WHY DOVES CRAP ON STATUES

In war, soldiers do courageous things
in service to despotic kings
but empty honor, their death brings
to mothers stooped on calloused knees.

It’s not bugles, each doomed squad heeds,
unreasoned are their bravest deeds.
They blindly follow who careful leads
the callow meek to victories.

Why is it youth who are victimized
and not their leaders sacrificed,
with brilliant courage idolized
in fictitious graveyard elegies

When wars are done, and statues raised
and the fallen men’s leader praised,
the white dove’s amen's are phrased
in boldly excreted epiphanies.

by Gerald Bosacker

ART: Emerald

by Amy Rowland

zephyrs

there is nothing more beautiful than an entire
field of milkweed in full pink-sphered bloom
unless
you add to the picture two good-looking
naked young men who are taking
turns fucking each other up the ass.
**
on a wonderously clear day in early july,
in a huge milkweed field in the middle
of nowhere, they jumped out of their
car and stripped off their clothes
and just went at it, out there in
the middle of that field of milkweed.
**
later, back in the car, they wondered if
anyone had seen them out there in the field,
fucking. they wondered and wondered about that,
then gunned the engine, and,
in a matter of moments, there was only
the field, the milkweed in full pink-sphered bloom,
and the whispers of the snoopy snoopy breeze.

by Carl Miller Daniels

[ Dear Seperation Anxiety; I miss you dear. ] ( Haiku stanza's )

We will taste the purity
Lapping at your maturity
On platforms for Dreams

Peace in sacred seams
Heaven's Delight for dinner
Eat me out, sinner

I sense your secret
It thrills my pallets just fair
Tongue it on the air

Pluck it from the sun
Would dance with your skeleton
Juxtapose with me

And on this decree
You had doomed us from the start
Just how I crush hearts

I stand by your side
Laying in me to confide
I'll watch your love grow

As you'll never know
The beating tide in my eyes
Soft collision kiss

I taste whisper lies
Like I feel that hope will die
Let's come together

Birds of the feather
And we'll give it one last go
And look for soft glow

I'll ask one more time
Let's remove these masks and chime
Let's be true at last

Break from verbal fast
I'll take in your breath like smoke
Let's throat gun and choke

Cough out deepest thoughts
We'll find the things we've fought
I'm dying to know

Secrets of the hole
Let us diagnose your ill
What's your winter chill

by Nicholas Donahee

The Methods of Drowning

Hello, Kevin.
Welcome to the Deep End.


I know them.
The faces that have made up
So much of my life.

All ages
Sizes
Shapes and Color.
They've all taken homes in my heart.

Giving up
They still walk
Go through the motions
Of the life they have settled for.
And here am I, now
I've come to join them.

Did I chase selfish purposes?
Is that what brought me back
To this place?
In part...
Did I hope to enter fiery chambers
In hopes of bringing them back
With me?
Yes.
But I am no Messiah.

Surrounded by waters
dark and ice-burdened
I should be crying, shouldn't I?
I know I should.
But nothing.

I find myself distraught
Come to a point
I try to force it
Take control of the tears
Make them come, if they won't on their own.

Still nothing.

They are sick,
these people of mine.
I see this now.
A virus, mechanical
Chemical
Unfeeling.
It consumes them
Turns their cells
To murderous purpose.
For them, it is too late.

And what of I?

I have misjudged myself.
Brazen in my arrogance,
I thought I'd save my world.
Mistaken
Now I, too, am uneasy upon my feet.
The onset of Fever,
an aching inside my skin
it creeps through me.

The truth is ugly, isn't it?
My words claimed me to be
Righteous
Good-Willed in my self-immolation.
I am but a coward,
Leaping into the waters,
Panicking,
falling towards the cold, airless death
And what have I proven
In this.

Every Good Person
Every hand offered me
Out-stretched to save me
Or lead me to the surface...
All of them, I have pushed away
In my Idiotic Pride.
Now none remain.
So, THIS is what I wanted,
Chose to be my eternal prison.

There is no beauty in this.
This darkness holds
No redeaming flicker of good.
The illusion of beauty in pain,
naught but a lie I spun,
and I, the only one who
Didn't catch it.
Believed
In such a foolish notion.
Not even pale ghosts
of the romantic thoughts, which I
alone
attributed to this open cage
this eternal punishment I have condemned myself to.

The Fever Rages
and scared, alone
I am too ashamed.
My shame silences me.
Must never let it be seen.
I must not let this burning
inside of me
be witnessed by the world.
My stupidity must not be known.

Digging deep into my chest,
Viral killing machine,
it turns my heart against me,
beating,
poisoning me with every contraction, release.

And through this muscle, as a doorway
From flesh into my true self,
My soul becomes infected,
It spreads,
My higher being, red
Irritated and pulsing.
Pain, searing.
Distant from the physical.
An agony so real, more than you know.
How much longer do I have?
How long, before I am
Lost and Irretrievable.

I have no more presence of self,
Not enough to gauge.
And all those for whom I have cared,
Cared for me,
Have fallen to the ground
bodies smoldering
caving away to dust
To exist no more
To never have been.

The scarlet blisters of my spirit,
darkening, the life blood
Of my eternal being.
Almost black now.
Love.
Fuck love.
Stab the weak emotion dead.
Sodomize the disfigured corpse of it.
Come upon it in disregard,
A fluid no longer the pretext of life,
It lights the feeling afire
til only ash remains.

Now only animosity, violence remains
twisted shade of what I once was
No
what I could have been
yet tossed to the midden heap
To spite myself and all who believed
in me and what good
I was capable of performing.
I spit upon myself now,
For I am pitiful, wretched
I am the hated one, if only despised by
This shred that remains of myself.

I deserve this.
I have earned this punishment,
Through my own sins against myself.
I blaspheme,
Never has this not been true.
I curse the name of God,
especially where he dwells within me.
What an ugly being am I?
That only now do I regret this?
Only when the disease uncovers
who I really am
Twisted and deformed.
Only when I feel the pain
of holy retribution.
Only now do I beg forgiveness?

I am disgusting, putrid...
And to be forgiven
that would be violent rape
snuff film, murdered girls in white dresses
destruction of youth and innocence
through horrifying
intrusive invasions
That would be like sunshine
compared to the depths of unspeakable
travesty
that my forgiveness would represent.
God would be a rapist,
Murderer of dignity,
to allow such things...

I will suffer,
rightfully so, until my soul falls in on itself
and I join the others in nothing.
I will accept it, and hate it.
I will scream in agony.
I will writhe.
But I will not hope to be saved.
And I will never again cover blackness,
Evil and Torment,
with the transparent illusion that it might,
somehow,
actually contain an ART.
I will weep until my cessation for this sin,
for claiming righteousness in
Death
Decay
Loss
and Violence.

Know now, watchers...
I deem my words,
My life,
My outspoken praise of filth,
Unholy.
Condemned.

by Kevin Guest

Girls Like The Taste Of Their Own Pussy

I put my foot in my mouth
And tasted my own semen,
I put my tongue in her ass
And tasted my own dick.

Then she sucked my dick
Until it was all out of ink.
Then she fucked me so hard
Until I couldn’t think.

Then I licked her pussy
And she started going crazy
Then she grabbed my mouth
And started to kiss me.

Most girls seem to like the taste
Of their own pussy
To be quite honest
I find this very refreshing

Though once I knew a dude
Who said he ate his own cum
And I found that demented
And kind of dumb.

by Justin Blackburn

Untitled

Cancel the coffee
I'm awake now
The lamp is piercing my eyes
The sun is glaring in
I can finally see
No more dreams to live

Tell me once again
What you think I should hear
I'll turn a deaf ear
Close the curtain
Turn back the clock
Make me blind again
Ignorance is bliss

by Jinesh Patel

PRISONER

Tell me what have we done, my dark one,
as the moon rises up to swallow the sun,
as we creep through the shadows of time and space,
longing for the warmth of that forbidden place.

I can hear you breathing, smell your breath,
it smells of decay; could the smell be death?,
your soul passes through me, just like a ghost,
as you creep up behind me, the one you crave the most.

I can feel you now, beneath my skin,
all prickly and shivery, it feels like sin,
your lust engulfs me, makes me weak,
as you drain my power, you were destined to seek.

Suddenly I feel you steal away with my soul,
never again shall I be whole,
I should have known, right from the start,
I'm a slave to your lust, a prisoner of your heart.

by David Byron

ART: No Title

by Amy Rowland

Ready to Go

I’m a big fan
of the flop between
limbo states of mind
knowing I cannot promise
anything of myself
I ask only for this
one night to fill my mind
with eternal passion
just let me feel
your flesh on my lips
I’m dying to taste
your breath in my mouth again
but I’m too dirty and diseased
rough and fraying at the edges
unacceptable countenance
plaster on a pound of makeup
and stick me in bar lighting
smoke and warping mirrors
smile back a lovely complexion
it’s all shallow
but I know
that I am unlike
any girl you’ll ever meet
if you had the time
I think you’d be pleased
with such a surprise
but you would rather
play dungeon master
than taste me
should have been more clear
with my universal request
because I know
it’s never enough
always left wanting
enough is never enough
entirety even less
I’d ask for more
while drinking you in
leftover textures
trying to find
some peace inside
this tumultuous storm
throwing sailors overboard
greedily asking
for more

by Kate Green