Matthew Borczon Looses His Bleeding Fingers Across the Parchment of Afghanistan Unleashed Like the Dog of His Poems

the dog

the dog
broke
its leash
and was
dragging
it behind
him as
he ran
up on
Nick who
used that
chain to
choke the
dog dead
and then
threw it
onto the
owner's porch
screaming threats
but Nick
is still
not ready
to go
to the
VA or
to talk
about
the war.


bad habits


thinking
about the
war as
I bite
my nails
too close
and watch
the blood
pool in
my nail
bed I
have chewed
them all
down to
open sores
that hurt
with everything
I pick up


with everything
I can't
put down.


civilian casualty


as a
younger man
my sense
of drama
might have
led me
to make
her much
more personal
give her
a name
convince
myself I
heard her
soft voice
call to
her father
but at
45 I
did the
only thing
I could
I pushed
her outside
my consciousness
outside memory
not even
one line
in my
diary
outside of
my life
in the
hospital and
my head
for the
whole time
I was in
Afghanistan
some nights
I still
hear her
ghost begging
me to
finally let
her in.

Matthew Borczon is the author of four books of poetry A Clock of Human Bones by the Yellow Chair review press, Battle Lines by Epic Rites press, Ghost Train by Weasel Press and Sleepless nights and Ghost Soldiers by Grey Boarders press. He has a chapbook coming out through Epic Rites before the end of this year as well. He is a nurse and Navy Sailor from Erie, Pa. He tries not to let PTSD rule too much of his life

Rus Khomutoff In the Thralldom Sullied By Quantum Catharsis

Splash Bombs 

to Michel Majerus


Horns of dilemma, the shadow’s brighter heritage
going beyond the symptoms
quartered revelator of the frayed edge
a week of redolent memory
beset by both the future
and the past
thralldom mastication



The Shallow Between
to Nick Land

Pathos of distance expecting itself
fake eternities of stationary descent
tailored hallucinations that surrender
to the serpentine ensemble of all possibility
hiatuses sullied by memory
ecstasy of the everyday




Catharsis daily


Lions and shadows
labyrinthine emergence
voice in the chasm
obliteration of the possible at all costs
unbegotten and immortal
words that belong to a quantum realm
catharsis daily

My name is Rus Khomutoff and I am a neo surrealist poet in Brooklyn,NY. My poetry has been featured in Uut Poetry, Erbacce, Fifth day journal and Burning house press. Last year I self published an ebook called Immaculate Days. I am also on twitter @rusdaboss

Peter Jacob Streitz Pushes Bukowski and Shakespeare Through the Bibliotheque Aerial Reconnaissance

BUKOWSKI

That shitfaced

Pig

Nah, macho man

Loving

The limbs

Of ladies

Or the fattest

Asses

With smallish

Breast

And suckable

Nips

Like the quim colored lips

Of dead

Soldiers

Where beer

Flows

In winy utterances

Mixing sex

With fucking

Then love

Or appreciation

Of mirrors

Healing acne

With wisdom

Or cocktails

That pussy foot

From sacks

To racetracks

And back

To paddocks

Of saddles

And whips

Plus horns

And leads

With harnesses

That mount

And cinch

The saddlebags

In stirrups

Of lust

As fleshy bits

Rope heartache

To the rhyming

Of losers

And winners

Who’re eternally

Trumped

For never

Having placed

The bet

—that women who blush—

Train their flanks

To lap

The track

Where mares

And stallions

Collide

In a world

Of wonder

And words

Wasted

Unless the final

Thrust

Is

Human nature

And

Human nature

Is

the last word

Of his story.

 

SHAKESPEARE IN THE DARK

The tweeker’s

Boggy, alcoholic eyes

Bulged unblinkingly

Within inches of mine

Setting the stage

For mere players

In this mosh pit

At the intersection of ol’Frisco

And modernity

While the watery whirl

Of rush hour washed‘round

And Dino denied I’ve come—

To that very corner

Everyday

For the past twenty years

Awaiting my love’s return

from work

But on this day

Where the subway

emerges

And the street cars clank

Like two ships

Passing in the night

I unknowingly missed her

As she unknowingly missed me

But Dino didn’t miss a beat

Manically orating his resurrection

As a bookseller

And one who

Only reads the law

And fuck that storytelling

Crap

With his countenance

Increasingly inscribed

In an ominous glaze

And his lids hoisted

At half-mast

He pulled back the curtain

For the briefest moment

To inquire

Do you read?

What?

There was no answer

Other than His . . .

—Shakespeare—

Leading to

his sidewalk bibliothèque

Where ten tomes of prose

Sat dog-eared and dirty

Along with a soiled sleeping mat

And a rat

Disguised as a pet

Entrapped beneath

A milk crate

—Much Ado About Nothing—

Was crammed into my hand

While two bucks

departed this fool

And his wad of money

Filled Dino’s head

With sugar plums of theft

Or thirst for some complicity

Whose outright criminality

Got quenched with past drinks

And blackouts

At whore houses

In Alaska

And racist chases

In Texas by Rangers

Who took exception

To the pilfering

Of black velvet

Bedspreads—

when shit and damn

My cell phone vibrated

And a distraught

Wifely voice

Rung down the curtain

On two role players

In another performance

Of their life.

 

WINGED RATS

Bullshit

Unless you consider

They eat the same crap

But you’d be wrong

These low flying

Aviators

Of the cityscape

Got zip codes

And statues

And ordnances as white

As the driven snow.

In some hoods

They’re the only fauna

That doesn’t attack

And kill

As ordered

Or destroy the trees

With piss and shit

And forget the grass.

Instead, these citizens

Of aerial reconnaissance

Clean-up after bums

And partygoers

Doing such civic duties

As eating

the rice and beans

Regurgitated

By soup kitchen

Devotees

Or their counterparts

Boogieing in

From bedroom

Communities

Leaving their suburban

Blight

For clean-up

By those living

Aloft

On the ledge

With only one way

To fall

Pilotless

And no safety net

Dying alone

Earthbound

In their mourning suits

Having seen it all

On the hardest streets

. . . yet nothing . . .

Of remembrance

Not even the homage

Of never more.

Peter Jacob Streitz was born an iconoclastic hick in upstate New York. Raised by a single mom after his dad flew the coop instead of flying The Hump--over the Burma Road in World War Two--where he won the Distinguish Flying Cross by losing both the Japs and his mind. His inevitable departure didn’t affect Peter—as he morphed into an All-American boy and athlete who was awarded a four year, full-boat scholarship to Alfred University (which he rejected) before counter-culturing his way towards the only degree ever given by Boston University in Alternative Education.