​If I Were to Die in this Room, They Might Not Change the Sheets


There is something reassuring about the dark of motel rooms
along the strip.

Pulling the heavy curtain over
and falling into bed
knowing you are paid up for
the week.

That management does not care.
A collection of bottles on the side table
by your head.

Brown liquor store bags crumpled up
and thrown against the back of the door.

And no one knows I am there.
Listening to the cars speed by along the interstate.
If I were to die in this room, they might not
change the sheets.

Only a minute or so of hot water
so those that wish to shower should
make it count.

But I do not shower.
I do not even sink bath
for the smell.

I do nothing at all.

Rolling slowly onto my side
like a farmer’s hay
bale.




​Someone Threw Out a Weight Set


I can already feel their arms growing flabby
with inaction
the definition of once sculpted legs
disappearing under tucked blankets
the weight piling back on like a junkyard
stacking cars,
it must have taken a lot of effort
to drag all this equipment down to the dumpster
one final workout perhaps before going
into hibernation,
all the lights turned off and honey in your tea
a swirling vagabond world caught up in matted hair;
I pick up a few of the weights, they are heavy,
when I drop them to the ground I think of Hiroshima
all those people pulling at incinerated carrot tops,
when I turn to walk away, a car speeds down the alley
followed closely by another car…
the twinkling stars along the flight path overhead,
I jump and click my heels together with
a false euphoria.




Shriners’ Sword


The Shriners always parked their giant sword
on the gravel lot out back.

Often for many months at a time.
A giant curved sword on a float
that they used for parades.

The rest of the time it sat in the back lot
behind the motel along the highway
which had been converted to
welfare housing.

And each unit had a little back stoop
surrounded by chicken wire.
Many greasy middle-aged men
in torn wife-beaters
sitting and drinking away
the days.

And it amazed me that no one ever graffitied the giant sword.
All the other surfaces has been graffitied.
You couldn’t steal the giant sword, it was too big.
But it could have been defaced, mutilated in some
anonymous nocturnal manner.

But it never was, and the locals came to treat the giant sword
as a neighbour.
A presence you were aware of, but never talked to.
I guess it was something different to look at.
It’s long yellow blade plucking clouds
from a classless sky.




Convenience


They are always standing out front the convenience store.
Ball caps turned around like looking the other way.
And they crowd by the door, catcalling the young girls
who struggle to get by.
The old Indian fellow who ran the place before
used to shoo them away with a broom,
but one night before they fled he got shot and killed
and now some white couple runs the joint.
They don’t come outside at all.
They just gather behind the cash and stand still
as posters on the wall.
You can get yourself into a lot of trouble if you
go to that store, so most just make the extra three block trek
to the place where the nice Korean man
can’t stop scratching his own scratch tickets
with the edge of a highly oxidized coin
from the register.

​

​Exiles in New York

​There Might Be More

​Them Gates 2

​Clouds on Fire

​Apartment 313C

​Another Stretch of Fleeting Relief


I think i'll 
Become a better writer 
Or remember how to feel 
If I stop writing 
To you 

I will read it back 
And have no emerging 
Shame 
As a ridiculous torment 
For having ever 
Thought I felt something 
And inscribed it 
On a sacred tapestry 
Woven in the cloth of 
Just the right words 

Now without you 
I can find the way 
To feel all of it 
Without hope 
Only the distinct longing 
Only of something 
Far beyond 
Like 
Recalling the fallen 
Missing the dead 
Resurrecting the damned 
Innocence and pure 
Ambitious desire 
Dwelling among 
My being 
Scraping the walls 
Of trepidation 
And once chained 
To a false hope; 
An impure desire 
To be wanted 

Now no longer 
Anything but 
Hideous with hulking liberation 
Bold behind scars 
And a wretched sex 
That must bear the shame 
Of being not what it once lusted for: 
A tangible beauty

Are You Pregnant ?

The old woman who lived on the first floor of my building
and who loved Rick Santorum and Taylor Swift
asks me this question in the summer of 2012.

She claimed to be almost blind, but the good eye saw
my swollen body, an

opiate-fattened

tick.

Maybe it was true.

Maybe there was a monster-miracle
turning in its sleep
inside of me.

I went home to escape her
eyes, propping

my outsized ankles

on a chair, licking my skin for
trails of salt and sugar.

I take another pill for luck, the
wish of a

good birth.



​

Skyfall

How did the bottom start ?

Misguided kill shots in small white pills, the last
one or
second to last slicked down with

movie theater Coke. Not even James Bond
can stop

their disappearance. He takes two or three
and watches a scorpion crawl up his arm like I

watch my wall
waiting for the nod. One night

Bond goes to Shanghai. He swims
in neon jellyfish, a blinking undulation. He

must see the neon in my head. Not
a city. Not yet. Only a word that

hums, sick green. Take

all of that tiny white and
spin it to dust. There’s no

waiting there.

I take my cue from Bond---
he waits in the dark,
burns his house down.

I go back to my apartment. A
house full of white scorpions and neon.

I burn it down.





This is Not a Redemption Story, Part One

It’s Always Someone Else

It’s always someone else in those pictures.
Some baby’s parents miscalculated the dose

and there they are, dead or half dead,
new pariahs for a comment section.

No one wants to believe
they’ll be the one on hands and knees

grasping for the last pill that rolled under the
couch.

At least that’s where it might have gone. With none
there’s the shakes and the sickness and

death calls you a coward. You’d rather
take your time.

It’s always someone else who lies to a doctor. You
don’t look like a junkie; you clean up well. A thirty
day supply will last you ten if you don’t get

greedy.





This is Not a Redemption Story, Part Two
After Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is the Thing With Feathers----“

Somewhere inside me, hope is
shedding its feathers. Talons

extend and retract, gathering

small pieces of plastic and used
coffee cups for a nest; old

lamentations

that I barely remember. My voice

blows on a coal to keep it

alive.

​

Bio: Sarah Nichols lives and writes in Connecticut. She is the author of five chapbooks, including Dreamland
for Keeps (Porkbelly Press, forthcoming, 2018) and How Darkness Enters a Body (Porkbelly Press, forthcoming, 2018). Her work is also forthcoming and has appeared in Glass, Rogue Agent, Rag Queen Periodical, and LunaLuna.

The Buddha of Wetherspoons               

The golden boy of Rochester, frequently seen
preaching to the converted in the Cathedral's shadow.
Our very own saviour floats serenely above the
sea of cigarette butts bobbing in half-empty pint glasses.
Brilliantly blue eyes and reddish-blonde hair
spurn the light, leave an eerie after-image I blame on
dim lighting. Nobody will poach the golden lion -
untouchable above our cloud of stale beer and hot air,
too busy putting the world to rights
to your adoring bunch of tailors dummies
You are the lotus flower in our mud.
Down in the two Brewers, some heathens whisper about
your pinstriped suit swiped from Marks & Sparks.
But your eloquence grows over pints of cider, with ice;
there are times when I almost believe you.

Outside, normal life drops to a crawl, a whisper of fumes
and blocked exhausts. Free your chakras;
we’ve got to break the system from within.
Give me liberty or give me death.
Burn the zoos to the ground;
let the animals die if they can’t be free. They’re better off,
you know it. Don’t you?
Go back to your cocoon darling
But let me buy you another round my lovely lotus blue,
while you entertain the troops,
foot soldiers in your war.
You’re saving the world one soul at a time;
our Buddha of Wetherspoons.

​


Chicken feed      

To be well adjusted to the world
is like twisting the neck of a chicken,
and calling yourself an Osteopath.
Bertram's sun will not now rise for you -
and the world twists and sinks
and brings you with it into shadow.

To be well adjusted to the world
is to be an apology on the tip of the beak
of that chicken. The dumb seeds scattered
on the dirt will not now rise for you -
and the world twists and sinks
and brings you with it into shadow.

To be well adjusted to the world
is to have your neck snapped like
that chicken, wondering
why it hangs at an odd angle,
until your wings are out of sight,
they will not now rise for you -
and the world twists and sinks
and brings you with it into shadow.

To be well adjusted too,
the world twists and sinks
and follows you into the shadow.

​

Bio: SM Jenkin is a second-generation Irish writer, a lover of science fiction with itchy feet and one of the editorial advisors for Confluence magazine. SM is a regular performer on the Kent Live lit scene and has had work published in literary anthologies and magazines including: Boyne Berries, The Mermaid, City Without a Head, the Medway Festival Fringe, All Sorts and Unexplored Territory. @sajenks42  https://www.facebook.com/SMJenkinWriter 

​
GOOD GIRL
 
Be a good girl
Be nice to daddy
Daddy loves you so much
Do what Daddy asks
but don't tell anyone
It's our little secret
 
Afraid, withdrawn,
slowly slipping
into a cataleptic state
Such a good girl
She won't tell anybody

​

MO'S POEM
 
They thought we were sisters
Two small slender built
young blonde girls,
the same style of clothing
the same taste in music
the same way of thinking
We shared everything but
our boyfriends, though we
also liked the same type of men
 
I lost track of you
for over fifteen years.
Isolated as I was, living
a married life of a recluse
When I found you again,
I was convinced to be trapped
in emotionally barrenness forever
You welcomed me
with arms wide open,
as if nothing has changed
You made me feel joy again
You're so much more
than a sister to me
You're my sole true friend,
I will always love you

​​

Bio: Daginne Aignend is a pseudonym for the Dutch writer, poetess, and photographic artist Inge Wesdijk.
She likes hard rock music and fantasy books. She is a vegetarian and spends a lot of time with her animals.
Daginne posts some of her poems on her Facebook page and on her fun project website www.daginne.com, she's also the co-editor of Degenerate Literature, a poetry, flash fiction, and arts E-zine. She has been published in many Poetry Review Magazines, in the bilingual anthology (English/Farsi), 'Where Are You From?' and in the Contemporary Poet's Group anthology 'Dandelion in a Vase of Roses'. Three of her poems are translated in Serbian and published in the Literary Review Belgrade.

Super Nova ; ;
                for Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington
        
Rock stars burn too fast for this sphere.
Their gravity, heavy as gardenias
with less time to scent the air,
crumble like meteorites upon reentry.

Their fire was wind-whipped at inception.
Dust-storms and flare-ups cast shadows, carving
scars, burning into the abrupt blackness of evolution’s dust.

Fission, not fusion was at the end of their orbit. 



(“The semicolon was chosen because in literature a semicolon is used when an author chooses to not end a sentence,” Bleuel told PEOPLE in July 2015. “You are the author and the sentence is your life. You are choosing to continue.”)




The Density of Insomnia

Pulling in each breath like a rope,
I struggle to hold the heaviness 
before releasing this anchor into sleep.

Arteries feel muddy as a landslide.
Indifferent limbs barter to release.
Muscles flip and flop searching for the spot.

Stomach, trembling at memories of
a simple sandwich, now folds down hollow
into canyons of space.

Head throbs sharp as nails, 
hammering pulse into wooden arteries 
under eyes blinded by midnight.

Sleep hides behind splinters of stories,
voiced memories like stage plays.
The stories fiction? A puzzling plot.

The lunatic clock gossips tick, tock, tick.
The weight it leaves
bags my eyes and bends my shoulders.




The Professor

“You’re a really good writer,”
my poetry professor said
on my last day of college.

I squirmed, and flushed the pink of tulips,
I thanked him, examining 
the scar on my knee.

He said, “No, I mean it, 
you’re really good.” 
My lips seemed sewn together.

I remember that on days 
I am good at nothing else.
And I love that memory.

It was more than I got 
from my empty box 
of a father.

​

The place where my fuel is

On a Sunday
The station
Is who they are.

A bong rip
Of Jesus bud.

Writing papers
With gasoline.
Losing pennies
In the tray.

Gold falls
For this long.
Always remaining
Forced and rare.

Their insides are fewer
They’ve been losing longer.

Everyday is a scratch off
Of themselves.

​
​
Bio: Jon Berger lives in Saginaw, Michigan. His work has appeared in Five 2 One Magazine, Jellyfish Review, The New Engagement, fluland mag, The Bitchin’ Kitsch and Oddball Magazine.

Ghosts

You’re either buried in the earth or ash,
a quiz, all tragic answers.  Question mark
a scribble on my heart, how deep the gash 
you carve in monosyllables.  Such stark 
simplistic speech, poetic flair reduced 
to words like “nice” and “soft, “so preti.” Brain,
in bars, bloomed buds: “gossamer,” seduced
with fingertips on fishnets, now needs to strain
against a tumor, time to thank me for 
some sex from twenty years ago. Vocab
of child with grownup memories, I store 
a lesson larger than its letters:  Grab
ahold of what you catch that you most crave;
these ghosts you think of last before the grave. 




​Plastic Heads

An arm chair Daddy dead for days, a week
of whispered Barbie fingerplays.  Assumed
asleep until the smell, her grief, that stink,
just plastic heads to tell.  Decay that looms,
a house in hay, no human help for miles
away.  Her friends, they fit on fingertips
with hair that glitters, lacquered lips. Their smiles
transport her, yellow bus, with voices, scripts 
so treacherous.  And when one’s bad, she’s 
sent to bed, a flick of finger to forehead.
A rolling rebel’s quick brunette descent
empties a finger for a blonde instead.
What lives inside her comes from what is dead.
A heavy heart invents a plastic head.

​

Mirror 

Mirror on the wall 
Raise me up when I'm low 
Mirror confidence if possible 
Find beauty in my flaws

Mirror on the wall 
Lift me up when I fall 
Find a reasonable solution to the small 
Facilitate my struggle to achieve this goal

Mirror on the wall 
Be my friend when I'm alone
Show me strength, make me strong 
Help me get through it all




Profane Stage of Fame 

The inert nerve cells of my brain
Coupled with the image I send as my number one brand
Shamelessly objectifying intelligence 
Drenched in sexual relevance 
Body so elegant, pulling strongly like a magnet
Call me kardash, in the process of cashing, body so naughty
Your next party consist of bodies made out of plastic and wet pussy seas surrounding your island
Keep it up, injection on this butt, pop culture, diamond rocks, walks on beach sands
Profanity, profane, put in work and take all you can 
Sugar cane, your body is a talentless strategy to fame
Nip slip
No, sip the pic
Purposely exposing the goodies to perverts on the web
Come again, a million views, millions of clueless heads
Millions in your pocket
Nothing more than your body
Sexually advanced
Yet, intellectually disadvantaged



​
Scandalous Scene
 
Contemplating dark acts 
Stay analytical, take a step back 
Gradually gain your confidence, don't brag
At the climax of suicide, asking "why not?"
Push this feeling out of me, quickly before I take the lead
I've been desiring a release
The Giver's gift, a painless death, which is awkwardly so sweet
I noticed adjustments only annoy me, but I have to practice them with expertise 
I wish to go unnoticed
But, I'm a scandalous kid, in video clips that determine who I am in a momentary scene
I tried to not give into the pain
But, it consumes me entirely
Pardon my French, will I enhance or change?
Leave it all to me