Faulty Mindbomb

The End...

2007-12-16T08:49:00.000-05:00

...for now, I'm afraid.

Will keep this page up as long as Facebook'll have me.

Thanks so much to all the contributors.

Happy holidays!

Robert

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2007-11-16T19:02:00.000-05:00

"Passion"
by Caili Wilk

My two-year-old son crushed
his cherished Mac the truck
box today. He loved that box
with such vigor, such uncontrollable
passion, he all but annihilated it.
Mommy, unsquash it--
his eyes naive and expectant.
I did my best, but the sides
were bashed in, and besides,
it can't stand alone anymore.
Tomorrow when I throw it away,
my son will cry, my box, my box,
I want my box. I will lament
with him--for him, for me.

The toy truck is shiny still,
standing with a permanent
smirk. We never learn.

Caili Wilk is a student and hopes to graduate one day, though probably not in May. She was born and raised in the UK, but after almost 13 years in California, sometimes she is mistaken for an Australian.

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2007-10-15T15:23:00.000-05:00

"Home From the War"
by Howie Good

for Mikey O.

They said the Army would be good for you
supply the discipline you needed

and when you came back at 21
with a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart

there was a ceremony at the high school
with speeches and a color guard

and they renamed a park after you
and planted a tree but you didn't know

how could you at the top of the hill
under a simple stone in the town cemetery

Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Death of the Frog Prince (2004) and Heartland (2007), both from FootHills Publishing. He was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize and is the featured poet in the Autumn 2007 issue of The Grand Rapids Literary Review. This poem originally appeared in New Verse News.

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2007-10-05T21:38:00.000-05:00

"Believe Me"
by Patricia Kennelly

peaches taste better
if they're stolen
from your neighbor's tree
back towards the alley
where the chain-link fence
is broken

on a new moon night
find where black squirrels
have left half-gnawed,
half-ripe ones like
hansel-gretel crumbs

the limb hangs heavy
with the fuzzy globes
you push aside
the glossy leaves
to find one

my advice
eat it
in your garden

Patricia Kennelly is a freelance writer/editor and poet who currently lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Her work has appeared most recently in Artella, The Pointed Circle, Alembic and the Irish American Post. When she's not writing, editing or stealing peaches, she's nagging people about "writing daily" at her blog http://writingnag.blogspot.com.

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2007-09-30T00:39:00.000-05:00

"After a drink at the Tavern"
by Caili Wilk

Labor Day again, and my sister
gave birth, while I was walking

down the pier hand in hand thinking,
we must, at least, look like lovers.

I even believed it myself as we
kissed and thought we should be.

Caili Wilk is a student and hopes to graduate one day, though probably not in May. She was born and raised in the UK, but after almost 13 years in California, sometimes she is mistaken for an Australian.

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2007-09-21T15:27:00.000-05:00

"Easter"
by Linda Benninghoff

You blew bubbles
From a bubble kit
In the bookstore restaurant
Saying, I don't care if they kick me out.
I think you are ushering in the spring
Although there are fine lines in your face
And I don't always believe in your magic.

All winter,
You went from crowded diner to diner
Where you laughed and talked
With strangers.
You watched TV
(British comedies, movies, Jeopardy)
In a rented room;
We didn't get together 'til Easter.

Like someone
Whose wonderment is dying,
You sought it again
In a field where you fed horses.
The roan mare nuzzled you,
And the Apoloosa swished her tail.

Once at dusk, you took your car
Through scraggly woods
To the yet-unmarked grave
Of your husband
Wanting magic again.

Linda Benninghoff has published in about 60 magazines, both online and in print. She's published two chapbooks, Departures and The Street Where I Was a Child. Linda translated The Seafarer from Anglo-Saxon; the translation appears at http://www.electrato.com. She won the Poetry Superhighway contest last year and was a finalist this year.

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2007-08-20T18:25:00.000-05:00

"The Detonation of Rabbits"
by Ray Succre

Before the clickhead end, they loped
across a dry field, animates consorting
stones, in the scrubbery blurred
like bronchioles flared, each a panicked,
heaving lung atop the flats.

The ground blared, hoarse, dry and scabbed,
smothering curtain breezes trapped down
and outstretched on dairy land, running
between two meaty ears on jigsaw hindlegs...

That run--stamping a dustwake pounded
to clouds in blood. The eyes floated on it.
A man's blast struck the open air like a maul.
Its resonance startled clothing.
A rabbit tumbled.

Two boys and a man looking down.
"I'm sorry." Clouds and dirt.
"It's in pain." Baking hair.
"I can't kill it." A lip curved sick
atop one hand's hot soda, near other hand
flexing an extension of reason, the hole
of the rifle's life.

Then trigger, blunt comma drawn in,
was the sensation of copper detonation,
and a shot popping in a dustbloom
that wouldn't settle for a child excuse.
"Good job." To a twitch.

The air saw it,
the father and brother presented it,
and I sat cold as the dead rabbit
faded, having leaped off the world
with a boy.

Ray Succre currently lives on the southern Oregon coast with his wife and baby son. He has been published in Aesthetica, Laika and Rock Salt Plum, as well as in numerous others across as many countries. He tries hard.

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2007-08-03T21:31:00.000-05:00

"My Fat Content"
by Rachel Carlson

I thought it was low
blood sugar, but no,
I have further difficulties,
involving women with mouths
the size of car doors
who want to pull me
onto giant tongues
and crunch me,
drink me down with
no-fat lattes--

this moment eyeing me
for my flavor.

Rachel Carlson just relocated to the Northwest from Bristol, Rhode Island. Now a bartender in Bellingham, Washington, she has fun making colorful, icy drinks with names like "Surfer on Acid." She graduated with a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing from BrynAthyn College in Pennsylvania. Recently, she received her MA in Holistic Counseling from Salve Regina University. You can read more poems at http://myspace.com/rkeridwen.

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2007-07-24T19:14:00.000-05:00

"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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2007-07-12T20:51:00.000-05:00

"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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2007-07-08T16:14:00.000-05:00

"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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2007-07-03T20:09:00.000-05:00

"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).

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2007-06-21T21:19:00.000-05:00

"A New Way to Die"
by Edward Nudelman

If you've ever been up there, high on the rafters-
you realize that the feeling can't be manufactured.
It returns, often unsolicited. Returns incessantly.
I once knew a man who said that he had died
no less than 44 different times, with death
not inches, but millimeters from his petrified face.
A sheer drop-off unfolds from the ledge of fear,
but perspective awaits all along the ridge if you're
a climber, if you know how to traverse a razor.
And there you go pacing away on the perimeter with
Kubler-Ross and a laundry list of impeccable excuses.
Pardonnez-moi, monsieur. Je ne l'ai pas fait expres.
Don't tell me you haven't slowly climbed up that
incline every single damn day of your life; or maybe
you just took the tram and waved to us down below.
If you've found your way to the top like most of us,
if you summit with all your marbles, then why resist,
why resist? On a clear day you can...be free forever.
You can cluck out a jumping word like Geronimo!
or Hiyee! as you somersault toward cement with your
pockets full of feathers and a breast full of white meat.
But take heart. The umpteen unclocked moments in
your illustrious life will find as celebrated a resolution
as poetic, in the blissful entropy of a hard landing,
like rubies bouncing off the floor.

Edward Nudelman is a graduate of the University of Washington and is working in the Boston area. Some of his poems have been recently published in Plainsongs, Tears in the Fence, The Orange Room Review, Alone Together, The White Leaf Review, Adagio Verse Quarterly, Because We Write, Shine, Thick With Conviction, Dispatch Lit Review and the Penwood Review. He has received awards for his prose and has written two acclaimed books on a 20th Century American artist. Mr. Nudelman is an active participant on MiPOradio, where his recited poetry has been regularly featured. He is a cancer research scientist and has published more than 60 papers in peer-review scientific journals.

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2007-05-26T07:05:00.000-05:00

"Web"
by Pris Campbell

Each evening I knit him back to you.
He says you are the screech
of an angry jaybird, a fingernail
raking along a thousand chalkboards.
You sleep in a nun's bed.
Yet, he crawls that dark yarn
home nightly, unraveling me in my
semen-soaked bed of biblical sin.

I think he lies.

I see his once flaccid penis,
swollen taut from my weave,
now take aim at you.
Nun's garb shed, dark breasts
set free, your hips pillowed over
silken sheets, decadent bedspread,
his buttocks, pale as the moon,
rise and fall against you.
Your screech isn't anger;
rather one born of delight.
His back is your chalkboard;
your nails dig in.
New patterns for me to knit
are drawn and redrawn by his tongue
onto the rise of your clitoris.

Dawn calls.
His sweetness now a stench,
I break my needles and toss them.
My yarn covers the front lawn.

* Line 1 is from Ancient Weaving: The Mistress to the Wife, by Rebecca McClanahan

Among other journals and poetry publications, Pris Campbell's poetry has been published in MiPo publications (print/digital/radio/OCHO), Boxcar Poetry Review, Tears in the Fence, Poems Niederngasse, The Dead Mule, Verse Libre, MEAT and several anthologies. Her chapbook, Abrasions, was published by Rank Stranger Press and her chapbook with Tammy Trendle, Interchangeable Goddesses, was published by Rose of Sharon Press. Pris lives in hurricane alley, otherwise known as South Florida, with her husband, one crazy dog and one even crazier cat. Formerly a clinical psychologist, she has been sidelined by CFIDS for 17 years.

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2007-05-14T22:02:00.000-05:00

"In the Wild Hours"
by Seb N.

I got a God fearin' woman
one that I can easily afford.
She can do the Georgia crawl,
she can walk in the spirit of the Lord...
-Bob Dylan

I want to fuck you
in the wild hours
after midnight,
underneath a ceiling fan
slowly circling
through the dead air
with mosquitos
biting at our flesh.
To hear the gasping,
smell our sweating
and the creaking
of that old cast iron bed.

I want to fuck you
with the tide high
in the moonlight
in the dunes behind the cape.
Sliver, shining
rips the water,
waves are tumbling.
Hear the nightbirds flap and cry.
Kiss the sea salt
from your shoulders,
feel the ocean
as it rolls inside of you.

I want to fuck you
in the morning
as yellow sunlight
bathes a room with a garden view,
after watching you sleeping
still and peaceful
and recalling
that mad and blazing night before--
so cruel, so tender
and ask no questions
if I never see you
again, we had that night.

I want to fuck you
in a strange room
filled with strangers
and the ghosts of travelers past.
Filled with objects,
filled with fiction
under a false name.
We could say we're man and wife
while your husband
thinks you're shopping,
or out sitting
with a sickly relative.

I want to fuck you
in a rowboat
on a river
with a slow and lazy grind
use the water
the gentle rocking
people walking
on the bank wonder "what're they don'?"
Throw your head back,
throes of rapture
hold your breasts out
for me to, panting, bite and kiss.

I want to fuck you
as a woman
filled with longing
for a man to sense her soul
and the fire
and sweet, dark fire
that within her
has been stifled for too long.
I want to watch you
come alive with me
in that midnight,
once more wild and once more free.

Seb N. hails from San Jose, California, and he quite likes it there. Despite the handicap of a public education in Baltimore, he both holds a job and speaks reasonable English. He is a big, happy drunk and a rather hit and miss poet. Seb drives a Pepper Green 1970 GTO.

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2007-05-09T20:43:00.000-05:00

"Rail Riders, a Memory"
by Jill Raydean Egesdal

Across the fields and down past the warehouses filled with brown boxes,
I hear the crash and metal scrape as coal cars mate with cargo carriers
coupled in arranged marriage,
consummated in the whistling wail of the diesel engine,
and I am reminded of summer Sundays at my grandmother's house
when the rail riders would see her garden
with pole beans towering over lush red tomatoes
and the smell of her soda biscuits baking
next to a fat roast whose wafting fingers beckoned in meaty invitation.
They would jump wide of their boxy beds into the tall weeds,
land in a cloud of pollen and fluffy headed seeds, and
amble up the sloping half acre from the tracks that ran through the backyard,
knocking meekly upon the door, hollow eyes hopeful through the screen
clutching cap in hand and gazing downcast
to the holes in their dusty shoes and patched dungarees,
asking if ma'am had any work to do
that might earn them a plate of those fresh beans.
And I, in pigtails that hung the length of my back,
would sit on the back porch with them, my chin cupped in my hands
listening with rapt attention to the stories as long as the rails themselves.
And harmonica songs always followed,
accompanied in perfect tempo
by the sound of their forks scraping their plates.

Jill Raydean Egesdal is a lifelong poet and writer of short stories who escaped the treadmill of the rat race and for the past 10 years has spent her life working for the greater good of humanity, primarily for non-profits, schools and churches. Her poetry can be seen at www.myspace.com/my1gracespace. (This is Jill's first published poem.)

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2007-04-29T20:29:00.000-05:00

"Keeping Still"
by Jill Chan

It's raining again.
How many storms have crossed here.
The last destroying your house.
It's hard to imagine
living in another.
It was the first house
you were ever really in.
You woke with it,
spoke of it like a secret,
keeping still,
with the wind in the skies
lifting roofs
and the parts of you
that held on to the ground.

Jill Chan was born in Manila, Philippines. She migrated to New Zealand in 1994. Her first book of poetry, The Smell of Oranges ( http://www.earlofseacliff.co.nz/SmellOfOranges.htm ), was published by Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop in 2003. Her work has been published in MiPOesias, foam:e, Eclectica, Poetry New Zealand, Takahe, Brief, Trout, Deep South, JAAM and some other zines.

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2007-04-22T10:14:00.000-05:00

"This Heart"
by David Smith

Her kisses open holes in the skin
large enough for us to climb in
lighting the torch next to this heart,
every bit of it in every bit of it.

Rotating her piston hips,
she is all bold colors
and appealing design,
the dye molecules of my retinas
vibrating at 700 trillion times per second,
so fast that I can see beyond the color yellow,
the small wire stretched within this heart
exploding like an open window in winter,
every bit of us in every bit of us.

We like to mess around with the neighborhood kids,
changing the dog's name while out for his afternoon walk.
"Aw what a cute puppy. Hey mister, what's his name?"
Often my answer is,
"His name? We call him King of the Jews."
Blank stares meeting a borrowed smile,
Christmas in July.
She never corrects me.
Never sets the kids straight.
Never tells them that the dog's
actual name is Reggie.
She lets this lie hang between us
like a cloud of cigarette smoke
at a bridal shower.
All of our history compressed
into these small moments.

This heart can vibrate fast enough
to levitate large stones.
This heart contains more energy
than is expressed in the known universe.
Cut this heart in half and both halves
will contain the entire heart.
Cut both of those halves in two again
and the resulting pieces
will contain the entire heart,
and so on and so forth.

This heart we share
wrapped in ermine and black leather,
stretched from eye to I,
pulsing with the quiet distemper
of 100 flowers bathing in the rain.

David Smith's latest book, co-authored with Scott Wannberg, is Rocket's Redglare: the Handsome Duke Deal and Kid Mingo Letters. He is also the author of Closer to Jesus. His next book, White Time, will include the entire collection of the Hotel Malaria galleries. In the 1980's, he was publisher and editor of Ouija Madness Press and Ouija Madness Magazine. He is now jazzed to partner with the immortal S.A. Griffin on the outstanding Rose of Sharon Press. The best bartender you will ever know, he can pour a Singapore Sling that will make your mother weep with joy.

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2007-04-15T06:13:00.000-05:00

"Homecoming"
by Amy Cunningham

"Bread and honey;
plums, not yet ripe;
and sage, growing in the earth."

You tell me this the night you return from the business trip.
I wonder how a man so entrenched in making money
could understand the value of a scent.
I smell the airplane smell on you,
the scent of other people on your collar,
and that industrial detergent from the hotel sheets
which always smell like new socks and plastic.
I catch the hint of scotch and cold lemon on your breath
as you kiss away the miles from your mind.
Your kisses mimic the spark and safety of our home life;
your nose searches for a spot beneath my jaw line on my neck;
your hands smell like ink and fresh paper;
you caress my temple, and, for the first time in years,
look directly into my eyes.

I turn away!

You breathe deeply in my brown hair and say,

"Bread and honey;
plums, not yet ripe;
and sage, growing in the earth."

Your suitcases lie in a heap at the foot of the bed
mouths agape, ties lolling out like tongues.

Amy Cunningham was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. She graduated with a B.L.A. from Bowling Green State University with emphases in Creative Writing, Philosophy and Political Science in 1989. She is currently working for her Masters: Tom, Bridget, Kelly, Aggie and Dog Biscuit in a tall gray house with a wraparound porch.

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2007-04-08T06:57:00.000-05:00

"staccato of the dead"
by Barton Smock

the fog recalled sons lift their lifted arms and knock. sex
continues its silky swim in the eye hole of the coma
fish. dream-wearing shades slip the removed bridge of
a husband good for husbandry.
door, hung, on the dark. night washed lake.

*

the wading, tar-handed daughters in the father's beaded scope.
a decorated observer, the unmasked
vitiator of a vanished
watching. a mother's conjured house.
a distorted wife's backstroke of eulogy.

*

the design of monsters under a plain bed.
young men in gowns fall down stairwells,
spend their too long lives squaring blood
tape around pictures never framed. women hold beauty
over balconies, shaking clung hands from curtains. a blacker
mud fills the shoe of children treading water.

*

the womb's bait. puddle of hunger.
a rope knotted in the shower.
ghosts are not white. in fashionable bone heels, swimming
room to room, she is no accident. the potential sea, land
locked eye of the crocodile. the cloth tied head.

*

she brings him a cup of dirt. night
mares dry, he scratches at the window under his skin.
the bins in the abandoned studio ripple with trying.
whatever they've raised writes home on the pulled thread
of their palms. fog filled mouths, open.

Barton Smock is 30 years old, has 3 kids, 2 jobs, and 1 wife. He believes in marriage, cold winds, and Ohio.

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2007-03-31T20:53:00.000-05:00

"Talking Spring"
by Iri Kaijanniemi-Kilpelainen

I don't need
to speak today:

The fog is rolling
down the streets,

a trail of gentle sentences

is left
behind.

Iri Kaijanniemi-Kilpelainen, old enough, married enough: a Finn who gets high with music, literature & some people.

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2007-03-24T18:09:00.000-05:00

"Attachment."
by Brandi Hutchinson

Sometimes we encounter the attachment we hold with loved ones, and it can make us quite dizzy.

Nauseous even.

Sting them not... let yourself breathe and forgive their predictable ways. In fact, give them a reason to become unpredictable.

Brandi Hutchinson is an aspiring stranger, who understands no limits and likes to dance in front of pigeons. She's currently inspired by the writings of past men and women who lived in small apartments and smoked cloves all afternoon. Brandi likes to feign being a sex worker on her MySpace profile, but confesses she is only a scientist messing with rat brains. She is obscure and likes to write advice, but she lives in the moment and cares not for the future.

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2007-03-17T18:04:00.000-05:00

"Pontiac"
by Seb N

I saw a Brewster Green '73 Firebird
with a bumper sticker that read
"I never thought I'd miss Nixon."
I laughed so hard
scalding coffee
shot out my nose
and I thought about
my old man.

My old man
was a rock-ribbed
Republican.
My mom, too,
in a firm and quiet way.
"I don't care who you are
you're never too poor
to pick up your own front yard,"
they'd always say.

I didn't notice
the scam of
2000.
I was getting divorced;
he was comic relief.
"Another one-termer
just like his poppa"—
even my old man
called him a thief.

My old man
and I talked the
evening after the
towers came down.
He was watching CNN.
"Look at his face," he
told me. "That man
is a coward; you can see the panic
in his eyes."

Ir'ny is—
an AWOL flyer
touching down
with his helmet in his hand
adjusting his codpiece
under a banner saying,
"mission accomplished," my old man
choked on lost words—he went red and
spat and cursed.

My old man
saw the fear in his
eyes and
I saw it too
when he gave that big speech
about the architects of freedom
whose names he did not know—
a lost, little boy on a stage
that dwarfed him.

I saw a Brewster Green '73 Firebird
with a bumper sticker that read,
"I never thought I'd miss Nixon."
And I never felt closer
to my old man.

Seb N hails from San Jose, California, and he quite likes it there. Despite the handicap of a public education in Baltimore, he holds down a job and speaks reasonable English. He is a big, happy drunk and a rather hit and miss poet. Seb drives a Pepper Green 1970 GTO.

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2007-03-10T20:51:00.000-05:00

"do your fucking homework now!"
by Chu Tu

why does the yelling
slamming
running
screaming
cursing
banging
whimpering
things we hear through
the walls

excite our ears closer

Chu Tu says: "My name is Chu Tu. I started writing poetry in July 2006. I have a real job and my interests are wiener dogs, Radiohead and anything else that feels like those things."

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2007-02-28T21:30:00.000-05:00

"Lost"
by Jill Chan

1.

We don't know
ourselves

until it is
too late.

2.

I didn't tell
you

to leave
nor to stay.

3.

When you
were born,

there were
not enough stars.

4.

I lost
your name

among
the letters.

5.

Tire tracks
and the backs

of every
other lover.

6.

To end
or to begin.

Parallel
lines.

7.

Dare I mention
the heart?

How we
feed it.

8.

Remember
me

when you are
hungry.

Jill Chan was born in Manila, Philippines. She migrated to New Zealand in 1994. Her first book of poetry, The Smell of Oranges (http://www.earlofseacliff.co.nz/SmellOfOranges.htm), was published by Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop in 2003. Her work has been published in MiPOesias, foam:e, Eclectica, Poetry New Zealand, Takahe, Brief, Trout, Deep South, JAAM and some other zines.

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2007-02-22T22:49:00.000-05:00

"a large three-legged black dog"
by Doug

I lay my muzzle between
my paws on a cotton rug

& listen to 1:15 a.m.
wind shudder beneath

the clapboards as
it eases through

small unobvious gaps
under window sills

(I am a large & ugly, three-
legged dog who recently rolled
on an unidentifiable carcass
laying on the gravel near
the roadside)

It is during these a.m.
hours I fear myself

& do not care

of the responsibilities
owned--the people

who love me, or those
whom I love:

It's bullshit &

I am alone

Doug is a man with a large, unyielding smile who lives in or near Des Moines, Iowa, or at least in Iowa.

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2007-02-17T09:28:00.000-05:00

"-33F"
by Iri Kaijanniemi-Kilpeläinen

The air is so cold
it cuts like a knife:

The trees are in pain.

The silent death
picks birds

like fruits

from the barren
branches,

scatters
broken eyes

on the snow.

Iri Kaijanniemi-Kilpeläinen, old enough, married enough: a Finn who gets high with music, literature & some people.

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2007-02-10T17:31:00.000-05:00

"the heart is a stupid hunter"
by Ray Sweatman

He didn't mind so much the young
couples walking hand in hand in
the park. Nor the old ones
in Morrison's Cafeteria smiling
at one another as if time were
just another tune on a jukebox.
Nor the cats taking a break
to cuddle under the shade
of a parking garage. Nor even
the birds hanging their natural
electricity from happy morning
wires. Annoying as they were,
he tried not to take it personally.
But when the blackest of all
the flocks decided to form
the shape of a massive heart
in the sky, he turned back around
to get his shotgun. "Put your gun
away, silly," she said from the bench.
"It happens every day, but
you never see me."

Ray Sweatman has an MFA from Columbia University, teaches ESL, is co- poetry editor with PJ Nights at From East to West and is still waiting for one more person to buy his book Nothing lit can leave from lulu.com, so he can afford to buy one for himself.

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2007-02-03T16:38:00.000-05:00

"Sometimes I have these moments"
by Tammy F. Trendle

on a Sunday afternoon
watching my son play
in the park. A sidewalk curves
around a row of sleeping shops
made of crumbling brick.
I see myself

in the window of a quilt-making store.
Piles of quilts stacked in the corner,
unlit candles wrapped in cellophane.
My son giggles as he jumps
up and down the concrete steps.
I hesitate to tell him to be
careful. He is a boy, after all,
and there is nothing I can do

to stop him from falling
one day. The leaves
are restless at his feet.
The air is becoming colder
but not enough to make me
want to wear a jacket. Instead,
the chill from the breeze
awakens my skin, and for a moment
I swear I can feel the entire
history of the world, all of its beauty,
inside me.

Tammy F. Trendle resides in Atlanta, Georgia, and works as a litigation paralegal. Tammy enjoys running, yoga, Romero zombie films and has difficulty screwing lids back onto things (especially the cap on her car's gas tank and the jar of pretzels in the office break room). Her first chapbook, Interchangeable Goddesses, with fellow poet Pris Campbell, is now available from Rose of Sharon/3 Virgins Press at www.myspace.com/roseofsharonpress. She also has a blog at http://herkindofblog.blogspot.com.

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2007-01-27T22:57:00.000-05:00

"Just a Thought."
by Jason Neese

A sweeping (for)ever
green sticky feet crunching
dirt bike trails. Little noses
dusted by pollen sneezing
through youth. Skinny dreams
pregnant on Schwinn's lost
in gated neighborhoods. Lost
to that frowning world parents
drink coffee over. Listening
to a TV argue in blacks and whites. Getting rowdy
lining up for casseroles and hand held prayers.
Dipped slices of That. Carmelized in this mind.
Lit love blazing through time burning everything
to a comfortable crisp.

Linoleum floors patterned
play rooms one story doll house. An island
nation. Realized to end like a tornado.
And everything changed
out to small bills.
Dead Presidents holding grim lines.
Only now knowing it's cause the cameras
back then took hours to shoot making
a quick smile impossible. Ice sculptures
melting to puddles.

*****
Jason Neese says:
"21 grams lighter after most poems I write. I blame this on poor quality coffee and endless days in LA at a cubicle. My North Carolina roots are fun times in the memory sack and happen to be the inspiration for my guy in this fine publication. I'm mainly sane and hope to expand into complete servitude to the art of writing one day. As of now, I'm just mildly hackish. So, that's good."

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2007-01-20T19:38:00.000-05:00

"subtitles"
by Barton Smock

the birth

blind

boy      at the keyhole.

     each rail yard
     child
          finds a stick.

son
of a sailor.

     sea chained. that

note of hunger singing salt to a tomato your wife waking you in the night with your own

lips      the desperate wave

     lapping

          the topmost step

               of the spiral. in mexico

a one speed fan

fans

the heaving chest of a banshee. your mother

without a shirt. tracks that end

at tunnels      a lighthouse

     with a rope

     spine.

the misshapen

horn

     of your ear. the white

tipped

fingers      grazing the yellow

bandaged

road      tracing

the land of its blood

     to the dagger

     absent

     sheath.

Barton Smock is 30 years old, has 3 kids, 2 jobs, and 1 wife. He believes in marriage, cold winds, and Ohio.

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2007-01-13T18:15:00.000-05:00

"You need to turn your radio down"
by Lisa Gordon

Standard dream,
but what about that backbeat
wholly irreverent.

Mess of song - singing, sung.
Next notes a folly
of telling it straight.

We like our tunes
open like open windows
capable of closing down.

Me, you, me. Me. Me. You.
This is the way the song does
its crossword, ready for everything.

Limbs in the woods, last marches.
I don't need to be tired
to curl up under a musical willow.

When I sing off key
does it make you sad or merely
leery?

I'm again & again
& still the chorus gets away from me
spelling my ignorance gloriously.

Lisa Gordon has had work appear in various online zines as well as print journals, including Mipo, Winter's Hood, Junket, Syntax, Vallum and The Antigonish Review. She resides in Montreal with her husband, writes most days, reads voraciously.

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2007-01-06T22:13:00.000-05:00

"Story of My Haunted Head"
by John Korn

Yes. I work in a second hand store.
There are many regular customers
and I've gotten to know them.
One is a man about forty-something
short and chubby and sometimes
has a beard, dark brown with flecks of gray.
His hair is long and parted on the side.
He often runs his fingers in it.
He looks very kind and intelligent
but once you start talking to him
you see he's very much a child.
Perhaps something happened to him.
Maybe once he had the mind of an adult
but some accident trapped him
into being forever ten years old.
He always has an older man with him.
A guardian who is obviously his friend
and who takes him around to places.

The child man always buys very random
things. Mostly knick knacks. Old bowling trophies
with other people's names on them.
Tacky tourist ashtrays from Mexico City.
A small chair for dolls.
Ugly homemade lopsided vases.
He'll often call me over.
"John," he'll say.
I'll find him pointing at something on a shelf.
Like a fishbowl filled with colored gravel.
And he'll say, "Man, look at that. That's nice.
How much is that?"
I normally sell him things really cheap.
Because I like him.
I'll say, "Aw, that? That's fifty cents."
"Aw, man," he'll say. "Can't go wrong with that."
I'll ask him what he's gonna do with it.
He'll say something like, "Well, you take that home
and put it on a shelf...
and there you go!"
He'll stand with his thumbs tucked into his belt.
Once he bought this strange ball.
It looked like it was carved from a white stone
and it had brass straps wrapped around it
and screwed into place. Like a grid.
If you were a kid
and you got a hold of this ball
it would possibly be a magic stone.
I asked him what he thought it was.
He said he didn't know.
I asked him what he was going to do with it.
He said, "Well with something like this
what you do is you take it home
and first you have a couple of beers
and then you place it on a table
and then you got your friend
sitting across from you
and you roll it around
and you talk about what it could be, you know,
and by the end of the night
who knows what it could be.
Could be anything you know."
He often talks about drinking beer.

I imagine that he lives
in a Charlie Chaplin type shack house
on a hill. Inside maybe he has a bed and a stove
but mostly tables and shelves.
And he places these things on them.
He picks them up and examines them.
Nods his head. I don't think it's about
the object so much but more
about where he's going to place it.
Like there are these empty spaces
on the mantles and he constantly needs
to go and search for something
to fill that space. Maybe sometimes
things get crowded and he has to go
and throw some things away.
And on and on. I often see him looking
at things he's about to buy
and maybe he's thinking,
"This will go next to the ashtray."
It's the arrangement.
The search. The temporary satisfaction.
Here's this trophy. Here's this figurine.
Here's this stone.

My head has become
this way.
People I've known and meet now.
Things I've said. And say
the foggy world of dreams.
Things I've wanted and want.
Desire. Fuck ups. I
think of my endless shelves
towering, reaching church cathedral heights.
Placing things here and there.
Years and still only working
on filling the bottom shelves.
Here's the old image of my father
home from work with his sleeves rolled up.
Here's my first dog put to sleep.
Here's me, eighteen, reaching up her white T-shirt.
These things were not connected when they happened
but somewhere along the line
they got placed side by side.
Here's my grade point average.
Here's my bank account.
Here's two months gone like that.
There you go.
Two years.
Ten.
You find things
you don't remember putting there.
Was it there for a reason
or did you just stick it there in a hurry
on your way to do something else?
What you do is
maybe you have some beer
or wine
or tea
and maybe I reach up into your blouse.
Kiss your eyelids.
And we talk about it
and by the end of the night
who knows what it is.
Could be anything.
You can't spend too much time here.
It's like a museum.
You look.
It's puzzling,
oddly beautiful.
Then you move
before you become a display of dinosaur bones,
a surreal mystery of long ago.

John Korn is an artist living in Pittsburgh PA. You can check him and his work out at http://www.myspace.com/revivalpress.

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2007-01-01T10:00:00.000-05:00

"Post-Modern X-Box Carport Dinner Party"
by Tim Peeler

I

The pretense collapses
in the icy golden charade.

II

The yellow cat skitters
across the concrete carport.

III

His and hers memories
dial the plastic rotary.

IV

The serving table is laden
with the agreement of plenty.

V

Somewhere else there is
one who aches to join.

VI

Who invites fame
to say what we should know?

VII

The whitewater rush,
the red berry lips.

VIII

Every darling I could ask
to be my rib.

IX

The loaded dice
of explanations.

X

Light that strips confusion
to its bone guns.

XI

Light that hurries cleavage
past a mirror.

XII

The gothic mid-light waits
for cracker crumbs.

XIII

The movie made hovers
in the glum tartan death shade.

XIV

And all is sighs and
hemorrhages fantastic.

XV

Every apocalyptic urge
fiddled dry.

Tim Peeler's latest book is Outlaw Ballplayers (McFarland & Co.), co-authored with Hank Utley. Peeler has five others including Blood River: New and Collected Poems (2005) and a forthcoming one Fresh Horses from Rank Stranger Press. He works at a community college in western North Carolina.

Resurrect Faulty Mindbomb?

2006-12-23T01:11:00.000-05:00

Hmm... Faulty Mindbomb was this horrible print fan/lit zine I did back in high school, but maybe there is a place for a faulty mindbomb online. Might as well try it out and see where it goes.

So, I guess I'll try "publishing" some poems and see if this site catches on or not. I'm sure it will, and that I will be one peg closer to world domination by the end of 2007.

If you wish to submit any material to me, please send a few poems in the body of your email to theaphexshrug@hotmail.com. All attachments will be deleted. Please also put something in your subject line that lets me know that it's a submission. Poems only please.

Hmm... I already feel kind of editor-like.

Robert