June 1st, 2011 § § permalink
Morag Dhu on lipstick.
Mendacity Red
“Hey, what’s that shade called?”
“Mendacity Red.”
“Perfect for a lying bitch like me! I’ll take it.”
The starchy beauty robot looked at her blankly and rang up the sale, throwing in some old lady cream, thanks Miss.
“Hey, it’s me. Do you want to grab a bite?”
“Where? This metropolis is such a small town, as we’ve discovered.”
“I know. Let’s wander. We’ll find something. Meet me in The Village at 9, Bleecker and Sullivan.”
“Alright. I’ll be the fat man smoking two cigars.”
“Hey, it’s me. What time will you be home?”
“Oh, not for a few hours. Go ahead and eat.”
“Why, what are you up to?”
She’s up to 8. Like candy covered almonds, once she starts …
One, she loves a lot; one she loves a little, 2 she can’t stand, and one scares her.
The other 3 are inconsequential.
She just feels them on her tongue; that too many candy covered almonds roughness and sugar overload feeling. Enough.
Author Biography
Morag Dhu is an Eastern U.S. seaboard songbird on the fly. She is a member of the Unshod Quills Writers Collective.
June 1st, 2011 § § permalink
Anthony Bondi on "When We Two Parted"
On the topic of Beasts - Anthony Bondi
On the topic of lisptick - Anthony Bondi
On the theme of sonnets - Anthony Bondi
Artist Biography
Anthony Bondi is a Las Vegas, Nevada based artist who has focused on using digital imaging technology to make collages addressing the unique character of Las Vegas. Repurposing imagery through collage led to repurposing industrial products in large scale interactive art pieces for Burning Man. This process led to the Tickle-Me-Tunnel, a tactile-rich interactive children’s toy. It is available for purchase through Amazon and other sources. www.anthonybondi.com Contact Anthony via Facebook. Anthony is a member of the Unshod Quills Writers Collective.
June 1st, 2011 § § permalink
Oregon poet Chad Reynolds
photo: Chad Reynolds on "When We Two Parted"
Vegan Warning
– on beasts
Don’t give your heart to a vegetarian. They think meat is gross.
CR
Bellhop For Your Baggage
– on transportation
You begin by holding the handbag
But the luggage multiplies
In your sweaty grasp
Piling upon your shoulders
’til face and knees are sagging
All for the price of shagging,
Degraded from knight to squire
All for dread Desire
But a bell’s hop between
True love and valet
Loaded down with
Purest Samsonite
Unpacking damage
On snake skin scales
A contest of scars
When you could be
Sharing the stars
They carry on
And on and on
Dirty laundry packed away
For ease of burden
Heedless of the things we belong to
Our own faded treasures
Chained to our soul
Cargo of stacked satchels
In a lake of Merlot
Trunks within trunks
Faces in valises
Every love lost
Butchered in my memory
Fine limbs folded
In Louis Vitton
Chunks shopped from the past
Packed for posterity
Patched with everywhere you’ve been
The place where you drag it all out
And put it away
Is the place you call Home
CR
Panning For Gloss
-on lipstick
Fantasy becomes history
Scripting out the history
Technicolor tapestries
Factory made beauty’s mastery
The surface is the max factor
The only honest man an actor
Celluloid mask on our memories
Liquid glass within all mammaries
Mundane superficialities
Dominate our realities
13 channels of shit on the TV
Commercial breaks won’t set us free
Seeking true connections
With electric reflections
We fuck and fight and die
Before a cold glass eye
As absent as the god that made us
Plastic ideals degrade us
No brave new world arises
Another coat of shit on the same old crisis
CR
Author Biography
Chad Reynolds is a cornfed madman with a heart of gold. Born in Kansas and bred in Las Vegas, he currently lives in Salem, Oregon with his cat Lazarus. He has been writing and performing poetry since 1985. Chad is a member of the Unshod Quills Writers Collective.
June 1st, 2011 § § permalink
Mark Brunke, "Sideways" on Transportation
Art and Poetry of Seattle’s Mark Brunke
“Border-Captain, I am determined to make you Duke of Lithuania.”
– on Lipstick
Put some sugar on your knife Potemkin, I’m watching you drown in a song.
I equally dismiss empirical
Atheists and mental Christians;
I prefer the misery in mere
Carrots and of love’s first glimpse.
I remember a time before lipstick
and it stays within my nails,
Where all beings clothed in vapor auger in
To a moment of desire’s nothingness,
Where the center of verse
Was godless among us.
Oxygen separated, in midnight’s cruel
Skin, a day’s hunger younger than us,
Oxygen deprived, moonless magic in animal
Skin, laying tasted, in a candy cane dress,
stained with sausage oil and mustard seed.
“S’il n’y avait pas de Pologne il n’y aurait pas de Polonais!” A. Jarry, Ubu Roi
MB
Recursion Problem, these
– on Mirrors
Childlike and charred mirrors of war.
America sends its regrets
as an advance on its rejections,
an historical imperative where
soldiers die for an after death.
Childlike and charred mirrors of war.
Terrorists we call them, cave
artists painting their
violetless particles in the last waves
of a grayscale ocean.
Childlike and charred mirrors of war.
Soldier’s epsom salt of slow incentives
priced in a sickbay decay, the dirt water
smell in the declination of a fading
Earth, drown in a curtain, bathe with a Cross.
Childlike and charred mirrors of war.
The crickets in the field, in the green
grey waltz-twisting body, the pitch on the death of
Mars lays low in bloodrose and disintigration;
lamb mouth. I
do not need to ask how I got to this, the river
Where I am childlike and charred, mirror of war.
MB
Mark Brunke, "Hotel Ceiling," on Mirrors
Author and Artist Biography
Mark Brunke lives and works in Seattle, Washington.
June 1st, 2011 § § permalink
The Poetry of Andrew Hall
Emily Dickinson’s Fanboy Flirtation
– on When We Two Parted
I will tell you how the sun rose
And continued for a spell
Unleashing into sirens–
Softly warning us
Of tornado bombs not distant–
From interspatial strife
The history is resealed
When we unclose our eyes
AH
Johnny Guitar
– on Transportation
There they do a little dance
of evil and good while
the women duke it out for power
same old story we blow each other up
fighting for the crumbs not noticing
the empty space and barriers before us
we could destroy everything in a flourish
& think nothing of it… we could have sweet tea
on the porch while the children
bloody each other up on the field oh lovely
sunshine tell us what to do break out your song
you load yours I load mine
& we shall dance til’ we hit the floor.
AH
Author Biography
Andy Hall is a graduate of UNLV, earned an MA at Northern Arizona University, an MFA at Antioch and is currently working on a PhD in English Studies at Illinois State University. He has competed on 3 National Poetry Slam teams, and has performed poetry, stand-up comedy, music and performance art primarily in Las Vegas since 1991. Andrew Hall is a member of the Unshod Quills Writers Collective.
