factory tears

 

the twilight had a whole tree of smashed oranges in its mouth
i wrap her in her own blankets
and she casts them off

to lick up gasoline with fabric on the flickering rugs
that stretch into the unexplored woods yanked by headlights
the twilight had a whole tree of smashed oranges in its mouth
magnetic lipsticks bending the mirrors toward the city
reflection smeared beyond time
i wrapped her in her own blankets
she threw them off
the bedroom floor turned to ice under my feet

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Christine Hamm
bronzelizard@cs.com
23-33 30th Ave, #b-7
Astoria, NY  11102

 

Thirteen Ways of Killing a Kitten

I start to fill the tub. 
The phone rings and I answer it.

I hear a lamp being knocked over in the next room.
I slam the door open.

I bring home a plastic bag of groceries. I leave
the bag on the kitchen floor while I do laundry.

I open the dryer door to check my clothes.
Theyre not dry yet.  I close the door and turn
the dryer on.

I chase the kitten.  I trip and theres an
unpleasant noise.

My front door is heavy and poorly weighted.
It swings shut before I can stop it.

I come home one day and it has disappeared.
No trace. Ever.

I put down roach motels.

My window is propped open by a cheap screen.
The screens tips under pressure and the window falls.

I use flea powder.

Theres an older, jealous cat.

I step away from the stove to watch the X-files
while spaghetti boils.

In my dream, I give birth to the kitten.  I hold it over the rocks
at the ocean and it falls.  I cant stop it.  It disappears.  I hold it in my
arms,
wrapped in a pink blanket, face up, then its gone.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Christine Hamm
bronzelizard@cs.com
23-33 30th Ave, #b-7
Astoria, NY  11102

In the elevator

going up to your apartment
you jam your hand
down the front of my pants.
And I'm not wearing underwear.
This is sudden and
makes me wet
but I think you close your eyes
not to see me
but to see yourself.
You're living in your own private
porno flick.
I'm not starring.
I'm just an extra.
I'm just along for the ride.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Christine Hamm
bronzelizard@cs.com
23-33 30th Ave, #b-7
Astoria, NY  11102

Poem for Richard

In your loft
with the lights low
we sit talking
nonstop
of religion, color theory
and Spielberg:
while I just want
to fuck
you
speechless.

 

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Oh the pain of not being remembered

Either with sorrow or regret

Is worse, I know, than knowing those

Who will never let you forget.

My Confusion

Lost in my confusion.
Contradicting my lies.
I have these feelings,
They aren't gonna die.

Remorse is a virtue,
Find out what I did.
Confusion is burning,
It's time that I hid.

The dark shines upon me,
Clouding my path.
Something has filled me,
Boiling my wrath.

To die would be gracious,
Drop out of the race.
To hide in the dark side,
Not showing my face.

Cautious am I,
To know my heart ache,
End my confusion,
How long will it take.

Caved in my crevice,
Hide in my hole.
The fires of passion,
Still burn in my soul.

My head slowly spirals,
My conscious decays.
So stop my frustration.
Please! Take it away.

Ad Infinitum,
Never to end.
My lost salvation,
Will buckle and bend.

Stop my confusion,
End the onslaught,
For my desolation,
Against, I have fought.

To gaze into starlight,
To smile without fear.
I never will know these,
My confusion is here.

While many do fear it.
I know all is lost.
For deep in my soul,
A marked line have I cross't.

To find a clear motive,
To search and be seen.
And all that I ask for:
'Gainst someone to lean.

So notice my warning,
Don't follow my plight.
Confusion confused me.
Beware of the night.

A tale I doth tell you.
Not to fear but to learn.
So stop my confusion,
Is all that I yearn.

From dawn till time ending,
Hold in my embrace.
Stop raging bitterness,
Drop out of the race.

Thoughts of mere magic,
Grandeur, delusion.
Stuck in euphoria.
Stop my confusion.

So follow my teachings,
Take heed, straightaway.
Show your emotions,
Keep confusion away.

Not hear my advice,
Time will tell tale.
Carry on your pilgrimage.
Through thunder, storm, hail.

Ian Miller

  by luke buckham

 

immediate access

 

escalators pushing the walls into beauty
driveway touching the trees shadow alive
electrical-wire tumbleweeds shrink in my cobbled vision
the boards of unbuilt houses pile up
becoming walls of laziness
the pudendas in the porn magazines

are sealed shut by television sunlight
cold accidental flesh odors trimmed
knives wafting out through kitchen windows
materialising in a hand that doesn't want them
the blades pop out of the handles with a smell of exstinct plants
fossilized onions carrots buried by stalagmites
basement odors dragged by gentle sawblades
carving out a boat that is warped by mere oxygen

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by Charles Rice Goff III (1991)

 

Bugged

 

Two mosquitoes land on my skin.

They push their bloodsucking mouths right in.

They fatten and fly,

and they mate in the sky,

my blood in their eggs when they die.

 

  by luke buckham

 

cancelled once

 

walking outside the sores of the body
watching the saxophone trampled by cars
letting out it's last discordant notes
i see children spending my own energy
and my vision peels back the faces of their parents
then my skin cells fall through their grocery bags
tunneling through the off-white textures of seeds
inside the vegetables about to be completed by the stomach
and robbed of individual color
i want to swallow the streets whole
but there's no basin elsewhere to vomit them into