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Sunday, December 21, 2014

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.            


                                                                                                                                                                                 

Monday, December 15, 2014

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.




Wednesday, December 10, 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.




Sunday, December 7, 2014

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.





Thursday, November 27, 2014

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.




Saturday, November 22, 2014

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.




Sunday, November 16, 2014

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. 


Monday, November 10, 2014

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.





Thursday, November 6, 2014

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.



Sunday, November 2, 2014

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.



Saturday, October 25, 2014

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.


Monday, October 20, 2014

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.




Wednesday, October 15, 2014

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.


Sunday, October 12, 2014

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.




Thursday, October 9, 2014

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.

Saturday, October 4, 2014

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.