Salvatore Difalco

The Male Gaze

Maybe my imagination is out of focus.
By law, I can no longer trust my eyes,

nor can the world at large trust them.
Indeed they’re crimes waiting to happen.

I still believe I innocently perceive 
the beautiful when I see it, and daily 

feast on its sundry optical banquets.
After all, what the eyes see, the mind believes

and what it believes nourishes the soul.
A beautiful day is thus a beautiful day.

But when the eyes see legs coming 
down the street, long legs, lean legs,

tanned legs with golden bristles, 
legs like fiery chariots, legs like wings,

legs like verses from God’s epistle,
denial doesn’t amount to disbelief, 

nor raising the hands as if to block 
the eyes from a radiating sun flare,

or a thermonuclear blast. Avert them
how when the legs are thrust upon you,

striating, striding, flexing—fragrant
as the summer breeze they part and flail?

Maybe go Biblical and pluck them out?
But presuming all this, did God not make

me with these eyes? Did God not also make
these legs I see divine to some degree?

Brooks Lindberg

Etiquette & Vitriol

For Nicky Silver

You’ve never met a normal person.
But I have. And I’ve learned my lesson:

people with manners made me who I’m not.

Swallow your gum then
shit in your own mouth
please. Guess what this is:

{(;)}

LOL ROFL IYKYK BTW
do you know how long
I’ve loved you? Never
boils, a watched pot.

Épater la bourgeoisie
or—less like a bundle of sticks—
evil shall with evil be
expropriated. You said once

David Foster Wallace’s footnotes
were like him shitting into his own
{(;)} but do not to mention that to anyone because

it’s too highbrow which is above
where one should actually
shit into. And BTW, do you, yes,

you know how much I love you?
I tried to pray yesterday
but couldn’t. Oh
well that ends well.

I’m well; how are you?
Hi well, I’m dad.
Hi dad, fuck you.

Well, this needs to end somehow.
Nohow. Yeshow. Somehow. Hey,
while I got you for a second,
guess how much I love you.

Until then, goodnight sweet
cocksucker*.

*Insert footnote about how cocksucker actually means {(;)}, lol 😉

Daniel de Culla

Sir, Your Denture

I was walking with my friend Jesus
On the seashore of San Vicente de la Barquera
In Cantabria, Spain
One afternoon when the beach had a red flag
And there was no lifeguard on duty.
He took out his cock and started peeing, saying:
-Look, Petronilo, look!
Here comes Neptune, king of the seas
Strong, with a black beard and long tunic
Coming to manipulate my penis
6’5″ long
With all the forms of masturbation
Trying to perform divine magic
With gods, deities, and sea monsters
Like tritons or nereids and sirens
Like Amphitrite, Salacia, and Venilia
Who are skewered by the slit on his trident
Like sardines on an inquisitorial skewer.
I answered:
-Jesus, it’s not Neptune or Amphitrite, Salacia, or Venilia
It’s your own imagination
While you were jerking off after urinating.
Afterward, we sat on a stone bench
On the seafront.
Jesus, who feels and remembers everything, said to me:
-Now I remember my maid Constancia
Who my wife Minerva hired
To do Housework.
She was Colombian and a sight to behold.
One day, I promised her extra pay
For performing cunnilingus on her.
At first, she resisted
Because I could be her father
And she my daughter
But then, thinking it over, she said yes.
-Listen, Constancia
Your pussy is very cold.
I’m going to put some Anís del Mono (Monkey Anise) on it
To warm it up.
Constancia moaned at my licks and bites.
We stopped when we felt my wife returning
From her nightly worship before an altar.
The next day
When my wife went shopping
Constancia came to me
With a small plate in her right hand.
She stood before me
And with a deep woman’s voice she said:
“Sir, here’s your denture
That you left stuck in the lips of my vagina.
I answered her saying:
-Constancia, my heart
For you I lost my teeth.
Tomorrow I’ll stick my dick in your pot
That’s what I want most
With another extra paycheck
Being careful not to leave my balls
Inside Indeed.

Ivan Jenson

Matched

I am so much
like you
in that I differ
from everyone
or so I think
and thus I feel
somehow anointed
and appointed
the position of
an almost saint
and sometime
sinner on the run
from something
or someone
who might
wound me
after loving
my true self
and like you
no one else
understands this
dichotomy within
my naked anatomy
because I fear
that which I desire
the ice age
after the fire
the morning after
the one night
walk on
passion’s high wire
and thus
we both hide
because we think
we must
like love, cower
under the cover
of lust
and all this is just
another way
of saying
that for both of us
the online dating scene
has been a complete
and total bust

Preacher Allgood

the language of love in a land of despair

six billion people on the planet
and our karmas intersect in a town so small
it can’t afford a marching band or a patron saint

fifty-eight million square miles of land mass on the planet
and our lives bump into on another
in a two-stall carwash off the old highway 
while I’m wearing cut-off blue jeans that expose
my emaciated old man legs and bony knees 

she’s about thirty and obviously from out of town
chestnut hair and deep green eyes
sixty-eight hundred languages more or less
spoken on this planet dominated by jabber mouths
and all I can think to say is nice day

oui she replies
a fucking Frenchie what the hell 
in this dinky town in this backward state
with nothing for miles around
but cow pastures and wheat fields and stifling heat

a hot fucking frenchie
ten feet away from me
and I dodder like my cousin Howie
who hasn’t been able to eat solid food
since Nixon took his final copter ride 

one expert says the average person will speak
over three quarters of a billion words in a lifetime
but the next gems that fall out of my mouth are nice car

can you believe it?
a hot fucking frenchie in a sleek BMW 
in a concrete car wash in dead as hell Gutmore, Kansas
and our entire relationship amounts to five words 
and that humiliating moment when the soapy mist from my spray gun
drifts into those mesmerizing eyes

David Seger

Attachment

It’s a sick thought-
but it’s comforting.

I know she would agree,
if she still had a tongue.

We’ve known each other for weeks,
and we’re made for each other.

Life got too busy for us,
so I brought her home with me.

I’m sure she is glad for all I’m doing,
she doesn’t even have to get out of bed anymore.

If she still had her arms,
she’d hug me-
to comfort my trembling hands.

Those terrified eyes,
will soon be full of love.

I get my thread and needle,
and I begin working
on our attachment.

Neal Hallgarth

Easter ‘98

We got paid double time and a half on Easter Sunday, so I went in
Matt was there and another guy Dave

Matt had me listen to Big Black and Shellac
but The Notwist was more my speed
Dave played air guitar under his cubicle

We mocked him with Hal 9000 quotes
“I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“My mind is going…I can feel it.”

I told Matt about the time I met Christy Canyon

While bowling one night, Kurt said she was giving autographs at the porn store on Aurora
so we went in

I joined the line up along the adult toys and leather
while my friends browsed nonchalantly

We could all see her

Breasts hanging over a lacy blue corset, matching panties and stockings
big hair, lots of blush

The guy behind me asked if I was a fan
I confessed
I hadn’t watched her work
He narced on me as I stepped up

I should have told him to wait his turn
Instead I flushed in shame

We, Christy and I, were both glowing red and radiant 
as her husband filmed the whole thing on camcorder

To make it right
I bought a movie and autograph
She signed “Neal, fuck me hard and deep, Love Christy, XOXO”
She hugged and kissed me
and smelled like heaven on a hot day

I beamed with requited courage
as Kurt and the other guys teased me
on the way home

At work that Easter Sunday, the one lead didn’t care what we did or talked about
except Dave couldn’t sit under his cubicle and play air guitar
We all put on our headphones and tested

Ken Griffey Jr.’s Slugfest on the Gameboy Color
The tiny people on the little backlit screen
blinded me

I didn’t know then
I was seeing the future

Guy Cramer

Saddam Hussein

Alright class,
the teacher said,
Which one of you 
can tell me about 
Saddam Hussein?
Murderer!
          Thief!
           Psychopath!
Can you tell me 
when he died?
100 years ago!
   10 years ago!
         Yesterday! 

One girl, Tawny,
raised her hand
saying her two uncles 
had a possum 
in their back yard
they named
Saddam Hussein, 
they let him stay
clearing out all 
the deer ticks,
slugs, & snails,
ensuring the safety  
of their garden. 
One night they 
pulled him off the fence,
bludgeoned him
over the head, 
boiled him in a pot,
ate him, &
used his bones 
for fertilizer. They
won first place for their 
beefsteak tomatoes
at the county fair. 

Everyone in class 
hung their heads
taking a moment 
of silence, 
feeling sorry for 
Saddam Hussein. 

Alex S. Johnson

Chocolate Dab Wax Monster: A Bone City Tale Featuring Kandy Fontaine, Slutty Detective

Bone City never slept. It twitched. It moaned. It pulsed with neon and pheromones, a place where reality bent under the weight of too much lube and not enough law. And in the heart of it all, behind the velvet curtain of a strip club called the Velvet Guillotine, Kandy Fontaine stirred a bubbling vat of madness.

She wore a lab coat over fishnets, stilettos that could puncture a man’s soul, and a smirk that had gotten her banned from three dimensions. Kandy wasn’t just a slutty detective—she was a chaos chemist, a femme fatale with a PhD in bad decisions.

“Joe,” she said, not looking up from the swirling goo, “this is going to change everything.”

Joe Oroborous, her partner in crime and tantric yoga instructor, leaned against the wall, puffing on a vape pen that smelled like enlightenment and regret. He was shirtless, as usual, his body a roadmap of tattoos and bite marks.

“You said that last time,” he replied. “We ended up summoning a sentient bong that tried to unionize.”

“This is different,” Kandy said, dropping a strand of Velociraptor DNA into the vat. “Chocolate dab wax. Ninety-nine percent THC. Spliced with dinosaur genetics. It’ll get you stoned and make you extinct.”

Joe raised an eyebrow. “You’re making a weedosaur.”

“I prefer ‘ChocoDabadon’.”

The vat hissed. The goo bubbled. The DNA writhed. Then—boom.

The explosion was small, but the consequences were not. From the shattered beaker and swirling smoke emerged a creature: ten feet tall, dripping with resin, its scales glistening like caramelized obsidian. It had claws shaped like dab tools and eyes that pulsed with psychedelic fury.

It roared—a sound like a bong hit amplified through a Marshall stack—and smashed through the wall, lumbering into the neon-lit streets of Bone City.

The monster’s breath was pure THC. Entire blocks were hotboxed in seconds. Citizens wandered in a daze, giggling, munching on street lamps, proposing to fire hydrants. The mayor declared the city a “420 sanctuary” and married a vending machine.

Kandy and Joe watched from the rooftop of the Velvet Guillotine, sipping mezcal and trying not to inhale too deeply.

“We need to stop it,” Joe said. “Before it turns the whole city into a stoner wasteland.”

Kandy lit a joint shaped like a crucifix. “Bone City’s already a stoner wasteland.”

“Fair. But this thing’s different. It’s primal. It’s horny. It’s high.”

Kandy exhaled. “So are we.”

They tracked the beast to the ruins of the Bone City Zoo, where it had built a nest out of vape cartridges, lingerie, and discarded copies of High Times. It was mating with a billboard of Tommy Chong.

“We need to neutralize it,” Joe said, loading his vape gun with concentrated CBD rounds.

Kandy shook her head. “No. We need to seduce it.”

Joe blinked. “You mean…?”

“Yes. We turn it into a smokable sex toy.”

Back at the lab, they worked fast. Kandy synthesized a pheromone blend from crushed aphrodisiac terpenes and Joe performed a tantric summoning ritual involving goat yoga and interpretive moaning. The monster arrived, drawn by the scent and the sound, its eyes swirling like lava lamps.

It roared, but this time it sounded… curious.

Kandy stepped forward, holding a vibrating nanotech dildo shaped like a raptor claw. “Hey, big guy,” she purred. “Wanna get smoked and stroked?”

The monster paused. Sniffed. Drooled.

Joe activated the containment field. The latex wrapped around the creature like a lover’s embrace. The nanotech pulsed. The pheromones surged. The beast moaned—a sound like Cheech and Chong having a spiritual awakening.

Then it compressed. Shrunk. Transformed.

The result? The world’s first THC-powered, dinosaur-themed, smokable sex toy.

Bone City sobered up. The monster was gone. The streets were safe. And Kandy Fontaine had a new product line: Jurassic Joints™—Get Stoned. Get Boned.

The mayor annulled his marriage to the vending machine and declared Kandy a civic hero. Joe got a tantric medal of honor. The Velvet Guillotine hosted a launch party featuring edible lingerie and a DJ who only played whale sounds.

Kandy lit the tip of the claw and took a drag. “Tastes like victory.”

Joe nodded. “And extinction.”

But Bone City never stayed quiet for long.

A week later, a haunted vape lounge opened on the edge of town. Rumor had it the ghost of a foot fetishist was seducing customers through scented fog. Kandy packed her pheromone pistol. Joe grabbed his lube grenades.

They rode off into the haze, ready for the next case.

Because in Bone City, weird was just the beginning.

Casey Renee Kiser

Non-body Count

Saw a stranger today by the blood pool
He had that sunkissed-moontwist-killer kool
Bats surrounded; desire swings upside down
Day and night would surely fingerpaint the town
Yeah-No, no, I didn’t dare follow this time-
Paper thin soles only run on rebel rhyme
‘Cuz I’ve got my own kink of killer kool too
Don’t need another ghost talkin’ bout bitch boo