Horror Sleaze Trash proudly presents 10 years of Horror Sleaze Trash!
A collection of poems by Melbourne-based writer, Ben John Smith, ranging from the depths of horror to the boundaries of sleaze and the absolute bottom of trash.
1. Bleached white and insubstantial as the word of an ex-lover. Rip it in squares, swab your private parts, examine the paper’s surface, toss it into the swirl. Repeat as often as necessary. The bathroom is your laboratory. Sometimes two or three squares will do, other times it takes 10 or even 12. Much depends on your solid food intake. Do the math.
2. If you go to Morocco, don’t expect toilet paper as a matter of course. You stupid fucking tourist. Next you’ll be wanting a throne for your pampered American ass. Purchase a roll at the market and carry it around in your backpack or purse. It won’t be Charmin, you pompous WASP. Moroccan tp is grey and scratchy as an elderly wino’s three-day-old beard. Shut up and be sure to buy several rugs before you fly home.
3. The 2004 Portland Rose Festival had a Charmin trailer with posh bathrooms. People stood in line, waiting for the chance to excrete waste. They looked bored. At the doorway, uniformed attendants handed rolls of toilet paper to everyone. “Welcome to the Charmin building!” they sang. “Enjoy yourself!” Inside the bathrooms, happy music played while cartoon videos of dancing animals flickered onscreen. A devious and effective ploy to win over potential customers to the wonders of quilted Charmin.
4. Your goddamned roommate didn’t position the new roll properly. Everyone knows the end is supposed to go over, not under. Defection from this rule is grounds for homicide in some states. “Your honor, I tried to warn him, but he wouldn’t listen.” You hated your roommate—his taste in music, the disgusting way he got food all over his teeth while chewing. Good riddance.
5. Coffee filters work in a pinch. A friend of mine taught me this back in the 90s. A few weeks later, she became homeless. I always wondered whether there was a connection.
6. There’s a toilet paper shortage. Folks fear they’ll reach into their cupboards and find them barren of tissue, so they’re buying entire pallets of toilet paper. Housewives laugh maniacally as they drive away from Walmart, fresh rolls secured with bungee cords into their overflowing SUV trunks. How could we have let this happen? Is this who we are as a nation?
7. I go to bed and dream of toilet paper. The dream is like the Charmin trailer, only with better music. At first, the rolls are soft and soothing as clouds. Then they begin to multiply like the brooms in “Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” As soon as I grab one and put it in my cabinet, six more appear. The music speeds up and becomes increasingly sinister. Everything is out of control. I wake up in a cold sweat. Thank God it was just a dream. But morning is months away.
Lustful creatures in tumor heavy skies. Castle weary air heavy to wear. It is all we are known for in these pacific currents, pooling like death around and around the valleys and veins of uprooted nuance. Be it the mistress in cold blood of all the lizard dogs that slither her carcass. Mutinied, they pleasure paralyzing paradise with wispy caress to annihilate the god of human.
Shapeshifting shiners blur the cheekbones to once more color the stratosphere a new shade of black. The icarus machine knows not how to fall forever, but bares the scars of what it takes to burn infinitely. Like a chameleonic actress harking to thieves should they steal her soul, turns blue of wretchedness, and wrings the temper from the forehead of damned intrusion.
Falsifiers unclothe the deathbed paramount and we become moths to flame before the disheveled lair of Carthage. No better are we if we rapture the carnal sin of youthful wanting, than lustful creatures who are now as feverish as a carcass in cold blood.
Moaning earth, ejaculate the lure.
Now, after 4 decades
I cannot remember
his name but
I remember some
advice he offered:
‘When you go down
on your woman,
write the alphabet
with your tongue and
by the time you
get to ‘M’
she’ll be satisfied
no bullshit’
He was right,
and I’ve kept
to this advice
ever since,
never reaching
beyond the letter J.
I quit smoking pot.
For twelve years I rolled
a few joints a day.
I fantasized about endless motivation,
of cleanliness and doing dishes
right after I was done with them.
I imagined getting right on the job hunt,
and not eating pizza in bed, no way
could a man unstoned watch nine hours
of the Simpsons in a day.
It turns out I can,
and pot wasn’t the problem,
it was just me.
You know nothing matters
But you, the muse who comes and goes leaving me
Thinking about your song & dance performances.
The way your voice quavered
Above the sidewalk sounds,
Or how your fashionably booted feet drummed
Footsteps of doom in my jaded being.
You are the Shade time can’t erase,
The karma chameleon who assumes
Whatever guise or form necessary
To affect me in some way.
At the supermarket as we shopped
The tacky cashier-bitch who totaled-up our groceries
Kept calling me Doll Baby; you didn’t care,
Though her patronizing pissed me off.
Then when we got to my apartment
To drink bad beer I asked you to sing
Like Madonna, to swirl about
In your sexy new Victoria’s Secret outfit
That cost too much, but you insisted
It made you stand out from the crowd.
I asked you to dance and go down on me
& you did all that, your blonde hair
Uncurling with sweat & your body
Swaying through a painful territory,
But Madonna wasn’t there.
Or any Victoria’s Secret model.
Only that damn outfit scattered
In colorful disarray, its thong
A purple-spotted rag
Tied around your throat
So the muse would never
Live to tell.
Eventually you fooled me again, coming
Back to say, “You know nothing really matters,”
Ghost-like,
Wondering where the worm was
At the bottom of the tequila bottle
I couldn’t believe
One of us had killed
The other – with love
(or love hate perverted)
The world is on fire dear
come sit next to me and let’s
watch it burn
have no sympathy
we can at least
walk through flames
let the fire
scorch our soles
we deserve this burning baptism
lament over our sins
dredge up our treachery
as they roll out the war
in a stampede of hate
I want us to hole in
save food and water
build a bunker
there’s this noose
that attached itself to my neck
at birth
in case of emergency pull
this ripcord
straight to hell
who’s judging anyhow?
martyrs and militias
wrecking groups
the hostiles
the sign above our door says
‘Doom is in the bedroom’
a malingerer
sucks every breath
you don’t know about this do you?
run down the street in droves
I am afraid
not for me ever
but for my children
because when I nestled them
in my nook
and thanked God every day
for their little lives
I did not foresee
humanity unraveling
us back into the dark ages
as if every life does not matter
as if original sin could only affect
certain souls
but honey I tell you
there’s a pyre and I want to run
straight into it
if it would save my children
from this
I would gladly burn myself
to ash
The Man born of the Child who always sat at the back
Of the classroom;
Never an astute, but I learned to read, write, and sharpen my knife
Well enough to cut my way through both womb and city into
The state of Forever.
Picture me in the Camp of Beasts.
I, and any given Night don’t get along.
Is your canine sleep more important than my lion’s weeping?
I’m on fire!
It’s a Catholic conflagration and I’m down on my knees
To Lucifer to put it out.
The Doll unwrapped on December 25 is alive!
Soon disfigured by the nuclear family dog and left
In the winter-stunted grass it grows now with a
Butchered prostitute’s soul calling the chewed plastic home.
The Doll puts the questions to God:
‘In what kind of carcass shall I sew myself up anew?
Where in this town is the shop in which you’ll sell me cheap
Again since You can’t by Grace grant me the Grave?’
-Magdalene ‘s Meats-
There the Jesus Sausage is made.
Whether its apostles or civil worms, they all rejoice.
Sweet Jesus! By each bite we can walk on water, or wine.
Gravity is in the hands of the Damned.
I’ll give up the fags
This evening
The booze in a couple
Of days
Start writing that novel
A week Tuesday, gives me time to buy
A new pen
A new desk
A new chair
I’ll go running in my new running shoes
Next week
Do press ups and sit ups
And squats
I’ll even take the leap
And find a therapist, talk about
Starting fresh, that’s what my problem is,
Probably the week after that
I’ll cook vegetables for my dinner from
The third of next month,
Watch calories from then on,
I’ll probably only have a few a day
After that,
Be skinny by the end of the year
I gave up the class A’s
Yesterday
And I’ve done really well with that
So I think I’m ready to test
The limitations of my ageing body
In multiple ways
Starting first thing next month
I’ll get to doing yoga, magick, meditation
All that eastern stuff
But not until I’ve got all of
This other shit out of the way
I’m not a fucking
Miracle man.
It’s 9 am
I’m waiting
A gray February overcast
tints the bus stop
and all surrounding things
Buildings lurch
through frozen sun
between statuesque
pedestrians while
the wind turns
a girl’s hair sideways
That same fucking sedan
beeps three times
while speeding past as
the pavements burst again
with cold pigeons like steam
A man and woman press through
and the woman is screaming
She hurls a whiskey bottle
at his head and
the bottle shatters
against the street
A truck blares its horn
and rolls over the glass
always is such a short time
when we live so long,
sings a distant ambulance
I cover my ears as
the 35 arrives
The doors slide open
and nobody is driving and
the windows are crowded
with demons
