Charles Rammelkamp

Reds

You know how sometimes a song lyric 
just enters your head, unprovoked,
like a visitor showing up unannounced?
This morning I heard Mick Jagger’s voice warn,
Drop your reds, drop your greens and blues.

A drug reference, of course,
reds Seconals, greens and blues barbiturates, 
downers, or so I’ve heard.
And I hid the speed inside my shoe.
“Sweet Virginia,” half a century old,
from the Exile on Main Street album,
a song from my college days
we listened to religiously, 
smoking dope in the dorm rooms.

And I remember the guy who sold drugs
from a locker in the student union,
bags of not-very-good marijuana,
a variety of pills in all the colors
of a Crayola crayon box.
Brian only lasted a semester,
flunked every class he’d registered for –
but never actually attended.
I wonder whatever became of him.

Got to scrape the shit right off your shoes.

Karl Koweski

dead old guy in a casket

no different
than any of the other
hundred corpses
in a hundred 
other boxes.

I’m stopped before
I can make it
back to my seat
by a wilted woman
flanked by grown sons.

I’ve never seen them before.
they’ve never seen me
but I offer the grieving
family my condolences.

“did you work with Jon?”
the presumed widow asks.

“no, ma’am, I did not,
we were lovers,” I say
loud enough to be heard
by those gathered.
“when I was thirteen years old
he was my big teddy bear
and I’ll never forget him.”

her eyes glaze over
bottom lip quivering.
her sons request
my departure, apparently
they have enough trauma.

I walk out to my car.
no one follows.

sometimes, they do.

I spread the
obituary page
across the steering wheel
and read down the column.

near the bottom,
Donnie Allridge.
his wake at
Godwin’s Funeral Home
is across town.
if I hurry
I can arrive in time
to rewrite
another man’s history.

Jay Maria Simpson

The Light Switch

Up and down
Left and right
Side to side
Round and round

My filthy fingers touch the pendulum
stimulate the lighting switch
play with your vulnerability
its neediness to understand
the refracting light the desire
to escape and to stay

The metronome smiles into the distance
keeping a perfect beat
remembering the practice required
to beat out
the pleasure
the spontaneity

The drummer leans back and teeters
she strokes the snare
possessively
rides the cymbal relentlessly
the tension rods, the tuning keys
the drumheads

The unwound clock the lightning switch
sync like lovers fucking
for the first time
smelling flesh and wonderment
shaking
at the slightest touch

We turn the light off and on
second by second beat by beat
like a broken whirligig, heart petering out
rising up pulsing hard
speeding up giving up
fighting to survive

Damon Hubbs

Taste

in the ash yard hounds bluster and bark
a divine comedy of complaints,
why has she lost her taste for hell? 
the Trans Am boys do donuts in the dark

a divine comedy of complaints
circling like black hair in a bathroom drain, 
the Trans Am boys do donuts in the dark
slicking roadkill, surfing the blood of saints

circling like black hair in a bathroom drain
bad habits weed the craving void,
slicking roadkill, surfing the blood of saints
love was once a fentanyl rain 

bad habits weed the craving void
in the ash yard hounds bluster and bark,
love was once a fentanyl rain  
why has she lost her taste for hell?

Brenton Booth

How to Get Published in The New York Quarterly

I sent my first submission to The New York Quarterly when I was 25. At the time I was living in a tiny studio apartment in the red-light district. The kitchen cupboards were missing doors, carpet old, smelled like failure and death, walls full of grease and ageing paint trying its best to stay vertical. The good thing was it was cheap. I didn’t have to work much to afford it. And better than that, there was a large bright red mailbox right in front of the building. I sent submissions to everyone from that mailbox, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Poetry, The American Poetry Review, The Sun, Black Warrior Review, and The New York Quarterly. I dreamed of getting in all of them, but really wanted to get in The New York Quarterly. I’d seen a documentary where the original editor spoke about another writer I greatly admired’ work and was quite impressed. Back then everything was printed out and posted the old-fashioned way. Each submission cost me $5.30 once I paid for the paper, printing, envelopes, postage, and return international postage. At that time, I wasn’t earning much. It was really an assault on the budget. Though I think the best moments of my life then was the hope I had pushing each fresh envelope into the indifferent mouth of that mailbox. I always did it slowly. Imagining every submission would be successful no matter how many times I had already been rejected.  And the amazing feeling I would get when that acceptance letter finally arrived. I was single then. Hadn’t been with a woman for a long time. Living on boiled rice and tap water to keep the costs down. One day I went to a cage fighting gym. After the class the instructor took me aside. Asked if I was interested in having a fight. I told him I couldn’t. I was a writer. “You make money from writing?” he said. “No, I haven’t been published yet.” “I think you will make money from fighting,” he said. I told him I couldn’t. Writing meant too much to me. And I was sure I would get published sometime real soon. I was wrong about getting published soon. None of those magazines ever gave me anything but rejections. I almost quit writing completely 8 years later until a workmate the same age as me that was recently diagnosed with a terminal illness told me not to give up. I started writing and submitting again. Though this time I didn’t imagine getting published. I knew I wouldn’t. I’d made peace with that. The important thing, I realised, was to write what you believed, the rest didn’t matter so much. Years passed like this. I saw more and more fighters having great success. Struck by the reality I was too old to change my decision. More years passed. I had a 60 hour week at work. Was on the final day. Beaten, broken, wanting to call up sick. Barely slept the whole night. Got out of bed at 2AM–an hour and ten minutes earlier than I needed to. Checked the mail on my phone to pass some time. I noticed a response from The New York Quarterly. I was so experienced with them–eighteen years worth of schooling. I began reading the familiar form-response. After the first line I realised this was something else. This was the acceptance I had been waiting for all those years! I turned on every light. Got ready for work with the biggest smile. Ready for anything anyone could throw at me. 

Daniel S. Irwin

Signs

Some people are
Fanatics about it
But I never go by
Zodiac signs.
I’ve always been
An exception to
What traits are
Ascribed to mine.
Even my days go
Contrary to
Daily predictions.
Apparently,
In my case, my
Destiny is not
Written in the stars.
It’s more like a
Matter of what’s
Scratched out
In the dirt with
Coal being my
Gem stone.
Maybe, that makes 
Earth my planet.
My spirit animal
Has always been
The maguey worm
At the bottom of
A bottle of mezcal.

Horror Sleaze Trash: Poems Vol. 2

The long-awaited 2nd volume of Horror Sleaze Trash: Poems has finally arrived!

Featuring poetry by Jeff Weddle, Rob Plath, Jessica Heron, John D Robinson, Damon Hubbs, Clarice Hare, James Diaz, Donna Dallas, John Tustin, Jay Maria Simpson, J.J. Campbell, Kristin Garth, Andy Seven, Rp Verlaine, C. Renee Kiser, Nadja Moore, Anthony Dirk Ray, John Knoll, Alan Catlin, Bogdan Dragos, Omar Alexandre, John Grey, Michael Lee Johnson, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Danny D. Ford, Devlin De La Chapa, Paul Tanner, Brian Rosenberger, Ben Newell, Saira Viola, Aimee Nicole, Johnny Scarlotti, David Boski, Matt Amott, Sherry Shahan, Joshua Jordan, G. Arthur Brown, John Yohe, Robert Guffey, Jacklyn Henry, PJ Grollet, Dustin King, Herman B. Triplegood, Eleanor Karinthy, Noel Negele, Dan Flore III, Ken Kakareka, Joseph Farley, Garvan Giltinan, Mather Schneider, Matt Dennison, Kyle Denner, Mendes Biondo, Daniel S. Irwin, Jason Melvin, Jon Bennett, Jeffrey Zable, Tohm Bakelas, Puma Perl, Judge Santiago Burdon, David Estringel, Damian Rucci, William Taylor Jr., John Grochalski, Mela Blust, Wolfgang Carstens, John Gartland, Alexander Poster, Paige Johnson, Walt Shulits, Scott Ferry, Jodie Baeyens, Noah David Roberts, Ruth Niemiec, Jay Passer, David J. Thompson, John Sweet, and Joseph Fulkerson.

FREE DOWNLOAD AVAILABLE

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Mike Zone

Tiny Desk Confessional

(to Effie)

Eye of the port
as the storm nears
imperial bedrooms quaking underneath zodiac trees
last supper inspiration
from a deck of cards
where communion has been rendered anything but
roller-derby brawler at the end of the world
fall down
crash
burning bright
a celestial tigress aflame
claws tearing vapid skies
truth telling in a realm of toxic positivity
where the land that isn’t your land
is just the land
and so are you
skin to skin
beauty marks
corresponding with astrological projection
where do we find the reflections of oneself
but in other’s existential dread
in genuine paths 
in the places of dead roads
where romance has no place to fluctuate
but the nature of one’s being
alone
no longer withholding
the desperation of truth
we all wish to speak
a tiny desk
confession
the root of it all

Swingers Anonymous: Jonathan Woods

A SOUTH FLORIDA NOIR

When two dead bodies and $20,000 in drug money show up at the end of a swingers party, Bill becomes…well, a little unglued.

Directed and produced by Quincy Perkins. Written and produced by Jonathan Woods.

Based on the story “Swingers Anonymous” by Jonathan Woods. 

Key West Film Festival, 2014 ~ Premier

FilmGate Miami, 2015 ~ Audience Award, Best Film; Best Actor, Tom Frank

Cannes Film Festival, 2015 ~ Short Film Corner

“A modern day Tell-Tale Heart, as if Edgar Allan Poe was a post-modern gonzo noir storyteller – Swingers Anonymous clearly reflects the influence of Hitchcock and Fellini, with a generous touch of the Coen brothers.” — Key West Citizen

“Classic filmmaking in 23 minutes.” — Behind the Scenes

Jonathan Woods has written three pulp noir novels, A Death in Mexico, Kiss the Devil Good Night, and Hog Wild as well as two short story collections, Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem and Phone Call from Hell and Other Tales of the Damned.