Punk Monk Press/Magazine

  --Erin Hoffman

(Contains copious Joy Division song titles and a part of the lyrics of their song "Transmission.") There's Saints along the pavement – you're left to wonder where the night went - He seemed so happy You weren't one needed You weren't one needed begged to see the pain the stare the hours the twitch smoking some more so free so free so free on the hill He's alone how few you know  truly walking the path of isolation with the bloom of hope long ago dead perfume of rot blends with exhaust  perfect escape for your Hero of the lost lights how you watch with awe dance dance dance to the rhythm of the rain out past the interzone into the wilderness decades of insight in the shadowplay as new dawn fades new dawn fades into ice age waiting its turn losing patience every minute  & bend fight holler contort like the devil's spine through pains disorders bring a  laugh what a laugh hero  worship the ones who lived with this pain not understanding you were their

Which is an alchemy of memory and words cinema splattered across my film screen brain. Which is shots of vodka in a college dorm room before crappy apartment masquerades, followed by 3 a.m.  Harry Potter  binges — when we're starved for home fries but settle for childhood comfort, can't get the spins to stop. Which is catching thumbprint frogs in the creek behind Grandma and Grandpa's hill country house, the neighbor's White Shepherd guiding us home while sticky frog toes slap against our clam tight palms. Which is how my heart fluttered when Cole kissed my sour candy mouth at the Sugarland AMC and the boy on the yellow scooter unlatched my hand from his ribcage to brush his lips against my whiplashed knuckles at a downtown Austin stoplight. Which is a home that curdles to a ghost town if I stay too long in its heat. Which is why I can't go home. Which is the happiest place on earth brimstoned into hell. Which is a bonfire in Kip's backyard making suburban lumbe

Never understood how you got addicted to the sunset, when there was a side of family waiting in Mattituck, promised beach home not far from Manhattan on clear days.   Bliss roots rested in Oklahoma carried from Maine at the end of pistol smoke fired in Texas across the Red River into territory before the sooners and oil.   You could see beyond the miles of car dealerships and neon signs of fast-food chains into the scarlet of Muskogee, a town someone had to be trapped in or love to stay.   Driving in hellish summer highway heat on a Chevy’s bench seat, you never shared your young man stories, glory come and gone, held in the stone of a West Point ring.   I would’ve been too young to understand the context of war, demands of service, body betrayed you before I had a chance to age, the command in your voice, no longer navigating the world.  --Daniel Bliss

  Two Truths and a Lie               I hiked in an ice cave in Iceland  I followed  the tour guide through the narrow corners in a maze of snow. Mist blowing on the drifts as I stared at the emerald glass ceiling of ice. Connor, a 30ish man and I debated whether the sky blue wall  was a cloud hovering above or a dragon spreading its wings, targeting us with its eyes for entering its home. I walked on the skeletal ribs of the tunnel and onto the mountain. I jumped off the Park Inn Hotel in Germany                    The people were spots below and I was a bird perched on the metal plank Two, one, the  woman counted  and I was released into the soak stained buildings and sky. The man looks up, gesturing with his hands while I’m suspended over the fast food restaurant in the hotel. “How was it?” the man asks and I say I’m alive, I’m living, every nerve within me is a knife.  I’m married with two kids. You left early that Friday, which was unusual for you. You only took half days. I didn’t

My wife leaves her soiled pads in the trash next to the toilet In the kitchen, a Styrofoam plate contains blood from an exterminated  cow bred in captivity and darkness and fed on genetic manipulations The days are ending earlier on earth An August light drains in autumn winds soaked by diminished icebergs, so what can one do? Time to change the kitty litter   8 1 23 --Mike Gordon

  --Channie Greenberg