Poetry and Photography By David J. Thompson

David J. Thompson is a poet and photpgrapher who captures street art worldwide.

A Perfect Sacrifice

Jesus played a lot of baseball

as a kid, mostly centerfield,

led Nazareth Central High

to the district championship

his senior year. After that

he played for First Baptist

in the local slow-pitch softball

church league. His last year

they met a team of pagans

from the Roman garrison

in town for the league title.

In his last at bat, Jesus laid down

a perfect sacrifice to move

what proved to be the winning run

over to third. He went to his knees

on the first base line, gave a prayer

of thanks to his God up above

even though he’d been thrown out

by a mile. The Romans started yelling

at him from their dugout, stuff

I can’t repeat about his mom, the Virgin Mary.

They didn’t understand that style

of play then, big, burly guys who relied

solely on the long ball. Jesus said softly

that he forgave them as he jogged off

the diamond and that really pissed off

the Romans, some soldiers were waiting

for him in the parking lot with aluminum bats

after the game. Jesus never showed up

for the team banquet or another game,

and that was many, many seasons ago,

but his teammates keep praying and believing

he’ll show up again before their last at bat.

Photography by David J. Thompson

His Very First Miracle

Don’t tell his mom, but Jesus lost

his virginity on prom night, just like

most of us. His date was Rachel Schwartz,

class valedictorian who left for a kibbutz

a few weeks later and Cornell in the fall.

They were grinding hard against each other

during the last dance to The Long and Winding Road,

stopped at a party at the Ramada Inn where

they drank some Miller Lite and smoked

a little weed, ended up ravenously groping

each other on a ratty couch in the basement

of Jesus’ best friend Peter Stone’s house.

They managed to get naked in high school record time,

and when Rachel called out Jesus Christ!

louder than a tv evangelist, and went limp

beneath him, Jesus knew right away he’d performed

his very first miracle, even if it was the kind

you’ll never read about in the Bible.

One Less Thing To Forgive

Did you see where archaeologists

digging around in Nazareth found

Jesus’ high school yearbook?

His baseball card collection and

Boy Scout badges, too?  All his

childhood crap, the same worthless stuff

our moms got rid when we went off

to college, or is now packed away

invisibly in our basements, attics,

and storage units everywhere.

The newspaper said it was in

what they believe was the dumpster

behind the nursing home where

the Virgin Mary spent her golden years.

She probably just got sick and tired

of waiting for her oldest son to keep

his promise to come back and grab his shit,

so she just stuffed it all in some Hefty bags,

yelled at the maintenance guy to get it

the hell out of there. You can’t really blame her,

I guess, and now that it’s been found

Jesus will have one less thing to forgive

his mom, and one more good reason

to get his ass back here like he promised

so many years ago.

Zombie Logic Review Photo Correspondant David J. Thompson

I like to think of David J. Thompson as the Zombie Logic Review roving reporter and photojournalist. Wherever he is in the world we get a report. 

Kittens

My sister keeps

a full cardboard box

of Persian kittens

on her kitchen table.

Eating dessert is out

of the question.

Debutants by David J. Thompson

Just As We Fire

In all my dreams

I go target shooting

deep in the woods

with Montgomery Clift.

It’s very quiet in the forest,

and we always end up kissing

as we load our weapons.

Just as we fire, I wake up

feeling wet and sticky,

with a melting pistol

in my hand, the smell

of gunpowder in the air.

Georges by David J. Thompson

Where This Comes From

My new girlfriend believes

a virgin queen and her army

of white rabbits rule the moon.

I don’t know where

this comes from. I think

she was raised Baptist.

Steve by David J. Thompson

After The Storms

Mornings mean Bloody Marys

and buckwheat porridge,

while afternoons are full

of dire tornado warnings.

My neighbor raises table rabbits,

so after the storms, tonight

I’ll go over the fence to set them free,

maybe grab a few plump ones

for delicious breakfast sausage.

Wrinkles by David J. Thompson

Mornings Come So Early

Each night before bed

I drink a cup of warm milk,

swallow a few sips

of cheap cherry brandy,

and eat a handful of Xanax.

Mornings come so early,

these days.

Poetry By Jeff Bagato

A multi-media artist living near Washington, DC, Jeff Bagato produces poetry and prose as well as electronic music and glitch video. Some of his poetry and visuals have recently appeared in Empty Mirror, Futures Trading, Otoliths, Gold Wake Live, H&, The New Post-Literate, and Midnight Lane Boutique. Some short fiction has appeared in Gobbet and The Colored Lens. He has published nineteen books, all available through the usual online markets, including Savage Magic (poetry) and Computing Angels (fiction). A blog about his writing and publishing efforts can be found at http://jeffbagato.com.

Eat Your Own Dogfood

the bigmouth singers

lapping at the edges

of human decency

waiting for an in

like a tweet autocorrected

into daydream reality,

a twilight world

at the tip of remembrance

where dogs eat dogs

and jello makes a main course

for the barking millions—

why not push all

the choco bars

into the middle of the room

where anyone can

grab one on a whim

like plucking diamonds

in the sunshine,

‘cause the sparkle

makes a diamond real,

like taking a banana

from a bartender

and hoping for booze,

like rubbing a lamp

and expecting a genie

to appear with three wishes

and a bag of hamburgers,

all fat free and smothered

in peanut butter;

you got your can of mollusc stew,

a propane stove and a case

of Budweiser, so you’re ready

for anything, just not

the things you’re supposed

to do, or those that come

with a deadline

Resistance to Extinction

Mars plays with a plastic

eraser as the sun goes down,

which he eats, and then is ready to hit

the bars, ‘cause he can’t listen to non-existent  

radio; he won’t nod to the dollar man;

he doesn’t carry false teeth

in his hand—and is stopped for

running without identification;

“Things are getting worse,” Mars

says, “First it was the candy

tax, then the smile wars,

broken radio, the castrated

muse, and now false teeth

requirements; well, I resign;

I refuse to carry a badge,

walk the straight line, recite

the alphabet backwards and

forwards, step in time to virus

rhythm like a chokehold on the

American mind—there’s a whole

world out there where nothing

is true, not even the cocks and

pussies of the tight-lipped

millions, and if I can’t shake

the tree till the apple falls,

then you have no choice

but to kill me,

                      America  

Plastic Love by Design

Aesthetic plastic radio waves for goodbye

Charlie on the dime, his last two

nickels rubbed raw in the phone booth

and answer from Rhonda not forthcoming—

she’s tied up with anaesthesia

on a stainless steel slab, laying

like hair in a pile, like an old lady’s wig,

ass in the air for another blade,

a better love, a figure

retired and aspiring

to the surgeon’s knife and the heat

suture of the blood-free work zone—

sorry, babe, it was you

piled there like the moldy grapefruit

I found in the refrigerator rear—

and maybe while my hand

was up those ass cheeks like in a seatcover

loose around styrofoam peanuts, I left

the fruit behind and got to carry a silicone

bag home to my baby for a teething

lesson—a little schooling in all that’s pretty

and bright and free to love me

better death—

                      We’ll never

work again after we face alone

the destruction of the gods—

stitches across the mons, up the back and arm,

like a teddy bear’s vomit in a flea

market stall-

                 ing

Erotic Blackout Art By Vanessa de Largie

Vanessa de Largie is an Australian artist who divides her time between London and Melbourne.  She's an award-winning actress and author.  She's also a prolific journalist, columnist and blogger.  Vanessa is currently the monthly sex-columnist for Maxim Magazine's print issue.

EROTIC BLACKOUT:  

Vanessa de Largie creates erasure art which expresses her fierce and unapologetic sexuality.  Her pieces collectively fall under the title: Erotic Blackout.  Her work has been described as delicious, subversive and lurid. Her erasure art has featured in numerous publications across the net.

I quite enjoyed and agreed with this piece written by the artist on the topic of slut shaming in The Huffington Post 

I've always been a huge fan of Surrealist and Dadaist techniques, as well as Exquisite Corpse. But no one cares what I think, so here are two more pieces by Vanessa de Largie.

Caution: Spoilers

Sometimes I find poems I had written and discarded in the stacks and feel better about them than I did when I decided they weren't up to par. Not saying this one is. 

Caution: Spoilers

Relax, I'm no sadist.

I am not here to dispell 

Your illusions,

Or spoil the latest program

They have written for you.

Your heroes are villains,

Your gods are demons,

And your children will

Toil in vain to try and change this,

Then die in despair

And disillusion, knowing

Their lives meant nothing.

As for the show: haven't seen it.

-Thomas L. Vaultonburg

Poetry By Michael H. Brownstein

Michael H. Brownstein has nine poetry chapbooks including A Period of Trees (Snark Press, 2004), Firestorm: A Rendering of Torah (Camel Saloon Press, 2012), and The Possibility of Sky and Hell (White Knuckle Press, 2013). He is the editor of First Poems from Viet Nam (2011).

RE-EXISTENTIALISM

Once again he made the no exist list

once again he entered the office

his hand balled up, but not as a fist—

more an anvil of petrifacation and stone,

fossilized joints, fractures and breaks,

tears near the wrist, calcified bones.

Once again he was told him to go to his classroom

and wait, but he said he could not

until he made the list of students who exist.

AS THE ICE MELTS, THE BLOOD BEGINS TO BOIL

 

Do you not understand the strike in lightning,

the thunder curse that comes after,

the unsustainable armadillos moving 

northwards with the warm waters?

Rootworm, boll weevil, red-winged 

blackbird, great grizzly of the western caves,

West Niles virus, give us your best shot.  

The Australian box jellyfish drinks

in the oxygen of a change in weather,

its long tentacles black lipsticked tire treads,

wind worn, wind weaved, a car careening

out of control, its driver breaking ferociously, 

an oak, thick weed, tall grass, the only future 

either will ever know. Make sure 

the last woman alive turns out the lights. 

WHEN THE STORM PASSES, THIS IS WHAT'S LEFT

I am exactly like I am.

No water of mistrust here.

Swamps, perhaps.

Perhaps the heavy coil of wood

and bones to go with it,

the shadow of a new day

sun lipped; cloud lined,

the snail of curiosity:

the bee-sting of intellect.

There was no landscaper in your life,

there was no man without a car,

there was just me:

The brake in the stomach feels no pain;

the break in the heart, everything.

White hair of frost,

powder and grey,

the rage of the storm diminished:

patterns and known drunks

a rhapsody in the color you like least.

Discover something new.