Ben Stainton
My Name is Terry
1
The police never found the body.
2
Mr Smith left his sprinkler on all night.
I call him brother but he never listens.
3
Thursday. In the canteen,
Gary pulls a rubber knife on Craig.
The girls laugh.
4
It's windy outside.
On the park bench,
I loom over my sandwich
like a tyrannosaur.
5
Lucy pins a photo to her monitor.
If only her nose was smaller.
The clock is my nemesis.
(Watching only makes it harder)
One day I will have you.
6
People avoid me.
Maybe I should gossip more often.
Jason is having sex with Tara.
(Little tramp... follow her)
I need a revamp.
Maybe I should listen to Terry.
7
On my walk home,
I call in at the bakery, for cake.
Right. This smelly woman
always tries to short-change me.
(Spit in her face)
I leave without saying thank you.
That'll teach her.
8
My Home Entertainment System
is more expensive than yours.
Five remotes, lined up in a row.
After tea and cake,
I pull a long hair
from the back of my throat.
The light inside the fridge is broken.
For an instant I feel absolute despair.
9
On the bus,
Nathan and Christine from accounts
are all dressed up.
They seem preoccupied
with something outside.
I lean down and tie my shoe
(to get a better view)
Yes, I agree.
The city is beautiful after dark.
10
My usual table.
Comfort and service.
The restaurant buzzes.
On a napkin
I write
alcohol is a hermaphrodite
and pass it to the waitress.
Dark voices from the lobby.
(Don't make a scene)
The lamb was especially tender.
11
I climb guiltily into bed.
Another wasted day,
and so close to the last.
There must be something I've forgotten.
(A full and frank confession)
I could have tried harder
to make them listen.
(The big man with his big ideas)
People are so easily distracted.
(My name is Terry)
Is this a dream song now?
12
Friday
My sugar bowl is empty.
Every time I eat cereal
a voice pops into my head.
I think it's God.
That makes me special.
Lucy wears her hair up
on dress down day.
The choices are endless.
Red tie? Or grey?
Some people place symbolic value
on colours.
13
Someone has forsaken me.
No more king prawn curry.
The lunch hall is like an insect's nest.
Christine pinches Nathan
and Lisa notices.
The big fish plop sugar into cups
of coffee.
I am alone at the centre.
No one talks about religion.
(Tell them)
Maybe now would be the best time.
(Tell them) Yes.
It's what he would have wanted.
14
Tonight,
I'm going to a concert.
(Forget the whole thing)
I paid for it online using my credit card.
Long shower.
(Masturbate)
Aftershave applied to hair and crotch.
Best boxer shorts.
T-shirt of a band I've never heard of.
Through the taxi window,
fit kids walk in my direction...
...happiness
(is transient)
When I arrive, the venue turns me away.
15
Cheated. Crucified.
The KFC is filled with youth.
All so skinny and colourful.
(Move in for the kill)
Maybe I can soak up their energy.
Home to comfort cleaning.
(Lucy might be naked now)
I've washed my hands of her.
This cream doesn't work.
I set up a facebook profile,
then realise no one
will be watching.
Listen. All I can do is wait.
(Waiting is hell)
I hate Terry.
16
Saturday
Early morning hard-on.
That dog's barking again.
Maybe I could buy a hunting knife.
Maybe I should ring my dad.
The alarm clock stops.
My boss calls.
(Little bitch)
I'm prepared for the worst.
She's concerned about the incident.
(Please let me love you)
She feels I need help.
I hear myself say waiting is hell,
and hang up.
(Back to bed
with no breakfast)
My shirt is already wet.
17
Someone is guarding my door.
Probably the Jew.
(Watch your tongue)
Little bastard.
Now the locusts come. insects
(They smelt blood)
This shroud is just for show.
I'm dreaming of heaven.
There is no one here but me.
(My name is Terry)
My bedsores weep.
I must be pure.
The wounds are too deep.
I hear a voice through the wall.
(Just a little more sleep)
This is the worst time.
Tomorrow, I'll go swimming.
18
Sunday
Everything floods back,
like a dam breaking.
My landlady will discover
the empty room.
Not even Terry to explain.
I should not be so alone.
(........................)
The hole in my side hurts.
I dab it with cotton wool,
before rising.
God says I've let myself down.
No excuse presents itself.
I'm still whole in spirit.
Maybe Lucy reads the papers.
Maybe she'll have a vision of me.
Resolution is a strange arrival.
I am resolved to be free.
Dave Oprava
VIRGINITY
I see, you're bred enough for me to feel your wedding noise in the NYT, he looks NICE and I'm sure he likes rowing, nature, and eats ice cream with a fork as only you could. This tries to be good, but a vitriol is stirring in if's when's what's then's and there's no filling the sucking sound eating through the decade past. I buy a platitude, says, it never would have worked out anyway.
we learn so little,
reading leaves and peeling bark
from trees felled whilst young.
Tell that to the kid who almost died missing you for a mere month as your parents held you at bay and I swayed from the trees half-hung with forlorn, what? Lust. Yes, and Armageddon ardour even selling my vital organs wouldn't have tamed, tame what? Infatuation. Yes, and I blame myself for being four years older, more drunk, less sane, unfaithful and generally inhumane, but still, all's fair they say.
passion so rudely
cruel, I knew it as myself
and wished it often dead.
The closest I ever came to a JD was two bucks a shot at the Squirrels Nest, but you got one, always the striver and driver when I'd had too much, those country lanes wished past looking for a lilac bush to make love, and there was much of it on the muddy shore of the leechy lake or the star-shine shower as nature egged us on, never again come so close to perfection of the carnal form, nevermore.
crumpled letter kept
close, sent whilst still smelling of
our very first grin.
Spent a week jerking this verse off my chest resting little between bouts of regret and whisky wishes that we'd never gone past that first cold night spent arms-a-twist in fumbled advances, tried to kiss you but miss slipped a few hours forward when you did it and saved me the shame of failing, necking intently till you had to go for a month as I tore paved roads to find you again, thus is began and two years later would be gone.
on top the mound shake
you gasped Jesus, first time quake,
I held your trembling
david martin
wired
ever feel you’re bound in wire?
all razor-sharp and twisted knot -
you fashioned it to harness soul
in pain to maintain self-control.
my skin is lacerated through
exposing bone and muscle strands
the wind it whistles through the wire
and sets my skin and soul afire
you hover just outside my reach
and i’m constrained from touching you
i stretch and strain and bend the strands
my blue hands bound in red-hot bands
when stubborn pride is stripped away
like ragged strips on a barbed line fence
humility taught with the blade of an axe
your pedestal cracked and blood on the tracks
you then discover what you are
and what you are is what you’re not
a breath that god had once misplaced
expelled and gone without a trace
and raspy breathing rusted pipes
your fortune wrapped in god’s own chain
the measure of your conscience cold
it’s time you had your fortune told –
a bloodless palm, a lidless eye
your brilliant soul in shabby clothes
it follows down each hidden street
i pray the lord my soul to keep
each night i dream my soul to waste
each night my soul stares back at me
i turn away, turn out the light
still it looks on throughout the night
they say –
god laid low the arrogant
with the jawbone of an ass
and crashing down blow after blow
my god you sure did lay me low
now angel white and bible black
in stern and solemn stillness there
a thousand i’s dressed up in ties
a thousand whys a thousand sighs
my god my god my god my god
they told me you were kind
and always to be trusted
my soul has crashed my wheels are flat
and i am
busted
Joseph Reich
aphorisms ~ your survival manual for caucasia
1
when it comes down to it if you really look at it closely our whole
life is veritably based on some literal fragile self-fulfilling prophecy
it is just those putting on absurd dramatic acts and roles these
silly and shallow games with their identities trying so desperately
to convince themselves to try to convince you and to convince me
2
does existence not become like some poor and pathetic
payment plan of patience some choreographed leap of faith
where you hope somewhere in the end
to proverbially reap the fruits of your labor?
3
sleep is the sweet slow perfectly pristine procrastination
in many ways the only real true reality cutting through any of these
(un)certain influences of paradoxes and hypocrocies of human nature
of the contradictions and condemnations
of a conformist mass mentality of superficial
predictable pseudo sort of culture civilization
4
(beware it may very well all be
simply a situational depression)
something (they do) collectively passive-aggressive
in order to stimulate growth and development
5
and so supposedly in all these late great
stages of growth and development
man will ultimately become
this individual of complete and intellectual
maturation, more sophisticated and civilized
yet i don't know, from everything i have seen
and experienced with my own two eyes
he just appears far more full of hypocrocies
and contradictions (incomplete and fragmented)
of absurd and arrogant and aloof lies
with (without the conscious) the
ability to rationalize and justify
6
"he said she said" in later-adolescence
was in no way shape or form
a coincidence yet rather
a "tell-all" premonition
in which your heart
originally got broken
(and you turn more and
more hollow and vacant)
try not to become a victim
in a no man's land of "tourists"
7
as such you wonder if peter pan ever did find his shadow
or was it simply transplanted to some other amorphous
down-in-the-dump feeling and form to benjamin braddock
in the graduate trying to constantly escape or run away
from impossible relentless overbearing parents silently
blowing bubbles balanced at the bottom of deep-blue pool
used and abused in his scuba outfit in the late-sixties of
some wealthy suburb in los angeles or just the eternally
excrutiatingly lonesome joe buck riding that greyhound
from the dustbowl of oklahoma to midtown manhattan
to become some absurd tragic stud gigolo
who ironically innocently got hustled and
taken advantage of all against his better
(the best he could do) judgment or simply marlon
brando collapsing to his knees like some sort of defeated
distraught prize fighter in streetcar dramatic damaged unable
to keep down and control his emotions below the beaten disheveled
banisters of the steamy french quarter in good old mad macabre new orleans
desperately screaming out "stella!" hoping and praying for forgiveness and redemption
and so did peter pan ever find his shadow or did he simply spiritually psychodynamically
naturally become a shadow of his former self just like all these other decompensating
self-destructive characters who all went by the same theme song of--i'm going where
the sun is shining, through the pouring rain, going where the weather suits my clothes...
8
if the coward dies a thousand deaths
than the hero must die a thousand more
you decide at last to stop fighting
and become the strongest
man in the world
9
(as such believe i believed
in everything they tried to
make me believe about me
i believe i'd believe in nothing)
10
we live in a plastic cookie-cutter
culture with almost all pieces missing
its forms and images of repetitive monotony
where the whole (half-hearted) tragedy in the collective
and even more importantly the individual consciousness
is that they care more about their gimmicks of electronics and technology
than to even think or consider to contribute something positive to the community
11
those labeled or identified in our culture as some of the kindest and generous
(who sit on boards and make their token yearly donations to relieve their guilt
and conscious, as indeed they want to be seen as doing their good deed
but when you really get to know them couldn't be anything or anybody
of more sleazy transparent greed) in real life are some of the sneakiest
and most self-interested; it was just that they put themselves in a position
through being single-minded and competitive, through self-aggrandizement
and self-promotion to receive the gratuitous praise and recognition that their weak
egos and identities so much craved and were desperate, then surround themselves
by those (with similar ambitions and lack of conscious, "climbers" if you will) who will
pose no threat and flatter them so as to keep their fragile and transparent narcissistic
personalities in tact; in fact, if you really knew what happened behind closed doors,
actual lack of morals and ethics; rabble-rousing and rhetoric, you'd be disgusted!
12
out here the women
always seem
pissed off
lost
some
thing
of a cross
between loss
anger and emptiness
while their husbands
mechanically and obsessively
try to commit axe of indifference
(searching for victims to prove you don't exist
for whatever absurd reason "of insecurity"
to try desperately and pathetically
to make them feel more secure
or to alienate you from culture
and turn you into "the cause")
then look to acquire and purchase at all costs
at the playground they're always the ones on (never getting off)
cellphones not paying any attention to the creatures they
brought into the world (as ultimately in many ways they
have become possessions, an extension to their self-
interested, fragmented narcissistic vision) and then
try some attention-seeking behavior just to grab
their attention as they strike back with over
compensation with something
overly-punitive and rigid
and disciplined
teenagers with wooden expressions
and cellphones to noggin like tumors
real-life (in many ways dead)
walking rumors zapping
their car alarms before
they leave the parking
lot and stroll into the mall
to torture some poor soul
and try to make them feel
(no longer feel...) small
these types of individuals the worst sorts of criminals
the ones who always make you doubt yourself
act out or become self-destructive
and make you feel miserable
when you get to the supermarket
you forget what you're there for
you may forget who you are
what your wife sent you in for
aisles of farm-boy-hustler studs
with their gorgeous down-
to-earth russian brides
ahh! then it all comes back to you
"bread and chocolate milk
that's right!
chocolate milk
and bread!"
when you leave you blow a kiss
to the motherfuckers
in the parking lot
and as always they act shocked
or as the blacks might drop--
"act like you know"
when someone questions and forces them out of
their pitifully absurd and acquired, safe and secure, unconvincing
roles, then seem awfully helpless (not so cocky and confident) alone
13
the herd the mass mentality
is a massive heart attack
a massive coronary
of fear doubt ignorance
arrogance sheltered insular
safe and secure insecurity
know-it-all know-nothing
reactive behavior
simultaneously
fighting fleeing
pathetic
prejudiced
privileged
and entitled
active-enmity
frightened
territorial
rigid
and
racist
conformist
obsessive
neuroses
a parasitic
disease
which
deliberately
feeds off
alienating
the stranger
the innocent
bystander
and scape-
goating and
turning him
into some
token
arch-
etypal
criminal
and thief
for purposes
of desperately
trying to relieve
and even redeem
a fragile identity
passing
this brain-
wash and
(non)belief
onto off-
spring
and
continuing
the vicious
cycle of
a literal
and ridiculous
delusion of not
only grandiosity
yet even persecutorial
and conspiratorial-like
state of mind to help
assuage guilty feelings
and deflect and displace
justify and rationalize
a rather almost even
sociopathic filthy
way of li(f)e
14
people practice indifference
like a bad religion
and like some self-serving delusion
somehow consider (convinced)
it as creative
the last sincere soul-survivor cannot help
but to constantly and excruciatingly
feel lonesome and alienated
15
you inextricably remain
a slave to seduction
16
somewhere between seduction and self-destruction
is the absurd and savage cruel game of existence
17
if time heals all wounds
than what the hell heals time?
(more time?)
18
you wake up from the dream in a semiconscious state
most likely the most keen and perceptive you'll ever reach
and sway in some sort of mystical haze of smoky familiar
faraway silhouettes of a crystal seaweed wilderness window
entranced intuitive and insightful to know deep within the dream
lies the nightmare and somewhere in the nightmare the dream
19
just past madness
"lies" the dream
the nibbled core
of your primal scream
20
truth be told...
Submission Guidelines
Thursday, 14 August 2008
Wednesday, 13 August 2008
something, i dunno #3
Jack Henry
Back in my days of youth, in the semi-rolling hills just below the mountains of the Angelus National Forest, at the ass in of Los Angeles, I lived a normal life. Typical all-American kid, doing typical things such as riding bikes, swimming at the public pool during the summer, walking up the street to the liquor store for candy, playing stickball in the streets and chasing girls.
These were days before my nuts dropped and the realization that girls would or could be something more struck my like a drunken elephant center at a Mexican circus.
Simple days.
Normative days.
Things change.
In my advancing age I have had time for gentle reflection and those visions often turn to where it all went wrong.
One, when my balls drop and the mystique of women changed from simple curiosity to morbid fascination to rampant lust and utter misery.
Two, when writing poetry became more than a tool to gain the attraction to young women to a devise that developed into utter madness.
At some point I realized I wanted more from a relationship with a woman than a simple how do you do, been a nice day, okay then see you soon. Rather, I wanted something deep, intimate, emotional, fiery, explosion. In other words chronic masturbation had lost a degree of relevance. I wanted more.
I wanted to get laid.
Of course getting laid is somewhat akin to getting your first poem published. You have to have patience, you have to have perseverance, you have to have persistence, you have to have something of value, worth and note. Sadly, at 15, I had none of these, and it showed.
Somewhere mid-year of my sophomore year of high school I lost interest in academics and focus dialed in on that of the female form. In an English class a teacher turned me on to poetry and I took to writing it like hopped up testosterone junkie in an Adult Bookstore.
It fascinated me.
I wrote more bad poetry than I had acne on my face, and my face was a landmine, but I continued. One day, in that English class, the teacher demanded I read something for the class. There were giggles and comments about a overly tall, overly gawky, overly ugly teenage boy but I shut them out.
And I read.
After the laughter, I returned to my seat, buried in crimson flesh, the coursing anxiety burning like the first hit off a crack pipe in my skin, ears ringing, ears tearing, the horror of existence bitch slapping me into submission.
“I liked it.”
I heard the voice but did not immediately recognize it. Small, tinny, somewhat feminine. A girl! Horror turned to happiness as quickly as heroin melts in a silver spoon.
“Really,” I recall saying. “You liked that?”
“I did.”
When I finally screwed up the courage to look at her, the class had ended. Being notoriously shy I had not looked directly at the person sitting across from in the four months we had shared class together. I knew her name, the shape of her face and the color of her hair. Little else, but determination forced me to find it out.
I followed her.
Like a peeping tom or a stalker on meth, I followed her every footstep for several weeks. Each day I stuffed a new poem in her locker, sometimes two, sometimes ten. I found out her name, Mary Lou Rottencrotch (names have been changed), where she lived, her regular routines. She actually had been in two other classes with me but I never noticed as she sat in the front and I generally sat in the Principle’s office awaiting punishment for being insolent, angry, and absentminded.
Like a storm destroying a small village and drowning thousands, my life exploded and I thought of nothing more than Mary Lou Rottencrotch, and various parts of her body. My lust became absolute.
Six weeks to the day Mary Lou turned to me and smiled through perfect white teeth reflecting the incandescent rays of electric light. My heart lifted, I farted silently, and smiled back.
“Thank you for your poems.”
“You are quite welcome.”
“They are very good.”
“You’re beautiful.”
I said the words without thinking. You. Are. Beautiful.
That day I walked her home, even though she lived four miles in the wrong direction from my house, even though she and I both could have taken the bus, even though I had detention, even though my father would ground me for not doing the right thing. And even though my father was married and his balls were tied up in my mother’s silk purse, I knew he would understand when I told him.
We got to her house. She invited me in. We stole beer from her father’s refrigerator in the garage. She took off her blouse and panties and offered my first glimpse of heaven.
At last, I thought, at sixteen (my birthday had passed), I will join the club, climb the ladder, take the next step.
I never made it.
After the bra came off, my mouth went dry. After the panties came off, my heart began to thrum in the back of my throat, after my clothes came off a tremor began in my hands and arms. And I vomited violently onto her pink and purple comforter.
I heard that Mary Lou Rottencrotch got pregnant from a jock on the varsity football team when she was a senior. She and I never spoke again.
Word got out relatively quick and this in a time before text messaging and camera phones. I became the joke of the school, completely isolated and leveled to the lowest class of scum. My only friend was Danny, who suffered from an odd mix of Tourettes Syndrome and mild autism.
My desires never lessened although opportunity turned to zilch. Word spread across the school district and my chances at other schools were nominal at best.
I gave up.
But I didn’t give up on writing and poetry and masturbation.
Three years ago I found a box filled with poetry from high school. As you can imagine, most of it is rubbish. After the Mary Lou Rottencrotch experience, I wrote nothing but heart broken, sex addled words that made little sense, held no style and would make the most forgiving critic, my mother, cringe.
For twenty years I wrote no poetry, save the occasional Christmas ditty. But it echoes. I wrote everything else from short to long fiction and things in between, but poetry left me as if I had violently vomited on her bedspread while naked and preparing for intercourse.
She is more forgiving that Mary Lou.
So I began the long journey, honing a style, writing more and more and more every day. Recently divorced from a forgiving woman that understood my sexual insecurity, I dated more.
More poetry. More dates.
I finally submitted some things for an on-line journal. I had learned patience, perseverance, and persistence, all things mandatory for presenting anything for publication. Even more important I had learned rejection. I had gone from Vomit Boy to Rejected Poet, but at least I was getting laid more or less regular.
After being rejected 175 times from 93 on-line and print zines, I finally got acceptance. It’s not like the old days when you get a note in the mail or, perhaps, a contributors copy with your piece printed inside. No, it’s an email.
I had grown timid when seeing those emails pop up, with the subject line, “From XXX Press.” This one said yes!
My heart raced, my blood boiled, I called my mom.
I called Mary Lou.
Over the years Mary Lou had gone from town slut to politician to respected business owner. She ran a five-outlet coffeeshop chain, specializing in home baked goods, teddy bears, greeting cards, and coffee.
By coincidence I bumped into her sometime after my divorce. She didn’t recognize me. Still awkward, still ugly, but relatively acne free and somewhat more confident in my approach, we developed a friendship. Nothing more than that. Pink and purple comforters still make me queasy.
I shared with her my designs on being a poet, being a teacher, getting published, getting book out and she always encouraged me. My poetic voice had changed so much she didn’t recognize it when I shared some of my stuff with her.
Over the next year I became widely published. Over two hundred items all across the scope of journal. I published two books on my own and another press picked up one. I became a publisher and started a magazine. I got my degree and became a teacher.
Getting published is not easy. You have to understand the style the zine carries that you are submitting. You have to follow the guidelines. You have to be good. And you have to keep pushing. Always pushing.
I’ve always said that if you are a serious writer than you should submit your work for publication. Doesn’t matter which zine takes you, doesn’t matter how big or little they are, doesn’t matter if they pay you or not; just submit for publication.
As an editor for a magazine I read hundreds of poems for each issue. Some are great, a few are good, but most suck. Doesn’t mean that writer should give up, dig a hole and hide away. No, it means keep pushing, keep growing, keep challenging. If you are serious, it will happen. Persistence, Perseverance, Patience are all key. Along with spell check, formatting and following submission guidelines.
A few weeks ago I reading for the usual small crowd at the back of a fairly anonymous bookstore. The usual suspects, old ladies, friends, and bored onlookers, listened to me rant and rave and scream and extol my little words.
In the back sat Mary Lou Rottencrotch, a slight smile on her face, nodding with each big phrase, laughing in the right places.
At the end of the thing as I stuffed cubed cheese and stall crackers into my mouth, she walked up to me.
“I liked it.”
“Really, you liked that?”
“I did.”
“Thank you.”
“I remember you, Jack Henry, from Anaheim Hills High School.”
“Oh fuck…”
She explained something about an old year book she found digging through crap in the garage, how it hit her, how she found a little box filled with my poems.
Instead of walking home, we drove. I followed her back to her comfortable suburban tract home. Her husband had died some years back and both kids were away at college.
We drank beer from the refrigerator in the garage. We talked. I read her a poem, the first one that had been accepted for publication.
She led me by the hand up the stairs to her bedroom, took off her blouse and pants, sitting at the edge of the bed in her pink and purple panties. As she unsnapped my pants and shuttled down the fly, I noticed her bedspread. Pink and purple.
My mouth went dry, my hands began to tremor, violence lifted from the center of my stomach.
She quickly pulled me from the room, stripped to nothing and fucked me for three hours in the guest room. There were tans, and chocolates, and different shades of brown, but no pink or purple.
In the years I hadn’t seen Mary Lou she had been subject to many fantasies in my head. Often during adult relations with other women, I thought of her. It always helped.
Today I am a poet and Mary Lou is still a friend, but when you put your heart to it, things generally pay off.
Back in my days of youth, in the semi-rolling hills just below the mountains of the Angelus National Forest, at the ass in of Los Angeles, I lived a normal life. Typical all-American kid, doing typical things such as riding bikes, swimming at the public pool during the summer, walking up the street to the liquor store for candy, playing stickball in the streets and chasing girls.
These were days before my nuts dropped and the realization that girls would or could be something more struck my like a drunken elephant center at a Mexican circus.
Simple days.
Normative days.
Things change.
In my advancing age I have had time for gentle reflection and those visions often turn to where it all went wrong.
One, when my balls drop and the mystique of women changed from simple curiosity to morbid fascination to rampant lust and utter misery.
Two, when writing poetry became more than a tool to gain the attraction to young women to a devise that developed into utter madness.
At some point I realized I wanted more from a relationship with a woman than a simple how do you do, been a nice day, okay then see you soon. Rather, I wanted something deep, intimate, emotional, fiery, explosion. In other words chronic masturbation had lost a degree of relevance. I wanted more.
I wanted to get laid.
Of course getting laid is somewhat akin to getting your first poem published. You have to have patience, you have to have perseverance, you have to have persistence, you have to have something of value, worth and note. Sadly, at 15, I had none of these, and it showed.
Somewhere mid-year of my sophomore year of high school I lost interest in academics and focus dialed in on that of the female form. In an English class a teacher turned me on to poetry and I took to writing it like hopped up testosterone junkie in an Adult Bookstore.
It fascinated me.
I wrote more bad poetry than I had acne on my face, and my face was a landmine, but I continued. One day, in that English class, the teacher demanded I read something for the class. There were giggles and comments about a overly tall, overly gawky, overly ugly teenage boy but I shut them out.
And I read.
After the laughter, I returned to my seat, buried in crimson flesh, the coursing anxiety burning like the first hit off a crack pipe in my skin, ears ringing, ears tearing, the horror of existence bitch slapping me into submission.
“I liked it.”
I heard the voice but did not immediately recognize it. Small, tinny, somewhat feminine. A girl! Horror turned to happiness as quickly as heroin melts in a silver spoon.
“Really,” I recall saying. “You liked that?”
“I did.”
When I finally screwed up the courage to look at her, the class had ended. Being notoriously shy I had not looked directly at the person sitting across from in the four months we had shared class together. I knew her name, the shape of her face and the color of her hair. Little else, but determination forced me to find it out.
I followed her.
Like a peeping tom or a stalker on meth, I followed her every footstep for several weeks. Each day I stuffed a new poem in her locker, sometimes two, sometimes ten. I found out her name, Mary Lou Rottencrotch (names have been changed), where she lived, her regular routines. She actually had been in two other classes with me but I never noticed as she sat in the front and I generally sat in the Principle’s office awaiting punishment for being insolent, angry, and absentminded.
Like a storm destroying a small village and drowning thousands, my life exploded and I thought of nothing more than Mary Lou Rottencrotch, and various parts of her body. My lust became absolute.
Six weeks to the day Mary Lou turned to me and smiled through perfect white teeth reflecting the incandescent rays of electric light. My heart lifted, I farted silently, and smiled back.
“Thank you for your poems.”
“You are quite welcome.”
“They are very good.”
“You’re beautiful.”
I said the words without thinking. You. Are. Beautiful.
That day I walked her home, even though she lived four miles in the wrong direction from my house, even though she and I both could have taken the bus, even though I had detention, even though my father would ground me for not doing the right thing. And even though my father was married and his balls were tied up in my mother’s silk purse, I knew he would understand when I told him.
We got to her house. She invited me in. We stole beer from her father’s refrigerator in the garage. She took off her blouse and panties and offered my first glimpse of heaven.
At last, I thought, at sixteen (my birthday had passed), I will join the club, climb the ladder, take the next step.
I never made it.
After the bra came off, my mouth went dry. After the panties came off, my heart began to thrum in the back of my throat, after my clothes came off a tremor began in my hands and arms. And I vomited violently onto her pink and purple comforter.
I heard that Mary Lou Rottencrotch got pregnant from a jock on the varsity football team when she was a senior. She and I never spoke again.
Word got out relatively quick and this in a time before text messaging and camera phones. I became the joke of the school, completely isolated and leveled to the lowest class of scum. My only friend was Danny, who suffered from an odd mix of Tourettes Syndrome and mild autism.
My desires never lessened although opportunity turned to zilch. Word spread across the school district and my chances at other schools were nominal at best.
I gave up.
But I didn’t give up on writing and poetry and masturbation.
Three years ago I found a box filled with poetry from high school. As you can imagine, most of it is rubbish. After the Mary Lou Rottencrotch experience, I wrote nothing but heart broken, sex addled words that made little sense, held no style and would make the most forgiving critic, my mother, cringe.
For twenty years I wrote no poetry, save the occasional Christmas ditty. But it echoes. I wrote everything else from short to long fiction and things in between, but poetry left me as if I had violently vomited on her bedspread while naked and preparing for intercourse.
She is more forgiving that Mary Lou.
So I began the long journey, honing a style, writing more and more and more every day. Recently divorced from a forgiving woman that understood my sexual insecurity, I dated more.
More poetry. More dates.
I finally submitted some things for an on-line journal. I had learned patience, perseverance, and persistence, all things mandatory for presenting anything for publication. Even more important I had learned rejection. I had gone from Vomit Boy to Rejected Poet, but at least I was getting laid more or less regular.
After being rejected 175 times from 93 on-line and print zines, I finally got acceptance. It’s not like the old days when you get a note in the mail or, perhaps, a contributors copy with your piece printed inside. No, it’s an email.
I had grown timid when seeing those emails pop up, with the subject line, “From XXX Press.” This one said yes!
My heart raced, my blood boiled, I called my mom.
I called Mary Lou.
Over the years Mary Lou had gone from town slut to politician to respected business owner. She ran a five-outlet coffeeshop chain, specializing in home baked goods, teddy bears, greeting cards, and coffee.
By coincidence I bumped into her sometime after my divorce. She didn’t recognize me. Still awkward, still ugly, but relatively acne free and somewhat more confident in my approach, we developed a friendship. Nothing more than that. Pink and purple comforters still make me queasy.
I shared with her my designs on being a poet, being a teacher, getting published, getting book out and she always encouraged me. My poetic voice had changed so much she didn’t recognize it when I shared some of my stuff with her.
Over the next year I became widely published. Over two hundred items all across the scope of journal. I published two books on my own and another press picked up one. I became a publisher and started a magazine. I got my degree and became a teacher.
Getting published is not easy. You have to understand the style the zine carries that you are submitting. You have to follow the guidelines. You have to be good. And you have to keep pushing. Always pushing.
I’ve always said that if you are a serious writer than you should submit your work for publication. Doesn’t matter which zine takes you, doesn’t matter how big or little they are, doesn’t matter if they pay you or not; just submit for publication.
As an editor for a magazine I read hundreds of poems for each issue. Some are great, a few are good, but most suck. Doesn’t mean that writer should give up, dig a hole and hide away. No, it means keep pushing, keep growing, keep challenging. If you are serious, it will happen. Persistence, Perseverance, Patience are all key. Along with spell check, formatting and following submission guidelines.
A few weeks ago I reading for the usual small crowd at the back of a fairly anonymous bookstore. The usual suspects, old ladies, friends, and bored onlookers, listened to me rant and rave and scream and extol my little words.
In the back sat Mary Lou Rottencrotch, a slight smile on her face, nodding with each big phrase, laughing in the right places.
At the end of the thing as I stuffed cubed cheese and stall crackers into my mouth, she walked up to me.
“I liked it.”
“Really, you liked that?”
“I did.”
“Thank you.”
“I remember you, Jack Henry, from Anaheim Hills High School.”
“Oh fuck…”
She explained something about an old year book she found digging through crap in the garage, how it hit her, how she found a little box filled with my poems.
Instead of walking home, we drove. I followed her back to her comfortable suburban tract home. Her husband had died some years back and both kids were away at college.
We drank beer from the refrigerator in the garage. We talked. I read her a poem, the first one that had been accepted for publication.
She led me by the hand up the stairs to her bedroom, took off her blouse and pants, sitting at the edge of the bed in her pink and purple panties. As she unsnapped my pants and shuttled down the fly, I noticed her bedspread. Pink and purple.
My mouth went dry, my hands began to tremor, violence lifted from the center of my stomach.
She quickly pulled me from the room, stripped to nothing and fucked me for three hours in the guest room. There were tans, and chocolates, and different shades of brown, but no pink or purple.
In the years I hadn’t seen Mary Lou she had been subject to many fantasies in my head. Often during adult relations with other women, I thought of her. It always helped.
Today I am a poet and Mary Lou is still a friend, but when you put your heart to it, things generally pay off.
Monday, 11 August 2008
The Review #1
Charles P. Ries
BLOOD SOAKED DRESSES
By: Gloria Mindock
Ibbetson Street Press
25 School Street
Somerville, MA 02143
Price: $13.50 / 62 Pages / 45 Poems
IBSN: 978-4303-1034-1
In her third book of poetry, “Blood Soaked Dresses” Gloria Mindock raises horror to transcendent allegory. With language that has a lyrical soft quality to it, her new book of poetry becomes the perfect vehicle to express moments (sad, horrific, and glorious) that are set in El Salvador during its civil war from 1980 to 1992. When we see the massacre of innocents continuing in Kenya , Somalia , Darfur , Iraq , Afghanistan – the list becomes painfully endless. Her book becomes a timeless poetic prayer for peace.
Her book of poetry is about the most painful of subjects. Through Mindock’s love of this culture, its people, words, and many flavors, she creates transcendent metaphor after transcendent metaphor. Here are a few cherry-picked from her poem, “Seeing Is Only a Flawed Secret”: “A long shadow filling my body”, “I have conversation with the abyss”; "My weary mind is just a symbol.” “The sky is gray today. / healing itself back to blue.” Jesus, rearrange your schedule. / Go, show me your lips. Make your kiss / a compass so I know where to go.” “I look out the window and feel / like a fool. / Everyone carries on with no ears. / Such motionless supervision – a crime!” Amazing - and these lines and phrases are taken from just one of her 45 poems.
Mindock’s success with “Blood Soaked Dresses” is all the more remarkable given how very hard it is to write about horror. If a poet can enter into this world, speak to this blackness and create a wisp of hope, then the poet is by demonstration a great writer indeed.
typewriter art
By: Mark Sonnenfeld
Marymark Press
45-08 Old Millstone Drive
East Windsor, NJ 08520
Price: $4 / 16 Pages
ISBN: 978-0-9798819-9-2
Mark Sonnenfeld is a unique creature in the small press. His world is one that lives at the intersection of poetry, word, and visual art. Many times his use of language has nothing to do with complete thought or meaning, but rather the splattering of words in a random cascade. We might call his work “experimental”, but for the fact that poetry, as one of writings shortest forms, lends itself to constant variation and experimentation. His new book, “typewriter art” is no different. Dedicated to small press pioneer and all around good-guy Joseph Verrilli, he takes words, or rather the ink-on-paper-image of words, and collides them with a phrase. On page 8 we find word the word “Mark” in 68 point type face and below it the phrase, “Magazines from the stack”. On page 5 we find the phrase “I woke to head pressure” in 14 point type laid onto a page that has a series of letters extracted from words in 68 point bold black type face. His work is so conceptual that it is even hard to clearly describe – it must be both seen and read.
So what is one to make of this? Is it poetry or is it visual art? Certainly it is experimental, and in each art form there is a mad scientist who will push the medium’s relevance toward the absurd, toward meaninglessness, through the trap door of context, and perhaps, toward yet new meanings. Will this become the rage? Will thousands of writers try to do what Sonnenfeld has done? I doubt it, but the highest form of flattery isn’t always imitation, sometimes it is our acknowledgement to artists like Sonnenfield that we have experienced their creation and encourage their continued exploration. The great literary unknown will be a richer friendlier planet because we have pioneers like Sonnenfeld orbiting the “word”.
THE WIND TWIRLS EVERYTHING
By: Francine Witte
Muscle Head Press Chapbooks
Boneworld Publishing
3700 County Road 24
Russell, New York 13684
Price: $5 / 40 Pages / 25 Stories
Francine Witte’s book of flash fiction/prose poems gives us two wonderful things. The first is her nimble and effortless use of story, form, and technique. This collection of 25 short form vignettes shows us how quickly a skilled writer can create place, character, conflict, and move a story to a stratifying conclusion. Witte who is also a poet and a playwright applies these two forms into interesting, fast moving short stories. Her technique is effortless and invisible, but central to making these stories move forward.
The second gift of “The Wind Twirls Everything” is her reflection on love, clueless good hearted men, place, and family. The men who populate her stories “try” to do the right thing, they are not without heart and soul, but still they do manage to stumble. Into this mix are the women who love, long for, or try to stay away from them. This collision of interests and abilities gives the stories in this collection their strong core. She is quick and nimble as she riffs around a variety of topics: a chair, a love, a city, a time, a man, a woman.
There are many great stories in this collection: Jake Is A Forgotten Place, Someone Keeps Calling, My Husband’s Mistress, Joe and Sue Get In The Car, to name a few. The open paragraph of her story, “The Romance Of Sadness” gives us a taste of how well and how quickly Witte invites us into her world, “One day, she fell in love with the sadness. Unlike the man who had given it to her, the sadness would stay with her long into the night and never leave. If the sadness did leave, there would more sadness. And that was good.” And again her opening paragraph of “Someone Keeps Calling”: “A faraway voice. Like a voice underwater. He says hello. Nothing more. He hangs up. Calls back. His breath is angry, inviting, sexual. He’s distant, but intimate. Saying nothing. Saying everything.”
What a treat to see Witte bob and weave structure, pacing, and story with such alacrity. How wonderful to read stories that run no more than 350 words in length contain so much heart, humor, yearning and meaning.
Charles P. Ries lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His narrative poems, short stories, interviews and poetry reviews have appeared in over two hundred print and electronic publications. He has received four Pushcart Prize nominations for his writing. He is the author of THE FATHERS WE FIND, a novel based on memory and five books of poetry —the most recent entitled, The Last Time which was released by The Moon Press & Publishing. He is the poetry editor for Word Riot. He is on the board of the Woodland Pattern Bookstore and a member of the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission. But most of all he is a founding member of the Lake Shore Surf Club, the oldest fresh water surfing club on the Great Lakes. You may find additional samples of his work by going to: http://www.literati.net/Ries.
BLOOD SOAKED DRESSES
By: Gloria Mindock
Ibbetson Street Press
25 School Street
Somerville, MA 02143
Price: $13.50 / 62 Pages / 45 Poems
IBSN: 978-4303-1034-1
In her third book of poetry, “Blood Soaked Dresses” Gloria Mindock raises horror to transcendent allegory. With language that has a lyrical soft quality to it, her new book of poetry becomes the perfect vehicle to express moments (sad, horrific, and glorious) that are set in El Salvador during its civil war from 1980 to 1992. When we see the massacre of innocents continuing in Kenya , Somalia , Darfur , Iraq , Afghanistan – the list becomes painfully endless. Her book becomes a timeless poetic prayer for peace.
Her book of poetry is about the most painful of subjects. Through Mindock’s love of this culture, its people, words, and many flavors, she creates transcendent metaphor after transcendent metaphor. Here are a few cherry-picked from her poem, “Seeing Is Only a Flawed Secret”: “A long shadow filling my body”, “I have conversation with the abyss”; "My weary mind is just a symbol.” “The sky is gray today. / healing itself back to blue.” Jesus, rearrange your schedule. / Go, show me your lips. Make your kiss / a compass so I know where to go.” “I look out the window and feel / like a fool. / Everyone carries on with no ears. / Such motionless supervision – a crime!” Amazing - and these lines and phrases are taken from just one of her 45 poems.
Mindock’s success with “Blood Soaked Dresses” is all the more remarkable given how very hard it is to write about horror. If a poet can enter into this world, speak to this blackness and create a wisp of hope, then the poet is by demonstration a great writer indeed.
typewriter art
By: Mark Sonnenfeld
Marymark Press
45-08 Old Millstone Drive
East Windsor, NJ 08520
Price: $4 / 16 Pages
ISBN: 978-0-9798819-9-2
Mark Sonnenfeld is a unique creature in the small press. His world is one that lives at the intersection of poetry, word, and visual art. Many times his use of language has nothing to do with complete thought or meaning, but rather the splattering of words in a random cascade. We might call his work “experimental”, but for the fact that poetry, as one of writings shortest forms, lends itself to constant variation and experimentation. His new book, “typewriter art” is no different. Dedicated to small press pioneer and all around good-guy Joseph Verrilli, he takes words, or rather the ink-on-paper-image of words, and collides them with a phrase. On page 8 we find word the word “Mark” in 68 point type face and below it the phrase, “Magazines from the stack”. On page 5 we find the phrase “I woke to head pressure” in 14 point type laid onto a page that has a series of letters extracted from words in 68 point bold black type face. His work is so conceptual that it is even hard to clearly describe – it must be both seen and read.
So what is one to make of this? Is it poetry or is it visual art? Certainly it is experimental, and in each art form there is a mad scientist who will push the medium’s relevance toward the absurd, toward meaninglessness, through the trap door of context, and perhaps, toward yet new meanings. Will this become the rage? Will thousands of writers try to do what Sonnenfeld has done? I doubt it, but the highest form of flattery isn’t always imitation, sometimes it is our acknowledgement to artists like Sonnenfield that we have experienced their creation and encourage their continued exploration. The great literary unknown will be a richer friendlier planet because we have pioneers like Sonnenfeld orbiting the “word”.
THE WIND TWIRLS EVERYTHING
By: Francine Witte
Muscle Head Press Chapbooks
Boneworld Publishing
3700 County Road 24
Russell, New York 13684
Price: $5 / 40 Pages / 25 Stories
Francine Witte’s book of flash fiction/prose poems gives us two wonderful things. The first is her nimble and effortless use of story, form, and technique. This collection of 25 short form vignettes shows us how quickly a skilled writer can create place, character, conflict, and move a story to a stratifying conclusion. Witte who is also a poet and a playwright applies these two forms into interesting, fast moving short stories. Her technique is effortless and invisible, but central to making these stories move forward.
The second gift of “The Wind Twirls Everything” is her reflection on love, clueless good hearted men, place, and family. The men who populate her stories “try” to do the right thing, they are not without heart and soul, but still they do manage to stumble. Into this mix are the women who love, long for, or try to stay away from them. This collision of interests and abilities gives the stories in this collection their strong core. She is quick and nimble as she riffs around a variety of topics: a chair, a love, a city, a time, a man, a woman.
There are many great stories in this collection: Jake Is A Forgotten Place, Someone Keeps Calling, My Husband’s Mistress, Joe and Sue Get In The Car, to name a few. The open paragraph of her story, “The Romance Of Sadness” gives us a taste of how well and how quickly Witte invites us into her world, “One day, she fell in love with the sadness. Unlike the man who had given it to her, the sadness would stay with her long into the night and never leave. If the sadness did leave, there would more sadness. And that was good.” And again her opening paragraph of “Someone Keeps Calling”: “A faraway voice. Like a voice underwater. He says hello. Nothing more. He hangs up. Calls back. His breath is angry, inviting, sexual. He’s distant, but intimate. Saying nothing. Saying everything.”
What a treat to see Witte bob and weave structure, pacing, and story with such alacrity. How wonderful to read stories that run no more than 350 words in length contain so much heart, humor, yearning and meaning.
Charles P. Ries lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His narrative poems, short stories, interviews and poetry reviews have appeared in over two hundred print and electronic publications. He has received four Pushcart Prize nominations for his writing. He is the author of THE FATHERS WE FIND, a novel based on memory and five books of poetry —the most recent entitled, The Last Time which was released by The Moon Press & Publishing. He is the poetry editor for Word Riot. He is on the board of the Woodland Pattern Bookstore and a member of the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission. But most of all he is a founding member of the Lake Shore Surf Club, the oldest fresh water surfing club on the Great Lakes. You may find additional samples of his work by going to: http://www.literati.net/Ries.
Saturday, 9 August 2008
GC Chapbook Contest
Gloom Cupboard is pleased to announce the winner of our First Anniversary Chapbook Contest.
We congratulate Jenifer Wills who was selected by our esteemed panel of Judges.
A big thanks once again goes out to the many who entered this Contest.
Maybe we will do this again next year.
We congratulate Jenifer Wills who was selected by our esteemed panel of Judges.
A big thanks once again goes out to the many who entered this Contest.
Maybe we will do this again next year.
Thursday, 7 August 2008
#50
Matt Fallaize
City
if in the meantime she said
you want to think about culture
i suggest you look sideways
the flat is the gap
in the shoreline’s teeth
lights drawn across indigo
a peninsula
becomes the sea
look for the seam
we joined the crowds
in not talking and we reacted
as starlings do
flux in the malls
a shift in the crowds
a flex in the body
politic the silence
of aldermen advertising
their glories abandoned cinemas
leading men walk
through scenery you
can see through their
great hanging jaws
have already killed once
sacrificed a man
a father of twelve
his body on a pyre of books
pushed burning to sea
Gordon Purkis
Scary thoughts
What scares me most
is that there isn’t always
a happy ending – that
one’s dreams are not good
dreams when they turn into
other people’s nightmares,
when the dream is all you
see and the rest is darkness.
A candle is
never enough
light today
but it
should be;
I am often
incredulous
at the despairing
having forgotten
my own despair.
We live in a vile-age
Our heroes wear black
We continue to get
larger as the world
gets smaller
There is not
enough room
for the light to
get through
We barely have
room to dance
a waltz
It makes one
want to just
stand out on the
terrace smoking.
Stanley H. Barkan
AUGUST
August slides into September,
like a child down in the pond
of the playground we call “Last Fling.”
The sun has grown larger than toy balloons,
reddening the sky filled with purple clouds.
Brooding over the tall cornstalks
—full with the secret seeds of summer—
the sky so heavy it could rain answers
filled with crickets questioning,
luna moths fluttering about lantern moons.
In the dark lit by fireflies
—constellating patterns of premature birth—
we fall like so many fruits ready for harvest.
Jason Ryberg
FOR SOME REASON
The night sky is alive tonight
with glittering diamels
and chittering super-strings
of crickets
like sleigh bells, almost,
with their near-hypnotic ringing.
And the shadows thrown
from streetlamps are teeming
with these freaky hybrid angel/demon things.
And me, I'm whistling "Doo Wah Diddy" in the dark,
stumbling, half-blind, through a graveyard
on my way home from the bar.
And the trees are whispering the latest news
and the grass is strongly advising me to
"lay down and relax."
But hey, there's no time for that
'cause somewhere, out there tonight,
there's a pale, wing'd horse on someones roof
hoofing out the secret code
for the answers to all our troubles
(or, maybe just the winning
lotto numbers).
And there's a weaselly little rat-man
in a long, black coat and top hat
sniffing and prancing about the intersection
of Hilarity and Mayhem, calling out,
"children, I have lollipops, children!"
And a wolf in hobo's clothing
is standing at someones sub-suburban back door,
asking, sheepishly, about a billy goat
or "chosen one" or somethin',
and a sad, sad boy
singin' a curbmouth blues
about a crown that's been seized
by a new king of fools.
And, for some reason,
I'm seriously feelin'
like I'm about to be on the receiving end
of some kind of low-level divine judgment
(for something I'm not sure I even did)
like a low-hanging tree-limb
or slavering set of jaws charging wildly
from out of the dark or old-school locker-room
towel-snap from The Almighty, Him Self.
And He's urging all his angels
and demons alike to
"engage target with extreme prejudice!"
'Cause The Word flittering moth-like
through the trees this evening
has it that the Moon
has put a price of thirty silver-pieces
on all our fool heads:
those who would dare wander
into her dark garden
without some secret intrigue
to be party to
or some mysterious stranger
to kiss.
Fabio Izzo
And they know the answers before I give them
And they know the answers before I give them
a word they said
just somewhere in between
although not entirely of my own choosing
of dying man
in army like retreat
We walk hand in hand
to a light rain
to swallow through the mud
there’s no stopping it
like a parasite
one with a suit vest and tie
who fuck only by appointment
to reach the sky
of early winter
and never say enough
like a machete
on the borders of each page
Peter Schwartz
Unwanted Love Poem
Forty-five things are wrong tonight.
The clouds are about as thoughtful as a ski mask.
The expiration date on my indulgences just ended.
The teeth of whatever protects me are falling out.
Soon I'll have no smile.
Let's make execution your wife.
Let's put her on a mattress floating in a river so polluted it's worn out its name. She's autographing the moon like mad, like it won't cost anyone a thing.
Let's make you marry her every day, over and over again.
Let's see you wash those dishes.
Let's watch her microwave a small bowl of sorrow.
Watch her place the ghosts of my caresses into little plastic bags.
Watch her use her cellphone and change a tampon at once.
Watch her eat this stupid camera with a fork and knife.
Watch her like a rabbit's foot.
See even imagination should take its vitamins.
See a little knife is the same as a big knife.
See her chop me off like a haircut.
See inside her garbage.
The heart is a jellyfish that should be painted and shined like a used car.
The heart is the monster in something as simple as a toothbrush.
The heart is a radish made of pure distances.
The heart is a forest ranger with herpes.
The heart is the last fortune cookie on the plate.
It says darkness is still nature.
Dan Provost
Fourth Quarter
Sometimes I sit at my desk
at work and wonder if I
am just a slave to the man
(whomever is the man is)…
This is not my idea
of a good time…to
break bread with scholarly
business and feel like
I am accomplishing
nothing in the unpredictability
of an unseasoned life.
A deranged puppet-master has
control over my fingers as
I type letters about an MBA program…
Make more money…make the college richer.
More of this phoniness, pretend to care
What I am doing this for, when I really want to run
With the crashing of a ruptured wave,
Hold hands with a lover…look her in the
Eye and kiss her…
(Whomever she is).
But so many dreams are fables…
Stories that never find a way into the jaded notebook…
So I sit and play a part…find a way to make
it till quitting time. Go home and think about
lost battles.
Maybe open a beer to balance my equilibrium
And wonder if the souls who drive up and down
my street are as pained as me.
City
if in the meantime she said
you want to think about culture
i suggest you look sideways
the flat is the gap
in the shoreline’s teeth
lights drawn across indigo
a peninsula
becomes the sea
look for the seam
we joined the crowds
in not talking and we reacted
as starlings do
flux in the malls
a shift in the crowds
a flex in the body
politic the silence
of aldermen advertising
their glories abandoned cinemas
leading men walk
through scenery you
can see through their
great hanging jaws
have already killed once
sacrificed a man
a father of twelve
his body on a pyre of books
pushed burning to sea
Gordon Purkis
Scary thoughts
What scares me most
is that there isn’t always
a happy ending – that
one’s dreams are not good
dreams when they turn into
other people’s nightmares,
when the dream is all you
see and the rest is darkness.
A candle is
never enough
light today
but it
should be;
I am often
incredulous
at the despairing
having forgotten
my own despair.
We live in a vile-age
Our heroes wear black
We continue to get
larger as the world
gets smaller
There is not
enough room
for the light to
get through
We barely have
room to dance
a waltz
It makes one
want to just
stand out on the
terrace smoking.
Stanley H. Barkan
AUGUST
August slides into September,
like a child down in the pond
of the playground we call “Last Fling.”
The sun has grown larger than toy balloons,
reddening the sky filled with purple clouds.
Brooding over the tall cornstalks
—full with the secret seeds of summer—
the sky so heavy it could rain answers
filled with crickets questioning,
luna moths fluttering about lantern moons.
In the dark lit by fireflies
—constellating patterns of premature birth—
we fall like so many fruits ready for harvest.
Jason Ryberg
FOR SOME REASON
The night sky is alive tonight
with glittering diamels
and chittering super-strings
of crickets
like sleigh bells, almost,
with their near-hypnotic ringing.
And the shadows thrown
from streetlamps are teeming
with these freaky hybrid angel/demon things.
And me, I'm whistling "Doo Wah Diddy" in the dark,
stumbling, half-blind, through a graveyard
on my way home from the bar.
And the trees are whispering the latest news
and the grass is strongly advising me to
"lay down and relax."
But hey, there's no time for that
'cause somewhere, out there tonight,
there's a pale, wing'd horse on someones roof
hoofing out the secret code
for the answers to all our troubles
(or, maybe just the winning
lotto numbers).
And there's a weaselly little rat-man
in a long, black coat and top hat
sniffing and prancing about the intersection
of Hilarity and Mayhem, calling out,
"children, I have lollipops, children!"
And a wolf in hobo's clothing
is standing at someones sub-suburban back door,
asking, sheepishly, about a billy goat
or "chosen one" or somethin',
and a sad, sad boy
singin' a curbmouth blues
about a crown that's been seized
by a new king of fools.
And, for some reason,
I'm seriously feelin'
like I'm about to be on the receiving end
of some kind of low-level divine judgment
(for something I'm not sure I even did)
like a low-hanging tree-limb
or slavering set of jaws charging wildly
from out of the dark or old-school locker-room
towel-snap from The Almighty, Him Self.
And He's urging all his angels
and demons alike to
"engage target with extreme prejudice!"
'Cause The Word flittering moth-like
through the trees this evening
has it that the Moon
has put a price of thirty silver-pieces
on all our fool heads:
those who would dare wander
into her dark garden
without some secret intrigue
to be party to
or some mysterious stranger
to kiss.
Fabio Izzo
And they know the answers before I give them
And they know the answers before I give them
a word they said
just somewhere in between
although not entirely of my own choosing
of dying man
in army like retreat
We walk hand in hand
to a light rain
to swallow through the mud
there’s no stopping it
like a parasite
one with a suit vest and tie
who fuck only by appointment
to reach the sky
of early winter
and never say enough
like a machete
on the borders of each page
Peter Schwartz
Unwanted Love Poem
Forty-five things are wrong tonight.
The clouds are about as thoughtful as a ski mask.
The expiration date on my indulgences just ended.
The teeth of whatever protects me are falling out.
Soon I'll have no smile.
Let's make execution your wife.
Let's put her on a mattress floating in a river so polluted it's worn out its name. She's autographing the moon like mad, like it won't cost anyone a thing.
Let's make you marry her every day, over and over again.
Let's see you wash those dishes.
Let's watch her microwave a small bowl of sorrow.
Watch her place the ghosts of my caresses into little plastic bags.
Watch her use her cellphone and change a tampon at once.
Watch her eat this stupid camera with a fork and knife.
Watch her like a rabbit's foot.
See even imagination should take its vitamins.
See a little knife is the same as a big knife.
See her chop me off like a haircut.
See inside her garbage.
The heart is a jellyfish that should be painted and shined like a used car.
The heart is the monster in something as simple as a toothbrush.
The heart is a radish made of pure distances.
The heart is a forest ranger with herpes.
The heart is the last fortune cookie on the plate.
It says darkness is still nature.
Dan Provost
Fourth Quarter
Sometimes I sit at my desk
at work and wonder if I
am just a slave to the man
(whomever is the man is)…
This is not my idea
of a good time…to
break bread with scholarly
business and feel like
I am accomplishing
nothing in the unpredictability
of an unseasoned life.
A deranged puppet-master has
control over my fingers as
I type letters about an MBA program…
Make more money…make the college richer.
More of this phoniness, pretend to care
What I am doing this for, when I really want to run
With the crashing of a ruptured wave,
Hold hands with a lover…look her in the
Eye and kiss her…
(Whomever she is).
But so many dreams are fables…
Stories that never find a way into the jaded notebook…
So I sit and play a part…find a way to make
it till quitting time. Go home and think about
lost battles.
Maybe open a beer to balance my equilibrium
And wonder if the souls who drive up and down
my street are as pained as me.
Monday, 4 August 2008
Cash Rules Everything Around Me #4
Greg Oguss on Pop Culture
Coming Soon to an Intarweb Near You
This month’s regular programming of Cash Rules has been preempted. Instead of the usual arrogant column on a selection of random shit you’ve grown accustomed to seeing in this space over the past several months, you’re in for a special treat. The following is a promotional tease for an anthology I’m editing on pop culture in the digital age entitled God Is Dead But That Ain’t What’s Givin’ Me the Blues. The anthology features fiction, essays, blog-style rants and poetry. Some of the contributors are Gloom Cupboard folks like novelist and columnist Richard Nesberg and our founding editor Richard Wink. Other participants include a jet-setting Peruvian blogger who rocks an iced-out silver neck-chain bearing the letters C-U-N-T, the founding editors of Slurve Magazine, and an alcoholic bass player from Houston who goes by the name DJ Jesus Christ. Without further ado, here’s a discarded draft of an introduction I wrote for the book, which will no doubt show up in the tenth anniversary Director’s Cut edition loaded with those fab extras that get the fanboys all hot and bothered.
I could give a fuck about theme.
That’s the only guidance I initially gave to the contributors of God Is Dead, an anthology I decided I wanted to compile about pop culture in the millennial era. I had a broad theme in mind. But I didn’t want to limit the topics that anyone might choose to write about. The one rule was that it had to be a field in which you’d had some practical experience. While mulling over ideas for this introduction, I started talking to my friend Nick, a former Manhattan-based architect who recently founded a mobile-to-mobile advertising firm called Xipto. Nick said he might contribute an essay he’d written on “What comes after capitalism?” My first response to Nick was that I wasn’t sure anything does. He and his firm are thinking about ways to offer an attractive “post-capitalist” business model to their clients. “Well, that goes back to the beginning of Hip Hop,” I told Nick when he explained his idea for an essay. Back in the early ‘80s, Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five released conscious rap hits like “The Message” and “White Lines” about struggles in the ‘hood. But their songs had “a good beat and you can dance to it,” as the kids used to say on American Bandstand, whenever they were asked to rate a new single’s chances for success.
“The Message” went gold in 1982. It is widely acknowledged as the first serious Hip Hop record. In the late 1980s, Public Enemy’s early records also became popular by offering danceable beats without sacrificing political content. When PE stopped making danceable records, people stopped tuning in to their message. Whatever side of the political aisle you’re on, if you want people to listen to what you’re saying, you have to find a way of holding their attention. This isn’t what Nick argues in his writing, but it is part of my take on the “post-capitalism” debate.
What comes after capitalism? The answer is a more morally neutral form it. So what does that mean precisely? In the 19th Century, Nietzsche wrote of a new form of human consciousness that he perceived on the horizon, a “Superman” who was “beyond good and evil.” That’s a useful phrase even if humans are still governed by their conscience or what Freud termed the “super-ego” at the dawn of the 20th Century.
These days, it’s the economy that’s “beyond good and evil” and questions of morality. One example is so-called green mutual funds. Such funds attempt to invest in socially conscious firms like Whole Foods (WFMI) and refuse to invest in certain so-called bad actors like Exxon Mobil (XOM). Over the last few years, if you’ve held shares in WFMI, you’ve gotten the shit kicked out of you. At the end of January 2007, WFMI was priced at $73.87 per share. When the market closed on January 31, 2008, thanks to a recent rally, WFMI had bounced back up to $39.44. Over a single year, that’s a drop of 47 percent. In contrast, XOM closed the month of January 2006 at $62.75. At the close of the market on January 31, 2008, despite a significant recent pull back in oil stocks, XOM sat at $84.70. Over a two-year period, that’s a gain of 35%. These two stocks are a random snapshot of green investing practices vs. a morally neutral investing approach. But it’s indicative of the failure of green mutual funds across the board. Nowadays, there are green hedge funds, too, although they’re doing about as well as those green mutual funds.
To move the discussion back to popular culture, the words of the always quotable Jay-Z are useful. On his soundtrack to American Gangster, Jay raps that the moralists of our time are apt to blame society’s ills on him for his use of the so-called n-word and all “the shit that I’m spittin’.” But he asks how anyone can argue that his rhymes are worse than “these celebutantes showin’ their kittens?” A non-exclusive of female celebs who’ve flashed their pussy for the cameras includes Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Christina Aguilera, Vanessa Hudgens and British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood. None of their careers have been harmed by their crotch-flashing episodes. There has been increased talk about their supposed lack of talent after these incidents. But their behavior has kept their faces in the public eye, which is the point. More importantly, these maneuvers work because capitalism in the 21st century doesn’t care about good and evil. Jay-Z knows this and he’s laughing all the way to the bank. Some of those celebutantes might not be laughing as hard these days, but their earning power is largely unscathed. And their cultural significance is unquestioned. As ample evidence of this, there’s an I ♥ Vivienne Westwood fan page on Facebook which boasts a membership of five thousand or so fanboys and fangirls as well as a dozen more Westwood-themed fan pages on Facebook alone.
As the viewpoint of many of the contributions in God Is Dead illustrates, the meaning of words like gay, fag, bitch, slut, hoe, cunt, and nigga has shifted radically among Gen Xers, Gen Y and Millenial kids. But the meaning of ‘the n-word’ remains a little stickier given American’s history of racism. Racism doesn’t just belong to the past. Besides high-profile cases like the unequal justice doled out to the Jena Six down in Louisiana, an example drawn from pop culture is the warning label on Jay-Z’s 1996 debut Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. It might not seem surprising that his debut album bears a “Parental Advisory Explict Content” sticker. Also not surprising is the fact that title of the first hit single of Jay-Z’s career, “Ain’t No Nigga,” is obscured by asterisks on the back of the album so that it reads: “Ain’t No *****.” That same year, Arista Records re-released punk icon Patti Smith’s 1978 album Easter. It is probably Smith’s best-known album thanks to two songs, “Because the Night” and “Rock n’ Roll Nigger.” Smith’s “Rock n’ Roll Nigger” is an attempt to claim “oppressed minority status” for punk rockers due to punk’s “outside the mainstream” position in the 1970s. But the surprising thing about the 1996 release of Easter is that it doesn’t carry a PMRC warning label. And the title of the song “Rock n Roll Nigger” is printed on the back without asterisks obscuring the word “nigger.” By 1996, I guess it was cool for a washed-up punk icon to use the n-word as long as she’s using it in a self-aggrandizing manner and applying it to white folks. But Hova still gets the warning label and the asterisks. However, he’ll also sock away $500 million plus in the bank over the next decade. So that evens things up, I suppose.
In the fall of 2007, Jay-Z released the soundtrack to American Gangsteron Def Jam Records. A decade earlier, on his debut Beyond on a Reasonable Doubt, Def Jam’s future CEO boasted that you could find him down at a flick, “rootin’ for the villain.” In 2008, everybody is rooting for the villains. Jay-Z was a little ahead of his time. But that’s Hip Hop for you, a form of music which Chuck D of Public Enemy once termed “The Black People’s CNN.” These days, Hip Hop is everybody’s CNN.
To read more of Greg, visit www.slurvemag.com and www.lasnark.com.
Coming Soon to an Intarweb Near You
This month’s regular programming of Cash Rules has been preempted. Instead of the usual arrogant column on a selection of random shit you’ve grown accustomed to seeing in this space over the past several months, you’re in for a special treat. The following is a promotional tease for an anthology I’m editing on pop culture in the digital age entitled God Is Dead But That Ain’t What’s Givin’ Me the Blues. The anthology features fiction, essays, blog-style rants and poetry. Some of the contributors are Gloom Cupboard folks like novelist and columnist Richard Nesberg and our founding editor Richard Wink. Other participants include a jet-setting Peruvian blogger who rocks an iced-out silver neck-chain bearing the letters C-U-N-T, the founding editors of Slurve Magazine, and an alcoholic bass player from Houston who goes by the name DJ Jesus Christ. Without further ado, here’s a discarded draft of an introduction I wrote for the book, which will no doubt show up in the tenth anniversary Director’s Cut edition loaded with those fab extras that get the fanboys all hot and bothered.
I could give a fuck about theme.
That’s the only guidance I initially gave to the contributors of God Is Dead, an anthology I decided I wanted to compile about pop culture in the millennial era. I had a broad theme in mind. But I didn’t want to limit the topics that anyone might choose to write about. The one rule was that it had to be a field in which you’d had some practical experience. While mulling over ideas for this introduction, I started talking to my friend Nick, a former Manhattan-based architect who recently founded a mobile-to-mobile advertising firm called Xipto. Nick said he might contribute an essay he’d written on “What comes after capitalism?” My first response to Nick was that I wasn’t sure anything does. He and his firm are thinking about ways to offer an attractive “post-capitalist” business model to their clients. “Well, that goes back to the beginning of Hip Hop,” I told Nick when he explained his idea for an essay. Back in the early ‘80s, Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five released conscious rap hits like “The Message” and “White Lines” about struggles in the ‘hood. But their songs had “a good beat and you can dance to it,” as the kids used to say on American Bandstand, whenever they were asked to rate a new single’s chances for success.
“The Message” went gold in 1982. It is widely acknowledged as the first serious Hip Hop record. In the late 1980s, Public Enemy’s early records also became popular by offering danceable beats without sacrificing political content. When PE stopped making danceable records, people stopped tuning in to their message. Whatever side of the political aisle you’re on, if you want people to listen to what you’re saying, you have to find a way of holding their attention. This isn’t what Nick argues in his writing, but it is part of my take on the “post-capitalism” debate.
What comes after capitalism? The answer is a more morally neutral form it. So what does that mean precisely? In the 19th Century, Nietzsche wrote of a new form of human consciousness that he perceived on the horizon, a “Superman” who was “beyond good and evil.” That’s a useful phrase even if humans are still governed by their conscience or what Freud termed the “super-ego” at the dawn of the 20th Century.
These days, it’s the economy that’s “beyond good and evil” and questions of morality. One example is so-called green mutual funds. Such funds attempt to invest in socially conscious firms like Whole Foods (WFMI) and refuse to invest in certain so-called bad actors like Exxon Mobil (XOM). Over the last few years, if you’ve held shares in WFMI, you’ve gotten the shit kicked out of you. At the end of January 2007, WFMI was priced at $73.87 per share. When the market closed on January 31, 2008, thanks to a recent rally, WFMI had bounced back up to $39.44. Over a single year, that’s a drop of 47 percent. In contrast, XOM closed the month of January 2006 at $62.75. At the close of the market on January 31, 2008, despite a significant recent pull back in oil stocks, XOM sat at $84.70. Over a two-year period, that’s a gain of 35%. These two stocks are a random snapshot of green investing practices vs. a morally neutral investing approach. But it’s indicative of the failure of green mutual funds across the board. Nowadays, there are green hedge funds, too, although they’re doing about as well as those green mutual funds.
To move the discussion back to popular culture, the words of the always quotable Jay-Z are useful. On his soundtrack to American Gangster, Jay raps that the moralists of our time are apt to blame society’s ills on him for his use of the so-called n-word and all “the shit that I’m spittin’.” But he asks how anyone can argue that his rhymes are worse than “these celebutantes showin’ their kittens?” A non-exclusive of female celebs who’ve flashed their pussy for the cameras includes Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Christina Aguilera, Vanessa Hudgens and British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood. None of their careers have been harmed by their crotch-flashing episodes. There has been increased talk about their supposed lack of talent after these incidents. But their behavior has kept their faces in the public eye, which is the point. More importantly, these maneuvers work because capitalism in the 21st century doesn’t care about good and evil. Jay-Z knows this and he’s laughing all the way to the bank. Some of those celebutantes might not be laughing as hard these days, but their earning power is largely unscathed. And their cultural significance is unquestioned. As ample evidence of this, there’s an I ♥ Vivienne Westwood fan page on Facebook which boasts a membership of five thousand or so fanboys and fangirls as well as a dozen more Westwood-themed fan pages on Facebook alone.
As the viewpoint of many of the contributions in God Is Dead illustrates, the meaning of words like gay, fag, bitch, slut, hoe, cunt, and nigga has shifted radically among Gen Xers, Gen Y and Millenial kids. But the meaning of ‘the n-word’ remains a little stickier given American’s history of racism. Racism doesn’t just belong to the past. Besides high-profile cases like the unequal justice doled out to the Jena Six down in Louisiana, an example drawn from pop culture is the warning label on Jay-Z’s 1996 debut Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. It might not seem surprising that his debut album bears a “Parental Advisory Explict Content” sticker. Also not surprising is the fact that title of the first hit single of Jay-Z’s career, “Ain’t No Nigga,” is obscured by asterisks on the back of the album so that it reads: “Ain’t No *****.” That same year, Arista Records re-released punk icon Patti Smith’s 1978 album Easter. It is probably Smith’s best-known album thanks to two songs, “Because the Night” and “Rock n’ Roll Nigger.” Smith’s “Rock n’ Roll Nigger” is an attempt to claim “oppressed minority status” for punk rockers due to punk’s “outside the mainstream” position in the 1970s. But the surprising thing about the 1996 release of Easter is that it doesn’t carry a PMRC warning label. And the title of the song “Rock n Roll Nigger” is printed on the back without asterisks obscuring the word “nigger.” By 1996, I guess it was cool for a washed-up punk icon to use the n-word as long as she’s using it in a self-aggrandizing manner and applying it to white folks. But Hova still gets the warning label and the asterisks. However, he’ll also sock away $500 million plus in the bank over the next decade. So that evens things up, I suppose.
In the fall of 2007, Jay-Z released the soundtrack to American Gangsteron Def Jam Records. A decade earlier, on his debut Beyond on a Reasonable Doubt, Def Jam’s future CEO boasted that you could find him down at a flick, “rootin’ for the villain.” In 2008, everybody is rooting for the villains. Jay-Z was a little ahead of his time. But that’s Hip Hop for you, a form of music which Chuck D of Public Enemy once termed “The Black People’s CNN.” These days, Hip Hop is everybody’s CNN.
To read more of Greg, visit www.slurvemag.com and www.lasnark.com.
Sunday, 3 August 2008
Out of the Cupboard #12
Presenting: Dave Bryant
Slow Death Of Another Trade
I watch the fluorescent tube flicker.
I am still stuck here, but it’s dependable.
There are gentle erosions to mark the passing of time.
The bumper telephone message pad is almost finished.
I am still stuck here, but it’s dependable.
The fax roll needs replacing.
The bumper telephone message pad is almost finished.
Someone cracks a joke about women’s tits.
The fax roll needs replacing.
We are almost out of padded envelopes.
Someone cracks a joke about women’s tits.
Someone comments that all men are redundant and useless.
We are almost out of padded envelopes.
There are circulars about staff productivity to send.
Someone comments that all men are redundant and useless.
Someone kicks the photocopier and curses.
There are circulars about staff productivity to send.
A culling of inessential workers seems inevitable.
Someone kicks the photocopier and curses.
Poor budgets are blamed yet again for maintenance issues.
A culling of inessential workers seems inevitable.
The lift keeps jamming on the second floor.
Poor budgets are blamed yet again for maintenance issues.
The whole company seems in danger.
The lift keeps jamming on the second floor.
The union expresses its anger in no uncertain terms.
The whole company seems in danger.
Perhaps it would be wise to consider moving on.
The union expresses its anger in no uncertain terms.
Heads will roll about the static pay levels.
Perhaps it would be wise to consider moving on.
I begin to scour the classified jobs sections.
Heads will roll about the static pay levels.
Mass redundancies are said to be the most likely outcome.
I begin to scour the classified jobs sections.
I need work in a new trade that’s dependable.
Somnambluebirds
Those colourful talking birds,
they come to you in the middle of the
night, fly through the open
sash window like mis-fired
darts from the street corner pub,
scuffle and scrape beaks and
claws across skirting boards like
finger bones on wood.
They murmur their
demands in voices like a choir of
schoolgirls humming the national anthem
slowly, out of tune
with each other, plead with
trembling beaks like
tweezers delicately gripping at
the splinter of a truth.
They tell you they are exhausted,
demand that you build them a
plane large enough to carry them
across London, watch as you
cautiously fold it from this week’s paper,
flick jerky clockwork eye to eye
doubtfully over news pictures of
suited politicians, arms out-stretched,
mid-sincerity clause.
They made the classic mistake of
thinking humans like you
could build machines as well as
British Aerospace, could fly
better than they could talk.
They are just birds.
They don’t know, and
they don’t understand
that nor do you.
A Perfect Shot
she didn’t believe she could be struck by lightning, and to see her laugh in the face of a camera flash you’d guess she didn’t fear more earthly terrors too. It was picture perfect, each photo catching her radiance bubbling before it died. Every shot for her was the picture they’d use in the paper for you or I if we were murdered, in the lonely hearts column if we needed to be held, in the missing person column if we inexplicably vanished. Her face begged you to look at her, look out for her. It was if the lightning fork had found her on a distant plain, frozen in time laughing at the world, laughing at what was to come.
Memo re - Louise
I’ve worked opposite her for three years, but she doesn’t talk to me much. I have received, in total, three tight, fake, rubber band smiles, and a weighty freightload of frowns and incredulous stares.
She doesn’t care for men much – is quite open about the fact. She points out their aggression, childishness, and lack of compassion at any vague prompt she’s given. The only man she ever befriended here was eventually jailed for Grievous Bodily Harm. To all our criticisms, she sneered that we were just too dumb to understand that the trouble always came looking for him, not vice versa. She told me this slowly, as if she were speaking to somebody who was too simple to understand that the whole world and its cat were prowling the streets looking for fights with enormous, tattooed man-mountains.
I have often thought of telling her I love her, not because I actually do, but because the repulsion in her response would intrigue me – I am almost interested to see if the word could be more feared than a weapon. At lunchtimes, I sometimes have to fight the urge to scream it aloud whilst chewing on a mouthful of jacket potato.
If Louise ever sees what I’ve written about her on file, she will not be hurt or surprised – she’s beyond both. She will just state, plainly and simply, that she always knew I was as vicious as this, that this was why she failed to bother with me from the word “go”, right from when I nervously walked through the office doors on my first day. She can, she will point out, always tell what people are really like from first glance, and they always respond as she expects. She will point out key words, stabbing her blunt fingernail at them as evidence of misogyny, bad character, and cold-hearted cynicism.
She will finish by saying, with a slight smile followed by a horrified shudder, that my defence here in paragraph three is a blatant lie. As usual, it will be my word against hers.
I do hope you will wish me luck tomorrow.
Swinging London (an adult Choose Your Own Adventure game)
This mission – should you choose to accept it, adventurer – will only need one die. It is your task to attempt to find originality, excitement and wonder on the talent-crowded London gig circuit, which you must sign to your newly formed indie label Single Sock Records. With so much cutting edge talent to choose from in the Capital, you’ll need a keen pair of eyes and ears, and perhaps a bit of luck too!
ROLL YOUR DIE NOW AND GO TO THE CORRESPONDING ENTRY.
1.
You go to see Blind Box playing at the NME Spotlight Night at the Unigate Dairy Club. They are a band with two guitarists, a singer, and a drummer. The singer, Peter Variable, has a floppy fringe with spikey hair nearer the back, which has been dyed a sickly shade of tarmac black. It looks rigid and plastic, strangely inflexible. He wears eyeliner in a panda-ish way that would look profoundly ridiculous on a woman.
Their songs, such as “No Rest”, “Scarlet Trains”, and “Missed Again” are melodramatic affairs filled with epic choruses, rather like the ones the Manic Street Preachers used on “Everything Must Go”, but stripped of any string arrangements. The verses and middle eights are just distractions, mere afterthoughts that lead up to the Epic Choruses.
The lead singer is static on stage but screws his brow up at every intense bit, as if he’s trying to force drops of emotion from his performance rather like a dehydrated man attempting to wring drops of water out of a stone dry sponge.
A posh girl next to you instigates conversation. In fifteen seconds time, she will say “My boyfriend’s in a band. They’re called The Korova Bandits. They’ve been tipped for the top by Jonathan King. Have you heard of them?”
You leave. Adventure Over.
2.
You go to see Couldbe Queens play the Jump up and Dance Brothers Sisters and Aliens!!! Night in the Ploughshed. They are some sort of dated Electroclash band with a keyboard player, a singer and two obvious ex-drama students whose precise roles are rather unclear. They wear tight leather and make-up, and pull a variety of slightly camp faces which have clearly been learnt through careful study, both from bad drag queens and the mirrors in their bedrooms.
Their songs, such as “Your Mother’s Desecrated Ass”, “Motorbike Queen”, and “I Know Where To Shove It”, are all pounding electronic numbers where lyrical and musical subtlety is not at any point an option. One of the members, whose name appears to be Needles, spends much of the gig threatening individual members of the audience to a fight. At one point, he throws what appears to be urine at someone. It turns out to be Lucozade, though. Everyone is most amused, as well as being visibly relieved. Rock and roll!
The man stood next to you instigates a conversation, and in fifteen seconds time he will say “Do you know where I could score some coke?”
You leave. Adventure Over.
3.
You go to see The Lotion play the Go Johnny Gogogo Night at the Cow and Flagon. They are a band with two guitarists, a singer, and a drummer. The singer has Strokeshair, which has been dyed a sickly shade of tarmac black. He wears a rather ordinary suit jacket with a pair of far too tight blue jeans, and his performance speciality appears to be a pop-eyed glare which he directs at the audience to notify “intensity”.
The songs, “Reverse! Reverse!! Reverse!!!”, “Churchill” and “Plague Pets” are slightly mournful but somehow energetic ditties that manage to bridge the gap between Joy Division and The Ramones. The lead singer Joe’s voice is a hollering, barking cross between Jim Morrison’s and Ian Curtis’s. At one point he sings “I feel claustrophobic on the outside/ and safer on the inside” repeatedly and with some intensity. You wonder what this might mean.
The posh teenage girl stood next to you instigates a conversation. In fifteen seconds time, she will say “My boyfriend’s in a band. They’re called The Korova Bandits. They’ve been tipped for the top by Jonathan King. Have you heard of them?”
You leave. Adventure Over.
4.
You go to see Peace Corp play the Shilly Shally Night at the Tail-cock Bar. They are a band with two guitarists, a singer, and a drummer. The band all sport the kind of haircuts last seen in 1991, bowlhaired and possibly rather obstructive to safe road crossing routines. Alvin Stardust would consider them out of their tiny minds. The lead singer pouts a little, and shakes his microphone like it’s a maraca.
Their songs, “Cities”, “I Can See You” and “Ladders Without Snakes” all take their cues from the back catalogue of the Stone Roses, but are pale and diluted examples. The guitarist is average, the vocalist riding on arrogance alone, and the drummer too self-consciously showy and obsessed with random fills to cut it. They will also never play a four minute song where it can be needlessly padded out to nine minutes with bland repetition. Between songs, the lead singer cries out “Peace!” to great applause.
The man stood next to you instigates conversation. In fifteen seconds time, he will say “Do you know where I could score some coke?”.
You leave. Adventure Over.
5.
You go to see The Riptide play Pickled Onion Surprise Club at the Camptown Races venue, but the gig is cancelled due to the lead singer suffering from salmonella poisoning due to an undercooked meal he had from the kebab shop that afternoon.
Roll the die again.
6.
Congratulations, you have rolled a six!
You go to see The Glamour Chase play at the Sugden Arms. They claim to be a “reaction against mediocrity”. They are, in fact, a band with two guitarists, a singer, a drummer and a keyboard player. The band all sport Duran Duran haircuts, only dyed bright red and glaring peroxide blonde, and wear foundation and eyeliner. They do indeed look like Eighties Smash Hits cover star material.
Their songs “Return To Grace”, “Night Owls” and “The Backstreet Union Boys” owe an enormous debt to Bowie, Suede and Duran Duran. The epic choruses in particular have an anthemic quality which has been well thought through, but the verses and middle eights are afterthoughts, distractions, obstacles in the way of the rousing choruses.
The lead singer, Nicolas Hatherley-Gore, strides up and down the stage confidently, and screws his brow up at every intense bit, as if he’s trying to force drops of emotion from his performance rather like a thirsty man attempting to wring drops of water out of a stone dry sponge.
A beautiful woman stood next to you instigates conversation. She has a weeping cold sore on her upper lip. In fifteen seconds time, she will say: “My boyfriend’s in a band. They’re called The Korova Bandits. They’ve been tipped for the top by Jonathan King. Have you heard of them?”
You leave. Adventure Over.
Where to go next
myspace.com/davebryantpoetry
left-and-to-the-back
Slow Death Of Another Trade
I watch the fluorescent tube flicker.
I am still stuck here, but it’s dependable.
There are gentle erosions to mark the passing of time.
The bumper telephone message pad is almost finished.
I am still stuck here, but it’s dependable.
The fax roll needs replacing.
The bumper telephone message pad is almost finished.
Someone cracks a joke about women’s tits.
The fax roll needs replacing.
We are almost out of padded envelopes.
Someone cracks a joke about women’s tits.
Someone comments that all men are redundant and useless.
We are almost out of padded envelopes.
There are circulars about staff productivity to send.
Someone comments that all men are redundant and useless.
Someone kicks the photocopier and curses.
There are circulars about staff productivity to send.
A culling of inessential workers seems inevitable.
Someone kicks the photocopier and curses.
Poor budgets are blamed yet again for maintenance issues.
A culling of inessential workers seems inevitable.
The lift keeps jamming on the second floor.
Poor budgets are blamed yet again for maintenance issues.
The whole company seems in danger.
The lift keeps jamming on the second floor.
The union expresses its anger in no uncertain terms.
The whole company seems in danger.
Perhaps it would be wise to consider moving on.
The union expresses its anger in no uncertain terms.
Heads will roll about the static pay levels.
Perhaps it would be wise to consider moving on.
I begin to scour the classified jobs sections.
Heads will roll about the static pay levels.
Mass redundancies are said to be the most likely outcome.
I begin to scour the classified jobs sections.
I need work in a new trade that’s dependable.
Somnambluebirds
Those colourful talking birds,
they come to you in the middle of the
night, fly through the open
sash window like mis-fired
darts from the street corner pub,
scuffle and scrape beaks and
claws across skirting boards like
finger bones on wood.
They murmur their
demands in voices like a choir of
schoolgirls humming the national anthem
slowly, out of tune
with each other, plead with
trembling beaks like
tweezers delicately gripping at
the splinter of a truth.
They tell you they are exhausted,
demand that you build them a
plane large enough to carry them
across London, watch as you
cautiously fold it from this week’s paper,
flick jerky clockwork eye to eye
doubtfully over news pictures of
suited politicians, arms out-stretched,
mid-sincerity clause.
They made the classic mistake of
thinking humans like you
could build machines as well as
British Aerospace, could fly
better than they could talk.
They are just birds.
They don’t know, and
they don’t understand
that nor do you.
A Perfect Shot
she didn’t believe she could be struck by lightning, and to see her laugh in the face of a camera flash you’d guess she didn’t fear more earthly terrors too. It was picture perfect, each photo catching her radiance bubbling before it died. Every shot for her was the picture they’d use in the paper for you or I if we were murdered, in the lonely hearts column if we needed to be held, in the missing person column if we inexplicably vanished. Her face begged you to look at her, look out for her. It was if the lightning fork had found her on a distant plain, frozen in time laughing at the world, laughing at what was to come.
Memo re - Louise
I’ve worked opposite her for three years, but she doesn’t talk to me much. I have received, in total, three tight, fake, rubber band smiles, and a weighty freightload of frowns and incredulous stares.
She doesn’t care for men much – is quite open about the fact. She points out their aggression, childishness, and lack of compassion at any vague prompt she’s given. The only man she ever befriended here was eventually jailed for Grievous Bodily Harm. To all our criticisms, she sneered that we were just too dumb to understand that the trouble always came looking for him, not vice versa. She told me this slowly, as if she were speaking to somebody who was too simple to understand that the whole world and its cat were prowling the streets looking for fights with enormous, tattooed man-mountains.
I have often thought of telling her I love her, not because I actually do, but because the repulsion in her response would intrigue me – I am almost interested to see if the word could be more feared than a weapon. At lunchtimes, I sometimes have to fight the urge to scream it aloud whilst chewing on a mouthful of jacket potato.
If Louise ever sees what I’ve written about her on file, she will not be hurt or surprised – she’s beyond both. She will just state, plainly and simply, that she always knew I was as vicious as this, that this was why she failed to bother with me from the word “go”, right from when I nervously walked through the office doors on my first day. She can, she will point out, always tell what people are really like from first glance, and they always respond as she expects. She will point out key words, stabbing her blunt fingernail at them as evidence of misogyny, bad character, and cold-hearted cynicism.
She will finish by saying, with a slight smile followed by a horrified shudder, that my defence here in paragraph three is a blatant lie. As usual, it will be my word against hers.
I do hope you will wish me luck tomorrow.
Swinging London (an adult Choose Your Own Adventure game)
This mission – should you choose to accept it, adventurer – will only need one die. It is your task to attempt to find originality, excitement and wonder on the talent-crowded London gig circuit, which you must sign to your newly formed indie label Single Sock Records. With so much cutting edge talent to choose from in the Capital, you’ll need a keen pair of eyes and ears, and perhaps a bit of luck too!
ROLL YOUR DIE NOW AND GO TO THE CORRESPONDING ENTRY.
1.
You go to see Blind Box playing at the NME Spotlight Night at the Unigate Dairy Club. They are a band with two guitarists, a singer, and a drummer. The singer, Peter Variable, has a floppy fringe with spikey hair nearer the back, which has been dyed a sickly shade of tarmac black. It looks rigid and plastic, strangely inflexible. He wears eyeliner in a panda-ish way that would look profoundly ridiculous on a woman.
Their songs, such as “No Rest”, “Scarlet Trains”, and “Missed Again” are melodramatic affairs filled with epic choruses, rather like the ones the Manic Street Preachers used on “Everything Must Go”, but stripped of any string arrangements. The verses and middle eights are just distractions, mere afterthoughts that lead up to the Epic Choruses.
The lead singer is static on stage but screws his brow up at every intense bit, as if he’s trying to force drops of emotion from his performance rather like a dehydrated man attempting to wring drops of water out of a stone dry sponge.
A posh girl next to you instigates conversation. In fifteen seconds time, she will say “My boyfriend’s in a band. They’re called The Korova Bandits. They’ve been tipped for the top by Jonathan King. Have you heard of them?”
You leave. Adventure Over.
2.
You go to see Couldbe Queens play the Jump up and Dance Brothers Sisters and Aliens!!! Night in the Ploughshed. They are some sort of dated Electroclash band with a keyboard player, a singer and two obvious ex-drama students whose precise roles are rather unclear. They wear tight leather and make-up, and pull a variety of slightly camp faces which have clearly been learnt through careful study, both from bad drag queens and the mirrors in their bedrooms.
Their songs, such as “Your Mother’s Desecrated Ass”, “Motorbike Queen”, and “I Know Where To Shove It”, are all pounding electronic numbers where lyrical and musical subtlety is not at any point an option. One of the members, whose name appears to be Needles, spends much of the gig threatening individual members of the audience to a fight. At one point, he throws what appears to be urine at someone. It turns out to be Lucozade, though. Everyone is most amused, as well as being visibly relieved. Rock and roll!
The man stood next to you instigates a conversation, and in fifteen seconds time he will say “Do you know where I could score some coke?”
You leave. Adventure Over.
3.
You go to see The Lotion play the Go Johnny Gogogo Night at the Cow and Flagon. They are a band with two guitarists, a singer, and a drummer. The singer has Strokeshair, which has been dyed a sickly shade of tarmac black. He wears a rather ordinary suit jacket with a pair of far too tight blue jeans, and his performance speciality appears to be a pop-eyed glare which he directs at the audience to notify “intensity”.
The songs, “Reverse! Reverse!! Reverse!!!”, “Churchill” and “Plague Pets” are slightly mournful but somehow energetic ditties that manage to bridge the gap between Joy Division and The Ramones. The lead singer Joe’s voice is a hollering, barking cross between Jim Morrison’s and Ian Curtis’s. At one point he sings “I feel claustrophobic on the outside/ and safer on the inside” repeatedly and with some intensity. You wonder what this might mean.
The posh teenage girl stood next to you instigates a conversation. In fifteen seconds time, she will say “My boyfriend’s in a band. They’re called The Korova Bandits. They’ve been tipped for the top by Jonathan King. Have you heard of them?”
You leave. Adventure Over.
4.
You go to see Peace Corp play the Shilly Shally Night at the Tail-cock Bar. They are a band with two guitarists, a singer, and a drummer. The band all sport the kind of haircuts last seen in 1991, bowlhaired and possibly rather obstructive to safe road crossing routines. Alvin Stardust would consider them out of their tiny minds. The lead singer pouts a little, and shakes his microphone like it’s a maraca.
Their songs, “Cities”, “I Can See You” and “Ladders Without Snakes” all take their cues from the back catalogue of the Stone Roses, but are pale and diluted examples. The guitarist is average, the vocalist riding on arrogance alone, and the drummer too self-consciously showy and obsessed with random fills to cut it. They will also never play a four minute song where it can be needlessly padded out to nine minutes with bland repetition. Between songs, the lead singer cries out “Peace!” to great applause.
The man stood next to you instigates conversation. In fifteen seconds time, he will say “Do you know where I could score some coke?”.
You leave. Adventure Over.
5.
You go to see The Riptide play Pickled Onion Surprise Club at the Camptown Races venue, but the gig is cancelled due to the lead singer suffering from salmonella poisoning due to an undercooked meal he had from the kebab shop that afternoon.
Roll the die again.
6.
Congratulations, you have rolled a six!
You go to see The Glamour Chase play at the Sugden Arms. They claim to be a “reaction against mediocrity”. They are, in fact, a band with two guitarists, a singer, a drummer and a keyboard player. The band all sport Duran Duran haircuts, only dyed bright red and glaring peroxide blonde, and wear foundation and eyeliner. They do indeed look like Eighties Smash Hits cover star material.
Their songs “Return To Grace”, “Night Owls” and “The Backstreet Union Boys” owe an enormous debt to Bowie, Suede and Duran Duran. The epic choruses in particular have an anthemic quality which has been well thought through, but the verses and middle eights are afterthoughts, distractions, obstacles in the way of the rousing choruses.
The lead singer, Nicolas Hatherley-Gore, strides up and down the stage confidently, and screws his brow up at every intense bit, as if he’s trying to force drops of emotion from his performance rather like a thirsty man attempting to wring drops of water out of a stone dry sponge.
A beautiful woman stood next to you instigates conversation. She has a weeping cold sore on her upper lip. In fifteen seconds time, she will say: “My boyfriend’s in a band. They’re called The Korova Bandits. They’ve been tipped for the top by Jonathan King. Have you heard of them?”
You leave. Adventure Over.
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