The Sunny Side Of The Lobotomy by JPR

 

Tied down, trapped within.

The instruments surround; the compassion can not exist within the ever-sterile environment.

The demon's external promise of hope and science is a bastard's promise soaked with good intentions and doused with kerosene.

All the pretty flowers painted upon the wall behind barred windows cries of a voiceless soul.

Let us play on the lesser children of society's unwanted trash.

No straight jacket needed or padded room's protection.

We are free to make our own choices as long as they don't question the constraints of a society's majority rule.

The hammers strike the skull's fracture.

No demons torment the empty spaces, for those helpful, studied hands have locked them all within.

A once thriving river of confused souls’ imagination is now locked within a nightmare’s perpetual labyrinth.

As the sheep of a higher learning all clamor eager to one day practice destruction under the guise of healing.

No need to trouble yourself, a bullet’s beauty seems a far lesser evil.

Bind your thoughts with your tongue.

Madness is within; let's play God to serve the ego and silence the truths buried in a fact.

There is no answer to all mysteries eternal.

Silence your thoughts and please do throw away this perpetual miseries key.

JPR is a southern gothic writer.

His work has been published in Svartedauden Zine, Piker Press, It Takes All Kinds Literary Zine, Fixator Press, Spill The Words Press, Sava Press, Fearless Poetry Zine and here at The Dope Fiend Daily.

You May Press The Reset Button Now by Wayne Russell

Time gallops away in rebuttal, 

the ocean is something of a 

sledge hammer in my dreams.

Youth down by the pulsating 

riverside, oceans undertow,

snarling jaws or wilderness?

Take your pick

My parents didn't want me,

my siblings I never knew, I 

was a toddler when the the

Sunshine State gave me a

brand new home in the lost

and found.

Time is a thief, and I am the 

candle, worthless; burning at 

both ends. 

Death awaits us all, just 

around the corner; a dilapidated

crescendo circus, a pantomime;

a joke.

Mad times running along with

her mascara, and smudged red 

lipstick, thin and trickling from

dead eyes, draining from mouth

agape, into the drainage of

opium paradise.  

We are all the fools wandering,

translucent, luminous ghost behold,

shanty town broken necklaces.

We are stains composed from shattered

whiskey bottles and shredded time,

wasted, wasted, and lobbed on down

the ghetto into the next generation;

press the reset button now.  

Wayne Russell has been published in many zines, magazines, anthologies, both online and in print. In his spare time he likes to practice his guitar, sing, creative writing, and photography. Waynes first full length poetry book Where Angels Fear can be purchased on Amazon. 

Bowl of Black Petunias by Michael Lee Johnson

If you must leave me, please

leave me for something special,

like a beautiful bowl of black petunias—

for when the memories leak

and cracks appear

and old memories fade,

flowers rebuff bloom,

sidewalks fester weeds

and we both lie down

separately from each other 

for the very last time.

Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era. Today he is a poet in the greater Chicagoland area, IL.  He has 284 YouTube poetry videos. Michael Lee Johnson is an internationally published poet in 44 countries, a song lyricist, has several published poetry books, has been nominated for 6 Pushcart Prize awards, and 6 Best of the Net nominations. He is editor-in-chief of 3 poetry anthologies, all available on Amazon, and has several poetry books and chapbooks. He has over 453 published poems. Michael is the administrator of 6 Facebook Poetry groups. Member Illinois State Poetry Society: http://www.illinoispoets.org/.

The 3000 Pound Poetess by Toni Parisi

Fell yesterday and it created a small typhoon in Japan.

This alerted Godzilla who upon taking one look at the source of this commotion told the Japanese government.

Fuck this job! I quit!

Toni Parisi is from Alexandria Virginia she does not consider herself a writer more so a hot-mess that tries to write.

At My 50th Class Reunion by Wayne F. Burke

no one mentions that

I was the Class President.

No one at the table has anything

to say; no one seems to have heard

anything I said--

the girl that hated me

in High School, hates me

still; the guy that wanted to punch me

out, still wants to, but

still lacks the guts; the

cheer-leading sluts ignore

me--as they had back when;

the class vice-President runs the

show, as he had wanted to 

in High School

(but lacked the savvy).

The ones who never left

town, are the many;

those of us who did

leave, the few.

Everyone I hoped to see

is elsewhere or

dead.

It is deja vu

all over again.

Wayne F. Burke's poetry has been widely published in print and online (including in THE DAILY DOPE FIEND). He is author of eight collections of poetry--most recently BLACK SUMMER, Spartan Press, 2021. He lives in Vermont (USA).

The City That Never Loved Me by Kevin M. Hibshman

We held hands intermittently like two awkward,

crushing teenagers after years of exchanging backward glances.

I felt your hear beat and smelled your fears rising like steam through the gutters.

I lived both within and without you.

Our flirtatious dalliances I've long outgrown.

Your charms have worn thin.

I now require a house that can be a home.

Kevin M. Hibshman has had poems published in many journals and magazines world wide. In addition, he has edited his poetry zine, Fearless, since 1990 and is the author of sixteen chapbooks including Love Sex Death Dreams (Green Bean Press, 2000) and Incessant Shining (Alternating Current, 2011). 

 His current book Cease To Destroy is out now and available on Amazon from Whiskey City Press. 

https://www.amazon.com/Cease-Destroy-Kevin-M-Hibshman/dp/B0BYRCVHCZ/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=cease+to+destroy+kevin+m.+Hibshma

Louie Louie by Mark James Andrews

“Loowee Loowee”

red headed Bridget

was singing it that way

through her cigarette

at a basement house party

in the dangerous 8th grade

where our heads were exploding

with the bomb of electric guitar

“Dun-Dun-Dun….Dun-Dun

Dun-Dun-Dun…Dun-Dun”

of the Kingsmen with the slurring

wide-open words of the vocal

“What is he singing?

What was THAT word?”

everybody was asking 

so I was heating up the springtime

for the kids in my neighborhood

with my scribblings of the “dirty words”

which were being copied in class

by everybody and passed around

back and forth, desk to desk

trying to make something happen

in our world, anything at all

and I was feeling my power with words

in my school where “U” was the flunk grade

which was always my grade in “Conduct”

at Holy Name of Jesus “grade school”

and at the party “Louie Louie” (no comma)

was on repeat for all of us juiced up 

by the frantic line before the guitar solo 

in the middle “Let’s give it to ‘em right now!”

so we had the 45 rpm “Single”  

on repeat on the record player

the needle coming down over and over 

because the words on the album version

were different being all cleaned up

and now I was dancing with Bridget

doing my geeky version of “The Pony”

and she was lip syncing the verses

and I was straining hard on her lips

because I wasn’t wearing my glasses

and Bridget was opening her mouth wider

her top teeth biting down on her bottom lip

her tongue appearing as pink as her lipstick

“Every night at 10 I lay her again

Fuck my girl all kind of ways”

and she sang it like that, like the guy’s words

and she was eye to eye with me swaying

on her high heels for me helpless, helpless

in some kind of daze, in a trance of lust

and I knew that if it wasn’t for writing up 

my own take on “Loowee Loowee”

she wouldn’t be dancing with me 

with her eyelids painted metallic green

in her hiked up skirt and nylons

when I was used to staring at her

in her uniform checkered school jumper

secretly looking up from the paperback 

I was hiding and reading at my desk

“Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes” 

and I knew she could perform miracles

raise me from the dead if she wanted.

Mark James Andrews lives and writes in Metro Detroit.  He is the author of five chapbooks,At the Ice Cow Queen on Mack (Alien Buddha Press), So I Lit a Fire for The Last Thanksgiving

(Alien Buddha Press), Motor City is Burning & Other Rock & Roll Poems (Gimmick Press), Compendium 20/20 (Deadly Chaps) and Burning Trash (Pudding House Press), as well as a

poetry recording Brylcreem Sandwich (Bandcamp).