Alfonso Colasuonno- A Poem

Titration

100 mL graduated cylinder

pill crusher

10 mL syringe

Pippit fine tune measure

spoon

pour in 100 mL whole milk – pour at an angle

crush up pill

pour crushed up pill into an empty cup

pour a little milk into pill crusher to get residue (a couple times)

pour it in with powder

wait 10 minutes

stir up

water after

stir it around

three times daily

This is my plan ->

14 days - 0.98 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.96 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.94 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.89 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.85 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.81 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.77 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.73 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.69 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.66 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.63 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.60 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.57 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.54 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.51 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.48 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.46 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.44 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.42 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.40 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.38 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.36 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.34 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.32 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.30 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.28 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.27 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.26 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.25 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.24 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.23 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.22 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.21 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.20 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.19 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.18 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.17 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.16 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.15 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.14 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.13 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.12 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.11 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.10 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.9 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.085 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.08 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.075 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.07 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.065 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.06 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.055 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.05 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.045 mg of Valium

14 days - 0.04 mg of Valium

<- That was my plan



Bio: Alfonso Colasuonno is a graduate of Beloit College, where he obtained a BA in Creative Writing. His work is forthcoming or has appeared in Gutter Eloquence Magazine, Citizens for Decent Literature, Yellow Mama, Bone Orchard Poetry, Horror Sleaze Trash, and Pink Litter. 

Michael Cluff- A Poem

Norco poem #13

After fifteen years,
he still rants against the hills
and what they contain
atop.

It is the touchstone
of his daily
three piece suited existence,
the spice that makes
his "meatloaf on Monday
turtle soup on Tuesday
waffles on Wednesday etc."
unvaried diet
worthwhile.

"It is a sigh of Salem
sent west
by the blasphemers
of the Bible
the traditions
of the great nation
we refuse to become
are further corroded
by  such Druidic beacons."

A son,
Gaylord,
sleeps
through all such
storms and tirades.

His daughter Blanche
feels the sermon
is silly
since a grin
on a pumpkin painting
emblazoned  on a rock
just above her house
can't be all that evil

but maybe the upcoming earth-split
some parishioners predict
will prove
one or the other
side
righteous.

Paul Tristram- Two Poems

Bring Me The Head Of Unbridled Passion

Lay it down before me,

let’s take a look, let’s see.

The cause of all our problems,

the thing which ate at me.

It does not look so evil

but first impressions can lie.

It has claimed many victims,

it wills each sex to die.

It pulsates with a passion

but does not cry a sound.

A thing so disgusting

places millions underground.

My heart is now a stone,

I piss emotions down the drain.

Adam caught by an apple

should have done the very same.

But its fury was released

to stalk the willing earth.

It beat off contraception,

it smiles at each new birth.

I want it boiled in oil,

I want it bound in chains.

So that it can never, ever

devour my soul again.

© Paul Tristram 2006

Published in Erbacce, Issue 11, 2007

A Bastard Of The Sun

As resourceful as a thief

wearing a cloak of midnight.

I creep through neon poverty

always avoiding the common light.

As the shadows lick my face

my heart it quickens pace.

I seem to slide wonderfully

leaving only memories as a trace.

Fantastic when invisible

joyful in my power.

To melt the walls of reality

rain dancing to excesses shower.

The moss flies of directionless

as I roll the stones of danger.

Antagonizing righteousness

keeping complacency a stranger.

Ready, willing but never able

to escape the blizzard of the absurd.

A bastard of the sun

a moonshine wizard of words.

Disaster teases frequently

misery courts my company.

The weight of wonder’s a strange trap

that always seems to capture me.

Ironic as it is

I set myself up for the fall.

Painful as it is

the price is never small.

I live my life instantly

I never got on with my patience.

Devastation will be your doctor

if you insist on being its patient.

© Paul Tristram 2006

Published in Erbacce, Issue 11, 2007

Paul Tristram is a Welsh writer who has poems, short stories and sketches published in many publications around the world, he yearns to tattoo porcelain bridesmaids instead of digging empty graves for innocence at midnight, this too may pass, yet.

David S. Pointer- Three Poems

Tongue Skin Tones

When I was a kid in
the white project, black
project kids across town
sometimes asked me to
validate their versions of
events, opinions, testimony
with other white kids who
couldn’t seem to accept
what black youth reported
yet accepted my affirmations
as Genesis type scripture
unearthed as prophesy
rather than street jive



Narrowing Parameters

Flogged by silence about
all colors of the rainbow
racism, and social class
exclusion, two white
middle class ‘experts’
are misspeaking about
white privilege especially
towards the opposite
spectrum end known as
white housing project
privilege where residents
experience full range
poverty goods-n-bads
to include used power
chairs needing service
as the financial elite
laugh from behind
gated communities
controlling laser-guided
corporate love and false
consciousness discussion
parameters not ever
connecting money dots



From Poverty Silence to Pulp Tubes

No emergency data, DNA or financial
records released for life and death
injuries sustained from being run over
by an unjust economic system, so lets
just remote to diversionary entertainment
updates about the Boston Strangler or some
similar TV cop show or serial killer novel

B.Z. Niditch- Three Poems

LIFE JACKET

Not forgetting the hour
turning blue like saltwater
pitched down at Portsmouth
standing below deck
in the home harbor
my sockets gave way
to uncle's wounds
at Normandy
family lore remembers,
as whale watchers appear
on the wooden docks,
with latitude I take out
a photo of a jazz singer
from my wallet
crossing a Cambridge St.
to make a fist to the sky
with five fingers
about an ex,
the cold air stalls
in a jot of liquid silence
from a sleepless dawn
fearful from regrets
aching at sea years
setting sail
with this life jacket
at first light
in this old navy shirt
getting over a fever
dropping from an affair
of the mind and body
on board with vistas
from old sunglasses
bought for a song
at the last fishing port
as you recall
the keel and mast
from boiling winds
aromatic waves
blowing hurricanes
flirting with life
outlasting islands,
unexpected storms,
and crazed by
breathless breezes,
my logs still detailed
from studious sockets
as rain takes
on a Bilbao ferry
for one more voyage
from beach head squalls
with a tidal journal
awaking buried loss
to waves on its memories
and swallow a conscience
as surf rises
on the ocean mirrors.



WOODLAND POET

Timeless as rowan trees
murmurs of lost jays
appear to scatter
amid the distant shades
on bone still branches
of sea birds who tune on
by the river bank
with a high pitch,
literally lost and injured
on an unfamiliar green hill,
loose leaf notebook in hand
expected to survive a fall
though now one armed
among summer shadows
advancing up mountains
by crags of impatiens
map bound to earth
through unfamiliar trails.



MY FIRST READING

Taking a cab
hearing Coltrane's riffs
as snow kisses
making bodiless clouds
on the taxi window
and I'm late
for my first urban read
with a short letter
from Auden
who spoke
on the airwaves
helping me
with an introduction
leaving my verse
with no city signs
anywhere
as the fares mount
on a sleepless hour
of magnetic language
having grown up
from running
on fragments of words
in jazz Beat fervor
turning over the coins
to the kind bearded driver
who studies Swahili
jumping out
and breathing fast
to hitch a ride
by incredible Arctic air
in memory not distant,
at an impressionable time.

Donavon Davidson- Three Poems

Milestones     

Beloved wrong turn
with the sun in her eyes,
 
angel at the wrong place
who crossed without being seen.
 
In honor of the bone
where the air stood firm,
 
the distant gunfire
lodged in the walls of the heart,
 
we place a milestone
where the old dirt road
splits in two.
 
Where we're taught to swallow swords
in shapes of crosses,
 
to tread water
until our tracks disappear.
 
Blesséd be the dark clouds
gathering on the horizon
of our lungs,
 
to the last ice age
that trundled stone faced giants
beneath the soft till
of our feet.
 
In remembrance of the nursery rhyme
that vanished
in the middle of the night,
 
love losing control
due to factors of speed
through the steady flat line
of a red light,
 
where we came to ask directions
from a body
that takes more than one
to carry it to rest.
 
Here lies two hands
that never came together
to quench our thirst.
 

 
The Crisis

A father tells his son every story must have one.
So he closes his eyes and never stops counting.
To make sure he doesn't sneak a peak,
the boy covers his father's face with a bed sheet.
Again, he is left to contemplate
the body's problem, how the X equals Y
without distance or time.
 
Meanwhile, his son sings his favorite executioner's song
I bet you can't find me.
 
It's a game of canaries and coal miners.
One swings a pick into dark stone
making a small spark.
The other digs deeper into the earth
by its light.
Both use their hands to amplify their call.
Both answer in the affirmative
to the ring of silence offered back.
 
They kiss and make bone hills
out of mountains,
whistle past graveyards,
as if it's a pretty girl
undressing in a window,
 
just to let them know
who is hiding from whom.
 
 
 
The Fire Eaters
 
I point out a city in flames,
how her body can survive
only if there is a wall
to stop it.
 
She points out statues of salt,
how our happiness is complicit
only among a ruined distance.
 
To predict the path
the fire would take,
we went over the details
of our bodies we dragged
home in the morning.
 
I conjured the angels
afraid of light,
who wrestled
the anonymous bones
from the clock, renaming them
another silence
in its dark mouth.
 
She lit a match
to see if their shadows
could still dance
behind them.
 
We were warned by visitation
not to breathe a word.
But the danger we recognized
behind their closed lips
would have sent us
to a Heaven
that is always fatal.



Bio:
 

Donavon's work was recently short listed for the erbacce-prize from erbacce-press.  His poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in: Moria, Identity Theory, ditch, FRiGG, Thirteen Myna Birds, Spork, Softblow, Juked, Pedestal, MiPOesias, Anti-, Stirring, and many others.

Michael Mark- Two Poems

False hope

The turns that disguise

the future are blind

blessings.

If we could see

what was ahead

we would stop.

All our joy and sorrow

would appear

too much.

The small glimpses

keep us moving

towards an end.

Where there is

none.

In false hope

is hope.

Witness

I intend to be the witness

Of my dying

And not to be funny or morose

But because I so love you

To be the witness of yours

Every day of it

Michael has had two books of fiction and some poems published when he was younger man. He's started writing again although he's a different him.

Christopher Oie Keller- Three Poems

A Somewhat Flawed Ideal

She sat enrobed with a yarn
stocking cap as I told her the story
"The Star-Spangled Banner" was written for.

She nodded knowingly, a sage
in slippers on the summer grass;
as I told her they could still see the flag,

she said, "I can't" - for a second
I assumed ignorance, that I had
thrown her in too deep to see

the words and repercussions.
But her stare past me finally clicked,
and I noticed Old Glory on her porch

illuminated by the fireworks.
I grabbed her lawn chair and gently tipped
it back so she could see. "There."

Wallpaper

Entropy is the tendency for all matter and energy in the universe
to evolve toward a state of inert uniformity.
– Unknown

You've all - and I'm thrilled with this -
gone from scars
to scraps of wallpaper,
mosaic heartaches that can't make anyone
break anymore.

Like fall - and I'm pleased with this -
everyone has autumned
from blinding light
to little heights of glare nobody need
fight anymore.

These halls - and I'm cool with this -
have lost their scrawls
of sadness sprawled
like teardrops on tissue that life won't
save anymore;
and I don't care.



Obama’s Smile

More than any public acceptance
(or denial) of such death twitters
concerning the final May breath
of that bearded bomb, will long
be sparkling on the third son’s iris.

Never found? The hound’s
devious ideologies are soaked and sandy
in the hands of stars and stripes.
Regardless of the price, a gun
has glorified peace and bought a bad
end for some men’s jihad.

Doubtless the pouting pacifists
will shake their fists at a passive
populace lulled to sleep by more
than a radio show’s explosions.

Doubtless Zebari and Abbas will raise
unabashed praises towards a bruised ego
while Pervez perverts a presidency.

Doubtless the caves will echo the craven
goals of a ruined ghost.

Doubtless Obama’s smile stretched for miles.




BIO: “So You Think You Can Dance” reject Christopher Oie Keller earned an MAT from Western Oregon University. A former Victoria’s Secret supervisor, he now teaches in Portland. He also directs student plays and performs in community theatre. Published in publications such as The Delinquent, Leveler, and Right Hand Pointing, he will be appearing in The James Dickey Review and The African American Review. He managed to get married last year to someone who understands the writing process.

Eric Robert Nolan- Three Poems

“And What’s New With You?”

Practiced at his brinksmanship,

At the precipice of insult,

He’s an online Iago.

Public forums are perfect for him

To ask the hard questions:

“Seeing anyone?

“Why are you

“Online on a Friday night?”

About himself, his words 

Know no parsimony.

Ever the raconteur,

He interjects anecdotes

About his adoring wife.

Then the gauntlet is thrown:

“And What’s New With you?”

Our recent re-acquaintance 

Is only a veiled joust.

The world wide web is made medieval --

Reduced to the muddy yard.

Rejecting heavy lances

I, a serf, 

Reach for the oblique wood bow of sarcasm,

And its arrow of desperate indifference:

“So glad you found me, old friend.”

Spite

Spite is the rusty spade

of a sharp shovel

digging up dirt and flinging it.

Yet some soft soil

always clings

to its own belly.  

Politics (A Haiku)

red rats, blue weasels -- 

opportunistic little

mammals dart at votes.

Bio:

Eric Robert Nolan graduated from Mary Washington College in 1994 with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology.   He spent several years a news reporter and editorial writer for the Culpeper Star Exponent in Culpeper, Virginia.  His work has also appeared on the front pages of numerous newspapers in Virginia, including The Free Lance – Star and The Daily Progress.   Eric entered the field of philanthropy in 1996, as a grant writer for nonprofit healthcare organizations.

Eric’s poetry has been featured by Every Day Poets, Dead Beats Literary Blog, Dagda Publishing, The International War Veterans’ Poetry Archive, Dead Snakes and elsewhere.

Anthony Ward- Two Poems

Ghosts

We’re boxcar bums riding the seat of our pants,

Dreaming above sleepers,

Living the glamorous life

Amongst the freight,

Transients on the train risking our lives in search for it,

Runaways on the railroad looking for adventure,

Home-sick from the depression,

Wandering aimlessly,

Staring out the distance,

Passing pylons published like trees across the land-

Tractors like retracted locusts swarming crop.

Legs lolling over the side

Where we remain unseen,

The romanticised ghosts silhouetted in the horizon,

Moving on, moving on, through the night,

Smoke aiming back home,

Sharing our loneliness amongst ourselves,

Hobbling hobos picking hops,

Hopping cars hoping to evade the bull,

Jungle buzzards,

Migrant of the malignancy

Spreading across the land.

On Draught

He’d swear he ruptured his spine due to trapped wind,

But the doctor gave him wind which breezed by him.

Too bloated to take anything more,

Stomaching emptiness.

The klaxon of his congested conscience

Deafening him from the truth.

Anthony tends to fidget with his thoughts in the hope of laying them to rest. He has managed to lay them in a number of literary magazines including The Faircloth Review, Dead Snakes, Jellyfish Whispers, Turbulence, Underground, The Bohemyth, Torrid Literature Journal and Crack the Spine, amongst others.