Go visit my new Asphodel Madness 2.0 zine.
poems moved to OP 2.0
Any poems you can’t find here that used to be here have been moved to either Opium Poetry 2.0 or to Asphodel Madness.
Porn Shopping
by John Rocco
On the asphalt flesh road
Northern Blvd.
Queens, baby, Queens
old Indian trail
the starving ghosts chase
used condoms and Taco Bell wrappers
anything for a taste of the lost time.
I’m on my way in the middle of the day
to go porn shopping
the cool colorful shelves
exciting and calming
but I can’t get there
because of the traffic suicides
Tanya Tucker on the radio
and the big white truck right
in front of me has painted on
its rear door in big red
white and blue:
THIS IS AMERICA!
LOVE IT OR
GET THE HELL OUT!
Succubus sunlight
explodes my windshield
cooking up
my brains
what’s left
but soon I’m
inside the porn store
cool and peaceful
shopping for guilt.
Fritz Lang
by John Rocco
Fritz Lang
monocle
and at least one big martini a day for life
told Hitler to go fuck himself
cast big boy Death in Der müde Tod with lots of candles
loved high-priced Hollywood call girls
invented high tech demonic city serial killer spy movies
the master criminal
Dr. Mabuse
King of Crime
Hypnotist of Modernity
and then there was little
Hans Beckert
child murderer who can’t help himself
based on the real
Vampire of Düsseldorf
who killed big wild swans in the park
drank their blood
gushers of deep blood
shooting from their necks.
HELP FIND A CURE
by RC Miller
I’m choking on Chris Martin’s dick near my thymus.
It’s tattered with Amnesty International symbols.
St. Peter is hauling out newts.
The turkey and cheese ones are really wet.
I sit here tensed a stair cause I’d rather be alone,
Pounding away
South Jersey or somewhere pluses staple the clash below.
Around 11PM people finally change their drapes.
Too much much too soon, all that loose fabric
Opened wide.
The Mexican breakfast specials make my little mammal special.
And I always hear of a good
Industry or old age ahead.
But to be honest with you,
I don’t think I can wear pain to work.
Thing is,
There’s a numbness inscribed on every denouncement.
Lolita
by Zach King-Smith
I stayed with a
woman who was
tough as a bed
of nails drunk.
When she’d
get drunk she’d
swing at me.
Take a swig
from the bottle
then swing.
I didn’t sleep
much at all
those few weeks.
One night
she swung at
me with everything
she had and hit me.
I told her to
get out the next
morning.
Some women are
lovely vicious things
and some men
take it like me.
I’ll never understand
those sleepless weeks.
I was a coward.
AN ECONOMICS OF PRECARITY
by R.B. Morgan
I live in a nearly empty, dying
Mid-Western State.
It is the unwinding heart of the
Broken hearted country.
It is haunted by love:
The absence, the with-holding, the cruel,
Thoughtless promise of.
Death on cue appears constantly,
An ambiguous art-house character
Either stalking through ruthlessly
Or standing by a window-sill
mild, soft-spoken, determined
To be well dressed and cordial.
It becomes, like love, whatever
We can stand to believe,
Either one great stroke of cancellation
Or an eternity of praise and absolution.
Or neither, depending on
The urgency of our need,
Rising in our memory, an
Ancient predator circling
The antic, screeching troop.
Its close and real menace is
What makes us love, and agonize
For what must be paid
As our own ransom,
The unconscionable price.
As a prisoner of this broad and bleak
History, I am forced to love as some
Are driven to flimsy ceremonies
They don’t, they can’t believe in,
But must cling to with devotion
For the promise of a
Momentary salvation,
A savior and his millennium
Endlessly deferred.
punker
by Jack Henry
i drove my father’s pickup truck
to Hollywood and parked
on a side street just off of
Sunset
a friend of mine played
in a punk rock band
and said i should come
to the show at Gazarri’s that night
it’s ten o’clock or better
before they take
the stage
and drive a crowd
of twenty-six into
a pitched frenzy
of booze and pill
inspired insanity
i met a girl with
a foreign name
and took her into
the bathroom
for a blowjob
but each stall
was occupied by
nervous junkies
or grunting
homosexuals
lost in their ass-fucking
abandon
she needed my cash
just as much as i
needed her mouth
she took my twenty
pushed me into a corner
and blew me with
balanced aggression
a few came in and watched
more junkies
more queer middle aged men
more punk rockers
looking to piss
she spit my cum in
a sink, accepted another
20-dollar lover and
disappeared into a stall
i took a piss, laughed
and just went back to the show
A Large Part of You Is Sad
by Brad Liening
The trick is containment.
I’m thinking: cancer,
zombies, fire.
Keeping the river
within its banks
and away from us.
The river is hard
to get out of
once you’re in it.
I’m thinking:
tall pine bending,
parabolic
under invisible weight.
Going up
in a flash.
Zombies are
as frightening as anything
else in this world.
You’re miles
downriver
before you
even realize
you’re in the river.
The galaxy: dust,
gas, a couple cells
dividing in wet brains.
the forward things are sometimes left behind
by David LaBounty
the car came in, a Buick
from ’89, and the brake
pedal was going to the
floor and there were
leaks everywhere, like
so much automotive
stigmata, so we ripped
the tires off and
the back brakes
crumbled at our feet
and the kid driving
the car was full of
piercings and homemade
tattoos and said the car
only cost two hundred
bucks and that he
was going to call
a junkyard to haul it
away because it would
take a grand to make
the car safe and right.
he left, the car was
pushed out and it
sat for a day
until he came to clean
it out, leaving
the car empty save
a little notebook
on the cigarette
burned front seat
and I couldn’t help
but flip through it
after he left as it
was full of notes like
postal exam on Thursday,
Applebees Tuesday, first interview
Wal-Mart, Bob, second interview Monday
and I had to wonder why
he left the notebook
behind, as it seemed
to contain important
details of hope
but then I
realized why he left
it behind,
because in this,
the Motor City,
you’ve got to have wheels
to get a job.
Père Lachaise
by John Rocco
The dead like it here.
You can tell by the way
the hot skinny stray dogs
drink from the spigot.
In the middle of it all:
Man & Woman
pulling drawn inescapable
into the mouth of death
called Monument aux Morts.
Me and Jim
potless weedless
smokeless in a hot
foreign Paris lost
looking for
Lizard King grave.
Don’t find it
but walk into
band of sitting kids
smoking drinking
just back from
Amsterdam.
They invite us to
join them.
One day I’ll write
a novel called FUR
to thank those
dead kid angels.
Life & Death
were never so
stoned together.
that first beer at six in the morning on a workday
by Justin Hyde
subdues the fangs
of a mortgage
you never wanted,
clucking of the wife
you can’t stand,
job you can’t afford to quit.
tip the last drops
across your tongue
toss it into the back seat
gun the red
at fluer and mlk.
second and third
go down quick
breath mints
in the parking lot
thinking how
your father lived like this.
it cost him plenty
but you don’t give a shit.
can’t remember
the last time
you did.
belated poem for my thirtieth birthday
by Justin Hyde
now that i
turn around
from this
distance
my thirty years
stacked on top of each other
look like
undifferentiated
clay
however
setting down my beer
and taking a
few steps closer
clearly
it’s a giant
hand
giving me
the
finger.
Memory
by John Rocco
This really beautiful young woman
complained but cool about it
that when I was wasted
moon crashing into night
I licked her feet.
In a bar, in public,
trying to swallow
her flip flops.
I feel ridiculous
and ashamed.
She laughs it off
because she is cool
but I still feel great sorrow.
I feel great sorrow.
I just don’t remember doing it.
And all I want to do is remember it.
Lap Dance
by John Rocco
They bit me.
I bit them,
two of them,
double lap dance
(drunk dollars are always easy).
Ivy and Ella
split screen:
Ivy small
petit tight ass,
Ella big
round tight ass
and both on my face
they’re having a great time
torturing
and I didn’t
think
and I didn’t
feel
and I didn’t
know
and I didn’t
see
and I didn’t
live
smothered dead
finally!
Fucking delirious in death,
ass killed, choked on ass
widening gyre in time
the universe revealing
its secrets to me:
Atlantis
Stonehenge
Easter Island
Skull Island
Time travel
The Great Pyramids
and the Rough Beast
Squaring the Circle.
Consciousness is
not
train tracks
or a fountain
or lamps
or a flowing clear stream.
Consciousness is
two sweet Spanish asses
on my face.
Shot Girl
Please forgive me,
Shot Girl,
for I was
blind drunk
(Jameson river Liffey drinking,
Gulliver style, boats and barges
and floating dead stiff old man leprechauns and all)
like
the Knight Templars
in
Tombs of the Blind Dead
(La Noche Del Terror Ciego)
who get their eyes
burned out for stabbing
virgins in their tits
and drinking tit blood
for eternal life.
Tits and blood to live forever!
The stupid poor ass
townspeople
rose up and killed us
them
but
we are back
they are back
to buy beautiful colorful shots
in science fiction test tubes
from your tray
over tip you
talk you up
(“Do you like old guys?”)
suck a tube down from between your breasts
Italian Queens breasts
and all goodness
be damned.
The blind zombie
skeleton horsemen
ride again.
We ride again
for your shots
for the night
for you.
In The Grocery Store, Married Now
by Vin Sarno
Sweet Knees and I were ecstatic
And fast, shifting through aisles
Of shelved geometry,
Primary colors bursting around us like
Flash bulbs at our wedding,
The waxed floors reflecting our florescent smiles
And her wavy blond hair, a
Flowing flag.
I, so content and embolded,
Screamed Fuck It to the Universe
And, fists swinging and Wifey hollering,
Called out Heaven
For an epic now or never final battle
(Yes, so early in the game).
And when It so quickly accepted and appeared,
We tore It to pieces! like happy little speed freaks,
Without missing a beat,
Throwing Its chunks through the store
Like big wet confetti,
Leaving Its Lungs on the floor
By the children’s cereal,
Beating like a heart,
Flapping like a suffocating fish.
And not even short of breath,
I sent Wifey to go get the butcher,
So he could separate the good Meat
Out of the rest
For us.
I waited, watching over our kill,
Thinking condescendingly about
The ridiculous folly of bachelorhood
And how much better this victory was.
And twenty minutes later Sweet Knees came back,
Panting and teary eyed, without the butcher,
But holding a twin pack
Of English Muffins instead,
And staring at the slaughter
And promise,
We just stood there and
Laughed and laughed and laughed.
Sorry, Miller
by John Rocco
I’m sorry, Miller
but I have 62¢ in the bank all of it
collection agency vampire impervious
to the stake
bad weather, worse tomorrow
no vodka, less wine
holes in my socks and broken
heart bleeding shirt over her
like John Wayne killed at
the end of THE SANDS OF IWO JIMA
I just didn’t know he could do that
die
like the text messages I got from her
reminding me I’m the happiest man alive
fucking lol again
and out.
HOMECOMING, 1983
by Howie Good
She came to my campus office
that Saturday right from the airport.
We hadn’t seen each other
in a couple of weeks.
I’d been struggling with a poem
the whole time she was gone.
I was pecking at it on my typewriter,
a new IBM Selectric that nonetheless
had a loud, annoying hum,
when there she was at the door.
I leaped out of my chair.
She rushed toward me.
There wasn’t another soul around.
I missed you, I said between kisses.
Me, too, she said.
We were both breathing hard.
To this day, I can’t remember how
I ended up back in the chair,
whether she pushed me down
or I half-sat, half-fell.
But then she was smiling over me
and reaching under her skirt,
pulling off her panties.
The typewriter hummed.
Foreign Static
by Andrew Taylor
Room 20 Hotel
Engerland, Amsterdam.
The double bed facing
the bathroom and the
TV perched above,
humming quietly
with foreign static.
The desk, behind
the headboard-
raised and the
view across the
street from the
alcove window.
A place to rest
our heads as we
get away from
it all for five days.
Leave Rick’s poems
on the desk
for when the need
arises. Put them
next to The Dead
Sea Poems.
*
Help me find my
safe spot – the
cool bathroom
with equally
cool tiles – as
my heart beats
far too fast and
my mind
drifts from
East to West
Premonitions and
fright as the fear
grips my soul and
twists me through
180 degrees
‘Hush, it’s going
to be alright’
I don’t believe
her as the tears
roll down her
scared face
like blood
from a crown
of thorns
5mg of Valium
to calm the
racing heart
‘What about
the soul?’
I cry Try
and embrace
the comforts of
my madness
as I twitch
and shiver
on the cool
cotton sheets
her bedside lamp
casts a glow
around her head
like Gabriel’s halo
as I shuffle
towards the safe spot
she follows me in
as I splash cold
water onto a face
torn from reality
Do I really look
this bad? Will I
always be like
this? What does
she see in me?
Why is it that
it is her here?
I don’t follow the
path that leads
back to my parents
safe in their bed
not knowing of
the Hell I am in
it’s too dangerous
a place to go
‘Can I switch
the light off
now? I’ll switch
it on if you get
scared’
lying on my back
listening to the
splinters of rain
bouncing off car
roofs.
***
Breakfast and the
omelette and coffee
are hitting the spot.
Back in room 20I
ease back listening to
Kent‘s Isola and am
transported to a world
where I would visit again.
***
Andrew Taylor is co-editor and publisher of erbacce and erbacce-press (http://www.erbacce.com/), based in Liverpool, UK. www.myspace.com/andrewtaylorpoetry
my wife is just that much hotter
by David LaBounty
my age and
she had a
splotchy
face and
an alright
kind of
smile on top
of sagging
jeans and
a faded sweater
and
the car was
something
from the
early nineties
a rag of rust
and metal and
vinyl and she
told me it was
leaking here
and grinding
there and she held
my hand for
just a moment
as I took
the keys
and I thought
nothing of
it as I put
the car up
in the air
and tore
off the wheels
and it was a
thousand bucks
with a leaking
radiator and
oil pan along
with brakes
all the
way around.
I wrote an
estimate and
brought it
to the counter
where she leaned
into me as I
went line by
line, a hundred
bucks here and
a couple hundred
bucks there and
the bigger the
dollars the more
she leaned her
chest right
against my
shoulder as
if the touch
of her nipples
through the
blended cotton
would
make her
problems
go away
and I have
to tell you
that the
price never
did change.
BAD AT BUDDHA
by Charles P. Ries
I’m tired of being a good Buddhist.
I’d like a few of my old attachments
back. Wrap a tasty wad of anger
around my fist and pound it home.
Just one compassion-free day.
A day without detachment,
discernment, impermanence
and right action. I’d let my ex-wife
know that someone is alive in
here and “Hell if I care you’re
a young soul with a tortured past!”
Compassion in the hands of a novice
is like wearing a sign on your forehead
“Please beat the shit out of me.”
So, come to think of it, I guess I do
have a few attachments dangling
from my purified psyche. Maybe
I ought to kick his holiness in the God
Damn Ass for putting me in this prison
beneath the Bodhi Tree.
***
day dreams
by David McLean
my nightmares all became daydreams
without any alteration of content,
once when all the devils became welcome,
and cosmos and its godlessness
no longer mattered. there is nothing wrong
with being dead forever and time and its “it was” –
they are nothing and so dreadful
that i tend to love them, nowadays;
such sweet fields where the void plays
our slimy histories, all the devils
drunk as old soldiers in me,
and that glorious future with no me in
a dreadful destiny i tend to like –
reason’s eternal night
***
David McLean’s blog:
http://mourningabortion.blogspot.com/
Apology
by Josh Olsen
KT said she feels like I make him up,
but I think when I talk about him
it’s the only time she ever really believes me.
I tell her that I dream about him –
mom brings him to Birthdays or Easter.
I bump into him at the Pic-A-Nic Basket
buying pepperoni stix.
I pull up next to him at a red-light.
Sometimes he confronts me.
Asks where I’ve been all this time.
Why I’ve been running away.
Other times I break his nose or tell him
my mom didn’t deserve
the way he treated her. Treated us.
That he turned my brother into a cutter.
Sometimes I wake up feeling guilty.
That I should make amends.
Should write him a letter and
let him meet his grandkids.
Then mom tells me she talked to him
the other day. That he called her
a whore. Called my sisters bastards.
Called me a coward.
Improvement
by Josh Olsen
I turned away from mom’s breath
when she whispered into my ear.
Hints of vomit escaped her thick veil of perfume.
For years, she “improved” herself
sticking pens down her throat.
To keep myself from crying,
I made cruel jokes.
As the purging became more frequent
so did her perfuming –
her favorite, a heady opium oil,
a birthday present from an ex-boyfriend.
The scent penetrated everything.
Her letters funked up the mailbox.
My children needed sponge baths
after she babysat.
She used to smell cold,
like snow or cucumbers.
A Texas Gal Apologizes
by Misti Rainwater-Lites
I’m sorry for shooting your ass.
I thought you were a coyote.
I thought you were on my land
for no good reason.
I thought you were here to fuck shit up.
If God leads us to it he’ll get us through it.
Your ass will heal in time.
Everything happens for a reason.
Does this pulpit make my ass look big?
I’ve got a really sweet recipe for monster cookies.
I’ll share it with you.
My ass is so fat it’s ridiculous.
Jesus loves my ass, though, so I can’t complain.
I really am sorry for shooting your ass.
I really did think you were a coyote.
I’ve got cows and marigolds to protect.
Please don’t sue me.
***
Misti’s blog: http://chupacabradisco.blogspot.com/