Category: Poetry
Danny D. Ford
Slow
His house
smelled like
old piss and
oven chips
one year
he invited a few of us
round for a birthday party
when his mother
put the tray
of frozen nuggets
on the table
siblings of all sizes
eagerly grabbed
at tiny brown pucks
they were dirt poor
he seemed half
a step behind
in his head
always
looking off
somewhere
he was kind
they all were
his house sat
at the end
of a terrace
right on
a sharp corner
a sign outside read
‘SLOW!
Accident Hotspot’
after a small cake
& song
we all went outside
to look
at the blood stains
on the pavement
where a woman
had been clipped
by a lorry
earlier that week
John Gartland
White Noise
In homage
to post-modernism,
part two of my act is
fucking with Foucault.
Acrobatic sex on stage
with the deformed, see
some big bang blew the
madhouse inside out,
distortion is the slippery
default state
of every thing–one
I fuck over, and under
the circumstances
I repeat my denial of
everything to date,
and propose next,
to passionately lick the
fragrant ass-hole
of chaos,
teach my students
to flagellate,
And hysterically
suck my dialectical
marxist dick.
Want to watch?
David J. Thompson
This Is The Jacket
Last night my girlfriend came to bed
wearing only a brown leather jacket.
Wow, I said, cool jacket, but then
she pointed to a hole in it. Oh, that sucks,
I told her. It’s ruined. No, she answered
in between kissing me and reaching
into my boxers. This is the jacket
Andy Warhol was wearing back in ‘68
when that crazy woman shot him.
My Aunt Donna was working then
as Warhol’s mom’s visiting nurse.
She wanted to throw it out,
so my aunt just grabbed it.
The jacket ended up somewhere
on the floor by the time we finished.
I whispered in her ear if she was thinking
what I was thinking. Of course, she said
swinging her legs out of bed. Two bowls
of Campbell’s tomato soup, coming right up.
Jyl Anais
The Superhighway of Samsara
How many ways
can I say
“I’m not dating
your resume?”
You can put your dick
back in your pants,
take your SEAL training
and your surgical skills,
get in your Jaguar,
and take the next exit back onto
the superhighway
of samsara.
Because I’m not
auditioning to be your
next trophy wife,
and I’m not
your mistress,
a woman you can call
when you’re bored
with your wife or
when it’s convenient,
in between your
real priorities.
If your wife can’t trust you,
neither can I.
I may have wandered into
the arctic wilderness of your heart,
but I’m an emotional survivalist
and can find my own way home.
I’m not an accessory
or a toy to play with.
My dignity
will always be worth
more to me
than unlimited access
to your assets.
I could be a spiritual master,
incarnation of a goddess,
accomplished artist,
attend a college more difficult
to get into than Harvard,
have a heart of gold,
model on the latest runway,
use remote viewing
to help solve a sexual homicide,
and speak to the dead regularly,
be as loyal
as the sun
rising every morning,
but in your eyes
I’ll always be reduced
to my tits and ass.
You do know how to divide by
the lowest common denominator.
I know I’m only as valuable
as how often
you want to fuck me.
I don’t give a shit
about your PhD,
your BMW,
or that you won
the biggest verdict
in history.
What I care about
is the way you treat me.
Danny D. Ford
Excerpt from a Bad Day
It wasn’t a real shit
It was hollow
spluttered
drawn out thin
he was too weak to wipe
so his wet arsehole just hung there
like a petal in the morning wind
– dew drop about to drip
a sore eye
welling up with tears
The air freshener clicked
and sprayed outside the cubicle
the sound like the hissing gas
of a turning cap
on a cola bottle
Damp electricity
coated the filthy tiles
as his bony face
and the hard to reach bog roll
bathed
in lonely fluorescent light
William Taylor Jr.
Our Secret Places
Tell me something pretty like you mean it
because we’re cut loose and drifting
wading through terrors and half-bred joys
strewn about the landscape like
somebody’s garbage
I hear the dark’s been asking around
it knows our names
our numbers
all our secret places
The day is coming
when we’ll be 86’d from every
heart and every bar
and there will be a reckoning
and we’re as guilty as any guilty thing
that was ever naked beneath the slivered moon
blinking in the judgment of the sun.
Chris Butler
Abort
A big bang births a universe. A universe births a woman. A woman births a uterus. A uterus births a body. A body births a thought. A thought births communication. A communication births a language. A language births a letter.
A letter births a word. A word births a sentence. A sentence births a stanza.
A stanza births a first draft. A first draft births a second. A second births a third. A third births obsessive compulsion. Obsessive compulsion births a poem.
A poem births a pen. A pen births a typewriter. A typewriter births a computer. A computer births a document. A document births a submission. A submission births a publication. A publication births a book. A book births into a collection. A collection births a career. A career births retirement. A retirement births death. A death births abortion.
Tim Heerdink
Airborne
Wrath & desire are easy to catch
if the wind catches the air just right.
Emotions run rapid in intense situations
where fear is more prevalent than the plague.
Shit, just a scent of sex can capture
a man in the depths of his thoughts.
We’re wired to fornicate and spread
seed to replenish the population.
Truth be told, this sudden blood rush
remains independent from procreation.
Biology still has its tricks & triggers
& yet, all I want is the flesh.
Soaking wet like a never-ending storm
which brings comfort with its warmth.
Man wants and wants despite the urge
to be a respectable person in society.
I’ve found myself light-headed
in situations where I need to be clear.
The only cure for man’s rage
is self-mutilation, perhaps.
Willie Smith
Those Daze
One of those days when I can’t decide
how many humps in an m, the number
of an’s in banana, how Achilles
could ever overtake the tortoise, Death
and I go walking. Arm-in-arm, he with
his disarming smile, filling my ear with
foreboding and despair. Would I like to,
would I care to, step around into the shade
to share a drop of something cool and
not-so-sweet? After quaffing, after quenching,
after swapping tales of lying and of wenching,
he a bony forefinger raises:
“Now’s the time to discuss,” he hisses,
“succumbing to after-life-lust.” My jaw
drops. Lightning fractures the air.
Death with a rusty can my mouth waters.
The mind a garden of rot and food for no thought.