I bet there’s no hot water left, and I’ve told him so many times the system’s capacity is limited. He’s been in there forever. Icy air snatches at the tip of my nose. It’s one of those mornings where you have to barter with yourself to get up. One minute, two minutes more, and then I’ll get up. Nah, I can afford three. Finally, I … Continue reading Of Mice and Mould by Kate Maxwell
Blood gets transfused into my veinsFrom a bag which from the ceiling hangs;Some pipettes from the bottom runLike legs with someone else’s blood. So the maroon cephalopodFloats from the pole it’s fastened on;Staved by a hook, it makes a squid,Who slowly bleeds out drip by drip;I lay below the drying fishOf plastic bag with blood in it. What is blood, but such basic stuff,But blood’s … Continue reading Bubonic Colonic by Zeke Greenwald
For a brief while many years agoPatti Smith and I workedin the Strand Bookstore at the same time.I did get the chance to see her performwith Lenny Kaye playing guitaron a rooftop high above Grand Street,but our main interaction happenedwhen she strode up to me in the storeand thrust the Caedmon recordingof James Joyce reading into my hands.“Someone told me I looked like himand gave … Continue reading Me and Patti Smith by Ron Kolm
The ides of giugno find me reading— of all things—Robert Lowell.The day is quite beautifuland cool (this pencil much too dark).Slept well. Refreshed. Therefrigerator is at last defrosted.I don’t know whatmoved me to remove Robert L.from the shelf—I won’t quibble.I’ve made my peacewith his equivocal hell.His sad tale strikes me nowas having been not spiritually diseasedbut tragically corporeal.A hulking man whose heart in a bowlhad overbrimmed … Continue reading June Burial by John Jack Jackie (Edward) Cooper
It was my childhood dream to become either an alcoholic, or a very old man. After thinking it over it became obvious that the latter, though it would be more difficult to achieve in the short-term, would afford me more respect. I dressed in brown corduroy pants and oxford shirts, tweed sports jackets and loafers. I kept a pack of Players navy-cut cigarettes in my … Continue reading Childhood by Cara Hoffman
A white bolt from aboverips through the clouds before our eyes—an epiphany—showering cuts upon the kitchen table,releasing bad blood,testing our guileand gristle. Continue reading Old Filament, Broken Bulb by David Estringel
It all begins at home,with the wooden pram,the set of coffee cups,and the two-plaited doll,the daughter who is destined for marital servitude,whose dowry may bring some profit to a household,and who in olden times used to be buried alive for she was considered an ill omenthough her father who buried her was himself conceived in a womb. At school, she is not supposed to compete with … Continue reading Derision by Susie Gharib
