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withdrawn from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.

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.

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)

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

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.