Friday, January 30, 2015

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.

Sunday, January 25, 2015

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.


 

Friday, January 23, 2015

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

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Denny E. Marshall- Art




                                                               The Orphan


Tuesday, January 20, 2015

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 
 

Friday, January 16, 2015

Denny E. Marshall- Art




                                                              Victim's Road


Tuesday, January 6, 2015

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.