Damon Hubbs

Hole

The day I got drunk 
down in Jupiter 
with Tiger 
and Charles, we got into 
6 car crashes 
but the 3rd
didn’t count 
because it was one of those 
micro Italian cars
that look more like 
chrome footwear 
than something that can cause 
a high speed pile up.
The vikes 
are good,
the wheels and whites, 
percopop, tabs, dro, 
fluff, Apache, everything 
like a fire engine 
blaring 
through the 
cosmos 
Toot, TOOT
     TOOTSKI

The day I got drunk 
down in Jupiter 
with Tiger 
and Charles, some girl 
from the Cheetah Palm Club 
accused Tiger of rape,
said his cock looked 
like an armadillo 
or was it a hedgehog
I can’t remember… 
We threw cash 
at her 
gold 
mother of pearl
said see ya next week
the night falling 
now
like a putt 
that breaks both 
ways
South Ocean Blvd
firecracker palm trees
blowing rocks
I’m standing on the lips 
of a waterfront mansion
eating the pinkest sunset 
I’ve ever seen
white clawed
gin tight
betting on Jai alai
talking to a guy who smuggles 
alligators in golf bags
talking to a guy who loves cattle queens
dreams in rubber, 
Thai, Puerto Rican 
talking to Tarzan of the Loxahatchee
he has a competitive nut
a Tom Ford suit
a tie as slick 
as an eel

Charles is chatting up
a calendar Pin-Up,
he has a tongue like 
a flophouse
—fame rabies
more loot than Mel Fisher, 
he beat up 
twenty bluebirds
a black sparrow 
and a clerk 
at Fast Buck Freddie’s
that weekend 
in Key West,
then wrote 
a poem 
about a young 
lion 
that many say 
is his most 
vulnerable 
yet

Tiger has rehearsed 
his death
in many crashes,
slicing a limo 
packed with sugar mommas, 
hooking a Kenworth 
heavy-duty 
class 8 truck 
carrying a load 
of Coors 
across state line,
shanking a Subaru
of Hooters girls 
en route 
to the Magic City Casino
the male G-spot
revealed 
to be 
on the frenular delta
on the underside 
of the penis
where the head 
meets 
the shaft  
yeah, baby
that’s 
science
mashed potatoes 
get in the hole. 

Paul Burgess

Sir Rooster Ryder: A Modern Ballad

I rode upon my magic mount,
my trusty friend and pet—
a rooster big as any steed
or stallion ever met.

We journeyed ‘til my heavy head 
was falling on my chest,
a sign we’d need to find a bed 
to give ourselves a rest.

A stranger saw us passing by
and said he’d be our guide. 
He led us to a sign that read,
“You’re welcome here inside.”

I hitched my bird beside the bar
and sat upon a stool.
A lovely lady flashed a smile 
that makes a man a fool.

She grabbed my hand and sweetly purred,
“I know a nearby inn,”
and moments later, we were off 
to find a room for sin.

“This room we’ve got is cramped and small 
but big enough for fun,”
I’d started thinking when she turned 
and jabbed me with her gun.

I’d thought I’d pluck a supple hen,
a feather in my cap,
but made myself an easy mark
and stumbled in a trap.

She took my clothes and stole my watch
while tying up my hands. 
She tied them twice with knotted ropes 
as rough as burning sands. 

The lady left me all alone 
with bruised and broken frame 
and made a wound that’s even worse
than busted bones or shame.

The stranger and his lady friend—
those beasts with hearts of rock—
had planned the dirty grifting scheme 
to steal and ride my cock.

Now people hiss and mock my words
and say I’ve only lied
when told I had a giant cock 
to proudly stroke and ride.

David Owain Hughes

Attack of the 50ft Stalker

Don’t call. 
Don’t text. 
Don’t write!”

Greg told her, which he’d demanded countless of times over the past few months, but it wasn’t sinking in, no matter how much he screamed it in her face or bellowed it down his mobile phone. Bailey, his ex-bae and current, fuck-nut stalker, had given him weeks of hell: He’d blocked multiple phone numbers, Facebook accounts, Snapchat usernames and Instagram identities. Yet, she kept coming, like a lovesick Terminator. 

To make matters worse—a living-fucking-nightmare of a situation—was the fact they worked together, too. There was no escape. She was there. Always. However, the situation had now hit its crescendo, its summit, as she went full, stage-five-clinger and erupted ‘at the office’. She stood before him now, ranting and cursing, having previously kept all arguments, threats and belittling comments and abuse to the shadows, away from work and hawk-eyed, eagle-eared colleagues, friends and managers.

“You bastard. You never loved me. You used me. Fuck it, I really am going to do it this time. If I can’t have you, then I don’t want to be here anymore.”

“Huh?” he said, her screechy voice reverberating around inside his head, sending icy, clawing talons down his back. His eye began to twitch. How the fuck did that noise not turn me off to begin with? he thought, drinking her in, fixing his eyes on her. Between that, her bullfrog-like neck, caked on make-up—half of which was always on her collar—itsy-bitsy tits with inverted nips, bland personality and the mindset of a child, I must have been thinking with my prick. Oh, yeah, I was. Fucking idiot. Well, I didn’t think she’d go all Play Misty for Me. Yep, got a regular Glenn Close on my arse.          

“Are you fucking listening to me, Greg?” Bailey clicked her fingers, stamped a foot, causing him to take a step back, away from the psycho, wannabe Barbie.  

Customers in the shop—standing on the outside of the in-store bakery—stopped to look and listen. To whisper among their numbers as the domestic unfolded. Along with the shoppers, colleagues and managers had also affixed themselves to their spot, mouths agape.

Fuck. This is bad, Greg thought, looking out at his chiefs, hoping his face looked pleading enough. “Well?” he said, thrusting a finger at Bailey. “Aren’t you—”

“Sod this,” Bailey said, cutting Greg off. 

Out of his peripheral vision, he saw her hand dart for something. 

A knife? he thought. With neck-cricking speed, Greg turned his head to look at her, seeing her reaching blindly for the rat poison the Rentokil guy had brought in earlier that day, ready to lace the traps with.  

No!” Greg said. “Do—,” he trailed off, words giving way to laughter, as Bailey picked up a handful of raw yeast and shoved it into her mouth, going back for more. Before realising her mistake, she’d consumed over half a block.  

His giggles caused her to look, in horror, with particles of munched bread-riser falling from her drooping gob, and squeal. “What have I done?” she gagged, holding her gut. 

“You’re in for some painful diarrhoea, babe,” he said, chuckling some more.

 Customers to join in.  

However, their supervisors did not see the funny side of things, causing Greg to wipe the smirk from off his face, as they moved through the throng of goggling shoppers, inching towards the bakery’s entrance. 

“I feel awful,” Bailey said, clutching her stomach, moving towards Greg, stumbling and collapsing against the door to one of the walk-in ovens. 

“Right, that’s it. Enough of this bloody nonsense, Bailey,” Florence said, the shop floor manager, entering the bakery. “I’ve just about had it with the both of you, to be honest,” she snapped. “The tension in here the last few months has been palpable.”

“What’s a palpable?” Bailey said, her arse squeaking. “I thought it was a plant.”

Greg slapped his face and groaned. It’s that intellect that kept me around, he thought, turning to Florence. “Had you taken my complaints about her stalking and harassing me seriously, then it wouldn’t have got to this stage, now would it?” Greg said, puffing his chest out, towering over Florence. 

A loud grumble, followed by a second fart, rocked the bakery. 

“Oh, fuck,” Bailey said, putting a hand to her arse. 

“Do not use profanity whilst on duty,” Tomasina—acting store manager—said, filing in behind Florence. “You’re in enough trouble, both of you, as it is, young lady.”

Outside the bakery, Greg heard a couple of other managers trying to disperse the shoppers. 

“It’s under control now, people,” someone said. “We’re sorry you had to witness that.” 

Another loud rumble sounded out. “I think I’m dying,” Bailey said, doubling over, as liquid shit began sliding out of her trouser leg, pooling around her feet.  

“Oh, God!” Greg said, holding his nose. “That stench.”

“Right,” Florence said, gagging, grabbing hold of Bailey’s arm. “It’s the training room for you.”

“Greg, I love yooou!” she said, latching onto the oven’s door handle. “I can’t live without you. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I can’t think. Please!” Tears flooded down her face. “I promise I won’t be needy. I’ll give you space. You can fuck other women… Whatever it takes.” 

Shhh!” Tomasina said. 

“Let go of the oven,” Florence grunted. 

“In any other situation, this would be comedy gold,” Greg said, about to give his superiors a helping hand.  

“You’re coming upstairs too, Greg,” Tomasina said, snarling, trying to pry Bailey’s fingers free of the handle.

“Hell did I do?” Greg said. 

More shit splashed out of Bailey. “I’m bleeding,” she wept. “The pain!”

“Will you help us get her out of here, for God’s sake!” Florence said. “This place will need fum—”

Florence’s rant was derailed, her hands flying off Bailey’s suddenly bulging forearm, smacking her in the face, sending her backwards, reeling, and smashing into the wall. Her skull connected with a sickening thud. 

Uh!” Florence said, sliding down the brickwork. 

“What the?” Tomasina said. “Did—did you strike her?”

Nooo!” Bailey wailed, Tomasina sent flying, her other forearm ballooning in size, followed by her hands, arms, shoulders, neck and every other inch of her. 

Greg, in fits of uncontrollable laughter, stopped, the gasps and screams around him jolting him back to reality. “Jesus Christ,” he said, watching as Bailey grew a dozen feet or more within the space of sixty-seconds, going from a petit five-four to gigantic seven-four, and beyond. 

Her clothes tore asunder, akin to the Incredible Hulk’s.  

You won’t like me when I’m angry, Greg thought, lifting his head up and up and up, seeing her grow at an incredible rate. This is how Jack must have felt after selling his cows.

Bailey’s body filled out. Her arse became curved and plump, thighs thick, tits stout and pendulous. 

“Why don’t you love me?” she continued to bawl, her expanding body crushing everything around it. When her head and shoulders crashed through the ceiling, raining chunks of plaster and board down on those below her, Bailey realised what was happening.  

Greg?!” she said, her voice breaking, tears dropping like individual waterfalls, whistling like Doodlebugs as they cut down through the air, washing Greg, Tomasina and Florence away, out the bakery and onto the shopfloor. 

It was biblical. It was Noah and his fucking arc. 

“We have to get out of here,” someone said. 

Shoppers jammed together as they tried stampeding towards the exit. 

Within the bakery, more ceiling collapsed, as spider-web-like cracks raced in all directions, causing the staff canteen on the second floor to fall through. Tables, chairs, Jill from checkouts and Dan the trolley boy, tumbled out of the spreading hole, along with fridges, ovens, chest freezers and other apparatuses and workers.  

Customers were crushed and splattered. 

Puddles of blood, piss and excrement spread along the floor in lakes. 

Clean up on aisle six, Greg thought, climbing out of the tear pond, pulling Tomasina to his feet as he did so. “We have to move, before the place buries us alive,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the crumbling building and hysteria. 

“Greg?” Bailey called, her voice making the ground and shelving tremble.

When he looked, he saw Bailey raise her one exposed hand up through the hole in the roof her head and shoulders had create, and use it to smash away at the structure that trapped her. The back half of the bakery closed in on itself. Stone, plaster and board buried the large mixing bowls, bread and roll plants, tables and friers. 

Screams rang out from above, as more bodies rained down, necks, arms and legs snapping on impact. 

Greg saw blood streak and seep across what was left of the ceiling.

“Fuck,” he said, moving backwards, pulling Tomasina with him, as desks, chairs, cabinets, PCs, laptops, and other office equipment crashed from the heavens. 

Sprinklers burst to live.

Alarms blared.

Pipes exploded. 

“Where are you, handsome?” Bailey continued, her both hands now pulverizing the shop’s construct, freeing her body, like Kong breaking his chains.  

“Holy fucking shit,” Greg said, looking at her. “She must be 50ft tall.”

“At least,” Tomasina said. 

“Run,” Florence said, “before we’re—Oooph!” she cried, as Bailey’s enormous hand enclosed around her and squeezed. “Ugh… B-Bailey, you’re killing me…” she wheezed. “My ribs.”

From where Greg stood, he heard Florence’s ribcage, hips and other bones snap and disintegrate, before Bailey opened her gigantic maw and scoffed her down, grinding the manager to a bloody pulp.

Mmm,” Bailey said, moving forwards, raising one foot and bringing it down on a group of gawking shoppers, some of which took selfies and photos of the sci-fi freak. 

Arrgh!” they said, before Bailey turned them into a puddle of sticky crimson. 

“Come here, baby,” Bailey growled. 

“Bollocks,” Greg said, turning to run, slipping on the wet, teary floor, causing him to collide with a display table filled with packets of hot cross buns. When he saw Bailey’s hand swipe for him, he commando rolled over the Jesus buns, avoiding her grasp. “Sorry, bitch, but you’re not my type. Too tall!”

Greg glanced over his shoulder as he ran down an aisle, gaining on the shop’s exit, seeing her come after him. 

“You can’t get away from me.” Bailey swatted shoppers, staff members and managers out of her way, some of which were thrown through windows or into shelving.

“I don’t mind a tall girl, but a 44 foot difference is a bit much,” Greg said, exiting the shop, finding his car in the car park. When he reached the driver’s side door, Bailey come crashing through the front of the shop, demolishing the sliding doors and foyer, as the building’s centre fell through. Bailey stopped looked at Greg, roaring as she did. 

In the distance, Greg fumbling with his keys, he heard sirens, followed by a monstrous groan and the shredding of metal. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he said, watching Bailey tear up a trolley bay and hurl it in his direction.

Greg ducked, as the missile flew overhead, and crashed into the first fire truck on the scene. 

“Move,” he told himself, slotting his key into the door, unlocking his car. Behind the wheel, he started the engine and threw the car into gear, stomping the go pedal. “Screw you, Bailey,” he said, giving her the finger in the rearview mirror.

“Go, car. Go, go, go,” he said, moving his battered Pinto out onto the main road.

All the while, Bailey’s image filled his side mirror, as she gave chase, gaining, her impossibly long arms stretching out, her fingers grabbing for his car…

Salvatore Difalco

Two Fingers Neat

I am about to crack open a bottle of Knob Creek
and do you know how much that put me back
even at the Duty Free Shop in Buffalo? I am
taking a page out of the Book of the Dead
and hoping nobody finds it missing. One
day A.I. will translate it for me and I will
be that guy. That guy who keeps looking
for his identity. Did you happen to see one
floating around the foyer or hanging
near the latrines? Regard him, this man
with thinned eyes, and make no sudden moves.
If all is true, then too bad for you should he 
take a fancy to your perfume or your
footwear. Even frontline German soldiers
during World War II knew the difference
between English chocolate and their own.
Or look at this bone in my wrist that I broke
many years ago, before the invention
of plaster casts and self-love hand lamps.
When I said all we needed was a lubricant,
I meant something sweeter than K-Y Jelly.
The cannons won’t boom without you
standing behind them and doing that thing
those dudes setting off those things do.
War never appealed to me, but now I 
must eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner,
I say eat well, my friends, eat your fill
for tomorrow may never be the tomorrow
promised to you and me, as I swim 
from the neck of Lake Erie to its jewels.

Tony Dawson

Erica

Erica is flighty, not to say flirtatious,
known to her many friends as Erotica
and by friends, I really mean boyfriends.
Her secret cleft is no longer a secret.
Whenever she sees someone she fancies,
her not-so-secret cleft begins to secrete
with desire to get to know him carnally.
Erotica is always open for business,
as she’s wont to say and who can blame her?
Life is for living and what better way
to live it than spreadeagled on a bed
waiting for the sword of Damocles,
as she nicknamed the latest in her line
of muscular Mediterranean lovers.

Dana Jerman

Sugar In The Well

The drink was so good it reminded me of nothing else at all. I had no frame of reference in either smell or taste for how to log it. It took me away from both time and pain. Too, it reminds me that I could go a long long time wearing the heat of many words and ancient beautiful nothings inside me. Ages for keeping my mouth shut. 

Hindsight afforded me the notion that if I had showed up to the rescheduled potential second date, he would have lost respect for me. So much had been cocked-up in the lack of translation between our communication styles by now I wasn’t sure either of us wanted to enlist our interpersonal clean up crews to make it right. Would we only create more of a mess?

Then the future comes and there I am: Las Vegas, Day 3000 — all the west side apartments I used to inhabit are gone and now I live in a part of town far flung from them at the end of a street in the vintage city proper.

My backyard scintillates by day with early light and wind turning suncatchers and spinning bees. By night with the glistening backs of stray cats, black and calico, who leave the feathers of their prey askew by the back door.

Everyone has been telling me lately that I look different. That something has changed. But really I think my hair just went thru a growth spurt.

Sitting there with that cocktail in a moment that becomes a meditation I bring him in. What if we had that promised date?

Inside my imagination’s hotel I embrace him and hold him fast. I kiss him and touch his head and move my palms over his shoulders. I keep kissing him in different places as I let the desire build inside my body. Fluids rushing like a dam break.

His hands are across my ass. They bunch my skirt and expertly interpret the shape of my underwear. In a flash his shirt is up and I am inhaling the warmth radiating from his chest. A perfume uniquely masculine, undeniably his. My shoes come off. My bra undone. Stockings tugged away. Breath growing fast. Panting as his erection drops out. My lips part to what I can’t look away from. Hungry to taste and swallow precum from the throbbing head of it.

Inside a break in the action we can hear soft moans from the next room over. A woman cries out as her orgasm builds. He closes his eyes and sighs — the sound makes a warm hum in the air which has deepened his fantastic pleasures. As if inside a movie and from behind the camera of my eyes I watch. I say nothing. I don’t move. 

Daniel de Culla

Thanks Whore, Goddess of the Bushes

I met Gabriela, a female archangel
In the Casa de Campo
The best thing about Madrid
Near the Batán, where there’s a little square
Where they teach you how to bullfight.
I saw her and I loved her
Because of the abundance of everything she had.
I gave her five hundred pesetas, the old kind
And she took me to enjoy her completely
On all fours
Inside some flowering bushes
Holding my hand, saying:
-Pumps to the rabbit hutch 
Where about one hundred and twenty are.
From the top, where the cable car passes
That comes from the Paseo Pintor Rosales
To the Cerro Garabitas
They threw rose petals at us
And the occasional half-eaten sausage sandwich
While we made love doggy style.
I had run away with another classmate
From the Conciliar Seminary
Which is in Las Vistillas
With the desire to end the false celibacy.
This cock-eater was to my liking
She satisfied me, especially when she answered me
When I asked her:
-Are you working for a pimp?
-No, I’m here on my own.
Free Love!
Delighted with the raw, unprotected sex
And with having lost my virginity to this whore
So beautiful and sexy
I sang to her in the Gregorian chant style:
-“I praise your cunt
To which my cock has worked wonders.
How grand, amidst the bushes
The love that justifies us!
Thanks whore, goddess of the bushes.
Thank you for the illusion
Of having swallowed my cock
Before ejaculating inside your vagina.
Thank you for having placed my priest’s crown
My mystical virginity
Between the two holes of your ass.
Thank you, whore, for this hour.”
My friend, my soulmate
You who have been watching us fuck
Let us sing to the goddess Whore with joy!
The woman’s cunt is vast!
Her boundless charity
Even though we have to pay to enter
The heaven of her vagina!
As we were leaving
Saying goodbye with a kiss
I saw her wiping away with a silk handkerchief
The amorous remnants outside her vagina
Then, she would hold it up to her nose
To wipe away a green snot that was dripping from her
Very similar to sheep’s snot.
Also, right next to it
Inside another bush
My companion and I saw a jar
That contained colorful condoms
Filled and torn, overflowing.
And next to it, another jar
Where she would defecate if she needed to.
-Goodbye Whore, I shouted to her.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Gabriel Bates

What Stays

I wear each shitty tattoo
like a badge of honor.

The black panther,
the pinup girl,
the red rose,
the pair of dice.

I still don’t regret
a single one of them.

That wouldn’t do
any good anyway.

Because regret is like ink—
it never goes away either.

Damon Hubbs

Jodhpurs and Clavicles 

There’s no telling where I end 
and you begin. All the kings men
are in the kitchen doing jujutsu with Jane. 
The afterparty contains hostile agents 
and bad news about the divine. 
Your lips are layovers in a foreign train station. 
Portals to a parallel reality
double back with dates and revisions.
Your friends call you the queen of Mars. 

Dodie remakes the world with ECM classics.
Our talk turns to jodhpurs and clavicles, 
the lilacs wilted in the vase on the table.   
There are the wounds we are given 
and the wounds that we choose. 
I must be bricked up alive for the fortress to stand.  
My dear ________________ , 
“Charlie don’t surf.”  
The TV is a UV burn.

Mark James Andrews

Ron Asheton Says

I play guitar
Don’t call me 
Iggy’s right-hand man
I was always into Nazi shit
doing Hitler speeches
and wearing SS pins
at Ann Arbor High School
Don’t call me 
Fat Beatle
They tucked my Iron Cross
medal under my leather
for the jacket photo
of our first album
the stooges
damn I was juiced
that Elektra Records dropped
the Psychedelic lame 
part of our band name
I was into wearing nazi regalia
at all our shows 
a Jewish fan came up to me
crying Why are you doing this?
I told him Aren’t you glad
the Nazis lost so a freak 
like me can wear this?
Well I guess I was 
Iggy’s best-man 
at his first wedding
when he married 
a Jewish chick
and I showed up 
wearing a Luftwaffe
fighter pilot’s jacket
our Jewish manager 
officiated