We hung the drapery with care. We draped the fabric over the model’s figure, her cold professional flesh quickly calibrating to the correct angular proportions before she walked along the runway, displaying our fabrics. Next, we were in the van, ready to display household drapery options to suburban citizens looking to remodel their curtains. I suddenly screamed.
by Eric Suhem of Oakland
I got a Hot Dog on a Stick at the mall yesterday. I ate it while watching a YouTube Poop of Wilbur the pig crying, "I don't want to die." The nearest human ancestor's fall into that cave happened 1.9 million years ago.
by Kendall Darfler of Los Angeles
cheekbone sweatclouds
under the Arizonian sun
green apple shatters tea-leaf
teeth at Phoenix Art-less Museum
by Andrew J. Stone of El Segundo
I limp short, ghost calves straining. Cane propels through electric doors. Glass and rubber seal me inside. Smells of salt, baking plastic.
Patients numb as goldfish. Summer leaks in through skylights. Where the hell is Suite D?
I wait behind cataract grandma. Drug salesmen gossip like Mormons. Plaque says Dr. Robert P. Mudd. Paintings of villas with cows and vineyards.
Grapes ripe, staring like eyes.
by Kirby Wright of Vista
Afterwards he stays on top, anointing my stomach with mingled sweat, and I tell him my plans for the apocalypse. I'll kill myself, of course; I wouldn't last ten minutes. He carries a gun everywhere but lets me read him contemporary poetry. "Don't do that. I'll find you," he says. New bruises pool purple on the backs of my thighs. When the apocalypse comes, maybe I'll dive to the bottom of one and live there instead.
by Kat Lewin of Irvine
Squeezed pimple
expecting glorious
squirt to mirror,
got only a little ooze.
Like drunken orgasm,
no out-of-body ecstasy,
just happy
for any result.
by Paul Hellweg of Frazier Park
C-thru thong
bikinis reveal
the secret
graveyards
of rogue
L. F. Ants.
by Larry Ziman of West Hollywood
cars screeched
horns sounded
I cursed spat
was greeted by a man
identical in appearance
standing
we saw ourselves
wheeling across the street
by Justin Robinson of Santa Barbara
Flowers grew
from bed
where woman
blew smoke
through red
chipped teeth.
She showed me
how to keep
the room spinning spun
showed me
how to sleep.
by Justin Robinson of Santa Barbara
Meet me
at the
station.
We'll
wait for
a train
that
never comes.
We'll be
taken
for
a ride
nonetheless.
by Britt Warner of West Hollywood
I used to cry over terminally hip cocktails poured by hip hands and priced by monsters. His platinum mouth would open only to instruct me to save my tears, one day I would need them. He was always bo-jangling in Rolex watches. I sit before his face book permanent mug shot, current center piece for those wishing to feel pain, and wonder if I need them now or later.
by Jenny Catlin of Los Angeles
Her eye finds his tiny figure framed between gray portals atop a sea-slick stone. The lens contracts, black, opens. Gone. For six days she watches the shore. On the seventh, she returns home, laying the camera and its last sweet terrible image in the burned-out heart of a redwood ring. On moonless nights, the ocean still whispers. Immersed deep in woods, engulfed by moss and lichens, she waits while rain sifts down.
by Cheri Ause of Gualala
Piano in bike on swept back hair tuxedo, nice. Chopin too along for the ride. On back. Crinkled forehead wind in head hit that high note sweet for transport sake and oncoming car. Keep that back ramrod straight not forehead on keys, squeeze that horn for cresendo. Brahms might be better than C for straight ahead. Bangs on head. Bad fingering.
by Neila Mezynski of Campbell
Bugs on teeth on violin atop that cycle don’t stop. That crow fly at half mast past in a state of transport with those sweet pure note. Keep your skirt down on little black dress and keep in time with girls on cello and viola on next bike over. Bad fingering.
by Neila Mezynski of Campbell
He knew that the end was coming. The pencils saw it, as did the brooms, as did the whitewash and the paint thinners he kept stored on the high shelves. He sat at his drawing table, waiting, not touching the pencils but letting them inch across the bristol board in orderly rows like a procession of hitched camels, self-led through a gleaming white desert under a flat florescent sun.
by Keith McCleary of San Diego
An elephant waded through the village during a flood, and broke all the submerged pottery, but its squelching shovel-feet dug up ancient golden figurines, many of which were found to intricately honor the image of elephants. New pottery scorches in modern kilns there now, a license from the elephant gods, it reads "we are all fire and river-clay, let us remember."
by Aaron Beyer of San Francisco
I hate this ghost ship. I hate this skeleton crew. It sinks. Every day the sun gets colder, and farther away. There were fishes and wenches, even as recently as our parent's crew, but now there's just neurotic coffee and the costumes keep getting worse. Pinstripes are the new jolly roger, and everyone still smokes, but I'll be the first to shout "Arr, We've run ashore!" There's no joy in piracy anymore.
by Aaron Beyer of San Francisco
She was sitting in a chaise lounge in the back yard, a dead ringer for Jackie Kennedy, in a black & white dress, and sunglasses with thick white rims. She was firing rounds from her machine gun at police range targets. Nearby, a tuxedoed figure was mowing the lawn, "Vroom!" As the lawnmower sprayed cut grass all over the black tuxedo, the figure stared hypnotically at the lawn.
by Eric Suhem of Oakland
Dayglo zinnias, blossoming orange and red outwards from their mottled brown pupils: dad let me design them myself, an of-age present. That's how I know she loves me, even after all we've been through. My sister never changes the flowers in her eyes.
by Kaolin Imago Fire of Acton
Fearing Heqet would
Ferret out my secret,
I hid in the closet,
Gurr ribetting.
by Kenton K. Yee of San Francisco
