Submission Guidelines

Monday 8 July 2013

Friday 5 July 2013

Gillian Prew

The Sky Will Pour Open
 
Ten more summers of rain, they say.              A defeat –
a downing.                  Dust eyelids dog roses –
the bees will come, their legs pollen-painted.
 
A roaring curtain where the sun should be                 -  the birds,
quiet and stuck,
in its up-ruin.
 
            Fly,
everything. Why not?
 
The sky will pour open some days.



Plath Likes My Poems
 
Around the Nothing, among the Grave –
fixed, like old bone, a yellow stain. A wound, a wire womb.
Winter breasts.
 
Plath likes my poems. Her blood hurts. Her death reeks –
she approves of my ruins.


 
Buy her latest book, Throats Full of Graves from Lapwing Publications

Peter Marra

Possible Scenarios
For A Midnight Mass


Plausible 1

the body came to rest
abruptly at her hips

she was one of the women
i saw skinny-dipping by
the waterfall
in the woods in the new york mountains
mid-july
as dark sheets of breathing flesh
enclosed us
membrane accusing

there were 3
naked female swimmers
& they craved
craved
the sunlight
wrapped it up & delivered it 
water droplets shiny in a nest of pubic hair

what was always denied to us
fuck
the camera tripod collapsed as they approached
fuck
the beauty of obscenities
imagine pussy taste
an electric fizzz
the mildew smell of the plants mixed
with organic lust
raspy voiced they murmured
secrets about rituals
her haunted house thrilled her sexually
synthesized a mask of pure pleasure
bright rings of lust
as she held her pornographic films
up for admiration


Plausible 2

fun in
the parking lot
wash my hands & eyes of them
they washed their hands of me
& flooded my eyes with
blood-tears
plasma touch
grinning out of fear
almost touching one another through the inside
as the dirty mattress burned with their love
she couldn't help but moan
she couldn’t help but laugh
as the body convulsed
she relaxed her grip & it went limp
gray & white

she lay in the back seat
masturbating while smoking a marlboro
w/ venial sin dangling from her pale lips
a mouthful of candy
drunk on the odor of black tobacco cunt-juice & semen
she told me about the ballerina’s corpse in the trunk
start the car I’ll tell you where to drive
idle the motor until I say floor it
unrestrained unregulated by law
gun it when the vice squad appears
“open your mouth wide”


Plausible 3

She shuddered.
nothing but six inch heels
excited her so
strong legs
lick loins & hum
eyes slipped down around
her calves
finishing at a certain temperature
"& she likes it."
leading to anemic metaphorical usage
economic slimy cream next to her &
they met via the human body
a mutual refusal to consume
she shows him her tits
& sticks out her tongue

“I like ‘em pinched
& lightly bitten, such are consumers”

mouth fussing with excitement
she touched his face before
leaving him with
a mouthful of ceremonies
she let him touch her labia
& fondle her mucous
so she could leave her scent 
laughing out the window
just bait for a trap
his body was found stuffed in a wooden barrel
behind the garage.
decayed. unidentifiable.
involved snake handling

female 5’ 10” long black hair
36c - 21 – 36 (like liz taylor in her prime)
approach with extreme caution
(i can always ask for forgiveness)

anonymity of sexual partners
sexual fantasy benefits
the plaintiffs were burned
she commented with a scream

the body came to rest
abruptly at her hips

her deeds were reviewed critically by others,
then in front of her parents,

who were still filming her degradation

Wednesday 3 July 2013

David McLean


of long dresses
 

What is the current that makes machinery, that makes it crackle, what is the current that presents a long line and a necessary waist. What is this current

What is the wind, what is it.
(Gertrude Stein)

the line that distinguishes is critical the line that is written
and there is never any death in us
until we are no longer embodied in all this sexless flesh
as the flesh is left, without its sex, to the scented exigencies of death

it flows us now all this unforgiven living
with all the sad entropy force is determined not to be -
it gives confusion next

 

gram Friday

and it is never gram fucking Friday
nowadays, it is a world lying over earth
like psychosis and a very penetrable barrier;

it is never gramme Friday, maybe,
just everyday passion
just homeless

 

reasonably enough

the Bandidos shot at an unmarked police car tonight,
reasonably enough,

and things in general happen or do not happen:
we do things because we are stupid

or we die because we deserve to,
just like everybody else does.

the other subject and its empty eyes
is all that is truly disgusting,

the superego gets off on farts and vomiting,
it feeds on dead children, we want our fathers

safely dead, all that is totally unacceptable
is progenitors who are living --

and if there really was this alleged fucking god
we would have to do great things

to hunt, locate and kill it

 

it is anxious

it is anxious in the thundering stomach, replete
its fullness like death or ovulation
and nightmares devalued by the tight spiral life
cutting scars in skin or memories from time;
we wear terrible nothing pulled up over us
its insatiably patient painless touch,
like snuggling up in blankets and blood
like dread Armageddon and defection,
like rabbits and love

 

children through windows

children through windows an ancient forgotten cocaine Friday
oblivious the monstrous is and there is time enough
for devils to be invented and not touch;

like all the anxious devouring the nostalgic gut,
like pebbles and empty riverbeds,
dead men to touch

 

cautious corpses walking

and here is no cautious corpse walking invulnerable his loveless,
for sleep is dreamless and diamonds,
a window pane and never yet;

horses are waiting patient for the anxious chivalric and courtly love
has dropped her easy lesions in muddy puddles
with every forgotten lesson;

the ghost of Hegel is sitting his luckless nothing
insulting anxious, somewhere his Marie is furious
and he is never done explaining his meaning -

we have dropped the medium idiot fish glimpse
where corpses used to go dancing
through all the absences -

and he pretended he never said marriage was an ethical state
and love just a fucking feeling, nobody ever said that yet
in remembered Jena who ever met Schiller or Schelling:

but i do not intend to accept him to my lap yet,
happy like a puppy is until he is dead enough
to learn every nothing and love,

till there is no dread memory left for corpses to recollect -
till Hegel and wife come like summer suns,
like memories or blood



David McLean is from Wales but has lived in Sweden since 1987. He lives there with his dog, Oscar, and his computers. In addition to seven chapbooks, McLean is the author of four full-length poetry collections: CADAVER’S DANCE (Whistling Shade Press, 2008), PUSHING LEMMINGS (Erbacce Press, 2009), LAUGHING AT FUNERALS (Epic Rites Press, 2010) and NOBODY WANTS TO GO TO HEAVEN BUT EVERYBODY WANTS TO DIE (Oneiros Books, June 2013). His first novel HENRIETTA REMEMBERS is due in 2014 from Unlikely Books. During 2013 a seventh chapbook SHOUTING AT GHOSTS is forthcoming from Grey Book Press. More information about McLean can be found at his blog http://mourningabortion.blogspot.com/