ROBIN WYATT DUNN – hell has all of the amenities

hell has all of the amenities



bellboy

laugh track

showers that last as long as you can stand

a full spice rack



the names of your lovers

the sound of dead friends



a huge music encyclopedia

full employment

adequate leisure time

contests and prizes

social gatherings (carefully mediated)



a robust artificial intelligence system designed to give you what you want



a realistic landscape

full of trees and sounds

water

sky

earth



a violin and drums



a pressure to perform

ennui, packaged and shipped



death managed

rotated

exoticized

eroticized

named again

and again

stamped onto your face



written into your balls



a touch on your shoulder

a whisper in your ear

a heart attack



hell should curl and twist over your arm

take it up

a packaged arrangement

for your love affair

of no iniquity

of no distance

of no priority

the badge of honor

stamped and carved into your skull



the name of god

and the name of god's god

periodically revisited



available to to call

beautiful as a winter storm

beautiful as a woman enraged



the color of the ocean

the gravity of despair

the writ of your permission

to travel

and fuck

to rise again over the air

with your eyes on your quarry



hell bellhop

towel and dry

perfume and wash

television sunrise

news at ten

and eleven

corrugated iron

art in the plaza

the name of the receptionist

a beautiful chinese woman

the parking lot attendant

with his huge telephone in hand

informing

all your relatives

your superior officer

your wife and lover

your children and friends

of all your movements

every meal

every look

every gasp

the name of your event

carefully managed

colored in blue



hell is blue

radiant cornflower

hyper intensive

surreal party for the coolest women

cut in the fashion of timeless angles

unreal against the light



your deepest fulfillment

at the correct hour

heated to the right temperature

coated in wax for you to eat



amenity is love

that which is able to be loved

the most pleasant of sights

the most pleasant of bodies

the softest skin

satin and lace



the mare of the body

the sigh of the sun

the color of the air

inside of your rapture



take me beneath the world

inside of your suitcase

I carry the love of your brethren

I carry your honor as my prize

silver and marred by the dangers of your clan

ancient and wise



dip me into the Styx

for my hour and weight

hold my hand in the fulfillment

of the contract

of the unreachable stem

world tree

hotel of all the finest enemies

my deep and caroled beloved enemies

splashed out along the plaza

buried in my grave



named for my children

unreachable

unnameable

deemed unsuitable for acolytes

in their rue and rain



lovers beneath the veil

wracked and warded for your investiture

my dear guest

please come in

Robin Wyatt Dunn was born in Wyoming in 1979. You can read more of his word at www.robindunn.com

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MICHAEL LEE JOHNSON – VODKA OMELET

Vodka Omelet
 
Make it clear in my mind, Jesus,
am I whacked-out on Double Cross Vodka
or have I flipped out calling myself
Limburger omelet chef?
I hate question marks and angels
with crazed wings.
You know the type, John the Baptist
toking weed, stoned out of his mind, storyteller,
foul smells from poor hygiene, eating habits
open mouth, swallowing grasshoppers,
so silky, smooth as sweet honey.
Add 3 eggs in a skillet, Parmesan/Romano blend,
2 cheeses add-on, shiitake mushrooms, turmeric,
chopped kale, hint hot chili peppers, cheers.
Scramble me, I’m cracked.
I rock faith in jungle music, dance nude.
Everything is a potential poem to me.
My omelette, my life, my booze, master cook,
vodka
omelet
2:38 a.m.
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Kasimma – a plastic bowl of snake

A Plastic Bowl of Snake
There was bowl on my kitchen slab
Its flesh was plastic
Or was it ceramic
It was the colour of seduction
Drizzling with beauty
Coated in nsibidi
Spiced with the language of the fathers
It drew my name
Wrote my name
Sang my name even
Beside it was a clay bowl
Bland
Screeching of ugliness
Lidless
It called my name
Are you kidding me?
I reached for the white lid
Of the beautiful red plastic bowl
I flipped it open
A
An
And
Out popped the slithering head of a snake
As if it had long-awaited this day
The freedom promised someday
The freedom covered in hay
It stayed with my freedom
I fled with its fear
~
Kasimma is an alumna of Chimamanda Adichie’s Creative Writing Workshop, IWP workshop, and SSDA Flow workshop. She’s been a writer-in-residence in artists’ residencies across Africa, Asia, and Europe. Her works have appeared or are forthcoming on The Puritan, Kikwetu Journal, Kweli Journal, The Book Smuggler’s Den, Jellyfish Review, Afreecan Read, Orbis Journal.

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JOHN TUSTIN – 2 POEMS

DRUNK AND HELPLESS IN THE DARK
 
Some of us lie
Drunk and helpless in the dark
Waiting for the angel that never comes
Because there is no her
Beyond the sad spiraling reveries
Of the drunken insomniac
Smiling wanly in the glow
Of a halo
That exists only
In his
Fevered
Imagination




HUMANITY IS DOOMED
 
I heard the birds that chirp at night
And I saw the cats under the tree.
I know the cats need to eat
And I know the birds want to live.
 
So here I am
In the parking lot of a Walgreens,
Rooting for nothing.
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HOLLY DAY – 2 POEMS

            Where I Shop for Fish   Street merchants with carts packed with ice and fish shout commandments at each other over the bustle of the crowd channel God in the most scandalous of ways. Via conversation, they strip away each other’s damaged pasts—secret love affairs, attempted suicides— until no one in the marketplace is […]

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