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FEBRUARY 2008 | |
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Heckle
Sylvester
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By Nick Volkert , Jan 02, 2008  |
A Review of Messinger's Hiding Out (2007)
An indie-lit juggernaut, Messinger is the host of the much lauded Dollar Store Reading Series in Chicago,
a series revolving around trinkets he finds at his local dollar store whereby he asks writers to compose short
pieces based on those items—the series has sold out for the last three years; he used to edit THISISGRAND,
an online publication of creative non-fiction about Chicago’s public transit; he is the co-editor of Featherproof
Books, a small press of fiction; and now he’s an author, with his first book, Hiding Out (Featherproof
Books, 2007) a collection of short fiction, released in October. |
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zombie tongue
By Jennifer E. Hudgens, Jan 06, 2008 i want to write my eulogy painted on a tin roof of over emphasized lyricists drowning in fervor and passion and flame a conduit of my senses it was just today that I noticed that the posters on the wall are all crooked maybe it is that I am crooked and the wall has been straight all along the posters hung with absolute care I want a prescription for the intensity of my emotions But I don't want to become a zombie I want a resolution for the high strung antics that get my engines going But I don't want you to write me an anthem For my dress size Or my mistakes The eraser can be cleared by a simple run across The carpet in eighth grade English class I open the call log I lock the door seventy-two times When it was already locked after One Some time Living in a path of self vindication Lies Path Lies I wished I was a better person even at the age of 3 And now Same Shit Different Day Ive never been stricken down By anything as deep as heroin Never had a needle in my veins that wasn't warranted by my mothers Hypochondria Or lack of Ive been addicted to sewing needles pushed through eager flesh of palms Razorblades gliding deep into milky flesh like cutting through soft swiss Alcohol replacing blood Drugs replacing god Atheism burned inside my black heart at a time when I still prayed Hoping that I was wrong That someone was listening Knew the pain I was breaking under Felt the despair in my eyes Held me close without saying a word And wrapped me in the wings of solitude Left me waiting Enslaving myself Into dry eyes Weak impulses To flesh And any fingertips That will touch me In lust I don't crave silence anymore The way I crave your lips Your lore Your idealistic sanctimonious bullshit that you left At the bedroom door Closet held the secret wills of men That have come and come before And I am just a faithless Hopeful Sentimental fool Holding my eyelids pinched tightly together Sifting through the twenty nine years of my life And still wondering What kind of person I should be What kind of woman I am What kind of world is this And would it be fair to say that I will Be this. Ive let men get away with things that I always said id never let them do I had to get away Get away whatever the cost To my psyche Because they didn't care as long as they got their Cookies But never. Never a. A dull. Moment. And I am still rotting at the seams Broken into tiny glass shards swept up with the hand broom And dust pan Dirt files away the day of my misanthropy And I dine on a plate of stars And sweet holy Holy breath And brine Blood And cake Sleep comes quick When the sugar hits my veins And I hold Hold Hold Hold you close Close enough for you to cut my heart Into devour-able pieces Delicious with steak sauce And a side of irony And wild rice Don't play me like a doomsday fiddle Don't take away my token Charm Each snake encased in silver tongues Licks to medusa's flesh And I said. I said. I SAID! I SAID I KNEW THE PRICE! I lied to help me sleep at night Slip sweetly into my own veins Drug induced apathetic principality And now. I long for bites to flesh. And the zombie mind to recover. Me. |
In War & Peace
By Corey Mesler, Jan 06, 2008 In War and Peace there’s a guy who tied a policeman to a bear and set them both adrift in a stream. I cling to such absurdities. Whatever handholds there are in the world are sympathetic magic. Whatever ties us to story is sympathetic magic. I read because I am a reader. I tell you about it because you seemed so close just now. I want to tell you other stories. I never know what will signify. Can you hold out your hand? In War and Peace there’s a guy who tied a policeman to a bear. He set them both adrift. This is my gift today, this scrap. It sits in your palm like a fortune, like a pictogram of a bear and a policeman and a swiftly moving Russian stream. The Kate Beckinsale Memorial One-Legged Race By Corey Mesler, Jan 06, 2008 We lined up at dawn because we knew that some of us would die. Weapons were oiled and shining like our best dreams. We only wanted to do our best. We had that face before us like a full moon. We had the ideation that launched a thousand slips. When Rich pulled out his hammer and tongs we knew the games were afoot. Later, after the sun had put on quite a show, Phil asked if Kate Beckinsale was going to attend. We had to jugulate him, of course, because the rules demanded it. The Kate Beckinsale Memorial One-Legged Race was not just a state of mines but we tread carefully anyway. It was something in our hearts that hurt every time the box was opened. It was something we held dear, like the first time our mothers laughed. Or the first time any of us thought of Kate Beck- insale and withered, withered and sang. Later we hurried back to the Master of the Revels. We didn’t want to be late signing up for the Jennifer Connelly Cap-a-Pie Fashion Cabaret. Corey Mesler has published prose and/or poetry in Turnrow, Adirondack Review, American Poetry Journal, Paumanok Review, Blood Orange, Yankee Pot Roast, Monday Night, Elimae, H_NGM_N, Center, Poet Lore, Forklift OH, Euphony, Rattle, Jabberwock Review, Dicey Brown, Cordite, Smartish Pace, others. He has two novels from Livingston Press: Talk: a Novel in Dialogue (2002) and We are Billion-Year-Old Carbon (2007). He can be found at www.coreymesler.com. Near Christmas 2007 By Dan Provost, Jan 07, 2008 Also... With a view of some cheap Nirvana in my soul. I will seek and find nothing... ZZ Top sang Jesus Just Left Chicago once Maybe he’ll end up on Watson Avenue—looking for revenge for all the mortal sins I have committed... The blinking Christmas lights are worn on the triple-decker apartments. Lower world seeking Jesus joy... I will walk among restless purgatory engorged imposters and wait for the Son of God to confront me... I hope he is in a good mood. Dan Provost's poetry is harsh and crude... Some like it while others hate it. He lives alone in Worcester, Massachusetts and loves Lynyrd Skynyrd. methadone memory By David McLean, Jan 06, 2008 memories are methadone for the soul, better than nothing but not the real thing, just waiting for the supplement, smack or presented love, to replace them and make them everything, God's naked lake we swim in, his complex medicine David McLean has around 375 poems in or accepted by 165 publications in print or online since December 2006. Details are in his blog at http://mourningabortion.blogspot.com. He has a chapbook “a hunger for mourning” published by Erbacce press, on sale at Lulu at www.lulu.com/content/1338495 and a forthcoming full-length book with Whistling Shade Press in 2008, “Cadaver's Dance.”
Duotrope's Digest reported that decomP was #4 in the Top 25 Swiftest Poetry markets and #13 in the Top 25 Most Approachable Poetry Markets before submissions closed.
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bukowski waxed my legs
Kilometre Zero
Andrew Taylor is a Liverpool (UK) based poet and co-editor of erbacce and erbacce-press.
Latest appearances online and in the small press include: Otoliths, Silenced Press, Debris Magazine,
Type A B +,The Ugly Tree, Zygote in my Coffee and Origami Condom.
SCIENCE JUICE
Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal's chapbook, Keepers Of Silence, was published in December 2007 by Kendra Steiner
Editions. He also has new work in Blue Collar Review. |
