant a seed,
quit buying crap you don’t need
chant: one plate, one fork, one cup, one spoon
give the rest away, gratis
surrender your wants
to the impoverished indigence
use a laser beam to cut squares from the sky
to let down the stars, to lay waste
to the hive-like inhuman consciousness
bent on ensnaring, enslaving
the free spirit of creative forces,
to shatter and shove black reptilian oaths
vowed in penthouse palaces
back up their vile asses
take it back
channel the anarchy born of the free womb
there is only one color
hotly coursing beneath the skin
uniting us all
it is wine, the chianti of love
it is blood
it is ours