The Only Daddy I Wanna Know

I remember when I called him Daddy
Smiled pretty all day so he’d spank me
I just gave in to the joke of authority
Ha! Forgot truth: No limits invade ME

Get out of my lighthouse;
the noisy-nitpick louse
Don’t need orders or opinions to Shine
Pack your gas-lighting dragging behind

What you’re putting out is putting You out
Cosmic cord-cutting for your piss n’ pout
Tried to transfer to me your gutless doubt
What you’re putting out is putting You out

Gimme that High for my Low; hearts aglow
Balance the beat, turn off the shit-show
That’s the only Daddy I ever wanna blow
a kiss. The only Daddy I wanna know…

Poetry vs.

She wanted to talk about my poem,
whether it worked with symbols
or something subtler. I mouthed
some inanity about what metaphor
means to me. How could I say,
instead, that I wanted to see her
naked, her blond limbs, her glossy
thighs. We talked a little bit more
about the poem. “It’s not often I
get to ask the actual author,” she
gushed. I didn’t feel actual. I felt
like a shitheel. But, reader, listen.
Her eyes were like the blue the sky
unveils only in early morning. And,
up close, she seemed to be made of
cake. I went home and she went home.
I tried to write new poems. She found
herself thinking about fucking and 
called to her husband in the next room.

Lobster Bob 

I was sitting at the bar listening to mark 
telling 
me about his roommate, lobster bob. 
“he brings home a different 
whore
three or four times a week.
“bartrolls. nothing but bartrolls.” 

“still,” I said, “three or four times
a week? it’s not easy to pick up 
anything three or four times
a week.”  

“yeah it is,” said mark. “you find the grossest 
chick in the place… 
at 2.a.m. I mean the grossest… 
that’s what he
looks for, and gets…”

as he was saying this, lobster bob came sidling out 
of the bathroom. 
he was about 45, with a loose-hanging
aloha shirt and a limp mop 
of lord Fauntleroy hair framing his bloated
pink face. He looked a bit like a lobster, 
but that’s not
how he got the name. 

we watched as he nuzzled up to some lady 
at least ten years 
his senior, her broad beam spilling over
the barstool.

“and look at him now,” mark went on. 
“he’s at it again… 
the disgusting
fuck… and i’m gonna have to listen 
to it through the wall.”

we both 
shook our heads. I was 
laughing… lobster bob 
was more 
of a man
than either of us
could ever be.

Sertraline

It’s bad and it will get worse—
this is the certainty.

Then
it will get better—
this the assumption,
the hope, the gamble.

On salary day
I spend the night 
drinking at a sports pub
in Newcastle.

I’m here for work.
It’s freezing up here
and working as a cladder
has never sucked harder.

I bet almost all my salary
2.350£ on Leicester to win
after they are already winning 
1-0 and with 1.95 odds
I’m looking at doubling
my money.

It ends with them losing
3-4 and getting back to my travel
lodge a homeless man asks me for money
and nodding him away from me
I think if I’d only won that bet
I’d probably take him by the hand 
to an ATM and really make his night.

Looking at people walk around life 
with seamless easiness 
has always been a source 
of great envy in me.

Always have felt that I’ve walked
in a quicksand the whole time
and the more I tried to keep up
the more I sunk.

The more they kept getting ahead.

Autopilot doesn’t work.
Stirring through every second 
of life manually is laborious work.

An unforgiving loneliness
monolithic in size and grandiose.

It’s like you’re that astronaut 
standing on the moon 
looking back at the earth 
getting hit by a meteor 
like an AK bullet going 
through someone’s chest

Nobody else but you left

And only for a short while longer.

Catwalk of Spies

The Agency neither confirms nor denies
While booking its models
On the catwalk of spies

That the catwalk of intel is a runway of lies
And everyone poses
On the catwalk of spies

Catwalk of whispers, catwalk of sighs
Catwalk of secrets
Catwalk of spies

Cover is a microskirt flaunting your thighs
With sheer blouse unbuttoned
On the catwalk of spies

And truth’s a pair of pumps, too small by one size
Make sure you don’t stumble
On the catwalk of spies

Covert action is shadow that brings out your eyes
And black ops make you slimmer
On the catwalk of spies

Spy dust is blush the makeup artist applies
And everyone’s airbrushed
On the catwalk of spies

Agents are items you accessorize
You wear each one proudly
On the catwalk of spies

But when the big designer your portfolio buys
And you make that cold read
On the catwalk of spies

In that moment your dress falls, and you realize
Strutting forth naked
On the catwalk of spies

That the passage through which unto light we all rise
That runway of spirit
Is a catwalk of spies

Catwalk of whispers, catwalk of sighs
Catwalk of eternity
Catwalk of spies

if i was a wiser man

i remember the shower
and you coming in right
as i was washing my balls

you looked me right in 
the eyes and asked may i

if i was a wiser man
i would have married 
you right there

but that kind of shit
didn’t exist in me at 
the age of 21

but the images stuck 
in my brain from that 
shower still persist a 
quarter century later

i’m pretty sure you 
and your family are 
comfortable living 
out west

i still laugh when 
you said i’d be the
perfect one to have 
an affair with since 
i was living on the 
other side of the 
country

well, here i am on 
the other side of the 
country

patiently waiting

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: Winter 2024, the curated collection from Horror, Sleaze and Trash!

Featuring poetry by Alan Catlin, Chris Butler, Johnny Scarlotti, Arthur Graham, A. Lynn Blumer, Judge Santiago Burdon, William Taylor Jr., Damian Rucci, Adam Hazell, Brenton Booth, Karl Koweski, Damon Hubbs, Casey Renee Kiser, Mike Zone, Harry Whitewolf, Daniel S. Irwin, J.J. Campbell, Jonathan S Baker, Andrew Vuono, and Donna Dallas.

FREE EBOOK HERE

Slow Pussy Finger

All the lifetimes
I will live from this point on
slaying single and weightless-
yeah, not so pointless
anymore
Get that slow pussy finger outta my face;
Take me off your speed dial for head
case-trickery and favorite warm space
Put that dick away, not even a trace
I said, this bitch back on homebase!
Can’t touch this    and bet
I’ll remain single 
all the lifetimes
if no man steps up and says keen
what the fuck he means
’cause only winners on this team
and so far,

it’s just me

I Want My Thanatron!

Fuck your Western wires!
Fuck your hypocritical oath!
“Life passes us like a spring jasmine,”
the lapsed guru, he quoth!

Paging Doctor Kevorkian,
in trying times such as these.
“Barbarian”, they called him
with serpents’ voices in the toxic breeze.

But, you don’t know Jack!

Black Angel of Mercy with
snowflake strands ready to
revolutionize bliss with this device he provides.
The art of dying requires no last word.
So, salvage me from an agonizing life of pain.
Give me the gateway keys to assisted suicide.

I want my Thanatron!
I want my peaceful death!
I never want to worry about
sacrificing my immortal breath!

Fuck your so-called humanist rights!
You were never human at all!
Fuck your tentacle clutches,
for your sentence will be eaten before the fall!

The American way of avarice
is the pathway to physical hell.
They want to keep us above the soil
so our blood finances can ring the bastardized bell.

But, you don’t know Jack!

Darkest Angel of Death
with a scythe of comfort words,
ready to guide weakened souls through the out door.
I can almost taste the shades of afterlife green.
End these agonizing days of torment!
Put me under the saline spell of this miracle machine!

I want my Thanatron!
I want to die with elated grace!
I never want to worry about
leaving my mark on the world without an ambiguous trace!

Big Bad Terry

Back in my days
selling toilet paper
and television sets,
I would spend over an hour
at the end of the night
sitting out front smoking
not going home
watching the other people walk 
out to their cars loading their stuff
I would wait 
for something to happen

and then Big Bad Terry
who traded his Harley 
for a floor scrubber,
whose thick mustache 
framed his mouth
like mounted bull horns 
would take his break,
sit next to me,
and begin to say 
the most beautifully awful things 
about women.

Burning a cigarette
staring off across the parking lot
at the end of shift nurses 
and the waitresses in uniform
the mothers buying gift wrap.

“I would lick her turd cutter clean”
“I would eat her asshole pink”
“I would wear her like a diving helmet”

I would blush
He was such a sweetheart.