DEAD BEATS

Hand Measure by Micah Dorn

Fri, 17 May 2013 15:23:00 +0100

There is the grief in my left palm, a pulp of heavy lamentations;

The ‘Ohs’, the groans, the sighs that sigh away a pithy thought.

Webbed crows etched in the skin of my fist, my curled hand,

Knuckles bearing up against the contours, cuneiform edges grazing

in red, wet contusions into the right palm. The thumb is retracted,

Stroking the hope which lies there to sleep, to wake in warmth.

The heat rises with so much levity, It is hope’s warm pulse

Against which grief slackens like stones in pockets.

These are the objective correlatives in my struggle for balance.

Thinking is the fulcrum they pivot between. Always infinite motion,

Always tension as I reconcile myself with the fact that I am possible.

Waves of us By Kristina V Griffiths

Thu, 16 May 2013 13:21:55 +0100

Electricty upon my finger tips,
Everytime dark clouds -
Take over the skylight,
Colossal claps of thunder
Roll out like tumble weeds,
Let move forward,
And walk upon the sodden sands.

Red hot anguish pierces the surface,
Of the calm ocean waves,
Passionate as sin,
Faster than the wind,
Looking into your eyes,
Trying to make sense
Time after time,
Tonight at times like these-
I should be over the butterflies that take flight,
In plain sight of a waveless shore.

I’m falling in, I’m falling down,
Into this pacific romance
Dark maraulding waves crash forth,
Causing us to plunder deeper into the coral reefs,
Sparks fly between us
For we caught the lightening of loves form.

When he decides to write… by Shafaq Noor

Wed, 15 May 2013 20:12:32 +0100

Sharpened pencils. A whole box. Same length. Yellow.
Old desk. Cedar. Aged with thoughts. Through the years.
Many meanderings. Late nights. Long hours.

Scratching ears. Furrowed brow.
Stale coffee. Out of filters. Time ticks by.
Clocks, a background hum.

Pages crumpled. Outlined. Underlined
Words flow. Fall. Rise. Slow.
Revealing.Wonderstruck. With little luck.

Frantic scribbling. Pipe smoking.
Darkened letters. Weightless. Watchful
Restless hunting. And then triumph.

But just a passing one.
Crack of dawn. Realization drawn.
It was right there the whole time.
Lingering in between the lines.

Never tire. Never be content.
Madness you say? Magic-
in my eye.

‘Don’t be such a fool’ he said
It will come to you he said.
Curious. ‘He’s delerious’, they say.

I believe him.

Death in the Afternoon by Abhimanyu Kumar Singh

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:55:03 +0100

Summer came suddenly this year.
Like a bird of prey
Swooping down.
Or young death.

The air breeds lust.

Sunlight bounces off the streets
Like a wet tennis ball.

Evil walks quietly
Blowing smoke rings
Through the luminous haze
Of the still-born day.

Heat rises slowly
Like the chronic anxiety
Of the eternally hopeful.
(end)_

Pater Noster by Douglas Dunn

Tue, 14 May 2013 20:19:46 +0100

In memory of you, long dead,

I hang in this yet unsung balance.

I know you what you are

So you, in return, acknowledge my skill

at seeing through your facade.

Lend me your eyes, dear friend,

I shall present you with a paper ticket

(which you must immediately give back for safe-keeping).

I may be cracking up inside, but they still believe my image.

Switch the gas heater off now, let’s save

our pennies, old friend, empty wallets ahead.

We cannot slumber anymore,

our dreams are too expensive.

The world is too costly for us,

don’t make me pay.

Will you be satisfied if I flay my sea-salt skin for you?

Tear my organs from my body in honour of you?

Whitely bleed to ash in imitation of you?

See, I splay my corpus upon the floor, I kneel,

My young knees creaking for the untimely dust.

He must implore his Jealous God for

an extension on his overdraft.

A Man Approaches a Casket by Jeffrey Lee Owens

Tue, 14 May 2013 11:12:02 +0100

old hands

have seen so much.

ragged gloves with

jagged bones

hold a face with

sunken fingernails

and make sounds

like paper.

You will become way less concerned with what other people think...

Mon, 13 May 2013 18:07:08 +0100

You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.

—David Foster Wallace

Last summer... by Rafferty

Mon, 13 May 2013 09:20:00 +0100

I met Brazilians, Argentinians, Americans, Germans, Italians, Iranians, Mozambicans, Kenyans and Scousers.

I ate, drank and smoked with all of them and met the realisation that my mistrust of the Spanish was universal. I saw sunsets on beer-strewn piers, sunrises from cold Berlinese penthouses and crying Britons bombarded with firecrackers, because they were crying.

I made friends with prostitutes on church steps, with thieves in cathedrals and with pram-wielding mothers in jazz-blanched Park Guell.

I was alone though for my trip to Wet’n’Wild when the forecasters warned of thunderstorms and the H₂Disco required two people per dinghy.

I don’t know if you have come across the word Bullshit -...

Sat, 11 May 2013 19:31:57 +0100

I don’t know if you have come across the word Bullshit - it is an army word and signifies humbug and unnecessary detail. It symbolizes what I think must be got rid of

—Keith Douglas

Like You by Christina Issa

Sat, 11 May 2013 14:40:47 +0100

intuitively, i am yours

without speech or gestures

of the body like plants

belonging to soil and

letters belonging to

words or the night’s embrace of

dark and a crowded elevator to

silence or like a song to

the lark and how foam

goes with an ocean

a cliff’s commitment to

its edges or how temptation belongs

to boredom or neurons

to our guts and how jokes

are to laughs and a sticky night is

to the summer or cleanliness is to

baths and how a shadow goes with

light and like you, dances with clouds

I'm Not Sure by Katie Mcilvenny

Fri, 10 May 2013 19:42:43 +0100

I like people who know their insides

All coiled and misshapen from intoxication

All manner of men

Be him homeless

Faithless

Has a problem with an atheist

Whatever makes him praise with us

The blind and aimless wanderers

A following who feel a flinching

Sense of moral contradiction

A mangled array of junkies, uni flunkies, young mummies

A final summary

Of youth, frowning at where, why and how.

being a poet doesn't seem all that ridiculous. by Billy Certain

Tue, 07 May 2013 17:58:55 +0100

I am a true believer in speaking to others in their language
to have successful communication. This includes rude or
polite language.

My hands
are the
emptiest
spaces.
But I’m no angel.
no morning bluet, mountable
linnet, mumbling nun.

i feel ignored, Every time
because she couldn’t
focus(fuckass)
on porntube
i come from howling windows
with wooden muzzles that
get jizz

this is a poetry
reading mother fucker
If you’re offended, you’re a dick.

now we recite lyrics
from the beating
heart inside
the dead chest
of our leader
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him
and we sleep together like
we hadn’t finished
emulating
a katy perry song.

snap your fingers
snap the fucking fingers
!

Dad is talking to me about poetry lol
being a poet doesn’t seem all that ridiculous.
no matter the expense it still feels like a sale
if its truly succulent and wet
steady for cradling delicate eggs.

Psychopathic thinking all this
And that’s my
sorrow of your growing up
beauty instead, and before long
I don’t need a gun to be deadly.

overwhelming urge
to close my eyes
and count to one hundred.
Pretend I’m perfect and people believe me
#lol joke’s on you motherfucker

and that is why you’re hurt -
don’t mask the heat of
the touch of famished hands
the breath that comes from within.
The sad destruction of an internet poet.

so dont be fickle mama
open your mouth
Fuck that guy that just unfollowed me.
With a hornets dick.

[…]I cryNOW. Death, like a familiar, hearsAnd look, has made a man of dustof a man of flesh.

Mon, 06 May 2013 20:02:09 +0100

[…]I cry
NOW. Death, like a familiar, hears

And look, has made a man of dust
of a man of flesh.

Ecstatic like Jazz by Richard Miller

Mon, 06 May 2013 13:33:21 +0100

Winter rain falls

          Ecstatic, like jazz
            Upon narcoleptic rooftops
Penetrating
       This leaden-eyed town
With sensuous bursts
        Of bebop rapture

The resounding squall
         Of frenzied horns
The delicate shimmer
             Of piano keys
The throbbing prosody
          Of the bass
              And of the drums

Wake up! Leaden-eyed town!
            In your laborious slumber
For soon, you will be in the throes
                       Of apocalyptic Dawn

Seek redemption!

                 Seek Ornette Coleman!
                 Seek Dave Brubeck!
                 Seek Satchmo, Ella, Dizzy Gillespie!
                 Seek Coltrane, Miles, and Bird!
                 Seek Art Tatum and Gene Krupa!
                 Count Basie! Duke Ellington! Thelonius Monk!

When we are not sure, we are alive.—Graham Greene

Sat, 04 May 2013 19:02:05 +0100

When we are not sure, we are alive.
—Graham Greene

Smokes by Otto

Sat, 04 May 2013 11:59:03 +0100

Have you got a spare cigarette?

No, because that’s not a thing. That’s not anything

This fallacy of yours, it makes no sense

You’ve been too quick to draw water before inspecting the spring

For contaminated concepts

And indigestible abstractions

Why would I carry a spare cigarette? A pack of ten, but I’ll only ever smoke nine

That’s ridiculous

You’re inventing things

If what you mean to ask is

Can you spare a cigarette?

That would be different.

But for you the answer would still be no

Because you have patterns shaved into your hair and we can’t be having that.

Rash Thought by Cassandra Parks

Fri, 03 May 2013 20:14:00 +0100

He stared at the screen and began typing:

Dearly beloveds,

I regret to inform you about my imminent departure. I wish I could have warned you sooner but to be honest this new situation caught me completely off guard as well. To my dear friends I ask that you keep me fondly in your memory and hold true to yourselves. I wish I could say I won’t be gone for long, but the reality is I will be gone for a very long time. I may never return. In the mean time I ask that you remember our many fun nights spent by the warm fireside sharing philosophies and exchanging tunes. Do not worry about things I may have lent you or money borrowed. I went this long without. Don’t bother trying to return it.

To my dearest and closest family, I only regret not being able to tell you sooner. To my younger siblings I hope you remember the lessons I taught you and warnings I always asked you to mind. Keep a watchful eye on your parents, be respectful to your elders, the young are so careless these days, and listen to our older brother.

The young man paused his fingers and fought back the tears welling up in his eyes. Warm streaks dripped down his pale face and salty droplets seasoned his trembling pink lips. He raised a shaky finger and pressed the backspace button. A noiseless agony threatened to claw up from his chest but he had to be strong. He could do this. He was not weak. He was not weak. He was not-

To who it may concern,

I am wholly and fully sorry you were forced to find me in such a state. I leave this laptop here as my last confession. I have no friends who I could confide such matters in and no family to shield my secrets with. These words are words I would have taken to the grave if given the chance, but I felt I must share them with someone. Anyone.

I have lived by myself in this apartment for two years now. I am nineteen and not yet accomplished anything of worth. I lost my family. I lost my friends, and the ones I can claim now, they are nothing to me but faces and flesh, and sometimes faceless flesh that babble and babble words with no end or beginning. I was not always like this but it is long since I remember life before. I am a sad empty shell of a memory too painful and difficult to conjure up. I say conjure because it is a wonder if picnic parks and snow days were ever a thing for me to hold onto.

I lost myself. I was forced to undertake a change bigger than myself, bigger than what I could handle and I foolishly took it on by my lonesome. All this new move brought on was confusion, regressions, and pointless aggressions. I have not been a young careless thing for quite some time now. Ten, eight, twelve? All are numbers that remind me of a better time, but I cannot remember why. I cannot dare remember why. I have come too far. There is no end to this cycle of viscous loathing and hateful words. I lost a good friend and a better one yet. I lose and I lose, every day I lose something and I find myself growing mad. I rave in the dark like an ill dog and howl my displeasure like a distempered cat.

If it is the landlord who finds this all my debts pay can be found in the tin can on the coffee table. It should be in the centre. I was able to save enough money for this. This I decided is my final act. The big moment. I will disappear without a trace and what a story that will be.

I always wanted to be the star of my own great production or author of a great novel. But I suppose now I must settle for being just another character in a tragic flawed drama. I can feel my courage fail with each click of the letters, but no worries. Once I reach the bridge all will be better. That’s my pathway to freedom.

At first I thought I may hurt someone, but then I realised that my vanishing will affect none. Not my friends who hold over me only words. Not the family who abandoned me. Who will miss me? The cat I put out a saucer of milk for each night? The child I passed on the street whose dolly I saved from being swept away into the gutters? Those are irrelevant acts of rashness. No thought, just actions, and I am so, so tired of only action when my mind is filled with such wonders that I cannot begin to describe. I have a whole life in my head, a whole world, and I plan to leave this one behind to join it.

The young man took a shaky breath and saved the document. He stood up and leaned heavily against the table. His legs trembled as he tried to invoke enough courage to leave the laptop’s side. What was he so worried about leaving behind? His failed attempts at breaking into the literary world? He shook his head weakly and wandered into the kitchen. He left a large container holding the rest of the milk on the apartment balcony and allowed his feet to take him wherever it was they were to go next.

The boy walked the dark early morning streets with little notice of the happenings around him. His eyes that once took in everything with a bright shining wonder now dully watched the cracks in the pavement as his tired feet plodded along. No one was out except for a few early risers out to catch early worms and get ahead at life. They mattered little in his world though. He was a failure and left behind in the dust of their success. Such people were outside of his reach. They were whole worlds away. He was a shadow creeping along the city dawn and leaving behind him a wake of silence and nothing.

Through the park he continued dazed. The happy joggers took no notice of him as they buzzed past listening to work out tracks on their iPods and cell phones. Nature was tranquil around him and birds chirped away, unaware and uncaring to the circumstances beneath their freshly made nests. It was nothing personal, but a bird cared as much for the young man below as they did the cyclist down the pathway. Nature had no side to worry over but its own. It should have brought him some sense of peace, but all he could see was a heartless goddess somewhere laughing at him. All creatures equal, but he was one chosen to carry the burden of thought, soul, and mind. His one thought was how he could be tasked with such a meaningless existence. What made him any more important than the swan on the lake when he couldn’t even keep up with the ones he was supposed to be risen above the mundane with? Pointless, it was all helplessly pointless.

When he reached the bridge he kept going. He did not stop at the first step and lean over the rails to contemplate the churning river below. He just kept looking ahead and suddenly found himself in the centre of the walkway path. He took a look east, and a glance west, and then looked down south and for the first time since he set out his journey he realised just how tired he felt. The water beneath him was dark and angry, churning up nothing but sluggish cold freshly melted snow from the mountains. It made him unsettled just looking at it.

He imagined himself throwing all his problems away into those icy waters below. He mentally chucked his laptop. He tossed in a few old pictures of the family he hadn’t seen in years. He dropped old trinkets given by friends and all the bills and invoices he was never really meant to take on anyway. Homework washed away and sank beneath the deep waters and all the words and feelings he ever wanted to hear and say, just gone. Everything just emptied out into that river and as he kept unloading more and more into the deep blue he felt himself grow lighter and lighter until he was floating over the rails and going over, down. Disappear, every last problem.

Crawdaddies by Ben Taylor

Thu, 02 May 2013 18:03:00 +0100

The sedimentary matter,
having been dredged,
is now disturbed.
It is roiled and it swirls
menacingly. A darkly kaleidoscopic
vision which eclipses the
fleshy tones of the sky above.

Soon it settles along
the river floor. Crayfish
covered in mud brandish
their ragged claws at each other.

They revel under
this layer of silt,
scuttling blindly and anointing
themselves with muck.

Antennae flailing in the milky
brown water. A series of
lopsided tracks left behind
in the sludge by the advancing
troupe of crawdaddies.

They sense something approaching
and are eager to investigate.

Irish by S. Allaire Masse

Thu, 02 May 2013 15:24:51 +0100

“Me Irish eyes ain’t smilin’” I’m as “broke as church mouse now”

Since O’bama took the White House, our fate is just to bow

To a man who believes himself a king, with a kingdom of peasants has he

He thinks his feat is to spend every dime and, change the “land of the free.”

Don’t say you don’t believe me, haven’t you seen him on Fallon and Jay?

He and Michelle think they have the right, to be on TV each day

“To hell with the country” said, the O’bama’s; as they flew off on Air Force One

To fly to their next vacation spot, and enjoy themselves having fun

It was said he wouldn’t win the election again, and everyone held out hope

We thought the people had more sense, who weren’t smoking the dope

But just when we little ones thought us safe, he got himself four more years.

Oh if only St. Patty could see me now, he would see me eyes full of tears

And he would see me heart has sunk so low, that I fear the road rash is near

And to top that off St. Patty would see, that me cupboards are also mere.

So “Top of the Morning to you,” and may you have a blessed day

But as you honor St. Patty, be careful what you say

For your First Amendment rights are gone, your fourth on their way out

And because of that you don’t have the right, to disagree or shout.

______________________________________________________

Yes O’bama has really mucked up the pot, and not the smokin’ kind

That’s why he’s been labeled a Black Irish, he’s put us in such a bind.

The Line, The Song by Elan Webster

Wed, 01 May 2013 20:22:00 +0100

It was as if you painted with light, with the gestures of your hands as you describe how, when we moved up country, for the snow, and you describe the time we left the others and found ourselves beyond the ridgeline south facing, the silence, a pasture of snow, the shadows blue, a hard winter, the shadows darkening, the moon crescented so thin as to appear a harp string and as you describe what you recall as I recall what you describe I’m struck by how you turned to look at me, back then, then looked away, and the snow fields turn to meadows brown in Autumn, out here, where we left the world, and your dress, snapping like a flag of desire, as we walk the downs, your pale skin goose fleshing, underestimating the cold, slipping from my fingers with a laugh sweet sounding against the coursing winds, hailing from the East, my love.