deep tissue magazine18

8/12/2019 Deep Tissue Magazine18

1/42

1

Deep

Tissue

Magazine

#18

2014 Deep Tissue Magazine


2/42

2

Black

By Precambrian Lullaby

when the lights go out and the room is dark

still awake but holding, breathing, resigning to the lark

all bottles empty and tears run dry

smelling foul air and still remnant lie, shadow hands caress your favor

sight returns to dark and shadowed rooms, efforts no longer labor

blind-will follows echo to the plume

unseen unseeing lips grace yours to trip and fall to rip softly squozen rain

to knell and dance lone praises even evening lazes with lost and drifting crazes

greeting sole companions, repeating appealing calls

as lengthy onward familiar blind clarity knows, and warm will find you back

as lengthy onward familiar blind-clarity knows, and warm will find you back

when holding-hopes turn to black, when hope turns black


3/42

3

Another New York Poem

By Puma Perl

hed been around a few times

never stayed long

until he found himself

suddenly

famous

he never thought it would happen

didnt even care

she thought it belonged, rightfully,

to her

she worked harder, worried more,

fucked the occasional stranger


4/42

4

now

she stood in the back of the room

he was drunker than he appeared

a girl in the front crossed her legs

the guy in the corner watched

he still didnt care

not much

he didnt see her leave

the girl with the legs tried to catch his eye

he considered the guy int he corner

wound up with a redhead at the bar

who didnt know who he was

he liked it better that way

she walked home the long way


5/42

5

the table was stacked with books

half-finished drafts, poem bones

she pushed it to the side

smoked cigarettes, ate ice cream

maybe it would help


6/42

6

"i want to be homeless"

By Glen Still

i want to beg and hollar

beg you for your dollar

have you turn a blind eye

i want to walk a couple miles

till my feet are defiled

and god don't love me anymore

i want all my vision to suddenly perish

all the things that i once cherished

i want to hang my head

as if i was i dead

i want to die


7/42

7

i don't want

the benefits that you have

how would i keep them in a plastic bag

i don't want a pension

i won't live past fifty five

i want to wake up when i'm cold

feel so all alone

i want to experience

life unfold

knowing no one loves me

i want to struggle to find food

to dig in the dumpster

just for you


8/42

8

because i know what 'll find

will be heavier than my grind

so i want to explore the corporate trash

find a place to stash it

just for you

i want to have to steal my clothes

dodge the bullet of the unknown

i want to wage war on god

and karma

i want a thirty day rescue mission

when i've come to the end of my session

to kick me out the door

because i won't subscribe to their agenda

i won't enter their program


9/42

9

that forces god down my throat

i want nothing like you want

i want pain

without a heart

i want to be stone cold

without a reason

i want to go without a shower

feel more or less empowered

for weeks at a time

i want less

than any other human being does

i want to ember in the ashes

deteriorate into the masses

i want to be the one


10/42

10

that just can't dig myself out

i want to be despicable

hold a sword up to your candle

i want to be everything you can't handle

i don't want to conform to your standards

at this point

i've given everything i have

into being homeless

and i don't want anything

anymore


11/42

11

A Walk in the Park (I)

By Nancy Davenport

they are worth the walk

the pink fluffy

cherry blossom trees

in the park

I carry them with me all morning

when I say my prayer

when I count

to

ten

when I am afraid in the bank

and need to take a deep

breath,

I look down and see

a cherry blossom petal


12/42

12

Potential

By Rose Aiello Morales

The first cat is dead.

I killed it with an eye,

evil in the telling of a tale

I boxed as a set piece, called

the potential a name begun with 's'.

Belief is a seldom thing.

The only motivation

of a life's fits, random

mumblings notwithstanding,

I could not manifest goodness.

The box was open, closed.

Occupying past transgressions,

reminders left in secret places found


13/42

13

by blind feet and hands, I could see

everything, there was nothing shown before me.

The second cat is relative.

I found her in a dream suspended,

white ghost of a passing thought,

I will not open mouth to speak

nor lift a lid upon fast moving morns.

I will breathe her into life

Or damn her into ether Limbo,

all possibilities are here and not today,

tomorrow I will dream the box again,

tied in a bow, a brief light peeking from a corner.


14/42

14

someone's at your window

By Chris Nelles

someone's at your window. you or i

i cannot tell. our differences decline

between the bells that city all.

the cosmos is adrift and drifting into us,

where circles start beneath my eyes,

before the mornings make you rise.

again the cock crows twice,

and ochre strikes your breast awake,

our sighs unfocused, saddened

by what's in between our shattered life,

our kitchen bare of beauty's ring,

while ringed in canopies of bitter rain.


15/42

15

a black swan glides on lotuses,

on lily web that calls us, clarion,

to shores where corpses are released

as roses, under outstretched wing,

and necks extended, shivering in blood,

all throat, and robin red by heart,

by too much damage witnessed

from a growing sense the future

moves, as eerily as selves set free

from lovers locked in past lives, lived

through our refusal to let go of death,

of dread, a misery restored from tasks,

or portrait texts revised from breath.

we drink a new wine from an old skin,

burst it open like a wound, a sin;


16/42

16

executrix of spirit bled in flesh,

the flesh incarnate, animate,

and lifted up a long and drenching flask.

and still we doubt each other,

pacing out a measure, and a draft,

preferring what has passed us by,

and what will pass tomorrow

into yesterday, and sorrow's sudden splash,

forever hopeless watch, with telescope;

the deep sky laughs, and nails us

each, and everyone to every star,

to every scratched out eye that hears...

a black swan blooms, a moon too near.

a black swan plumes, a moon too far.


17/42

17

who will wring from this our squandered life

By Chris Nelles

who will wring from this our squandered life,

our pauper's wrath, come pressing laundry loads

upon a beaten stone that will not fracture math,

a tolling bell, a telling path, a certain confidence

that strolls among the upper class young upstarts,

like a golden boy who's favored from the start,

and given all the world, and strives for all the stars?

who will salvage us, the salvage serfs of song,

if gloom's dominion looms as never ending fog,

and banks the promised wave with certain good

and promised evil throbbing in the wrong?

who will mourn for us, and who will cry aloud,


18/42

18

if hope is scaffolded with rope we have supplied,

and hanged from towers spinning in G-d's eye?

the flowers have all blanched, as if my pain

rose up without my known consent, and bled them,

or in sympathy of death's approach, gave color up

to hearts that cannot feel the arrow's plunge,

and all the girls i once supposed to bed, or love,

the wives i purchased with a puerile origami,

folded bodhisattvic verse, to rend stained bonds.

they tremble like apocalypse, an unhinged door,

and freely i pass out, pass in, pass through,

to where i cannot pass, and there await a quiver,

quivering in shallow graves, a flint rock hewed,

believing death is life, and life but callow, un-profound,


19/42

19

and you a harbinger, a penetrating horn,

upon whose sound i fathom wonder drowned.


20/42

20

Visions of Truth

By Mike Carson

There was a time when he thought that

he began dying at age five,

long before he fully understood

that none of it mattered;

because living and dying

are simultaneous pursuits

that only seem unconnected

or looped to those that

deny the visions of truth

to ever enter their event filled,

but strangely empty lives.

There was a time when he thought that


21/42

21

he could never find a lover

that would understand what was trapped

and frame-less within him. He was

still harboring such thoughts

long after he met the one

who held the key.

There was a time when he lived

with no fear,

loved without fear,

wrote

with no fear, but now

he could not say which

was the biggest fear: those days long gone

or their return.


22/42

22

There was a time when he thought

he held some secret power,

a force to change the world,

a way to make them listen, but

the more he listened to what they said,

the more he read what they wrote,

the more he watched what they did,

the more he understood that

what he held was

neither secret or power,

simply something

they would never understand.


23/42

23

Fading In /Fading Out

By Lisa Dabrowski

Assessing the Reassessment

Lost in Space

My Middle One In Curls

Always Keeping My Eye

On that Sparrow

Good Old Boys

Along For The Ride

Fading in and Fading Out

Wars have Been won

Battles have been lost

Tender kisses stolen

Fragile Hearts Broken

Accepted, rejected, denied


24/42

24

Betrayed and Crucified

All in the name of Love

Loyalty is just a word

Honor isn't honorable

Family is a Hybrid of Nuclear

Cherish your Memories

Your Dreams in the End

Are the only thing that's Free


25/42

25

at the circle k in the north end of Toledo

By David LaBounty

somehow

I found

myself

spinning

in the

wheelhouse

of

America

I thought

how this

wasnt


26/42

26

my

town

but how

all

these

dying

towns

look

exactly

the

same

and that

brought

the

memory of


27/42

27

a

one time

love who

left me

for

someone

elses

view

of

sagging

power lines

and in

the store

I walked with

my


28/42

28

Michigan

thunder

and the

thin man

behind the

counter

let his

eyes speak

in the

voice

of

my mother,

as if

she was

saying


29/42

29

gee David

it would

be so nice

if you'd

call just

once in

a

while

and as

I walked

into the

store

I realized

I forget


30/42

30

about

my

mother

the way

that

thunder

forgets

it was

born

from

a

cloud

I grabbed

a

diet coke


31/42

31

paid

for it

with

a

credit card

after that

nothing

else

ever

happened

again

my thunder

so silent


32/42

32

as the

circkle k

man

watched

me walk

away,

staring

as i

stepped

into my

company

car

gleaming


33/42

33

in this

the shining

of an

always

dying

son


34/42

34

bicoastal lunacy blues

By Mark Hartenbach and Danny Baker

1.

a lunatic saint roars hypocritical blues over universal amen corner.

dissonance crosses state lines. ruts on a dark road launch saint

onto a medieval field on wrong side of neglectfully oxidized tracks.

eliminating infidels with sacred vows is the height of hypocrisy.

sword in the stone presents something of an existential dilemma ...

as king isnt what its cracked up to be though hed crawl across

sharpest blade in camelot to get that bitch in the pond or river bank.

already have my doubts about this brand that not even best intentions

can keep virtuous relativity decked out in costume. is paradoxically

a completely different animal. squeezing home-made pulp and all

from virginal. an interesting crowd up northeast way has a rap sheet

which has been wrapped under sheets. the monster is hopelessly

devoted in esperanto infatuation. however inaccessible values make


35/42

35

it hard to plead no direct involvement in proceedings without being

noticed. indicative of similar desires though lacks aversion to fiefdom

side of ledger especially after a few tips off a barrel that graciously fell

of a speakeasy truck. and someone said he whom would be king would

be first to be smote by the gods. or close enough for government work.

traveling at the speed of never was dropping a few pointers from five

thousand with a bullet or guns over appalachia as second appeal rots in

the court system. blurting out sweet nothings to baby taming her wild

hair in a mirror. broken in so many places it may as well be foreign

currency. oxymoron replaces redundant for the nights main event.

though hitting reverse, by looks of a rose garden there are more than

one with throne aspiration. or were as the case may be. the monster

promises to get with program-but i know it's not on his agenda. stars

birth in rapid succession however word from the madhouse commands

tightening an angry garret about marginal performers, thinning out the herd.


36/42

36

Upon your Heart this Evil Word

By Martin Freebase

You stood there with bow and arrow, feeling the moment, the tension of the string. Your

smile was a weak apology for not having fun. It was the piecing that made you giggle like a

monstrosity. You did your best to give us a Cleopatra pose, eyes sparking, showing us your teeth,

your bra a remnant from the civil war. Each picture of you shows something you thought could

not be revealed. The room was full of women, each in a flowery dress and a bow in their hair.

They sat and listened to you tell your lies. Some pretended to be listening when in fact they were

going over their own lies in their head. They would tell you that you are pretty and that your

mind is sincere. Your autoimmune system is sitting in the backpack on the floor. Your friend

Antoine always looks better in your dress. We taste the marrow of your success. Each drop

reminds us of the sympathies of long lost relatives. You are collecting all of the simple needs and

simple desires and putting them in a box of provocation. It is your original emotion. The depth of

your intentions rule your life as you tell us how your life has been nothing but shitty. You stood

on the chair and we measured you from head to toe.

A complete slave to the drug, you have the power to change history, to change people,

falling under the spell of macro-economics. It was so musical and dirty how the bruise appeared

on your thigh. You call me ill-mannered in your childish way. I can see the resentment in your

eyes when I am on top of you. You could fly away from this if you only wanted. Why you stay is

a complete mystery. When I watch you dance, I remember where it is that I came from. There


37/42

37

are so many things that I have lost and so many things I have forgotten. Remember all the things

we threw out the window of that old Ford custom 500? We were trying to make our own place in

the world. We didnt know about fate and the different start times for the race. I kept running

with my stigmata like it was some prized trophy that can get me through the door of some

exclusive nightclub. Do you want to hear me testify about how I was so fucking lost? We drove

that old piece of crap until it wouldnt run no more. Remember when Leo raced around the

neighborhood shouting, You mother fuckers! It was all funny until he drove into some old

ladys porch. We would listen to the Tennessee waltz and look at yournaked pictures that I took

with a Polaroid camera. We gave nickels to the Mormons when they asked us if we knew Jesus.

You told them that he worked in a bodega on the street corner selling pornographic lierature.

You would hold my hand like I was your broken down papa as we walked the streets singing

Johnny Cash songs and puff the magic dragon. You always knew more of the verses than I did. I

think some of them you made up just to impress me. All you had to do to impress me was smile.

You are without support, now. You are not resistant to the hegemony of the distinctive

forms of the touchstones of critique. You are cynical and irreverent as you place your hopes on

grimly evolved insipient solutions that no one can swallow. Alienated from the million eyes, you

have become a creative installation of deviance and bogus values. With your blank bored

demeanor, you absorb the impish and sweltering totality of negative choices of self-loathing and

frittering your life away.

He thought he could escape, but he couldnt. The trap had been set long ago, before he

was ever born. We can see them coming, we always do. The trick is to pick the right one. There

are so many to choose from. The weak and the spineless are in abundance on this earth. When I

said that you were backward, quaint, nave, anachronistic, I watched your eyes grow wider and


38/42

38

wider as if they were juxtapositions of the parts of yourself. I leaned away from you repulsed by

the dismantling of the clearly repressed and unifying obsessions of your face-stuffed wishful

thinking that borders on the absurdist boundaries of hell wand high-water. Its no fun living an

ugly life and to be so lonely. Im not that bad, just misunderstood. If only I could explain things

better, then maybe they would be able to see things my way. Worm moves down lower to feel

the psychic waves that are emanating from her. Each one jolts him as it hits his body and moves

on. He never once thinks if someone else could feel this. You could say he lacked empathy,

especially for his victims.

Vowing your eternal love for me, I think it has to do with a terrible weakness that you

have had since you were a child, a lack of values or something. How can someone like you bring

yourself to pray? I mean really, you go around killing people and then when you get caught, you

feel so bad about it and want to ask forgiveness. This forgiveness bullshit just makes you out to

be a big fucking hypocrite. You get a small taste of reality and you go crying to god. Jesus Christ

you make me want to puke. Your loving god is going to throw you into the lake of fire. What do

you think about that, you spineless weasel? This loss is simple to explain. You had this illusion

of intimacy between us, but it was only an illusion. There was no truth behind your delusions.

There was no substance to your version of the truth. The overall geometry of the situation shows

that you are an idiot. My body is a temple (or should I say your body?), and your relentless

whimpering and whining will not help. You do not control the situation, I do. Lets slow things

down a little; you need a drink and maybe a lobotomy. Is it I or one of the others that make you

so crazy?

With the shrunken head of infinity, you insert guide pins into your brain to release the

endorphins of light and magic. Still, you are unable to discern the contradictions that rule your


39/42

39

life. We sent you to the evangelist who spoke words over you and inserted a rectal thermometer

to determine if you were saved. I saw you jump up and do a holy dance with the sisters of the

Blessed Sacrament. They have tambourines and a lively step for the improperly defective, as

they are recombined by the fancy of proud machines and people buttons. They are discrete

objects for worship and solely made for admiration. You being a worshiper of dystopia and

glossy brochures, genuflect to the weirdness of the bad acid trip.

You throw caution to the wind and dance around the room like a boxer, sweeping your

desperation under the rug. It is your dedication to the pharmaceutical and the despised loneliness

that burns in my veins. I know that I am next to impossible to describe, so why bother. I am that

abstract thing that you cant easily place your mind on. Subdivided and probed, you paused and

watched the adventurous pour over you with excitement. You think this makes you distinctive

and set-apart from all the others, but you are just like all the other eels.

Oh glorious and decadent puppet stuck in the mode of passive reception. You are

comforted by the beating and manipulation as they involve you in the cycles of conflict and

opposition. There is no return for the prodigal son. You are not Elvis and have not fulfilled the

terms of your contract. The bill collectors are at your door, knocking it down, you have to pay

for your sins, for you acceptance of your cooptation. You became a part of their strategic

deployment. The acceptance of the defecation is your crime. We will hang you from the highest

limb because you stole the light from our lamps. Now we can no longer see in the darkness.

You are not able to transcend the melodrama, thinking that the old dynamics of

redemption and the vectors of influence are sensible responses to an unjust world. Thus, you are

negated by your increasing powerlessness and you white-collar individualism, your small world


40/42

40

of boxes. It is like sit-com probity where the lack of sound judgment rules long and hard and you

are assassinated by the bureaucratic entrenchment. You became a follower of the banal and

simplistic agents of spiritual chaos and social disorder. Because of this, you recognize that the

world is not as it seems. Hearing the voice of the trapped in a cage, seeking irreverence and

rebellion, you embrace this enfeebling liberation.

Attached to the strangled tit of blissful existence, you play on the un-forgiven

playground. Where are your sneakers? I see one is up on the roof. We hung you like a propeller,

damaged by innuendo and brevity. Your wasted dreams of blue tones and democratic missiles

hunt you down and crush you under the faithless whistle. You have sold your soul to the bitch of

low luster. She is cruel to you in such special ways. You are down on your knees begging for

forgiveness as she extracts the last drop of sweetness from your soul. I wipe my finger around

the rim and let out a hearty laugh. These are the days of putting our best foot forward.

You have entered the world of the mysterious. We have given you a new name, a name

with power and force. With your actions you speak to the world. You live in a hard world. There

are no general rules for this world, only my rules. If you cant abide by the rules, then we will

make arraignments for your departure. All fools must be made to suffer, sucking knuckles to

scotch tape shapes. Its an obvious deception of fast legs. Pile the legs up in the bin.Push the bin

over there in the corner. Can you feel the looming night upon your neck? You have lost your

Disney land tickets. Get out of the line, you dont belong. There is no music behind the laughter.

Break it open and let it bleed. Just like all the paper dolls living on the street. This is how you

display your profane astonishment.


41/42

41

You build an edifice that crumbles like a snipers graffiti. We have tattooed the evil word

upon your heart. We have beaten you like a dog that craves the sunshine. You have become one

with the buzz inside of your head, the modulations of the parasitic. We have injected you with

the remnants of an untold story, the full-moon jaws and the struggle of a love gone wrong. These

run through your veins like a tethered animosity that seeks its god. You seek but you cannot find

the clairvoyance that once was your salvation. You lost your dispensation, your birthright to the

throne. Now you seek a justice that cannot be found.

Wanting to be the trigger to the death of everyone just like the same old deception, you

smile and say hello. The beingness spills over the sides. All of your attempts at capture are

futile. You search with an outdated bullet. Your name etched upon its brass. The million eyes

line you up and fire. Their contradictions and algorithmic classifications rip through you one by

one. You are a horrific and destitute soldier who fights for all of the wrong reasons. The will of

the contradiction is your master. You follow orders like you are following the steps of an

obligated dance. Each step brings you closer to the candle of the killer. It is the light that draws

you in like the insect horde. You pursue anguish like it is a real thing, a thing to be loved and

cherished. You swallow each lie whole and ask for more. I have seen the number of your days.

The fates cry out for the balance to be restored. Your acts require retribution. We once were

unaware of your battles, now we fight them for you. We help you extract the human from the

animal. In your eyes, they are all creatures that deserve to die. We simply guide your hand as you

embrace the disease of the troubadour.


42/42

On Facebook

Like the magazine on facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/DeepTissueMagazine

Contact

If you have any questions, you can contact me at the address below:

[email protected]

Call for Submissions

Deep Tissue Magazine, a creative arts magazine that promotes the efforts of poetry writers

around the world is looking for poetry submissions for the next issue of Deep Tissue Magazine.

Send no more than five poems in the body of an e-mail to:

[email protected]

Be sure to put the word submission in the subject line of the e-mail.
https://www.facebook.com/DeepTissueMagazinehttps://www.facebook.com/DeepTissueMagazinehttps://www.facebook.com/DeepTissueMagazine

deep tissue magazine18

Documents