Without eyes he haunts you.
He finds your every dream
and turns it into blackness.
And before he disabuses you of your hope,
he drills new sockets through your skull,
so a new pair of unlighted eyes
can look into his silent soul
and see there nothing.
HST proudly presents Komodo Dragon Tongue, double-pronged poems by Catfish McDaris & Ryan Quinn Flanagan.
Going to a brothel
On Calatravas Street
We went up the stairs
To the first floor.
We rang the bell
And a couple appeared
A man and woman
Like sheep
That were Asian, from Indonesia
As they said
With whom we agreed
The price of sex
Which was twenty euros.
When they called the girls
To see which one we’d get
We were surprised
To see that they were dwarfs
All of them, about ten
Wearing short dresses
Dragging their breasts on the ground.
One after another
Jumping around us
They sang to us:
-Come on, sir, to my pussy
We’ll do it in bed.
We have good teeth
To suck you off.
My friend and I looked at each other
As if saying
Without saying a word:
-We can’t fuck sexy dwarfs.
The girls circled around us three times
Feeling to see if we had an erection
Jumping for joy at first
Then, silent in sorrow
For not being able to get anything out
When they heard us
Telling the pimp sheep
That we would return tomorrow.
The little ones went inside
All the way to the kitchen
Looking tired
Listening to one of them say:
-What bad luck
Not being able to enjoy a cock.
We’ll have to do it
With a spoon.
She always showed up with a suitcase and a story.
The rest of her luggage was left behind on a bus.
Or a man held her belongings hostage, refusing
to release them until she paid him or slept with him.
Or a livery cab driver rode off with all her possessions
packed away in the trunk and she didn’t know his name.
Poor Karyn.
Poor Karyn with a ‘y’.
Even in the rock n roll world, there are lonely men,
short on looks and long on cash. Or so it seemed
to poor little Karyn with a ‘y’. One conversation
and they were taking selfies cheek to cheek.
The men appeared blissful in the photos,
wide grins alongside her fake toothy smile.
Another couple of shots and she and her suitcase
had taken up residence in their apartments.
A few days or a week later, she gave them the cold shoulder
and refused to leave until they paid her. If they didn’t,
she said she’d cry rape. The men were scared. They paid.
She rolled into the Treehouse one summer night.
Informed my friend Don that she needed to put her
suitcase in the trunk of his car. Don knew better.
Not a chance, he said, and walked away.
She sat down on the settee, opposite the small
round table where I’d rested my shot of whiskey.
Gave me the smile and requested that I remove
my drink since she was newly sober and tempted.
Then get the fuck out of the bar, I said.
She’s still up to her old tricks but not down here.
Karyn with a ‘y’ has finally moved on.
I used to go to The Black Door
every Friday to see Nicole.
She was tall
and slightly nordic
or nordic once removed,
a nose like a golden shovel
of all the best lines,
eyes in a dream state
cor cordium,
fearful symmetry.
One night when the streets were dead
and the moon like a lonely cab
I got drunk
and asked her to go to Iceland
and she said
stop being cryptic —forget
Iceland.
I’m yours, presently.
The music is good
and the snow
undressing
with just the right amount
of emotional
catastrophe.
got a goddamn brilliant
bestselling nonlinear novel
burning a hole in my hot little pocket
but I’m too enraged and engorged
to pull it out
no one would believe me
“you’re old, sit down”
“it’s probably a self-indulgent memoir in disguise”
“you shop too much”
“you’re gravity’s whore”
so I wallow in the four of cups
stone cold sober
feeling superior to writers with agents
and Paris infused selfies
“LOOK AT ME DRINKING CHAMPAGNE ON THE EIFFEL TOWER, BITCH!”
oh sweet constipated jesus
the purity of obscurity!
baby let me tell ya
it is more delicious
than leftover
cherry pie
I’m the first to pull
a gun on John Lennon
I tried to build my wall
of sound around him
brought him into
my echo chamber studio
gave him the right amount
of balance & reverb
but John was too far gone
on his lost weekend
amateur drinking
with the Hollywood Vampires
at the Rainbow Bar & Grill
on the Sunset Strip
I showed up at the studio
wearing a surgeon’s gown
not quite right on
my perfected five drug
cocktail of Prozac
Neurontin, Klonopin
There’s a total of five
so I’m missing two
but I’m ready to get John
on tape but Lennon
could not deliver
and that bullet did not
graze John’s ear
Don’t buy that scam
I was sending
a warning shot
I love the echo
It’s like garlic
You can’t get
too much
before you buckle up
do not
forget
where that iron ore
originated:
somewhere
lush
tropical
pristinely
alive
inna
masterpiece of
thriving
teeming
communal
insectual
variety.
hive-minded monarchy
in harmony with
disingenuous
instantaneous
intravenous
novelty
that’s us,
tools n sluts
rubbernecking
the accident of our existence
maybe
take notes from ants
practicing
evolution in reverse
what’ve we
mastered?
state-of-the-art
drive-thru
service
fentanyl salad sandwich
with a
side order of demise.
They’ve taken me to the operating room
For prostate surgery.
I had with me a book of poems
By Uzbek poetesses
That had stirred my passion
With the desire to reach them
And penetrate them.
They were:
Cashanova Dildojoda
Pildora Kojyonuda
Atiza Tosthonova
And Boboqulona Rajadona
Who didn’t notice a thing
When they gave me the anesthesia.
Just as they laid me down on the bed
I was conversing with them:
-The novena of the cunts
Is a very good thing
And that little bouquet I put
Adorns the vulva a lot.
I fell asleep
When I saw them carry a dead man
Out of the operating room
With prostate cancer
Praying to God:
-Father of my soul
Do not let me die.
After the operation
When I woke up in the room
My penis’s throat
Made me stick my tongue out halfway.
-I’m thirsty! I pleaded.
My beloved wife giving me
Drinking water in a plastic bottle
Taken from a vending machine.
Then I shouted:
-Where’s my book of Uzbek poetesses?
Seeing a she doctor who had operated
On me approaching
With a book in her hand
Saying very happily:
-Here, sir, is your book of poems.
The operation went perfectly, flawlessly.
With you it was different
Because we operated on you
With your penis stiff.
I replied:
-Doctor, when I fell asleep under the anesthesia
I saw the Uzbek poetesses coming
Grabbing my penis
Without knowing where they were taking me.
They took me along paths, along trails
And in a wooded area where no one could see us
They started to suck my dick
Like terrible beasts.
The doctor went outside
Laughing uproariously
When she closed the door.
nightmarish whispers through the concrete
echo into the dark, deep midnight, as the bourbon
river stops, for good; needles broken and thrown away
in far away dumpsters for other wingless angels to find,
one last effort to balance the crimes, to restore an inexplicable balance.
turtledoves die together, falling from the skies with a single cry,
flaming meteors penetrating the stratosphere,
wounds can never be healed with an apology,
cheap pre-prepared speeches do not cut the chase,
“forgiveness”; what’s the fucking point?
tequila’s poured, strong and pure, seeking for a long drinking bout before
succumbing to the whims of a coward new world;
horny demons escape the infernal pits, fallen angels meet
in the dens of dark alleys—there I too was, an observer
between immortal sinners, and it felt perfectly alright.
far better nights than the ones of today, sober and clean nights
of nothing to do, nowhere to be, away from broken drinkers
and whores, nevermore the rough nights of alley fights, bourbon drinking,
and needle sharing; everything to destroy the vessel, yet no storm
would sink the damn indestructible ship that yearns for death.
empty hearts and cold livers, bruised thoughts that render the nights
sleepless, breathlessly running through the alleyways of yesterday
in vain search for the meaning that was thrown into a garbage can
so long, long ago that it doesn’t even make sense… nonsensical
words, and lines, and words, and thoughts, wherefore
does the cat walk on the rail, the mouse hides under the bush,
the cockroaches mate by a worn-out mattress and we’re still here
and there,
in the shooting galleries and the mansions,
still searching, still shooting,
drinking and fucking,
loathing the moments, despising the hours,
annihilating the world from within,
shooting nightingales down and making stews out of sparrows
for we’ve grown tired of the same old songs and we need no birds to
sing—where to find them, though, when we’ve killed them all
but the heartless pigeon hustling its way toward undeserved immortality?
Horror Sleaze Trash 