waco
the sound of my heart in these claustrophobic spaces or a dark wind blowing. my hands without anything to offer and these words are distortions. lungs full of ashes and who i dream about is mcveigh. all of this gore in the name of freedom. the violent ease of one century moving into another.
_______________________________
ancient
the war torn towns and abandoned cars. all of the miles that were driven in silence. our small addictions and dying religions and i can't make the clocks move forward. every action is driven by greed or fear. the blankets hold infection. the machine's stomach is bleeding out. this is the end result of history.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Thursday, January 1, 2009
&(forty-six) by J. A. Tyler
The girl, flying, she mingles with the white of doves and clouds, the blue, her lithe arms swinging, the spin of oars, moonshine eyes in motion. She smiles, charms at them, their flapping wings, the tongue of sunbeams. Her mouth the shape of the earth, the tilt of an axis, her pelvis reclined invisibly, soft back on sweeping, the billowed air, the sky. She flies.
Inside a womb she was an egg. She was a circle. She was a sphere. She was a ball. She had a shell made breeze gentle. She was she was she was.
Now she is flying. Clouds and blue. The iris.
Her mother was a statue of reproduction. It was this, her mother’s womb, where she existed as an egg, a circle, a sphere, a ball. It was her mother’s womb that entrusted her with a thin exoskeleton, the luster of potency. Her mother had tangled hair and slick fingernails, the shine of beauty. Her mother was beautiful. Her mother was never her mother. Her mother was a woman who nodded back to a man who nodded to her. Her mother was a woman shaking her head at a shaken head. Her mother was a woman, was not her mother.
Until now she is sky, she is blue, dipping fingers in clouds, flying.
And the man was her father, was not her father, was the man who nodded at the woman who was not her mother. A handsome man. Knuckles of his father’s, sawdust coming wrinkles. He never touched her, this man to this woman, this father to this mother. They nodded heads to one another, passing footsteps on the dirt of a road, almost daily, enough to know, enough to get, but they never said a word. His mouth opened in the gape of fish breath, but he did not speak. She did not hear anything. She did not turn a word into a phrase, a sentence into a long running paragraph, a day into a daughter. They did nothing.
And she flies now, this girl, their girl, this woman and this man, this mother and this father, stumbling past each other’s calves, pushing on. And she becomes the sun. She is the sun. She is a circle and a sphere and a ball. She is a gentle breezing shell of a girl. The imagining. She is imagined. She flies, rowing oars, swinging arms, speaking sun-tongue to the white of flapping bird wings, clouds, the blue sky iris of her mother, this woman, this womb, the one who walked past another, her mother and her father, not her mother and her father, tripping down, stuttering beyond a girl of blue and clouds, flying, rowing oars, unliving.
J. A. Tyler is the author of THE GIRL IN THE BLACK SWEATER (Trainwreck Press), EVERYONE IN THIS IS EITHER DYING OR WILL DIE OR IS THINKING ABOUT DEATH (Achilles Chapbook Series), & SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE (Ghost Road Press). He is also founding editor of MUD LUSCIOUS and ML PRESS and was recently nominated for a Pushcart. Visit www.aboutjatyler.blogspot.com for more info.
Inside a womb she was an egg. She was a circle. She was a sphere. She was a ball. She had a shell made breeze gentle. She was she was she was.
Now she is flying. Clouds and blue. The iris.
Her mother was a statue of reproduction. It was this, her mother’s womb, where she existed as an egg, a circle, a sphere, a ball. It was her mother’s womb that entrusted her with a thin exoskeleton, the luster of potency. Her mother had tangled hair and slick fingernails, the shine of beauty. Her mother was beautiful. Her mother was never her mother. Her mother was a woman who nodded back to a man who nodded to her. Her mother was a woman shaking her head at a shaken head. Her mother was a woman, was not her mother.
Until now she is sky, she is blue, dipping fingers in clouds, flying.
And the man was her father, was not her father, was the man who nodded at the woman who was not her mother. A handsome man. Knuckles of his father’s, sawdust coming wrinkles. He never touched her, this man to this woman, this father to this mother. They nodded heads to one another, passing footsteps on the dirt of a road, almost daily, enough to know, enough to get, but they never said a word. His mouth opened in the gape of fish breath, but he did not speak. She did not hear anything. She did not turn a word into a phrase, a sentence into a long running paragraph, a day into a daughter. They did nothing.
And she flies now, this girl, their girl, this woman and this man, this mother and this father, stumbling past each other’s calves, pushing on. And she becomes the sun. She is the sun. She is a circle and a sphere and a ball. She is a gentle breezing shell of a girl. The imagining. She is imagined. She flies, rowing oars, swinging arms, speaking sun-tongue to the white of flapping bird wings, clouds, the blue sky iris of her mother, this woman, this womb, the one who walked past another, her mother and her father, not her mother and her father, tripping down, stuttering beyond a girl of blue and clouds, flying, rowing oars, unliving.
J. A. Tyler is the author of THE GIRL IN THE BLACK SWEATER (Trainwreck Press), EVERYONE IN THIS IS EITHER DYING OR WILL DIE OR IS THINKING ABOUT DEATH (Achilles Chapbook Series), & SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE (Ghost Road Press). He is also founding editor of MUD LUSCIOUS and ML PRESS and was recently nominated for a Pushcart. Visit www.aboutjatyler.blogspot.com for more info.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Two Pieces by Michael Lee Johnson
Charlie Plays a Tune
Crippled with arthritis
and Alzheimer's,
in a dark rented room
Charley plays
melancholic melodies
on a dust filled
harmonica he
found abandoned
on a playground of sand
years ago by a handful of children
playing on monkey bars.
He now goes to the bathroom on occasion,
relieving himself takes forever; he feeds the cat when
he doesn't forget where the food is stashed at.
He hears bedlam when he buys fish at the local market
and the skeleton bones of the fish show through.
He lies on his back riddled with pain,
pine cones fill his pillows and mattress;
praying to Jesus and rubbing his rosary beads
Charley blows tunes out his
celestial instrument
notes float through the open window
touch the nose of summer clouds.
Charley overtakes himself with grief
and is ecstatically alone.
Charley plays a solo tune.
-2007
_________________________
Raindrop Baby
I'm a raindrop baby
silhouetted in the night,
single-ringed single person
minus the 24 carat gold.
A harvester of night life,
star crystal,
a gather of sluts in my imagination,
a wild driver of the
anal sinful products of sex.
I run the highways drunk
as a skunk with his anus high in the air
in search of what I wished
or dream wild factual fantasy about.
Offended I simply piss somewhere.
Where does the highway buckle up:
DUI, DUI?
Are these your initials lover
on my driver's license
or just a pained memory
the morning after my dream
turned to real piss?
-2008-
Michael Lee Johnson is a poet and freelance writer from Itasca, Illinois.
His brand new poetry chapbook with pictures, From Which Place the Morning Rises and his new photo version of The Lost American: From Exile to Freedom is now available at: lulu. He also has 2 previously published chapbooks available at: lulu. The original version of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom, can be found at: iuniverse.
He has been published in USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Scotland, Turkey, Fiji, Nigeria, Algeria, Africa, India, United Kingdom, Republic of Sierra Leone, Israel, Nepal, Thailand, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Finland, and Poland internet radio. Michael Lee Johnson has been published in more than 280 different publications worldwide. Audio MP3 of poems are available on request.
He is also publisher and editor of four poetry flash fiction sites--all presently open for submission:
http://birdsbywindow.blogspot.com/
http://www.poetriclegacy.mysite.com/
A Tender Touch
Wizards of the Wind
Author website: poetryman
Author email: promomanusa@mail.com
Crippled with arthritis
and Alzheimer's,
in a dark rented room
Charley plays
melancholic melodies
on a dust filled
harmonica he
found abandoned
on a playground of sand
years ago by a handful of children
playing on monkey bars.
He now goes to the bathroom on occasion,
relieving himself takes forever; he feeds the cat when
he doesn't forget where the food is stashed at.
He hears bedlam when he buys fish at the local market
and the skeleton bones of the fish show through.
He lies on his back riddled with pain,
pine cones fill his pillows and mattress;
praying to Jesus and rubbing his rosary beads
Charley blows tunes out his
celestial instrument
notes float through the open window
touch the nose of summer clouds.
Charley overtakes himself with grief
and is ecstatically alone.
Charley plays a solo tune.
-2007
_________________________
Raindrop Baby
I'm a raindrop baby
silhouetted in the night,
single-ringed single person
minus the 24 carat gold.
A harvester of night life,
star crystal,
a gather of sluts in my imagination,
a wild driver of the
anal sinful products of sex.
I run the highways drunk
as a skunk with his anus high in the air
in search of what I wished
or dream wild factual fantasy about.
Offended I simply piss somewhere.
Where does the highway buckle up:
DUI, DUI?
Are these your initials lover
on my driver's license
or just a pained memory
the morning after my dream
turned to real piss?
-2008-
Michael Lee Johnson is a poet and freelance writer from Itasca, Illinois.
His brand new poetry chapbook with pictures, From Which Place the Morning Rises and his new photo version of The Lost American: From Exile to Freedom is now available at: lulu. He also has 2 previously published chapbooks available at: lulu. The original version of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom, can be found at: iuniverse.
He has been published in USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Scotland, Turkey, Fiji, Nigeria, Algeria, Africa, India, United Kingdom, Republic of Sierra Leone, Israel, Nepal, Thailand, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Finland, and Poland internet radio. Michael Lee Johnson has been published in more than 280 different publications worldwide. Audio MP3 of poems are available on request.
He is also publisher and editor of four poetry flash fiction sites--all presently open for submission:
http://birdsbywindow.blogspot.com/
http://www.poetriclegacy.mysite.com/
A Tender Touch
Wizards of the Wind
Author website: poetryman
Author email: promomanusa@mail.com
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
4th of December she wore a beret by Dan Gee
4th of December she wore a beret
for just seven pounds!
a bargain apparently we are told;
in the credit crunch,
but then it seems a liberty to pay
only seven pounds;
Go and buy clothes made from people not old
Will they get some lunch?
So Mrs Brown why did you buy the hat?
Because it was “Cheap”?
100 packs of noodles for that price
even in these times,
The Daily Mail’s front page where you sat
With people who weep
Inside we see unaffordable rice
Even in these times.
That beret’s not cheap, it comes from somewhere
Accumulate loot
In today’s green mint weaving industry
In the credit crunch
So, about Mrs Brown’s hat do I care?
Do we give a hoot?
Will they taste your rich and glossy honey?
In the credit crunch
Most of the time I dwell in his room writing poetry and prose about nearly everything and anything, but occasionally, like all creative minds (and students), I’ll destroy my body with excessive amounts of alcohol. Poetry is a form that before this year I had hardly touched, but now I write poetry everyday, with the occasional splattering of flash fiction and play writing. Cheers!!!
for just seven pounds!
a bargain apparently we are told;
in the credit crunch,
but then it seems a liberty to pay
only seven pounds;
Go and buy clothes made from people not old
Will they get some lunch?
So Mrs Brown why did you buy the hat?
Because it was “Cheap”?
100 packs of noodles for that price
even in these times,
The Daily Mail’s front page where you sat
With people who weep
Inside we see unaffordable rice
Even in these times.
That beret’s not cheap, it comes from somewhere
Accumulate loot
In today’s green mint weaving industry
In the credit crunch
So, about Mrs Brown’s hat do I care?
Do we give a hoot?
Will they taste your rich and glossy honey?
In the credit crunch
Most of the time I dwell in his room writing poetry and prose about nearly everything and anything, but occasionally, like all creative minds (and students), I’ll destroy my body with excessive amounts of alcohol. Poetry is a form that before this year I had hardly touched, but now I write poetry everyday, with the occasional splattering of flash fiction and play writing. Cheers!!!
Monday, December 29, 2008
Plain Jane Let America Die by F. Scott Francisco
America was born on Independence Day 1976. He had a troubled childhood. His father, George Chevron Washington, was arrested for gun smuggling around the day of his birth. His mother, Janette "Plain Jane" Hancock, never told him the truth. Instead she explained that his father had been one of the last good men to die in prevention of The Communist Domination of Southeast Asia.
When Plain Jane stopped breast-feeding, America went on hunger strike, dumbly staring at the microwaved formula. Until she again nursed him naturally. At thirteen, armed with cobblestones picked from Lexington Market, he and his friends wildly ran the streets of Baltimore smashing car windows and stealing radios and hubcaps until they were caught, arrested, and taken to jail where they refused to call their parents for bail.
America did poorly in school for apparently inherent refusal to conform to its mannerisms. He left his year-late graduation early to get stoned with two fellow graduates.
Plain Jane blamed America's attitude on his father. She would write George Chevron the occasional letter to document their son's progress.
America woke the day after graduation, smoked a cigarette scratching his head and balls alternately, lay his head down, and fell back to sleep.
The following day he decided to sell drugs for a living, and did so without interruption for the next ten years. It was his calling: he'd plenty of charm and little fear.
On unrelated charges around the ten-year reunion at his high school, America began a one-year sentence.
For another five years he sold until he was shot and robbed clean by a favorite customer, Axle President. He lay dying for a day before Plain Jane made an unannounced visit and saw her son on the floor, perhaps fatally wounded.
She offered ice to him, drinks, home-cooked food, to change the television station: all in the hope of easing his pain, making him more comfortable--as if he had simply come down with a case of the flu. Plain Jane acted as if she didn't notice the blood trickling out of her boy into the carpet, as if everything were in perfect order.
Although she had come in her Toyota Camry, which her son had bought for her with ill-gotten gains, she did not offer a ride to the hospital to her son; and although she had one of the newest cellular phones available, she did not call emergency people.
America's last coherent thought was that she had perhaps hired the hit.
America's story came to a quiet end.
Plain Jane never spoke of him again, and when folks asked about her son, she acted confused, as if she had never spoken of him before.
And America was soon forgotten.
f. scott francisco (b. 1981/tampa bay), postal employee, writes occasionally. reads daily. he began submitting writing in 2008. e-mail fscottfrancisco@gmail.com or see his site at http://fscottfrancisco.info.
When Plain Jane stopped breast-feeding, America went on hunger strike, dumbly staring at the microwaved formula. Until she again nursed him naturally. At thirteen, armed with cobblestones picked from Lexington Market, he and his friends wildly ran the streets of Baltimore smashing car windows and stealing radios and hubcaps until they were caught, arrested, and taken to jail where they refused to call their parents for bail.
America did poorly in school for apparently inherent refusal to conform to its mannerisms. He left his year-late graduation early to get stoned with two fellow graduates.
Plain Jane blamed America's attitude on his father. She would write George Chevron the occasional letter to document their son's progress.
America woke the day after graduation, smoked a cigarette scratching his head and balls alternately, lay his head down, and fell back to sleep.
The following day he decided to sell drugs for a living, and did so without interruption for the next ten years. It was his calling: he'd plenty of charm and little fear.
On unrelated charges around the ten-year reunion at his high school, America began a one-year sentence.
For another five years he sold until he was shot and robbed clean by a favorite customer, Axle President. He lay dying for a day before Plain Jane made an unannounced visit and saw her son on the floor, perhaps fatally wounded.
She offered ice to him, drinks, home-cooked food, to change the television station: all in the hope of easing his pain, making him more comfortable--as if he had simply come down with a case of the flu. Plain Jane acted as if she didn't notice the blood trickling out of her boy into the carpet, as if everything were in perfect order.
Although she had come in her Toyota Camry, which her son had bought for her with ill-gotten gains, she did not offer a ride to the hospital to her son; and although she had one of the newest cellular phones available, she did not call emergency people.
America's last coherent thought was that she had perhaps hired the hit.
America's story came to a quiet end.
Plain Jane never spoke of him again, and when folks asked about her son, she acted confused, as if she had never spoken of him before.
And America was soon forgotten.
f. scott francisco (b. 1981/tampa bay), postal employee, writes occasionally. reads daily. he began submitting writing in 2008. e-mail fscottfrancisco@gmail.com or see his site at http://fscottfrancisco.info.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Featured Writer: David Mclean Day 3
culpability and punishment
there is no crime but being born
said my body, no guilt
but existence,
and there is no wrong you do
but breathing; dreams
are innocent, always,
whatever you do in them.
and the only thing sinful
is being women and men
and living, every sin
beyond that is supererogatory
devilishness, though welcome,
not wrong in any sense.
for you, barely breathing,
breath is a crime that cries
to heaven. everything
you do beyond that
is just shit that happens -
there are no victims,
just other criminals
guilty of living
____________________________
trees and clouds
the trees would pin the clouds to ground
like pizzas condemned to live in cartons
instead of roaming their natural
habitat, the forests in which they swim
with their children, kebabs and cigarettes
and lampshades. the trees are like mothers
who blind and cripple children, so nothing bad
happens to them, so they see nothing
to frighten them, so they don't get into danger,
don't go anywhere, the trees worry
about the clouds and their madness
as they dance for the mad moon
and go wild with desire under her;
but the clouds don't seem to care
they are like feckless boys, these vapors,
they only listen to their dealers
and dealers never lied to me, at least,
they give me exactly what i need -
clouds and moons and beasts
above all the miserly motherly trees
there is no crime but being born
said my body, no guilt
but existence,
and there is no wrong you do
but breathing; dreams
are innocent, always,
whatever you do in them.
and the only thing sinful
is being women and men
and living, every sin
beyond that is supererogatory
devilishness, though welcome,
not wrong in any sense.
for you, barely breathing,
breath is a crime that cries
to heaven. everything
you do beyond that
is just shit that happens -
there are no victims,
just other criminals
guilty of living
____________________________
trees and clouds
the trees would pin the clouds to ground
like pizzas condemned to live in cartons
instead of roaming their natural
habitat, the forests in which they swim
with their children, kebabs and cigarettes
and lampshades. the trees are like mothers
who blind and cripple children, so nothing bad
happens to them, so they see nothing
to frighten them, so they don't get into danger,
don't go anywhere, the trees worry
about the clouds and their madness
as they dance for the mad moon
and go wild with desire under her;
but the clouds don't seem to care
they are like feckless boys, these vapors,
they only listen to their dealers
and dealers never lied to me, at least,
they give me exactly what i need -
clouds and moons and beasts
above all the miserly motherly trees
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Featured Writer: David Mclean Day 2
scream
the scream is in the carnivorous throat
and the death we put there mourns itself
which is rather wretched
the stones smell like memory
and mourning worn like a priestess
dressed in black robes
and the taste of salt on the tongue
cold as coke in the nose
black as stone
and hope screams in the meat
the throat stores screams it needs
to believe in
so that there is approximate
passion, and some body
feels something
it is exquisitely easy to see
this is life and it is living -
there's no such thing as victims,
every body deserves everything
______________________________
fingers and eyes
i found my fingers in the trees
and my eyes on the mountains
inside their resonant skull
rapped by the sun's knuckles;
though they were still lethargic,
like snakes who are the genitals
of gods unusually reluctant
to rape. i found my memories
in them. they were not married yet
and knew where the mustache grew
from the sold flesh that shrinks from it,
resilient flesh of night
clothed in time, and loath to go back
to fingers in the trees, groping for my eyes
on the unholy slopes, loath to go back to life
and be mine
the scream is in the carnivorous throat
and the death we put there mourns itself
which is rather wretched
the stones smell like memory
and mourning worn like a priestess
dressed in black robes
and the taste of salt on the tongue
cold as coke in the nose
black as stone
and hope screams in the meat
the throat stores screams it needs
to believe in
so that there is approximate
passion, and some body
feels something
it is exquisitely easy to see
this is life and it is living -
there's no such thing as victims,
every body deserves everything
______________________________
fingers and eyes
i found my fingers in the trees
and my eyes on the mountains
inside their resonant skull
rapped by the sun's knuckles;
though they were still lethargic,
like snakes who are the genitals
of gods unusually reluctant
to rape. i found my memories
in them. they were not married yet
and knew where the mustache grew
from the sold flesh that shrinks from it,
resilient flesh of night
clothed in time, and loath to go back
to fingers in the trees, groping for my eyes
on the unholy slopes, loath to go back to life
and be mine
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