Monthly Archives: January 2023

Dylan Loring

We were going to make a blood oath

but instead of a needle you used a dagger
and started gushing, and I vomited on
your mostly severed finger,
and you told me I needed to take you to the hospital,
but I told you I needed a less smelly shirt
because not all of the vomit landed on the finger,
and you said if we have to wait anyway
we might as well do the blood oath
while you were already bleeding,
and so you handed me the dagger,
and I intentionally dropped it
because at least one of us needed enough blood to drive,
and you told me to watch it because the dagger cost $500,
so I asked why I paid for your lunch,
and you said because it was sweet to do it
up until I made that crack,
and so I decided to change the subject back to the hospital,
but you insisted on doing the blood oath immediately
in case you didn’t make it
because even as you passed out
from a vampiric wet dream-level of blood loss,
you were able to argue that it made a better obituary
if the blood oath was successful,
but I totally disagreed
and so could no longer take the blood oath
in good conscience.

Mark Young

                      from 100 Titles From Tom Beckett


#100: Lust and Listlessness

He once kept secret lists,
on a regular basis, of the
emotional states he passed
through. Would collate them
monthly. Lust, it turned out,
was the prime recurring state;
embarrassingly so, especially
when his husband discovered

his notations & saw that the
lust was pointed in other dire-
ctions. A number of harsh
words were exchanged, many
ultimatums. He has now begun
a forced course of listlessness.

Nicholas Ravnikar

The Book of Money

I shook the tree twice — once on top and once on bottom.
We saw the children, then,
arguing for their right to anger
in an old language we forgot
to teach them. 
They hid a part of me away
and never showed me where.
We count all the new money twice as it falls on us.
That’s the way of these worn facets.
rolling over and rolling over — past time. After it.
Still, they call me a liar.
God knows where my grave is,
but it’s filled with your best advice.
If I read it aloud, nobody would believe me.

Matthew Schmidt

Cranial Repo

I rip my head off
with the best of them.
What moguls

are to the skier: alpine
throes in crepuscular spleen.
When I exfoliate

my brain stem, ribald
speech tolls consequence
for sheep. Penned,

they sup on stalks.
Selected to tup
as castrato

the ram will not bleat.
Soprano arias
when the market

herds them to the abattoir.
Colloquial, all I really know.
Tongue-sin for tungsten

when the filament shorts.
To muzzle with fiery tongs
or Scold’s bridle.