Guest Feature~Body’s Raw Wound~Lance Sheridan

The dark moon shadow stalks me down,
Its dust bags of light scar me;
In a touch, flesh, bone, blood quickens,
I pick off the worms, drunk from a lick.
I walk the night, haggard through the
White street lamps, singeing filaments
Cataract my eyes. Obscure vision

Corkscrewing down storm drains. And the
Shadow, like a black wolf, each paw on
Me a brier; my doom consummates a bodily need;
It snares me, hungry, hungry. It eats
To satisfy a need, I am gutted to an undertaker.
Blood floods to a spot, purple; the rest of me
Is whitewash board, stiff as I crawl down a sidewalk.

Its tread is a weighted enemy, my heart shuts,
It peels me like linen; its breath anesthetizes and shoves
Me into a bad dream. It feels like hell;
Charred and ravened in snarled thickets of ash.
I disappoint them, I pray for a heaven,
To a god. This earth I rise from, let my soul writhe in like dew.
I am stepping from this skin, featureless into eternity.

Copyright © 08/14/18 lance sheridan®
You can read more of Lance’s work at, Lance Sheridan ~Plaited Poems~

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High Desert ~ Samantha Rose

Salmon sunset cracks open

the celestial skull of the desert like an egg,

pouring light in the empty space

that kisses the mountain ridges.

 

Sagebrush grabs pools of glittering sand

between its greedy roots.

Droplets of sunlight leap from the ground

as if violently repelled by earth’s core,

 

filling up the atmosphere

like a golden goblet, as the bolting,

ethereal silhouette of a jackrabbit

drinks up the drops of light like fine wine.

 

Here, emptiness has more gravity than matter,

vacuities ablaze,

vacancies illuminated,

voids dazzling brilliance.

 

Light exists solely in cracks and crevices,

spaces unpossessed by mass,

uncontaminated by substance,

let alone by presence.

 

So we drain ourselves of sorrow like a sinkhole

and abandon baggage on the dusty trails.

And with nothing blotting out the path before us,

we race the sun on the long drive home.

 

© Copyright Samantha Rose 2018

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You can catch more of Samantha existing at her blog, Existential Poetry.

CORRIDA DE TOROS ~ BOJANA STOJCIC

An adrenaline-seeking town dressed in red and white
runs down the cobblestone streets like a hungry river

in the fierce heat of the Mediterranean sun
enraged bulls show no mercy

to those who slip and fall
who slip and fall

a ruthless wolf pack in San Fermin
with days passing between feedings

locates, singles out
and stalks

its prey from a distance
staying out of sight until it’s ready to attack

not a deer, not a moose
not a bison, not an elk

but a beaver, feeble and sightless,
breathing the air of placid sufficiency

opportunistic feeders, unable to retain saliva
within their mouths, circle and test before

bringing the victim to the ground
the conquest of paradise

the animal does not die of blood loss or shock
but of shame

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* You can read more of Bojana’s work at Blogging with Bojana

Frankenstein’s Bastard – A.G. Diedericks

Richard Rothwell’s portrait of Mary Shelley ~ 1840
Frankenstein’s Bastard

I malformed
from aborted bloodbaths
to bite the hands
of a kleptomaniac midwife

Dear Frankenstein

Do I,
embolden your bestial apathy
with my woes?
Am I,
merely a pantomime
for the parochial aristocracy?

fated to this warped pestilence — the stench of patricide gestates in my throat

My heart is a contaminant; an abberation that anchors the intonation of a lover’s gaze

felicity dwindles in my wake,
it dare not breach
the elongated visage of my
consumption

I am shrouded
by an opulent darkness
that fosters the penury of my soul

there’s no alienist for what lives inside of me

My bones scythe a fissure in empiric science

I am the reification of death:
cobbled by inviolable skin
with ears to inoculate the
incantation of an exorcist
My iris blackens the convex of your erstwhile sun

Halcyon birds

Plummets where i walk

. . .

Dear Frankenstein

You, who molded me from madness;
map me a path to digress from this
metastasized matter
place me in an era,
where the kinship of poetry
have not forsaken me
Where even I,
tread with shadows bereft

–

Glitter to Rust – Chris Nelson

We dance and dance to jingle’s tune

And eager swallow every lie,

The promise of the silver moon

To hang ourselves in crystal sky.

We offer up each golden prayer

To mark our lives like none before,

And drape ourselves in jewels so rare

Like none but us can read the score.

And on our faces painted clear

Desire and lust out stripping need,

The thought of less our only fear

To justify our burning greed.

Our eyes fixed firm towards the light

That guides us to the good and true,

Expectance lingers in our sight

At offerings for the chosen few.

We grasp at gold within our reach

As fortune smiles her twisted grin,

To claim the riches that we seek

She offers us a way to win.

But what is it we find we hold

When all the glitter turns to rust,

And we are weakened, frail and old

And all our futures turned to dust?

© All original writing copyright Chris Nelson 2018

If you enjoyed this, thank you! To read more please visit chrisnelson61

WOMEN OF THE SEA ~ BOJANA STOJCIC

Every year films take place on the French Riviera
Hookers stroll in and out of the big hotels
Lo sceicco bianco
jerks off in the shower
picturing putes de luxes, well-dressed and well-mannered bombshells
for Arabs in white when the Sun goes out.
Smiling contentedly
groping, growing, probing, rolling, exploding into
girls who keep their mouths shut and
legs open.

It’s been going on for 60 years, movies
under the glare of the spotlights and
sex in the world with
polarized sunglasses, protection against prying eyes
denying the redundant stare
hand in hand in Cannes. Yacht girls on the alluring Cote d’Azur
a balmy playground of the rich and famous.
Sun-soaked sophistication.
The chain clanks as the anchor falls through the water
cars pull into the bay to unload fresh meat
classy mesdemoiselles like ships make headway against the gale
a gateway to success.
Professional prostitutes, B- and C-list Hollywood actresses, beauty
queens and whimsical models dreaming
of a world at peace when needed
kept close at hand, nude and half nude,
always in the mood despite
remarks made in bad taste.
Combination boilers providing hot water on demand.

Winemakers babble about the wine production. The murmur of the waves.
Grape selection, cultivation, pressing, aging, bottling, tasting
wine and girls with perky breasts who
smile at men willing to spend a fortune to relish
the bubbly taste of diamonds,
Armand de Brignac and Dom Pérignon
Prisoners finally taste freedom. A sparkling taste of
attainability.

Orphaned children.
Street children sleeping rough.
Malnourished mothers giving birth to underweight babies on TV.
Scraggy children choke themselves awake on flies
swarming inside their mouths. Squawking birds fly low.
Switch it off, the craggy voice is heard
his words slurred
tucking into lobster stew
harbored in the big blue.

White Pearl Caviar, white truffles,
white moose cheese made in limited quantities for
men in white.
The fish bite every day. Good fortune.

A fragrant pine-clad coastline at sundown
dreaming in colors.
A recurrent dream about falling from great heights.
A wife dreams of going back to school.
A single mom of a two-year old dreams of going to America
daycare and neck wear at the back of her mind.
A girl leans against the headboard
fantasizing about a life outside of rent hotel rooms.
A dream vacation, a dream car, a dream house in the country
A dream hub and a couple of rugrats
A golden retriever in the basket
A recurring dream about happily ever after.

A gift for elderly men’s eyes they were
the most beautiful mermaids with a rare talent for
grinning, loving and
making good use of their talents.
Nature gifted them with a fine body
and a strong stomach, so they thought,
a little piece of heaven bought and
brought sealed in an envelope
their aching legs gave way, and they almost fell.
50 grand worth happiness.

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* You can read more of Bojana’s work at Blogging with Bojana

 

It Never Rains Where I Stand – A.G. Diedericks

It never rains where I stand.

Cape Town’s water drought is rapidly approaching level zero, the city needs it more than I do. You died and I’m still waiting for that tantalizing storm they warned me about.

Your family wept for you and chose to utilize me as their scapegoat, waiting for me to immolate my emotions with looks that showed why I’m at home with foreigners and a foreigner when I’m at home.

Maybe it’s ’cause I don’t remember the memories; and I’ve foraged… all through our black & white photo albums. All I saw was anger, mirrored in the glass I removed from her hair after you couldn’t find your direction in life. And how my contempt for you was only eclipsed with self-denigration for not doing anything about it when I was still a kid.

You took me to the shop and littered my pockets with Molly candy hearts whilst my hands were tucked underneath gun control; you always knew how to circumvent the blue man group. Days spent dreaming of a dreamless sleep, breathing in asbestos and secondhand crack. Wasting away any potential we had.

I don’t want to denounce you, though. Only a coward would tell this true story and not let you to defend yourself and it’s not all your fault. I made a promise long ago to never turn out like you; I’ve kept that promise, ’cause I’m worse.

I know that I could have made more of an effort, or any effort for that matter to help improve our relationship. I know you’re still looking down on me, thinking, “he’s so full of shit!” and the worst part is, you’re not wrong.

There’s so much more that I need to say, so much more that I could do; I want to pour it out, all over this city where I rummage in desperation for the greyest cloud, waiting for the shudder of your lightning, waiting for some semblance of my elusive humanity, waiting to tell you that I became a writer…

But it won’t rain. It never rains… not where I stand.