Scott Thomas Outlar- A Poem

An Ode to McKenna

 

Under the brilliant stars

in the middle of an open field

all alone

pondering existence

like some existential psych class

never bothered to attend

or some philosophy exam

never cared to be graded on.

Neither, though, could prepare

for what happens next –

these types of close encounters

aren’t graded on a curve.

Red and green track lights

open wide to flood the area,

spraying their rays, searching, seeking…something.

Sweet Holy Jesus!

Was the Revelation real after all?

Is the chariot coming

to take us all to Heaven?

Fat chance, sucker –

no such luck on this Winter’s eve.

Slack jawed, mouth agape, staring

at the beast of a machine

that is taking its precious time

to descend upon the scene.

Hovering above the grass,

a gate of incandescent energy particles

drips down like a waterfall,

somehow becoming corporeal in the process.

Who in the hell will ever believe

that the boy who always cried wolf

has finally seen a genuine miracle?

Or is it a death sentence

being issued by some strange denizens

from a far flung planet?

Answers will come soon enough it seems

as little brain-like beings

with chicken wings flapping

come hopping down the bridge,

cluck-cluck-clucking

in some twisted tongue

not understood at all.

Where’s the damned space age device

they pop on the ear

so all languages are instantly translated?

Where’s the Type-1 greeting

that such an important meeting

between two civilizations is befitting of?

Not here, Bubba.

Not on this strange night.

The chicken brain something-or-others

circle around and start dancing

in some type of weird voodoo ritual.

A hallucinatory rhythm

pops open the pineal gland,

expanding consciousness

down to a fine point microcosm of reality.

One tiny dot from which all creation explodes.

Geometric patterns pulsate in the crisp air.

Shapes and sounds forming out of the nothingness.

Little elves and goblin creatures

jibber-jabber in bizarre musical tones,

beyond the realm of simple consonants and vowels,

which are intuitively felt and understood

on some instinctive primal channel.

Wavelength frequency vibrations of chaos

coalesce cohesively into an ordered symmetry

of crystallized mandala Zen reverberations.

Body shock and mind fuck.

So this is how creation began?

This is what the Big Bang felt like?

Life’s path, purpose and meaning all bubble up

to the surface level in an A-ha moment.

Musical notes streamlining from out the

jellylike brains of the far-out creatures of

wherever, whatever, however…

Questions are meaningless in the shakedown

as everything synthesizes to make perfect sense

for a split-second flash of raw awesome perfection,

then, poof, gone, nowhere, nothing…

Eyes pop open, rain is drizzling from the clouds above.

No new friends anywhere to be seen.

Fuck, was it all just a dream?

Nah, it couldn’t be,

so it must have been

that second puff of DMT.

John Pursch- Three Poems

Habit

I cry

from coma’s deep

departure lounge,

warbling through

swollen turnstiles

of youth beam carousels

and tattered newsreels,

seated with a lonely

boxcar tart.

I come to

in waves of trembling,

subside to junked recital

phase of burnt munitions

ligament installment plan

for neural referential care,

taken hourly to support

imploding worm habit.

Car Lung Burbles

Coned luck fuels

delightful leeward lassitude’s

cremated lexicon of bobbled

sifted token ease, munching

steady crosstop praxis with

bingeing quick notation gel

on paltry ancillary drip-dry

factories of angular pelicans.

Stellar periodic jets immerse

amino placard gusts in punky

tawny pavement windows

turned to hourly benefactor

issues by eventful colocation

stance portrayal fowl.

Hefty laudanum conflates

inspired effulgent tributaries

with selfish sentry fallacies of 

“How comestible concoctions

mystify corrosive grape-tune

table spruce in stable dockyard

hooligans of sentience and

meatball praise.”

Etched orangutans mean

ladled soporific locket

quest confection mules,

currying in scurvy car lung

burbles of washboard

seashore dandelions.

Gurgling Bots

Time gives way

to nadir’s intro,

sanding jackets into

yellowed pagination,

plumbing stately gout

for footfall iridescence,

gaveled into silence.

The crowd rises, grousing slowly

at sequestered pitchman rodeos,

intoned by actualities of blindly

dotted highway soup in peaceful

signage minestrone bellows,

weaving turpentine collusion

mastiff flits from seashore tweed

to ever-ceasing mortal umbrage,

humbly heaven so extravagant

in skylight swing set diner

maws of basement twirling

foveal clock shadows cast by

newsprint time recorder.

At almost smacks ye wander husk

ant whore inguinal quest of ions,

iconic irony, stumped waveforms,

guideline gargoyles, gremlins,

and gurgling petty boxcar bots,

but noses spell the outer mullets

into teased disuse, used disease,

and dunderheaded dandelion

encyclopedic palimony coulisse,

molded into ornery pavement

numerology, chesty thyme

four grisly moths to skulk

and glow in bothered mall

rotation.

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.

 

Jason D. DeHart- A Poem

The Piano

She used to be a piano,

til they re-tuned her, then tore

out the strings.

Made something new.

Now, she has been given wheels

and rolls.

Occasionally, she has been taught

to make a joke.

Now and then, a crude gesture.

She is learning slowly how to be

human and how the keys work,

a melody here,

a dissonance there.

 

 

Jason D. DeHart is the creator of the blog jasondehartjustliving.blogspot.com.  His writings have appeared in a variety of publications.

 

Alan- Catlin- Three Poems

Attention Earthlings

He was one of

those chuckleheaded

losers who was

always trying to

call God on his

spaceship from

a disconnected

public phone,

goes evil on you

when you refuse

to pony up fifty cents

for the righteous

cause of interstellar

communications,

wants to do something

special before he

passes on like getting

shot five times in

the heart like

Gary Gilmore.

Refugee from Another Planet

Whatever Way Out Machine

he'd come in on must have

malfunctioned and left him

stranded still dressed in

decades-before-the-millennium

duds: bright floral surfer pants,

loud striped t-shirt, leather thongs

and rose colored glasses that

mostly concealed his drug spaced

eyes. He was trying to hitch

a ride to the coast to join

an enclave of pot growers

and potential cult suicides,

the name of his destination

tattooed on his forearm in code,

a place eight miles past nowhere

at the bottom of a cliff that

a Richter Scale 8 had dumped

into the Pacific, not even memories

left behind.

"don't die without jesus"

the wino sd.

leaning against

the Bus Stop sign

clutching a fist full

of wet pamphlets

he'd either picked

from the garbage

or from a mugged

pair of born agains,

along with enough

pocket change for

a jug of dago red,

"Save yourself,

brother.  Buy a one-

way ticket to salvation.

Just a dollar, man,

for a dream."

I thought maybe

I'd give him half

a sawbuck for the lot,

send him on his way

to the promised land,

thinking, as drunk

as he was already,

crossing four lanes

of traffic, heedless

only of the neon spirit

light in the distance

that said "Liquor",

would bring that brother

home faster than a

lightning bolt from above.

Scott Thomas Outlar- Three Poems

Written in the Stars

  

Evolution

has been force fed

down our throats

and implemented

behind our backs

by an alien technology that

filtered through the slipstream

and embedded in our DNA –

We never had a chance to grow

on our own

in a natural organic process

after the spinal column injection

and the rib transplant

were thrust onto our path

and laced into our consciousness –

Oh well,

it must be destiny, after all.

Lost and Found

  

Pushing and pulling upon the dualistic nature of reality

until the thin thread of unity spills out all over the floor

to be trampled upon by the hooves of swine,

shattering the divine pearl

and scattering its timeless wisdom until lost to the ages.

Now falling fast from the perfect garden of paradise-

breaking apart into an infinite number of soul shards,

moving further away from the Oneness, taking on the personalized shape

of individualized specks of consciousness.

Amnesia sets in; wanderlust reigns supreme.

Separated from Source, begging to get back home,

seeking everywhere in the outside world for a sign,

forgetting all the while

that the true path to peace is always paved within.

Eons come and go;

eternities are born, only to pass away again,

rising and falling with the cosmic tide.

Meanwhile, in a voided state of confusion, the energy force of humanity

is trapped in the illusion of temporality,

entwined by the spell of materialism meets apathy meets dystopia-

wasting away in the abyss of nescient ignorance,

yet always a haunting, fleeting tug of knowingness

hoarsely whispers from a space deep within the core,

beating against the wall of ancient archetypal resonance,

hoping to release a spark of stifled memory

and ignite a return voyage to the Holy Spirit.

Every now and then

the silent voice within

erupts from the volcanic undertow of indomitable will,

releasing a prisoner from the bondage of golden chains.

Electric pulse vibrations

tear asunder the gilded cage,

unlocking the truth and pointing the way to sacred spiritual treasure.

With eyes newly awakened, clearly it can be seen

the trick that has been pulled

by minions who serve a power of black entropy.

A nihilistic death cult, with its mask removed,

becomes open season for a species reborn.

Off come the velvet gloves as the opposite sides step into the squared circle,

waiting for the bell to ring and get the party started.

Lines cast out to the yawning depths of the ocean

are dragged back inland to the beach

to be drawn and defined clearly in the sand

from the fiery fingertips of pent up frustration.

Belching flames singe the enemy’s flesh, howling in primal tones,

“Thou shalt not pass!

Thou shalt not aggress one single step further!

Satan, get thee behind us now!”

Boiling point reached, enough is enough.

The chaos you seek

will surely cycle back around

and the light of karma will bite where the sun has never dared shine before.

The Demon in the Door

  

As I sat in the bathroom

thinking about the existential nature of reality,

considering the Giants of Philosophy,

I saw it staring back at me.

Though it was right in front of my face,

it seemed to be gazing from across

the infinite void of time and space.

Its eyes were filled deep with a sort

of ancient knowingness that sparked

strange stirrings in my own soul.

Flames from the fiery abyss were blazing

beside its head in an ethereal mist

that acted as a gateway between our two worlds.

There was madness in that face,

calling out to me, urging me

to cross over to the other side.

Though the invitation was alluring,

I simply smiled, as if to say,

“Not yet.  Not yet.”

Some people would think

that it was just the cut of the grain

in that old, wooden doorway.

But the Demon and I both know

that such silly superstition

is simply the work of the Devil

as He weaves His wicked lies of deception

into the hearts and minds of the non-believers.

Scott Thomas Outlar burst forth from the womb of primordial ooze with thoughts of Renaissance, Revolution and Revelation dancing across the newly enlivened neuron synapses of his consciousness.  After taking a look around in this strange new land, he huffed some fresh oxygen, then got down to the business at hand, hammering out prose-fusion poetry, fiction, rants, manifestos, and hallucinatory, psychedelic meanderings through the psyche dedicated to the Phoenix Generation.  His work has appeared most recently in venues such as Medusa's Kitchen, Dead Snakes, Underground Books, Black Mirror Magazine, Section 8 Magazine, Record, Aphelion and Dissident Voice.  Scott can be reached at 17Numa@gmail.com.

Ayaz Daryl Nielsen- Three Poems

the vast seas

of far Kleptonia

earthlings as bait

on trolling lines

I

go

where my

ship takes me

said just before he

forgets to secure his lifeline

my green antennae waving

hello in the air, my green antennae -

and your green antennae, too!

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, Dead Snakes, Shamrock, Kind of a Hurricane, and!  online at  bear creek haiku  poetry, poems and info

Denny E. Marshall- Art

                                                               The Orphan

Jeffrey Park- Three Poems

BURNING

The thing was burning on the rocky mountainside.
The flames and the smoke had drawn us up
the slope to be witnesses to the conflagration,
to stand in the shifting light until our hands

and faces were blackened and blistered by the heat,
to watch it slowly collapse in on itself,
to listen to its warbling, otherworldly death cries,
to be ready to tell people afterwards that there was

a great sharp-smelling burning up on the mountain
where there had been nothing before but stone and scrub,
that some strange alien thing had appeared on this day,
burning, as if that was what it had come for.



FLOATING CRAPS

You go about your mundane
existences, and we observe you

though we have no optical organs –
listen to your thoughts, speech, howls

though we have no auditory nerves –
cherish, pity, despise you

though we have neither emotions
nor empathy nor sense of curiosity.

You are not aware, do not dream of us,
which is all to the good.

Your minds would shut down.

We take you, your little organic lives,
and we shake and rattle you,

and blow on you – gently, in a purely
hypothetical way – just for luck,

and cast you onto a closed timelike surface

just to see if we can make infinity
the hard way.



GIANT STEPS

While you struggle to drag
yourself up out of gravity’s slime
I stride across solar systems,
my feet tearing filmy atmospheres,
comets tangled in my hair.
I draw a fierce lungful of vacuum,
endlessly calculating,
gathering myself for a leap,
fighting to find a precarious balance
as galaxies tilt and reel
and dark matter rings like a bell.

 

 

 

Bio: Jeffrey lives in Goettingen, Germany where he is Lecturer for Scientific English at the Georg-August-Universitaet. Links to his writing can be found at www.scribbles-and-dribbles.com 

 

Denny E. Marshall- Art

                                                              Victim's Road

Alan Catlin- Three Poems

In another life

after this one

he might have a

calling as a

stand-up comic

in the manner of

Lenny Bruce using

that nasally

inflected voice,

that unmistakable

from the borough

ascent to emphasize

caustic points,

barbs that touched

the quick of the

human condition,

though in this life

he was stuck in

a perpetual monologue

without purpose or

meaningful direction

other than the usual

paranoid delusions

about alien implants

in his penis and

extra voice boxes

in his throat like

the one that is

expounding now about

the latest invasion of

seeing eye dogs for

the blind being

escapees from landing

crafts, sending silent

coded messages like-

Take Me to Your Leader-

or else something only

he can hear which takes

on new meaning as

the regular blind couple

and their dogs take their

seats just up the aisle,

giving instructions to

the bus driver about

where to stop that

must have sounded like

a live documentary

scripting of a War of

the Worlds he was an

unwilling participant in.

Mars 21-12

I was down in the City on a job

and decided to check out this place

everyone was talking about: Mars 21-12.

It's either a sign of the times for a

New Millennium or an alien invasion;

the prices they get for stuff made me

think it wasn't an alien invasion:

ten bucks for a cheeseburger,

eighteen ninety-five for a Caesar Salad,

eight bucks for a Heineken.

I was afraid to find out what they

were getting for a good Imported beer. 

I guess they had to pay for all

the overhead that went into getting

the place up to grade somehow;

all those greeters dressed up like

Ziggy Stardust on a bad hair day,

gay waiters who thought they were

Iggy Pop when he could go shirtless

and have gotten his glitter on his eye

shadow and not be embarrassed

that his shadow and lip gloss clashed.

Maybe, that's why he had such an attitude:

no one told him about his color co-ordination

until he was on the floor and by then it

was too late. All I could think of saying was:

Ain't Life a Bitch…but it would be lost on him.

It was pretty easy to see though, once your

eyes got adjusted to the black lighting,

that the place had been a disco re-decorated

to fit the outer space theme. I could imagine

the spinning lunar orbs as flashing strobes

high lighting every move John Ravolta

made on the spray painted dance floor

where all  the mushroom pods masquerading

as table tops were now.  One thing never

changes though, The Men's Room.

It was something out of the dark ages,

one of those trough things no one would

question if you put up one of those historical

signs above it that said:

George Washington Pissed Here.

Still, it was kind of weird taking a piss

next to some guy who looked like the

David Bowie space creature without

his human disguise on, from A Man Who

Fell to Earth.  I could easily see the owners

going Big Time with the idea for this place:

Mars 21-12-The Restaurant, The Movie,

The Cheeseburger, but they won't get me

to go for it again. I've already paid my dues,

Big Time.

                                       for "Whitey"

 

 

 

Planet Weird

could have been the sure

fire best selling logo/catch

phrase for his new line of

Spring fashions. He was

the poster child for mean

& lean, cool & collected

behind stylin' wraparounds,

women's underwear headgear,

black torso fitting muscle

shirt, black leather jacket

& all the gold this side of

Fort Knox to complete

the ensemble.  Orders himself

a nice Tanqueray & Cranberry

with two cherries & two orange

slices, “For my health food

know what I mean? “Covers

his glass with a paper napkin,

forming a kind of tent he can

stick a straw through & drink

trying to avoid white germs &

such, one presumes, though I

must admit to a moment of

curiosity about the roll of

quarters he needs with his

change, smiling like some kind

of Samuel L Jackson badass

Shaft clone. I thought about

sharing one of my once upon

a time cop stories, about using

rolled coins for a weapon, my

friend was of the opinion that

dimes do the job better, as long

as you don't make the mistake

of putting your thumb inside

the fist, that was a surefire way

to a fractured finger, but I thought

better of it. Maybe he was just

going to use the coins in a

Laundromat but somehow I couldn't

complete that picture with him in it.

I watched as he stood to finish off

his cocktail-framed against intense

late afternoon sun, complimenting

his already major aura/glow.

I thought he must have been team

leader for task force planet weird

scoping the joint for rest stop

possibilities. 

Mark Fleury- Two Poems

There’s Nowhere For The Color

There’s nowhere for the color

Of my subtle body’s skin

To go, and it can’t be replicated

On a flag or a veil.

But it can be bruised,

Like an ocean’s dusk 

Is that thin, and seen from

The gland, the third

Kaleidoscopic eye. Maybe loved ones 

Form a collage of photos on the wall 

Of your cubicle; maybe it’s the babies

Who drive your second sight;

A place for your inner voice to be held 

Like a child, winged and joyful. 

Service to our nation might leave you

Sleeping on concrete, until your white spaceship 

Takes you away. And even if things

Don’t seem to be in the right places,

Maybe your third eye becomes the ship:

You hold on tight as it flies

You over a parking lot of Christmas trees. 

It’s About to Rain

It’s about to rain in the backseat of my car.

The roof has become the sky and my eyelids 

Keep trying to blink through all of the sunrises

Of my past while I look through the rearview mirror

At the drenching ladder against the cliff’s edge.

Now that everything can happen in my car,

The very heart of separation from God,

Greased by lies, compresses my throat

That’s in the back of my spare-tired trunk,

So that all of the human voices

That lack rhythm can open and keep

The evolution of all vehicles into 

Solar Ships moving forward. 

The organ donation helicopters

All carry the heart of the Angel 

Aboard, finally, the One Solar Ship’s Pyramid.

The landing pads

On the tops of the hospitals, this diamond world, 

Spin with threadbare wind,

Revealing the valleys and mountains,

That weaves your eyebrows,

Threaded to their center

Off the ladder’s top.

Babies’ lives are saved there

From the bottoms of lakes,

Spared through a sand grain’s Doorway

Seen by a passing fish.

Scales fused to the glowing

Centers of the light bulbs 

That illuminate a raven trapped 

In the basement of an exhale. 

Mark Fleury lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He has recently had poems published in VEXT Magazine, Counterexample Poetics, Clockwise Cat, Of / With, Down in the Dirt, Altpoetics, and Experiential Experimental Literature. His most recent book of poems, The Precious Surreal Door Opened was published by The Medulla Review Publishing in 2014. Mark's first three books, published between 2010 and 2012 through Scars Publications and Design, are scheduled to be published in 2015 as a one book trilogy entitled Seeing Strangers.