Dirty Women (For Ozzy) by Alex S. Johnson

They don't just stand in doorways

Although lurking is their mode of choice

Where it comes to crimes of 

the heart

Their glittering eyes speak volumes 

Their elaborate boudoir languors 

change perception and

Charge reality with 

A fuck-fusion of forms 

A tension insurmountable 

A vast need for release 

but into what vessel?

In his book Specimen Days,

Walt Whitman talks about

Fucking the earth

He would wrestle saplings beside

streams while

Declaiming his carnal verse to the 

clouds and grass and animals

Dirty women are my bane and my ecstasy 

I loved you and miss you

I loved you and miss you

I loved you and miss you

Miss you miss you miss you.

Alex S. Johnson has been called "the Baudelaire of our time; the poet of the underground" by no less than John Shirley, Bram Stoker Award-winning author, songwriter for BLUE OYSTER CULT and principal screenwriter of THE CROW (1994). Shirley also contributed the original story "Lonely is the Word" to Johnson's forthcoming charity anthology for Children of the Night, Inc., HAND OF DOOM: A LITERARY TRIBUTE TO BLACK SABBATH, which also features such dark fiction heavyweights as Anna Taborska, John Palisano, Gemma Files and Christi Nogle. Johnson is the author of numerous books including SKULL VINYL: POEMS 2012-2017, acquired for its cultural significance by the Widener Library at Harvard University. Johnson runs Nocturnicorn Books with Alea Celeste Williams and lives in Carmichael, California with his family. 

the reality that awaits them By J.J. Campbell

a pounding headache

with any luck you'll

be dead by the morning

the woman of your dreams

is off fucking her true lover

and if you ever want to let

the young poets know

that is the reality

that awaits them

dancing with the devil

is reserved for a higher

class of degenerate

get used to the sewers

to the cheap booze

to women as lost

as you truly are

she swore she could

shit out rainbows if

given enough drugs

would you rather eat

or be entertained

she said she knows

a guy a few blocks

away that sells some

good shit

old enough to know now

that is never a good sign

J.J. Campbell (1976 - ?) is old enough to know better. He's been widely published over the years, most recently at Synchronized Chaos, Disturb the Universe Magazine, The Beatnik Cowboy, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and Black Coffee Review. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)

My first visit to the Pagan festival By Brian Rosenberger

I visited the Pagan fest yesterday. 

Not that I’m a practicing or non-practicing Pagan. 

I was curious and wanted to see what it was all about. 

Old school mythology has always been an interest

Since I was a kid – Norse, Roman. Greek, Egyptian.

Those stories always held more interest to me

Than those told in Sunday school.

The fest was kind of a bust. No human sacrifices. 

No half naked women dancing around, 

Chanting at the moon 

At least not when I was there, just after lunch.

No goats, no black cats, no toads,

Nothing resembling a witch’s familiar,

Other than some annoying, toad-looking kids.

Not even a single broomstick in sight.

Just a lot of incense, homemade soap, fake fairy wings,

Tea samples, rodent bones, Tarot decks,

Folk art with chickens, cows, and tornadoes,

And people who wanted to chat. 

I asked about the ceremony 

Involving a sacrifice and orgy afterwards. 

Did entrance to that cost extra?

Would condoms be provided? 

Or wipes to clean off the blood?

The festival goers who previously wanted to chat

Suddenly lost all interest.

God damn close-minded pagans.

Brian Rosenberger lives in a cellar in Marietta, GA and writes by the light of captured fireflies. He is the author of As the Worm Turns and three poetry collections - Poems That Go Splat, And For My Next Trick..., and Scream for Me.

Proverbs 34 By Catherine Zickgraf

Wise women have said

bongs do not belong in bed. 

At least take heed to hold in all 

the holes should you tilt or turn.  

 

And if you decide 

to function high in the world, 

draw circles to roam wild within.

 

Even when you try                                                       

bending time and space and 

the laws of energy and matter,

go forth always with caution. 

 

Two lifetimes ago, Catherine performed her poetry in Madrid. Now her main jobs are to write and hang out with her family. You can find her in the Bluesky. Watch and read more at www.caththegreat.blogspot.com

Come By Tim G.Young

 

in the cadillac i shot my load

off the highway on a dusty road

the sun going steady with a big black cloud

a dog by the fence howling loud

Amy was great but now long gone

before i even put the condom on

i had to finish all by myself

since there wasn't anybody else

but that was okay i still had the car

and i had the keys and a mason jar

i drank it all every drop down

started the cadillac rode to town

found Amy in the local saloon

with swinging doors and a red baloon

drinking and singing up on stage

i would've preferred it was a cage

when it was over she's next to me

buys me a drink gives me some tea

she looked at me funny and then she said

sorry about the car i only do it in bed

Tim is a published author and singer/songwriter. Originally from Easton, Pa. But the real formative years were spent

 in NYC. After a long run we loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly, Hills that is. Not true, but I like it. Actually the wilds of Arizona,

 where all the magic happens in the dry of the desert. You could have fooled me. Thanks to John Patrick Robbins and Susan Tepper.

Portentous Ploy By Jay Simpson

Ideas served in concrete

wrapped in censorship’s freeforall

side dishes filled with foie gras

seasoned with Fandango’s peppered sauce

fortified wines blackened verses

battle line’s fiery couplet withdraws

Portentous Ploy stands rigid

dysphoria’s antidote crystal ball

headline’s acrobatic discourse

acceptance’s slow thinking stance

reality breaks into bullshit

AI designs the latest you

Jay Simpson was born in Sydney, Australia and now lives in Perth Western Australia. Jay is recently published in New Generation Beats 2024 Anthology, Chewers by Masticadores, Kingfisher Poetry Forum, the 2024 Nat’l & Int’l Goddess Anthology, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Cajun Mutt Press and Alien Buddha Press. Jay is also the featured writer, both nationally and internationally in a number of online magazines and journals as well as other notable publications.Jay loves poetry, art, music, satire and black comedy. She is the Creative Director and Author at her blog ‘livingdangerously’, Poetry Jay Simpson

A Monkey on Our Backs By April Ridge

Sometimes when I look at myself

in the mirror

I can’t shake the image of 

Monstro Elisasue.

Created out of neglect, 

out of selfish greed of consumption.

My need sometimes overbearing 

in the most inconvenient ways.

I think of my 20 year old legs:

the hamstrings, the back of the knee,

the calves shaped perfectly.

But now look at me, 

43 and struggling to fit

into any semblance of my former self,

veiny ankles, patella collapsed inward…

unrecognizably wrinkly.

We must learn to grow 

without expectation of clinging on 

to the old shapes of ourselves.

We must be willing to 

let the former selves go

lest they become a monkey on 

our backs

bulging outward

in an eerie smile

as we lumber onward

toward an undetermined finish line. 

April Ridge lives in the expansive hopes and dreams of melancholy rescue cats. She thrives on strong coffee, and lives for danger. In the midst of Indiana pines, she follows her heart out to the horizon of reality and hopes never to return to the misty sands of the nightmarish 9 to 5. April aspires to beat seasonal depression with a well-carved stick, and to one day experience the splendor of the Cucumber Magnolia tree in bloom.