A Poem by Bill Jansen

7 or 8

slippery dots of light

copied headlights
that glide on the side
of my 94 mazda pickup
parked in a (question) zone
sw 14th & jefferson

another young actress
waits for the 17 bus
on the same corner
looking the look

7 or 8
slippery tears of light
shed by the traffic
that hums the hum
that cannot stop to cry

sun welding the west hills to something

bus shadow

the corner brown and empty
as 1946.




Bill lives in Forest Grove, Oregon. Some of his works has appeared
in The Centrifugal Eye, Cirque, and Asinine Poetry.

Two Poems by Joe Massingham

Pyramid Selling

Pyramid

selling has

nothing to do

with pyramids. It doesn’t

involve a pyramid and the

‘team’ shape is more like a

pagoda or a spire than a pyramid.

The point of the exercise is to enrol

as many sales people as possible, each bringing in

a small sum of money, most of which goes into

the pockets of those who set up the pyramid. It is

a ‘recruit and grow rich’ con, in which the originators are winners,

whilst everyone else is left digging the sand, wondering where their money’s gone.

Tom Price

Skeletal arm stretched out towards tomorrow, fist closed but sharp knuckles show.

The arm

lowers

from

the

shoulder,

its nails scrabble in the ground like a wanderer seeking water, grasping rusty dust, then

lifts,

swings, releases

it into

waiting

Magog’s giant dinky trucks.

And so from day to day the dust flows out

leaving scarred flesh to darken further

in the burning sun, waiting for the day

the ore is gone and brooding silence

regains its grip for another million years

or more.

Tom price is an outback iron ore mine in Western australia .

A Poem by Aaron What

Human Certification Exam

Section One.Please circle the one best answer.

1)Which of the following statements is true?

a.I plan to buy your product

b.Any of this matters

c.Television is alive

d.I studied

e.All of the above

 

 

Aaron What is a top-ranking agent of The Deception. His or her talents include insincerity and misdirection.

 

 

 

 

 

A Poem by Gary Hewitt

De-liberation

Portal

White, cool to finger

Blue haze

Come alive

Eyes twitch with impatient hunger

Enter an enchanted world.

I float on a Roman spaceship. With nuclear lollipops I obliterate worlds. I am come: the goat king of the Poppylots. I hear voices in a cacophonous whirlpool of fornication .I store billions in my data wallet and words snake in divine obedience. With a ninja finger I slay foes and embolden allies in a fair of sparrows. I, the bringer of light and devourer of darkness. Zeus licks my boot-up: I may gift him a parking permit for Fido’s Puppies.

I am slave,

to irrelevant binary.

Gary Hewitt is a raconteur who lives in a quaint little village in Kent. He has written a fair few tales over the years some of which have been published in Mbrane, various anthologies, Twisted Tongue, Morpheus Tales, Morpheus Tales Best Of Weird Fiction Volume 1, Smokebox, Slingink Magazine, Short Story Net, PygmyGiant and Bewildering Tales.

He is also not afraid to dabble in the arcane art of poetry. He’s a proud member of The Write Idea and sometimes writes the odd flash fiction tale on that venerable website. He is also a proud member of the Hazlitt Arts Centre Writers group in Maidstone which continues to grow from strength to strength.

He has produced an anthology of his flash fiction available in e-book from : http://www.lulu.com/author/content_revise.php?fCID=9607218

Three Poems by Doug Draime

               
                            Chant Twice On Any Moonlit River

It was the same as was it was the same the

Same as was it was the same as was is it

It was it was it was it is the it is it is the same

The thing it is it was it is it was it is it is it same

As it

A was there inside a was there inside the inside

Inside inside inside it was inside the same it is it

And it was there inside inside a was it is it too

There inside a was inside it it was as a same as

A same was

It was the same as was it was the same the

Same as was it was the same as was is it

It was it was it was it is the it is it is the same

The thing it is it was it is it was it is it is it same

As it

A was there inside a was there inside the inside

Inside inside inside it was inside the same it is it

And it was there inside inside a was it is it too

There inside a was inside it it was as a same as

A same was

It was the same as was it was the same the

Same as was it was the same as was is it

It was it was it was it is the it is it is the same

The thing it is it was it is it was it is it is it same

As it

A was there inside a was there inside the inside

Inside inside inside it was inside the same it is it

And it was there inside inside a was it is it too

There inside a was inside it it was as a same as

A same was

The Way The World Works

up

side

down

full

of

blood

with

no

plug

for

the

invisable

drain

bio-scopes:

part 237

fang he was

unsettled working

as a storm storming

(steel sleet

&

quick murders)

polluting all his

wars where it or

nothing was

behind

nothing

not even

fang who (with 2 black eyes)

never

had a

way with wars

when

he

died

fang i’m

sure

it was

wars with him

always unsettled

polluting

& wonder-

ing

why

 

 

 

 

 

 

Doug Draime has a full-length collection due out

from Interior Noise Press in 2012. A presence in the

underground literary movement for nearly five decades.

Most recent books in print include: Los Angeles Terminal:

Poems 1971-1980 (Covert Press) and Rock 'n Roll Jizz

(Propaganda Press ). Awarded small PEN grants in

1987, 1991, and 1992. Nominated for several Pushcart

Prizes in last few years. He lives in the foothills of Oregon.

Two Poems by John Pursch

Attic Steak

Itchy bonbons steer the few tiled embers of a rounded heel, sorting torn fealty and tendons of silt. Electronic simians float atop bipedal code, recurring in daylight screams of fissile ponds and soaring endorphin steam, plastered on baked masks. Fractal droplets steer the sky to soaking lands of hourly peeks at churning ham and ankles, hocked in mock effusion. Shaped charcoal mops stir a locust well, immersing schoolboy taunts in honey, lifting whirled warrens to hired clothes. Pen pals practice pinning trestle rain to tournament steers, simpering to starboard, cavalier and ignoble. Trained to flip a boxy chartered caliper, figurines mesmerize encrusted gulls, mousing a stentorian peg to varsity stove dispersion. Minted by the Cleveland administration, today’s patties pair backpack choirs with outer queries, contracting post-whir nervosa, tagging herbal canaries. Seaside poise engulfs a fleck of etched heuristics, quashing procedural tantrums when idiosyncratic piers apply for hooves. Parried go-karts hatch impassioned solar touts, resting on statistical glows, clearing radium cereal. Sugars emerge from mynahs, porked and stoppered, hitting insulation pores with mounting equine tundra. Ineluctable masks place addled sleepers in third-tier getaway schemes, acting out for understudies of a marginal glute. Hectares slip through eel replays, stitching bombers to currency drams, chiding a deckhand’s spousal toucan trainer for nautical persimmon takes. Rays of guilt peer below socket sand, glimpsing heated oils, sneezed by wise erotic wafters of an imminent plaid ruble. Motto makers walk the crock but cower before trusty naivete, pitching until ham lopers free the liberal gurney from encased comics. How soothing, the real, effective semblance of warm expressive wrists can be, scrambling logs beyond the frozen punji cliques. Only scarlet employs a more envious ape mask, doughty and crumpled in cornerstone news, regarding smudged adjudication with sneering high-top gourds. Of course the striated enemy can’t waddle; that’d break brachistochrones in national wedding toll streams, foiling an augury before manacles were demented. Cilia mooch a yelling docket, breeching misty corduroys, slashing focal ointment. Halls of chesty terminals inch backward, painting aisles intact, glamorizing framed invertebrates on shadier notes. Cordoned often, destined for seminal greening, life assistants cadge a sorely dreamt bouncer, leafing under tailors, stacking oxen for waybill burgers. Chaff sides with fliers, fragging the lead xylophonist, obeying counters, mending canned stoics with attic steak.

Moth Giggles

Defalcation grazed the catapult, ushering dawdlers into tritium seams, where sunlight pines for canny berms. Leeward saddles right the coiling chap, mince a chef’s true facemask, and cobble forth in circles, broaching a spherical boot. Skillets bubble ginseng steam, draining coughs from caverns, branding taped doormen with supersonic wilting pools. Aft omissions curl the governor’s palace; perisytles collapse, deputizing cardinals, canning limpers for dawn. Conjuring tracks from vertical ears, moguls measure ascetic slots, lap up crown whorls, and map infusion tucks to cyclic oats. Alluvial belief repels a fragrance with auxiliaries, favoring translucent hermits. The more a fly tries fate’s liberating haze, the heavier its solitary stammering will be. Even so, a fountain taps imagined ease, willing windfalls on unexpected aisles. Points of ordinary speed veer through monthly grays, startling reflected trees. Apples trot in candle fiords, pleasing a porcelain truth. Smoldering in parallel, au pair weekends whistle past elastic locks, investing torn murals with colloidal urchins. Eager wheelies crawl in pickled flan, pitting glaze against horses. Actuaries jostle ogres, sifting orbits for elemental stew, only to founder on motorboat fluff. Frazzled zealots fritter aweigh, catcalling feline augers, seeping into paranormal shade. Adders torch gullies of tidal couth, releasing moth giggles, curdling sand and seawall gloom. Skin cologne wraps tangled crypts in geyser hounds, mixing tonic smoke, stocking ropes for tulip rosters. Checking the keg permanence, braying striders whisk away a tree, trying on an iron gasket. Scythes risk amethyst on wild caloric stains, pair off to blackened flak, and search for solid lips, basking in a Tartar’s irrigated seal.

John Pursch lives in Tucson, Arizona. His work has appeared in The Camel Saloon, Counterexample Poetics, experiential-experimental-literature, and elsewhere. His fiction piece “Watchingstoned, T.V.” was recently nominated for the Sundress Best of the Net 2012 Anthology. His first book, Intunesia, is available in paperback from White Sky Books at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/whiteskybooks . You can follow him on twitter at http://twitter.com/johnpursch or on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/john.pursch .

A Poem by Chris Butler

Toad

Even desperate princesses

French kiss frogs.

 

Chris Butler is a twentysomething nobody shouting from the Quiet Corner of Connecticut.

A Poem by Travis Laurence Naught

A Fly's Life

A house fly buzzing around any room does not need much

A spot to land in order to rest his million miles per hour furiously beating wings at the same rate an electrical charge cycles and is ready to zap again into open-air space

A bit of consumption to provide fuel for these clear membrane wings enabling them to pump at a fast enough rate to lift his oversize and engorged blimp body from whatever treat was chosen to feast upon

A willing mate that will allow him to propagate the species ensuring the survival of these buzz winged bugs who are only allowed to live for three to five days before succumbing to natures cruelest trick of death by old age unless instantaneous departure is granted by a hand, swatter or striped rubber shoe sole

A want is not considered to the flea sized brain held behind gigantic eyes that see more during one instant in time than a single object focused human could ever hope to view let alone process even if he had slowed the earth's rotation down to a crawl so that the second hand on a watch appeared to be stuck in molasses because a fly's metabolism is sped up to the level of dog years to the 50th and things happen quickly or not at all

A plan is not put together in the name of deviance as a way to get at some prize pile of shit before the rest of his friends come circling in ruining the flavor for him since more really is merrier when it comes to the social life of a fly that enjoys feasting and fucking as much as the next insect with needs to be met in his own short span that is devoid of any meaning rather than to spread the transferable diseases that feast on all sorts of animal life creating work for doctors and veterinarians who need the lowly house fly and should be grateful to God for their small purpose



Travis Laurence Naught is a poet who happens to be a quadriplegic wheelchair user. He earned a bachelor's in psychology from Eastern Washington University in 2005. His first book collection, The Virgin Journals, was released by ASD Publishing in March of the 2012. It received an honorable mention in the biography/autobiography category at the 2012 San Francisco Book Festival and was used as curriculum in a disability studies course at EWUniversity. Other poems by him have been published online at http://www.deadmansreach.com, http://49writers.blogspot.com, http://www.pyrokinection.com/ and http://www.ravensbrew.com as well as in print in the 2012 Northwest Boulevard and The Easterner, both released by EWU. You can follow his daily update page online at www.facebook.com/TravisLaurenceNaught

A Poem by Janet Rice Carnahan

STAGES OF SELF DEVELOPMENT

 

In the beginning . . .

S l o w crawling,

Weak STANDING,

Quick r u n n i n g . . .

Trip and

f

                          a

                                l

                                       l

                                               i

                                                        n

                                                                g

                                                           n

                            i

                       s

                   i

                          R

   Only to stumble again . . .

Until, I could stand no more!

And once I took that stance,

                       In came every chance,

To twirl, shout and dance,

Becoming true to myself, now as I stand . . .

I see it Took all the rest,

Before I’d understand,

Life is best taken . . .

just

one

step

at

                                                                 a

                                                                              time!

      

 

 

 

Janet Rice Carnahan’s muse simply cannot just color within the lines, stay in the box or stick to form without being slightly left of right. Thankfully for the creative pulse of poetry, she doesn't have to contain her muse instead she can be led by it. Janet’s poetry has been published on three online poetry sites, “Pyrokinection”, “Jellyfish Whispers” and “The Mind [less] Muse”, one anthology, “Prompted: An International Collection of Poems”and on one tee-shirt! She lives in Laguna Beach, California among artists, photographers and writers, who also find delight in the unique perspective. Must be that grand ocean air and for the muse, a cool beach within reach! A dance on the sand truly does it wonders!

Three Poems by Shellie Richards

 

One-Horse Town Life

 

Over coffee and a cigarette she’ll tell you

about her one-horse town life.

 

The one paved with lies where the only stop sign was truth but she ran it

cold and just kept going on a ride she calls pain that she learned to harness a long time ago.

Errands

 

The ticking of an old clock

Mingles with the sound of the radical talk show host

AMwaves crawling up the walls to the metal rooftop

The owner steps up

You’re a writer. Do you know what a split infinitive is?

It is an accusation - not a question.

 

In another place on the same day

the air is acrid with the smell of regret

Or leather or shoe polish or the motor oil of an old machine

His filthy arms trailing down to the black underneath his fingernails

New soles?

It’s a presumption. Not a question.

 

Academia Unraveled

 

She’s slowly filling her

empty intellectual arsenal

stealing wisdom when she can and building

ideas as crumbs

fall from the table where only the sophomoric

are invited to sit or to speak or to write.

 

An aurora borealis of philosophy and biology swirls in her coffee cup and she thinks it is here the key to the future is forged for isn’t it here

that the curtain rises for an encore performance by the dull while

the cerebral applaud and

corruption and greed are fast partners if it means time can be lassoed.

But she knows it can’t so

she spend hers collecting crumbs.

 

 

 

 

Shellie Richards’ work has previously appeared in Bartleby Snopes (Winner, story of the month, January 2012), theBelmont Literary Journal, The Chaffey Review, Vanderbilt University’s Tabula Rasa and Pyrokinection. She lives in Nashville with her husband and three children. She works at Vanderbilt University where she edits scientific papers for publication and is currently finishing an M.A. in English (writing). She has just completed writing her first novel.

A Poem by Christopher Kenneth Hanson

-Letting

Dank spirals,

-suction cups of hiss

I have drawn blood

look-nehee and how!

And the lust seems to writhe slow-

limbo like-in drips of figure.

And now fall, fall.

Through dank spirals,

Some awe-(the suction cups of hiss)

We have drawn copious amounts of blood

As now, as we all-

symbolic in the red lust light-

The satisfaction not necessarily guaranteed;

Presume only copyright.

 

 

 

Christopher Kenneth Hanson (ckhanson81)

http://sites.google.com/site/ckhanson81}

https://www.youtube.com/user/ckhanson81

https://sites.google.com/site/indieartsl/

A Poem by De Jackson

  Lake Ache

       Shake
       her veins
and they bleed
             blue;
     saltwater
     fresh, too
     indigo
          turquoise
     aquamarine
      wave
  her long
         -ing
  lost soul
           to saturate
    save.



De Jackson is a parent, a poet and a Pro Crastinator (not necessarily in that order.) She pens ads for money, poems for love, and doodles turquoise in the margins of life because she can’t help herself. She has been known to commune with trees, and she breathes best with inky fingers and salty sea-soaked toes. De scribbles daily at www.whimsygizmo.wordpress.com.

A Poem by Tiani Kennedy

The Persistence of Memory

Pricked by time now sleep. Numbers melt off faces of clocks and settle into the quicksand of Big Bangs. Ruby bead slips from finger into ebony to birth a universe. Ripples roll through tea-light constellations. Reconfigure Orion to the incision of her hand. Call it Midwood. You’ll never forget me then. But wait. Wait on the landing between zodiac flights. Wait on the buckle of stars’ broken belts. Leather is easily repaired. Use ivory stitches and he says go with him. Neither ascend nor descend into realms where black holes like piranhas swim. The leatherworker lays hides into moving sidewalks beneath an acrylic tunnel. Moons and suns are dots in black water. Stretch forth hand to usher follower. Her opened flesh stains the metal hinge of his watch. Forever’s remains. Are you coming?

Though born in Jamaica, West Indies, Tiani Kennedy grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y. She is currently pursuing an M.F.A. in Creative Writing at Long Island University’s Brooklyn campus. There, she works as a tutor in the Writing Center and will teach a freshman composition course this coming fall. In addition to writing both fiction and poetry, she is also a studio artist who paints and draws mostly surreal images.

A Poem by Bill Jansen

Madam Zsa Zsa

As peach tree
rings a neighbor's doorbell.

I hope they got my apology
at the Pia Mater Gym.

(space junk floats by there)

Sorry.

I had to delete Madam Zsa Zsa
who is really too interesting
to write about.

(Listen to really good jazz
be a stupid tourist
wherever you are
don't listen to jazz
or be a stupid tourist)

OK, I get that part, Madame Zsa Zsa.

But I don't know why lovers care
why everyone is so kind.


It is a morning to watch

It is a morning to watch

miniature landings
on a blackberry airport
behind my apartment

Pans and coffee cups
soak in the kitchen sink.
Past the chain-link fence
where the airport hangs,
an industrial lot,
machinery on gravel:
something with a long curving neck.

I seal myself in an envelope
postmarked thirty years ago
(a 5-cent stamp--blue jays on motorcycles)
as the microwave timer nears zero.

The envelope is now
in the all-purpose drawer
with batteries and tax returns.

The little landings and take-offs continue.
A starling imitates a feral calico cat
slamming into the fence.



Bill Jansen lives in Forest Grove, Oregon. Some of his work has appeared in
The Centrifugal Eye, Cirque, and Asinine Poetry.

Two Poems by William Wright Harris

self-portrait in hell

flames lick

          at munch’s

                    naked frame

smoke and ash

         darken

                  his hair

face staring

         out from

                   canvas

eyes somehow

         indifferent

                   to the fires

but in

         agony

                   nonetheless

circle

1938-41

oil serpents &

cranes &

fish &

rivers&

lakes &

leaves &

grass &

rainbows &

jackson pollock

drunk again

together on a

fiberboard circle

His poetry has appeared in twelve countries in such publications as The Cannon’s Mouth, Ascent Aspirations, generations and Write On!!! A student at the University of Tennessee- Knoxville, he has studied poetry in workshop settings.

Three Poems by Eric Muller

Words in a Bottle

             rib-

  boned.       and

A                   sealed

  rolled        paper

        piece of

Asleeping beauty lying on a soft pink pillow ~~~~O

His hands trembled as he…………….r.e..a…c….h…..e……d

for this G L A S S S sss env-elope

knowing that some-‘dinc’ will be un-veiled

bUt! UnsUre if his life woUld

E_____V_____E_____R

be the same again

           same again

                   again

             …. gain….

the cork came out ease-lilly

& the cats on the papyrus

sat & watched in the margins

&                                      &

&                                      &

&                                      &

&                                      &

He placed the bottle aside [ĬĬ]

un^tied the crimson band

and b’ro’ke the emerald seal

and un-r--o---l----l----e-----d the epistle

THREE BOLD WORDS

            !     !!!!   !!!

stared at him         and he

                           fell

                           to

                           his

                           knees

              and shouted

“!YesSheDoes! ! !SheDoes!”

                ! !!!! !!!

Abandoned Couplets

Boomers and       late bloomers

fight over      who gets       the ticket.

Nowhere is      there more com-----post

than north     of the        Plum Street        com------mercial.

Shing-----les      burn through        velvet screens

turning delight     into ribbons         of red.

Filtered rancor      fuels mistakes

camouflaged with      placebo paste.

Botox wrinkles     of an       oiled cougar

con------jures     mink smiles        and money.

A hum        rattles the      loose screw

with sympathetic       vibra------tions.

In------animate      gadgets unite

to squirm       in discomfort.

No thread        is linked

least of    (all)     the red.

          Time to

      aban-----don.

Eric G. Müller is a musician, teacher and writer living in upstate New York. He has written two novels, Rites of Rock (Adonis Press 2005) and Meet Me at the Met (Plain View Press, 2010), as well as a collection of poetry, Coffee on the Piano for You (Adonis Press, 2008). Articles, short stories and poetry have appeared in many journals and magazines. www.ericgmuller.com