- Spooky Boyfriend #2
- Donora Hillard
- Juliet Cook
- Becca Sheehan
- Nicole Cartwright Denison
- Donald Illich
- Gena Mohwish
- Peter Schwartz
- Dan Nowak
- Connor Tomas O' Brien
- Russell Jaffe
- Daniel Nester
- Brian Foley
- Susan Slaviero
- Scott Abels
- Kyle Hemmings
- Raffi Robert Kiureghian
- Nicole Steinberg
- Sharon Suzuki-Martinez
Neon Plasma
I am in close proximity to unpredictable animals
and discharging my pheromones & danger
from neon tubes inside me. High voltage marquee
for the latest XXX double-header.
The animal has two heads. One wants to be petted
and one wants to bite. In one dream, it took the form of a baboon
toying with a domesticated cat, pretending to be nice.
Maybe I don’t want it to be nice.
Maybe my quills are quivering.
I can hardly even stand
this fulgurating feeling of waiting for something
I might never receive. I need to release
while collapsing against (what I want to do to) you.
My neon tubes are Roman candles;
the stars are burning through
the already flickering defense mechanisms.
You could part my porcupine spines like the Red Sea
and (hot) cross (bun) me. One could sink
teeth deep into sticky white frosting.
One could light me up like a glowing coral reef.
Catwalk
This poem is wearing a pink leotard & shock collar.
Anonymous women voyeurs in the audience depress
buttons on handheld devices while affecting a straight face,
a blank face, a vaguely befuddled face so the poem can’t pinpoint
which buzzers are placebos and which is the torture device
delivering its lesson of electrifying corrections. With dazed dismay,
this poem shapes itself into butcherbird girls. Hook-beaked and bead-eyed.
This poem is strutting down the runway with bones jutting out.
Compound fracture style. Dismembered yet still feathered,
a bridal party flocks into a catfight. This poem is ripping
rough-tongued bouquets out of thin air. Purposefully
as a high-heeled militia, the casualties apply
haute couture dressings to banged-up knees,
even though they can’t recall whose alter they were kneeling at.
Falsies spill out glittered handbags. Calling cards advertise
chemical peels. This poem got burned, but is willing to try it again;
hide its epidemic nosebleed in a lipstick secret compartment.
Pretend that singe marks around the voice box is a cutting edge
necklace. Agree that mangled manikin arm road kill is gourmet.
This poem has something to say, but it is gagging.