We All Die of Our Nightmares in the End. ( R )
by BRENDAN McCORMACK
The trains are darkly packed in the station,
Hundreds of carriages
Brooding next to each other
Upon tracks leading nowhere.
We are underground.
A black heat smothers
What air that hangs around.
There are millions of trains
That wait underground.
They’ll breach the earth
When the clocks arrive at the departure.
Humming up out of tunnels
Into that bright glass sky.
Father forgive me I am original.
My double helix reverts to the end
Of the strands,feeding fires with black coal,
Skin blisters ,
The wet pus under skin bubbles up.
Red hot. White hot.
There is one woman alone on the platform.
She is naked.
I can see her body. She has no face.
She does not speak.
I am a ghost who does not trust the voice anymore.
It is not me that is making these words in my mind.
I long for the barking of dogs.
Asymmetric sounds.
I long for knowing.
Animals leave the carriages next.
The station is full of anumals leaving the carriages.
Other tunnels take them away.
I have nothing but tears.
The woman comes past me.
I see her naked body.
Covered in sores.
The animals are gone.
She leaves.
We’ll go now says the voice in my head.
We All Die of Our Nightmares in the End. ( R )
Press play to play again.
Press play to play again.
Scrambling
by BRENDAN McCORMACK
Air shimmering as heat rises –
I don’t know.
Soft salads trailed with balsamic vinegar.
Half eaten eggs,
Yolks dripping
Onto white morning plates.
I am shaking.
I remember a song.
Iggy Pop screaming with his canine jawing voice.
“I’m vibrating.”
Oim Voybrating.
Death is on me.
I am vibrating.
7 and more on the Richter scale.
These are 8 or more on the Sphincter Scale.
When was it fear
Set up house inside of me?
(
A basket of white eggs carried
Through the graveyard on shining spades,
Or shovels,
To the great feast.
)
My thoughts fall off the shelves.
Identities tumble from wardrobes.
Buddha, Jesus,
Buddha, Jesus,
I can see the wound,
Bleeding
All over a Dublin street,
Buddha, Jesus,
Buddha, Jesus,
I broke bones before,
Sat for days
With the pain
And a grin,
Knowing bones were nothing.
Now
I am shaking
As life breathes into me
And death exhales
I am changing
From everlasting
To mortal,
From King
To Pauper,
From font
To pencil.
I look around and see
People like me.
I am terrified.
Terrified.
The eggs will be on the plates
Again
In the morning.
Sunning themselves.
While I sharpen
Myself
Once more.
Shavings
Littering the floor.
Brendan McCormack is a 42 year old poet living and working in Dublin. He has had his work recently published online in the following publications: Street Cake Magazine, Primal Urge Magazine, Bone Orchard Journal and Outburst Magazine. He first collection of poems, Selling Heaven is available soon online from Amazon.
Killer Mind
by PHILLIP LARREA
Killer mind
Profiled ill
Since third grade.
No permits
To work here.
‘Go west’, gone.
Unsexy
Sick bastard.
We’ll fix him.
Phillip Larrea is a syndicated columnist, and has been a widely published poet in the U.S., U.K. and Eastern Europe. His first chapbook, Our Patch (Writing Knights Press), was released January 2013. Phillip’s first full-length poetry collection, We, the People (Cold River Press), released April, 2013.
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