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

Damon Hubbs

Mother Horror

Mother horror wasn’t always horrible. 
It started when I fucked that boy.
The tree was a nude model taking up arms 
And we sludged oil on copper. 

I count her age spots like she counted my baby teeth,
Bootsole-sized rosettes liver hands and neck.
Poachers band below her eyes,
Species royalty wreathed in purple storms.

Wellbutrin to fix me well. 
Mother horror’s idea
After she red hands me 
Plucking feathers from her ostrich purse.

With notebook and Bic
The good doctor strums his dick. 
I say, father was eaten by blackbirds 
The size of gas pumps

Mother horror 
And I 
Left him to cool like an apple pie 
On the windowsill 

Our pains thinned 
In a solvent of flames.

Charles Rammelkamp

Just Doing My Job

“You have a hemorrhoid,” Geringer commented,
his finger probing my anus,
wiggling around like a burrowing worm.
It sounded like an accusation.

“I know,” I said. 
At least I’d suspected it.

“Otherwise, your prostate’s fine.”
He handed me a wad of tissues 
to mop up the lubricating jelly.
“Any travel plans for the summer?”

My annual urological exam.
I marveled at how mundane
he made it all sound.

Daniel de Culla

Secrets of Erection

That tyrants, genocidaires, and serial killers
Are always erect
Is a truth as big as a temple.
That gurus, friars, and priests
Have it elevated to the Lord
Is a reality that, in victory or submission
They place demons and sins.
This is how we read and see it
In dictators who rely on their cocks
To commit truly obscene actions
That cause so much harm around the globe:
Gaza, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan
Guantanamo, Ukraine, El Salvador.
If our ancestors
Made sacrifices to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn
To the Sun and the Moon
To Satan, “the most beautiful bastard”
Today, our rulers
Sacrifice human beings, attack them, and kill them
As if they were masterless dogs
On the altar of hatred and repression.
Thanks to their erection
The capitalists, the traffickers of dreams
And arms factories
Rejoice seeing the earth
Is flooded with their joy and spermatozoa.
-Let the whole world sing joyfully, they exclaim:
A genocidal and a fascist dictator
Have been reborn; they can be heard by their clamor
And by the loud noise they make
By braying, no, by speaking
For they are illiterate beyond salvation.
From a tree came a monkey
From a monkey creation came to us humans.
Death will never be defeated
For death attracts death
When humanity shares in its victory or defeat.
Eternal novelty! Ha, ha, ha.
Death has not lost its sting.
From his fly as he stands up, erect
This gives man new life
To be conceived in those cunts
Bounty of defeated love
And glory among asses turned
Into an expiatory sacrifice
Of lustful slavery.
That peace reigns among men
Is a great lie
For death walks beside us
Joyfully waiting
For our last ejaculation in the banquet hall
Full of murdered guests
Or killed in the back
Who celebrate the tyrant, the genocidal
The serial killer
Always erect.

Simon Collinson

Tommy

My local hospital, the Countess of Monte Clueless infirmary is useless, they’re always messing things up. You go in with one thing and come out with something else, they mix up corpses, take out the wrong organs or they leave something inside your body like a watch, a phone or a Staph infection.

I had to go in there for surgery for bladder cancer. You lose all modesty in that procedure. But at least they didn’t have to cut me open as they went through another opening to reach my bladder.

I came out all sore and tender but the cancer was removed and this time I didn’t have a postop infection.

I was recovering well in the weeks that followed. I thought I was ok. That was until I heard a voice from below.

It was a deep and distinctive voice, not like my thin reedy voice at all. And it was coming from below. Oh no, they’ve not left a phone in my belly again? That was my first thought.

But it was worse than that, those idiots at the hospital had only left me with a talking testicle, the left one.

My left testicle was telling me to get a shower. Told me I reeked.

I checked for lumps but this time I was ok, it was just I had a testicle that was talking to me. And it wouldn’t shut up.

It told me its name was Tommy, Tommy the talking testicle. There were problems at first.

It was difficult going to the toilet when you had this testicle jabbering away non stop and singing too, and worse whenever I was talking to someone it kept butting in. How rude.

I was all for having it removed, but then I found Tommy the testicle started coming in handy.

You see I’ve always been shy and awkward around females. I go all silent and quiet when I see someone I fancy. Tommy could see I was stumbling so it was giving me advice on how to date women. You know what to wear, what spray to use, where to take them on dates and most importantly what to say.

You see Tommy the testicle had the gift of the gab when it came to members of the opposite sex and it had a lovely speaking voice that seemed to melt all my dates hearts. I left all the talking to Tommy on dates. Tommy could throw its voice so it didn’t come across too weird. 

I could just sit back, relax and let my left testicle do all the talking. This worked fine when I was out on a date, though my dates thought it odd when I spent a lot of time looking down at my pants.

Some people talk a lot of balls, but I found I was listening to mine and I have to admit Tommy was a smooth talking testicle.

Yes, I got a lot more dates, but I couldn’t keep them. The women left me when they heard my real voice which was more tinny than Tommy’s. It was becoming apparent that my talking testicle had more pizazz and personality than me.

It started grating on me. Did the women really like Tommy rather than me? Could I ever have a lasting relationship where there were effectively three of us involved, with me looking like the third bicycle wheel?

 My family all loved Tommy. My mother adored it. She would spend hours talking to Tommy when she came to visit. She’d just ignore me.  I felt like a spare part. Mother told Tommy that I was such a bore. It irritated me that family and friends would always be asking me, “How’s Tommy” and they would send Tommy birthday cards and presents, and not send me anything.

 My mother told me as she was leaving, “Why can’t you be more like Tommy?”

I was finding out that life is a pain and a tragedy when everybody prefers your talking left testicle to you.

Tommy was also irritating me. It was such a know it all, and it was also critical of my habits and appearance, and was always pulling me up every day.

I was starting to  loath and hate my talking testicle. People were now calling me “Tommy’s minder.”

Was that it? Was that to be my role in life, merely the receptacle for my overconfident testicle?

It was on my mind, the prospect of living in the shadow of my talkative testicle, until I couldn’t stand it any longer. Tommy would have to go, surgically of course.

I would live the rest of my life with one, silent, testicle.

So I booked myself a procedure at the local hospital.

The procedure was quick and painless, I awoke. And the doctor informed me the op was a complete success. I was overjoyed, I would be free of Tommy the talkative testicle forever.

Later that day I got home and sat down rather carefully, but then a voice boomed upwards from my pants, it was yelling at me, “Its Tommy here, You stupid berk, you’re stuck with me forever, you don’t have the balls to get rid of me, Tommy the talking testicle, and I’ve got lots to say…”

It’s that awful hospital’s fault. That bungling lot at the Countess of Monte Clueless infirmary had gone and taken away the wrong bollock. They really balled up this time, whipping away my well behaved right testicle and leaving me stuck with Tommy the talking Testicle forever.

James Benger

exhaustion

as if any of this was
planned
ordained

as if this was 
what she wanted all along

every day is tired
in a way she understands
hundred year old trees
can be tired

like the salt in the ocean
is tired

like how the last kiss
before the coffin closes
is tired

she walks when she must
which is far more 
than she’d like
because she’s tired

the streets seem perfunctory
there’s a bustle in the sky
in the passersby’s 
collective obnoxious breath

she can’t imagine what
could possibly be so important
as to deny the darkness
that they all must see

they must see
because it’s so obvious
it’s all around

it’s in everything
it’s of everything
and even it’s tired

tired in the way the sun
grows wary with each moon

keys fitting in locks
like warm deception
tumblers tumbling
granting admittance
like a benevolent hooded figure
before the gallows

she sacrifices herself
upon the altar of life
every day
and everything’s getting tired