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.