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

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.

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. 

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/.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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.