Charlie Parker's Garden (poetry) by Puma Perl
Red Mama (artwork/poetry) by Moctezuma Johnson
The Mob (poetry) by Doug Draime
Willie Lepers (music video) by Norman Ball
Sometimes Suicidal by Aimee DeLong
Last Night at Southport by Justin Hyde
microwave popcorn haiku by Pete Lee
Book Reviews:
Dancing on Thin Ice by George Anderson ( review by Ralph-Michael Chiaia)
92 Rapple by Lyn Lifshin
(review by Helen Peterson)10 Poems & Ampersands
by Ralph-Michael Chiaia
(review by David McLean)
Leave me adamant
He should leave me encrusted like a cockroach underneath his back-porch rug. I know he doesn’t care if I’m all balled-up, if I’m furious, if I’m nothing but a gushing shell. He should leave me with our artificial love of punk beats and high-fructose corn syrup; it’s not like we have anything else. I don’t care. I don’t care, no mind, no mind, no mind. I would rather clinch my teeth with my fist than look at his face another second.
What happened between "nice to meet you,” when he looked so handsome with his dark brown wavy hair and inside-out t-shirt, “I love you,” when my emotions overflowed with gratitude for his existence in my life, and now “you bastard,” when he seems like the cruelest and densest person I’ve ever met? I don’t know. I know that I hate his apathy, his utter lack of passion for anything, anything at all. Maybe I just haven’t fucked enough people to get over my father issues. Maybe I wish I had his fucking dick, so I could fuck him instead. I can't stand that stupid look he gets on his face when he can't seem to fathom a damn thing about me. Maybe I’m a feminist-nazi with no regard whatever to womanhood, to passivity. Maybe I’m just sick to death of watching commercials and washing his carpenter jeans. What once felt like a feminist . victory completely eroded while living for two years with a 26-year-old man who has the voices of heads-of-household ghosts and hip-hop rappers in his head.
I think I should leave him instead because cutting my hair will only help for a week or two. First, I’ll whack him with my crackers, salting his apathetic wounds. Nice. I’ll make a hemp-welcome-mat for his blunted synapse passageways. I’ll run my fingers over his pores with the convincing pretense of feminine affection, kneading him with his own subconscious need, fashioning him into a malleable substance. Goo. Days will pass before he realizes that the temptress is really the charwoman, stripped of brooms and mops. The oven will be cold, as will his leftover pizza, but my fingertips will feel like fire, just like my aura. When I don the smile of his phlegmatic mother, he’ll turn into the size of man he really is. I’ll carefully place him underneath the homemade rug, like so much dust, like just another bug. Don’t worry dear: I’ll tell the mites your name before I walk through the front door in my platforms.
Biography
Jennifer Hollie Bowles lives in Knoxville, TN with her animus. She recalls being seduced into getting a degree by a prurient professor with thick military glasses and high-rise trousers. Jennifer’s writing has been accepted for publication in Word Riot, Identity The ory, Underwired, and Knoxville Voice.