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"Nails"
by David LaBounty

It's what happens
when you take
dinner and love
for granted.
It's what happens
when you call her
from the office
and ask her
what she's
doing and what
she's making,
and
it's what happens
when you don't
like her answer,
because you give
answers all day long,
answers
that no one
likes to hear.
So you hang up
on her as so
many have hung
up on you and
you hang up
on her because
you have to
strike out at
someone and,
it's always
easier to
strike out at
someone who
really can't
defend themselves
until you come
home to some
empty plate
and the silence
scratches your face
like so many ragged
and once manicured
nails.

David LaBounty lives with his wife and two young sons, and his poems have appeared in Dogmatika, Zygote in My Coffee, The Beat, The Panhandler, Pemmican and other journals. His novel The Trinity should be released this summer by Offense Mechanisms. There is more info at his "very boring blog" at http://davidlabounty.blogspot.com/.

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"A Good Home-Schooling"
by Bob Boston

I forced one of my readers
to swallow sandpaper today.
He needed a good stiff drink
to help him clear his throat
after I promised him he'd see
rainbows and pinwheels,
and taste mangoes with coconut cream.
After he finished swallowing that,
I made him devour hot marbles
and ice-cold gravel.
I'm not sure if I would have been able
to live with myself had I gone as far
as I would have liked.
I had planned on dipping him
from head to toe in hot, wet asphalt,
and then rolling him like a homemade
cigarette of cheap tobacco
in a pit of pigeon feathers
until all he could smell
was an onslaught of sulfur
and gun smoke.
Whenever he got indignant,
I made him trip over a comma,
which didn't belong at all.
And that's when he fell,
he fell right onto his own
sour face.
He landed headlong in a saucepan of
boiling water with rude question marks
disgusting as his own colon,
trying to separate his brittle spine
from the ruthless grip of
the pointless orifice
just below.

Bob Boston is brand-spanking new to publishing his poetry. Though he's been writing for years, this is his first publication.

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"Duane Hanson Remnant"
by Jeff Crouch

daddy left to mow the lawn
in shorts
dress shoes and socks
and the lawnmower chirps

Hawaiian shirt

the shopping cart contains
beer can after beer can
and you remain concerned
about my driving

polyester splotched resin flesh

and today the sky is bright,
more metal than sponge--
did you get a wig
with a bald spot--

flabby butt

we put out the lawn chairs
and spray on bug repellent
we glue down the astroturf
and sweep the sidewalk

aluminum tastes like--

the radio doesn't do
we have supplied fresh batteries
not the ancient tunes
--bug repellent

I think fiberglass

you say, "Rub on more lotion."
yet your cellulite disturbs you
meanwhile, the water hose is
filling the baby pool

reflector oven

Jeff Crouch is a writer in Grand Prairie, Texas. His writing has appeared in dozens of online magazines. Google "Jeff Crouch" to find out more.

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"E-Mail to Damniso Lopez 159"
by Duane Locke

After aperitif an agreement accorded,
Whatever it was, something to do
With the color of rain water, or
Was it some to do with a Machiavellian
Misdemeanor. There might have been
References to mysticism or the Magi.
It would have been warfare if I confessed
That it was Enlil who made plans
For the organization of the earth.
I quickly changed the topic to a
Discussion of the Golden Silk Spider
That made a web on the clothes line
In the backyard of my house on
North Jefferson in the Tampa slums.
Hearing my story, she became very sad.
It was when I had a dog, and he parked
The car. But I did not want to continue
This conversation. I needed a quiet
Place where I could meditate, and try to recall
What we, her and I, had agreed on.

Living in rural Lakeland, Florida, Duane Locke, Ph. D. (Metaphysical Poetry) has had (as of May 2007) 5,877 poems published in print and e-zines. 17 print and e-books published. Also a painter exhibited widely--a discussion of his work appears in Gary Monroe's Extraordinary Interpretations (U. of Florida Press). Recent exhibition, "Outsider Art," at Polk Museum. A photographer, 289 photos published on the Internet. Does close-ups of tossed away trash, Mystic vegetation, visual music and nature (primarily small insects). For more information, interviews, awards, etc., click on Google, has quasi half-million entries. Is listed in Who's Who in America (Marquis).