Blame it on symmetry.
How near are her eyes to carefully constructed bridge of nose. Does she starve. Are her hips like the horizon, without fault or curve. Is her skin more mocha than medium rare. What blooms in the months outside of spring or autumn and when the leaves go away, how sturdy are the branches. Does your grass wilt or does it arrive like green erections plunged out of earth’s pores.
Blame it on what distracts us. Call it brushed air. Call it removed particles of mistake.
Her smile is white and heterosexual. His hair is without recede. That home is window’d and gorgeous due to its skylights and built-in 401K plan. Does her cellulite show. Does your health plan cover the creams you will need to rub it away. What is your routine. How many chemicals have attempted to peel away your skin; I think you might be beautiful under that fifth layer. Keep ripping at yourself. Scoop out and where there is tunnel, there is possibility for better.
Blame it on tents and drawers and the tenacity of lies. Collocate implant with imbalance.
Remove your girdle now. Help the redheaded dancer with her zipper and linger your looks at the way she folds like love letters. Quietly ask if you can dance your language into the cleavage of her mind. And the other one with painted eyebrows, thicker than the remorse from your 20s. She is beautiful too. And that graffiti’d church that might be a bank now or was but has become a collaborative celebration of dripped paint now. And her nipples. And that cloud that kind of looks like your best friend from tenth grade. And that fence, painted turquoise. And your neck. And that meal you fed me when my palms were too tired to lift and curl. And that Wednesday you fell asleep inside me. And that rooftop garden. And the smell of patchouli you snuck inside magazine. And your sodium. And my blood. And that too.
#
http://aimeeherman.wordpress.com/
Showing posts with label 1/25 5. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1/25 5. Show all posts
28 March 2014
27 March 2014
BIDDING ADIEU by Aparna Pathak
He puffed every breath
To paint a dream with smoke
But with every exhalation
He could see colors
Bidding adieu to life
To paint a dream with smoke
But with every exhalation
He could see colors
Bidding adieu to life
24 March 2014
IF YOU CAN’T STAND THE HEAT by Cassandra Dallett
even the trees look tired
the sad brown grass about to combust
the Low Rider Oldies are singing smoothly for the cool of dusk
It’s tempting to start the drink now
but with the sun this high
I’d be laid out with the dogs
panting
a gin and tonic sweating a glass with lime
reminds me of last night
how the boy was lapping me
how he grinds into me
my hips a bowl of oatmeal
butter melting the middle
how he always finds a deeper spot
then my phone rings
and I need to go home
make up stories
explain the stoned look
in my eye.
#
Cassandra Dallett occupies Oakland, CA. Cassandra writes of a counter culture childhood in Vermont and her ongoing adolescence in San Francisco Bay Area. She has published in Slip Stream, Sparkle and Blink, Out Of Our, Up The River, Hip Mama, and The Criminal Class Review, among many others. A full-length book of poetry Wet Reckless will be released from Manic D Press in the spring of 2014.
the sad brown grass about to combust
the Low Rider Oldies are singing smoothly for the cool of dusk
It’s tempting to start the drink now
but with the sun this high
I’d be laid out with the dogs
panting
a gin and tonic sweating a glass with lime
reminds me of last night
how the boy was lapping me
how he grinds into me
my hips a bowl of oatmeal
butter melting the middle
how he always finds a deeper spot
then my phone rings
and I need to go home
make up stories
explain the stoned look
in my eye.
#
Cassandra Dallett occupies Oakland, CA. Cassandra writes of a counter culture childhood in Vermont and her ongoing adolescence in San Francisco Bay Area. She has published in Slip Stream, Sparkle and Blink, Out Of Our, Up The River, Hip Mama, and The Criminal Class Review, among many others. A full-length book of poetry Wet Reckless will be released from Manic D Press in the spring of 2014.
23 March 2014
LITTLE GIRL STARES by J. Bradley
at herself in the mirror. Little girl asks, pleads, demand I show myself, to come out. I whisper to her bones if I walk outside of her skin, the air untwine me until I am molecule, then atom, then memory. Little girl asks what is a molecule. I remind her skin, nerves, bones how the only science she understands is the science of want, how she constantly confuses it for need.
#
J. Bradley is the author of the graphic poetry collection The Bones of Us (YesYes Books), with art by Adam Scott Mazer. He lives at iheartfailure.net.
#
J. Bradley is the author of the graphic poetry collection The Bones of Us (YesYes Books), with art by Adam Scott Mazer. He lives at iheartfailure.net.
11 March 2014
10 March 2014
GRATEFUL I SUPPOSE by Rob Plath
on fire
up to my
fucking neck
while at
the center
of a
frozen lake
i still have
my sight
to foolishly
gaze at
the stars
up to my
fucking neck
while at
the center
of a
frozen lake
i still have
my sight
to foolishly
gaze at
the stars
01 March 2014
MEETING RIC by Puma Perl
I pulled the rental over,
a 4 cylinder pussy car
reeking of stale Marlboros.
Ric was waiting in the lobby.
Hadn’t seen him in a while.
He looked bigger than I remembered,
tried to figure out if his size
made my ass look smaller
but couldn’t get the right angle,
and then the elevator came,
the doors shut, and he pulled
up my skirt and shoved his hands
down my pants, a signature move,
if I remember correctly, but hot
just the same. Smoothly, he slid
the hotel key into the slot,
as he has done in every state
and several countries, unzipped
his pants and waited. He didn’t
have long to wait, but he never
did, not for anything he wanted.
When were finished, he followed me
to the Dollar Rental, I dumped
the jalopy, jumped into his old Cougar,
and we looked for a place to eat,
finally wound up in a steakhouse
with an old-fashioned jukebox
and beer on tap. We played the old
ones – Stones, Neil Young, even
a little bit of Bruce – the window
looked out on the empty main street
of another nameless town, I guess
everyone was home watching TV
or fucking or playing with their kids.
We were passing through, as usual,
planes leaving that night, he’d drive
south, I’d fly west, or maybe
the other way round, never mattered.
Said good-bye at the terminal,
pretended I didn’t care, he drew
shades down over his eyes, a hug,
a moment, gone till next summer
or next year, we always turn up
some place, ride an elevator,
eat a steak, kill a night, always
on our way somewhere else,
never much matters where.
a 4 cylinder pussy car
reeking of stale Marlboros.
Ric was waiting in the lobby.
Hadn’t seen him in a while.
He looked bigger than I remembered,
tried to figure out if his size
made my ass look smaller
but couldn’t get the right angle,
and then the elevator came,
the doors shut, and he pulled
up my skirt and shoved his hands
down my pants, a signature move,
if I remember correctly, but hot
just the same. Smoothly, he slid
the hotel key into the slot,
as he has done in every state
and several countries, unzipped
his pants and waited. He didn’t
have long to wait, but he never
did, not for anything he wanted.
When were finished, he followed me
to the Dollar Rental, I dumped
the jalopy, jumped into his old Cougar,
and we looked for a place to eat,
finally wound up in a steakhouse
with an old-fashioned jukebox
and beer on tap. We played the old
ones – Stones, Neil Young, even
a little bit of Bruce – the window
looked out on the empty main street
of another nameless town, I guess
everyone was home watching TV
or fucking or playing with their kids.
We were passing through, as usual,
planes leaving that night, he’d drive
south, I’d fly west, or maybe
the other way round, never mattered.
Said good-bye at the terminal,
pretended I didn’t care, he drew
shades down over his eyes, a hug,
a moment, gone till next summer
or next year, we always turn up
some place, ride an elevator,
eat a steak, kill a night, always
on our way somewhere else,
never much matters where.
26 February 2014
25 February 2014
TONKA TRUCKS by Michael Hemmingson
We were both
three or four
and beat each other senseless
with our big yellow Tonka trucks, our young mothers
amazed we had no bruises,
cuts or broken bones.
This is what my mother tells me, anyway;
I have no memory of this
other boy I played violent Tonka trucks with
as if we were mini sumo wrestlers
covered in armor.
I do remember the trucks,
thick and hard diecast metal,
American made in a time
before outsourcing—ah, the notion of
inferior toys from Asian sweatshops
makes me feel like I am four or five again,
drinking sour milk and puking
like a poisoned prisoner inside Abu Gahrib.
I wonder if that other boy’s mother
told him the same,
amazed at the resilience of
tiny young bodies
too innocent to know better,
and if he yearns, as I do,
for the days of strength and simplicity.
three or four
and beat each other senseless
with our big yellow Tonka trucks, our young mothers
amazed we had no bruises,
cuts or broken bones.
This is what my mother tells me, anyway;
I have no memory of this
other boy I played violent Tonka trucks with
as if we were mini sumo wrestlers
covered in armor.
I do remember the trucks,
thick and hard diecast metal,
American made in a time
before outsourcing—ah, the notion of
inferior toys from Asian sweatshops
makes me feel like I am four or five again,
drinking sour milk and puking
like a poisoned prisoner inside Abu Gahrib.
I wonder if that other boy’s mother
told him the same,
amazed at the resilience of
tiny young bodies
too innocent to know better,
and if he yearns, as I do,
for the days of strength and simplicity.
#
24 February 2014
NIGHT IS LIKE THE DISMAL by David McLean
night is like the dismal that was the dying industrial
and there are animals sleeping in all the absences
their tiny eternity, monsters flourish in the gray men
who are dropping memories like dust on a highway,
dust on one timeless lifetime
and the angry is thriving, it is tiny and inefficient
like a butterfly's wings, like corpses and living things
and there are animals sleeping in all the absences
their tiny eternity, monsters flourish in the gray men
who are dropping memories like dust on a highway,
dust on one timeless lifetime
and the angry is thriving, it is tiny and inefficient
like a butterfly's wings, like corpses and living things
#
David McLean is from Wales but has lived in Sweden since 1987. He lives there with his dog, Oscar, and his computers. In addition to seven chapbooks, McLean is the author of four full-length poetry collections: Cadaver's Dance (Whistling Shade Press, 2008), Pushing Lemmings (Erbacce Press, 2009), Laughing at Funerals (Epic Rites Press, 2010) and Nobody Wants to Go to Heaven But Everyone Wants to Die (Oneiros Books, June 2013). A fifth full length collection Things the Dead Say is coming from Onerios Books early next year. His first novel Henrietta Remembers is due in 2014 from Unlikely Books. Another novel and a sixth full length book are due later. The latest chapbook Shouting at Ghosts is now available from Grey Book Press. More information about McLean can be found at his blog http://mourningabortion.blogspot.com/
23 February 2014
BADLY by Christy Gualtieri
A woman talks, sips coffee.
Her face
was burned once.
Badly.
Her nose is as flat and large
as a Muppet’s
and her upper lip is gone.
It’s been said that
the last word John Wilkes Booth
muttered was
“Useless,”
meaning his hands, meaning everything.
Her mouth, too, is useless:
a gaping hole, a vacuum tube
forever bent out of shape.
I stare at her.
I try not to think of my mother,
of the tumor that has hijacked
the side of her face,
lassoing it so that her smile
is not a smile anymore,
just a straight line
where I
and my brothers
and my father
used to be.
Her face
was burned once.
Badly.
Her nose is as flat and large
as a Muppet’s
and her upper lip is gone.
It’s been said that
the last word John Wilkes Booth
muttered was
“Useless,”
meaning his hands, meaning everything.
Her mouth, too, is useless:
a gaping hole, a vacuum tube
forever bent out of shape.
I stare at her.
I try not to think of my mother,
of the tumor that has hijacked
the side of her face,
lassoing it so that her smile
is not a smile anymore,
just a straight line
where I
and my brothers
and my father
used to be.
22 February 2014
THIS BAG IS NOT A TOY by Howie Good
While great thinkers
are thinking great thoughts,
I’ve been searching
for the goldfish I won
at the carnival as a kid
and carried around
the rest of the night
in a clear plastic bag.
The student interns
only seem to be helping.
I recommend that we spread out.
Somewhere near here
there’s a suicide bomber
in a dynamite vest,
and the persistent hum
of free downloads,
and me being me.
are thinking great thoughts,
I’ve been searching
for the goldfish I won
at the carnival as a kid
and carried around
the rest of the night
in a clear plastic bag.
The student interns
only seem to be helping.
I recommend that we spread out.
Somewhere near here
there’s a suicide bomber
in a dynamite vest,
and the persistent hum
of free downloads,
and me being me.
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