By God, I would
marry kisses
if I could.
by Ricky Garni of Carrboro
Deathbed
The Strait
The bulldozers scrape the stubble from the corpse another bloated floater. It has come to this: no hope and the tsunami of dope. But listen to the river, I hear their dripping paddles and Frenchy songs all for cadence. The long boats shoot the Detroit and the voyageurs come again, gone from these forests for just a mistaken moment.
by Scott W. Younkin of Raleigh
Cliché Situational Metaphor (Fill in Blank)
151 fueled. Emotion drained. Petal condensed.
The needle hits 120 and my world turns to blurs. Sound melts to nothing but a dull hum. Adrenaline is all I know, save a memory of ________.
I lose vision behind eyelids. Hands free of friction.
Drifting. Always.
by Joe Jablonski of Waxhaw
Hiding Behind Sgt. Pepper
You are getting by with help
From your friends
Was it so hard to be you?
I know you wanted someone
To love
Would anyone do?
by David Riddle of Sanford
Sweet Sixteen
The Walrus unloaded the Motherworm feeding her Pudding as he rolled her ovipositor into the pool. "I am theEggman," he snarled at a barking Yorkie. She gushed the yellow globules and he stirred the blue water.
Tonight the young drones would spawn, whispering in death "googoog'joob".
by Scott W Younkin of Raleigh
Castor Canadensis: Performance Art
I do this quite naturally. I glide into the middle of a creek and slap my magnificent tail on the surface of the water. Then I dive down while the water ripples in ever widening circles. I quickly re-emerge in the middle of the bulls eye and glide out leaving an arrow-shaped wake.
by Paula Ecklund of Durham
Espresso Elevator
11 floors of failed flying. 96 of 206 bones broken, blood, guttered, gone. We glance only. Latte sir? No Caramel Macchiato. Watch your step.
by David Riddle of Sanford
90 Hours
Stewart carved trolls out of candles, the thick, solid survival ones that are supposed to last. He took kitchen knives and spent all day whittling those ugly things. Stewart died in Pre-Cal. Brain aneurysm. Just slumped down in his chair. Nothing dramatic. At the funeral his parents put the trolls on his casket and lit them. They said he would have wanted it that way. Throughout the ceremony, they were burning.
by Anderson Holderness of Greensboro
Portrait of the Artist as Castor Canadensis
I create art for art's sake. I don't have gallery representation. You might think what I produce isn't art. To you it might be like calling an empty potato chip bag art. I strip the bark off hardwood sticks and branches and leave patterns on the wood with my teeth. Then I throw them away and let them drift downstream.
by P. Ecklund of Durham
Put Down the Kitten, I Still Need that Eyeball
You've brought me coffee in bed. You bend my little toe backwards, hard, until I drink. I scorch my mouth, esophagus. I swear it's the greatest coffee, ever. You leave. I huddle beneath the quilt. My eyes water.
You shuffle back, speak my name, voice lilting. I peer out. Yes it's cute, the cutest ever. I shrink from it, feel a tug, the drip bag falls. This is not my fault. I wish I could say I'm sorry, but I won't.
by Scott Dilworth Johnson of Durham
Dear Bald Neighbor Who Keeps Mowing Two Extra Swipes Into My Yard,
Do you really think this makes your lawn look bigger? Where are your freakin ethics? Anyone who would be this deceitful is capable of much worse.
I’m now afraid to leave my car unlocked in the driveway or let my kids play alone in the back yard. I’ve already told them not to accept candy from you. Thinking of which, I’m going to check your name in the sex offender registry right now.
God bless,
Adam Lucas
by Adam Lucas of Charlotte
Everything Is a Self Portrait
Those are the last things I plan on saying before I jump out the airplane with a blue and white backpack that looks just like a parachute hiding from the sky.
by Ricky Garni of Carrboro
Umbrage
His was the world between breaths, the shutter of an eye, a form made solid of shadow. The whispers at the edge of slumber brought him forth, given to reality, coming from the nothing to the vulnerable in their beds. In some dreams he held a blade, in some a hook, the implement tinted red and his teeth bare, a growl sliding from within. They say he comes when the moon is right, that he takes a life back with him.
by Chris Deal of Huntersville
Micro Cosmos
There is a tiny little bit of tuna fish in the fridge.
And a tiny bit of chicken in the fridge.
And a cantaloupe big as Mars
Saturn. Pluto.
by Ricky Garni of Carrboro
And a tiny bit of chicken in the fridge.
And a cantaloupe big as Mars
Saturn. Pluto.
by Ricky Garni of Carrboro
Joe vs. Fly
I feel this familiar itch of a fly on my leg. I try to kill the fucker, but it’s fast. A minute goes by, again it lands. I swat, it evades. This has been going on for days. It’s driving me nuts. I look at my TV. There on Bundy’s face, the fly stares at me, mocking. A moment of madness takes over and I hurl a beer bottle at it. I regret it instantly. My TV explodes into a mound of glass. Again the fly lands on my leg.
by Joe Jablonski of Waxhaw
Biography
I am a work in progress, still on the first draft, waiting until the end so I can find the theme. I’ll revise it until it sings. The first reading will be to my wife, then my children and their kids. They’ll be the symbols, drive the plot. They’ll look from me to each other, wondering if that’s the pain meds talking. Gasping the final line, I’ll be able to tell by their faces whether I achieved the desired effect.
by Joe Graf of Cary
Debt
The boys of Grap Row shove me onto the back seat. "Can’t get blood from a turnip fellas."
"You never know," says one. They laugh. Hemmed in by two toad heads with more jowls than brains, I could barely get a cigarette out of my pocket.
"No smoking," says the driver.
The light turns green. I light the cigarette anyway. A BMW sits next to us. A poodle looks at me. I look at it. We both know we’re fucked.
by Melody Clayton of Southport
The Quiescent
Given to oblivion by its scribe, the book sits forgotten on my dead father’s desk. Offering forbidden dogma in a dead tongue with each turned page: They sleep, nameless in closed corners of our beings, impulses bolstering the most base of lusts, treacherous instincts sewing a basis for the recurrence of the great old things. The dampness of my brow betrays the beating in my chest. The book must be a fiction.
by Chris Deal of Huntersville
The Local Heroes: Single-Celled Vigilante
Amoeba-Man stalked along the rooftops near the River City Museum knowing that if the Shellfish Gang was going to try and steal the treasures of Nephren-Ka it would have to be tonight. Sure enough, a suspicious-looking van pulled up in front of the building and a gang of Mollusk-ish thugs piled out. There were a lot of them, but if there was one thing Amoeba-Man knew how to do, it was to divide and conquer.
by Al Bruno III of High Point
