by Rich Balling
for his Latin speaking enemy.
Words with a thousand pictures
of cemeteries, ruins and antiquities.
BRANDON BONDEHAGEN
Christiansen
You’d die to formulate the perfect summer excuse
while dreamin about another girl.
You drive to the point to make out with each other.
Play her a song, brother this one.
Screw until dawn.
And then go on tour.
BRANDON BONDEHAGEN
Christiansen
Thoughts trapped inside the box, concede the dying numbers.
Patterns mold designs. Capsized in time.
A kaleidoscope of styles, inside the cannon fodder
Smashing the shape of things, to criticize.
KENNY VASOLI
The Starting Line
Plane of thought:
Here lay a pensive lettering of my thoughts gathering around and chatting about ratting out dreams to the conscious knowing you are waking up soon. With the facts I am given, and to say that I even know what’s going on isn’t true, I could use at least one or two clues before I can get back to you. But I’ve got a few questions open for suggestions. Like what does it mean when a dream just won’t leave and you wake up to face a figment of belief? If I made the corrections and constant reflections to mistakes I made would a single thing change? It is strange for me to feel this way? And I wait. . . Make lightning strike if the answer is yes! If it’s no. . . then so be it, but I still want to know who I ask about the reason behind history repeating itself. Could someone be the least bit of help?
KENNY VASOLI
The Starting Line
Have a nice life:
I received one kiss for the duration of the trip and it was loveless as if made by lifeless lips. These lips are sealed you bitch, so keep that one locked up because it’s all that you’ll get. Your life (in my eyes) isn’t worth my time on the five-hour flight. Have a nice life and thank you so kindly for ruining mine. I hope you and Daniel are living it up, and I hope you don’t miss me and don’t give a fuck. Because I’m sure with my luck this will happen again and someone will replace the distaste created by the sound of your name. This could be the last chance I have to elaborate and display the choices I made and the patiently waiting I did for the day when you’d say that “my feelings for you are quickly receding, almost as fast as your heart is beating”. When it stops they will stop, when you drop then I’m off to get on with my life and leave yours with the ghost of the past.
CHRIS MARTINEZ
Plans For Revenge
If I Had to Say…
dotted eyes making holes in the skies
winter kiss licking my lips
and i somehow fell into the way
the hair falls in your eyes
the angle of your neck
and sucked into…
your finger tips slide down my face
and all these thoughts i’ve defined in you.
CHRIS MARTINEZ
Plans For Revenge
Behind the Smiles
the staples in my eyes
the nails in my wings keep me from flying too high
I’m choking on my words
pathetic imitations
surrounding you and I
take my mask and this disguise
I won’t try and hide behind all the smiles
my plate is full of knives
biting on the blades and choking on the lies
my wings are made of wax
if the sun burns them away will I fall out of the sky?
CHRIS MARTINEZ
Plans For Revenge
When I Die
peel the skin off the glass
the blood stains wash away
i still can’t remember you
but i do know it’s raining
and the black top is bleeding
kill the lights
and sing with the black birds
if i could wear another postcard
and write another letter
you’d all be dead.
all these clouds are grey
i fell asleep with
anesthesia supplements
feathers and voices
this was just the first time.
NICK TORRES
Cassino
I am the cannon that will wreck your home
I am the sword that will reshape your bones
I am the piano that nobody plays
when everybody’s home
I know your veins so much better than you
I know the condition of your heart
I can smell the glue
I know where you keep all the diamonds and the meat
I know how to eat them when they shut off the heat
I know the devil
He taught me how to smile
without showing my gums
He taught me which end is shallow
Now I know how fast I gotta run
So keep those pictures on the shelf
And keep your prayers to yourself
We live like this for the laughs, for the fun
And not for God, Not for anyone.…
I hear the devil is mixing up some sugar and tea
Round and round with those old rotten feet
So just the basics, no need to poison me please
The bitter the sweeter the better for me
BRANDON PHILLIPS
The Gadjits
Onyx Heart Pendant
lovers worn
trinkets, charmed gypsy baubles
amber and apron string
by my wrist
arms of silver slither
shark’s teeth dangling
apache tears strung upon an anklet.
Pierced and pierced
with silver to kill the wolf
in me jingling like a bird-proofed cat.
cart, pots, pans, beads, rags
brown girls
teaching white girls
drink wine and dance barelegged
satanic string bands
lecherous campfires
lashing tongues and hot taboos.
skills of ten generations
sadly galvanized only by white girls
creating for them
masterworks they
will never stay to see.
BRANDON PHILLIPS
The Gadjits
Body
torn all asunder pistol-kisser
like tornado blown barn doors
Archibald person on the wall
in the basement of the world seated
omniscient cyclops
daddy-taker
saw all in one deep eye
(the way craters record
ancient rocks
vacuums broken)
ancient blunders
broken vacuums of faith
hope hung up upon
receiver uncradled
no heard dial-tone.
JAMES MUÑOZ
The Bled
Balladeerhunter
this is my nightmare on fuck street.
my codependent collision
near the corner of falsehood and trust.
our beauty,
our tangled wreck,
our masterpiece,
worth endless gazes,
do you believe in the bedpost we’re cuffed to
and the mattress in flames?
we’re the lovers
with secrets.
and we’ll burn in our shame.
JAMES MUÑOZ
The Bled
Pillhead Charred by His Own Sense of the Sixth Dimension
blister come hither! relinquish the sinners
who trespassed on greener grass,
traded an ox for an ass,
your wedding day mass;
doused in tourettes
and rung out by bulimics,
your hope will dissolve in a
goblet of semen
we raise a toast to our children’s prosthetics,
drink up young cynics
your flaws are forgetting,
to mention we baptized our guilty old critics,
in troughs full of carefully pulverized gimmicks
linguists danced with her on plateaus of treason,
waltzing on Neptune’s shores,
clogging Octavia’s pores,
down on all fours!
sweet sulfur princess (impaled by repulsion)
you wore the tiara like a primetime abortion
we raise a toast to our forgotten believers
the jealous and jaundiced road-rashed deceivers
who left us on empty and up to our necks
in sweet-tooth colonics and model train wreck
JAMES MUÑOZ
The Bled
Little_Gone_Louder_Hung
so i gave in
and ate five rotten apple cores
from the tree of knowledge
and that
in turn
propelled me thru my memory bank
where i cashed in a gangrened wedding band
for a picture of you
(our anniversary)
being fisted by a diamond dealer,
gnawing the ball-gag with such tenderness,
those tears of joy running down your face,
0000000 0,
i wish i could give you something so pure,
0000000 0,
this frame
is faulty
and this
camera’s a fake,
sawing off your cuffs,
so sick of dragging dead weight.
ADAM FISCHER
Fear Before the March of Flames
dance!answer!bend!swallow!
all hail to the conch(our love)
dance!answer!bend!swallow!
rip the flowers from their soil
grab the song bird by its fickle throat
threaten the sun
belittle the moon
this is our dance…there are no survivors
TIM MCILRATH
Rise Against
them’s fightin’ words
stage set
curtain
song cued
expectation
spotlight
act one
applause, bow
repeat steps
can’t you see right now my hands are bleeding?
blisters broken dripping from the ceiling,
I don’t want to be here now…
I’ve fallen apart and I cant pick up the pieces,
I cry in the dark and I cup my ears to seashells,
to hear the solitude they bring…
so many faces, so many voices
so many reasons to give this up
this goes on and on.
can’t you hear right now my ears are ringing?
head held in my hands to stop the spinning,
it stops only to start again…
my home has long since been replaced
with a world behind this window pane.
so many faces, so many voices
so many reasons to give this up.
this goes on and on.
have I finally gone too far to come home?
this world might wait for me tonight, but she won’t.
now only time will tell if these wax wings will melt,
only moments to spare…
we fall asleep with the color of the sunrise
we count the years on circles under our eyes
we dream in shades of blue and grey…
we speak in tongues of metaphors and stories
we bleed the ink of subtle allegory
we are the needles in the hay…
so many faces, so many voices
so many reasons to give this up.
this goes on and on.
JOSHUA PARTINGTON
Something Corporate
Firescape
The Doctor’s Waiting Room
A plain cream betrayal, hides behind these walls
Distantly voices of referring phone calls,
The nurse seems to say, behind noise-proof glass,
This kid thinks he’s different, why should I ask
I almost stood up and walked to the door
But a promise to mother kept my feet on the floor
The hallway was scattered with irrelevant pictures
And cupboards of cures that they swear by like scripture
“Ahead on the left” she said with a smile
I thought to myself, this hallway’s a mile
I looked for a desk, but saw couches and chairs
And she sat looking at me with the blankest of stares
“so how would you say all the problems started?”
I looked to the sky as if deeply departed
What an obvious start to an embarrassing tale
Of a life that I loved and couldn’t curtail
A family that loved me, an art that I loved
A time that I simply had too much of
“Are you drinking a lot? Are you sleeping OK?
It seems like these things could have come into play”
Of course I was anxious to tell her the truth
This had become my family’s telephone booth
If I broke down here, what would that mean
Was I not as strong as my father had been?
But I think I can fight this all on my own
With a handful of happiness that never was shown
We talked about writing, we talked about fame,
We talked about why they all called me insane
She talked about being the one that was great
I didn’t know much about that, that wasn’t my fate
The only truth that ever came out of this mouth
Was a phrase that seems true only after you shout
“I guess I just can’t handle the pressure,
I wish I had taken a walk for the summer”
The time winded down and we finished the session
My eyes had been fixed on the clock, it was pleasant,
I left to the waiting room, men waiting for wives
I thought of my friends and their interesting lives
And I stood at the door, the session was done
And I thought to myself, what have I become?
I walked slowly and careful not to cause a big scene
I knew others would be waiting here long after me
Now when I think I had it all on my own
Is now when I realize, I’m really alone.
JOSHUA PARTINGTON
Something Corporate
Firescape
Burnt Vacant Red
This Headache, Incisions,
Machine washed your letters and tore up your pictures
This Handle, This Feeling,
Your hatred: the floor, your love: the ceiling
I wish I, could take it,
All back from saying the lines I was faking
You never noticed
I never said
I’d never need
Burnt Vacant Red
This Longing, This Tear-eye,
I wish I could find you alone on a highway
And tell you I’m sorry,
I cried at your wedding and rained on your party
And if I don’t make it,
Feel bad for one moment and after that shake it.
Cause you never told me
And I never said
That I’d never need
Burnt Vacant Red
Remembrance, Sedation,
A plane ticket home and a life of frustration
A gift horse to glance at,
Thrown away food for beggars to stare at
I’m Broken, I’m Tired,
I still miss the times when I was inspired
I’ll never tell you
What’s all in my he
ad
And pity me hiding
Burnt Vacant Red
Intentions, Submissions,
An analog clock compromised my position
The Fragile, The Dagger,
Still on Broken glass I drunkenly stagger
The voices inside me,
Are stand-alone fixtures and reasons for hiding
And I never showed you
When we went to bed,
That this heart in my chest,
Is Burnt Vacant Red
NATE RUESS
The Format
On Your Porch…
i was on your porch
the smoke sank into my skin
so i came inside to be with you
and we talked all night
about everything you could imagine
cause come the morning ill be gone
and as our eyes start to close
i turn to you and i let you know
that i love you
well my dad was sick
and my mom she cared for him
her love it nursed him back to life
while me i ran
i couldnt even look at him
for fear id have to say goodbye
and as i start to leave
he grabs me by the shoulder and he tells me
“whats left to lose
youve done enough
and if you fail well then you fail but not to us
cause these last three years
i know theyve been hard
but now its time to get out of this desert and into the sun
even if its alone”
so now here i sit
in a hotel off of sunset
my thoughts bounce off of Sam’s guitar
and thats the way its been
