Writing

Jack in the Pulpit by Corey Mesler

~ Sophie Boyce ~ 1 Comment

Her breasts swell inside
me now like the
last string of dream.
My hands, ready at last,
want only to pull the string,
to unwind the dream
and have it all go forward,
like the song we used to sing, the
one about God, about not dying.

Corey Mesler has published in numerous journals and anthologies. He is the author of eight novels, three books of short stories, three full-length collections of poetry, as well as numerous chapbooks of poetry and prose. John Grisham once blurbed one of his novels, as did Lee Smith, and Marshall Chapman. He and his wife own Burke’s Book Store in Memphis TN.

Ponderous Things by Olivia Olson

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I am clogged with things, with plastic
artifacts. I am mothering them,
rummaging through them. I roll these droppings
of time between my palms, sniffing
out the only deity who remembers me.
I carefully follow her tracks down the long, arching
phallus of the sun, kiss the yawn of the stars
and awkwardly stumble upon her. We will sit
in reminiscense, etching lines into our bald palms.
I imagine she will beg me to stay, persuade me
to drink from my grandmother’s cup of tea
and make potpourri from my long dead birthday
roses. We will grow corpulent together.
Before long, even my skin will get soggy
with sentimentality, and I will drop
like a midsummer rain. This body I have loved
will become a breath, a blink,
and I will have nothing to remember it by.

Olivia Olson lives in Rochester, MI in her secret identity as a spinster librarian. Her poems have appeared in Miller’s Pond and are forthcoming from Bird’s Thumb.

Ocean Envy by Nikita Hernandez

~ Sophie Boyce ~ 1 Comment

She swallows your words
and craves your mouth.
Kiss her salt lips and forget
the peppermint sting of mine.
Chew on seaweed
instead of my tongue.

Forget my fingertips
and fall into her watery embrace.
Taste the salt,
choke on her foamy cum
and don’t fight when she throws
you face down on the shore.
Swallow the sand
and be on your way.
We all know you like to be bullied.

Don’t look back for the words
you meant for me.
The Atlantic will drag them into the open
grave of her mouth,
blow you a kiss
to keep you coming back.

Born and raised as a military brat, or “professional gypsy” as her mom likes to say, Nikita Hernandez grew up in the Deep South drinking sweet tea and plucking pecans from her next door neighbor’s tree. She spends her time accumulating books for her future library, daydreaming, and delusionally hoping for snow in Florida. Her poems have appeared in The Fredericksburg Literary Review, Meat for Tea: The Valley Review, BLACKBERRY: a magazine, and as runner up for the 2013 Peter Meinke Prize For Poetry.

Meditations of an Aging Whore by Shannon Barber

~ Sophie Boyce ~ 1 Comment

“Call me a pig.”

I hate this guy.

He is just like every other shit fuck dudebro I see.

“You are a filthy fucking pig.”

At least the dirty panties he has on are cute.

“I hate your pink porcine shit fuck face honkey.”

I boot him in his lace covered ass. Now I’m on autopilot, a few more swats, epithets and he’ll jizz in his drawers and I will be 700 bucks in the pink.

Later, after he’s gone, I have the hotel room to myself. I’ll order some Chinese food, balance the books and zone out on cable TV.

Two servings of extra spicy pepper beef, one beer and two reality shows later I’m ready.

Two more White guilt fueled domme sessions, one sissy, three more Bad Mommy scenes and I’ll be able to breathe for a couple of months.

I’m so close.

With my rent paid up for another few months by Daddy Moneybags I’ll be golden and in new shoes.

When I was just a little hard scrabble ho, I wish I hadn’t been so afraid of the weirdos with deep pockets.

Oh well, shit in one hand wish in the other.

Sometimes when I clock my ever downward heading tits and the start of crow’s feet around my eyes I worry.

Am I too old?

Or, am I just getting to be perfect?

Before I can drown in self-pity my phone chirps.

Daddy Moneybags texts me begging for titty pictures and letting me know he dropped a hefty deposit into my account to “help with my lady problems” – his code for PMS and my need for meat and new shoes.

My worries about aging and my own marketability dissolve away as I peel off my jammies to reward my patron.

For right now, I’m okay. I’m safe. I’m perfect.

Shannon Barber is an author from Seattle, Washington where she lives with her partner and a small collection of oddities. She is an avid writer, reader and blogger. She has a new self care book out and can also be spotted at Luna Luna Magazine, on Facebook and Twitter.

Bad News For Bunny By Bruce McRae

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The bad news is
you’re not one
of
God’s little ponies
or an old hit
on the radio.

You’ll never be
a clever trick
that they drag out
at parties.

The sun will never
come from you.

I’m sorry that I have
to be the one
to tell you,
but it’s a short ride
and it’s a fast one.

For those of you
with aspirations —
aspire. But you,

you the one in the back
looking decidedly
sick at heart:

that feeling that you’re feeling
is right on the money.

You’ll never be one
of Heaven’s shiny pennies
now.

Pushcart-nominee Bruce McRae is a Canadian musician with over 900 publications, including Poetry.com and The North American Review. His first book, ‘The So-Called Sonnets’ is available from the Silenced Press website or via Amazon books. To hear his music and view more poems visit ‘TheBruceMcRaeChannel’ on Youtube.

Haiku of the Synesthete by Kristina Butke

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Did you know your voice
Sounds like salted caramel
Fluid, thick, and dark?

The vowels are slow
And the consonants, tender.
Your words stain my ears.

Whenever you’re gone
I escape to the South Bend
With Jeni and Fran.

But they aren’t you.
Their voices convey silence.
That’s when I decide.

I devour them.
One by one they disappear,
And as they’re swallowed

I pretend I hear
Your voice echo inside me,
A noise like candy.

Kristina Elyse Butke writes fantasy and horror, and occasionally dabbles in the world of digital art and comics. She has an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University and is an adjunct English professor at North Central State College. When she isn’t writing or arting, she indulges her geekiness by cosplaying at fan conventions. Say hello Kristina on her website or follow her on Twitter.

Electric Penguins by AJ Huffman

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Decked out in full tuxed,
sunglassed, red-carpet style,
They practice for their paparazzi
moment. They blink haphazardly,
not yet used
to being the focus. Excitement
rises, temperatures
drop as their body-
guards are using blow
dryers to shrink bergs into cubes
for their drinks.
Clink!

A.J. Huffman has published seven solo chapbooks and one joint chapbook through various small presses. Her eighth solo chapbook, Drippings from a Painted Mind, won the 2013 Two Wolves Chapbook Contest. She also has a full-length poetry collection scheduled for release in June 2015, titled, A Few Bullets Short of Home (mgv2>publishing). She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and her poetry, fiction, and haiku have appeared in hundreds of national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, Bone Orchard, EgoPHobia, Kritya, and Offerta Speciale, in which her work appeared in both English and Italian translation. She is also the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press.

The News by Andrew Collard

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1.
A word is written underneath her naval. I bend to see clearly but my head is blocked by phantom corners. Squinting only smears—I reach, restrained, and know the neckline pull of fingers on my pulse, the vertigo of wanting.

2.
The word is five weeks long, but it’s rumor. I echo what’s pronounced and stumble over growing syllables. The ink won’t dry though; it spreads to palms, needs reading. She rests on elocution like an undiscovered bone.

3.
She is whole where I remember less warmth, hovering unseen like a painter over canvas. I press myself against her blindly like a wall against the wind, waiting for a word to make my own.

Andrew Collard lives in Madison Heights, MI with wife/cats/Outrageous Cherry albums. He attends Oakland University and kind of wishes he had a pet lobster.

Featured Author: Mark Roberts

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building site at midnight

star light bounces off timber scaffolding
illuminating sawdust dancing
in the thought of a breeze
everything smells of freshly sawn wood

i am miles away & will
read of it tomorrow in
a newspaper which will omit
important details
or maybe i will wait
for the despatches
single words carried on
a breath i can assemble
them how i choose

but the starlight is still there
even during the day
like this poem was here
even before the scaffold

 

Mark Roberts is a writer, critic and editor currently living in Sydney Australia. He has been publishing work in numerous magazines and journals since the early 1980s. He runs Rochford Street Review (A Journal of Australian & International Cultural Reviews, News and Criticism) and Rochford Street Press (one of the smallest Australian literary presses) . He is a founder and editor of P76 Magazine and is currently poetry editor of Social Alternatives.

 

green balloon

sometime in the late seventies he disappeared into the sky under a large green balloon he left a note behind an almost poetic message of lost love & a shattered heart he floated high above a street he wanted to forget pulling ropes & pushing levers to go higher finding that his heart beat slower in the thinning air

his old word disappeared in a haze he looked down on a blue green sphere as the sky above turned black & the pin pricks of stars grew larger he heard that below great advances had been made in poetry he didn’t care he watched the earth curve as he rushed around it again & again & longed for a straight line

 

October 1933

wish i could get it full
calm & unconscious but
a perpetual little spatter
of comments keep me awake
only a rain drop, a frog
in the bed of an administrator
& i refuse to take life
more strongly & steadily
open eyes open mind
a pot shot with substance

 

You can view even more of Mark’s work at:

Cameraman

Pacific Solution 3

Mark Roberts


http://verityla.com/posthumous-mark-roberts/
http://verityla.com/ishmael-mark-roberts/
http://the-otolith.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/mark-roberts.html

Mark Roberts – THE LAST DAY OF WAR

I Never Said I Wanted to be President by Moneta Goldsmith

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Yuputka, noun. A Japanese term of endearment meaning ‘the phantom sensation of something crawling on your skin.’

In my life I’ve been with two Lindsays, one Kendrick, two Sarahs. I’ve heard oh yeahs and ooh babies, let me turn over, let me be on top of you. I’ve had one Jessica, a Shulameth, four Katelyns/Caitlins/Katies. Or some variety therein. I have screamed out ‘mother’ once (that was a mistake). I’ve let her turn over or be on top of me. Once I almost let a girl turn me over.

I never said I wanted to be president when I grow up.

I’ve been slapped and pinched until I was dizzy, and swung at harder than I was ready for. I have finger-banged girls who were scared, fondled dry clothes until they were wet dishrags. I got drunk and didn’t get up, and lied that it never happens. I got naked and yelled at on the streets of Denver; bird-dogged in the rain on the streets of Denver, in a lake in Maine with swimming fireflies. Under a skirt with a flashlight once—that was second grade.

I never said I wanted to be president.

I’ve had it in a movie theater, in a hammock, a Taurus, a Rav4, a pair of Priuses – that was a party. I’ve been with white trash, heard words like mean-mugged and motorboat and popsicle-raid. I’ve had three actresses. All of them rich, and melted into the same person.

I met the first lady once. She wasn’t so great up close.

I heard her make stirring speeches about kids and food and jazz.
I watched her give tired hugs and smiling handshakes.

When it was my turn to shake her hand I gave it a big squeeze and whispered,

‘Sheraton room 766.’

I told her, ‘I know what it’s like to want to be a man.’

Moneta Goldsmith was the 2013 Grand Prize winner of Spark Anthology’s poetry contest. His prose & poetry can be found in such places as Sparkle & Blink, Under the Influence, & Best New Writing 2014. Most recently, he co-founded the popular lit mag & reading series ‘When in Drought‘, which is based in Los Angeles.