Punk Monk Press/Magazine

He is now dead In such a way She is dead to him A testament of loves Obliterated like a newly caught fish Guts spilled out like a pregnant belly Swollen with perished affection and Scented with spoiled possibilities His hands emptier than a sheep's eye socket Or the crust of a planet Scorched by a star One ear bursting with pussy willows The other oozing infection hot with fever Her paws will never again prey upon his heart And her beak will not chirp into his ocean No matter how many sunrises he may see Never will it be as beautiful as passing them up with her The cinnamon dusted foam Contains nothing but stars Sparks turn the welkin from blue to gray and back He tastes the sea on her breath and the copper coils But nevermore will wings and paws collide --Eden Cook

RESTLESS Other countries are. I am not bolted to  America as this one is or that one is. I can catch a flight, be in  Canada  inside the hour. Or in  Mexico  in maybe four. I'm not condemned to this street, this town, this state, this anything. The ocean at my door is nothing. My loving you doesn't prevent me crossing it. Sure I can't speak French or German like a native but who wants to be a native anyhow. My passport's in order. I've money for the plane, the hotel. I could be a Scottish fishing village, a Moroccan bazaar, a Japanese theme park... that's what you have here, a guy with the potential for being somewhere else. You think that without stakes in the ground, there is no ground, that where you are is where you have to be. You call my name but no louder than  Helsinki calls my name. You make a home for me. But I look at a map and see no homes. THE DOCTORS AT THE ASYLUM

I once was coy, but you stole that away told me to be coy with all except you - that is something that is spinning itself true; I've never yielded for any before you they all swam in oceans of my coyness, unable to ever extricate themselves from my web of cleverness, but you broke my webs and reminded me I was no spider; you ruffled my feathers in the hopes that I'd raise your fur - I've never been accustomed to laying bare my heart beating in a drum; I've always had an escape plan from other predators, I never willingly laid as prey before them yet I allowed you to pin me beneath your paws; your impish grin and the flash of your teeth told me just how wolfish you were, and I ought not have anticipated anything less of a wolf; I cannot help but worry if you'll stain the sheets scarlet with my life's blood. --Linda Crate

Jana wants to be alone, if only for a little while. Without a goodbye, she leaves her comfortable house, and with a sigh and a huff drives to the nearest hotel. "How many nights?" the man at the desk asks. She doesn't know. Maybe one. Maybe none. Maybe a week. He gives her a key. It's stained yellow and smells like years of lingering smoke. Jana walks to the elevator. The man at the desk must think she's up to no good. No one can be up to any good when they check into a hotel without suitcases. He probably thinks she's meeting someone for a fling. A fling is the last thing on her mind. The elevator stops on the fourth floor. The floor is quiet save for the reverberation of her steps. It sounds hollow, like the hallway hasn't been traversed in forever. Jana stops at room 423. The number means nothing to her except escape. The door opens with ease and slams her shut in the room. Jana falls on the bed without removing the comforter she knows

an executioner was burned at the stake at 3:59 am. “make a few coffins later for her legs,” his last words to be etched on a marker a funeral pushes into me with advanced skills she. is. ...composed ...totally of cellulose i am. historically ...a soil’s path gaping wide muscle systems singing gently because of shame. they’re baked by a sharp, stinging force. that requires the animals to dance. seen from above it’s shuddering seen from below it’s laughing "can you talk?" she whispered wait to kiss her in ten years. “it’s my throat.” an ideal for caskets existing in the image eliminates the need for the exact time. combining of ingredients ends, juicing, dehydration, sprouting, laying open foliage sprouted through clotted blood as predicted. an executioner was burned at the stake at 3:59 am. I gasped at a tree branch I grasped at an inscription I moved to kiss her she understood my direction. I felt and I embraced her as

I want to cut a small slit in the skin of his forearm Pull back the skin from muscle- Banana peel from the fruit Cuddle into the fetal position and live in the sleeping bag of his body He could carry me, tucked under shirt sleeves that are yanked down around his bony wrists Jostled when he drums on the steering wheel sitting in carbon scented traffic He could take me out during showers place me on the clam shaped soap dish I could whisper the time to him when he needs it and I would be a piece of him until the blood poisoning set in. --Danielle Donaldson

Rusted bus in the junkyard decapitated city beyond the fence spiderwebs coated with dust windows broken under some dark sky I haven't noticed where time has gone can't see my perception weighting heavy bus with flat tires a cop copter flying overhead spotlight flicking by as if I'm not here but I am starting a dance they would kill to see my heels pounding sex through the floorboards dripping one ghost after another. --Anita McQueen

Dance For A Sun You’ve been skidding around me for a few months. Not enough for me to pull you like a curtain, towards me, but plenty to feel you are tied to the piece of string around my neck a noose of pirated thoughts just for you. I’ve watched you in a clumsy shamanic trance but it is not going to bring you closer. Not if you keep slipping, each stumble locking you deeper and deeper into the ice. Where I cannot go. Body Language If he ever said that phrase again, she’d pry her fingernails off. Seashell pink she’d pile them on the glittering countertop sea in a line he’d never understand. Emptiness in tiny containers.

work drives me mental it’s been madness all day I can’t wait to relax undress recklessly throw my clothes all over the floor have a nice hot soak with the new body shop petal scented bubble bath cornflowers essential oil of daises infused with long purples and I’ll just lie back listen to some trance tunes drift off into a little world of my own making --iDrew

After the storm, things beached all along the Keys: corpses, bottles, bloated books bursting out of bindings. She turned sopped clothing with driftwood sticks, brushed aside the man o’ wars purple as the rancid hands she dared herself to touch. She hoped to snatch doubloons washed up like the scales of a gilded fish, the hurricane a boon to Largo salvagers. She dumped a bottle full of sand, lifted it to her lips and blew across the bore. She found one unopened, popped it with her teeth. The cap tumbled to gleam at her feet like a coin. She sipped, and sipped again, assumed the brine was beer. --Paul David Adkins