Smiling and Unzipping

‘What are you doing down there?’
she asked sounding a little
irritated:
‘You know what I’m doing’ I
replied feeling awkward and
embarrassed:
‘Let me show you’ she said
and she began to masturbate,
my face just inches away,
I looked on and watched
the gentle movement of her
fingers, stroking and probing,
the closing of her eyes
and the moist sounds and
the deepening of her
breathing and the
shuddering of her body
and the frail cry she let go;
after a few moments
she said softly, grinning,
‘There we are’
‘Could you do it again?’
I asked,
smiling and unzipping.

Michelangelo: Painter and Poet

Michelangelo
with steel balls
and a wire brush
wishing he was
wearing motorcycle leathers,
going wild and crazy,
stares cross-eyed at the
Sistine Chapel ceiling-
nose touching moist paint,
body stretch out on a plank,
bones held by ropes from falling-
delirious, painting that face of Jesus
and the Prophets
with a camel hair brush;
in such a position, transition
a genie emerges as a poet-
words not paint
start writing his sonnets,
a second career is born-
nails and thorns
digging at his words,
flashing red paint:
it’s finished.

Presenting Horror Sleaze Trash: Poems,
featuring the poets and poetry of Horror Sleaze Trash.

Includes work by HST stalwarts Ben John Smith, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Casey Renee Kiser, Johnny Scarlotti, Karina Bush, J.J. Campbell, and many more!

Download for free or BUY A COPY HERE

Docket Sheets

sometimes when the curtains
still shield my eyes from the sun
and the things living here
aren’t stirring
I pull open
my laptop
to look up the docket sheets
of the people
(I guess) I once knew

see if Twan
got off
or caught a murder charge
for that dead kid from Warren,
the one
whose parents
surrendered his cell phone
and the DEA
did what they could
with us,
a bunch of strung out junkies
killing time
in Andy’s mom’s attic

see if Tony
stayed out of trouble
since his first DUI
or if
his temper got away from him
like it had before

see if my exes
committed crimes
no matter how minor
no matter how expungable
so I could
feel vindicated
for the pain I put them through
and then
later in the day
–maybe about lunchtime
maybe before–
feel guilty
for that ill will,
for thinking about
some shit
I can’t change

see if
there are any new charges
under my own name
if the old fever dream
of my addiction
is ever made manifest
in black and white,
in bench warrants,
in dollars and cents
owed

I’ll look up a few more
–guys from rehab
people from high school
names I fail to remembers–
and shut the lid

I’ll let my family
wake up
and never mention
how I spent the
early
hours
while I write a poem
to describe a feeling
that
evades
words

 

 

Valentine

My friend Shane picked me up
and drove to the flower shop
near Wickie’s Pub
on Burton Avenue.
He picked out the flowers and the wrapping,
then it came:
you’re good with words,
can you write something
that will get me laid
tonight?
Then I wrote something
and the saleslady
melted.
We picked up his girl from work
and she saw the flowers
and read the card
as I sat in the backseat
waiting.
She couldn’t keep her hands
off him
the whole way home.
After they dropped me
back at my place on Jane Street
they drove off
to have some wild unprotected gorilla
Valentine’s Day
sex
as I made my packet
of chicken-flavoured Mr. Noodles
for dinner
and was in bed
by 7.

Staying in Vegas

The night began
with tongue burned
off by a manic
prostitute’s gold
lighter engraved
by her first rapist
then scrotum slit
by stiletto with balls
swapped with dice.
Mute eunuch lucky
enough to be alive
but no home as honest
as the hell of lights,
asphalt, and concrete
shining out the ass
of glitter gulch.

 

well beyond my years

I’ve never
taken a selfie

i’ve never
had a Facebook
account

I’ve never
found it
necessary
to take a
picture of
my food

my ego
doesn’t believe
the world needs
to know when
i’m taking a
shit or when
i’m trying to
decide what to
get at the home
improvement
store

they told me
as a child I was
well beyond my
years

i suppose that is
still true

although I’m quite
interested in seeing
what this Tinder is
all about

Argonaut’s Agony

naked hydras
melting sexes
slithering form unicorn skin
husk is what you’ve got
full of radioactive gum drops
he-she chants in ironic devotion
semblance of the humane
in the realm of species splendor
mythos point
Saturn’s rings jumbled
in the trench of Hades’ rainbow
Neptune washes
none of it away

When the Dick Died Inside

I think I went
too far this time
when I said I’d flay you
and use your skin against mine.
Maybe you thought
it was to be close
but I see it
as funny.

I’ll wear you inside out
and your dick up me
until it putrefies
and I die of
blood poisoning.

Suicide by dick
just to show your
irrelevance.