Punk Monk Press/Magazine

you were the gorilla thumping its chest in victory but your power was not the roar of a lion among  tall grasses of arid plains but weakness like a young foal struggling to stand for the first time minus the innocent beauty like her forever marred on the day you took it from her against her will leaving her crumpled and broken collapsed, graceless, and bleeding afterwards her nightmares were only of sound the grunting of gorillas but it felt good to you slick and wet and all you recalled was that she was upset because she was a Catholic girl who lost her virginity --Casey Powers

Mother ~~~~ Mother, you’re so funny with your sterile, marbled emotions, smooth to the touch. And your words that bleed out of your mouth, like a pig going to the slaughter. Mother, you’re so funny with your hot cross bun eyes, and raisin mouth, round and puckered, shriveled to silence like a piece of dead skin. You’re so funny With your numb white fingers pressing, always pressing, down, like a pen in my head. But I’m not laughing anymore. I’ve stopped laughing. ~~~ Snowflakes ~~~ Snowflakes: light, innocent, soft. Newborn babies falling from the sky. Landing, dissolving wherever chance takes them: subjected to nature's laws. Silent; the perfect offspring, seen but never heard. Sculpted ice babies, it’s a shame you have to melt, disintegrate. It will be a slow process, like a snake shedding its skin or a caterpillar: hot and sticky, struggling in its own secretions, waiti...

Speak Your Peace was a blast. You shoulda been. Right now I have no computer, ie no real access to the awesome poetry of that eve, or the awesome vids depicting said poetry. I will TRY to get this sorted prior to my Eurotravels, but there's no guarantee. Same goes for all other pending submissions/scheduled publications. Neglect, love... Love, neglect. How do we reconcile them?* Love, (The neglectful) Caitlin *Irvine Welsh reference (a la The Undefeated: An Acid House Romance), in case it wasn't obvious