Jac Jemc’s work has appeared in numerous magazines including Caketrain, Opium, Hotel St. George, NO COLONY, Sleepingfish, A Handsome Journal, Bird Dog, Circumference, Tarpaulin Sky, Zoland Poetry, Thieves Jargon, Why Vandalism?, THE2NDHAND, The Denver Quarterly, and elimae, among others. Her chapbook, A Heaven Gone is forthcoming from ml Press. In 2007 she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and in 2008 she placed 2nd in the Marginalia Contest. You can view a blog of her recent rejections at jacjemc.wordpress.com.

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Los Árabes, convenience store
By Jason Jonker, Dec 04, 2008

Liquor bottles lit up like votive candles
phone cards
single cigarettes sitting in a jar—
A gluttony of lighters, belt buckles,
knives, and glass pipes.

Behind the counter
a cashier girl is new.
She rings up my six-pack
and bag of Hot Cheetos,
looking only at
the cash register.

Ask him something,
says the skinny guy.
He speaks Spanish.

¿Habla Español, usted?

No, I tell her. Ni una palabra.

Jason Jonker is a family therapist who works with the families of kids caught up in the juvenile justice system. He enjoys fishing and wearing sweaters, which is too bad because he lives in Phoenix, AZ. His work has been published in The McGuffin, Lunch, Big Scream, Lily, Ruminate and the November 3rd Club.

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Leave me be
By Jonathan Kessler, Nov 18, 2008

My natural resignation,
Is every night is just the same.
The girls all take their time to look good. They look good. They always look good.
Men tend to find comfort in stories and well I am not sure...I guess shaving.
Maybe I am not a man.

the streets look like a flowering tree.

light hitting the promise of my reason
leave it leave it leave it all behind
I sold the promise to you for the idea of soon
But I am still sitting here waiting
Waiting on you waiting on it all to end

The girls look good. They always look good.

Jonathan Kessler has spent the past number of years learning, writing and teaching all over the world. Some locations include rural New Hampshire, Honolulu, Hawaii, and Costa Rica. He currently teaches English at an alternative high school in Charleston, SC. His poetry and writing have been featured multiple times in The Centripetal and Kaleo.

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The Wine-Dark Waters of R’lyeh
By D. C. Lynn, Nov 18, 2008

There’s something that finds me in the middle of the night...a monster, an
       incubus,
       Laestrygones,
       something.

It isn’t Cthulhu, although it does seem to live in my own personal
       Point Nemo.

It treads the waters of R’lyeh slumming somewhere
       in the Lost Sea of the Damned
       ‘til it finds me in the wee hours before dawn,
       and no matter what I do
       and no matter how hard I try,
       I cannot escape.

Sometimes, I try to run but it steadily and mechanically stalks me. I run faster
       but I can hear its
       footsteps
       catching-up, getting closer...
       the sound of its putrid, heavy breathing louder and heavier in its obsession
       to conquer, to overtake
       to ravage.

Sometimes, I can’t see it in the darkness but I feel its presence.
       I just know it’s there. I stretch-out my hand and touch its face. The
       revulsion moves me beyond the sum total of fear.

Sometimes, I just give-up when I hear it approaching. I just fall. I just
       surrender. I just let it sodomize me into the inner-sanctum of pain until the
       deep, cold waters take me.

I was first brutalized while going through puberty. I thought puberty was just
       indeed what it all was...chemical nightmares.

Now that I’m in the middle-years of my life, I know different. I know the deal.
       It’s the Scylla of darkness; the Charybdis of despair.
       It’s the Bataan Death March into total consciousness.
       It’s the Trail of Tears awareness that all reality is
       but brief, passing folly
       and that when you really tear it all a part only
       to put it all back together, it means nothing but fear of the forbidden
       knowledge
       leaving only the solace of the cold and empty waves of
       the wine-dark waters of R’lyeh.

D. C. Lynn is originally from Alabama. He holds degrees from Auburn and Pepperdine. He is a university lecturer of English language and literature. He has lived and worked abroad for many years. His poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming in The Auburn Plainsman, The Dead Mule, decomP, Origami Condom, and The Battered Suitcase.

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I HAVE HER LOVE IT’S TRUE BUT I WANT HER FRIENDSHIP
By Anthony Madrid, Nov 18, 2008

I have her love, it’s true, but I want her friendship.
What must I do, what spell cast, to have her friendship?

That we can memorize and recite, that we can see the sun from here,
That water “knows” to go around—let these suffice us.

And let’s have no more Plato, friends. And certainly no more Socrates.
I’m through with all these wise men who smile and condescend.

Castling’s a good move—protects your King. But comes a point
When you must learn to use the King as an attack piece.

The king has bad weather today; he has to pay his taxes. And yóu
Have to pay the tax on being good-looking...

Don’t put on airs with me, Mardud. We are mud from the same ditch.
Take my arm, man. Tonight—let us go intriguing.

Previous publications: New England Review, Exquisite Corpse, Kiosk, Spinning Jenny, Third Bed...others.... Poems out right now (or coming out) in: 6X6, Web Conjunctions, Lit Magazine, Copper Nickel. Title of his unpublished manuscript: The getting rid of the that which cannot be done without. Anthony Madrid is a graduate student at the University of Chicago.

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Trapper Don’t Look Back
By Dennis Mahagin, Nov 10, 2008

In an Anchorage brothel
circa 1986, I sucked
peach schnapps

two-fisted with snifter and
rock pipe, the sister
who gifted me
took deep throat
hits followed by semi-
unconscious snuffling fits
to keep the smoke

down, and those sounds were like
Huckleberry Hound having found
something perpetually, contagiously
funny. Anyway,

what I really, really bought
was an 86-hour migraine
laced with cotton mouth
and chlamydia, I fought
to get my kit bag on the home-
bound ferry, traveler’s checks in a stiff
tube sock, one hard month from Seward
to the Ballard Locks, and after that,

for a decade and
a half, every time I puked, the taste
was of lukewarm peach schnapps,
I couldn’t get off

the memory
of that Anchorage whore, how
she cackled, with pigeon-toed
Charleston, as long
as the crack held out, it flowed,
with her panties on a Popsicle stick
and flicks of her wrist, as if
to bait the shallows, the little

red-light room in downtown
Anchorage reeking of schnapps,
patchouli and semen:

“I AM A FISHER!” shrieked
the whore, “A FISHER OF FISHER-
MEN!... A FUCKING FISHER-
MAN FISHER!”—until

her skit just wasn’t funny any more,
the crack wouldn’t flow because we
couldn’t get any more, rug burns

on my knee caps, suppurating scabs
where crawlspace met
the killing floor. Listen,
all you young bucks, with a yen
for the Bering Sea, or maybe
Mount McKinley with spyglass
and manly Hemingway flask
glinting in the sun, don’t
go there, my son, to cavort
with the deep throat
Huskies and roll-on
musk, nix the seduction
with extreme unction, say
no, I say, say no, say no,

peach schnapps
tastes like yellow snow.

Dennis Mahagin is a poet from the Pacific Northwest. His work appears in periodicals such as Exquisite Corpse, 3:AM, Frigg, 42opus, Keyhole, Juked, Thieves Jargon, Underground Voices, and Stirring: A Literary Collection.

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love is ii
By David McLean, Nov 14, 2008

love is alpha and that other latter letter—
it smells of socks and shampoo
and it is rather juicy
it tastes quite a lot like salt

it’s a terrible lie and it’s true
love is omega or whatever
and the previous letter,
love smells of salt-cellars and you

David McLean is Welsh but has lived in Sweden since 1987. He lives there in a cottage on a hill with a woman and five selfish cats. He has two full-length books out. One at erbacce-press.com/davidmclean/4527659941 and another, Cadaver’s Dance, available at Alibris or Amazon.com. There is even a third self-published book of poems at Lulu called eating your night at lulu.com/content/2756039. Details of chapbooks and round 650 poems in or forthcoming at 270 places online or print over the last eighteen months are at mourningabortion.blogspot.com. One chapbook, La morte vivante, is available from Shadow Archer Press. Another chapbook is free online at whyvandalism.com/ebook_poems-against-enlightenment08.html. He also features in a special issue of Instant Pussy available as a free download at lulu.com/content/4389526. Two more chapbooks so far are coming in 2009 from Rain over Bouville and Poptritus Press.

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For Those in the Rough
By Zachary Moll, Dec 03, 2008

While the hours bang away on kettles and church bells
               & the mice make for the crumbs in the corner

While he promises and she believes
               & the dice clank down once more,

While the world turns, the frost bites,
               A painting fades in Rome,

While manicured hands join in agreement
               Over Mai Tai’s on the green
& a thousand others fall idle
               On the coattails of a dream,

While 100,000 classifieds open with a sigh
               & scissors cut crisply into Sundays coupons,

While industry sleeps
               & crickets flood the factories,

A shot is heard—

               & someone in this town has been paid.

Zachary Moll lives in Ohio with his son where he fiddles with pens and cameras when not slinging eggs for dimes. He’s been published in several online and print magazines for both poetry and graphic design.

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We are Devo
By Robbie Q. Telfer, Dec 08, 2008

It’s like choking politely down the remainder
of brisket after the dinner party’s host has just
audibly slapped his wife in the kitchen for
embarrassing him. It’s like that, but the dining
room is your identity—the unbearable wreckage
of face. Pretending to be an asshole in high
school was funny but when you weren’t looking
these last ten years, you’ve become a real asshole.
I’ve been pretending to be a poet for just as long.
Look what the platypus got for all her pretending—
electrocuting shit with her MIND—batting a
thousand with her eye lashes. Throwing all
your spaghetti at the wall to see if enough sticks.

Throwing a toaster down the stairs isn’t a
symphony, but it’s definitely got a memorable
beat. I know a boy who calls himself Toaster—
what a beautiful tune he'd make in the descent.

Like Staring into a Freaky Time-Mirror
By Robbie Q. Telfer, Dec 08, 2008

my new caveman friend kept trying to rape me.
i didn’t hold it against him.
his heart wasn’t in it anyway.

i asked him questions like he were a pet:
whatcha got there? you chewin on a bird?
you wanna go walkies?

we shouldn’t talk to our friends like pets.

i bought him a sweater and slacks.
i lent him my cologne.
i bought him the new james taylor covers album.
he shit all over them.

he likes to dance but it always ends poorly
like a tickle fight or a pillow fight
someone always screams-laughs-jerks into the TV
someone always gets sliced across the face by the pillow zipper.
he danced the cat into paste.
dancing is a kind of battle.

he teaches me things about myself.

he beat up that census guy with my flute.
music is a kind of battle.

i took him to the museum.
i am not cruel.
he tried to use the display animals like household appliances.
he slid down the tail of the apatosaurus skeleton.
his toes sounded like a piano when he bowled.
i’m just kidding.
we didn’t go to the museum.

Robbie Q. Telfer is a touring performance poet, having been a featured performer/reader in hundreds of venues across North America and Germany—most recently with the spoken word experience The Junkyard Ghost Revival. Previous work appears in the American Book Review, Octopus Magazine, and a forthcoming Cream City Review, as well as several spoken word anthologies and DVDs. He was an individual finalist at the National Poetry Slam and he co-wrote the video game Ninjatown DS. He lives in Chicago where he curates the Encyclopedia Show and is the Director of Performing Arts for Young Chicago Authors, a not-for-profit that gives creative writing opportunities and mentorship to Chicago teens.

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apologies to hosho mccreesh as i remember sometimes as a child i would kick a can for blocks just because and considered it quite an accomplishment that I did not miss and fall on my ass and when it rained it didn’t matter
By Scot Young, Dec 07, 2008

i cleaned out the pile
beside my chair
the one that gets
added to over time
i found a book of
poems a look at life
through hosho’s eyes

I had it on the top pile
one day waiting to review
until it became the
bottom of the deck
and somewhere
in america
there is a child
dreaming of being
a poet but will grow
up under the force
of gravity until
he can’t remember
the dream
or the can
anymore

Scot Young works in education, writes and publishes a few poems, once sang with Kenny Loggins and wrestler Dirty Dick Murdoch, but mainly just puts bread on the table.

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