Aberration Labyrinth : September 2012 : Issue #002

     September 2012                                                                                                Issue #002

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A Note From The Editors:

We hope that you enjoyed Issue #001, and we feel that Issue #002 really helps to solidify the image that we want our publication to have. Keep up the excellent writing and keep submitting! We love you and your creativity!

                                                                                                                                                                                                        Write On!

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Forced Nostalgia

Jason Lundell

I want the 90’s back

That age of great denial

A place where comforts come like

Brick walls in front of hotel windows

Give me wealth

I mean post Dallas

That place where even JR

Has been laid to rest

I want baggy pants

With designer hate crimes

And a sly slogan

Those ones you find on picket signs

Give me the birth of Cali

That slutty dystopia outlined in dusk

I want Heather Locklear before Charlie Sheen

I want to remember not remembering that

I want new age vintage

Dream Catcher

Brendan Sullivan

I covet your nightmares.
I want to inch them apart,
wire bright and brittle
from under your skin,
split them down the middle
and crawl deep inside.

I want to wrap them
in yellow newspapers
and tatter your skin
right between your shoulder blades
with their bleak words.

I want to see them glisten
bone shard white and blistered,
the pucker of your flesh
stopping up my thoughts
in the lost vacuum of you.

I want to own them
and watch your mouth run dry
the buckle of your body
scraping up against the sky,
savoring the taste of cheap.

Jolt

Brendan Sullivan

You got left on a metal table
under a white sheet
strung out on red and blue bottles
while they tried to jump start your heart.
I saw the sparks flick off your skin
like the bright scorch of summer
where prayers smell like burnt paper
and the heat keeps you running.
I saw them tape those white nodes to your head
the bald skin glistening innocent
and pull the switch
in a room behind a curtain
the hot bitch of white jolt fever
blistering your thoughts
singeing the palms of your hands
filling the room I sit in
with the impossible stench of hope.

SCHADENFREUDE
Gregory D. Jaw

our connections are tenuous,
our friendships are built
to topple one another
so that we may feel better
about the lions who lurk
near the garage door,
maws splayed,
hands reaching out from their throats,
viscous slop dripping slow motion
tumble terror of fur muted screams
hushed by wild hunger,
hiding out near the swimming pool
near the VCR tossed into the
widening shit heap of discarded items,
hiding near the area where the shopping
carts go to die,
and we make these connections
with other people
so as to raze them,
so as to sate the horrible hunger in our
filthy animal hearts,
with the hope that
the lions will wait in line a little longer
as we pile our banalities onto the conveyor belt,
and we tear each others’ throats out.

(Charles Bukowski would’ve been proud)

Michael Estabrook

She continues, “And if

it weren’t for me you’d be a damn

drunk out on the street someplace living

one of those lost lives” and stomps

out of the room. I follow right

along behind her indignant as hell.

“What are you talking about I

don’t drink that much, a little wine,

a few bottles of beer now and then.

I’m not as bad as you like to think.

You women always want

to believe you’re saving our

fucking souls.” So then a week later

my brother Todd comes to town

for the first time in five years and we

(Charles Bukowski would’ve been proud)

stop at all the package stores

and bars along the route home

from the airport, and over the next

two days even take bottles of beer

with us on our walks around the block

and through the park and along

the railroad tracks. I hate it, don’t

you just hate it, that our wives

are always right.

Punching Catholics in a Dark Room

Jason Lundell

There’s tons of ‘em

Limp wristed

Child molesters

Grabbing and twisting my sack

When I’m not looking

Who are these

Consolers of the deep

These serpents made saints

Throw up your alarms Jericho

Shit is a foot

A mob scene

Misfits in the rec basement

To them its all in good fun

All have red hair

Everyone enjoys the sacrament

Malicious Massacre

Billy Harfosh

Crazed and rioted
Pleasure revoked
Rumblings of new visions
Versions perversions to limit a thought
Struck down
Struck out on a pitch of malice
Malicious massacre
The Chelsea would be proud
Proven distractions talk to wooden seesaw horses heartless
Invigorate promise of a river swirling
Raging with no end in sight
Collapse of truth and happiness
and folklore of freedom speakers
and lurkers of the night
Trade you for you
Trade accidents
Trade fake facades
Trade positions of power for a small room of rage
and a pencil
and a radio
and Dylan
and Bukowski
and a fan
and a pillow
and a drink
and a clear conscious
and a prescription to wonder

A Relationship in Review

Hanna Reehl

your lips were zippers

undone in the heat

and your heart keeps beating

on its humdrum drum

I’m busy searching

for the something in nothing

anxiously awaiting the day

when my teeth will be ground smooth.

THE PREACHER

Gregory D. Jaw

I will, for a time, undertake to relate my very own tale of

a Santa-Clausian mower-man, with

jiggly consumptive belly-pouch home to many a shiny

can of fine golden ales

(respect afforded for my undeniable

comprehension of taste),

a dark breathing stranger hopped up on paint fumes

and Tussed up on generic mind-destabilizing remedy,

he came a'callin' the other mornin'', swearin' jesus up and

down, a leather maniac of motorbike sermonin', a strangin'

his way up to my front door portal,

a wanderin' and a'swaggerin',

a whistlin' and a pantin',

until he found his solid footin' propped here,

before my old front door.

He ran forward in the temporal places of his enfeebled mind,

and tried to find a straight line to disseminate his addled

information regardin' the new jesus

and his tribe a heathenin', sinnin', full-time blasphemers.

He related his hoozy tale of endtimes,

a cloud of poisonin' debris, fillin' our sinnin' lungs,

an accursed tome taken from us as false mandate,

bringin' down the wrath of the true sculptor,

a ragged inventor of shiny things,

His cough was a'heavin' and he was a wheezin' when

he concluded his porchstop diatribe of disasterin' and despairin'.

I rightly proferred my own edict of sculptation.

one where the omnipresent, Mouldy One

dreams too shallow to have any real feelin' here on this

dusty rock of dirt and decay. 

I told him 'bout the darkenin', a time when his kind

would go to a flourishin' and go to a spreadin' their holy

unholy wings,

a rapin' and a takin',

a preachin' and a stealin',

growlin' on about some half-kooked sky-slob,

and pressin' all kindsa panic-buttons,

whiles they screams 'bout endtimes,

and unearth us all.

Then I went and caused him to hurt his sniffer,

as I slammed my threshold up and upon his dusky countenance.

Callie At the Miracle of Science

Marianne Szlyk

At The Miracle of Science,
the bartender mixes
a fizzy green cocktail.
Callie sips from the beaker,
but it’s the punning name of the drink,
not its taste,
that makes her wince.

Is ketchup a vegetable in this world?

The blonde in the House of Pain t-shirt,
the one who may say “warsh” for wash,
the one with a calico tattoo,
she grimaces.
She wants a bacon martini,
not spiked diet soda.
She wants to jump around.
She wants shamrocks and shenanigans.
She wants.
She yawns.
This joke has gone on too long.

Love on the Answering Machine

Louie Crew

Yes, this is just your spouse calling.

Don't cook anything.

I'm going to make my chicken dish

for  that recipe contest I'm going to enter.

So I'll see you this afternoon about sick,

'six!'--can't even talk, I'm so groggy.

And I'll bring the chicken with me.

Goodbye.

MORNING ABLUTIONS

Jeffrey Park

Our morning ablutions –

I in the master bathroom

she in the small

one upstairs.

She flushes.

The water in my toilet bowl

ripples so slightly.

The connectedness

of it all.

An Incident

Louie Crew

Walking alone to beat the heat

of the humid night, I chanced

into a spider's web, set at

eye level between two low trees.

Making the sound of a thousand harp strings,

off key and turned down low,

the maze broke in a crazed pattern

across my forehead, down my hair,

in curious, myriad channels from

nose to ear, and back to eye

and down to lips.

With an instant arc, my finger tips

clawed the threads--more from discomfort

than from dread--until I felt

they touched the monster

(for he seemed at least the size

of shrunken head or bloated thumb).

Then they couldn't find him again,

and I had to walk the mile back home

without a comb to assure that my

constant scratching was in vain.

Clearly my confusion there

obscured my seeing that

it is rare to be caught

in someone else's trap at the time

it has so little power to do me harm.

WHEN YOU KISSED ME

Jeffrey Park

When you kissed me

on the mouth

walked me down and

pressed yourself up against

my flinching body

put your rubbery lips hard

to my mouth

I felt it, a white hot

jolt of pain

like biting down on

aluminum foil with a mouth

full of amalgam fillings

and chewing it

and the sweet agony shot

through me

searing my neural

pathways and ultimately

coming to rest

somewhere behind my

quivering eyeballs.

I saw you through flames

your whisper stabbed

my inner ear – You’re my

zombie slave boy

now – and I gave in then

and there and let

the spirits have a ride at

my expense.

HESS: 6:33 AM

Gregory D. Jaw

The flannels and vests mill about by the deli-dog machine

chatting about weather systems, lottery prizes they cannot ever possibly win,

and television shows they missed due to long hours.

Solitary men, they enter alone,

but lazily explore each others' hovering personas,

which drift cumulonimbusly around the mart.

Men who share tales of nothing, merrily,

summoning castrated archetypes of half-assed Viking warlords

while pinching semi-repressed fizzle-farts,

sneaking carelessly out of fat asses

to surrender to the fluorescent air

floating impotently towards unconcerned, hair harangued nostrils.

Marlboros, Newports, Skoal, and PICK 6:
The closeted checkout man knows them all by name.

 Disassembling Required

Eric Dittmar

When Van Gogh cut off his ear

It was for reassurance that the rest of him could disappear

That illusion of ownership that nerves create

Should have faded with each baby tooth I lost

It didn't though, contrariwise I worried I would extend

Into roads or trees and then feel the tire's friction or the elm's blight

Empathy is a bitch of its own

I pray I never wake up with a Siamese twin

I'd have to care, lest we lapse into mutual sadomasochism

That hilarious territory of bored lovers

The Thalidomide kids might get a kick

out of feeling new arms attached to other people

but that's the exception that proves the rule

After the Vietnam war, some men believed Agent Orange

Had followed them home, alive in newly discovered nerves

Now what odd god must be behind that shit!

Mengele often awoke from dreams sweating and sure

 That his patients would learn a trick to generate biological anesthetics

He needed the feedback of sound to really understand the human body

“Prayer or pleading” he used to say with a wink to his bartender after work

Sometimes I worry that my nervous system

Might have a Mengelian agenda of its own

That I am woven into a potential torture chamber seems clear

but then I remember that I can always pull the tooth or cut off the ear

Wild Man

Eric Dittmar

I played jock jams and watched the kill cams

Without any doubt about dying

A waltzing Victorian casually avoiding IEDs

 Bombs without brand names

My eyes grew sleek my fingers black

There was so much in my peripheral vision

That I hardly cared to look ahead

Bright dust motes in swarms of sun and color

My internal temperature dropped, my teeth grew

At night I slept in a hammock

With a cat at my feet

If there was a war like the looky-loos say

It never felt that way

Though I'm sure I did my share

My low chuckling at the sight of blood

Even from my child's knee

Assures me that I did my share.

Smoking Fucking Junk

Michael Estabrook

Phil flew medical

evac choppers for

a year in

NAM. And three times enemy fire

brought him down

crashing to

the ground.

But he gets such a laugh

out of it today

such a roaring head back mouth wide open

laugh every time

he explains how these

beautiful

monster machines became

6 million dollar piles of

smoking fucking junk.

He laughs, he says,

because the government lost all

that money but we know

he laughs because he cheated

death and because

the damn things were empty

at the time.

The Writing Club

Thomas Pitre

Eight of us sat around the card table

covered with a stained bedspread

baring our souls

changing our lives at the end of each line

we cautiously share.

For eight weeks

drinking green tea

and snacking on nuts

and homemade puddings,

we took our turns

growing bolder and bolder.

(1) The owner of the meeting house,

(2) a skittish housewife with a runny nose,

(3) a quiet caretaker,

(4) a retired Wall Street broker,

(5) a large framed man wearing a suit fashioned from sweat pants,

(6) his thin, nervous wife filled with the spirit of the Lord;

(7) the grim, suspicious moderator with no sense of humor,

(8) and me – a middle-aged man

with an attitude and a loathing for

rules of grammar and authority.

Broken Roads

Gordon Purkis

Broken roads are a dismal appetite

where you can’t imagine going anywhere

even if where you are is not particularly

pretty.

The bounty appears invisible,

our wrists look bound and our homes

are sadly clapboarded.

Our screams too distant from the hero’s ears. 

In The Pink

Thomas Pitre

Mr. Benjamin Sutton, p-h-d, was in the pink.

At the pinnacle of his career

a consultant,

married into a rich family,

and blessed with a generous spouse,

living in a liberal ghetto in Maryland,

by choice, as his wife says.

Their large, paneled, oak, front door

framed by two brass lamps, polished weekly by

the handy man.

The round heavy steps of used, red brick

and hand-cut granite.

A fat Australian Shepard always on the step by the door,

appears in all the Christmas photos,

his blue eyes reflecting the Brinks security sign

on the lawn nearby.

His wife, a thin, delicate and exacting intellectual

took videos of the new snow on their deck

and sent them to their friends

and the kids in Florida.

He, odd looking since his teens,

due to his intensity,

used his heavy, ivory comb to fit, calibrate,

a lock of hair carefully across his forehead,

each morning, polished his gold, rimless glasses

and pulled on his brown, corduroy pants

squeaking as he walked

stiffly

in cordovan loafers.

Mrs. Sutton has problems with her menstrual cycle,

making her life

and those around her,

miserable

on tippy toes

as she lay in the living room,

her eyes covered with a wet, linen cloth –

two, maybe three days each month.

Still Life in Schadenfreude 

Andrew J. Stone

his blood boils into our
cheshire lips & the aroma
of happiness saunters
towards the ticking
of our timeless clock 

Sacred vessel

Gordon Purkis

The body is sacred so I give it candy, beef,

smoke.

The mind is a minefield so I give it want, fear,

worry.

*

I am devoutly non-secular and adamantly peculiar—

If my soul were a country I wouldn’t know whether

to lead it or leave it

alone.

Fuct
Karley de la Filth

Me, at thirty-four, new to fucking

And being fucked over
You, eight years younger,
Experienced at both
Not that you ever impressed me enough
To make me cum
I gave you my heart anyway
Me, fucked over
Never properly fucked.

And yet
When the phone rings
After 8
And no one responds to my hello
I like to think
That it’s you
Missing my voice.

OF CUPS OF TEA

Gautam Sen

Sometimes it so happens
That you get a cup of tea
That isn’t quite
Your cup of tea:
Maybe there’s more sugar in it
Than you’d like,
Or maybe there’s too little;
Maybe the leaves are not
The kind you yourself
Would have ordered;
Maybe the tea’s been served with milk,
And you prefer it black;
Or granting that milk
Is acceptable to you,
Maybe it has a smell to it
That turns your stomach …
There are many possible reasons
Why the cup of tea you’re offered
May not be
Your cup of tea at all;
And yet you take it -
You take it without
A second thought,
Or maybe you wince,
You grimace a bit
As you take it,
But you take it all the same:
You realize there are times
There’s more to a cup of tea
Than just its taste.

The Chamber of the True Earth

Jude Cowan

Those who drove us below are doomed
in minutes as this directorate meets.
We jot down our grievance in worm-riddled rooms,
rustle fresh strategies out of defeat.

Hunched in weak light over mildewed plans,
supers sketch battle lines, draining felt pens.
The arms of our agents are bled for more ink.
Every small boy fills the pot of revenge.

 *All photography provided by Eleanor Bennett.