Punk Monk Press/Magazine

Here I am  in my fantastic automobile  cruising down the highway  at eighty miles an hour  with blur on all sides,  nothingness behind  and a full moon on the horizon  that I'm headed straight for.   It's supposed to be 384,000 miles away.   The faster I go, the more I know better.   -- John Grey

In this vid I give you a sneak peak into one of the book party giveaways, and lift up some awesome folks. Check out my blogthoughts here!

your nephew said I was the cool one (ripped jeans)      it gave me a kind  of complex     nothing was the same    after that day at the zoo      an old  chimpanzee contemplated suicide in  the corner of his cage       how life    knows a multitude of ways to restrain you  I considered   myself                lost in the crowd        not answering my phone    nor trying to find you     I know  that’s not feasible I mean we were kids  pushing kids     blue by the aquarium    glass    big-eyed fish couldn’t notice us  if they tried   the big room shimmering  in the gray January light   we trapped --James Croal Jackson

And check out my blogthoughts here

  This body I have now Is the one I wanted in my 20s, The muscles on my arms, my stomach Defined, Promising the attractiveness I was so sure Would snare The love I craved. Here, at 53, this body Slower but more athletic, Stiffened, but more limber. At my age I’m told No tank tops, no sleeveless, No fitted anything. Age, designed to be One more shame, Of this body old enough To know old enough, finally, To love the love of itself, This mother loving a son, With no partner, no backup, No need   Beyond the need Of knowing herself. --Irena Praitis

 

The painting was done in acrylics on a windowpane scrounged from a dumpster at Wesleyan. A naked girl cowered in a corner, a church, the pews made of razors covered in crusts of real blood, the last one coming at her. Outlines of her naked form and the church window were scraped, etched by fingernail to look like stained glass. Left in a cemetery as a gift to the dead, stolen by a supposed friend-- it was never given a proper funeral, paid respects, until now. Goodbye is in the tossing of petals. --Renee Elizabeth