Live Nude Poems

I Need a Wrist Strap for my Ice Axe Wearing a short dress and sandals, I step into the outfitter, ice axe in hand, and ask for a wrist strap. The questions begin immediately: What do I want with an ice axe? Don’t I know that is a dangerous mountain? A real climb? Wouldn’t I rather be interested in a nice walk? My bearded friends on the other side of the store watch for a while, amused, before they amble over to me. Suddenly, the wrist strap is no problem at all. Agnes Vojta grew up in Germany and now lives in Rolla, Missouri where she teaches physics at Missouri S&T. She is the author of Porous Land (Spartan Press, 2019). Her poems recently appeared in Red River Review, Minute Magazine, Nixes Mate Review, The Blue Nib, As It Ought To Be Magazine, Former People, Thimble Literary Magazine , and elsewhere. 

Listening to comets, aren’t you? Yet you are deaf, deaf to the voice of riotous angels, Deaf to the green solitude that heaves at you While my sad place gathers A blue ambivalence, or missing lives Who dreamt of choosing between raw and hard light: These are sidereal places, Where fire can’t decrypt your hunger, Where you can’t give light a nice welcome, That’s why you need only A womb insensitive to breathing light, Here, among your furniture, And crumpled souls at night who hiss You won’t come back to the fields, Nor will you reach the water, Only exiled limbs hassling with the slant of demise, The blue light you silence as undeserving Of your hunger: is it a matter of voices, limbs, And pewter skies? Great, so please shape your light in mixed shades, That will do, and bring me not flowers, nor toys, As I saw too many at the children’s bedside- Please bring me seedy cafes where men Stare at an empty half-light, Where women all clad in blue go unnoticed ‘Cause...

Lake House Guns Is it ever only a toy? Robert Bly in my ears talking campfire men who cry handling a sword. I get pissed at my nephews, firing Nerf guns, water guns, any gun—cocking pathologically until my daughters join the effort, pinning a hapless cousin in a bedroom corner. The squad rains doom, & I think it’s good for them—girls are better off not taking shit from anyone. Let them get hit & hit back, learn to handle them. So, I quit bitching about guns, firing equitably— no one’s watching them decide what’s fair play, protest the other child a coward. Max Heinegg's poems have appeared locally in Nixes Mate, Pangyrus, and Ibbetson Street Review. He lives in Medford, MA, where he teaches high school English and is the co-founder of Medford Brewing Company.

You stir this can before it opens as the promise a frog makes when asking for a kiss :the paint warmer and warmer will become an afternoon with room for mountains and breezes close to your shoulder though that’s not how magic works –there’s the wave, the hand to hand spreading out between the silence and your fingers dressed with gloves as if it was a burden and the brush raising your arm the way this wall needs a color that will dry by itself leave a trace :a shadow not yet lovesick no longer its blanket and cure. Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, Forge, Poetry, Osiris, The New Yorker and elsewhere. His most recent collection is The Gibson Poems published by Cholla Needles Arts & Literary Library, 2019. For more information including free e-books and his essay “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com . 

Drunken West Milwaukee Blues Drinking mezcal chewing up the worm listening to Santana’s Blues For Salvador the police car shined a spotlight in my van This Barney Fife looking motherfucker swaggered up and asks me if I’ve been drinking, I nod my head and take a swig “Keep your hands where I can see them and get out of your car,” I finish the bottle I get out slowly, he has his pistol pointed At me, “That’s not nice,” “What did you say?” I did my magic on him and reached out and took his gun away, I pointed it At his chest and said, “How does it feel?” I gave him some gunslinger tricks, threw it up in the air, caught it behind my back I ejected the magazine and unchambered the round in the barrel, faster than sight, I put it in his holster and raised my hands. Catfish McDaris won the Thelonius Monk Award in 2015. He’s been active in the small press world for 25 years. He’s recently been translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Polish, Swedish, Arabic, Benga...

What’s on my mind?    The problem is, you sit in class, or a boardroom in a high rise office building, or within some congregation, say, at a recital or a baptism, but can’t just sit there . You observe yourself, as you’ve been taught, from outside yourself. A witness to your breathing, visualizing it: understanding, but not quite understanding, that most of what you’ve pulled into your lungs your whole life, isn’t oxygen at all. And that you’re a fool for thinking so flippantly for so long about an exchange so potentially deadly. That this meticulous mixture is a wondrous thing hardly considered moment, to moment, to moment. And how something very scary, full of cosmic witchcraft propels your heart muscle to twitching like a restless fist-sized alien in a ribbed calcium cage, a body zoo you transport everywhere you go. And they wonder why you can’t concentrate. Larry D. Thacker is a Kentuckian writer, artis...

Brief Conversations With Gary In Downtown, Los Angeles  Thanks for the pancakes. You should smile more. You are my heart, Luis, you are my soul. What is your name man because I don’t want to call you Fraser? You remind me of Fraser. Hey Luis, what do you know about Jennifer Aniston? I saw her driving in a red car. My stomach is killing me. I should not have eaten that Chinese food out of the trash. It is cold, Luis, aren’t you cold? There is this guy at the tent that tried to stab me last week. Could you get me something to eat? It’s my birthday Luis. I have a 25-year-old daughter. Voices told me that I should jump off this bridge. Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal , lives in Southern California and works in the mental health field in Los Angeles. His first book of poems, Raw Materials, was published by Pygmy Forest Press. His other poetry books, broadsides, and chapbooks, have been published by...

Advice for the Perplexed Wash your sex toys (your unmotorized ones, at any rate) in the top rack of the dishwasher. Next up, put on some music. Have a trick for getting bong water out of the carpet; white wine, ironically, gets out red wine stains. But as of now there’s no proven method to erase false memories and the like. Try to avoid being carried off by a UFO when you can just walk. Make mute despair your default greeting to people you happen to pass on the stairs. And always remember, a wild bull becomes docile if tethered to a fig tree. Howie Good is the author most recently of  What It Is and How to Use It  from Grey Book Press and  Spooky Action at a Distance  from Analog Submission Press. He co-edits the journals Unbroken and UnLost.

the mover i dreamt my mother was helping me carry her own coffin to the cemetery strangely, she was both inside & outside of the box she was so calm for a while i doubted she knew who we were planting in the ground but after a considerable amount of steps i was certain she recognized her own weight yet it was as if she was the mover of a piece of furniture & not her own pallbearer peaceful as if she were merely rearranging a space— perhaps moving a large cedar chest for fresh linens from one room to the next Rob Plath is a writer from New York. He is most known for his monster collection  A BELLYFUL OF ANARCHY (epic rites press 2009). His newest collection is MY SOUL IS A BROKEN DOWN VALISE (epic rites press 2019). You can see more of his work at  robplath.com

Corporate Warriors We are profiles in likeness in our gray business attire, splash of color in our ties, cell phone whining in our ears. We have important places to be as we careen through streets and airports, teleconference with peers, interface and meet. We do it for our families, our companies and our teams, for the false sense of security that allows us to sleep through the night. For the sweet suck of the deal. We queue up at our cubicles, genuflect and cross ourselves before the throne of the corporate prophet, awaiting the news: merger, acquisition, or divestiture. And in the CEO’s name we pray: This stock option is my body Think of me when you eat. This red ink is my blood Think of me when you drink. We are the gray men, the hollow men, living in a dead land, a land stuffed with IOUs and motherfucking lawyers. We are the in-between, the rut and rub on the road from desire to spasm. We are the gut wrench ...

Prayer if there’s a god I have only one request  and that is— grant me eyes to see in them what I see in a old farm truck rusting in a field how prisms  shine through  shattered glass how wildflowers sprout through holes in the floorboards  Brian Rihlmann was born in New Jersey and currently resides in Reno, Nevada.  He writes free verse poetry, much of it on the confessional side.  He has been published in Blognostics, Yellow Mama, Raven Cage Zine, Synchronized Chaos, Cajun Mutt Press, The Rye Whiskey Review, and others.

Survival Tips for the Pending Apocalypse Shawn Pavey 154 pages Spartan Press May 30 2019 ISBN-10:1950380343 ISBN-13:978-1950380343 $15 reviewed by Rusty Barnes Shawn Pavey's book Survival Tips for the Pending Apocalypse has been on my radar for some time. I travel in or closely observe the outskirts of a lot of different poetry scenes, and one of them is the midwestern ethos of Spartan Press and Stubborn Mule, among some others I am unfamiliar with yet. The poets strike me, in general. as fellow-travelers in the best sense of the word, with varied points of view united under an umbrella of beat poet, confessional poet, Tom Waits or Bukowski-oriented. Some of that can go a long way, if you know what I mean. I am pleased to report that among those fellow-travelers Shawn Pavey is someone well worth paying more attention to. In his introduction, Mike James rightly--after reading it , how could you not?-- mentions the first quietly strong poem of this long but never ...

Two Bottle Caps and a Gas Station Receipt I reach down into my pocket thinking twisted blow up dolls back into balloon animals. Feeling around for my wallet that is a no show.   Just two bottle caps and a gas station receipt. I toss the receipt and finger around the bottle caps like those Chinese stress balls that professional assholes swear by. The heavy melanoma sun over my face. A rock in my shoe that makes me walk with a limp I don’t have. Ryan Quinn Flanagan  is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as:  Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Rusty Truck, Live Nude Poems, Red Fez , and  The Oklahoma Review .

We Hold Hands At dusk we hold hands. We hold hands, with   fading tarnished rings. As if some unexpected storm could suddenly separate us forever. We listen to the muted horn the hint of some heroin-tainted voice we clink our cocktails the house cat another appendage between us. And the light grows dimmer as it always does. Doug Holder is the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press of Somerville, MA. He has recently collaborated with playwright Lawrence Kessenich on a new play based on a short story he wrote "The Patient." It is going to be published by the Presa Press, and  has had a staged reading at the Playwright's Platform in the Boston area. Holder's poem " Oh Don't She Said, It's Cold" adapted into a song by singer/songwriter Jennifer Matthews, will be preformed by the dance company "text moves" in the fall at various venues in the area. Holder is the arts editor of The Somerville Times,...

Tool Shed Hard rain rakes the roof of my shed. It’s autumn, and the wind tosses the blanket That serves as my door. I wrap my quilt around me And stare at the books on the wall. There’s no electricity, and after dark I can’t read by candlelight. I haven’t a stove or a fridge; I live on oatmeal, cabbage, and scraps of cheese. I drink rain water, or tea, If I can get a fire going outdoors. Today when the storm  rolled in I stripped and begged to be struck by lightning, But Zeus was not obliging. Yesterday in a state of helpless rage I hammered a boulder into gravel; It didn’t help my mood. Two weeks ago I hiked to the coop And posted a notice that said: Help! I can’t find a job! I have no cash, savings, bonds, Gems, certificates, stocks, Monies due, property, or anything else. There’s been no response. I’ve been homeless before - This is nearly as bad. I came here to be with Darla at her invitation, The cabin is small, so we ...

Perfection We are all beautiful at seventeen, our flawless skins attached to willing bones and sinews. Some of us are waiting for our chance, for someone to say, let’s make out like a couple of teenagers, or the stranger with a bottle of Boone’s Farm Apple Wine he will share though you are underage. Or the joint passing around the room, making you happily relaxed in the front-closing lace bra you are willing to shed for the unknown, the chance at real love, not what you left behind at home, your father missing you, smoking cigarette after cigarette. You do not know yet how lovely you are with soft brown hair and blue eyes flecked with squiggles. And though your body is not like the striking grace of cheerleaders back home, it stuns with dazzling breasts and big areoles that men will kiss and love. You will learn of this loveliness even as you scorn those who are not worthy. Later, your friends will grow into their flesh as you...

Science Can’t Help Us A monk in a monastery in the remote Northeast Kingdom sits in the lotus position for nine straight hours, which is how long it takes to count all the ways there are to kill a person. Every day about 200,000 people die. The ancient oak that once served as the hanging tree has started muttering to itself, saying things like “Here’s my hat. Go away.” That could be why the seasons now seem to come and go in no particular order. Meanwhile, gunmen from around the world have organized a banquet of vultures. It’s only gravity that keeps us there. Howie Good is the author of The Loser's Guide to Street Fighting , winner of the 2017 Lorien Prize from Thoughtcrime Press, and Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements , winner of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry. His latest poetry collections are I Am Not a Robot from Tolsun Books and A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel from Analog Submission Press, both published in 2018.

Michael McInnis lives in Boston and served in the Navy chasing white whales and Soviet submarines. His poetry and short fiction has appeared in Chiron Review, Cream City Review, Naugatuck Review, Oxford Magazine, Unlikely Stories and Yellow Chair Review to name a few. His third book, Secret Histories, is forthcoming from Cervena Barva Press.

Billy In the years since you took your own life on angry nights I still stare down stars and wonder if angels feet run fast or fly in the opposite direction of gunfire and heartbreak of divorce and all the suicide children who thought it was over before it even started. Matthew Borczon is a writer from Erie Pa. He has published 11 books of poetry, the most recent Ghost Highway Blues is available through Alien Buddha Press. He is a navy sailor and a nurse to adults with developmental disabilities. He has four children who joyfully take up all his and his wife's free time.

re(member) I remember myself piece by piece. How does a woman forget she wears perfume to sleep? Hold With both hands I hold your words gently in a cup hidden in my heart. Jyl Anais is a poet, visual artist, and forensic medium. Her work appears in Anthony Award nominated Protectors 2: Heroes, Nixes Mate Review, and Asylum Magazine among other publications. Originally from Trinidad, she now lives in the United States where she nurtures orchids and faces the blank page. Soft Out Spoken, her first collection of poetry, will be available this fall. Find her at jylanais.com .

Nostalgia and Ruin 70 pages ISBN: 1365118002 independently published Publication Date: May 31, 2016 $15/5.38 reviewed by Rusty Barnes Cameron Mount's Nostalgia and Ruin is a great example of a transitional work. Mount is one half of the duo that runs the pulp magazine Broadswords and Blasters , and I get a sense that this book is very much the work of an excellent writer feeling out interesting ways what will become his permanent subject matter.    "Spring Break, The Unnamed Key," an example from early in the book, sets up reader expectations and follows through in a satisfying manner.  Simple declarative phrases set off the first half of the poem: "we took;" "we made;"we fished and caught;" we piled;" and so on, followed by simple but rich detail that gives us the feel of what camping on this unnamed key means for the poem's inhabitants, simply going through a day. "It wasn't long/before the drunk/and toba...