SEPTEMBER 2009

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Dogdays
By Dominic Alapat, Jul 20, 2009

see worldsweat
daysunk
sounddead
braintorn
blackday
bite.

Dominic Alapat is a poet and freelance journalist residing in Mumbai. His writing can be found at woodsmoke.wordpress.com.

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The Fuck
By CL Bledsoe, Aug 03, 2009

The fuck isn’t going anywhere: it’s here to (sta)y
ins form in damp cloth revealing the presence of m(old) spores

rivers dig deep in their concrete beds, forgetting what it was
                        to meande(r)
ivers sit pristine and free of life or slud(g)e

oodbye to oxbows, goodbye to the surprise of dis(cover)y
all surfaces with laminate, scotch-guard the squirr(el)s

iminate difference from the world and one will never have to
                        leave the m(all)
I’m saying is look around while we still have ey(es)

cape the culture of disdain: learn to en     joy the slight
                        inconveniences of liv(in)g
the real world, most of us (w)ould be dead

hat’s more       important     life or liv(in)g?
the strictest sense     we are     all of us     damne(d)

rag your heels in the dirt     anything to slow the blind char(ge)
rminate where you’re planted, yes     but some seeds have wings

CL Bledsoe is the author of _____(Want/Need) and Anthem. A third collection, Riceland, is forthcoming later this year. A chapbook, Goodybe To Noise, is available online at righthandpointing.com/bledsoe. A minichap, Texas, is forthcoming from Mud Luscious Press. His story “Leaving the Garden” was selected as a Notable Story of 2008 by storySouth’s Million Writers Award. He’s an editor for Ghoti Magazine. He blogs at Murder Your Darlings.

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Confession #11
By Janann Dawkins, Aug 08, 2009

The orbs rattle like stones
in their little plastic sac,
rounded agate ovals

bitter to the tongue.
Stamped. Is that a postmark
bursting in my stomach?

It’s just bliss.
I should have known, if I
could tell the future. What

sounds like an artificial ocean?
A rotten baby toy? Rice
in a prescription bottle.

It’s like that, only followed
by squeals in the night.
I have a gut feeling

around like a deaf-mute
stumbling in unfamiliar quarters.
Irregular ragtime doll.

Herbal remedies won’t smooth.
The liquefaction is due
to spread into every tendon

and sinew. Rest. Anesthetized,
my skin tingles me to sleep,
the very cilia in my ears.

Janann Dawkins’s work has been featured or is upcoming in Literary House Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, LiteraryMary, Poesia, At-Large, Alba, Taj Mahal Review, MiPOesias, Existere, Anastomoo, and The Ambassador Poetry Project, among others. Her chapbook, Micropleasure, was published by Leadfoot Press in 2008. She resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

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Meanwhile the veil (a false translation from Rilke, “Erster Teil”)
By Nava Fader, Jul 11, 2009

This the frond. Beneath the stag. Radiance is his.
While mutters sprites
in the smallest part of the leaf. But he’s the one
giving holy glare and balm
to his friends the ants. Ochre and vermilion
and other colors from as far away as Africa
stars and wandering that will never be ours.

While in the earth sleeps
another dragon. The gelatin of his blood
is beer. His putrid exhalations
the stork might nab and weave
for his nest, the rabbit gather for his warren

but these are just sounds, trills or cries,
the night is no cleaner. Oh woe
when the knife is dull
these are the days of running blunt-axed
and the horse will die open mouthed.

Nava Fader is a school librarian in Buffalo, and between reading Knuffle Bunny and the exploits of child-spy Alex Rider, she does write poetry. Her books are forthcoming from BlazeVOX (all the jawing jackdaw) and Dancing Girl (The Plath Poems). You can read/hear some of her work at myspace.com/navafader.

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some fate, a widow, and a lonely lonely song about a man who doan need the devil
By Mat Gould, Aug 04, 2009

she was sharpening
her
legs
far back from the mirror
but
still
in front of it
with
plenty to be seen
one
crossed over
the other
those daggers
will
be
the death of me
bathed
in
gasoline
any spark will trigger
the lantern
the light
the reflection of night
that
is
constantly
exciting the shadow of her eyes
I can not lie down
I am a dog in heat
on
a chain that is not quite 10 feet
you have heard this before
but
some of us
are
the very fools we claim to be

Mat Gould has released Lantern In The Half night Sky, a chapbook. He is currently bottling the fog on the other side of the mountains of North Carolina.

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Kink
By KJ, Jul 24, 2009

Antenna-like, dried, sickle fingers with the white knuckles cringing out of the skin,
come trembling out of the swollen orifice of darkness to latch onto the dear skull
always surrounding the ears that sit as queenly as her feet do on the thrones of her
black slipper shoes that relieve the two proud, tan melons of her calves from working
the way those mirific mounds of meat that pass for her ass do when she ascends that
same dreary, fairy tale stairwell every single night after a hard, cruel office-chair sit.

The slow reel of her twitching forehead inwards towards the comatose, purple lips hiding
amidst the gray haze of a thick five o’clock shadow that arrives daily before her subway.
A mouth parts. The tongue creeps out to hover near the pink bead of her earlobe that
tempts the big, hunky, red slug to beckon the ear nearer to the warm palate like mama.
Saliva leaks in sticky drops of slabber from the poised appendage that forsakes the earlobe,
& weaves a way around the serpentine braid of black hair—that pokes gently into her left cheek—
only to rest for a second of drooling with fleshy adulation before her sharp jaw-line’s curvature.

Then this wet, firm tine slips & ducks under her jaw-line & curls gently, swoon-like until
hooking greedily onto the tender, flush corner of her pale, shaking, powdered right cheek.
It slurps backwards, plowing away the caul of dead skin, makeup, & soft hair to cradle
the salty, cavernous sulcus under her chin serenely & with unconditional reverence.
It undulates forwards, swimming in the slaver now as each slow stroke ends one more
lap across the juddering, porcelain bones in her jaw that are now so profuse with sweat
that she might consider hitting the showers with this sly pervert later because the luck

this tongue has on
her throat tells her
she does not know
whether to yell out
murder, or fire, or
fuck him, or what.

KJ likes to make poems a lot.

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Eating Dirt
By Jen Schalliol, Aug 11, 2009

In part, I am so small because
the things I contain are see-through:
intangibles, airborne, each a tiny
globe, each a marble around one
complete world, baby Krishna
opening his mouth, and like the
Jews believe, if you kill one
man, you kill his future sons,
his grandsons, the miles and miles
unwinding from him—so, say,
can you see how this man
is the whole world? Can you
see how he was everything?

Jen Schalliol lives in Chicago, where she received her MFA in Writing at the School of the Art Institute. She has had her poetry featured in the journals Salt, Landscape, Santa Clara Review, and she’s had articles published on the Web sites Gapers Block and Betty Confidential. Her chapbook, Means of Access, was published through the Kenyon Review.

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Don’t Judge A Roach
By Ajay Vishwanathan, Aug 03, 2009

We live in isolation, yes.

They say we prefer darkness,
lying cooped up in crevices
like blades of grass.
They say we hustle from light
and huddle in hundreds
under rocks mossed in time.

But we see no choice,
and no one cares if we loved
gallivanting in light.
With ugly backs, horrid gait,
and clumsy, trembling whiskers,
would you nod with indulgent eyes

Seeing us prancing on your porch
or snuggling in green lawns?
Don’t you create roaches from among your own,
people who come out less, less beautiful,
more conscious of scowling eyes—
glaring daggers that judge?

We dwell in lightlessness,
silently wishing
we were someone else—pretty cats maybe,
roaming free and aimless
with no fear of crushing death
from bitter, disgusted feet.

Yes, we live in isolation.

Best of the Net anthology nominee Ajay Vishwanathan, published in over forty literary journals, including elimae, Haggard and Halloo, Orange Room Review, and Centrifugal Eye, lives in a world of words and viruses. He has an obsession for one, shows appreciation for another. His world is based in Georgia.

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Chronic Headaches and Other Tell-tale Symptoms
By Zachary Whalen, Jul 09, 2009

Turn the weather reports into top-ten lists or empty headed wisdom. Lean into cigarette smoke, make designs. Rest a minute. It’s a game. You’re forgiven with a slap across the wrist.

Fuck you, Jack. Answer. Take a walk. Keys are smoldering underneath the welcome mats. Light a mattress on fire. Light the streets, the altars. Light up everything that’s blind to television sets. Crawl out onto a roof or fall over train tracks. Either way, there’s a basket full of apples waiting for you.

No more. No more twilight on power lines. No more morning people. No more beautiful kids waiting outside the liquor store. No problem, amigo. In between your best moves and bursts of laughter there’s a cozy sea of piss. Dip your feet and wonder about tomorrow.

...Or cash in your toads. Pour out the day-old coffee and start barking Morse code. Watch trees melt, hearts pump, veins yawn and suck. No cause for relief. Certain folks just wander around, screaming at the top of their lungs... A kind of broken shine, comprehend? At the edge of the candy-cane forest all the unknown horns go silent.

Look around. Some devil soak himself in kerosene, weep at the sun. Another awaken in a wasteland, scream names against the toxic haze. Jaws ticking faithfully. A fist curls in the gut of the sky. Stockpiles explode, you cough a supernova. Step aside, vaporize, whatever... Bye-bye, black hole.