Poetry By A.J. Huffman

A.J. Huffman has published thirteen full-length poetry collections, thirteen solo poetry chapbooks and one joint poetry chapbook through various small presses.  Her most recent releases, The Pyre On Which Tomorrow Burns (Scars Publications), Degeneration (Pink Girl Ink), A Bizarre Burning of Bees (Transcendent Zero Press), and Familiar Illusions (Flutter Press) are now available from their respective publishers.  She is a five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, a two-time Best of Net nominee, and has published over 2600 poems in various national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, The Bookends Review, Bone Orchard, Corvus Review, EgoPHobia, and Kritya.  She is also the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press.  www.kindofahurricanepress.com.


Of Martinis and Madcap Religion

            -- after Last Martini, artist Michael Godard

An olive, a pretzel, and a handful of garnishes
walked out of a bar and into a local church.  The stained
glass mistook the pimento pit for a stigmata,
shattered instantly.  The others
gathered the pieces, built an arc
over the hot tub, decided to stew in their own liquid
sin until the sun came up, or God decided to peel
their skins off.

Poet A.J. Huffman

Jade

You keep me, like a jewel, in a box,
lucky, priceless, but full
of deathly curse.
If you touch me, I win.
If you sell me, you lose.
So you choose to bury me
between your bed and the floor.



My Mother Should Have Named Me Catastrophic

Despair is my favorite color. 
I tie it like a bow in my hair.
My smile is a noose.  I do not try
to disguise.  Touch
me three times, and I will find
a million ways to make you
cry.



Electric Spiders

reign from terror strings dripping
nightmare shades of fried.  Velocity
stutters its own
                          language.  Panic
is a precedent.  Dance dissolves
revolves around the center cell.  Just
don’t call yourself.
                                Fly . . .