Deep Tissue Magazine #18

11 Black

By Precambrian Lullaby

when the lights go out and the room is dark

still awake but holding, breathing, resigning to the lark

all bottle’s empty and tears run dry

smelling foul air and still remnant lie, shadow hands caress your favor

sight returns to dark and shadowed rooms, efforts no longer labor

blind-will follows echo to the plume

unseen unseeing lips grace yours to trip and fall to rip softly squozen rain

to knell and dance lone praises even evening lazes with lost and drifting crazes

greeting sole companions, repeating appealing calls

as lengthy onward familiar blind clarity knows, and warm will find you back

as lengthy onward familiar blind-clarity knows, and warm will find you back

when holding-hopes turn to black, when hope turns black

22 Another New York Poem

By Puma Perl

he’d been around a few times never stayed long until he found himself suddenly famous

he never thought it would happen didn’t even care she thought it belonged, rightfully, to her she worked harder, worried more, fucked the occasional stranger

33 now she stood in the back of the room he was drunker than he appeared a girl in the front crossed her legs the guy in the corner watched hehe still didn’t care not much

he didn’t see her leave the girl with the legs tried to catch his eye he considered the guy int he corner wound up with a redhead at the bar who didn’t know who he was he liked it better that way

she walked home the long way

44 the table was stacked with books half-finished drafts, poem bones she pushed it to the side smoked cigarettes, ate ice cream

maybe it would help

55 "i want to be homeless"

By Glen Still

i want to beg and hollar

beg you for your dollar

have you turn a blind eye

i want to walk a couple miles

till my feet are defiled

and god don't love me anymore

i want all my vision to suddenly perish

all the things that i once cherished

i want to hang my head

as if i was i dead

i want to die

66 i don't want

the benefits that you have

how would i keep them in a plastic bag

i don't want a pension

i won't live past fifty five

i want to wake up when i'm cold

feel so all alone

i want to experience

life unfold

knowing no one loves me

i want to struggle to find food

to dig in the dumpster

just for you

77 because i know what 'll find

will be heavier than my grind

so i want to explore the corporate trash

find a place to stash it

just for you

i want to have to steal my clothes

dodge the bullet of the unknown

i want to wage war on god

and karma

i want a thirty day rescue mission

when i've come to the end of my session

to kick me out the door

because i won't subscribe to their agenda

i won't enter their program

88 that forces god down my throat

i want nothing like you want i want pain without a heart i want to be stone cold without a reason i want to go without a shower feel more or less empowered for weeks at a time i want less than any other human being does

i want to ember in the ashes deteriorate into the masses i want to be the one

99 that just can't dig myself out

i want to be despicable hold a sword up to your candle i want to be everything you can't handle i don't want to conform to your standards at this point i've given everything i have into being homeless and i don't want anything anymore

1010 A Walk in the Park (I)

By Nancy Davenport

they are worth the walk

the pink fluffy

cherry blossom trees

in the park

I carry them with me all morning

when I say my prayer

when I count

toto

ten

when I am afraid in the bank

and need to take a deep

breath,

I look down and see

a cherry blossom petal

1111 Potential

By Rose Aiello Morales

The first cat is dead ..

I killed it with an eye,

evil in the telling of a tale

I boxed as a set piece, called

the potential a name begun with 's'.

Belief is a seldom thing.

The only motivation

of a life's fits, random

mumblings notwithstanding,

I could not manifest goodness.

The box was open, closed.

Occupying past transgressions,

reminders left in secret places found

1212 by blind feet and hands, I could see

everything, there was nothing shown before me.

The second cat is relative.

I found her in a dream suspended,

white ghost of a passing thought,

I will not open mouth to speak

nor lift a lid upon fast moving morns.

I will breathe her into life

Or damn her into ether Limbo,

all possibilities are here and not today,

tomorrow I will dream the box again,

tied in a bow, a brief light peeking from a corner.

1313 someone's at your window

By Chris Nelles

someone's at your window. you or i

i cannot tell. our differences decline

between the bells that city all.

the cosmos is adrift and drifting into us,

where circles start beneath my eyes,

before the mornings make you rise.

again the cock crows twice,

and ochre strikes your breast awake,

our sighs unfocused, saddened

by what's in between our shattered life,

our kitchen bare of beauty's ring,

while ringed in canopies of bitter rain.

1414 a black swan glides on lotuses,

on lily web that calls us, clarion,

to shores where corpses are released

as roses, under outstretched wing,

and necks extended, shivering in blood,

all throat, and robin red by heart,

by too much damage witnessed

from a growing sense the future

moves, as eerily as selves set free

from lovers locked in past lives, lived

through our refusal to let go of death,

of dread, a misery restored from tasks,

or portrait texts revised from breath.

we drink a new wine from an old skin,

burst it open like a wound, a sin;

1515 executrix of spirit bled in flesh,

the flesh incarnate, animate,

and lifted up a long and drenching flask.

and still we doubt each other,

pacing out a measure, and a draft,

preferring what has passed us by,

and what will pass tomorrow

into yesterday, and sorrow's sudden splash,

forever hopeless watch, with telescope;

the deep sky laughs, and nails us

each, and everyone to every star,

to every scratched out eye that hears...

a black swan blooms, a moon too near.

a black swan plumes, a moon too far.

1616 who will wring from this our squandered life

By Chris Nelles

who will wring from this our squandered life, our pauper's wrath, come pressing laundry loads upon a beaten stone that will not fracture math, a tolling bell, a telling path, a certain confidence that strolls among the upper class young upstarts, like a golden boy who's favored from the start, and given all the world, and strives for all the stars?

who will salvage us, the salvage serfs of song, if gloom's dominion looms as never ending fog, and banks the promised wave with certain good and promised evil throbbing in the wrong? who will mourn for us, and who will cry aloud,

1717 if hope is scaffolded with rope we have supplied,

and hanged from towers spinning in G-d's eye?

the flowers have all blanched, as if my pain

rose up without my known consent, and bled them,

or in sympathy of death's approach, gave color up

to hearts that cannot feel the arrow's plunge,

and all the girls i once supposed to bed, or love,

the wives i purchased with a puerile origami,

folded bodhisattvic verse, to rend stained bonds.

they tremble like apocalypse, an unhinged door,

and freely i pass out, pass in, pass through,

to where i cannot pass, and there await a quiver,

quivering in shallow graves, a flint rock hewed,

believing death is life, and life but callow, un-profound,

1818 and you a harbinger, a penetrating horn, upon whose sound i fathom wonder drowned.

1919 Visions of Truth

By Mike Carson

There was a time when he thought that

he began dying at age five,

long before he fully understood

that none of it mattered;

because living and dying

are simultaneous pursuits

that only seem unconnected

or looped to those that

deny the visions of truth

to ever enter their event filled,

but strangely empty lives.

There was a time when he thought that

2020 he could never find a lover that would understand what was trapped and frame-less within him. He was still harboring such thoughts long after he met the one who held the key.

There was a time when he lived with no fear, loved without fear, wrote with no fear, but now he could not say which was the biggest fear: those days long gone or their return.

2121 There was a time when he thought he held some secret power, a force to change the world, a way to make them listen, but the more he listened to what they said, the more he read what they wrote, the more he watched what they did, the more he understood that what he held was neither secret or power, simply something they would never understand.

2222 Fading In /Fading Out

By Lisa Dabrowski

Assessing the Reassessment

Lost in Space

My Middle One In Curls

Always Keeping My Eye

On that Sparrow

Good Old Boys

Along For The Ride

Fading in and Fading Out

Wars have Been won

Battles have been lost

Tender kisses stolen

Fragile Hearts Broken

Accepted, rejected, denied

2323 Betrayed and Crucified

All in the name of Love

Loyalty is just a word

Honor isn't honorable

Family is a Hybrid of Nuclear

Cherish your Memories

Your Dreams in the End

Are the only thing that's Free

2424 at the circle k in the north end of Toledo

By David LaBounty

somehow

I found myself spinning in the wheelhouse ofof

America

I thought how this wasn’t

2525 my

town

but how

allall

these

dying

towns

look

exactly

the

same

and that

brought

the

memory of

2626 aa

one time

love who

left me

for

someone

else’s

view

ofof

sagging

power lines

and in

the store

I walked with

2727 Michigan

thunder

and the

thin man

behind the

counter

let his

eyes speak

in the

voice

ofof

my mother,

as if

she was

saying

2828 gee David

it would

be so nice

if you'd

call just

once in

while

and as

I walked

into the

store

I realized

I forget

2929 about

mother

the way

that

thunder

forgets

it was

born

from

cloud

I grabbed

diet coke

3030 paid

for it

with

credit card

after that

nothing

else

ever

happened

again

my thunder

so silent

3131 as the circkle k man watched me walk away,

staring as i stepped into my company car gleaming

3232 in this

the shining of an always dying son

3333 bicoastal lunacy blues

By Mark Hartenbach and Danny Baker

1.1.

a lunatic saint roars hypocritical blues over universal amen corner.

dissonance crosses state lines. ruts on a dark road launch saint

onto a medieval field on wrong side of neglectfully oxidized tracks.

eliminating infidels with sacred vows is the height of hypocrisy.

sword in the stone presents something of an existential dilemma ...

as king isn’t what it’s cracked up to be though he’d crawl across

sharpest blade in camelot to get that bitch in the pond or river bank.

already have my doubts about this brand that not even best intentions

can keep virtuous relativity decked out in costume. is paradoxically

a completely different animal. squeezing home-made pulp and all

from virginal. an interesting crowd up northeast way has a rap sheet

which has been wrapped under sheets. the monster is hopelessly

devoted in esperanto infatuation. however inaccessible values make

3434 it hard to plead no direct involvement in proceedings without being

noticed. indicative of similar desires though lacks aversion to fiefdom

side of ledger especially after a few tips off a barrel that graciously fell

of a speakeasy truck. and someone said he whom would be king would

be first to be smote by the gods. or close enough for government work.

traveling at the speed of never was dropping a few pointers from five

thousand with a bullet or guns over appalachia as second appeal rots in

the court system. blurting out sweet nothings to baby taming her wild

hair in a mirror. broken in so many places it may as well be foreign

currency. oxymoron replaces redundant for the night’s main event.

though hitting reverse, by looks of a rose garden there are more than

one with throne aspiration. or were as the case may be. the monster

promises to get with program-but i know it's not on his agenda. stars

birth in rapid succession however word from the madhouse commands

tightening an angry garret about marginal performers, thinning out the herd.

3535 Upon your Heart this Evil Word

By Martin Freebase

You stood there with bow and arrow, feeling the moment, the tension of the string. Your smile was a weak apology for not having fun. It was the piecing that made you giggle like a monstrosity. You did your best to give us a Cleopatra pose, eyes sparking, showing us your teeth, your bra a remnant from the civil war. Each picture of you shows something you thought could not be revealed. The room was full of women, each in a flowery dress and a bow in their hair.

They sat and listened to you tell your lies. Some pretended to be listening when in fact they were going over their own lies in their head. They would tell you that you are pretty and that your mind is sincere. Your autoimmune system is sitting in the backpack on the floor. Your friend

Antoine always looks better in your dress. We taste the marrow of your success. Each drop reminds us of the sympathies of long lost relatives. You are collecting all of the simple needs and simple desires and putting them in a box of provocation. It is your original emotion. The depth of your intentions rule your life as you tell us how your life has been nothing but shitty. You stood on the chair and we measured you from head to toe.

A complete slave to the drug, you have the power to change history, to change people, falling under the spell of macro-economics. It was so musical and dirty how the bruise appeared on your thigh. You call me ill-mannered in your childish way. I can see the resentment in your eyes when I am on top of you. You could fly away from this if you only wanted. Why you stay is a complete mystery. When I watch you dance, I remember where it is that I came from. There

3636 are so many things that I have lost and so many things I have forgotten. Remember all the things we threw out the window of that old Ford custom 500? We were trying to make our own place in the world. We didn’t know about fate and the different start times for the race. I kept running with my stigmata like it was some prized trophy that can get me through the door of some exclusive nightclub. Do you want to hear me testify about how I was so fucking lost? We drove that old piece of crap until it wouldn’t run no more. Remember when Leo raced around the neighborhood shouting, “You mother fuckers!” It was all funny until he drove into some old lady’s porch. We would listen to the Tennessee waltz and look at your naked pictures that I took with a Polaroid camera. We gave nickels to the Mormons when they asked us if we knew Jesus.

You told them that he worked in a bodega on the street corner selling pornographic lierature.

You would hold my hand like I was your broken down papa as we walked the streets singing

Johnny Cash songs and puff the magic dragon. You always knew more of the verses than I did. II think some of them you made up just to impress me. All you had to do to impress me was smile.

You are without support, now. You are not resistant to the hegemony of the distinctive forms of the touchstones of critique. You are cynical and irreverent as you place your hopes on grimly evolved insipient solutions that no one can swallow. Alienated from the million eyes, you have become a creative installation of deviance and bogus values. With your blank bored demeanor, you absorb the impish and sweltering totality of negative choices of self-loathing and frittering your life away.

He thought he could escape, but he couldn’t. The trap had been set long ago, before he was ever born. We can see them coming, we always do. The trick is to pick the right one. There are so many to choose from. The weak and the spineless are in abundance on this earth. When I said that you were backward, quaint, naïve, anachronistic, I watched your eyes grow wider and

3737 wider as if they were juxtapositions of the parts of yourself. I leaned away from you repulsed by

the dismantling of the clearly repressed and unifying obsessions of your face-stuffed wishful

thinking that borders on the absurdist boundaries of hell wand high-water. It’s no fun living an

ugly life and to be so lonely. I’m not that bad, just misunderstood. If only I could explain things

better, then maybe they would be able to see things my way. Worm moves down lower to feel

the psychic waves that are emanating from her. Each one jolts him as it hits his body and moves

on. He never once thinks if someone else could feel this. You could say he lacked empathy,

especially for his victims.

Vowing your eternal love for me, I think it has to do with a terrible weakness that you

have had since you were a child, a lack of values or something. How can someone like you bring

yourself to pray? I mean really, you go around killing people and then when you get caught, you

feel so bad about it and want to ask forgiveness. This forgiveness bullshit just makes you out to

be a big fucking hypocrite. You get a small taste of reality and you go crying to god. Jesus Christ

you make me want to puke. Your loving god is going to throw you into the lake of fire. What do

you think about that, you spineless weasel? This loss is simple to explain. You had this illusion

of intimacy between us, but it was only an illusion. There was no truth behind your delusions.

There was no substance to your version of the truth. The overall geometry of the situation shows

that you are an idiot. My body is a temple (or should I say your body?), and your relentless

whimpering and whining will not help. You do not control the situation, I do. Let’s slow things

down a little; you need a drink and maybe a lobotomy. Is it I or one of the others that make you

so crazy?

With the shrunken head of infinity, you insert guide pins into your brain to release the

endorphins of light and magic. Still, you are unable to discern the contradictions that rule your

3838 life. We sent you to the evangelist who spoke words over you and inserted a rectal thermometer to determine if you were saved. I saw you jump up and do a holy dance with the sisters of the

Blessed Sacrament. They have tambourines and a lively step for the improperly defective, asas they are recombined by the fancy of proud machines and people buttons. They are discrete objects for worship and solely made for admiration. You being a worshiper of dystopia and glossy brochures, genuflect to the weirdness of the bad acid trip.

You throw caution to the wind and dance around the room like a boxer, sweeping your desperation under the rug. It is your dedication to the pharmaceutical and the despised loneliness that burns in my veins. I know that I am next to impossible to describe, so why bother. I am that abstract thing that you can’t easily place your mind on. Subdivided and probed, you paused and watched the adventurous pour over you with excitement. You think this makes you distinctive and set-apart from all the others, but you are just like all the other eels.

Oh glorious and decadent puppet stuck in the mode of passive reception. You are comforted by the beating and manipulation as they involve you in the cycles of conflict and opposition. There is no return for the prodigal son. You are not Elvis and have not fulfilled the terms of your contract. The bill collectors are at your door, knocking it down, you have to pay for your sins, for you acceptance of your cooptation. You became a part of their strategic deployment. The acceptance of the defecation is your crime. We will hang you from the highest limb because you stole the light from our lamps. Now we can no longer see in the darkness.

You are not able to transcend the melodrama, thinking that the old dynamics of redemption and the vectors of influence are sensible responses to an unjust world. Thus, you are negated by your increasing powerlessness and you white-collar individualism, your small world

3939 of boxes. It is like sit-com probity where the lack of sound judgment rules long and hard and you

are assassinated by the bureaucratic entrenchment. You became a follower of the banal and

simplistic agents of spiritual chaos and social disorder. Because of this, you recognize that the

world is not as it seems. Hearing the voice of the trapped in a cage, seeking irreverence and

rebellion, you embrace this enfeebling liberation.

Attached to the strangled tit of blissful existence, you play on the un-forgiven

playground. Where are your sneakers? I see one is up on the roof. We hung you like a propeller,

damaged by innuendo and brevity. Your wasted dreams of blue tones and democratic missiles

hunt you down and crush you under the faithless whistle. You have sold your soul to the bitch of

low luster. She is cruel to you in such special ways. You are down on your knees begging for

forgiveness as she extracts the last drop of sweetness from your soul. I wipe my finger around

the rim and let out a hearty laugh. These are the days of putting our best foot forward.

You have entered the world of the mysterious. We have given you a new name, a name

with power and force. With your actions you speak to the world. You live in a hard world. There

are no general rules f or this world, only my rules. If you can’t abide by the rules, then we will

make arraignments for your departure. All fools must be made to suffer, sucking knuckles to

scotch tape shapes. It’s an obvious deception of fast legs. Pile the legs up in the bin. Push the bin

over there in the corner. Can you feel the looming night upon your neck? You have lost your

Disney land tickets. Get out of the line, you don’t belong. There is no music behind the laughter.

Break it open and let it bleed. Just like all the paper dolls living on the street. This is how you

display your profane astonishment.

4040 You build an edifice that crumbles like a sniper’s graffiti. We have tattooed the evil word upon your heart. We have beaten you like a dog that craves the sunshine. You have become one with the buzz inside of your head, the modulations of the parasitic. We have injected you with the remnants of an untold story, the full-moon jaws and the struggle of a love gone wrong. These run through your veins like a tethered animosity that seeks its god. You seek but you cannot find the clairvoyance that once was your salvation. You lost your dispensation, your birthright to the throne. Now you seek a justice that cannot be found.

Wanting to be the trigger to the death of everyone just like the same old deception, you smile and say hello. The “beingness” spills over the sides. All of your attempts at capture are futile. You search with an outdated bullet. Your name etched upon its brass. The million eyes line you up and fire. Their contradictions and algorithmic classifications rip through you one by one. You are a horrific and destitute soldier who fights for all of the wrong reasons. The will of the contradiction is your master. You follow orders like you are following the steps of an obligated dance. Each step brings you closer to the candle of the killer. It is the light that draws you in like the insect horde. You pursue anguish like it is a real thing, a thing to be loved and cherished. You swallow each lie whole and ask for more. I have seen the number of your days.

The fates cry out for the balance to be restored. Your acts require retribution. We once were unaware of your battles, now we fight them for you. We help you extract the human from the animal. In your eyes, they are all creatures that deserve to die. We simply guide your hand as you embrace the disease of the troubadour.

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Contact

If you have any questions, you can contact me at the address below:

[email protected]

Call for Submissions

Deep Tissue Magazine, a creative arts magazine that promotes the efforts of poetry writers around the world is looking for poetry submissions for the next issue of Deep Tissue Magazine.

Send no more than five poems in the body of an e-mail to:

[email protected]

Be sure to put the word “submission” in the subject line of the e-mail.

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