Moonscape: Haiku Phase One From Wolf Twin Books

As it was for most of us, the global pandemic and its aftermath was a very traumatic and trying time for me. A very deep and personal betrayal led to the end of a ten year relationship, just in time for the entire world to be closed as I started my search for a new direction in my life. Then I had a stroke, which resulted in an arduous rehab to recover my dominion over my own faculties. 

But one thing remained constant: my love and desire to write poetry and make books. And as often happens when one has a guiding light in life, the path ahead revealed itself when I showed the faith and resolve to move forward. The Universe seems to sense when we are ready for our next adventure, and the path reveals itself.

I reconnected with literally the first person I friended on the internet, Tré, and we began working on a project called Moonscape: Haiku Phase I, which was to be a year-long exploration of how the moon affects our lives: in haiku and illustration form. The format was that one of us would write a haiku and share it with the other, who would then write a haiku in response. After a year of this Tré began working on the illustrations for the 70 haiku pairings, and despite having gone through some very serious medical challenges also, Tré finished 70 illustrations in three months. 

Yesterday was the official release of our first book together, Moonscape!

Buy Moonscape: Haiku Phase I

But more than just seeing our own vision realized, we're also offering a spotlight for other poets to share their work.... Wolf Twin Review. Having made the decision to leave Zombie Logic Press and Review in the past, I had no idea how much I missed providing an arena for other poets to shine. Please check out our first few featured poets at Wolf Twin Review

I am so proud and overjoyed with what Tré and I have created together, and as I did with Zombie Logic Press, Zombie Logic Review, and Outsider Poetry, I want to share it with the entire community of poets and writers I have been lucky enough to meet and call colleagues these past 35 years. 

Also, I want to share two of my favorite pages from Moonscape.

Page 10

Page 56

I could have chosen any two pages of the seventy to represent what I loved about working with Tré as a fellow haikuist and illustrator, but what I like about these two is I think they accurately represent the range of emotions and human experiences we went through over an entire year, from the whimsical and carefree, to the deep and poignant. The moon really did bring out a full range of emotions in us. And I think we were able to capture that in Moonscape.

In short, it's nice to be back publishing poetry, my first love, and working with the best partner one could ever have, and I hope anyone who has been part of this journey in the past, and anyone who would like to join us on our journey in the future, will join our little wolfpack and howl with us.

Owwwwwwowooooooooooo!!!!!!!

It would be a great honor to us if you'd share our adventures at Facebook and Instagram or just send positive vibes our way as we take steps together towards our dream of continuing to create forever and offer platforms for others to share their creativity. 

Hemorrhage

No one really needs to see this one yet, so I'll just put it here. 

Hemorrhage

Because you will explode
Like a bouquet  of
Mr. Lincoln's Tea Roses
During an unspecified
Act in the Farce,
Frustrating a lifetime
Of efforts from teachers,
Analysts, and surgeons
To hold me together,
And emptying my head
Of the eternal poppycock
That I was thinking
Something important,
I have left this month's
Electric bill
Unsettled. 

-Thomas L. Vaultonburg

Six Poems By Donna Dallas

Donna Dallas studied Creative Writing and Philosophy at NYU’s Gallatin School and was lucky enough to study under William Packard, founder and editor of the New York Quarterly.  Her work has most recently appeared in The Opiate, Anti Heroin Chic, Beatnik Cowboy and Horror Zine among many other publications. She has just published a novel, Death Sisters, with Alien Buddha Press.She currently serves on the editorial team for Red Fez.

                                                                 Donna Dallas

Girls of Holly Hill

There are four houses
ones’ got a bathtub in front
with couch cushions piled inside
you can sit and sink into
Momma comes out with faded pink rollers
a cigarette dangles
she watches the other three houses
like the Manhattan skyline
a group of kids run
to the house with the pool
above ground
wood planks scaffolding
the sides in place
they step carefully over mounds and mounds
of dog shit
climb up that rickety rusted ladder
to jump into the green algae water
Later those little holly-ettes
head to a gritty couch to dry off
fumble over each other
with chlorine hands
and stubby thumbs
feverishly explore slitted caverns
within each other’s bodies
Jill from the Hill
got the black eye
from last night’s shift
the three legged dog rolls around in the dirt
Sady wears long sleeves every day
even when it’s roasting
to hide her tracks
Bubbles lost her nose from the cocaine
no cartilage left to hold its shape
smashed flat like a cartoon character
every day she walks four miles
to the nursing home to pick up Gramps
wheels him to the casino
leaves Gramps in the corner drooling
while she plays the penny slots
heads back at sunset
hits it up with Sady
Momma’s got the Pap’s Blue and the cigs
Jill dances
along the side of the highway
until dawn


Paco Please

Paco reads the Bible with us
his gaze a ravenous Dr. Oberheuser
will Paco skin me
or molest me?
Perhaps he jacks off to pics
of little girls in ruffled panties
I shower with the lights off
Paco peers into windows
never fixed that torn shade
Paco praises the lord
for these gifts of bounty
Does Paco bury his victims deep within
the dead underbrush of this land
or does Paco secretly love me?
Damn Paco
when my red satin bra and panties
went missing
my heart shaped sunglasses
the sequin and bauble necklace from mother’s cruise to Cozumel
four lipsticks from Wet & Wild
Paco’s smug as a bug nested at the window
with a kimono
and a cigarette
rainbow eyes
lips raging sinister red
under a burgundy embellished outline
I longingly peer
at his smooth
hairless legs
from the side window


While in Ordinary Time

I had to choose from six different types of sugar this morning in the coffee shop while the weird man who looked like Rambo-Santa was watching me I thought he was a pedo I just realized I’m in the game duh like when was I not I turned quick and got a crick in my neck and tried looking for an acupuncturist ones with pink hair know what they are doing this is completely untrue but I tell myself this because she has pink hair and is working on my neck like a demon while four ambulances and several fire engines stream by in urgent panic the siren noise grilling and deepening and the world may be ending of course while I have twelve needles in my neck what better time for Armageddon what better time to pull up on a street corner and thirty task force combat police I don’t know what the fuck get out and cover the four corners – I think this is it –
really as Magenta the acupuncturist is now intently needling a map down my upper spine I say Magenta is it the end? Is this the apocalypse? The world war???!!.....as my stomach drops
because I have $68 left in my wallet Magenta strokes my back inserts another needle and replies the world ended December 22 nd , 2012 baby none of this is real……


Better Days

I creep at dawn onto the train lowly
and slowly ride through those
tunnels of doom I follow a woman too close
on purpose I study
her hair
her damaged
split ends slightly brassy
home colored I compare
to my own mess of a head I wonder why I
care about her hair less anything to salvage
the disarray that has
come full circle
to complete my very visible
dark roots


Acts of self-realization

The thing about regret the thing about this
veil
these invisible walls -- climb over
the first one and there it is again back at ya
the thing is
it never ends -- this thing / these walls this terrible myth
hangs on every
edge of your
every thought every glance you see her -- of course it’s a ‘she’
regret comes in soft
flowers blooming with lilac and rose scents the petals drift
into your palm
pierce as the thorn would -- she is no thorn back
at ya the thing about her -- about regret
about it all
fuck it that’s what
they say but the fog of her keeps you at bay keeps you right at the
foot of something so great so eager
you hang on a hair
over a chasm
over a thought a life -- an unfortunate event
back at ya she comes full force
she / her / us / we go nowhere together


Casino diaries

#1
Joey C. self-made tree cutter
wanna win baby win
Just cut a tree down today
Huge oak fell
across the road
made 4 grand
(Nice!)
momma gonna make me a star today
Joey C. just dropped it all in this here black jack machine
What about your wife and kids Joey?
What about the money you need to take care of them?
Fuck it
I go home and tell my wife I had no business today
I’ll cut another tree tomorrow
#2
Where my bitches at
Says the pimp at the bar
They all on call says the bartender
Makin dat money
Dats what I thought

#3
The dishwasher-drug-dealer-room-renter
Rents an apartment
Then rents out rooms within his apartment
To the new jacks
Who come in
Off the books
To clean the bathrooms
The dishwasher-drug-dealer-room-renter sells some marijuana and crack
You want coke
He can get it
On his break
Right after his shift he walks the floor
There’s always a last minute fiend open and waiting
To buy more
Of whatever the dishwasher-drug-dealer-room-renter has
Could be shit
Doesn’t matter if he got pills that were stuffed up someone’s ass
#4
Druggies shoot the needle
Gamblers shoot the dice


Editors note: So, it's been almost a year since I posted anything new at Zombie Logic Review. It has been a trying and arduous year for me due to health concerns. I feel much better now and am ready to do what I love best: publish the best poetry I can find from the bravest, most audacious and talented poets, wherever I find them, and regardless of what school they belong to, or don't belong to. Please spread the word. Zombie Logic is back and looking to shake it up again. I'll be posting these poems also at Zombie Logic Press Facebook and Outsider Poetry  I appreciate you liking and sharing on behalf of all the poets and contributors who work so hard to make Zombie Logic Review a collaborative effort. Please feel free to submit or encourage others to at vaultonburg@gmail.com. We may not be all in this together, but we're sure as shit all in it. 

David Pedersen "Always, Forever, Since First Thought"

David Pedersen is a poet, filmmaker, park ranger, union rep, doggy daddy, husband, friend, and typewriter enthusiast. This piece was written on a Hermes 3000. You can purchase the Kindle version of his book Love Is Meat  at Amazon

Poems By Giorgia Stavropoulou

Giorgia Stavropoulou is a poet, writer of absurdist fiction and a former clinical psychotherapist trained in systems theory and Lacanian psychoanalysis. She was born in Athens, Greece but raised in a bilingual home in multilingual Belgium, and now lives in Southern California. Her work has appeared in City (Journal of South Asian Literature), Journey Curves Anthology 1: writers reading in Athens, Zombie-Logic, Out-of-Print magazine, Clockwise Cat and Entropy. She also holds postgraduate degrees in Anthropology, South-Asian languages and literatures and Creative Writing (Manchester Metropolitan University).

hurricanes of fire

deep

under the sleepless

black soil

of the pacific ocean

a spur

puffing itself up

ignited

by your dead heart

beating in

arrhythmic rocks

stones

dwelling in alchemical lakes

of cobalt & amphibian 

in these dead waters

aquatic flames

of frozen fire

thinking themselves more alive

like unborn placenta

they want to form a human hand

they want reach out of the dark

in black lotus movements

ploughing through pale or

nostalgic corals

picture submarines at full speed

or fighter jets circling above gigantic tremors of salt

there are warships moving full speed ahead in the pacific 

their mission?

to inspect 

dwarf suns

being born

at 36 000 under

from a womb of archaic fire

suns

accompanied by

seventy-seven underwater 

blizzards

with turquoise-lightening sparking off in murdered water

and vibrations encapsulating the whales of regret

yes it thunders 

my friend 

deep down in the pacific ocean

isn’t your floor trembling and shaking?

hasn’t water told you

how exhausted it really is?

sea salt is plotting its next step

but don't worry

just take another sip

from your cocktail

at manhattan beach

while you still can

because

at your horizon

the polymorph perverse

hurricanes of fire began their ritual eruption

swallowing the disheveled pigeons of desire 

blurring the neat divisions

between above and below

you know

monsieur 

there’s a demon

inside you

waiting

to rearrange  

your plastic organs 

only $2.50 

india

an ant colony of shades of brown

in banaras

at the shores of the holy ganges

where corpses are crisp

and human ashes are mistaken for the heavens

an american breakfast is only $2.50

the view you get for free

bon appetite

no need to tip 

in black city’s invisible auschwitz

in black city’s

invisible auschwitz

i meet the angel of death

about to execute jazz music

my eyelashes adorned

with electroshocks

and my legs open:

clitoris erect

i sit like a real man

my corpse marching  

on whole notes

and half notes

when prison guards

mechanically

behead themselves

with samurai swords

and sound waves

attach themselves

onto my silicon skin

like termites

wriggling melodically

into my pubic hair

when my liver

escorts improvisation

to resurrect itself

when that happens

mermaids armed with condoms

and automatic rifles

will swim through the soft music

of city lights

staring at burning butchers

and all suns will

hold their breath

while the color red

sets foot again

in black buildings

and giant spiders

will menstruate on my hands

female robots

will burst out

in loud laughter

their silver teeth dancing

in bordeaux blue ecstasy

(hysteria gone overboard)

till the butchers

are finally buried

then the sirens will

piss out of joy

on their graves

and bob kaufman

will recite seven of

his jail poems

in black city’s

invisible auschwitz

Jimi, Jim, Patsy, Hank, Woody, Blind Willie, and David J. Thompson

David J. Thompson goes places. And he takes pictures. And writes poems.

Rub This Poem

Next chance you get,

rub this poem

on the chest

of a sick child.

I’m not kidding.

Go ahead.

See what happens.

I dare you.

Salvation

I have a job

sorting lentils

at the local convent

of the Poor Clares.

Minimum wage.

No benefits.

Better chance

of salvation,

the Sisters say,

than promotion.

Past Due Bills

He’s in the post office lobby

holding a baby girl; you know

the look – ex-frat boy in his late twenties,

white Polo, pressed khakis, and stylish

stubble. I hate him already, but I see

he’s wearing a Boston Red Sox cap,

so after I drop my past due bills in the slot,

I walk up to him like I’m admiring the kid.

He gives me his best Matt Damon smile,

and then I punch him as hard as I can

right on the nose. I hear the bone crack,

see blood spurt out, watch the baby fall.

I just keep walking out into the parking lot,

thinking what I might have done

if he was wearing a fucking Dodgers cap.

I Guess You Could Say

Every English major knows,

with a wink and a grin, that

Lord Byron, the great Romantic,

had more than a sibling relationship

with his half-sister, Augusta,     .

but it turns out that his father,

Mad Jack, as he was known,

was lovers with his own sister, too.

A chip off the old block.

Like father, like son.

I guess you could say

incest runs in the family.

I Have Sinned

No matter where we are

in our lovemaking, if

my new girlfriend hears

church bells ringing,

she stops whatever we’re doing,

crosses herself about a hundred times

and keeps repeating, Forgive me, Father,

for I have sinned.

The next time I go to CVS

to buy some condoms,

I’m going to pick up

some ear plugs, too.

Please like and share us on Facebook and send your own submissions of poetry, fiction, art, and photography to editor Thomas L. Vaultonburg at vaultonburg@gmail.com