Saturday, March 28, 2015

Alan Catlin-Three Poems


The Avenging Angel
 
What she perceives
as a low, sexy voice
slightly hyped by
high test speed is
a sound as if
from beyond
the grave, a banshee
wail, savage keening
from the darkest
point inside
the occluded soul,
something from inside
the rock of her heart,
withdrawn from
circulation & pressed
in vinyl, re-
mastered as long
playing CD selections,
two cuts for a
buck, her remaining
life force a garish,
object among neon
embers, spiraling,
variegated among
lost schematic patterns
of virtual light.
 
 
 
The Black Hole
 
He looked as if
his brain had
been sand blasted
clean of all
thoughts, memories
& ideas, all
the blood drained
from his body
& replaced by
a liquid that
smelled vaguely
of formaldehyde,
claimed to be
a true denizen
of the night
in need of
the elixir of
life, sat smoothing
out an incredibly
wrinkled Gold
Certificate twenty
dollar bill
on the scarred
surface of the bar
with an inane
grin on his face
that seemed to
suggest he expected
service sometime
in the not too
distant future.
 
 
 
White Sickness
 
He looked as if
he had been kept
in cold storage
hanging upside down
by his ankles
by some creature
like The Thing,
all the blood
had drained from
his body and re-
filled by a team
of misguided, well
meaning scientists
who substituted
ethanol for his vital
fluids, primed his
artificial heart until
all systems were Go
and sent him back
on the streets moving
by rote animal robotics,
completely without
motivation or purpose
except for a deeply
instilled prime directive
endlessly repeating
through the snowblind
static of his alcohol
soaked brain, Go Forth
and Procreate, a purity
of purpose hard to
deny, drawn as we was
like a moth is to flame.

John Pursch- A Poem


Spankle Spunky Two-Reward
 
Savory hovering parakeets
isolate striated pheasant appendectomy cures
for worming caricatures
of residential stocking souffles,
calmly canonized in basket blur routines
as Spankle Spunky Two-Reward,
the Bubble-Faced Rabies Kitchenette Sailor
(an idolized and cranked-over
waste can antic purveyor
from seedless Cotton War bag
munchy fetish police).
 
He rode from Ding Dong dusky
daily noontime slouch showers
to cemetery egg fog cooler rostra
in stale night mustard chalice entrecotes
of truly known incendiary nomenclature,
spying rudely on deboned hysteria tycoons
from oaken lonely wholesome tributaries
of the Minty Mess o’ Simply Apoplectic
Flunky Satiation Choice Brigade;
 
always swearing,
hunchback hind a-blazing,
wracked by cue ball keratosis,
keyed to pseudopodal tonal halls
of bulky malefactor cruising steeds
in salivating trains of chunky purple,
bent in awful hurling siren sanction
underwear deployment interregnum
nightmare standoff.


John Pursch lives in Tucson, Arizona. His work has been nominated for Best of the Net and has appeared in many literary journals. A collection of his poetry, Intunesia, is available at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/whiteskybooks. Check out his experimental lit-rap video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l33aUs7obVc. He’s @johnpursch on Twitter and john.pursch on Facebook.

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Neil Fulwood- A Poem


Rating the Hotel California on TripAdvisor
 
No vacancies at the Heartbreak Hotel
and Lonely Street a dead end:
a coat of paintwork in it
backing the RV up to the intersection.
 
Two limeys failing at the American dream.
It didn’t appeal, another night
kipping among the redwoods, no water
or sani-dump or electricity hook-up.
 
Another morning stripped to the waist
over a sink the size of a cereal bowl,
upper torso, pits, the quick scrape
of a half-arsed shave. We were after
 
a hotel, a motel, a cheap room
above a liquor store, anywhere
with a functioning shower and a toilet
that operated on some other principle
 
than chemical deconstruction.
It was a desert highway, dark, something
rising up from the road or the earth
in a warm haze. A slow lazy guitar line
 
unspooled from the radio. In the distance
a sound like a carillon, but nothing
for miles around to suggest a church,
a monastery, anything with a belltower.
 
The parking lot shimmered
like a swimming pool. The concierge
had the smile of a pimp being interviewed
by the Grim Reaper.
 
The lobby ululated. The bellboy
didn’t look like he even knew what
a Lambretta was. The carpets
were patterned like Kubrick.
 
The room was 70s Euro-cheese horror,
Edwige Fenech promising heaven
before a mask with a straight-razor
straight-up ends you. The revelries
 
in the courtyard are best not mentioned.
The night porter’s vaguely Germanic lisp
bothered us. We only figured on staying
the one night. That was a while ago.
 
Checking out is like something from Kafka. 



My brief third person bio: Neil Fulwood was born in 1972, the son of a truck driver, the grandson of a miner. For some weird reason, he started writing poetry. Even more weirdly, some of it's been published.

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Michael Keshigian- Three Poems


THE MOON

Just hung there, above the horizon,
watching space rocks fly by,
donning a wry smile
against the darkened backdrop
in anemic white garb,
resembling a freshly cut fingernail
found on the black desktop.
I tossed my cap
towards the lower point of the crescent
beyond reach of the trees,
landing it gracefully,
like a frisbee on a finger,
contemplating,
how did the cow jumped over
this slightly cocked glow
without bumping its head
on the unseen portion?
The iridescent float winked
to share such sport,
but startled I turned
to watch the cat
play the fiddle
till the dish came home
with the spoon.



COURAGE

As twinkling stars
and rotating planets
in florescent pencil
erase themselves
in the bright morning light,
the winter moon
abandoned by night,
hovers ashen
in the blue cube
and casts its disposition
without assisting
in the onslaught
of illumination.



ALL FOR ONE

Born at a specific time
in a specific place,
minute gasps of life
floating within the giant arteries
of universal flow,
the mammoth
sauntering slowly outward
envelopes us all
and thrives on the nourishment
provided by minute creatures
to sustain its existence
beyond numbers
we can barely fathom,
epochs of the continuous saga
studiously chronicled
in paper packages of cumulative scribbling
to eventually be ingested.



Michael Keshigian’s ninth poetry book, Dark Edges was released September, 2014 by Flutter Press. He has been widely published in numerous national and international journals most recently including Poesy, The Chiron Review, California Quarterly, Poppy Road Review and has appeared as feature writer in over a dozen publications with 5 Pushcart Prize and 2 Best Of The Net nominations. (michaelkeshigian.com)

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Denny E. Marshall- Three Haiku



Invisible man
Breaks into my house last night
Give clear description



Martians seen future
Move all to the new planet
Unoccupied Earth

 

Now intelligence’s
May contain artificial
Ingredients



Denny E. Marshall has had art, poetry, & fiction published, some recently. To see more of his works visit www.dennymarshall.com
 

Ayaz Daryl Nielsen- Three Poems




best birthday ever
grandma shares a new dish 
tasty baked hobbit

                            
knowing my kind
quickly regenerates,
when angry,
she simply
bites off my nose
(thinking to myself 
‘could be a lot worse’) 
                           

she loves vamping
and reveals everything 
(except for incisors)


ayaz daryl nielsen, x-roughneck (as on oil rigs)/hospice nurse, editor of bear creek haiku (25+ years/125+ issues), homes for poems include Lilliput Review, SCIFAIKUEST, Shemom, Dead Snakes, Kind of a Hurricane, and! online at: bear creek haiku  poetry, poems and info

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Alan Catlin- Three Poems


What it all means

“I hear the Interzone is really nice this time of year.”

In the space for occupation
on the form he wrote: Pharmacology,
Hero: The Spaceman, Bill Lee,
Favorite Music: William Tell Overture.
Carried a worn copy of Naked Lunch
with him wherever he went as a
Rules to Live By for Dummies,
a hand book for beginners, Bible,
for opening new doors of perception,
mind control, subliminal seduction,
he craved like a new consciousness
expanding drug that broke down all
conventional boundaries of a space-time
continuum, his brain washed so clean,
no thoughts could penetrate and adhere to
what was left behind, making his mind
a kind of perfect sieve, mortal coils
slipped through with the last remaining
light, into a limbo where even time must
have a stop.  Ask him where he was going, or,
where he has been, and, he will reply
the same way, “A brave new world that
has no creatures in it.” Not even him.



Fuel Injected Dreams

They are coming down
the no-speed-limit-posted
highway, top down convertible
a blip on the radar screen,
unidentified flying objects,
trace elements on a gone-bad
nuclear reactor test, post-
apocalyptic speed freaks in
search of a hit, an alien sun
at their backs casting shadows
in a valley of death, abstract
shades that replace desert vistas,
technological dreams of lost
highways, poorly painted white
lane markers dissolving in black
pits of macadam prehistoric
creatures are struggling in;
on the road soft shoulders
are converging in a place off-
center just beyond an unseen
vanishing point.



The Grand Marshall of  Nowhere

Settling on the rickety, out of balance
bar stool, he said, “There’s a warrant
out for my arrest. On another planet.”
Most people making a statement
like that would be totally disregarded
under the assumption what he said
was just some obscure shock value,
in-the-moment thing or maybe
wishful thinking as in, “Hey, someone
out there, somewhere, wants me.”
Even if somewhere was some indefinable,
unrecognizable place in the cosmos,
and those doing the wanting were so
alien, we couldn’t begin to envision
what they were like and what they
wanted with him. Though we were
welcome, of course, to make a few
wild guesses.
Maybe it was the way he looked,
that bold attempt to achieve instant
recognition that had largely succeeded.
His look included several outstanding
features, not the least of which were:
a mostly shaved head, now patched
with stubble after inconsistent attempts
at grooming, remaining, exclamation
point waxed locks, stretched down the back
of his skull in a line, each dyed a garish
neon-like: red, blue, green, yellow.
His mascara highlighted  eyes with tattooed
tear drops at the edge leaking  red down  
his pocked marked cheeks toward  leather
vest and pants. Gothic scrolled lettering on
each forearm in black ink said : ZAK SABBATH.
His alternately gold capped and tobacco
brown stained teeth, had never been brushed
lifetime, and an unhealthy cast to his unfocused
eyes, suggested the unnatural yellow tinted
iris implants hadn’t taken and his sight
was shaky, at best, so when he spoke
it was to a moving shadow somewhere
behind the bar, “I expect they’ll be here
to pick me up soon.  Might as we have
something to drink while I wait.”
“Like a Brother from Another Planet.”
“Just like that.”
“Stay away from the jukebox, it’s been
serviced.”
“Oh, really?  What did they do to it?”
“God only knows.”
He looked over toward the wall recess
where the infernal machine sat, emitting
its timeless, neon glow.  His staring became
so fixed, so intent, you might think they
were communicating.
And maybe they were.
In their way.