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The Afternoon Coup
by Derick Ariyam
Two men, one old, one older,
Sat together, fierce in thoughts,
Yet mutely lashing each n'other.
The one had pinned his mare,
To the very chambers of his stable.
The other slyly skimped perimeter,
Advancing slowly towards the center.
And then, at last, a rash decision,
A luckless, preventable blunder,
And the Monarch was all but crumbled,
Till Gulla, the mutt, pounced on a hare,
and turned the chessboard over.
Professor Poindexter
by Lloyd Graham
I stare as the weightless words
Steam gently from a man so
Freighted with self-importance
That I fear capture into orbit
Around his center of gravitas.
I see the reptilian glint in his
Antediluvian eye, yet still
Succumb to the sincerity of his
Delusion, strangely unwilling to
Shatter his Poindextrocentric world.
Instead, I stand mesmerized by the
Boundless python of persuasion
Slithering from his throat, allowing
It first to embrace me, then to coil
Slowly into a death-grip, each
Constriction taking me further from
The world I know. Protest, left
Too late, is lubricated with the
Snake oil of his sleight of mind,
Prolonging my suffocation in his
Ocean of self-service. Far off, a
Sullen voice that must be mine
Endorses today’s requisite untruth.
Ah, my dear boy, glad we agree!
He tugs contentedly at his wattle,
Flashes a victory smile that has
Never seen a toothbrush, and,
Receding like his colorless hair,
Graces me with his absence.
Beautiful in that gaze
by Elise Bendikson
a perfect face
reflected in two irises of ice melt.
My hand was held.
We sat, two Buddhas cross legged.
Light streamed through the clouds
and I understood the term heavens.
All he did was listen.
I heard my voice in his ears
It was drunken and slurred,
but everything made sense.
My soul,
yes, it sat too close to my skin.
A fragile thing
needing nurturing.
But wasn’t it wonderful
how it seeped through every pore
reaching beyond my skin to taste the breeze, the sea
and hug the sunbeams streaming from the heavens.
My fragile soul,
it had purpose after all.
I was not alone.
Life, the world
was wonderful
then.
Ugly in this gaze
A sun burnt nose and shadowed eyes
A blemished face
reflected in this dirty window.
My hands are cold.
That silly soul,
it shivers from the breeze
and reverberates through my insides.
It feels too much for my body to hold
and I am alone.
The world is complex.
There is no purpose,
just anguish
and a dirty window.
They lied,
those ice melt eyes.
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Goth Slut
by Vincent Procopio
Oh, Goth Slut
Share with me
Your silky blackness
Your fishy insecurity
The headiest
Of perfumes
Yield to me
Goth Slut
Give me your bone-white hand
Your crypt-womb
And spidery genitals
Grasping, sliding
Twitch-n-hump scowl
Neurotic stare
Under me
2:20 AM
by Santiago del Dardano Turann
Insomnia is the mind robber
The phantom zone of fuzz
Turning in space powerless
Rambling, rumbling and rapping
On the portal of Hypnos gnawing
His purple poppy pedals,
Limbo’s twilight tone,
Fading but never faded out
Like the thoughts that roll
An avalanche of vanity
Roaring in its nothingness
Covering in forbidding white noise
The cave of Sleep I seek.
The Rain
by Jason Visconti
Hysterical knives--
needle pricks on the skin.
The radio glares, stations dappled
with wet spots, slow grind
blasts thunder. From the roof
the landscape seems afraid
of jumping, drowned from within.
The bridge stretches like a big sigh.
On its beams shades of dull mud
drip like misery’s tear
weeping. The old gates are closed
to the shipwrecked public.
Ride north in a cab
to no place on the map.
Anatolia
by Nicole Stivers
Plateau carved on cypress root, the scent of lemon on
a hot, crowded bus.
Winding one-lane roads and a man with warts covering his face. Every
day, this is the
same:
Staring, not staring.
I sit in the middle, the beautiful boys in front of me make sneaking
eye contact.
And the man to my right,
hideous, totally.
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