Punk Monk Press/Magazine

--Tabetha P.

(CW for abuse)  and i remember watching the way vampires turned to dust  and dust is the thing they tell me  we'll all return to someday on sundays in the church pews hiding myself in my memories of television  and not thinking about the hair on my father's knuckles the smell of his tobacco-drunk 'breath as he wraps those hands around my throat after i say something about how  i think Buffy could probably beat god in a fight - Gary Reddin

Denial, deceit, doubt. It's what they spew at the odd shapes in this narrow world. The pocked marked, stretch marked flesh has become synonymous with shit.  Why are women held back from rights, respect, and acceptance just because they are too dark, pale, fat, or even too thin in the wrong places?  How is it that our bodies are only worshiped if we are deemed fuckable by snotty, uneducated teenage boys that spend Saturday nights jerking off?  When did it become a possibility to steal away the pure hyman from the  little girl who can't say no… Or even if they do- to the big, strong man who was supposed to protect her…  Can round, voluptuously soft shapes become equal to the air brushed softcore porn magazines aimed at misplaced misogyny without it being the latest trend?  Stomach in, tits out! That's the posture the female race is taught. It is embedded in prepubescent little children. No breasts, big belly, no love. No love.  No love. --Kim Acrylic

  -- Theresa K Jakobsen

  The flower behind my ear is oleander picked from the side of the highway and the sap drips down my neck to the softness where I dream of him kissing me, his lips flecked with from his unfiltered cigarettes. I would roll his cigs. I would lick the paper. He’s the type who would have worn a sheriff badge back in frontier days except now he hardly ever wears a shirt over his Levi’s so where would the pin go but into his chest? Where would the pin go but into the hard muscle, into the softness.  - Maureen O'Leary  

On the highway I pass cars just to see if their mirrors light up. It’s because blind spot detection can’t sense motorcycles. I need to know if they can see me. When they merge at me— and they always do, 4000 pounds of car careening at 300 pounds of bike— swerving is safer than braking. Braking leads to skidding, and skidding to losing control and I don’t want to die today so I need to read the space around me. I need to keep myself safe.   It isn’t hard to swerve on a bike. The trick is to see it coming. -- Natalie Schriefer

  --Kimber Acrylic

On the Demolition of our Home, after Renting for Eight Years                          Look closer you’ll see me in the window  double-hung open curtains cinched  like Cinderella’s funeral shroud just left of the front porch above the pink lemonade bush sitting on my bed typing & crying & cursing you with your fancy car big real estate purchase cell phone boldness  just getting some shots  for the demolition the new construction for your condos you’ll notice back at the office a funny shadow in the frame  squint a little harder that’s my middle finger pointing straight up  like the hour-hand  announcing midnight at the ball  small but you can see  the pumpkin you’re smashing is my family. - Candace M. Kelsey 

They say Nora had a good innings. Her life stretched from the rumbling bellies of rationing to the time we were told ‘stay inside’. And how those in-between years were magical: falling in love, dancing until sunrise, raising a family in a house built with her own bare hands. But looking at Nora’s picture, her smile beaming back, blue eyes still sparkling with life, 90 years feels like shortchange. Even 900 wouldn’t have been enough. -- Anna Sanderson  

I am motionless  until I move  I am emotionless until  I explode into a foaming rage at a total stranger in the co-op carpark where my step-daughter  picks my drunk ass up  from the micro-pub  she’s just a whiff of a girl  but she puts me in my place -- J. Archer Avary

Our EIC's rapper alter ego Sara Tonin has released their first EP, Self Care.  Lo-fi and super DIY, Sara Tonin uses Creative Commons beats from the internet to tell morbid tales of mental illness, from pills to panic attacks.  This EP is the first official release from our brother label, Punk Monk Records!  Watch the music video for the single ft Halifax rapper paollo13:  Listen to the full album for free on  Bandcamp . 

  kvrv isn't a fan of u's, but they are a huge fan of creativity.  Described as "Bowie goes Goth", this four-piece features glam rock, grindcore, and gothic influences.  They reminisce on the ups and downs of the production process:  "We recorded our first album  during one of the UK's periodic covid lockdowns, which occasionally proved tricky as we weren't always in the same part of the country, or the same country, even. But we somehow managed to finish, only to find our former manager was threatening to sue us... Which was inconvenient, to say the least."  They persevered, finding a much nicer manager:  "(Our new manager) sent us away on a lovely yacht... We floated around for a couple of weeks, writing new songs and being very naughty under the beautiful ink black sky."  The result: bvmp n grind, their second, and latest, work.  "It's down and dirty and rocky and the strings buzz and we go hoarse every now and then but you know

--Rachel Bere  

red and blue in a sweaty dance Skin glistening in three dimensions,  fingers stretched towards them pick and choose A thumb rubs the smooth nubs of the tv remote and I’m supposed to want my limbs to lift from the screen exposed to filmy eyes behind paper glasses paper that came from a redwood tree older than a great-great-grandmother’s birth I am watched through the ground-up valves, the flattened pulp of a heart. -- E.E. Jacobs

Will landed in Hanoi, Vietnam—coming from Chiang Mai, Thailand.  The first vivisection of streets and alleyway exploded with sights and noises, unlike anything he’d seen or heard. There were motorbikes revving by, people were shouting, selling things like dead chickens and peanuts. The air was bad. He knew he was near the walking district. He went there. He found himself enraptured by the dark sky covering Hanoi like a blanket. A city of nine million people came to life within the hum of traffic echoing from conversations in Vietnamese. People spat out the shells of sunflower seeds. They drank yellow tea. Talking, laughing, they slammed their fists down. They ordered more cans of beer. Tourists flocked nearby. Beer was fifty cents USD. After drinking two cans and walking in circles, Will came across a taxi driver. “Hey, where you going?” “Nowhere." “Where you from?” In a few minutes the young Vietnamese man was video chatting with his wife. He turned the phone to show Will. Will w

  She’s corgi.    Mom had her since a puppy.   My mom, Willett went into Cresthaven, she couldn’t keep her.    Is there a newsletter? Oh, a webpage. If you could put up Lady’s picture. She is a sweetie. I think Lady was the only one Willett knew towards the end. Cresthaven didn’t allow dogs, but Willett couldn’t have her. We have her in a crate     in the foyer off the kitchen. Sam and I,   we have two teens, we’re out all day and Lady’s fine. She’s seventeen.    Oh, a place in Weatherford takes seniors. That’s a drive from Ozona. Like you, I’m out showing  properties. Sam’s on call with Texas Power.   The kids with their activities, Michelle’s in band. Maybe your webpage. Lady’s   a sweetheart. Willett, people used to say, She is just like your child. We had dogs growing up in Witchita Falls. No, we can’t   keep her. That’s out of the question. A shelter here in Ozona.    I hadn’t known. That would be better than taking her out and dropping her in the Sandhills. We can’t keep her. Sam

  -- Ruthenium  

We just get done  Picking our health insurance    Mandatory open enrollment  And outside, gray and cold clouds  But no rain    The threat, maybe  Prevents me from staining the  Kid’s playground  Like I’ve talked about doing  The last three weeks    I shuffle off to my den  Like a Thorazine victim  And do crunches  And leg lifts because its  Too cold to go out  Too cold to plant a garden    Check email  Wish for something to say  So maybe I can blog for a living – instead of this  Put little exclamation points in the  Upper right hand corner of the page  Of all the poems I like    And maybe soon go to the library  I’ll need a book to listen to on the way to work tomorrow And these odometers and overdue  Notices and missed opportunities  Don’t have me.  Yet.     I find it hard to believe  People can make a living off advertisement  Till I go outside, till I go where the people do  And see the way they dress  The way they move, and  Talk and ignore each other like marked fire hydrants  Of