Mitch by Kurt Newton

Mitch
the fucker
kicked me like a dog
broke my middle finger
the one I could have sworn
he didn’t see
as he hooked his hairy arm
around the bleach blonde
with the melon tits
swinging like two balls
at the back end
of a bulldog
finger’s swollen now
like my pecker was
when melon tits was tiptoeing
her candy apple nails
up and down my shoulder
but where’s my manners
me & Mitch
been friends
since juvie hall
guess I owe him a beer
or two
when he gets back

Kurt Newton’s poetry has appeared in Empty Sink Publishing, Crooked Holster, and Sling Magazine.

 

The Bantam Cock by Rodney Wood

On Friday nights my parents retired
at nine and I stayed up till late to see
On The Braden Beat fronted by a square
jawed Canadian. One night Jake Thackray

played his guitar and sung about
his bantam cock thrusting his attention
on wild eyed hens, hysterical turkeys,
ducks, geese and a visiting migrant swan.

I was thirteen and saw the beautiful
Peter Cook with his extravagant grey hair
say “I gather that sex can be rather fun”
but what I remember most is Jake Thackray

playing his guitar and singing about
his bantam cock thrusting his attention
on wild eyed hens, hysterical turkeys,
ducks, geese and a visiting migrant swan.

It was 1966 and after
half an hour Jake was still singing
and my testicles completed their descent and I knew
it was just for me Jake Thackray was playing

and singing. Me with an erection
wanting to thrust it’s bulging attention
on wild eyed hens, hysterical turkeys,
ducks, geese and a visiting migrant swan
especially that visiting migrant swan.

Rodney Wood is retired and lives in Farnborough. Currently holds the flag for the Woking Stanza and revising a novel, The Poet Assassin. His work has recently appeared in magazines such as Tears in the Fence, South, The Frogmore Papers, Message in a Bottle, The Lake and Stride.

I Watched Her Cum by Jay Miner

I watched her cum
Like a comet
or a brain aneurysm from god

Writer/Photographer Jay Miner has a vast array of artist credits to his name as well as editing and publishing. He has edited and published his own print ‘zine The Rebels Advocate and served as co-editor for The-Hold.com. In print his work has appeared in several self-published chapbooks as well as Wooden Head Review, Peshekee River, and extensively in FUCK! Online credits include The-Hold, Mipo, Mindfire, Lucid Moon, Unlikely Stories, and Red Focks on Facebook. As a spoken word artist he has been commissioned to read at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art and his spoken word recordings were chosen as a Buffalo News local record pick of the week. The novelette Bulls in a China Shop is his latest effort and includes a collection of his photography intertwined with the writing.

Every Sleeping Giant Must Wake by Scott Wozniak

The berserker
inside me
sleeps,
waiting
to adorn
war paint.

Soon
he will rise
with the fire
of ten thousand
demons burning
in his gut.

Hide
women
and children.

Barricade
windows
and doors.

Pray
the rage
is swift.

Scott Wozniak is a poet, short story writer, and chaos enthusiast. His works can be found both online and in print. He is currently working on a book of graphic poems titled, “Clawing the Wind,” that he hopes a publisher will roll the dice on. For more info please visit, about.me/swozniak.

Tavern Cleaner by Richard King Perkins II

In uncertain earliest light

something smolders
in an aluminum ashtray

stale beer
and skank pussy
still cling to fetid air.

Banging on the door

another dumb fuck
screaming about lost drugs

soon crying
fanning money
at the window

saying he’ll buy
whatever I might find.

I flush the sun
and every discovered star
down the toilet

laughing
and poor.

Richard King Perkins II is a state-sponsored advocate for residents in long-term care facilities. He lives in Crystal Lake, IL, USA with his wife, Vickie and daughter, Sage. He is a three-time Pushcart nominee and a Best of the Net nominee whose work has appeared in more than a thousand publications.

 

We Broke In To Condemned Factories and Lit Fires by Michael McInnis

at night the stars
resembled a
sluice of dead light
fractured and
emitting a hum
we heard through
broken windows

Michael McInnis lives in Boston and spent six years in the Navy sailing across the Pacific and Indian Oceans to the Persian Gulf three times, chasing white whales and ended up only with madness. He founded The Primal Plunge, Boston’s only bookstore dedicated to ‘zines and underground culture. He has published poetry and short fiction in numerous little magazines and small presses.

Burn by Matthew Borczon

the world
turns blue
through my
wind shield
on this
snow less
morning I
drive  past
bare trees
looking like
Ohio wood
tip matches
and if
today I
can find
the will
the flame
a little
of what’s
left over
after 50
years and
a war
I can’t
get past
with its
nightmares
and ghosts
and painful
memories
and PTSD
if there
is any
of the
old me
left somewhere
inside my
head  then
I will
light that
match and
laugh as
I watch
everything
burn to
the ground

because sometimes
you need
to scorch
the field
before anything
new will
grow.

Matthew Borczon is a writer and nurse from Erie, Pa he was stationed at Camp Bastion in 2010-11 Serving in the busiest combat Hospital in the war at that time. His experiences there and his life since coming home are the major subject of his work. His work has appeared in Dead Snakes, Rasputin, Fried Chicken and Coffee, Busted Dharma, Revolution John, Dissident Voice and his Chap Book A Clock of Human Bones was published early this year by the Yellow Chair Review. He remains a Navy Sailor and is the father of 4 children and still manages to find time to write.

Telemarket by John Grey

The phone rings.
I don’t pick up.

I’m tired of being polite to the impolite.
No call is ever for my benefit.
The sound of another’s voice is like fingers
roaming the extremities of my wallet.

Even with friends,
I’m more likely to let the answering machine
do the dirty work.
To be honest,
most times friends are just like another kind of telemarketer.
Except in their case,
they can put a face to the number they dial
and not just a name in a database.

Everyone it seems
wants something I don’t have
in exchange for something I don’t need.
The phone just rang again.
It’s only a stickup if I answer it.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in New Plains Review, South Carolina Review, Gargoyle and Silkworm work upcoming in Big Muddy Review, Cape Rock and Spoon River Poetry Review.

 

 

Quarterlife Crisis by Benjamin Blake

Slightly intoxicated by 3PM
In my defense I was having a bad month
Constantly broke and when we stumble into
Crumpled bills and battered coins
We swiftly trade them for a little food in the refrigerator
And cigarettes that don’t seem to ever last between our lips
Feeling lonelier than a divorced interstate truck driver
Who spends starless nights in cheap roadside motel rooms
Charging the blue channel to his morning bill
I think I just crossed the county line into not caring anymore
Its dangerous territory
But I’m familiar with the terrain
Nicotine-stained fingers crossed I can ride this one out
I really hope I can
I really do

Benjamin Blake wines, dines, reads, walks, and writes from the North Island wilds of New Zealand. He’s also the author of A Prayer for Late October, Reciting Shakespeare with the Dead, and Southpaw Nights.

 

Prosody by Ryn Holmes

Ah, such music.
The twang of your song
trills with destination,
flows in and out of my ears,
soft ears deftly teased
by the bop-de-wop
of warm breath, the hum
of moist secrets riding and sliding
on the tip of your tongue,
of dark hands strumming chords
from memory
on the backs of my knees,
fingertips touching all the keys
as lips trumpet on drum-tight skin
all the way down the spine bass-line,
fiddling around….

An award-winning poet and photographer, Ryn Holmes originates from California (Southern and Northern) and now resides along the Gulf Coast of Florida. She is a published writer with works appearing in the Emerald Coast Review, Syzygy Poetry Journal, Four and Twenty zine, Indiana Voice Journal, and Longleaf Pine magazine.