Cell Phone Videos

all you cops
who beat down
the Occupy
protesters
all over America
with yr billy-clubs
cuffed them and
pepper-spayed them
in the eyes:
I want to thank you
for reminding us all
what a bunch
of thugs and goons
most cops are
showing
the taxpayers
what their money
goes for:
the next time
I eat pork chops
or fried bacon strips
I'll be thinking
of all you pigs in blue.

-by Ross Vassilev













Ross Vassilev is a born loser and a poet. He's originally from Bulgaria but now lives in a small town in Ohio where he eats rotten eggs for breakfast and spends every day watching lezzie videos and other fine entertainment. You can read more of his poems at http://rossvassilevpoet.blogspot.com/.
                                                                                                           
Painting Courtesy:  Francesco Garieri

Francesco Garieri was born in Italy in 1958. He is a self-taught painter and currently living in France. he did his exhibitions all over the world. He is also associated with the art in the streets.            


                                                                                                                                                                                 

Gary Cummiskey

      © Gary Cummiskey


Watched/watching

We were being watched by the people on the boat. We were doing things. We were sticking our fingers in each other’s brains. They were watching us as we watched the samurai on horseback race along the shore.


Intimate lives

It is an evening in September.
You are typing 
in the next room.
The cat slips out of the window as
the horse slips in.
Soon the details of our intimate lives 
will be pasted on 
billboards 
throughout the city.


-by Gary Cummiskey


Art Courtesy: 'Mirror of Xtasy' by Gary Cummiskey

Gary Cummiskey lives in Johannesburg. He is a poet, writer and publisher. He has had several chapbooks of poetry published over the past 20 years. His short fiction collection Off-ramp has been nominated for the Nadine Gordimer Short Story Award 2014.

Don’t Fuck With Jesus Or He Might Fuck With You

Growing up I had a pal

called Shorty, he thought

he was a bad motherfucker

Shorty was never without

a pistol tucked in his pants,

one day his lady caught him

cheating on her with a floozy

She kicked him in the nuts

so hard his gun fired, blowing

off most of his pecker

She grabbed the bloody sausage,

stomped on it & gave it burial at

sea, flushing it down the toilet

That’s how Jesus lost his name

I told him look on the bright side,

Shorty is better than Stumpy.

-by Catfish McDaris

                       

                                           

Catfish McDaris has been active in the small press wold for 25 years. He lives in a cave at a nudist colony. His biggest seller is Prying: with Jack Micheline & Charles Bukowski. He has only 7 toes.

                                                                                                                                                                    
Painting Courtesy: John Graham 

John Graham  is an australian artist and cartoonist.

John Yamrus

The apartment

had

no heat,

no hot water

and no back door.

to

make it

interesting

two strippers

lived upstairs,

the problem was

they were nice girls.

broke,

just like us.

we ate

boiled noodles

and

very little else.

the

poems

came hard.

-by John Yamrus

Since 1970 John Yamrus has published 22 volumes of poetry and 2 novels.  He has also had nearly 1,700 poems published in magazines around the world.  His work is taught in numerous colleges and universities and been translated into a number of languages.  His most recent full length collection of poetry is ALCHEMY.  It's available on Amazon.  More information on John and his writing can be found at http://www.johnyamrus.com/index.html

Art Courtesy: Janne Karlsson

Janne Karlsson is a wildly prolific Swedish illustrator and writer.

Leldon Grace fetches a frisbee

      © Simón Vázquez

I hated him

I hated his dull brown hair

parted to the left side

I hated his dirty ears

his crooked glasses

I hated his Vietnam Vet father

stocking booze at

the local liquor store

I hated his skeletal mother

walking the neighborhood

since she never learned to drive

I hated his red cabbage stink

I hated his one pair of jeans

his two stained shirts

I hated that of every boy

in the fourth grade

I was always the one

to be paired with

Leldon Grace for recess

so I threw the frisbee

as high as I could

as hard as I could

and watched Leldon Grace

charge after the blue disc

I watched him sprint five steps

into the street and get

clipped by a sleet gray Buick

I joined the other children

gathered on the sidewalk

as the teachers screamed

for someone to call 911

we listened to the apologies

from the Buick’s elderly driver

I couldn’t take my eyes

away from Leldon Grace

his left leg broken, forehead

gashed to the bone

those cheap glasses, setting

lopsided on the car’s hood

the blood collected curbside

and Leldon Grace still tried

to claw his way out

of the street but only

succeeded in finger painting

crimson on asphalt

seeing him writhing

I felt nothing

and I realized

I could do this again

to anyone

-by Karl Koweski

Karl Koweski remains an enemy of the Amish, having launched peanut brittle boycotts in 12 Mennonite communties.  His poems and stories can be found here and there.  His collection of short stories Blood and Greasepaint remains available and his latest Kockblockers will be out in November.

Painting Courtesy: Simón Vázquez 

Simón Vázquez (Barcelona, 1979) started in the field of animation and studied at the School 9zero. But soon he turned to Arts, and  studied at Barcelona Llotja. After engaging in illustration, he led himself to painting and sculpture, and  he has been doing  exhibitions  for years  at the galleries of Spain and abroad.

An Avalanche of Flies

A cavalcade of planes

piercing the soft skin of clouds,

so white & thick like sour milk.

Silent zombies ascending the sky

like sleeping flies.

My mind is adumbrated.

I can’t find a clue.

I have to read William Golding’s

Lord of the Flies again.

Perhaps, I would find a connection.

— Flies are not just insects.

They are the salt of myths.

C[rude] salt bombarding

the city’s eyes.

Pyrokinetic planes &

cacophonous sounds of flies

splitting the city’s ears.

A blue sea rich in lights

ready to submerge the city’s body.

White clouds hauntologies—

shields for a slumbering city

shrouded in mist & peace.

-by Ali Znaidi

                                                                                                                          

                                                                       

Ali Znaidi (b. 1977) lives in Redeyef, Tunisia, where he teaches English. His work has appeared in various magazines and journals worldwide. He authored four poetry chapbooks including Experimental Ruminations (Fowlpox Press, 2012), Moon’s Cloth Embroidered with Poems (Origami Poems Project, 2012), Bye, Donna Summer! (Fowlpox Press, 2014), and Taste of the Edge (Kind of A Hurricane Press, 2014). He also authored a fiction book titled Green Cemetery (Moment Publications, 2014) which is in fact the first Tunisian flash fiction collection written originally & published in English language. Some of his poems have been translated into German, Greek, Turkish and Italian.

You can follow him on Twitter @AliZnaidi. You can see more of his work on his blog aliznaidi.blogspot.com.

Painting Courtesy: Chris Howard

Chris Howard is an illustrator, working in ink, watercolors, and digital formats. His web site is SaltwaterWitch.com.

Playing The Game: Catfish McDaris

        

Catfish McDaris

H&P: Someday you see that all your writings are on fire – your reactions?

CM: I’d probably cry and start over or cut off my left arm and wait to die.  Or just go fishing and say fuck writing.

H&P: Do you believe that you have any social responsibility as a writer? If yes, how do you manage to perform that with your writing?

CM: I don’t think about social responsibility when I write. I try to tell a good story and if I enjoy it, maybe someone else will too. If people don’t like my words well fuck them. I remain my biggest fan and best audience.

H&P: Your best four poets?

CM: Bukowski, Poe, Li Po, Neruda

H&P: Your best four writers?

CM: Dickens, Dostoevsky, Zola, Steinbeck

H&P: Would you still continue writing if you see that not a single stuff you wrote is sold?

CM: You can’t be a small press writer for money. It’s fucking impossible. You might as well try to suck your own dick. Even if I was facing a firing squad, if I had pencil and paper, I’d be writing. It’s like taking a shit, it might not always be pleasant, but it has to be.

H&P: Can you write if everything is NOT OK? I mean do you need a situational stability and mental calmness when you sit to write something?

CM: I can write in a tornado of madness, in a hurricane of insanity, in an earthquake of orgasmic eruption. I can write in the dark with nothing up my sleeves.

H&P: Do you ever suffer from a complex that you cannot write like the ones you love to read? If yes, how do you handle it?

CM: I’ve never experienced writer’s block. I have been working on something and get distracted by other thoughts or priorities of projects. Fuck it, I attack like a hammerhead shark and let the devil lick my ass.

H&P: Does writing come out of continuous exercise or it’s a spontaneous gust of fresh air?

CM: Writing is about doing. Have you ever captured a fart in a jar? That is my gust of air.

H&P: Do you like to identify yourself as WRITER or writing is just a part of YOU?

CM: I am WRITER hear me roar motherfuckers!

H&P: When will you stop writing?

CM: As soon as I finish living or when I sleep.

H&P: Which one is your personal favourite among your published works? Where can we catch it?

CM: I have no faves, but the next one. You can catch it in the razor sharp wind with stainless steel teeth of a bloody bear trap.

H&P: Briefly let us meet your family

CM: My wife, Aida, our daughter, Elizabeth, two cats, Honey and Pepper, and our kid’s dog, Izzy. All females.

H&P: What are your further suggestions for Hash n’ Pumpkins!!

CM: I think you are doing a super job, Mr. Nili-bro and I am honored to be interviewed by you. I would ask that you introduce the small press world to Kolkata, India your home. 

Unravel

                   © Larissa Strunowa 

Back home, back where we came from originally, the word for “trouble” has both a masculine and feminine form.The literal translation would probably be “unravel”, but trouble is what it means.

These days the masculine is for big problems, and the feminine for smaller ones.

Back then it was to distinguish between the troubles of men, and those of women.

That spring day when my Grandmother cried out the masculine form and smashed a dish, 

then threw another and began to cry; we knew, my sisters and I, that our Father would not be returning from the war.

-by Doug Mathewson

Doug Mathewson has rejected the advice “write what you know” since he knows nothing. Most recently his work has appeared in The Boston Literary Magazine, Right Hand Pointing, Cloud City Press, Postcards Prose & Poems, riverbabble, and Jersey Devil.  He is senior editor of Blink-Ink and runs Special Ops. for Ms. Kitty Wang.

Painting Courtesy:  Larissa Strunowa

Larissa Strunowa was born in 1960 in Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg), Soviet Union.  She  studied painting and stage design in Moscow, and has been living and working in Germany since 1995. She is a member of the Artists Union of Rendsburg-Eckernförde. She did exhibitions all over the world.

David Barker

      © Arturs Akopjans

                  Traipsing                                                                         Here And Now

                                                 

                  I see                                                                                 something is

                  these spirits                                                                      terribly wrong and

                  go off in                                                                           none of us

                  their colorful                                                                    can speak of it.

                  Death                                                                               this thing

                  shrouds.                                                                           possesses us,

                                                                                                         darkens our days,

                                                                                                         saddens our

                                                                                                         nights, hangs

                                                                                                         over our time

                                                                                                         like tragedy

                                                                                                         too awful to

                                                                                                         describe.

David Barker's fiction and poetry has appeared in many small press books and magazines since the early 1970s. In 2011, Bottle Of Smoke Press published his comic surreal novel, Death At The Flea Circus. A small collection of poems, Opal's Trails, appeared from Pig Ear Press in 2013, and in 2014 Dark Renaissance Books issued The Revenant of Rebecca Pascal, a horror novella written in collaboration with W. H. Pugmire.

Painting Courtesy: Arturs Akopjans

Arturs Akopjans, born October 31, 1969 in Armenia is residing and working in Riga, Latvia. In 1996 graduated Arturs Akopjans from "The Latvian Academy of Arts." Since then he has exhibited in the best galleries in the Baltic countries, Germany and Austria as well as group exhibitions in Belgium, Lithuania, Latvia and Denmark. His paintings can be seen in private collections from Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, USA, UK, Norway, Germany, Armenia and Austria.

A Love Story

                                     © Marko Davidović

I am madly in love with her

she is too

guess who? – he told me.

I do not want to guess

I do not want to visualize

let me know

when the poem is over

and what lingers

is the shiver of the hairs

of a wet pussy

fast asleep.

-by Subhankar Das

Subhankar das is a poet, bookstore owner, and publisher of Bangla experimental materials. He produced six short films that have been honored at international film festivals, and has translated the works of Allen Ginsberg and Charles Bukowski in Bengali.

Painting Courtesy: Marko Davidović

Marko Davidović was born in belgrade, 1981, finished Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade, 2005, in Graphic Design. Had 4 solo exhibitions and several group ones with some awards for graphic, graphic design, painting, drawing, own made font and calligraphy.

Wither, Burn and Peel

      © Ana Maria

        

        A leaf falls during a late storm

                from an oak tree just outside my window.

                I watch this leaf wither away,

                before it touches the ground.

                A journey to an alternate path

                of the previous one I traveled yesterday,

                the ever lasting walk, brings blisters

                to my feet, that will one day

               wither away.

                The hot scorching sun is burning

                like an ant with cruelty from

                a magnifier glass.

                Can't seem to find a shadow

                to hide from the rays

                of this raging fireball in the sky.

                I catch a glimpse of myself

                my reflection staring back at me            

                waving, melting and withering away.

                I peel open my eyes and I'm safe.

                In my bed, all the familiar surroundings

                grabs the corners of my mouth,

                pasting a smile on my face, but..

                When I look out the window

                I see a leaf fall.

                The orange sun coming up,

                striking the clouds with pink swirls.

                My feet begin to burn, looking down

                at the smoke that begins to rise

                feeling myself burn and wither away.

             -by Donald Armfield

Donald Armfield. When his minds decides to leak out words, they sometimes make interesting poems, stories, or whatever. He is a coffee fueled family man with a passion for reading and writing. He has been published by Rooster Republic, James Ward Kirk, Dynatox Ministries, and more to come.

Painting Courtesy: Ana Maria

Ana Maria was born in Lisbon in 1959. In 1982 she graduated in Philosophy from the University of Porto and started her teaching career as a philosophy teacher at a secondary school. Simultaneously, Ana started working as an artist in the different domains of Fine Arts. She has been taking part in several national and international collective exhibitions.

Girl Talk

       ©Nataliya Begisheva

Grains of sand, stuck

by tanning oil to your thighs

glowed gold

like pollen on petal flesh,

roughened my tongue, as rough

as the stubble, there,

where you’d shaved. A hint

of perfume, salt from sea and skin

and the musk of your sex

a heady bouquet to your wine

arouse me now, recalling

how your head fell back, eyes closed;

I felt such power

and such tenderness, as you

convulsed, and thrust

against me.

-by Mercedes Webb-Pullman

Mercedes Webb-Pullman graduated from IIML Victoria University Wellington New Zealand with her MA in Creative Writing 2011. Her work appears online and in print (Danse Macabre, Turbine, 4th Floor, Swamp, Reconfigurations, The Electronic Bridge, poetryrepairs, Connotations Press, The Red Room, many anthologies, and her books  Ono, Looking for Kerouac, After the Danse, Numeralla Dreaming, Food 4 Thought, Tasseography and Bravo Charlie Foxtrot) She lives on the Kapiti Coast, New Zealand.

Painting Courtesy: Nataliya Begisheva

Natalia  Begisheva was born on March 31, 1984 in Kharkov. She studied at KNU, Karazina. She is a member of the Creative Union of Professional Artists. She can be reached at art@begisheva.com.

The Stick Up

      © Francesco Garieri

Have you ever had diarrhea so bad you shit a bit 

on your own dick

take a minute 

to

think about that.

I get really stressed that Kim Kardashian 

might not get along with Beyoncé

and maybe her and Jay Z feel awkward about it

I stayed in bed 'till 3pm Watching the Ray J

Sex tape on Repeat But I didn’t wank

Cause that would

Be like

Fucking a friends

Wife

If I could change one thing about my wife It would be that she

Would wear my jumpers around the house more often

Sometimes I look at my news feed 

And think What the fuck are you awake at 2:40

liking ANZ bank pages on Facebook for?

I never understand people who take a news paper

to the toilet

I haven't had a solid shit since 1995

but I do drink a lot of

wine and I'm also a compulsive liar

I knew a guy when I was younger who got so drunk he told me he once

spread his ass cheeks in the bath and swayed back and forth

to see what it would feel like to be a woman

having sex;

that drunk guy was me.

That bath 

was my mums.

-by Ben John Smith

Ben John Smith is the Editor In Chief of www.horrorsleazetrash.com and he has a burning passion for cats and female feet.

Painting Courtesy:  Francesco Garieri

Francesco Garieri was born in Italy in 1958. He is a self-taught painter and currently living in France. he did his exhibitions all over the world. He is also associated with the art in the streets.

Deep

                   © Maximilian Van Dokkumburg

Digging for muddy

electrified soul, past

bulldozer or backhoe

carcasses, past crane

shovel remains for a

brutal dirt blues washing

over everybody like a

controlled burn, liquefied

let go, sonically boiling

out of crops over corn

grinders into ignition

city concerto exploding

like a propane tank

-by David S. Pointer

David S. Pointer’s newest poetry books are entitled “Beyond Shark Tag Bay,” and “Oncoming Crime Facts.” David has recent acceptances for the Ebola themed chapbook from West Chester University, Proud to Be 3: Writings by American Warriors anthology and others. David currently serves on the advisory panel at “Writing for Peace.”

Painting Courtesy:  Maximilian Van Dokkumburg

Maximilian Van Dokkumburg  is a dutch artist living in Spain. He comes from the Rietveld Academy of beaux arts in Holland. He has won 2 biennales of Modern art, one in Argentina and another in Florence,Italy. He does exhibitions  abroad regularly. He is a multidisciplinary artist , switching from  digital to  conceptual work  and mix media.

Remembering to Breathe While Raking

      © Swadesh Misra

There is a meditation to picking up sticks.

Never have I picked up more sticks in my life!

I make piles:

          1 Big branches to be (like a tv husband)

broken down, and (like a tv wife) kept,

for some fire in the desirable future.

          2 Sticksized, for kindling.

          3 Bitty twigs I’ll leave on the deck

out back, for birds/squirrels to take

for nests, say, on an as-needed basis.

I put dirty or molded

wet wood with leaves

in bags they mark

‘for yard waste only,’

as if leaves & felled things

were the result of my lawn’s endocrine.

My own adrenaline kicks up when

the lawn bag breaks.

Shush shush!  goes my rake.

-by Bree

Bree is founder of Green Panda Press (Cleveland, OH) which publishes poetry and art paperbacks, chaps and sundry of the small press. Her work appears in little mags. She is the author of three memoirs.

Photo Courtesy: Swadesh Misra

Swadesh Misra is a photographer, writer, traveler and an artist. He loves music, nature, divinity, dreams, country, hiking and nothing more. He believes in miracles.

David Barker

Could death be this alluring?

walking past a darkened room,

I want to go in.

Survival instinct

sometimes you

must pull back

from the

precipice.

On company time

the last time

I saw our new receptionist,

she was playing a hole

of miniature golf

over by Mary’s office

at $5 a round

for the state employees

food drive. she

looked fine. “it beats

working the front desk,”

she told me. a

week later, she

died in

intensive care.
           
                                                                                                                               
                       

David Barker's fiction and poetry has appeared in many small press books and magazines since the early 1970s. In 2011, Bottle Of Smoke Press published his comic surreal novel, Death At The Flea Circus. A small collection of poems, Opal's Trails, appeared from Pig Ear Press in 2013, and in 2014 Dark Renaissance Books issued The Revenant of Rebecca Pascal, a horror novella written in collaboration with W. H. Pugmire.

Painting Courtesy: Marko Davidović

Marko Davidović was born in belgrade, 1981, finished Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade, 2005, in Graphic Design. Had 4 solo exhibitions and several group ones with some awards for graphic, graphic design, painting, drawing, own made font and calligraphy.