Brothel Linens Talk
(pen, ink, and pastel)
An illustration by Brian Redding.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Nature's Untitled
Nature's Untitled
by Gordon Riggs
Fountain streams; chorus themes of Morning doves, Nightingales, and whippoorwills.
Water lilies sparkle white and pink with flaxen-gold at the mornings rise.
Harp in hand by the pools of foam silver, coral, and earth brown.
Ebony chestnut, dark amber flows curled and wavy her hair.
Silkworm woven, sapphire-diamond her gown.
Pearl cream shin; enchanting like the moon.
And eyes of old forest.
Then laughter and dancing, singing and chanting the voices of brooks, rills, wind, and of
wild flowers. Birds of all feathers chorus along.
And then I called to her in voice, but it became projected thoughts of mind.
"Harken, my word, good tidings and greetings all around. Please by your leave;
allow me the pleasure, the privilege, the knowledge to your name. For now I am unsure,
I would deem this moment, but a waking dream!"
"Fear not curious one; Adam's son. Tis not a dream;
for my name is many, and I am no daughter of Eve."
"When the stars were young, and the ground, earth, and seas boiled, shook, and quaked.
I began the waking song the sapling trees in fertile lands; welcomed the pedals and flower
blossoms to show their faces. And witnessed the birth of the birds and the bees."
"But, surely you jest, and with no disrespect; for you look younger, not older than myself."
"Trouble not your mind, Adam's son. For there are many wonders, and mysteries that
people can not fathom in this world. Embrace what you hear, feel, and see.
Take the moment, the instant at hand. For what do your senses tell you?"
"Many things; they reveal great splendor, and great doubt.
Hence, I have been in long study of the universities of man: science, technology, and the economy are the sustenance of truth, they claim to be true.
Methinks, it is more so involved in the secret brotherhood of stock and trade.
I am a wanderer, a gatherer of art you can say.
And at times, numbed for the better, and for the worst."
"Come then Adam's son, walk with me awhile; open your mind, your spirit, your senses.
And then in time, ask yourself, "What have I to contribute?"
by Gordon Riggs
Fountain streams; chorus themes of Morning doves, Nightingales, and whippoorwills.
Water lilies sparkle white and pink with flaxen-gold at the mornings rise.
Harp in hand by the pools of foam silver, coral, and earth brown.
Ebony chestnut, dark amber flows curled and wavy her hair.
Silkworm woven, sapphire-diamond her gown.
Pearl cream shin; enchanting like the moon.
And eyes of old forest.
Then laughter and dancing, singing and chanting the voices of brooks, rills, wind, and of
wild flowers. Birds of all feathers chorus along.
And then I called to her in voice, but it became projected thoughts of mind.
"Harken, my word, good tidings and greetings all around. Please by your leave;
allow me the pleasure, the privilege, the knowledge to your name. For now I am unsure,
I would deem this moment, but a waking dream!"
"Fear not curious one; Adam's son. Tis not a dream;
for my name is many, and I am no daughter of Eve."
"When the stars were young, and the ground, earth, and seas boiled, shook, and quaked.
I began the waking song the sapling trees in fertile lands; welcomed the pedals and flower
blossoms to show their faces. And witnessed the birth of the birds and the bees."
"But, surely you jest, and with no disrespect; for you look younger, not older than myself."
"Trouble not your mind, Adam's son. For there are many wonders, and mysteries that
people can not fathom in this world. Embrace what you hear, feel, and see.
Take the moment, the instant at hand. For what do your senses tell you?"
"Many things; they reveal great splendor, and great doubt.
Hence, I have been in long study of the universities of man: science, technology, and the economy are the sustenance of truth, they claim to be true.
Methinks, it is more so involved in the secret brotherhood of stock and trade.
I am a wanderer, a gatherer of art you can say.
And at times, numbed for the better, and for the worst."
"Come then Adam's son, walk with me awhile; open your mind, your spirit, your senses.
And then in time, ask yourself, "What have I to contribute?"
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
E-FEATURES ON THE WAY!
Greetings Poets, Writers, Cartoonists, Novelists, Playwrights, Balloon Salesmen,
Dead-Head Chemists, Musicians, Cosmonauts, Hardcore Bloggers, Casual Readers, and the rest of you who for space and time constraints unfortunately don't get a generalized label and title.
We are currently working on a series of what we've been calling E-Features,
a special post highlighting an individuals body of work
(be it poetry, short stories, visual arts etc.)
The E-Feature is set to include a series of poems, pictures, chapters, excerpts, vignettes, as well as photographs and an interview!
We will begin official integration September 20th, 2008.
Dead-Head Chemists, Musicians, Cosmonauts, Hardcore Bloggers, Casual Readers, and the rest of you who for space and time constraints unfortunately don't get a generalized label and title.
We are currently working on a series of what we've been calling E-Features,
a special post highlighting an individuals body of work
(be it poetry, short stories, visual arts etc.)
The E-Feature is set to include a series of poems, pictures, chapters, excerpts, vignettes, as well as photographs and an interview!
We will begin official integration September 20th, 2008.
If you're interested in learning more or featuring email us at
read.and.destroy@gmail.com with the word "E-Feature"
somewhere in the subject line.
More on this as it develops!
Drink Me, You Triple Bastard!
Drink Me, You Triple Bastard!
by Jillian Ward
I'm still maiming the one night scraps of a prick-thorned solitaire,
obvious flesh and capital pussy framed in waters bought and sold by Rhodes thighs.
With armfuls of kidnapped campfire I flux and tongue-flick
to tame the spent and lonely heartbeat of a spirit stain drizzling off the trees roots, down the nape of my neck, my legs, down into the drain spiral to be forgotten.
No current fixation or obsession just an honest compassionate headcount or head-shot,
Custodial sperm count of Eden garden futures wasted on the preservation of parasites.
Its body popped between two of my painted nails, some of my blood and its corpse on
faultless red.
©Jillian Ward (March 2nd, 2006)
*First published as "Drink Me" in The Bent Spoon Quarterly in 2007.
by Jillian Ward
I'm still maiming the one night scraps of a prick-thorned solitaire,
obvious flesh and capital pussy framed in waters bought and sold by Rhodes thighs.
With armfuls of kidnapped campfire I flux and tongue-flick
to tame the spent and lonely heartbeat of a spirit stain drizzling off the trees roots, down the nape of my neck, my legs, down into the drain spiral to be forgotten.
No current fixation or obsession just an honest compassionate headcount or head-shot,
Custodial sperm count of Eden garden futures wasted on the preservation of parasites.
Its body popped between two of my painted nails, some of my blood and its corpse on
faultless red.
©Jillian Ward (March 2nd, 2006)
*First published as "Drink Me" in The Bent Spoon Quarterly in 2007.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Witch, or Samhain Blues
Witch, or Samhain Blues
by Robert Milby
She is no witch Wife! Which She will…
Witch she is not!
Regardless of birch groves and fire pit rituals.
Victuals are hotter when cooked out on coals,
but rich soil grows better plants than stage play,
hydroponics, or speculation outside a coffeehouse,
over telephone or internet elation.
She walks out of a kingdom of halls,
Into some odd Daddy marriage,
Like so many of her sisters—merely young women.
Reads poetry! But not Plath or Sexton.
Out from Christian fundamentalism,
To university wife, nurse, prison of matrimony,
To the animus of her animal husbandry—
juvenile urge dressed in tangibles of tenure;
gullible victim of censure, she bursts the mainframe of suburban slavery,
and takes up with a would-be tenor—
acolyte, thinner in years than the drears of the padded pedagogue,
but not anymore aware of the subtleties of female needs, so they weave a demi-bourgeois cloak of invisibility by hiding in Hudson valley bohemian thought ghettos,
and claim psychic, pop pagan preeminence, by memorizing the countenance of Crowley’s works, and some wiccan dilution, cover with alcohol and other intoxicants,
like spiritual mendicants at Jim Jones’ commune in 1978.
Weave! Weaver! Wivern driver to groves of lies where no young folks will fornicate,
As they should to desecrate the hours of stoking wood
In a large hearth where the only cinders visible
On Monday morning, will be the remnants of the cremated corpse
Of wasted Time!
Yet who am I to judge the young poet
Who can see into dimensions of indoctrination,
And unlike every other young person born
around the bonfire of the Reagan administration, who spent the breasts of corporate investiture, in perspicuous clarity, She was untouched because charity
Of ancestral spirits bestowed her with freedom and information
Which others of her materialistic, herding generation
Could not have possibly possessed!
Samhain’s ghosts surround her petty circle, grinning, sneering—
Threatening snow or burning to blow gusts of retribution for her encroachment,
For after all, she is not the rightful owner of these acres!
© Robert Milby (October 30, 2005)
by Robert Milby
She is no witch Wife! Which She will…
Witch she is not!
Regardless of birch groves and fire pit rituals.
Victuals are hotter when cooked out on coals,
but rich soil grows better plants than stage play,
hydroponics, or speculation outside a coffeehouse,
over telephone or internet elation.
She walks out of a kingdom of halls,
Into some odd Daddy marriage,
Like so many of her sisters—merely young women.
Reads poetry! But not Plath or Sexton.
Out from Christian fundamentalism,
To university wife, nurse, prison of matrimony,
To the animus of her animal husbandry—
juvenile urge dressed in tangibles of tenure;
gullible victim of censure, she bursts the mainframe of suburban slavery,
and takes up with a would-be tenor—
acolyte, thinner in years than the drears of the padded pedagogue,
but not anymore aware of the subtleties of female needs, so they weave a demi-bourgeois cloak of invisibility by hiding in Hudson valley bohemian thought ghettos,
and claim psychic, pop pagan preeminence, by memorizing the countenance of Crowley’s works, and some wiccan dilution, cover with alcohol and other intoxicants,
like spiritual mendicants at Jim Jones’ commune in 1978.
Weave! Weaver! Wivern driver to groves of lies where no young folks will fornicate,
As they should to desecrate the hours of stoking wood
In a large hearth where the only cinders visible
On Monday morning, will be the remnants of the cremated corpse
Of wasted Time!
Yet who am I to judge the young poet
Who can see into dimensions of indoctrination,
And unlike every other young person born
around the bonfire of the Reagan administration, who spent the breasts of corporate investiture, in perspicuous clarity, She was untouched because charity
Of ancestral spirits bestowed her with freedom and information
Which others of her materialistic, herding generation
Could not have possibly possessed!
Samhain’s ghosts surround her petty circle, grinning, sneering—
Threatening snow or burning to blow gusts of retribution for her encroachment,
For after all, she is not the rightful owner of these acres!
© Robert Milby (October 30, 2005)
Friday, August 1, 2008
The Sentence
THE SENTENCE
By Adrianna Delgado
The reality is I missed you when we were still together,Because our forever was fiction we were trying to writeBut couldn't find the lines.
We plagiarized ourselves and our peersSaying everything we knew we wanted to hear.Playing tear for tear against the truth of our fears.
The truth that we were both alone in every together we tried to create.
I equate your beauty with the shallowness I hate,
Inside myself it formed the love I thought I felt.
I sit here kicking myself for the kisses I tried to mean but only faked.
I can't let go, but it's the dream I can't shake.
That's the problem with dreaming while you're still awake, Never facing the day that awaits;
I create, I create...I create what's not real because what's not real always feels safe.
If I'm the villain and you're the victim or if I'm the victim and you're the villain
We both still behaved like children...Children who needed a best friend they could touch and fuck
And survive the loneliness if they had any luck.
I can't hate you for wanting what I wanted,
And leaving when you realized our hearts were haunted...Haunted by illusions of love fed to us like love is the only nutrient
That can sustain our stained souls as they pour tears as the sky pours rain.
I want you to be sorry as I am sorryBecause our lie to each other as we lied with each otherWas far from a menial crimeAnd my heart is still locked away, doing the time.
©Adrianna Delgado (July 2008)
By Adrianna Delgado
The reality is I missed you when we were still together,Because our forever was fiction we were trying to writeBut couldn't find the lines.
We plagiarized ourselves and our peersSaying everything we knew we wanted to hear.Playing tear for tear against the truth of our fears.
The truth that we were both alone in every together we tried to create.
I equate your beauty with the shallowness I hate,
Inside myself it formed the love I thought I felt.
I sit here kicking myself for the kisses I tried to mean but only faked.
I can't let go, but it's the dream I can't shake.
That's the problem with dreaming while you're still awake, Never facing the day that awaits;
I create, I create...I create what's not real because what's not real always feels safe.
If I'm the villain and you're the victim or if I'm the victim and you're the villain
We both still behaved like children...Children who needed a best friend they could touch and fuck
And survive the loneliness if they had any luck.
I can't hate you for wanting what I wanted,
And leaving when you realized our hearts were haunted...Haunted by illusions of love fed to us like love is the only nutrient
That can sustain our stained souls as they pour tears as the sky pours rain.
I want you to be sorry as I am sorryBecause our lie to each other as we lied with each otherWas far from a menial crimeAnd my heart is still locked away, doing the time.
©Adrianna Delgado (July 2008)
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