Double Dose of Brittney Lynn Anderson

Now You're Smitten
by Brittney Lynn Anderson


I talk dirty to you in the
most sophisticated manner
explaining that

you remind me of
the grainy newspaper print
I only use in the morning
when I can't find my
clothes.

You can brew coffee,
even drink it like wine
but I still bend beneath the window pane
like frayed wire ends and tease you
into my body count.

I tell it how it is and
whisper into your skin
that we digress from
a revolutionized, gutted bed
and the reason you can't feel anything
is because atomically

you are disappearing
like gunpowder mistaken for sugar.




Genesis 3:14-15
by Brittney Lynn Anderson


I.

let me refresh your memory:
annihilation is a word

flushing your cheeks pink
everytime you get hold of me,
reapplying lipstick to stress
irony, of the cracks in your ego
I crawl underneath

still,
you're sexy in that
awkward, subtle way-
the same way your hair, damp after sex
sticks to your face

and alone,
I can't do much
but marvel at your ability to dissemble

me into dust.


II.

[you are the bright white nothingness
people describe before they wander
off into death

and by nothingness, I mean abyss
like way you speak and the shape of your
lips, streaming words around me in
the language of harp strings

and by death, I mean me
linking the gaps between shotgun
shells, right before they clink and fall

like you unto cemented ground.]

Best of the Best

What up Freedom Fighter's? Prep your manuscripts, ready your postage, and make sure there's enough dough in the bank account for application fees - Poets and Writers rankings of all the MFA programs in the U.S. of A. are here:

The writing program at UW-Milwaukee might be off the map, but check out Madison's - they landed in a tie for the #3 spot overall.

What Powerful Part Are You Missing?

By Dan Oberbruner


I.

What powerful part are you missing?
look!
here!
i can write it for you,
i
n
d
e
c
i
s
i
o
n
see?

II.

shit!
they're following us.
fooling us with words.
notice their geometry?
it's mysterious. i know.
but you have to understand!
you can't understand.
you felt foul in the water.
i stepped you out.
everything good reminds you of autumn.
every good tragedy begins in autumn
and settles somewhere else.
everything loose reminds you of change.
i will see you there if i die trying
something new
on the weekends.
i'm awfully lonely.
shredded paper bothers me repeatedly
though it's nothing i ever do--
which is perhaps the reason it bothers me.
i halve silly
and am spending it.

III.

try now.
it's different.
i swear.
try now.
it's different still
and will never be again.
later it will be the same.
trust me, i'm trying.
i spent years in detention.
i was never in detention.
fell flat? i guess.
meet me in the garden.
now there,
that's a place i can really tell you.
awful.
awful again.
paranoid?
if you mention it.
like:
who!
just now!
where?
i get it.
then i give it away
because i can't handle the concentration it takes.

IV.

my flowers are colors that don't exist--
which attract the bees and other things.
my songs are bird songs.
when i sing them, we ebb and flow.
repeatedly.
i miss you in the garden.
it's been hours.
meet me still in the garden.
see something i do not
and hold it for me
okay?
forever.
okay?
i miss you when you're gone forever.

Pick Your Poison

Check it:

We worked hard on it. You better fucking make it.

The Reason Why If You Should Happen to Live as a Good Christian, You Ought to Always Dress Your Best

By Artie Nosrati


After years of preparation, when it finally occurred he wasn’t at all ready. He was standing in the kitchen wearing old boxers worn to threads in the crotch and a dirty white t-shirt. He was slathering mayonnaise on a sandwich when he felt it happen. At first he thought it was a stomachache or a cramp until he felt the rest of his body move, not up as he imagined, rather forward and backwards and slightly to the left all at the same time. And with that, he was ripped from existence. There was a hole, a void, for half an instant before the world filled in his shape like a flooded footprint in the mud.

Living as a pure Christian is a very difficult endeavor, which was perhaps the reason he found Heaven a great deal lonelier than he had anticipated. He was also mildly disappointed to see his supernatural body appear just as it had on earth, even down to his clothes. It’s just a matter of how you remember yourself last, something less than a voice but more than a thought spoke to him. He had purchased a suit for just this occasion, and in retrospect felt like an idiot for assuming there would be some notice or warning, and time to get changed.

His decades of pious living yielded a particularly insignificant number of acquaintances in the physical world, though there were those who noticed his disappearance—three exactly. They were his manager, his landlord, and his mailman and they were concerned with filling his position, what to do with his furniture, and where to put his piling bills, respectively. Soon his job was replaced with a slightly less motivated worker, his apartment was filled with a slightly noisier tenant, and his mail was stacked and stored neatly in the garbage.

At first the whiteness was blinding, but once he realized he was no longer hindered by eyes, he was able to see the entire planet at once and magnified like a universe-sized panorama. He scoffed at those who were left behind, and tried desperately to convince himself that he didn’t miss the feeling of gravity tugging at his flesh. He could watch them as ants from afar or so close that their eyes were the size of suns, but, he being little more than a floating idea, they paid him as little mind as they did when he was among them. Not only him, but they didn’t seem to mind a thing. He wanted to shout at them, he wanted to climb inside their brain and manipulate their thoughts to tell them that they’re oblivious, that they’re cursed and damned to live on that smog covered rock for what they won’t realize is eternity. But he couldn’t. The rest of the world continued eating, breathing, and sinning without a hiccup, unaware that there ever even was a rapture.

Tomorrow

by Eric Hill


The fucking hippies next door were driving dude nutso. With their guitar circles, bongos, were they bongos? Yea. And those ridiculous fucking circular things they shake that have the bells and shit on them. Do they actually think that shit is music? Unbelievable. The one guy has a beard down to his waist, skinny fucker with a bald head. Likely a premie baby - now he works 9 hours a week and spends the rest of his time smoking cigarettes and drinking PBR while telling the next nearest asshole his views on American consumerism. How fucked up it is we value arbitrary shit like brand names and vehicles and how much better off we’d all be if we’d only stop and play some music.


Meanwhile dude sits in his room, bored, thinking about all the shit he could and should do but likely won’t. Always thinking about it, though. He’ll read, he’ll write, he’ll hunker down and really just fucking commit to it. But it’s KIND OF FUCKING HARD TO CONCENTRATE WHEN YOU GOT CAPTAIN WOODSTOCK AND COMPANY CLAPPING AND SINGING AND SHIT OUTSIDE YOUR WINDOW. So he stops, how could he continue? It’s unimaginable. Dude can't possibly be expected to produce anything of value with this shit going on. That’s just one excuse, though, out of what seems an abyss of reasons to fill the day with nothingness. For every ingenious plan crafted there are two reasons not to follow through. There’s no way around it, and this is the shit that gets dude really irked.


Schools out and works slow, hours once dreaded are hours now missed. Boredom leads to frequent bursts of inspiration, some genius idea to do this and that or that and help people. Tomorrow dudes going to wake up and find a cause to get behind, something to promote, help, preach to anyone there to listen, willing or not, about how fucked up it is that in this country shit like that still goes on. And if motherfuckers would just wake the fuck up and start giving a shit all this could be solved. That’s what he’ll do tomorrow though, tonight it’s getting late and what could possibly be accomplished at such an hour?


Morning now and it’s looking to be quite the good one! The sun’s on its way up and the birds are absolutely ecstatic. Dude smacks on the TV, morning news and whatever, sees that aint shit happened since yesterday and decides that’s probably a good thing. Today’s the day, no more tomorrow bullshit when he’ll have all shitloads of time to be productive as all fuck. Definitely. He’ll wake up tomorrow before the sun’s got the birds all euphoric and get the freshest fucking start imaginable and things will get real serious, names will be taken, bags will be checked, and dude’s world will begin to change.

Yeah, tomorrow will be excellent.

Snack on a Sample

"Untitled"

Forthcoming from Nick Kotecki

***

We revert our speech when we speak to Grandpa.

“All – you – have – to – do – is: press the button.”

“Which button.”

“The defrost button, Grandpa.”

We talk to him as if he were a puppy dog or a kitten, the same way we address our infants, our babies, our toddlers if we have them. We tighten the valves and strings of our vocal cords and inhale extra helium from the air, so that when we speak all of our utterances sound like questions.

“You see, Grandpa, when you take the corn out of the freezer you need to defrost it first.”

“I did.”

“Not on the counter, in the microwave.”

“It was delicious.”

“Well, don't you think it would taste better warm and with some butter maybe?”

Another thing: rarely do we ask Grandpa questions. Our questions are actually little twists of the arm, they are mandated suggestions. We all know the rules. Grandpa is just learning. We are his teachers.

When we do ask Grandpa questions, we don't ask him anything.

“Is Grandpa cold?”

“Grandpa's hands feel like ice.”

“I'm fine.”

“Can you get Grandpa's sweater for me?”

“The sun is gorgeous. Great.”

“Does Grandpa want to go inside?”

We ask those around Grandpa what he needs. Grandpa doesn't know about his sugar intake or his constipation or his sensitive kidneys. We know it for him.

“Does Grandpa want more potatoes?”

“Broccoli. Cheese. I want that.”

“Pass me the bowl of potatoes for Grandpa.”

Grandpa always scrapes his plate clean. He always wears the bib we have suggested for him to wear at family dinners. The bibs are not plain white. They are ornate, often matching the color of the dinner's main entree.

“The cheese is delicious.”

We always wipe Grandpa's face with his bib.