17.
Crabs…..
they have no concept of
other people’s personal space.
They’re quick to use claw and
flay open any cell
that crosses their perceived boundary,
you’re the one at fault.
The only creature that routinely
closes roads all over the world,
covering asphalt like the plagued Nile
until humans become mass murderers
or don’t make it home for a month.
In an effort to save
the crustacean too stupid to stay out of the road,
we close the roads
because mass murderers get flat tires from serrated
claws.
We force people to
spew exhaust pollution into the air
80 miles out of the way
because you just really can’t teach a crab
about other
people’s personal space.
~Trina Stolec~
*
16.
It
All Comes Back To
sitting on the couch trying to numb the mind and not
think
because
the election is tomorrow but
I’m
less concerned with who wins or loses
than
how my fellow citizens will act when
a
winner is declared.
It all comes back to sitting on the couch trying
to numb the mind and not watch
businesses
boarded up for a hurricane of riots and destruction,
impenetrable
walls surround The White House,
National
Guard deployed to voting centers,
armed
militia “watching” the polls, because
WE
THE PEOPLE can no longer
be trusted.
It all comes back to sitting on the couch trying
to numb the mind and not contemplate
over
230,000 Americans
have
been hoaxed to death.
And
the numbers keep climbing.
It all comes back to sitting on the couch trying
to numb the mind and not realize
“free”
and “unbiased” are not synonyms, and I can’t tell
how
many lies I’ve swallowed anymore.
I
can’t even tell which lies are true.
It all comes back to sitting on the couch trying
to numb the mind and not remember
9-11
…. The United States looked like
a war zone.
Tanks
on Wall Street.
A
sight I never thought I’d see.
A
sight I used to be sure
I’d
never see again.
It all comes back to sitting on the couch trying
to numb the mind and not panic.
~Trina
Stolec~
*
15.
~ Scott Norman Rosenthal~
*
14.
Beautiful summer of
Covid-19
how ironic
in the midst of
pandemic
the sun should shine
so
the sky so fine
so
the clouds so white
so soft-looking
Mount Olympus heights
so
panoramic
a summer for the books
so
warm
temperatures soaring
as intubation proceeds
and ventilated lungs
gasp for air.
~Wayne F. Burke~
*
13.
Stiff
I take walks in the
cemetery
where it is quiet
none of the stiffs
makes a peep--
whatever they once had
fled at the
moment of death and
left them
fish-gray and
on a slab
until the mortician
stuffed each
like a turkey
at Thanksgiving
and painted the
face, and
then they laid
in a box
for a day or two
until the start
of their bone-life
in the cemetery
skulls, ribs, and such
not much to it, else
surely
we would have heard
something
from them
by now.
~Wayne F. Burke~
*
12.
ENCOUNTER #20
I must throw
a
blanket on you,
you're
so cold in bed,
on
the weight of your legs
so
they can't jump up
and
off the bed.
Because
otherwise,
you
might float out
and
wander around
and
get lost
when
you
should be kneading
brown
bread
to
stiffness
at
home.
Come,
relax,
let
me plunge
your
burrowing,
callused
hand
inside
the
warm
dough.
11.
Thin
Women
resemble
stalks of celery
make
footsteps like ghost children
smell
like chemicals
in
diet drinks
feel
like sandpaper
taste
like salt
and
sometimes like whipped cream
like
women with bound feet
they
must endure
the
bellowing hounds
of
hunger
the
poodle-haired ponds
of
thirst
they
are sticks of butter
they
melt
in
the sun
but
one day I too will become
a
slender stalk!
a
tender grace note!
and
my intelligent fat
will
take a hike in the Andes
I
will feel my toes
fall
off
but
will have no desire
to walk
*
10.
Plastic Perfect
flatten that stomach, tighten those arms,
inject that butt with
another order of pills, a forty year diet that
seduces and slinks away
leaving you with angry credit card
motherfuckers, copious vodka, a Lifetime movie with chiseled souls
a knife bisecting botox buttocks
~Yash Seyedbagheri~
*
9.
Period sex
I had sex this year and it was terrifying.
Kool
aid red, inhaling pennies.
You
splashed my belly, swiped my chest,
held
it under my nose with two fingers,
pushed
my head down.
An
ink blot, a small country with rivers for borders on my mattress.
You
laughed! Said, Get over it.
I
see this is how you fashion feminists from boys.
~Dustin King~
*
8.
Julie’s God
Have you ever thought about how we are surrounded by immeasurable arousals?
Julie
has.
The
person texting on the bus next to you,
the
neighbor’s mewing cat.
I
don’t know, floating spores?
She
would have better examples because it’s often her!
She
soaked the seat you sat in today at the office.
But
don’t get squeamish yet!
Humans
bubble and cascade where we will,
pants’
legs, public bathroom seats, grandma’s tissues and quilts.
I
once did up into the air lying beside her.
She’d
make me a fountain or splash me on the wall beside her bed,
leaving
a simple abstract she gazed into before sleep.
She
walks through nursing homes and makes senior citizens feel like teenagers.
She
hardly minds, even likes, the bony hand on her thigh or the comment about her
round bum.
Do
you understand yet?
She
receives and emits her desires to the world around her.
Her
morning routine includes an orgasm, a shuttering of reality and
release
into the contours of naturescapes the back of an eyelid may create;
Vines
woven in moss up a tree trunk, rolling white desert sands,
towering
purple clouds, the mirage in between….
What
do you do before you leave for work?
She
doesn’t need six days for her creations,
she
hardly needs six minutes.
In
the evenings she goes on dates.
I
imagine the screen of this phone is the restaurant or apartment window pane-
I
study her smirk as she licks a smudge of chocolate off his cheek.
I
listen to variations of shudders as his breath moves down from her neck.
After
he leaves I draw water, light her joint,
watch
her through smoke and steam as she bathes stoned
wondering
why God can’t just be what makes us feel good.
~Dustin King~
*
7.
VIRTUE OR VICE?
What’s
with all this talk of virtue?
Give
me vice any day.
Evil
gets me moving.
Religion
slows a person to a crawl.
I
even prefer indifference
to
goodness.
Sometimes,
keeping
quiet
when
a man steps
in
front of a bus
is
as much a kill
as
if I were behind the wheel.
Of
course, I keep my opinions to myself.
And
I look and dress
like
your average guy.
For
I get the zeitgeist.
Abnormal
is not the new normal.
And
I choose a time and a place
detached
from the moral and cultural climate.
I
have a dungeon in my cellar.
I
possess all manner of torture implements.
I’ve
enticed many a poor soul
into
my deliciously despicable lair.
So
what’s it to be?
Virtue
or vice?
They
all scream with pain,
blanch
in the face of impending death.
I
laugh out loud,
am
as giddy as a goal scorer.
It’s
easy to see who’s enjoying it more.
~John Grey~
*
6.
A YEARLY VISITOR
Her face has no eyes,
merely sockets that
lead down to a deeper darkness.
And her mouth opens wide
sucking her cheeks in
like a black hole.
She’s in a state
of about to wail or moan
but is forever soundless.
Legend
has it
that
she was the wife
of
a brute-man
who
chopped her to pieces
with
a meat-cleaver.
She
appears
once
a year
to
the current occupants
on
the anniversary
of
her slaughter.
To the children,
she's a source of pride.
To the husband,
an ethereal annoyance.
To the wife,
a
warning.
Buy
your meat
already
filleted.
~John Grey~
*
5.
Necrophagic Mutualists
orange phoretic mites
hitch midnight rides on sextons
searching for roadkill
~Daniel G. Snethen~
*
4.
The Congested Void
the congested void
of my long disinterred heart
overflows with grief
~Daniel G. Snethen~
*
3.
Window
A black cat
in the upstairs window
of an abandoned house
sat silhouetted
between tattered drapes.
A stark contrast
between the shadowy mouser
and the grayscale weathering
of a century old homestead.
~Daniel G. Snethen~
*
2.
“weird”
There is a herd I see.
I know this type.
They are all similar to
one another;
they wear the same
shirts,
drink the same
drinks,
puff the same weed,
and cigarettes.
And they are all numb to vibrancy.
They have dulled their
bronchioles with smoke and their livers with high percentages.
They are
mannequins,
and they have become one
another.
Show them paintings and they take pictures.
Play them music and they
record it;
it is not the
same.
Describe passions to
them and they try to translate from Greek.
It is hard to speak to
them,
and ironically,
I seem numb to the
herd.
But I still think they
have mad cow disease.
They are losing their minds.
They think I am
lobotomized;
under the eyelid,
crack,
twist.
~S.M. Moore~
*
1.
“the master lives among mice”
So many creatives create in perfection.
Their spaces are
organized,
and their rooms, like
pictures of ikea models.
And their desks sit flush
to the walls.
Their ergonomics are
impeccable,
and they listen to Bach.
This is all wrong.
A filmmaker must be able
to create films wherever they may be shooting their scenes.
A writer must be able to
write when they are inspired regardless of the setting.
A musician must be able
to play as well in asbestos-laden pubs as they may in sold out stadiums.
You must force yourself
into a mailbox and write.
Live in a hole in the
ground and eat dog food;
take handfuls of mud and
run it through your hair.
Do not allow your clean
space to become your work.
Institutional, linear,
sterile.
Work in an odd space;
a space with rodents and
water soaked into the rug.
Allow your work to
become like that.
Gritty,
disturbing,
covered in mold.
~S.M. Moore~
