DRINKING WINE UNDER THE MOON by Ken Trimble

The 21st offering from Ten Pages Press is now available: Drinking Wine Under the Moon by Ken Trimble.

April Sun

I believe in Father sun and Mother moon
I believe in rivers of light and mountains of fire
I believe in birds of heaven and angels of death
I believe in dead men walking
I believe in dead women singing
And that love is just a four letter word
And that hate eats your entrails
And that peace is another word for war
So Charley Parker play me a tune
Of the heroin Buddha
Let me dream
Of the wild horses
That rage in this heart.

DEAD HERALD INSIGNIA by John Swain

The 20th book from Ten Pages Press is now available: Dead Herald Insignia by John Swain.

Aurora in the Retort

Aurora in the retort
where the apple tree
grew in return
from her split lip opening.
This deepest red
nourished the worm
before the bird
transformed its condition.
The shade unscrolled
for us to read,
I had forgotten the names
that taught me to speak.

MY PART IN THE WORKS by Jay Passer

The 19th book from Ten Pages Press is now available: My Part in the Works by Jay Passer.

WHEN IT’S TIME YOU LEAVE WITH NOTHING

When it’s time you leave with nothing
Penniless
As in the uterus
No body no
Identity
Only a reputation
And if it’s a good reputation then fine
Nobody gives a damn about you flower child
But say you’re bad news
A fucking prick
Well there’s some Calvary waiting for you
Or a cage at the zoo
Where the animal’s only version of death
Is trust in Man

OBAMA AND SUICIDE SPUTNIKS by David Lawrence

The eighteenth offering from Ten Pages Press is now available: Obama and Suicide Sputniks by David Lawrence.

FISHY POLITICS

I cast my eye into the fish tank.
I will never ever eat a fish with its head on the plate.
I cannot look into its eye.
It disgusts me
Like the President of the United States trying
To fillet me,
To strip the Constitution down to its bones,
Reapportion my meat
And suck on my skeleton like it’s his very own.

COMFORT AND JOY by Andrew Taylor

The seventeenth offering from Ten Pages Press is now available: Comfort and Joy by Andrew Taylor.

A Knife an Axe and a Spade

It lives in its particulars and details
of the housekeeping a few implements

a knife an axe and a spade

a bird in the tunnel painted floor not singing

shelter is absolutely necessary with the first
of April comes the thaw

a walk in the woods to become a friend of the pines

the southern wind picks up speed allowing
for a simpler way of life

once the sun goes down time for a chosen pursuit

the institution essentialness of the Post Office
is all news gossip?

a silent gravity as an apple falls
like a fox in a fable return to earth

WORMWOOD by Jessica Otto

The sixteenth offering from Ten Pages Press is now available: Wormwood by Jessica Otto.

Visiting Another City

Morning scribbles across the sky, running from the mouth of a bell.  The Thames tastes footpath, phone booth, double-decker bus as tonguing fog that floats off the blade of a swan’s wing.  I am awake before you hit the bed but my wake-up call still flounders on your whiskey soaked tongue before muddily plopping down on the leaking mattress.  No good comes from conjuring your crumpled silhouette to lie amiably beside my jet lag (my fatigue) as I move my memory onto this unexplored street, past murky pub windows to where I think the bus stop waits.

BROKEN PLACES by DB Cox

The fifteenth offering from Ten Pages Press is now available: Broken Places by DB Cox.

psychedelic redneck

aging without grace
wearing his hat
pulled low over one eye
splitting the world in half
maintaining his spot
on the statistical fringe
fiddle-fucking with the envelope
of the psychiatric bell curve
pondering his lost investment
in paradise
old lies falling away
with every day that passes
caught between
walls of sameness
a whiskey wilderness
inhabited by
alcoholics
blood-bank whores
would-be motorcycle misfits
lonely war veterans
replaying tales
of rockets red glare
bombs bursting in air
& one graying blues man
loitering in the shadows
reeling under the weight
of too much input
looking for the hush
at the center
of the honky tonk universe

1000 visits

10PP has surpassed 1000 visits! Thank you to all who stopped by and read the chapbooks. Keep coming back for more!

THE CIRCLE OF FASCISM by David Lawrence

The fourteenth offering from Ten Pages Press is now available: The Circle of Fascism Meets at the End of Communism by David Lawrence.

EGALITARIAN SCIMITARS

Stalin and Mao killed one hundred million people.
Cuba’s incidental,
Fidel and Che are novices at executions.

Yes, we have idiot countries like Venezuela
And Nicaragua going Communist.

Hitler murdered less people than the Commies,
Only thirty million.
How come we don’t see
Other South American countries
Going Nazi?
Could the Nazis be less brutal than commies?

Perhaps the Storm Troopers were not as bad as the hordes
Of feel-good Marxists rushing across the tundra
With their equalitarian scimitars?

ALL THE DAMAGED GODS by David McLean

The thirteenth offering from Ten Pages Press is now available: All the Damaged Gods by David McLean.

tiniest child

the tiniest child
with axes in her eyes
designing damage
like infancy
might have been.
the wind blows
lies from the trees
leaves in a mother’s ugly
mouth, time and timelessness
becoming dead babies, dust
and absolute absences;
cotton-wool
and nothing: an ax
is the eyes of the tiniest
child; she is evidently
alive

THUNDERCLAP #5

The latest issue of Thunderclap! Magazine is available, and you should buy it.

RACHEL, MY TORMENT by Patricia Hickerson

The twelfth offering from Ten Pages Press is now available: Rachel, My Torment by Patricia Hickerson.

MURDER ON PARK AVENUE

is she sad?
hell, no
she’s as sparkly as springtime out here
whatever else is going on…
she’s got it all in hand
spike heeled boots and a rhinestone shirt
she just dumped her sweetie
or was it the other way ‘round?
funny how her brain is a blank
all she remembers is that day he got so mad at her
he tried to throw her from his tenth floor window…

whatever…she’s hard as cinders
hard as the mascara on her lashes
the Revlon nails at her fingertips
stalking past chrome and concrete
she won’t let it disturb her days
she can take him or leave him
she doesn’t care—
let him ball that back-door slut…

cars and chrome and concrete
glass walls and green lights
mascara and miniskirts,
nails and tails: she’ll be wanton at the Waldorf
he never really loved her, did he?

brass gleaming all around
brass banisters, brass lanterns
Grand Central Station glitters
diamond of the city
she’ll buy a real diamond some day
she’ll be diamond-hard
hard enough to scratch a glass window
hard enough to drop-kick that old guy
limping across the street against traffic
she’d love to see him or someone else she knows
gut-squashed in the fast lane…