There’s a trend now
for poetry that’s like
something you’d stick
on a t-shirt or toilet cubicle
next to ‘suck me.’
Feel-good, warm,
quasi-philosophical
shit.
And not the good shit.
This loved up soup
brings in the groupies
on Instagram
and the ‘poets’
make a living from
smiling and spunking
in the permanent
neon sunset.
Oh, the remains
of Hollywood happy endings,
brains scrambled into sticky
pudding.
Bogdan Tiganov
she told me a story
of wandering the earth
set forth against forces
larger than her
she walked neighborhoods
night and day
and told me she
encountered
hissing deer
and
ducks raping
ducks
i didn’t know
what to say
and soon
after that
we parted
on the drive home
i fell asleep
and when i awoke
i was in my driveway
there were no ducks around
and
i was
thankful for
that.
Tohm Bakelas
You left us when this whole shitshow
was stumbling to another century, where
did you go, Richey, where did you
You slept in your car did you it’s the
whole fuckin fame game that’s all,
the burning rose, the smiling butcher
Watching the black sky above
a lead weight pressing down, pulsating
with impeccable loneliness
Oh, Richey, back in Blackwood
haunting the old home, the bare bones
of the empty streets, alone
Why is home so lonely why is home
so abandoned why are we always leaving
and where do we go now, Richey, where
Bogdan Tiganov
shit, Vincent, i don’t think
you could have ever imagined
your Starry Night
would end up tattooed
to the lower back of this woman
who on all fours waits on the bed
looking over her shoulder
telling me with her eyes
to hurry up and fuck her
Jose Pepe Arroyo
Don’t you dare stare into her face
as her shadowy form marches down the street,
hair tied back, dark eyes, no smile for those lips.
Her bones stand still outside the grey office
as she inhales from her cigarette enough life
to show up.
Is that a warhead hurtling down?
She strolls to the toilets and hammers down a fifth of vodka,
her features deadpan like deflowered oysters.
Another day begins.
Bogdan Tiganov
When you’re poor
You have to shit
In an un-air-conditioned
Bathroom as rivers
Of sweat rush down
Your face I was listening
To a podcast
About daring prison breaks
Dillinger El Chapo et al
And I thought, emotionally
I’m no different
Though it shouldn’t
Have to be this way
When love dies
And you find yourself
Doing hard time
One should be able to
Walk right out the front door
And not have to sit there
Plotting your own great escape
In an un-air-conditioned
Shitter as rivers of sweat
Rush down your face
Jose Pepe Arroyo
it was all in the way you
carried yourself before
i set out i shined
my own shoes
so the populace
could see my work
my battered wingtips
with the laces busted
they walked much
but got nowhere
and still i stumble
through callejones
and cantinas
of my memory
searching for me
with an old shoe shining box
strapped to my shoulder
asking drunk men
“shine your shoes?
shine your shoes?”
but the drunks have
no money to shine
their shoes and they
send me to buy them
some smokes instead
and i run and get the smokes
and steal one for my ear
and by the end of the day
i manage to hustle
a few pesos
and i walk home
smoking that cigarette
counting them
Jose Pepe Arroyo
Asleep, or half so
with my feet
At rest on the opposing seat
My pissed up face
pressed up against
Against the window
A woman in a uniform
nudged me
Gently and said
“Could you move your feet”
I said
I could but no ones sitting there.
There are no other people here
Besides you, me and hopefully
A driver.
And she shocked me when she sighed
Took off her hat and sat beside me.
And set her feet beside mine on
Her opposing chair.
She said “Know what two stops more and
I am going home.”
Turned out her name is Emma
She has three mouths to feed
And she’s falling back on credit cards
A city falling out
Into my eyes
Lights so bright and skirts so short
They may as well be naked arses.
Sitting next to me like she
Had given up the ghost
With the flicker yellowed stamps of
Streetlamps streaming past.
“This tram will stop
so where will you get off?”
I tend to fall through doors
And wander homewards.
Sometimes I even get there.
She put her hat upon my head
For momenmts there
I was the conductor
That made me smile
I said “Emma could you move your feet”
She said yes
Just one more stop.
How awesome can those random strangers be?
Stuart Knowles
She went to bed
wearing her yellow
hairband and said
she’d never take it
off. Later I crept in.
How she flinched
and twisted like a
shrimp, grabbing
it in her sleep and
fought to keep it on.
Long may she win.
Caroline Clark
They’re strolling tonight
popping a virgin
they’re happily married
their children run surgeries
their children’s children PhDs
they own the brothel
the hotels and the factories
they know good business practice
they don’t fart in public
sip the finest wine
snort grade A coke
they’re jogging this morning
a smile tattooed across
scouting for the kill
Bogdan Tiganov
