Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Steve Calamars- A Poem

ice water
 
in my veins
streams up into
my skull
leaving me with
a brain freeze and
cold thoughts
that melt down
to wet dreams
of curvy girls
with nice legs and
mean high heels
who try to walk
all over me
but only end up
tripping over their
own words
after i sweet talk them
into swallowing
bitter pills
that paddle thru
their blood streams
finally detonating
deep in their chests
like depth-charges
scarring them on
the inside and
breaking their hearts—


Steve Calamars lives in Texas. He has a BA in Philosophy and works in a grocery store. His first collection of short stories, six years of relative happiness, is available at Calliope Nerve Media & Lulu. He blogs at dirtywordsoncleanliving.blogspot.com

Monday, August 29, 2011

Donal Mahoney- A Poem

 
Slovak Widow On 59th Street

She’s 84 
and when she stands,
everyone can hear the chiropractic crack

of eon bones
and everyone still tries hard
not to look   

that half second when
the chamois’s taut 
across protractor features.


-------------------------------------------------------------

Donal Mahoney, an immigrant from Chicago, lives in St. Louis, Missouri. He has had poems published in Dead Snakes and other publications in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Devlin De La Chapa- Two Poems

 
Seven Splinters on Saturday
 
My son is 12.
 
Saturday morning
feeding the dog
mowing the lawn
edging the curves
trimming the
bougainvillea
tossing debris
into the janitor grade trash can
 
the sun
is burrowing down on his back,
but he doesn’t complain.
he moves a board leaned up
against the fence for the passed week
and seven splinters prick themselves
into the left of his mid-size palm
 
he comes inside
asks for tweezers
fifteen minutes later
he’s still removing splinters
particularly a big one
which tends to grow stubborn
by remaining in place
 
a bout of frustration
creases between my son’s
large brown eyes
then he looks at me and says:
‘May I say a bad word?’
I nod my head, ‘Yes’.
 
‘This is a bitch!’
 
thank heaven for boys.
 
 
 
GoldFish

I woke up one morning
to an empty place with
an abundance of space
for the life of me I could not fill. 
 
So these walls suddenly became
the material, the immaterial
the existent, the non-existent;
I was buried within.
 
Yet, no one knew or cared
to consider me lost
no flyers, no milk cartons, no billboards
not a trace of my importance existed.
 
I was dead
 
Or was I?
 
This is how it starts:
 
She yells, you yell.
She threatens to leave, you leave.
She takes the dog, you take the cat.
She calls a lawyer, you represent yourself.
 
Then, the dog runs away with the cat
‘cause it considered you two morons.
And her lawyer screws the hell out of you
because you like screwing women.
 
And that’s how it ends.
 
Now back to these walls.
 
I’m alive again.
 
My space needs a woman’s touch
then I remembered, ‘No it doesn’t,
it needs a man’s touch, goddamnit!’
so I leave these walls blank.
 
I take a ride out to IKEA
since every single divorced man tends to shop there
sorting through colors, patterns, lamps,
things square and oval and all around boring.
 
But after two hours of trying to recover things lost,
things I care not to buy, I say ‘Fuck it!’
and storm out the store to the store next door
and buy what every man should buy after a divorce:
 
A goldfish.

 

DEVLIN DE LA CHAPA has been featured in Mademoiselle, Fangoria, Bloodlines, Orion Headless, The Camel Saloon, The Rainbow Rose, Catfishgringoriver, PostCard Shorts, The Carnage Conservatory, Black-Listed Magazine, and is scheduled to appear in Horror Sleaze Trash, Daily Love, Weirdyear, Drunken Absurdity, and Raven Images.  She was recently awarded Editors Choice at The Camel Saloon.  Devlin edits at http://boyslut.wordpress.com

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Andrew J. Stone- Two Poems


Love & Lattes

We burnt               the tips
of our tongues on
steaming chai             tea lattes

Our steaming chai tea lattes
interfered                  with our
secretarial affair



overripe

she unpeeled herself
like a brown-spot banana

i devoured her sickle flesh
she snatched my appendix



Andrew J. Stone lives and writes in Southern California and can be found hiding at http://andrewjstone.blogspot.com/.


Friday, August 19, 2011

Melanie Browne- Two Poems


Other writers have more fun

like sex orgies in hotels,
they Snort drugs off
paperback copies of
of Burroughs or Carver
or Vonnegut or underground
writers I should know of
but don’t,
other writers sometimes
forget to use deodorant,
they live in flop houses
and forget to pay their rent
while the more fortunate
of these wordsmiths
drink wine out of goblets
at writers retreats in
places like
Kennebunkport,
other writers cut
their arms and
write graffiti in
all you can eat
pizza- buffet bathrooms,
they drunk dial
their friends,
ride bicycles
in the rain,
while I sit at
home watching
I Love Lucy,
laughing my
ass off,
wishing I had
some more of that
Vitameatavegamin


Do Cows believe in God

I don’t know,
I mean,
I’ve never
asked them,
they are always
so busy chewing
and mooing,
and they spend so
much time
napping under trees,
until finally,
the moon
arm-wrestles
the sun,
and really,
they just never get
around to
the question


Bio; Melanie Browne lives in Texas and writes poems and flash fiction.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Justin Hyde- Three Poems


in the abstract

the economy is bad

unemployment through the roof

my newspaper has been telling me this
for two years now

but i never actually saw
many of these unemployed
until recently
at the grocery store cafe:

clean-cut
middle aged white guys
who were making 35k a year

selling annuities

installing home security systems

or driving pepsi trucks

now sit in booths
across from me
filling out the
five page application
to work behind the
deli counter
for eight bucks an hour.

there's no shame
in their eyes

they've already
been turned down
by the
rental car company

the seasonal
city landscaping crew

even the
bagel shop
across the street.

honey
the interview went well
if i get this
and stay on overnights
at wal-mart
we can probably
keep the house,
says the buzz-cut guy
with cauliflower ear
into his cell-phone
this morning.

he rolls up
the right leg
of his khakis.

i watch him
go out the door

mounting
a red bicycle
far too small
for him.



in bed

seventy-six pages
into a memoir
by hunter s thompson.

more interesting person
than writer,
i think to myself
clicking off the book-light
dog-earing
the page.

my eyes
adjust to the darkness

focusing
on the silhouette
of my three year old son
sleeping next to me.

he spends the night
every friday

this evening
we went to the river
behind wal-mart
looking for snakes

then we pretended
we were trolls
of the highway underpass

snarling at people
as they rode past
on their bicycles.

he's shirtless

the blanket
down over
his torso.

he has
my ex wife's nose

and my facial
features.

he's yet to ask
why i live here
in a crappy
one bedroom apartment

and his mother
lives in our old house
with a boyfriend
named jake.

all in good time
i suppose.

not that i have
any good answers

for him

me

or anyone else.

i kiss his ribs

his arm

his cheek.

i prop my head
on my hand

staring at him
for a very
long time.



celina marie

you are
a week and a half old
sleeping peacefully
inside a small blue carrier
at the flying j truck stop
in des moines iowa. your mother
is a waitress here.
she's supposed to be
on bed rest
the next three weeks. but
she had to bring you here
on the city bus
to get a big garbage sack
full of empty cans
collected by the other waitresses
because your father
who washes dishes
at ryan's steakhouse
gambled his paycheck
at the craps table
again. i’ve met
your father before.
he’s a nervous guy
who always wants to be
somewhere else. sometimes
at night i help your mother
move the big tables
in the truck stop restaurant
so she can vacuum underneath them. chocolate
and cigarettes
are my luxuries in life
is something
she always says. good
luck to you.

Monday, August 15, 2011

Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal- Two Poems


JUST NOBODY

In my sleep
I go on vacation.
It is free.

I could not afford
to go places
any other way.

I never
know where sleep
will take me.

Sometimes I
don’t remember
where I‘ve gone.

I was flying
in one of my dreams,
not like a plane,
but like a bird.

I wore human
clothes and looked
like myself, not like
a bird with wings.

In my sleep
I am many things.
Sometimes I am
just nobody.



THE STORM FROM MY PAST

Like rain from long ago
I go mad as it fills
the canvases in my mind.

My thinking is suspect.
I still remember her,
the storm from my past.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Sweta Maloo- One Poem


Lured by a Fair Gypsy Girl

Roving aimlessly across the desert
I thirsted for water and warmth
I sat under the moonlight
waiting for another soul to pass by
She came
so beautiful and glorious
sashaying towards me
with gold coins clinking by her waist
harem pants gossamer-thin
breasts heavy and plump-round perfect
She came asking for audience
O fair gypsy, pray dance for me!
Acquiescent, she bowed to my request
Not before asking, “May my friend assist?”
Like a love-struck fool, I smiled yes
Until a slithery golden-skinned snake came gliding forth
Awestruck as I was,
the fair gypsy’s hips enchanted me
She moved, like a woman to a lover’s touch
My eyes met each thrust of her hips with delightful hunger
Her passion coursed through me like hot poisonous desire
The sweet poison spiralled
Snaking through every cell and pore of my body
For a split second, I felt the embrace of the golden-skinned reptile
As if the fair gypsy and the snake were One
I felt her skin, hot against mine
Burning me
I consumed her sweet fire or was it vice-versa?
Rapturous, drained, my body slumped on the desert sand
Was it a sandstorm that engulfed me?
Or the fair gypsy’s sweet poison had ravaged me?



Bio: I'm Janeswaree Sweta Maloo, a 22-year old girl, from an island called Mauritius. I write poems as a hobby. Only one of my poems has been published by The Rainbow Rose. 

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Mike Meraz- Three Poems

The Curse Of The Ages

get ready for heartbreak
cause here she comes
bending down
ordering a sandwich
leaning over a shopping cart
glancing to the left
glancing to the right
all those wonderful things she does
(how can any girl be that pretty?)
I stand pretending not to care
I have seen her before
and her smile made my last four years
but now it’s just plain cruel
because that is all she gives me
or will ever give me
I wave hoping to get her attention.
"how are you?" I say
"good" she replies
as she glances away
(polite disinterest)
I walk away
hating she is not mine
but some other guys
who is probably as comfortable around her
as he is with his own mother.
but as for me
my heart is caught in my throat
all the blood in my body
is holding a five minute meeting in my face
there is nothing I can do about it.

the curse of the ages:

wanting something so much
it makes you unable to have it.



It Is Not Love

it is
need,
want,
desire,
a sudden awareness
of time slipping by,
a momentary lapse
of consciousness,
of truth
and meaning.

it is not love.

it is fear
of being alone
all by yourself
with no spouse,
no kids,
no dog,
no house,
no...

it is not love.

it is suicide
to settle.




Part 2

love falters.
it fails.
it is not the meal
but the dessert of life;
the cherry on top
of the sundae
you have built
on your own.


BIO:  Mike Meraz is a poet from Los Angeles who currently lives in New Orleans. He is the author of two books of poetry "Black-Listed Poems" and "All Beautiful Things Travel Alone."  He is also the author of "Black-Listed Thoughts" a book of quotes, available through Propaganda Press. Mike has been published in magazines such as Word Riot, Gutter Eloquence, Pearl Magazine, Chiron Review, Haggard & Halloo, Pulp Metal Magazine and many others. 



Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Donal Mahoney- A Poem

 
Miss Lakeishia Sings The Blues
 
Listen, mister, you're a guest 
at the Night Owl Club 
so you can sit here 
all night long, tip me 
after every song, 
buy me scotch 
till the final gong 
but none of this will help. 

You'll still go home alone 
unless some other lady has a need
to make her rent 
and sees the opportunity
you offer. It won't be me; 
I can't be bothered. 
I need a different kind of man, 
a man who'll hug me tighter 

than my panties can, 
a big old man 
whose big old tongue 
will be my tampon 
when I'm dry.
If you'll get off that stool 
and look in the mirror 
behind those whiskey bottles

standing at attention,
you'll see clearly why 
you can never be that man,
not even for an hour. 
I'm no Billie Holliday,
but even with my glasses off,
I can see that you
ain't no John Wayne.


-------------------------------------------------------------

Donal Mahoney, an immigrant from Chicago, lives in St. Louis, Missouri. He has had poems published Dead Snakes and other publications in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.