Anyone Hungry? Mom pushes herself away from the table with a loud squeak from the chair legs. My body slumps, full from a satisfying meal. I don’t feel like speaking tonight. My mind is already clouded, but I listen to mom, always loud and dramatic. Dad’s breathy laugh drifts through the kitchen as my sister finishes her story, and the hum of the heater turns to warm us all. “Dessert?”, Mom offers, walking back with her homemade peanut butter pie. I can hear Dad smile without looking at his face. Peanut butter pie is his favorite. My mother sits in front of me, closer to the heater, a woman who is always cold no matter the season. She makes a comment about my sister. The word “selfish” slices the air, a knife sharper than what she used to cut our roast beef. Tension rises with the heat in the kitchen. Their voices clash against the ceiling. Dad, complacent to conflict, puts his hands up in a T as if he is a referee. “Time-out, time-out”, he says. I stare at the bottom of the heater. No one hears him. My sister's voice starts to shake. Focus on the hum of the heater. Focus on the floor. Sparks sneak out the edge of the black box. My heart quickens its beating. No one notices a thing, but I see a spark touch the wood floor, see it grow into a flame, stretch its vengeful fingers towards my mom's chair. She screams. I don’t think. The cord is right next to me, so I reach. The hum of the heater stops its singing, and I am left to stare at the black hole tattooed on our kitchen floor.
Monthly Archives: May 2023
Poetry from Jake Cosmos Aller (one of nine poems)
God's Confession I was sitting alone In a god-forsaken bar the Cosmos Bar in Soi Cowboy Bangkok, Thailand On the lunatic fringes of society Twenty drinks too sober In the ass end of a Friday night booze binge On the bad part of town Over by railroad tracks Heading to hell As fast as I could drank it down Enjoying my lonely drink Drinking by my lonesome self With my partners Jimmy Bean, Jack Daniels, The Walker brother Evan Williams And his old Granddad Just drinking one bourbon, one scotch, and one beer and hanging with Jack Daniel's gentlemen’s club A crazed bum With a thousand-year stare Walks up to me He begins Muttering to himself Nutty nonsense Crazy words In a lunatic's voice He had the look Of one possessed By his demons Only he can see Or hear Possessed by a secret knowledge Only he knew Despite myself I was fascinated By this lunatic's tale So I stopped him And said “Say, crazy little Dude! So what's your game, Anyway?” The short little dude Stopped his insane prattle Starting at me With that thousand-year-old stare Just another washed-up lunatic Too many drugs His mind blown away Down too many rabbit holes Too many bad nights On the wrong side of life An ACID causality From the 60s Been down so long It looks like up to him He looked at me And proclaimed his story He reared up And filled up the room And lifted the bar On his finger And stared down at me From the sky And said “Since you asked I am Allah The Alpha and Omega Ganesh Kali Jupiter Jehovah Shiva Zeus And a billion other names The real deal The original dude of dudes The Sultan of Swing God of hosts And the father of that Jesus dude But no one knows me Any more No one cares They think I am irrelevant They think I am dead They think I am a fairy tale From some olden, ancient time That my work is done I looked at him Carefully now And what did I see An old man With that lunatic look But there was something else He was crazy Sure. Yeah Out there Bat sh… looney tunes But perhaps he was the real deal I mean why not In this materialistic age Why would God not be a wandering lunatic wandering around loose Talking to low lives like me In a bar On the highway to hell So I looked at him And invited him to share His tale of cosmic woe God tells me “Well, it's like this Many a year ago People believed in me But one day They quit believing in me they moved on And they went on without me As they left me My powers got weaker and weaker And so eventually I became What you see today A broken-down drunk Hanging out Looking for a handout Looking for some company Or at least a free dinner” And he laughed and laughed And I looked at him And saw the beginnings of the end And the ends of the beginnings I saw a million planets Flash by Trillions of people Thinking all at once Thoughts filled my head Lights flashed And I knew He was telling the truth But it did not matter In this day and age Of materialism God has no role God is truly dead And so I bought him a drink And walked out of the bar still twenty drinks too sober Profoundly saddened From what I had seen God was dead And we had all conspired To kill him Long live God
Poetry from J.J. Campbell
bomb threat bomb threat in the next town over at a parts factory they normally happen at a high school someone wants to get out of a quiz but at a factory the only thing i can think of is today must have been drug test day opioids are still mighty popular out here in the sticks ------------------------------------------------------- been tricked so many times before some angel will surely want to love me one of these days i just hope i am still breathing when that moment arrives been tricked so many times before all the options on the dark side of life have become ever more appealing my patience is wearing thin these days i wouldn't say i have lost hope, just that it does an incredible job playing hide and seek ------------------------------------------------------------ before desperation becomes... pretty quiet outside aside from the cars and occasional trucks driving by this is the eerie quiet before the shit hits the fan before arguments are ended in gunfire before desperation becomes the saddest note written in blood found on the floor among dirty underwear and a nearly empty bottle of jack ------------------------------------------------------ a morphine drip you always wanted a morphine drip for christmas thought that would be the perfect gift that kept on giving the times have changed drug dealers seem to not mind killing off their own customers chasing that elusive high, you should be willing to die for it every junkie has told me that i'm not chasing that high not even chasing perfection simply a stubborn prick that wants to die on his own terms bruises fresh on the arms and legs ---------------------------------------------- burden the spanish princess believes she is too much of a burden for me and no matter how much i argue that this is not the case she won't change her mind i shouldn't feel like i lost something that i never had, but i do but heartache at this point of my life doesn't sting as much as when i was younger i'm guessing because the finish line is in view and i know i won't have to deal with any of this much longer
J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is trapped in suburbia, slowly losing hope. He’s been widely published over the years, most recently at just good poems, The Beatnik Cowboy, Horror Sleaze Trash, The Black Shamrock and The Rye Whiskey Review. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)
Poetry from Kushal Poddar
Spring Sprawls Across the Fence of the Reality The river and the wind bring Spring in your house; the leaves and the gravel announce a stranger; your curtains rise and fall; one cuckoo blurs the boundary of singularity; you turn in your bed; on your South side lies your lover whom you have gybed towards sleep; all of his flesh and his mind at its puerility's height hold the railing of a ship leaving the port of reality. Those leaves talk with the stranger. So much exist outside one's perception, love outside your windows, patience across the fence of waiting. You stream on the bed, reflections of the stars on your chest. You breathe, and it rains in the city. Have You Seen That Patch of Green The wind within bleeds on the blades of my dreams. This is the patch of the wild blooms I carry, held between the house I desire and the one I own. Today summer liquifies the red. The prayers sway. An arrow of the birds free in the cage of my mind's geosphere flies. Waiting The clock unwinds silence; in the embrace of our pillows we sleep off twelve gongs; snow swirls to settle on our tropical forty degree Celsius land; a singular apparition holds its crow mien and fettle. The mango tree writhes underneath its unaccustomed white sheath. Patience waits outside, leaves its footprints on the snow although in the morning we see nothing except some wet roads, cars, greenery and feathers, nothing that can make us believe in the myths. The String Why the road and the pavements look wet? Rain remains absent in this plain for awhile. Do we sweat this much? Oh so wet! The kite whisperer friend lets it be a white stingray in the almost-white blue. "Report back; bring back the messages of the clouds." The news from the sky sounds fake; we misread it. "If you misinterpret something fake," hope says, "what you perceive might be true." The boys reels and pulls the string. Sometimes the thin line cuts the skin. The asphalt glistens. Do we bleed that much?
Kushal Poddar, the author of ‘Postmarked Quarantine’ has eight books to his credit. He is a journalist, father, and the editor of ‘Words Surfacing’. His works have been translated into twelve languages.
Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe
Poetry from Mark Young
oxygen deprived Polka dots & mung beans, & millions of dead fish floating & coating kilometers of river. Essentially they're all ingre- dients, the type of thing you keep in your kitchen cupboards along with other ingredients. Ready to be thrown into a mixing bowl & turned quickly into a topical &/or nostalgic treat should your relatives unexpectedly come around. Gourmand eyes Wearing a seasonally significant hachimachi headband the kami- kaze poet prepares to eat himself to death. He fails. & the wind is not divine. He spent the morning deciding what color Model T to ask for. Assembly lines were de facto machines of war—the Arsenal of Venice, Springfield Rifle. He wanted to disrupt the process. The $1 million white picket fence Subtlety or stupidity? I'm never sure which when it comes to the Defense Force. So I debate myself about what the Army's up to in raising a gigantic sign which reads: A STRONG FENCE CAN MATE MULTIPLE TIMES IN A SINGLE SEASON & STILL SERVE AS GRACELAND'S GUEST BOOK. Le Civilisateur (after the paintings by Magritte) Three paintings of a dog, all different dogs but the same one painted. All different names but painted under the same name. Somewhere I read that this Loulou was black, but painted white for the occasion. Narrow nostrils, but supposedly had a big heart. So loved by its child- less owners that it traveled with them everywhere, even to the States, its right of passage paid for by a promise to allow the fuse- lage of one of the airline’s planes to later carry a Magritte motif. All things pass, including the in- fluence of a civilizer. The livery of the plane redone to reflect new alliances. & of the other themed air- craft, Tintin will be the next to go.
Poetry from Mesfakus Salahin
Only My Love Is True Everything is true in the sun Only my love is false in your world Everything is alive like fountain Only my soul is dead as stone. Time kills the sound of kisses And vanishes where love was born The Sahara counts the desires of the stars The wild night writes love letter I hide in the kiss of celestial time Memories speak in your footprint I make the way you walk with love Searching your fragrance in every flower Hearing the appearing sound in rain drop I see dead love in few stones As you have not touched them The crowd becomes desert If you are silent The land of joy turns into fire If you are not there Everything is dead Only I am alive Everything is false Only my love is true.
Essay from Alisherova Dilshoda
Knowledge gained from books read.
Everyone has read at least 10 books, because books have their place in life, and I have read many books so far, for example, secular, religious, business, psychological and leadership books. Each book has its own knowledge to give to a person, and I can easily say that through the information in the book, people gain experience in their lives. Personally, from the book I read about business and leadership, I learned skills that can be used in life and can easily get out of problems. Through this knowledge, I am currently working as a participant, coordinator, volunteer, leader, organizer of many projects. Even through my personal project, I trained more than 20 students and shared the knowledge I got from books with about 1000 young people.
In addition, I have proven that exchanging ideas while reading a book, freely expressing one’s opinion, and developing a world view gives knowledge, the reason is that during conversations with many people, when we exchange ideas, they ask me the following question: “How many books have you read in your life and what books do you recommend?” that I feel that I have easily read a lot of books because of these questions.
Alisherova Dilshoda Azizxon qizi Student of Uzbekistan State World Languages university