Pestilence or Your Money Back!

I am unable to cancel my subscription to Subsistence Monthly.

Seems the rich want the poor to stay that way forever.

And I do myself no favours, I would make a lousy prostitute.

Spermicide over cracked lips and black fish net riding up my ass.

No wonder the purse full of mouthwash, it’s pestilence 

or your money back!  Peeping Toms jacking off into frosted windows

that demand some basic imagination.  For the twisted gypsy living out 

of overnight bags that refuse to close.  Perhaps that is the problem,

those many Open 24 Hours signs along the highway that promise

an absence of shame and slumber.  Vodka minis parading as courage 

while the aging cheesemonger counts his rats.  Must it all be a tally,

like a winsome spreadsheet from Hell?  Monies paid and owed,

sub-contractors brought in on the fly.  Is this what all those smiling 

Polaroid years under the Christmas tree amount to?  Don’t be such 

a Debbie Downer, I hear the Ribbed for Her Pleasure Philharmonic 

break into song.  It’s business as usual, I am assured.  From that fly

 by night bookkeeper by the vending machine full of stolen coins  

and stale Funyuns.

ART BY SHANE ALLISON

Headache Landing Zone

I am sitting alone in my kitchen, beyond scrutiny,

thinking about getting a tattoo on my forehead 

that reads: Headache Landing Zone.  I can see

the tattoo artist with his jumpy gun, returning

to the consent form many times, so that I know

how he feels about our latest joint endeavor.

But a man never turns away the work or money, 

does he?  Good thing it is just an idea, and who 

ever said it had to be a good one?  I have ideas

all the time.  I was thinking about naming them,

like hollering bow-legged children I can’t afford.  

St. Denis was the Patron Saint of Headaches, 

I believe.  Talk about your bottom of the barrel 

patronage. I just know I’d get Parton Saint of 

Boogers and Farts if I entered the saintly fray.  

Legions of pilgrims picking their noses for me,

raising their legs in my most merciful name.

Replacing Marcia Brady

“Attila, Attila, Attila!,” the screeching bullhorn bellowed.
Attila the Hun replaced Marcia Brady on the backlot at Paramount. 

 After her sex addiction became a Murphy bed spilling out of
industry walls. All the Huns took the high ground in palm trees,
waiting for their Christmas miracle. Jim Jones rode by in an old 

Caddy with the windows rolled down. A personalized plate that 

read: AGNCMN, and a trunk full of gifts just back from the dusty 

Holy Land. Have you seen the ice cubes walk on water? Careening 

off the side of the drink glass with ballistics test ricochet? A prickly 

voice from above asks me if I’m ready to order. Her name tag says 

Candy, but everyone lies these days.

a stellar trepanning 

Bending over

to fix the lava lamp

listening to Immigrant Song 

on Old Faithful 

as a peeled beer label 

sits face down in early defeat.

Flighty fuzz pedals and a double kick.

Bare bulb Damocles 

on a twisted workman’s twine.

Then War Pigs comes on.

Those beautiful hanging sirens

at the start.

It is said the skyline of Miami 

was built by cocaine,

I am much closer to a stellar trepanning 

than that.

Old band posters 

like sniffing glue with 

feverish banshees.

The knocking gate

and these swimming whiskey brown

catacombs for eyes.

The feet as bare

as the cupboards.

Not a single Harlem Shuffle 

house mouse in sight.’

Vera

had an ass

like a farmer’s daughter,

kept her hair up in buns

like some hotshot 

bakery, 

and her dog

wore a cone on its head

to that park

named after some 

dead asshole

with a sign —

and her dimples,

don’t forget those dimples;

that’s the best part.