Miss Amtrak by Audrey Lee

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I’m reading Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker.

When the train comes to a stop in Elkhart, Indiana I’m on page 18. The child prostitute narrator is describing her vagina as beef. I’m tough, rotted, putrid beef. Kathy Acker’s writing is really gross and I check Twitter in between pages to read some more normal material, like about this rapper who is trending because he called his baby mama “Miss Amtrak.” Things could be worse, I think as I watch an Amish family with their toddler son board the packed train. I could be taking Amtrak to get fucked. That would be desperate and slutty.

I watch the Amish family putter up and down the aisle with their toddler son. When the train jostles as it picks up speed they lose their balance and fall into each other. They look like lost kittens, pathetic and helpless in their dour clothes. They look as dumb as their drooling toddler son.

Fuck, I think. The seat next to me is empty. The aisle seats in front of me are open. They’re gonna sit the kid next to me.

I turn my attention back to Blood and Guts in High School while the Amish toddler crawls clumsily into the seat next to me. I feel his blank, baby eyes staring at me while his parents stumble over themselves to put their bags away. Thank God this kid can’t read, I think, and turn to page 19.

Kathy Acker included illustrations in Blood and Guts in High School. The back cover describes the book as a “controversial, transgressive, work of philosophical, political, and sexual insight,” and that “the text is illustrated with intricate sketches.” Page 19 is a full-page drawing of a hairy vagina. The words MY CUNT RED UGH are printed where the asshole would be. I’m slow to register what I’m looking at until I realize that the Amish toddler is looking at it too.

Audrey Lee wrote the chapbooks Disjecta Membra (Bottlecap Press, 2022) and Probably, Angels (Maverick Duck Press, 2020). She lives in South Philadelphia and is so normal on Twitter @postpunkpoet and at www.audreymorganlee.com. 

3 Poems by Cletus Crow

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SEASONAL ALLERGIES

Asshole arborists 
mostly plant male trees. 
Population management:
because life can’t happen
without paper work.
The trees are horny.
They pollinate my eyes. 
Yellow cum covers my car
and everything else.
Someone drew a smiley face 
on the windshield.
Someone drew a penis.
Someone wrote “I love you”
on both headlights.

IDEATION 

They should invent true happiness. 
You feel nothing
perched on the Cliffs of Moher
beside the beige tourist. 
They should make a way to jump
without dying
so you can feel air through your fur.
They should put that feeling 
in a syringe,
but you feel like falling for real,
so they should invent God 
or some massive net. 
You feel yourself step forward.
They should let you do it,
but no one wants to ruin the moment.
There are kids here. 
You’re sorry for their open eyes.

SLEEPOVER

I propose a dick measuring contest.
The loser must strip
completely naked
and run once around the block.
Mark grips his tighty-whitey waistband
like an elastic noose.
What are you gay Mark I ask.
Everyone laughs. I almost feel sad.
He shuts his eyes drops pants
and it’s the biggest penis
I’ve ever seen
except for pornography.
Your turn asshole Mark says seething.
The foggy twilight
cools my erection like a snake
on some moss slick boulder.

Cletus Crow is a writer from Middle Tennessee. He has a chapbook with Gob Pile Press.

‘Dying as a Habit of Expansion’ by Lucas Restivo

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I’m about to reach max saturation 
Turn completely spherical 
Leave a slug trail when I roll 


At first it’s frightening
Feeling more and less of different intervals and levels


Then it’s exhausting and awful
Then you get used to it


Still I bet you this
One day you’re out somewhere maybe the park 
You bump into someone you haven’t seen in awhile 
Between the how longs and now what’s they say something 
Maybe the time you puked in geography
Or marital problems
Or trees smell like antique cardboard 

Continue reading “‘Dying as a Habit of Expansion’ by Lucas Restivo” →

Three Coal Poems by Ben Niespodziany

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The Logger’s Daughter 

The logger longed for a daughter and when his daughter arrived he was crushed by a truck, stuck between tree and spleen. The daughter remembers nothing of her logger father but her hands do not dance around a saw.

When the War Formed

When the war formed in our corner of the room we moved to another corner of the room. We’re safe here, we said to each other, eyeing the corner with the war. When the war found us in our new corner we stepped out of the window and took to the roof. We could hear the war below us, fighting and writhing, such muffled exhaust. We’re safe here, we said to each other, our dying phones ringing with pleas.

Coal 

It was a long line to the coal mine so we left early and arrived late. The animals inside of the mine were praying or they were dead. We will try again and again.

Benjamin Niespodziany is a Pushcart Prize nominee and Best Microfiction nominee. He has been featured in the Wigleaf Top 50 and has had work appear in Hobart, Maudlin House, X-R-A-Y, Screaming into a Horse’s Mouth, and various others. He works nights in a library in Chicago.

“Here’s a Little Prayer” by Troy James Weaver

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When she wakes up, she immediately recalls the last bib she threw to the Goodwill, the last piece of fabric that remained. She’d already been done with the shoes, the little shirts, the pants and the onesies.

Her eyes well as she fingers the rope, her bed companion she spoons in sleep.

The zoo is always empty when she goes, which she likes. She can push through and really get what she wants. She doesn’t go to see the animals. She goes to feel less alone. And the animals always provide, even if she doesn’t see them. Just knowing they are there and always will be. Seeing the changes in the exhibits, the color gradients, the incline of a path, however jarring and resistant, is welcome. The surprising in the ordinary, in the known. Routine. The unknown is a burden girdled to prayer.

The last time she prayed was the day she buried her son. She prayed for the impossible. Then waited. But it wasn’t hers. That prayer belonged to the earth.

When the rope tickles her palms in her sleep, she sees, so clear and possible, what she thinks she needs, what she wants, in dreams, then wakes up and moves into the heat of a new day, forgetting.

She’s a haunted house, who lies about her occupants.

“I hope the last prayer I hear is the sound of the branch breaking,” she says.

Minutes pass watching the ceiling fan circle.

Troy James Weaver lives in Wichita, Kansas. He is normal.

“Revised Syllabus As Personal Essay By A Former Zoom Teacher” — Andy Tran

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Intro to Creative Writing

Summer 2020
Monday-Thursday 1:30-3:30 PM

8/10-8/27

Mr. Andrew Tran

Welcome!

I’m thinking about railing a long white line off of my iPhone, and I’m also thinking about buying Ketamine with my future paycheck. Right now, I’m wearing a blue suit and staring at my computer screen,  my face is reflected back and it’s hard to look at myself. I’ve made PowerPoint slides with art from Banksy and Basquiat. I wonder if the kids are excited to learn about Ekphrastic poems.

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Mr. Tran Intro/Half Truths

My name is Mr. Tran. My favorite animal is a Siberian husky. My favorite food is steak. My favorite color is blue. If I could anywhere in the world, I would go to Alaska. I would love to have dinner with a jiggly puff!

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It’s my second day as a Zoom creative writing teacher at a private school. I’ve never taught a class before and I don’t have a degree in education. I don’t have a teaching license, but I have worked with kids on two separate occasions. In Northern, VA, I taught kids at a summer Tennis camp based out of a country club. I’ve also been a support educator/helper at a Jewish Community Center. I know how to coach kids on serves and volleys, and I know how to change diapers. But I also know a few brief things about creative writing. 

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I’M DONE DELLILO by Marston Hefner

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IF DELILLO HAD A HORSE THAT WAS INTELLIGENT AND THE HORSE HAD THUMBS AND WROTE BESIDE DELILO> IF DELOILO TOAGHT THE HORSE HOW TO WRITE ID BE THE HORSE

IM DELILLOS HORSE. WATCH ME WRITE.

IF DELILLO HAD A HORSE INSIDE A VACUUM WITH NO AIR OR MATTER ID WRITE IN THE VACUUM. THROUGH THE VACUUM DELILLO CARED ABOUT MY IMPROVEMENT. I AM HIS HORSE. I AM DON’S PRIDE AND JOY. 

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