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Archive for March, 2007

Monthly Archive
Saturday, March 31st, 2007

Breakfast in the Madhouse

Breakfast in the madhouse
is no different than a diner.
There are bacon, eggs, toast.
Crowded tables,
the cacophonous hum
of constant conversation.
But if truth be told,
most of us are only talking
to ourselves.
And the silverware is not silver -
it’s plastic.
There are no knives to speak of.
Sui - Homo - Geno - cidal -
from sharp objects we abstain
like priests
and at bedtime [...]

2 Comments » - Tags: , by Jen Hodges
Saturday, March 31st, 2007

Yanstebangus: Continuings 7 - 9

7
Looking out the condensation-smeared hotel window, at the glistening asphalt, he sighed and slumped against the window frame. The sky was turning a deep, dark shade of electric blue and a few rapid flurries of snow were beginning to fall. They were small flakes, he noted, which meant that there could be [...]

2 Comments » - by sheckyMerman
Saturday, March 31st, 2007

Hapless

It’s my turn. My name has been called. I start– where has the time gone?
I take a breath. People are staring, now. My trembling hands grip the paper. Jerkily, I stand. My eyes are wide and my throat is attempting to close. I look down as I push the [...]

1 Comment » - Tags: by Abby Koop
Friday, March 30th, 2007

To Sleep, Or Not To Sleep

A Shakespearean Soliloque Re-Write
To sleep, or not to sleep: that is the question:
Whether ’tis better in the end to succumb
To the gentle pull of dreams,
Or to resist the urge and use that time,
And by resisting lose precious awareness;
To lay– no useful thought inside my head
Hours on end of aimless mind wand’ring
Or make the best of [...]

3 Comments » - Tags: , by Abby Koop
Friday, March 30th, 2007

Jaunt

by Andrew McJameson Koop
I roll the dice each morning. Sometimes, I set the alarm, but can’t be bothered to remember forever. It’s not that I don’t care. Occasional nihilism shield. — one step over that line and…
Singular obsessions fluctuate, but the by-product remains static. Exposure to the teeming infinitesimal produces acute awareness — a crackling [...]

1 Comment » - Tags: by Andrew Koop
Wednesday, March 28th, 2007

Lessons

Lessons
Show me how to forgive
When all that’s left is the wait,
How to live
When there’s neither pain nor faith,
But ice.
Show me how to dream
When my dove returns with no olive branches,
How to breathe
When there are no more promises,
But pride.
Show me how to be free
When I can no longer sing,
How to love
When I can hold on to [...]

2 Comments » - Tags: , by Brijida Prano
Wednesday, March 28th, 2007

Unbridled Success

by the BWC
Thanks for the fans! You guys have done great to make all our dreams possible! Reginald has something to say ! :
WE’RE CHANGE THE NAMING OF BAND TO SHRIMP DIAL AND YOU CAN SAY OK NO WHEN YOU BEGINS TO PLAY INSTRUMENT (HAR! HAR! HAR1 WE KNOW THIS ISNT TO BE [...]

1 Comment » - Tags: , by Ben Westermann-Clark
Wednesday, March 28th, 2007

The Reginalds On Tours of Fun

by the BWC
Everyone sing along!
sometimes
in this world it gets so hard
to keep on living
but that’s not what gets hard
i can’t keep being away from my home
i can’t keep feeling all alone
i miss being in fraggle rock
dancing girls with my fraggle cock
my fraggle cock is quite so large
likes of which you aint seen
on any of your [...]

2 Comments » - Tags: , by Ben Westermann-Clark
Wednesday, March 28th, 2007

High May

by Andrew Koop
I was working late underneath the football stadium — stacking chairs and rolling them into storage. My head hung low, I wiped beads of sweat with a tired forearm — a frame in which I saw a tiny blonde across the room. Her blue eyes splashed out from behind her oversized black apron, [...]

1 Comment » - Tags: by Andrew Koop
Wednesday, March 28th, 2007

Conformist

A subtle infiltration
Of our world’s corruption and decay
A gradual transformation
Of losing herself each day
By relenting to this age’s mold
Conforming became her task
Just a replica, so fake and cold
She trades her identity for a mask
Like a caged animal in her mind
Never letting herself out of prison
Giving way to the daily grind
A lioness who has never risen
Poison [...]

No Comments » - by Francesco Prano
Wednesday, March 28th, 2007

Entranced

…maybe it was the life.
or the sight of what had never been before
coming into being and so vibrantly making itself known,
the damp and the cold and the dim yet brilliant clarity.
I turn back.
…maybe it was that certain death.
or the approach of it, the sound of its footsteps
softly through wet leaves and gently kicking aside pinecones.
calmly [...]

No Comments » - Tags: , by Francesco Prano
Tuesday, March 27th, 2007

Three Words

They held each other close
with tears and promises
Bittersweet happiness
Exchanging those three words
He departed with promises of soon return
Holding their smiling picture
She stood alone, waving
Remembering those three words
He fought the War, remembering
tears, promises, and those three words
She fought her War, inside
hearing those three words
He sent her letters with
promises and those three words
She wrote back with tear-stained [...]

No Comments » - Tags: , by Francesco Prano
Monday, March 26th, 2007

Red Baron

“I’m not going to get this job, am I?”
“I’m afraid not,” she said as she nervously adjusted her KB Toys name tag. Her eyes fidgeted in their sockets as though physically wrestling with the presence of a deranged killer.
I wiped the drool from my mouth and sleeve. How did I get here?
Sitting in class, I [...]

No Comments » - Tags: by Andrew Koop
Monday, March 26th, 2007

Cold Day

It is a cold, dreary morning, all gray and gloomy. The sky is overcast, and it seems it’s about to rain. Black lightposts line the sidewalks at regular intervals, accentuating the emptiness of the street, mocking my solitude. The gray sidewalk is lined with sleet. The cold is nearly unbearable, biting and stabbing with [...]

1 Comment » - Tags: by Francesco Prano
Sunday, March 25th, 2007

Aerostars

On a cloudless day, I bounded across the freshly-mowed grass for the rolling ball. My foot raked its apex in fluid stride — my eye caught the glare off the rippling creek water. A subtle over-rotation tossed me closer the way a rubbernecker veers toward the site of any accident — tires enthralled by voyeur [...]

No Comments » - Tags: by Andrew Koop
Friday, March 23rd, 2007

Here There Be Dragons

Sailor beware.
You know not where you sail.
You sit sightless
and stare at my face.
You read my body like Braille.
Deal the cards.
My life is an open book
in which I write
and just as easily erase.
Come close.
I don’t bite
that hard.

1 Comment » - Tags: , by Jen Hodges
Tuesday, March 20th, 2007

Smart Flush

They tell me you’re great
Cascading when I squat
Fearing major loss
of hygiene

No Comments » - Tags: by Paul Kemp
Monday, March 19th, 2007

Glistening

by Andrew Koop
Sleeping until Noon — waking, we ate Life cereal and stretched out on the carpet. Mr. Rogers advised us to play a game of make believe and we would. “Don’t ride your rubber ducky down the stairs.” And we did.
We would run out of the house in tiny bright shorts — screaming banshee [...]

No Comments » - Tags: by Andrew Koop
Wednesday, March 14th, 2007

Niche

by Andrew Koop
Infinite channels
Pick your gadget; choose your sleep
Slough off the minutes
Everybody special — all the same
Anonymous ounce of fame

No Comments » - Tags: , by Andrew Koop
Tuesday, March 13th, 2007

Bibles

Bloody, oily
Guessing, judging, killing, singing
White Jesus Tank Into Kuwait
Again

1 Comment » - Tags: by Andrew Koop
Tuesday, March 13th, 2007

Soul Reader

by Brijida Prano

He saw her from afar.
She was nothing exceptional to look at,
Not a head-turner by conventional standards.
He could only see her dimly,
An incandescent light shining in his gray world.
The scales over his eyes prevented him from discerning her features,
But he could see more deeply than [...]

No Comments » - Tags: , by Brijida Prano
Thursday, March 8th, 2007

Metamorphosis

by Jen Hodges
This body is not my home.
This shriveled shroud of skin
houses only bone.
I have the power to transcend
the sensual things.
I’ll be emerging soon.
I am a fantast
a phantom
asleep in my cocoon.
While my soul develops wings.

No Comments » - by Jen Hodges
Thursday, March 8th, 2007

The Line

by Andrew Koop
Board up the silent house
Black cats chase all in a row
Sameface strangers shift gone
A sack of cans, a bag of bottles
Threadbare thong lies resolute
breezing in the sandweeds
Sirens scream by sadness
measured by cold benches…newspapers
Shards on the sidewalk, dog snarl chain
Yellowed eyes at the peephole
needle shoddy vein
Where the decorations stop
you’ll see nary a cop
Salvage soldiers [...]

1 Comment » - Tags: by Andrew Koop
Wednesday, March 7th, 2007

Just Another Day

by Abby Koop
“Bus!” came her mother’s frantic shriek from her position beside the
dining room window.
It was precisely 6:57 a.m. on Wednesday, February 21, and Katie
Hardestin was in the process of pulling her second, brand-new,
just-like-the-pair-she’d-lost-three-months-ago pink earring out if its
position in the flimsy piece of cardboard. She expelled a heavy,
exasperated sigh.
“Coming!”
The bus would [...]

No Comments » - Tags: by Abby Koop
Tuesday, March 6th, 2007

Breaking One

by Andrew Koop
It all started with an accident. Depending on the perspective, one might call it “the incident”. Regardless, when Michael Rogers suffered a spinal cord injury ending in paralysis — caused by what lawyers would call a “faulty helmet” — nobody was playing football anymore. Let’s say it wasn’t “cost effective” or “wise”. [...]

No Comments » - Tags: by Andrew Koop
Monday, March 5th, 2007

THE SUPERBOWL AND TOM BOY

The way we drink our spirits and hold our children
Like Denise on my knee-this daughter I call Tom Boy
As she giggles watching her father and periodically makes
Strange tangles of this red beard. Its like a jungle for a precocious
One And we’re staring at the screen, trying to avoid the glare hitting from the
Rockwell photo [...]

1 Comment » - Tags: , by Richie
Friday, March 2nd, 2007

Squirrelly Sanderson

Everyone who met Cecil Sanderson had the same thought: “He reminds me of a squirrel.” Although they came to the same conclusion, no one could quite put a finger on the reason why he reminded them of the tree-dwelling rodent.
Some thought his bulging, glistening dark eyes were the culprit. Others pointed to his mousy brown [...]

3 Comments » - Tags: , by Max Mauney