Rich girls 

Rich girls are clueless. 
Rarely the working class 
see them in captivity— 
Nighttime actions are their elixirs. 

Hidden in their big, fancy cars, 
their next-to-nothing miniskirts 
have rode up again, but before 
another crystal-studded snatch  
is almost revealed, 
champagne corks pop in unison 

as the paparazzi gather outside  
the club, hoping to gain a side- 
boob shot on their reel.  

These girls won’t disappoint them,  
being dressed to the nines, 
& they party until 2 or 3  
with 2 or 3. 

What is that like? 

I work for my Uber & PB&J lunch, 
& the traffic is heavy today, 
so we crawl towards Queens 
while the rich girls 
are still sleeping. 

Blood and Passion

Shall I compare these to a smoking gun?
You are more loaded and twice as dangerous.

You should not drink and wave knives,
not while the children are home, even if asleep.

My death you desire at this moment,
and maybe your own,

But tomorrow, if we both survive,
you will beg me to never leave you.

It will be too late then.
I’ll already be packing my bags

in my mind if not the hallway.

horror, adj. inspiring or creating loathing, aversion, etc.

sleaze, adj. contemptibly low, mean, or disreputable

trash, n. literary or artistic material of poor or inferior quality

Welcome to HSTQ: Spring 2021, the curated collection from Horror, Sleaze and Trash!

Featuring poetry by Arthur Graham, John Tustin, Donna Dallas, Ben Newell, Paul Tanner, Daniel S. Irwin, James Reitter, William Taylor Jr., Leah Mueller, Alan Catlin, John Grochalski, John Sweet, David J. Thompson, John D Robinson, Noel Negele, Casey Renee Kiser, and Mather Schneider.

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Cover Model: Vivid Vivka

Life Lesson

When I was little, I wanted a puppy.
Our dog had puppies, one was mine.
I kept him with me most of the time.
Out in the country, we didn’t have
Many people around.  On one occasion,
My cousins came for the day.  When
They left, I waved. “Bye, Uncle George.
Bye, bye, Aunt Mildred. Bye, bye, Eddie,
Charlie, Mary.  Bye, bye, puppy.”  Puppy?
They had given away my dog.  I was sad.
Sad, until the next batch of puppies.
And I had another dog all my own.
We did everything together.  My dog.
One morning, I awoke to a loud noise.
Mama said Daddy had shot my dog.
He shot my dog ‘cause he was chasin’
Chickens.  That had a deep affect on me.
From that day forward, I never chased
Another chicken.
Years later, I was known for chasin’
Women, but I was good at duckin’
Bullets by then.

Afterward (Then and Now)

Sometimes,
Afterward,
When we would lie in bed
And talk in the dark as we recovered
She would tell me about 
What an absolute prick
Her husband was.
How he lied and how he cheated on her
And how he turned the kids against her.

The conversation often turned to dear old Jason.

She went back to him eventually
And I imagine now,
Afterward,
When they are lying in bed together
She never brings me up
At all

And I don’t know whether
To be offended
Or flattered.

Luanda

In a war torn
Luanda
Where water
Was scarce
A projectionist
And custodian
Of a battered
Old cinema
Would screen
Repeatedly 
The same film
Sylvia Kristel
And her amorous
And saucy
Adventures
In Bangkok
As Emmanuelle
Free entry always
And the soldiers
And the old ones
And the children
Would cheer excitedly
Whenever nudity
Was on view
Frequently paused
Frozen to be viewed
Like Titian’s painting
Of Diana and Actaeon
Fast forward to
The here and now
And I haven’t seen
A film in weeks
With a lack
Of enthusiasm
For flesh
In person
Or in celluloid
Christ!
I wouldn’t even
Be able to find
Luanda on a map!

one roof

it was the dead of night,
it was the death of a lot of things

and I was walking to the kitchen 
for water or wine, whatever that christ cunt had left us,
when I passed her son’s bedroom:

I heard a slap and a moan.
then the creaking and panting started …

there was a crack in the door. 
you know damn well I had a peek:

there he was 
fucking his girlfriend doggy on the bed. 
and damn if he didn’t look like his mum:
same full lips and big grey eyes
framed around a dirty blonde bob.  
it was like a flat-chested version of her 
going at some chick’s rump with a strap-on. 

no, you dirty bastards
I didn’t invite myself in.
I didn’t even stay to watch. 

I simply went back to bed 
and slipped it in his mum:

oof, she woke up. what’s got into you?
happy families, I told her.

and I hear she has a daughter somewhere, too.

Good Shooting

Shot my big fat mouth off. 
Shot myself in the foot. 
Hobbled into the kitchen. 
Fixed a shot; broke out 
the saltines; gobbled a few. 
Took a potshot at the cracker 
squatting in the backyard. 
Shot up the toaster, the micro, 
the blender, the food processor. 
Limped down the hall, 
removing clothing till nude. 
Entered the bedroom. 
Eyeballed the mirror; 
shot both balls off, shattering 
my image wholly to shit. 
Picked my way over shards 
back out up to the den, 
where sci-fi insects crawled from the computer; 
displayed pooters; promptly had sex; died. But 
not before the ladies shot their eggs through a port 
into the central processor. I kicked aside a cicada 
the size of a vacuum. 
Made it out to the livingroom. 
Picked off the cocktail table the phone. 
Shot my big fat mouth off to the cops. 
Invited the pigs for barbecue, plus a friendly shootout. 
Tossed the cell like a skeet. Shot 
the peripheral midair dead center; 
hoped the cops heard; segued, outta ammo, into a syncope – 
failed to know where I was, am, or would be. Found myself 
up on Whidbey shooting a Western, 
about to wrap it up. When they found me, I was pee-
ing on the rug, blood flooding the throat, foot half gone. 
But no pain. Because, from babyhood, 
I’ve boasted a bullet-head. So, 
when zero to shoot happens, I go zen 
as a Win Dixie turkey leg deep frozen.

that time i worked in the adult film industry 

fresh out of high school 
work for a band going nowhere 
girl named Candy 
tells me about a job 

however 

certain inadequacies preclude 
me from front of the camera work 
but a lie about being tech savvy 
and literate gets me in 
an editing room 

hours are my own 
no one asks or cares or 
wonders if i really know 
what i am doing 
and i don’t but i meet 
deadlines 

features, shorts, loops, 
it’s all the same 

any clown can edit 
video on a fast computer 

write blurbs, promotional 
one pagers, fake reviews  
on tedious blog pages 
no one reads 

meet the girls, the guys, 
spend time on set 
find myself dreaming 
of the days working 
with the band on 
Sunset Blvd 
or reading Dostoevsky 
or loading trucks 
12 hours a day 

The Devil Is a Woman

Dangerous women with their
cold as death eyes, their skip
a beat hearts, their Camel straight
speech. All of them awash with
off-the-rack whiskies neat, with
their sailors-on-leave spiels,
their rages and their foam at
the mouth fits, their attitudes and
their habits and their evil ways, and
their never crossed twice bottom lines,
their bodies-on-fire pacts with
harder than stone men. All of them
self-directed even with nowhere to go
and how they went there twice
without compunction or regret,
never once looking back.

All of their razor slit dresses,
naked to the thigh and their V
necks revealing more than they
hide. All of their men so desperate
to have them, their weeping is
manifest like exiles without countries,
tribes without names, struggling in
deserts not to become just another
pillar of salt, just another road marker
along the rutted highway into proverbial
valley of death, in that place where
all the bodies are buried, the ones
they put there and the ones they wished
they had.

These never scorned women,
beyond critiques of pure reason,
their followers irrational as escapees
from houses of detention, places of idol
worship, all of them demented,
all of them loyal as three-headed
guard dogs, mastiffs and mongrels.
These women who were the stuff
of legend, the stuff goddesses are
made of, their likenesses cast in stone
and thrust into hell where only the truly
regal reign supreme.