Jesus or a White Chick and School Daze
by Cassandra Dallett, January 2010
"maybe it makes the sex better
that he put himself through
such torment"
Two Translations of Charles Baudelaire: I Shall Haunt You as No Other and Song of Autumn
by Sigerson, January 2010
"and I shall give you, dusky one,
kisses cold as the silvery moon,
silk caresses of the serpent
which has crawled from some hellish pit;"
Caudata, Haplochromini, and Stylommatophora
by Sam Schild, January 2010
"sucking, yolkin eggs invertebrates after breaking, fins swim from backs tell along lengthening tails distance traveled since from beginning nose she's absorbing pheromones, taking spermatophores, amplexused, encapsulated swimmings sinuous swashlings, penisless production yielding long flaccid yet limbers with fins does this make me less baby?"
I Do Not Know, Sitting on the Dock of the Bay, and In My View
by Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal, January 2010
"will claw at my
skin, find the vein,
and rip it out.
That much I know."
mustard seeds, Typos in braille, and "Progressivism"
by Robert Louis Henry, January 2010
"knowing good
and well that
faith is a flea
on your foreskin"
Mountain Child, Hell's Circles, and Thumbing a Ride
by Justin Carmickle, January 2010
"Imagine a boy wrapped in ratty
bearskins, with unkempt hair laden
with lice and fleas — know
that he comes from mountain people, those
who live so deep in the hills they barely speak"
The Emissions of Insects, Can't we all Just, and Ring of Fire
by Joshua Conklin, January 2010
"So I wasn't surprised to see Conflict on the street yesterday,
a paper bag
and five-week shadow."
When, at the Ballet Barre, the Mad Girl Realizes, Ballroom, Reading Room, and It Was Like
by Lyn Lifshin, January 2010
"someone who throws
away silver coins,
of her favorite horse
because when her
lover left, betrayed"
Look and Listen and The one to know
by Ivan Jenson, December 2009
"you skim
like a tossed
pebble
and then you sink"
Malverde and Imbeciles in the Torrent
by Mather Schneider, December 2009
"Malverde seems to change
his favors to coincide
with the movements
of U.S. border troops."
We move backwards and Commute the Corner
by Khadija Anderson, December 2009
"This is the ambulance passing again
and the bus going down the alley
It's when we come to the same place"
I Am Choosing Engagement and Self Immolation
by Ally Malinenko, December 2009
"I'm ripping out the narrative
and laying it to dry,
next to my skin,
flipped inside out"
O BABY O BABY O and cribnotes for paradise's tribunal
by KJ Hays, December 2009
"weep the tears not possible
when you were alive because
of numbness & coin & quiet.
weep 'em on her shoulder hard."
Checking Email, Full Morning Drunk, and The Japanese Death Poem at Halftime during the NBA Finals
by Jonathan Hayes, December 2009
"The itty-bitty roach runs up my $2.00 "out the door" High Life forty
circling the piss yellow fat sweating glass bottle."
What Is This Love You Speak Of?, BPD, and "In this small town"
by Holly Jaffe, December 2009
"Your fits are brutal
with words like fists
and mine are choreographed
complete with maudlin tears"
Searchlight, Her Project, and Masters of Tomorrow
by Luke Buckham, December 2009
"and there's a bucket with a rim of frost
and there's a rainspout where the water comes down on me
and I can taste the shingles in the water
and I can taste the dust of long-winding roads"
November walk, My vainglorious death, and Great Barrier
by Constance Stadler, December 2009
"Yet you, fool, reach out to tenderly brush
this prickle of cheek
Your wide eyed famine, drip-drip stump
evokes nothing."
Conan O'Brian's Penis Size Contest and I Called a Phone Sex Hotline and Impersonated an Elderly British Woman
by Newamba Flamingo, November 2009
"Meanwhile, in a press release, NBC announces the sabre-toothed tiger
that mauled Conan to death
will be the new star of a reality TV show about extinct animals
who appear from nowhere and attack and kill homicidal comedians..."
shooting blanks and 11:49 PM no sign of remorse
by K.R. Copeland and Jeff Crouch, November 2009
"creature night with fumbling fingers
fondles your sown up lip stitch
wishes your cool beauty could whisper"
Often, It's Best Just to Listen and Grand Mal
by William Crawford, November 2009
"because in your mind her eyes seemed dead
when sewn inside those vicious scenes
the way they stared back at you,
into you,"
Painters' Exhalations 453 and 455: After Fred Martin's #3 and Cheryl D. McClure's Little Pieces of Land
by Felino Soriano, November 2009
"such a disconcerting display
laid on its horizontal, pleading for
ironic
altruistic
consumption."
"Men in White," "Faced with such a mystery, the" and "The orchard glimmers emerald, is pock-marked with dandelion clocks"
by Olivia Kennett, November 2009
"A fawn plays the broken harpsichord at night while the orchard keepers are sleeping
Making broken noises for the other animals of the countryside
And when his hooves press on the shattered keys the dandelions make wishes for themselves
Releasing their feathered seedlings into the milk of the sky"
Torched Brain Cells, The North American Laugh-Box, and Light of Pathos
by Kurtice Kucheman, November 2009
"brain cells fry on the pavement
like yesterday's roadkill
walking husks devoid of life
missing sanity, soul and mind"
To God and bullets, books, and regret
by Charles Clifford Brooks III, November 2009
"it's a bitch's playground begging for a coup
between college degrees and gun-runners,
where battalions are met with amphetamines, motorcycles,
a zeal to hate the self-reliant, the librarian, the bartender."
Electrocution and Firsts
by Mary Ocher, September 2009
"And babies are not different from
And blushes are not different from
And turning plates on dining floors
Are not too different"
gimmick and pigeon
by John Grochalski, September 2009
"he has this gimmick
this midget in the subway station at atlantic avenue
he dresses in a black jacket and hat and sunglasses
and wears a glove speckled with cubic zirconium"
The Poetry Reading at the Nusery Home and Land of the Fatherless
by John Grey, September 2009
"I remember one night we drove through
South Providence, one of those streets
like Prairie that give immediate lie
to their name, tenement and vacant lot
alternating like squares on a checker board,"
Burden, The Sidewalk Feels Hard Beneath My Feet, and Shakespeare's Ghosts
by Michael Estabrook, September 2009
"What if you belonged to another man,
were another man's wife
and I fell in love with you anyway,
I couldn't help myself and fell in love anyway"
Rebirth, Five Fragments Concerning Mirrors, and The Walker (for Rimbaud)
by Glenn W. Cooper, September 2009
"He is the highway walker in dwarf woods, or sometimes in no woods at all — traversing the merciless Ogaden, or up to his armpits in snow, crossing the Alps into Switzerland. The 'considerable passerby.'"
Becoming a Modern Poet, hooded, and Twenty years
by Serena Castells, September 2009
"it's mine for the night, mine like my shirt
or my lips, or my tangled braids
(but not like my ring: that's a different kind of mine.)"
Superman Looking through a Microscope at Cells Dying, God Opens a Swiss Bank Account, and Entertainment (1920 to Present)
by Doug Draime, September 2009
"Must you bring slaughter
and idolatry into
the matter?"
., nerve ending, a junkie, and the gateway drug, and dismembered body from mind
by Anne McMillen, September 2009
"i saw the future,
freedom
in the sound of a pain pump's steady
drip."
Night, I Don't Know and Monologue 24: Vicky Noberg
by Hugh Fox, September 2009
"I don't know, young women all over
the place with baby carriages, oldsters
both male and female, out on the
rural roads running, running, running,"
Star-Spangled Manner
by León De La Rosa, July 2009
"He was a man,
a mighty man,
a mighty man with a mighty taste to be satisfied and authorized
to be defined as a mighty man of might
might've been a hero but ended up being a god,"
Mother won't tolerate a lesbian transsexual daughter and Gender Malnutrition
by Diedre Elizabeth, July 2009
"All disturb my dark
though only Mary dares
as women confess their love to marry,
the other, broken attempts at domination,"
I think that there will never be a poem as lovely as Ali and like the imitation xmas tree in the corner of the room with no lights and no presents and just a dozen, inherited ornaments
by justin.barrett, July 2009
"Ali raised his arms
into the hot night;
once again
the greatest of all times."
Mushroom Clouds over the Mojave and Devil's Golf Course
by Chris D'Errico, July 2009
"just north of Immortality & Derision
just south of Forked Tongued Insanity
west of Serious Laughter & Prescription Arguments
east of Furious Joy & Curious Repose"
Hyphenated American and The You-You War
by Gene Keller, July 2009
"16 - quit school to be a cowboy
17 - tried to join the Marines
18 - called to be a Baptist preacher"
Three Specimens by Mark Cunningham
July 2009
"Andy Warhol's comment that in the future everyone would be famous for fifteen minutes coincides with the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. I don't know about having my shadow blasted into stone, but I do know that parts of my futon can never be evened out again."
State of the Union, Dreaming America, and Down the Rabbit Hole: Watching Lynch's Inland Empire, or Goodbye Kurt Vonnegut
by Mark Kerstetter, July 2009
"It's hard these days to give a shit. It's harder to be someone who gives a shit and be recognized as a viable human being.
Everyone sat in rapt attention, silently for the most part (a few chuckles, a few gasps)—for three hours,
despite an absence of linearity (except a frustrated one) and a total lack of logic or rational order. That's an accomplishment."
