MRToll
Stealing from the rich to give to the poor.
Jimi Hats
I fucked you
I used you
I left you
for dead
and afte
r the gre
at noises
I set you o
n fire and b
roke you on s
tage. no one wil
l ever use you again
Avida Dollars (the regression art of survival)
Dali must be counted among the great polymaths. This is, in fact, his design. If you have any relation to the world Iberian, you will recognize the chupa chups logo. Aesthetically it shouts catalonia, in color and symmetry. It's a beautiful piece of marketing (some irony found here)--but it does not belong to the artist's canon of symbolic/iconic language. There is no Gala in this, no ants or relative time, no hypercubes or virgin.
This is the beginning of pop art.
Michael
as you have feigned death
you idle in pop valhalla and watch as they pay tribute,
by the glow of your own reflection.
for your empathy and sensitivity.
for your insecurities--reminders
of what the world constructed of you--
the self aware child of radiated screens
flash bulbs and amplifiers
you were loved.
you are loved.
born human, dead icon.
the body, once plagued,
now symbol and metaphor
as demigods are made
Lunula
satori eludes me in the heat of suns known
only to be the rising gold tide at the hilt of
a thumbnail. each of three eyes has turned
inward to find the ability to create an outward
substance and the earth beckons. this is the
cursed nature of present man who labors in
search of mundanity and strata. this is the
cursed nature of present man who labors for
ideals barely visible beyond the immediate.
hold my hand. please. I am not afraid of this
or any plea or dignity--it does not exist. only
cohesion as the universe expands in a
shuttlecock manner. we fumble in the last
of these moments to open the flowers of
an artichoke and close the vacuum space.
r. you absurd?!
bass cancers brass tax mondays custard tuesdays st.
ale brass tax bass cancers constellations configure s
tars arranged how deep has it gone how deep does i
t go as deep as you care it can go as deep as you’ve c
oncerned tax cancers brass bass wednesdays musta
rd thursdays fools gold brass cancers bass tax mud
between toes to toes between toes and so the story
goes and the story has gone how deep has it gone ho
w deep does it go as deep as you want it however yo
u know as deep as you wanted however it’s told
Three Poems by Steven Grant
End Jamb
The conversation was rife
with well timed
pauses; intended
to keep balance at
bay. I raised my glass, sipped
slowly--deliberately.
“We really need to
talk” echoed over
the tinkle of
glass and silver
night.
“Maybe some time” // “apart”
(caesura)
The evening’s exchange wore down, then end-stopped.
Inside Joke
A phone rings in the darkness
of a Tuesday night and I
raise my glass and whisper,
“please leave a message at the tone”
I am chasing heart failure in bathtub
or aspirated vomit on a toilet seat,
but I might be a few corrosives short.
The footsteps outside my window
continue to come and go, but they
only motivate me to turn up the radio
and crack another tax stamp.
You told me once that all things
have a beginning as well as an end,
and I laughed at your pessimism.
As I sit here alone on the crest
of Wednesday morning crash
I can’t remember why
I thought that was funny.
Lycaon of the Lower East Side
Full moon Friday calls:
The promise of night
cloaks the travertine
and glass temples of man.
Silhouettes shape-shift
beyond streetlight glare
and gather in the shadows.
I am the seventh son;
dark ruler of alphabet city,
hungry in the lunar phase.
Satisfaction struts
in 4 inch heels
down Bleecker Street,
Chanel marinade
follows the footfall.
I watch with amber eye
and hold my tongue
behind eager teeth.
Tonight she will be my love,
and I will finally sleep--
safe from Aconitum dawn.
Steven Grant
is a hospitality sales professional living and working in New York City. A former journalist, musician and slacking underachiever, his first volume of poetry “Another Hotel Room” is currently languishing unsold at Amazon.com Steven’s poems have appeared in The Writer, The Ampersand (&) Review, The Melancholy Dane, Spring Harvest, VVC Drama & English Literary Journal, The Flask & Pen and any web site with low enough standards to accept his work. He graduated from a school you’ve never heard of and had so many majors that even he is confused as to what his degree is in. His languishing book o' poems is available here.
The Poetry of Amanda Halkiotis
Brooklyn-bound
I wait inside a tunnel like Estragon for some bright white light to whisk me away.
I have nowhere to go.
I enter the first doors that open in front of me, a local train.
It barrels me underground back to my side of the river, my home.
I walk past the Western Union with its “Checks Cashed” sign still blinking, creating a neighborhood red light district.
I cross the street and continue walking uphill.
I’ve carved a cave out of concrete here on this block and I am walking home.
Before I knew where to buy deboned swordfish or how to argue in Polish the price of laundry drop-off service, I found my own hardwood room and Moon River fire escape
where I could curl up and do what little girls do best in this city: dream.
I grew up walking these streets as a small-town tourist, and now that I’ve moved here I can pride myself in carrying thirty pounds of groceries thirteen blocks
and avoiding Times Square.
I let go of my rural instincts to trust my surroundings and started from scratch
with second guesses.
Within a month I had quickened my stride and widened my shoulders, muttering a mantra of hands outta pockets, eyes offa ground, hands outta pockets, eyes offa ground.
If I wanted to stay hidden half-protected in a man’s shadow then I would still talk to my father. Instead I crossed the state line.
Besides, this city collects young girls and their mangled childhoods like lint and if I really want to leave behind everything that happened to me once upon a swingset,
that means for everything else I’m sticking.
The Dutch named this borough for people like me, who needed a place honest and unassuming and a little bit like the home they ran away from: Broken Land.
Amanda Halkiotis
is a creative writer and theater critic who lives in Brooklyn and works in Manhattan. Her poetry is a reminder that no single person is native to this place. We are all visitors in Brooklyn. This is a land of nomads and eager travelers.Read more of her elegantry here.
The Poetry of Ben Nardolilli
Sky Warden
I put the stars on house arrest,
They were too bright for me,
All that make-up is a distraction,
The hydrogen glitter they wear.
They keep together in gangs,
Write tattoos across the skies,
I tell them to break it up, but
It’s no use telling stars to do anything.
Evaluation
Your brain contains brains,
And the rain has its rains,
But Maine has no Maines.
Still Seated
I think and I have to do something,
though paralyzed from inquiry
I did not see them immediately,
in the city approaching the doors this weekend.
I was planning to be removed
so we stopped at the grass and again,
we heard sure that our species
saw the shards of glass
She wanted to say, amen!
she did not mind
the photographs
she wanted to withdraw
A haze of the absence of dinosaurs
this was an interesting week
the rise and fall of the one on the walls
I suggested that we drop her at idealism
A big mistake,
she can only come from commitment,
voluntary suffering
before the exhibition
Ben Nardolilli
is a 23 year old writer, currently living in Arlington, Virginia. His work has appeared in the Houston Literary Review, Perigee Magazine, Canopic Jar, Lachryma: Modern Songs of Lament, Baker’s Dozen, Thieves Jargon, Farmhouse Magazine, Elimae, Poems Niederngasse, Gold Dust, The Delmarva Review, Underground Voices Magazine, SoMa Literary Review, Heroin Love Songs, Shakespeare’s Monkey Revue, Cantaraville, and Perspectives Magazine. He was also the poetry editor for West 10th Magazine at NYU. You can keep up with Ben.ardo @ mirrorsponge.blogspot.com
manifold infestation is manifestation
knowing of the young turk the young turk
who knew how real each dream
had been so says the young
turk I know of the
tangible & the
silence
even is
my own
around me
enough goes on
and what I do not ha
ve to say has already become
Courtesan (cuarenta y dos)
it's been seven years s
ince i've seen her here
the lights have washed
the sultry from her ski
n the lights have wash
ed the sultry from her
skin please excuse my
memory it fails me no
w but i remember this
woman it’s not implau
sible to think i could h
ave loved her for lovin
g me but it's been seve
n years since i've seen
her here the lights mu
st have washed the sul
try from my sin.
by now.
who can i who will
love me?
Lady Insomnia
waiting for the second marshmallow
surprised by fingers roosted between
mine whisked briefly away I can rem
ember all things I say she says that she
will remind me of sleep with odd con
fidence she will remind me of sleep
The Sounds of William (Billy the Kid) Noseworthy
Billy The Kid
is now working as a part time ESL teacher in Brooklyn. A recent Oberlin graduate, he is a writer by necessity. Visit the band's myspace and check out their reverbnation page.
A Poem By Ele Santos
*
slumber bummin
--43 hours under cover of covers--
roused middle day
by the fornicates
& their role play
bangin 'way
both days btwn the nights
*
in btwn came Our Future.
sticky kushy prp
zipped-out in his hand.
Zig-Zag master,
two perfect splifs,
gesticulations of my mind by the biblioteque
--i skipped the discoteque,
content instead, to watch white noise'n asteroids
*
some sort of disorderly
scatter,bugged,about
requiring mild effort'nd
perhaps abrassiveness against the television set-
Thief!
Thief!
I tell you tht's what it is -
HollyFolly-makes-ur-brain-a-soggy,
Sluuuuuuuurrpppsss
out the juice.
Shit ur pants!?
a'course! the teley's got ur horus eye.
I REFUSE
*
Departed, dearly departed.
armed force regroupment!
K- i set out on foot
a R.O.Y. G. B.I.V. assortment of smokes,
snake skin strappies,
& armed to the teeth
--hearken only with pertinence to
Ra-Horakhty
heavy by my breast
hard of metal shard
a breathing copper plate
--farce?
No.
--the sungod-songod-god god of my god-of me-me cz im god-ly--
the distant one
the one above, over
--signifying extended planes
Of elevated
breaching thought
highly irregular
-i hoc a lugie at yr regular;
acid spit consumes your jugular non plus perfectum plus infinitivo
*
done spitting saliva, ready for salivation,
pt ate grams of salvation
stormed Noble Barnes.
ass swish swishin,
gun-clip-switchin soundin Motorcycle maddens Beat-walkin,
walkin up some beats for a map ya can't see bt fr yr eyes closed
bt for supposition of the tune u'd find me by my foot goes--
Deadstooped
Deadstopped
and fell
*
(closer to the truth be to say crash landed)
into Love so
by force forcefully unintelligible
there at Noble Barnes
chinky eyed bliss
sweeter than []'s kiss;
didn't excuse my self
instead felt obliged to peruse Love's insides
&
the afterpost lovemaking...
*
Ele Santos
the whimsy be@. A brooklyn native; she now resides where the moon takes her and tastes the bass along the tracks of no-madness. Canelita she will always be.at
Two Poems by H. E. Mantel
BOUCHE A FEU -
(BLUNDERBUST)
Carbon-forged steel
appliance, fashioned
to home & eject
upon triggering...
Lead-tipped, alloy missiles
projected to a velocity of
360 mi./hour, roughly
a .357 1/2 fast a 727, Boing!
to shoot your ass!
On contact, impacting
the Human target
to penetrate, flay
sever & shatter
lodge & murder
render...!
And this
the initiates' pander
to the seether's gunglamour,
of neo's & diehards' machismo-alike
upoverthere, everywhere
on the plasma, how iron-ick!
Faster than the batted-eye,
a Buntline, smokin' Brown Bess, or
Black Maria (Oh, Mother Of G*d!,
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune...")
We're Lost!
H.e.m.
11.23.MMvii.
REGRESSPITE -
...Welcome
to Camp ChilaboutChiladult,
Foalks: Welcome!...
Anxious-is-anxious, so
we'll not have a recess
from mess for long, but
just a few sticks to
pick-up before...
You see
the colorcoding surroundaroundings?
which'll get you
back to base
from
anyplace, here
there, and everywhere...
Lost among
the beetles and nettles
of a Nurture Walk?
Hardly!
And meet
the nice Man
to my left
Peter Salte,
our ReCreationist
(here with his son Erik)
who'll kindly guide you
'cross pristine Lake Piaget,
atop your inner-tunes,
cutup jeans and kiacts
- without paddling -
and
Selfloating
to the Broadshaw for
Picnicfrolic, and snacks,
Your Friend
for the Oaks' climbing,
ReadingStorytime,
and
Naps...
And to his left,
the sweet
Kay Gaarten
(here with her daughter Prima)
who'll kinderly be
in attendance for the
teeterswings, and curb-tottering,
neighbor-face-and-fingerpainting,
communal Chorale ShowerSinging
below The Falls
(with bubblepipes),
snacks, naps and pillowflights, and
Naps...
Be happy
to know, no
Puppet Shows,
Rolf beats Golf
(We all know
'bout them Links
to kempt cementaries, & all...)
not even miniature!
Be happy, here -
Here, We
Offthebusys,
a Summer-Of-Pun
thrown into the deep-end
of a Dictionary, unwebfooted,
splashing
toothpaste onto
the bathroom mirror okay,
OK!, and
Hey! Mmmm!
Eating from your Fingers!
Imminant.
By the way, yonder
is Crusoe's 'n Tarzan's Tree House,
My name is Joshua St. Sesame, and
It's almost...
NapTime!
H.e.m.
6.15.MMviii.
(Vida Longa, Puertia Diu)
H.E. Mantel/HaroHalola
of Hallandale Beach, Florida; published Poet/Writer in both Print, and Internet Ezines/Journals/Anthologies; awaiting the publication of Poetry collections, "Bananas' On The Moon...A Collection Of Revisionist Haiku" & "Sophistigates: A New Book Of New Poetry."
A Story By John Biscello
1923
In the black and white photo, 1923 written in faded pencil in the lower left hand corner, neatly scalloped perforations along the borders—my grandmother and her sister, Rose, are standing on the beach. Coney Island: I know this because the steel tower that is The Parachute looms prominently in the distant background. In the nearer background the crowd is a swell of bikinis and bathing suits and sandals and bare feet.
My grandmother and her sister are standing side by side, practically grafted at the hip, the both of them smiling wider rubbery smiles. Summertime smiles. Rose is several years younger than my grandmother, she is also slimmer and slightly taller. Her narrow beak-like nose seems, in contrast, to extend the width of her almond-shaped eyes.
My grandmother—squat, buxom, busty—has a darker complexion than Rose, and that’s how I’ve always known my grandmother: sun-baked, year-round, reminding me of an overdone potato.
I look at the writing—1923—and wonder whose handwriting it is. I try to imagine it being written in the year 1923, then try to imagine the year 1923, what it was like, try to imagine the hustle and verve and majesty of Coney Island in its heyday, try to imagine the Depression, which will come on like a plague in six years and cast a dark pall over people’s visions and dreams and optimism. I try to imagine these things and only get as far as surface thoughts, lean imaginings.
In relation to me, my grandmother has always been old, and when I see this photo of her in 1923, I feel as if I’m looking at the person who played my grandmother in the early part of her life. Not was her, but played her: the young actress who fulfilled the role until a slightly older actress stepped in, who was then replaced by a slightly older actress, and so on and so forth. Now that my grandmother is dead she is no longer played by anyone. No more flesh-animated actors are required to keep the drama alive and running: my grandmother, as a ghost, has been liberated from further participation in Life-the-Movie.
Thinking of the photo, 1923, I think of myself, how I’m growing older, and if I were to look at photos of myself—when I was eight, fourteen, twenty-one, twenty-six—I would see all the people who I thought I was, all the actors who played me for a while. By the time I pass away, there will exist a slide-show gallery of actors and masks to view in relation to my life, but the sum-of-all-their-parts will not equate to the definitive version of me, won’t even come close.
Absence, I suspect, holds the dearest most essential parts of us, which is why a photo of my grandmother in 1923, is a misleading speck of evidence in a much larger and more mysterious investigation.
John Biscello
Originally from Brooklyn, NY, John Biscello now calls Santa Fe, New Mex homebase. A scab, scribbler, trespasser and playwright, some of his writings can be found at johnbiscello.blogspot.com. Contact of almost all kinds welcome, save for pigeon-dispatched-letters.
The Art of Brian Whiteley
"My art can be fun, tasty, and occasionally disorienting. Kind of like going on a carnival ride with a pile of cotton candy."
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