Poem
Our Heavy Metal Life
Jose Padua
Sometimes I like to imagine that my family
and I are a heavy metal band,
playing gigs in the southern states,
riding in a big tour bus that has skulls
painted on the side,
and a big decal of the grim reaper
wielding hi...
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Poem
Oakland
Marc Olmsted
Ocean fog thick in the avenue night
white Christmas lights in October
Shamrock Arms Bar
glowing green & red
through clear quartz-glass block front
the Dead Sailor Girls will play tomorrow
salt taste in air
wher...
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Art
It Is Not Here on Earth What I Am Seeking
Jack Micheline
I don’t know what I am seeking
In the cool night
rivers and birds
a sensuous lip
a rainbow of dreams
past waterfalls
the ruins of cities appear and fade in front of me
awkward man
he dresses and clowns
seeking lov...
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Poem
justin hott at the airport
Emily XYZ
Justin Hott was a retail analyst for Bear Stearns I met at LaGuardia airport one night
heading back to Detroit in December 2007, shortly before his company imploded.
What is the basis of greed / wanting to be free of ...
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Poem
Grass
J. D. King
(i love the scent
of fresh cut grass)
the mower is black
mostly
with bright orange
parts
illustration by JD King
no engine
to cut is to hear
the whir
of the reel
and to smell fresh cut
gra...
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Poem
(10.1.13 will never come again.)
Bonny Finberg
Take the gas mask off. Take a bath.
Take the cake. Take the China exit.
Hell is out there too,
Other people’s concern,
Gods’ voices, at it like grownups
In the front seat.
Photograph from the Wall Str...
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PR
Sensitive Skin #12 – Poetry Month Special
The Editors
Presenting Sensitive Skin 12, published April 2015, a special issue dedicated to poetry and art, in celebration of Poetry Month.
Sensitive Skin 12 features 30 poems (one for every day in April) by John S. Hall, Bonny ...
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Art
Owls
John S. Hall
by This Fuckin' Guy (as told to John S. Hall)
Owls don’t seem so fucking wise to me.
They look like dicks, usually,
With their chests all puffed out and shit,
Like they’re saying
“Fuck me? No--fuck you!”
But ...
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Review
Playing Chicken With Thanatos By Díre McCain — A Review By Phil Smith
Phil Smith
Playing Chicken With Thanatos By Díre McCain (Apophenia, 2013)
Playing Chicken With Thanatos by the editor of Paraphilia Magazine, Díre McCain, is an extraordinary piece of autobiographical writing. For the first 200 pa...
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Comics
William S. Burroughs, Nancy Comics and the Cut-Up Method
Bernard Meisler
Nancy, the iconic series of graphic tone poems by the legendary Ernie Bushmiller, achieved landmark status not for its dada-esque art, its stark depiction of a near-barren (yet strangely psychedelic) landscape populated by p...
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Art
The Open Solitudes of a Plural Self: Joseph O’Neal on Painting
Erik Noonan
Quite apart from the circumstantial affiliations that normally obtain among contemporaries, and quite apart from the facile optical resemblances that one can discern among artworks across distances in time, looking at a pain...
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Classics
William S. Burroughs Fan Letter to Truman Capote, 1970
William S. Burroughs
Truman Capote once famously said of the work of Jack Kerouac: "That's not writing, that's typing." A decade or so later, William S. Burroughs returned the favor with this epistolary riposte.
July 23, 1970
My Dear Mr. T...
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Review
Nightmare Code, directed by Mark Netter – A Review by Franklin Mount
Franklin Mount
Nightmare Code, directed by Mark Netter, starring Andrew J. West, Mei Melançon, and Googy Gress, written by M.J. Rotondi and Mark Netter.
We start with a troubled young man (Andrew J. West, best known for his portrayal as ...
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Review
Gladyss of the Hunt by Arthur Nersesian – A Review by Jim Feast
Jim Feast
Gladyss of the Hunt by Arthur Nersesian (Verse Chorus Press, 2014)
The title of Arthur Nersesian’s new book, Gladyss of the Hunt, might seem a peculiar one for a detective novel. However, the author, like the book’s p...
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Art
Sensitive Skin Most Best of 2014 More Favorites or Whenever
The Editors
I thought it would be fun to ask some Sensitive Skin editors and contributors what they thought was the best of 2014 - not necessarily the "best of" the year—what they liked best during the year, whenever it came out. So I...
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