Hells Kitchen
Ron Kolm
Hells Kitchen
After the war in Vietnam
Wound down, and my stint
Doing alternative service
Came to an end,
I had to stop
And take stock
Of my situation.
I could return to Pennsylvania
And get a job in a factory
D...
Egg Man
Marc Olmsted
My father was in a Twilight Zone, 1961, 'To Serve Man'
("It's a cook book" but he didn't say it)
My dad, long gone, is holding a chart for the big headed alien
I don't remember why
He's a scientist - he's giving his ...
I Blame Louise Hay for Trump
Larissa Shmailo
I am listening to Abraham Hicks, whom the well-loved New Age maven Louise Hay, may the Universe rest her soul, calls “one of the best teachers on the planet.” Abraham is an “ascended” energy being channeled by a woma...
The Dark Side of the North Pole
Darius James
An excerpt from the novel, "Froggy Chocolates"
Froggie woke up curled upside down in a fetal-ball; pretzeled in a tangle of arms, legs, feet and elbows with his nose pinched between the split of another child’s bottom....
Zombie Hef
Peter Marti
Zombie Hef from beyond the grave
grabs my old junk and yanks
Zombie Hef promises me nubile 20-year-old beauties but
one touch and they crumble into dust and gore
Zombie Hef points his dead pipe at me and leers over the...
6 PM ON THE BQE
Joel Allegretti
6 PM ON THE BQE
Waiting to exit,
a dozen cars deep,
I glance out
the driver-side
window and,
beyond six over-
worked lanes,
behold rolling
gray acres of
gravestones.
As the minutes
perish and blow
across ...
There is No Brooklyn Bound F Service
Jennifer Juneau
There is No Brooklyn Bound F Service
no F trains from this station, the sign says
at 42nd street & sixth avenue (where you spent your day)
to get to the lower east side (where you’ll spend your night)
you must take t...
The Opportunity of a Lifetime
Mike Hudson
The canyon was broken and hilly, with shallow arroyos cutting north to south and green agave plants and small stands of Joshua trees providing the only color there was against the relentless grey of the desert and the dirty ...
The Big Space Fuck
Kurt Vonnegut
The Big Space Fuck
KURT VONNEGUT / AGAIN, DANGEROUS VISIONS, HARLAN ELLISON, ED., 1972
“What was the dirtiest story I ever wrote?” asked Kurt Vonnegut in Palm Sunday, his 1981 “autobiographical collage.” “Surel...
Confessions of a Wind-Up Doll (True Burlesque)
Peter Marra
Confessions of a Wind-Up Doll
(True Burlesque)
There is always beauty in the hissing sounds.
The alternating camera speeds reveal a long-lashed woman;
touching experimental films, she has a forceful birth
to destroy ...
The Trumpeters
Michael Rothenberg
The Trumpeters
Cowards in white sheets, the skinhead cops
and racists, the religious working men
and women who think a woman’s place is
in the kitchen and children are to be seen
and not heard, and believe people of...
Macy Dreams of Red and Blue
Mac Blauner
There is the whoop of a siren, and suddenly red and blue lights play over the backs of her closed eyelids. She lies in bed. She knows it’s the cops. This is always how she wakes when they come to her father’s house in th...
For Bob Marley and other poems
Tsaurah Litzky
For Bob Marley
I grind the beans for my morning coffee,
organic fair trade beans from Trader Joe’s
in the electric coffee grinder
my father gave me so long ago,
the smell of happiness fills my kitchen,
th...
No One’s Beat Samsara and Other Poems
Peter Marti
No One’s Beat Samsara
You just can’t win vs. that Wheel of Birth & Death
when you have women, mojo and looks, something else
will be missing—your teeth haven't all been accounted for and now
an ex is asking for ...
This Cat Is Now My Cat & other poems
Craig Kite
This Cat Is Now My Cat
I hope that my girlfriend doesn't come back tonight.
In fact, I hope my girlfriend never comes back.
I hope that her cat becomes my cat.
It basically already is.
I fucking love this cat.
Thi...
