on new terms

On New Terms
by deborah garrison
I’d like to begin again. Not touch my
own face, not tremble in the dark before
an intruder who never arrives. Not
apologize. No scurry, not pace. Not
refuse to keep notes of what means the most.
Not skirt my father’s ghost. Not abandon
piano, or a book before the end.
Not count, count, count and wait, [...]

More on page 6319

Living the Chemical Life

Living the Chemical Life
by chris anderson
I have to admit that I don’t care about the historical Jesus.
One way or the other.
I’ve always thought there were larger forces at work.
The sun and the wind. The sadness that comes in the afternoon.
Did you know that our bones are only 10 years old?
No matter how old we are, [...]

More on page 6316

undercut

undercut
by p.e. lydon
my heart cannot
keep up with
yours. it is
out of breath
from contented cigarettes
yours is
still
on
the
run again

More on page 5319

Gasp! Creature.

Gasp! Creature.
by matt taylor
I could be completely egg-hatched for all you know,
yet, still, you can’t see me,
I’ve eaten myself so you can’t see me.
(Logically, that’s the only way.)
Then, pulling the apple
from my eye,
you tell me how pieces
are missing.
You’re smiling (laughing),
all I can do is count your teeth,
and drink cement
like it has a cure,
hoping it hardens [...]

More on page 6281

Cut and Coo

Cut and Coo
by jck
I get two frozen pizzas and some Cokes and some big waters and the total according to the checker lady I like is like $18.65 until I say “Oh really?” and key in the card number for the discount, which sounded a lot funnier (the reply) at the time because of my [...]

More on page 5944

spill

Guest Writers Comments (0)


Spill
by dennis mahagin

In my sweetest dream,
you are tattooing my trussed white ass
as flour-dusted pizza dough on a heart-shaped cutting board,
while your twin sister stands under the birthday pinata pony
lactating Milk Duds, Red Hots and Candy Corn–
the pony, lactating, that is, not your
sister, and then you softly whisper:

“Aren’t you forgetting something mister?”–
pushing the bolus button at the base of my testicles
like a toaster lever, ‘till that prodigious penis it

pops right up,
and Sis is able to toss her lime green hula hoop
as a horseshoe bulls eye smack dab on the pulsating
purple head, while clapping out the funky rhythm
for first verse of Mickey the cheerleader song.

I’ve told you already
about the eye patch and permanent
palm prints on my pasty forehead, that came from playing
Patty Cake and Rock-Paper-Scissors with a paranoid
schizophrenic Three Stooges fan in Washington Park;

I let you know about our previous life together
as Appalachian flower children riding astral planes
made from my magic carpet tongue sparks
flogging your flint rock nipples.

I’ve given you the password to my heart
in all its anagrammatic permutations; but you seem
to insist this is nothing but a start; so herewith, at
last comes the story of my first puppy–
an Airedale named Chipper

who could jump
five feet into the air
to kiss my cheek, and then spin
and spin, like Brian Boitano,
all the way back down
to the ground.

Editor @ March 10, 2010

i won’t

Guest Writers Comments (1)


I Won’t
by emily r. canty

I’d like to let you seep into me so that I become a spongey mess
Your fingers, explorers,
My appetite soaked in my desire for you
Even in a slightly less than perfect world I could let your intimacy envelop me,
Cup your hands to hold me
Until I run through your fingers & become a puddle of vulnerable
My desire to live inside of your embrace frightens my desire to be independent
Desires hidden in unshed tears
I cannot understand as you blink in Morse code
So I bat my lashes in time with yours,
dot-dash-dot-dash-dash…
Hoping, hoping
The blinking won’t loosen the tightly cradled droplets
But also hoping, hoping
You notice my quivering lips when I say, “I don’t love you.”

Editor @ March 9, 2010

The Art of Listening

Shawn Misener Comments (8)


The Art of Listening
by shawn misener

this world orbits dimensions unsure of themselves
and these tiny creatures inside me rule everything

eyebrows raise while eyeballs fly
to the tune of the fourth stooge, an indomitable spirit
whose spit makes rain on our heads

his purple smoke fills dreams like paper balloons
LISTEN-

the drive-through window is accepting hieroglyphs
and applications for unemployment in outer space
or sweet, sweet death for the happy scratch-off winners
with imploding mansions and cars melting into pudding

life has burrowed itself away in a discarded kiwi
LISTEN-

there is nothing there
and therefore no need for a proper search (engine)

peanuts have become fuel for our time machines
LISTEN-

the maestro is asking you to roll one up for him as well
and either you do or you don’t, it’s that simple

misener @ March 8, 2010

Words on the Page

Elizabeth C. Neavel Comments (3)


Words on the Page
by elizabeth c. neavel

I am starry-eyed little pieces of joy
exploding in your atmosphere
I am happy tiny lovebugs
crawling tickling along your seams

Exploding through your atmosphere
I am b-b-b-breathless sleeping next to
songs floating through the clear clear
ocean waves of deliciously rough cat tongue

I am b-b-b-breathless lapping
clapping hands with rock candy cliffs
I am ecstasy (not the drug) dreaming of
Intellect and feet thinking of dancing

Clapping hands with rock candy cliffs
I am like playing steel drums with dreads
swinging in the night, evading birthday wishes
obscuring sink drains with the sway of my hips

I am dreaded steel drum players
In a bathtub full of lipsticked kisses
I am bubble-bath icing with rubber-ducky candles
I am starry-eyed little pieces of joy!

In a bathtub filled with lipsticked kisses
I am laughing laughing with each cup of Indonesian tea
I am sewing machines producing higher education
like baseball fields with computer key bases

I am laughing laughing armed with Indonesian teacups like
Happiness wrapped in crepes with cherry compote
I am shiny sunshine kisses under moon craters
with Chinese New Year rabbits in my wake.

Happiness wrapped in cherry compote crepes
I am as if your world had a soundtrack playing
Music with harps and saxophones
I am castles in clouds and fuck-me pot revolutions

I am a soundtrack for the world and
Scratch-and-sniff eyelashes giving you butterfly kisses
Or the first rhinoceros you ever pet as it glided down
The slide in front of you on the playground

I am scratchy butterfly kisses giving you
ice cream in the winter that tastes like angel food cake
and spaghetti that doesn’t leave a mess of sauce
on your cinnamon-bun-white dress

Like winter angel-food-cake ice cream tasting
that first Polly Pocket you swallowed when you were three
I am when the trees talk back after you swim in their branches
Around around the merry-go-round

I am starry-eyed little pieces of three-year old Polly Pockets
and cucumber sandwiches at noon on a Sunday morning
when the church is on vacation
in cleavage you can get lost in

Noon-day cucumber sandwiches in the morning
I am death wearing a tiara with one stone missing
in business suit made of jelly-bean flavors
and chocolate smothered blow-jobs

I am wearing a stoned tiara like death
With fried pickles dripping in your chin hairs
After pineapple watermelon ceilings
and a really good poop

I am fried chin-hairs dripping down
one thousand multiplied by infinity I love yous
after walking through leprechaun rainclouds
when you put both your feet behind your head

I am multiple I love you by the thousands
and am the nonsense of suction cups used for
running from the border patrol
across the vast Guadalupe river of your soul

Suctions cups nonsensical like
I am iPhone ringtones like fingerless gloves with feet in them
and being able to hand-write everything with letters
in upside down backwards baseball caps and take-out menus

I am feetless gloves with fingerlings attached
to budding spring-time cigarettes
I am never boring never bored Spanish English dictionary lovers
With toffee infused negligees

I am cigarettes in the spring like
I am sleepless nights and hula hoops stuck in trees
I am your arms holding me close
as pixies fly through monkey-grass clouds

I am hula-hooped trees stuck in a sleepless dream and
I am double double-sided printers next to taunting tamale stands
Using notebook paper made from melon-flavored chewing gum
In a jack and coke banana pancake

I am double-sided tamale stands like
electronica that sounds like spoken slam poetry
in a bright hot-air balloon when cassanova is along for the ride
I am pieces of starry-eyes joylets

Spoken slam poetry electronica that sounds like
The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics
On hot jalapeno mayonnaise spread with the tip of your tongue
like my nose belongs in a rocketship headed to inner space

I am the ethical professional society coda
Under a shit rainbow of gratitude like the Texas lege
I am rye-bread crumb wedding cake at a Pagan knitting circle
and I am so pleased with the outcome of my sweater-vest slippers

Under shitty Texas rainbow gratitude I am
old fur coats left to the coin jars meant for wishing wells
in a down-trodden economy after a surplus of penis drawings
on an ivy-league college entrance essay

I am meant for old coin-jar wishing wells left to
graveyard Moonpies in the in and out of anthills
I am the dinosaurs died because you touch yourself at night
with your fingers in my cinnamon cunt cranberry apple juices

In and out of anthills I am graveyards
like snow melting into pomegranate rivers of freshly dyed hair
I am inching up the tub drain of forever
because anything is possible if you don’t put too much platonic science in it

Like snow melting into pomegranates of dead hair
I am starry-eyed little pieces of joy
And I am the eternal infernal self-made orgasm of words on the page…

Elizabeth C. Neavel @ March 7, 2010

If Bozo the Clown Were President

Guest Writers Comments (4)


If Bozo the Clown Were President
by kevin brown

What is satire?  Satire’s the truth toned down. -Anonymous

If Bozo the Clown were President, he’d be sworn in with a BANG!  At the Inauguration, he’d Rocky Balboa the steps of the U.S. Capitol, and shadow box for the press.  He’d take the official oath with his fingers crossed behind his back: “I do solemnly swear, yadda, yadda, yadda,” he’d say.  “…and defend the Constitution of the United States, oh help me God.”  Then, he’d smack the Chief Justice in the face with a cream pie.  This would be followed by a 21 cap-gun salute and the Big Top Band playing, Hell, Here’s the Chief.  And Cooky would be Vice President.  Wizzo and Cuddly Duddly cabinet members.  They’d cartwheel down Pennsylvania Avenue.  Throw candy like a real parade.
If Bozo were President, he’d start an arms race, where all the weapons are toy flag guns that say, POP!  POW!  Or: KITOWW!  He’d have all airplanes built with the same material as the black box.  He’d put treadmill belts in front of fast food registers, so patrons could burn calories while waiting for their food.  Speed them up if the orders are Super-sized.  Instead of food drops to starving countries, he’d drop the starving off at Chuck E. Cheese.
President Bozo would then change the type of element that backs the world’s currency.  Instead of gold and silver, he’d make it water and see how fast we’d drain the oceans.  Class separation would be levels of dehydration.  Next, he’d make everyone from each country pick up and move to another—Britain to Africa, Japan to China, Germany to Israel.  Move America to Iraq and see if we’re really so advanced or if it’s just location, location, location.  He’d stop worrying about life on Mars and focus on death on Earth.  He’d settle all wars by having each side play the Grand Prize Game.  Each bucket made is another battle won.
If he were leader, he’d say, “Ask not what your country has done to you, but what you have done to your country.”  He’d make diamonds worthless.  Make gravel precious stones.  Then, the streets would be paved with jewels.  He would institute a reversal of celebrity.  Make movie stars, sports icons, and rock gods pay outrageous ticket prices to watch teachers teach children, maids scrub toilets, and mechanics fix cars.  He’d improvise his speeches and give the world a reason to laugh.  He’d text message the State of the Union Address: M-S, V-P-C, M-O-C, etc., etc., and it’d be the easiest to understand in years.  He’d put humans on the endangered species list, because we’re all one nuclear pissing contest away from extinction.  He’d bring ice cream to NATO meetings and say, “I scream, you scream, we all scream.”  He’d squirt water in Queen Elizabeth’s face.  Pull a rabbit from Hu Jintao’s ear.  Give a balloon to Kim Jong Il.  He’d make the world a fun place.  Make the world a better place.
If Bozo the Clown were President, he’d be assassinated with a smile.

Editor @ March 6, 2010