For the Cicada with one wing
 

saved from
near-drowning
at the edge of
an algae-veiled pool,
 
Your life doesn't mean
much,
bulky body
becoming
skin soon enough,
 
Yet more charming
than some
creatures
 
For instance,
a damn Nightingale


* Melanie Browne has had poems published in various online zines including Word Riot, Pank and Commonline. She is a co-editor at Leaf Garden Press. Her first chapbook – Heaven is a Giant Pawn Shop – is published by Erbacce Press.

The Beautiful Octopus Club


who are my people?
where do i belong?

i'm going down to Deptford
the Albany
first wednesday of the month
"The Beautiful Octopus Club",

i'm going to be there
with my friends
back to my roots
hoots of laughter,
and Winston's grin,

draped from the ceiling,
each tentacle
a miracle of colour,
this is the place
i smile most,

dodgy disco
decks the evening out
with awful dancing
and laughter,

Pauline sidles idly up to the d.j.
says she loves him
and requests Cliff Richard
we all groan,

Cynthia is here
in her wheelchair
eyes light up
as "The Young Ones" blares out,
"Shout" follows quickly
and we're all dancing,

Winston takes the mike
mighty lungs ready
heart and soul,
he sings,
"Heart and Soul" the best band
in the world,

Kenny starts to pogo,
i still don't know
where he learnt that,
batters into
a couple of the "care workers",
evil grin
and he begins again,
like it's 1977,

Hester's wearing hotpants
of course,
"The Beautiful Octopus Club"
tub-thumping happiness,

i'm going down to Deptford
the Albany
first wednesday of the month,
to be with my friends,

these are my people
this is where i belong


* Si Philbrook says "I live in Brighton, UK. I am married with two kids and work in social care. I have written poetry since 1983. In 2007 I started posting on Myspace. Over 200,000 people have viewed my blog at www.myspace.com/jo_nobody.com

Dreamspinner


A sound like a snapping guitar string. She looked up; the curtains were open, the flood of orange fluorescent cascading across the windowsill and down onto the carpet.

The sound came again. Tucking her bookmark between the pages, she stood and moved to the window, pressing her face to the cold glass and cupping her hands around it to shut out the glare so she could see. A car was backing into a driveway, but nothing else was moving.

A movement in the bottom corner of the window caught her eye. For a moment, she thought it was a moth fluttering against the glass in desperation before falling to the sill, exhausted.

She scooped it up, thinking she would open the window and coax it to freedom. As it fluttered against her fingers, she realised that it was glittering. Like a moth it had delicate wings, but they appeared to be made from tiny fragments of crystal strung on invisible wires. One of the wings was mangled, and despite its best efforts it could not get airborne.

She turned her hand back and forth, watching the light refract through the wings, casting rainbows across her fingers. “What are you?”

“It's a dream.”

She started so hard she almost dropped it. Her head jerked up as a pale hand reached out, long fingers plucking the dream from her palm. He was tall, so slender that his black clothes hung from his shoulders as if from a coat-hanger. His skin was so close to transparency that his veins were easy to track around the curve of his jaw and down his throat.

He raised the dream to his black eyes. Only a tiny spark of violet light in their depths showed he was alive. His free hand ran through his shock of black and white hair absently.

“What?” she said.

“A dream. Only it's broken,” he said.

He inhaled deeply, brought the dream to his lips, and exhaled a silver mist across his open palm. The mangled wing shimmered, unfurled and straightened.

“Hold out your hands,” he said.

He opened his fingers and the dream floated from his hand to hers.

“Now,” he nodded to the window. “Set it free.”

She opened the window and watched as the dream glittered away into the distance.

When she turned back, the dreamspinner was gone.


* Stef Hall is a 30-something country girl living in the big city with her musician partner Paul and three bonkers cats. Stef writes short stories, some of which have been published, and novels, all of which have not. Yet. Although she says she does not write poetry, occasionally she does, and even more occasionally she does it well.

HOT AIR BALLOON RIDE

 

In that five feet wide four feet deep basket

the pilot and his wife argued

for the whole forty five minutes.

It was just the four of us:

Josie and I pressed against

the thin wall of the basket

roped our fingers together and

looked as far away as we could.

The farms were laid out all around

like a sheet of stamps.

The pilot made the fire roar

to drown out the sound of their angry voices.

We were too high

and sweating.

This is what they do:

travel from town to town

hauling that huge balloon

unrolling it and rolling it back up

for twenty years.

On the way back to earth

we barely missed some power lines

and descended into a herd

of scattering cows.

The woman walked across

the pasture crying.

The man drew out

a lukewarm bottle of champagne

popped it

and filled our plastic glasses.

He made an apology for a toast

and then asked if we wanted a photo taken

for five bucks.

* Mather Schneider says "I am a cab driver in Tucson. I came upon Ink Sweat & Tears while googling."

Finally, for the third of our earthier pieces, Dave Lewis writes about Bobby...

Bobby

 

we meet in

silence

in the city

 

you’ve washed

your hair

 

you turn

winter into

springtime

at any time

of year

at any

time

of day

 

you have

warm

skin

black

eyes

 

   glass

      balls

         dribble

 

down

brown,

brown

   breasts

 

sweat is pierced

   pink

 

tongued

 

we ooze

together

then sleep

 

until the next time

the cold

winter sun

 

has washed away

our faith

in the world

* Dave Lewis lectures IT & Photography. He also designs web sites, takes photographs and writes stuff. His first poetry collection Layer Cake can be bought on Amazon and he's just finished a short story and prose collection. He adds that his second book is one publisher short of a publisher at the moment. www.david-lewis.co.uk/write.html And also check out www.welshpoetry.co.uk

Continuing on from yesterday's theme, we now offer you some erotic flash fiction by Avis Hickman


In the heat if the Night

“I don’t usually go for all this kind of stuff.” I breathed huskily.

“What’s that then?” he asked me, skimming his hands around my quivering haunches, stroking and massaging me expertly with his long bony fingers.

I was mesmerised by glimpses of his body. Glistening and tanned, the skin over the hard lines of muscle was like smooth soapstone - velveteen to the touch. Suddenly, I was flipped over and balanced on my knees, and then his hands slowly moved up my back with a feather light touch until he gently brushed against the cords around my neck – binding me, keeping me a willing hostage.

“This stuff – the raunchy stuff. I’ve always been timid and quiet before. With you it’s different...”

“How so princess?” I caught the smile in his voice like a caress of warm chocolate slipping over my thighs and pooling at the base of my belly. Shuddering with excitement I stuttered:

“This raunchy style... I’m more of a missionary position type – wham bam and there you are. I normally don’t go at it like a rabbit – you know?”

“Bunnies eh? They have a lot going for them.” I caught the smile in the voice again, warm and melting, urging me forwards.

“I just have one request,” he whispered, his breath hot against my cheeks.

I sucked in sharply with anticipation and swallowed hard.

“Request?” I managed the faint echo.

“I want you naked and smooth. let me shave you – will you?” And he ran his fingers around my buttocks; cupping them possessively.

I gasped at his request, but was excited too at the prospect of so intimate an act. I nodded my acquiescence, moaning slightly as I felt him shift weight to reach for his tackle. The cold slap of the shaving gel made me arch in a fever of passion.

Then, with the gentle scrape of the cut-throat on my scalp, began my lover’s true foreplay.


* Avis Hickman says "I've had several goes at careers. Scientist, salesman, project manager, decorator, writer. I still keep an interest in all of them."

Over the next couple of days we're running a couple of poems that are a little sweatier and earthier than usual, starting with this poem by Peter Magliocco – enjoy...


Beauty Ravished By Bulbs At Midnight
 
Just a lonely paparazzo in the neon-nite,
but when I saw Britney in her luxury car
the idea of her wearing underwear or not
vanished as an everyday reality!
 
Stunning beauty wins over abstract thought,
especially that of any Rock goddess-of-trash
sitting half-nude in a sleek BMW
parked outside the Hard Rock at midnite.
Flashbulbs popped incandescent shudders
 
against her cool mafia hat & campy green
shades of Pop mystical visions,
including her sweating, now naked
butt grinding bucket-seated vinyl,
its gossamer-like spew
 
of love's saliva from nether lips 
hidden in slick, ah-so vulva-splendors.
Smiling because she's still (un)-fashionable
in the upper half-clothed part of her,
the brocaded noir blouse 'neath sports coat?
 
Havoc cries through silent melodies
while we keep shooting film,
hoping for an instant X-posure
of doves released by
her heavenly madrigals...


* Peter Magliocco writes from Las Vegas, Nevada, and has recent poetry at The Smoking Poet, Gutter Eloquence, The Beat, Gold Dust and Full of Crow. His new novel is The Burgher of Virtual Eden from Publish America (www.publishamerica.com). He was Pushcart nominated for poetry in 2008.
 

Going Back
 
I want to take that old boogie board,
stuffed between two plastic suitcases
in the loft, and head

to San Onofre. I want to drag
my twenty-four year old daughter
out in the cold water and show her
I can catch a wave. Not the wave

that tossed us around like a bikini
salad, ten years ago. This time we’ll
have on fins. This time, we won’t emerge
spit up on the shore with sand embedded

in our foreheads. I want my husband
to take another picture,
so I can throw
that last one away,
the one that shows my fat lip
pressed against an ice pack.

Like a gull that’s just snatched
a sandwich from a tourist, I want to rise
above it all, chew up the memory
and smirk at the sea.


* Karen Kelsay is a native Californian who grew up near the Pacific and loves writing about the sea and nature. Her poems have been published in many magazines over the past few years. She is the author of Collected Poems and Fist of Roots by Puddinghouse Press.

ink, sweat and tears

i am fulfilled at being
on the upper side of average.
it takes a lifetime to die
today i am another work day closer.
‘Yes, sir.’ ‘No, sir.’ ‘Three bags full sir?’
you know you’re bored when you’re
distracted
by the floor.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

every night with you is a sleepover

if you trusted me
you’d let me see your hotmail
even give me the password.
you bastard.
5 years of email
fifty percent spam
when was the last time you read this shit.
you sleep on an inbox of woe.

this relationship gives me the satisfaction
of a single orange jelly tot
stuck in my teeth with a sweet citrus tang
and brushed off at night
with a guilty oral raid.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

facial hair

no one was there
to teach me to shave.
Gillette sold me three products
they wanted to sell four.
my face seems precious to them
it seem lumpy to me.

i pushed in the foam
and winced
and laughed
knowing i looked a bell end.
i didn’t actually laugh.

then i shaved like the ads
seemed to show you to.

‘You’re a man now.’
‘Oh,’ i said.
i didn’t feel like it.
i just itched.


* Alexander J. Allison is running out of different ways to pretend he doesn't care about things. He is a poet from London and has a blog at http://alexanderallison.blogspot.com

In The Eye Of The Cockroach


The ballerina at the bar bends
within the eye of the cockroach.  
She is dressed in black tights and leotard.  
A shaft of sunlight from a curtained

window spotlights her gracefulness,
tangles in her walnut hair.  Her eyes
are sage, and she is, perhaps,
a great beauty.  Now she tilts

her strict spine and dips again, and one
blue vein, just beneath the dewy flesh
of one almond-colored breast, shows
in the eye of the cockroach—shows more dark

and terrible than a jungle river,
flowing back and back to the secret heart.


* Larry Kimmel is a US poet of both haikai and mainline forms. His most recent books are: this hunger, tissue-thin and Blue Night & the inadequacy of long-stemmed roses (Modern English Tanka Press).