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. 

Sudeep Adhikari: Zen Buddhism, Existential Poetry, and a Tribute to Chris Cornell

Sudeep Adhikari is a structural engineer/Lecturer  from Kathmandu, Nepal.   His recent publications were with   Red Fez , Kyoto  , Your One Phone Call, Jawline Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, Beatnik Cowboys, Poetry Pacific, Silver Birch Press and Outlaw Poetry. 

Zen of Sleeping Bodhisattvas

After hitting absolute rock bottom 
of my haunted Self, it took me 
a couple of heart-breaks, 
an obsession with Wittgenstein, Buddha,  
Carl Jung and Ian Curtis,    
6 years of research on fiber reinforced concrete
in a shithole for a lab, 
and a few self-destructive episodes 

of shame to realize that  everything is still 
empty and groundless, and   
Impermanence is permanently incurable. 

But my psyche finds its own way 
to self-organize I guess;  Because my same 
old demons, are now the
dreams of my sleeping Bodhisattvas. 




We all are Same God 

We are the reciprocal ripples
of our own loneliness
and endless fragmentations 
that follow. You consecrate,
you desecrate
does it really matter?

My psychoid, schizoid episodes
remain unalloyed and pure
form the ether
of our collective madness; 
A noisy signal, a psychic-wave
 undulates the noosphere. 

Unheard, yet turbulent.



Black Hole Sun 

The hopelessness and despair. They keep coming 
at you like a black hole sun. 
You stand at the edge of a dreadful void;   
tempted to peek into the singularity, 
all anxieties collapsing under the gravity 
of a superunknown. 

The other-worlds might let you sleep like 
a kid, you think. A very long sleep, without
worrying about waking 
to the world of piercing black lights.  

Life, Ativan and Rock n' Roll 
it's a killer combination, my friend. But 
the shit goes on, in its usual Jesus Christ Pose. 


[A tribute to late Chris Cornell]

Poems By Justin Karcher

Justin Karcher is the author of Tailgating at the Gates of Hell from Ghost City Press, http://ghostcitypress.tumblr.com/gcp003. Recent works have been published in 3:AM Magazine, Plenitude Magazine, Foundlings, The Black Napkin, 63Channels and more. He is the editor-in-chief of Ghost City Review. He is the winner of the 2015 Just Buffalo Literary Center members' writing competition. He tweets @Justin_Karcher.

I Like It When the Marlboro Man Calls Me Daddy

So one night I’m scheduled to do a poetry reading
Over at Gypsy Parlor and while walking there
I get a text that reads, “My period
Is so good. I know I am not pregnant.
I feel confident now.” I let the disappointment
Wash over me and flick my cigarette
Down a sewer grate in hopes that it will be
Mutated by radioactive, chemical toxic waste
Into the Marlboro Man and that he’ll climb
Out of the underground and teach me how
To be a man, that he’ll take me by the hand
And show me the skeletons of fossil whales
Uniting and dividing the country like train tracks
Because maybe the American Dream is dead
And we must all come to grips with this tragedy
That the bodies left behind are big and weird
That we should push them back out to sea
And finish the grand experiment once and for all.
My mind wanders a lot. I turn left onto Grant
And see a group of Somali men smoking cigarettes
And laughing in front of a converted funeral home.
Despite all the difficulties, everyone is just trying
To make it. I can’t help but think of those Somali men 
In Minneapolis who were shot while going to a mosque
For Ramadan prayers. An armed white man
Confronted them with insults about their robes
Looking like dresses, pulled out a gun
And began shooting. The story was all over the news
Back in June, pundits declaring that America
Is no longer safe, that there needs to be a change.
When will everyone realize that America
Is composed of all the world’s unanswered prayers
And it’s our responsibility to let them swim in the air
Making music out of silence, to let them convert death
Into something more livable, like Lazarus
Groaning in himself before climbing out of the darkness.
In front of Gypsy Parlor, I flick my cigarette
At a streetlight in hopes that the streetlight is flammable
That it’ll burst into flames, that the wave of light
Spreads through the city like a bubonic plague of passion
That it gobbles up all the insecurity guards denying entry
To the future we deserve, that maybe we can use the flames
To light about 400 million ear candles so every American
Can remove the wax from their ears and understand
The power of effective communication until each
And every one of us can help pregnant pauses give birth
To the words we’re afraid to say. My optimism 
Wanders a lot. Inside Gypsy Parlor, 
I order two shots of whiskey to get me in the mood
As if my words are a spouse I’m not attracted to anymore.
The reading goes well and afterwards I get drunk
And talk about Hemingway and what it used to be like
And it’s all shit, the words coming out of my mouth
But it’s all I know, getting drunk like this
When my tongue becomes an ambulance 
Carrying dead bodies, a history of making out
With anyone standing near me, of confessing my sins
To ATMs and they vomit out my empty penance 
Little slips of paper telling me how much I’ve fucked up.
I’ve somewhat mastered the art of looking casual
While glancing to see if the machine says approved
Or declined. And I want to be a dad? Me of all people?
I talk a big game and my head’s always in the clouds
But I have no idea how to distinguish the difference 
Between natural clouds and the ones that are toxic. 
Empty words contribute to air pollution. Language
Wanders a lot. Walking home from Gypsy Parlor
I see that the Somali men have all gone to bed
And I miss their laughter, the only thing
That was truly alive tonight. I arrive at my house
And the Marlboro Man is sitting on the steps 
And he’s wearing a dress and he looks beautiful
In a cancerous sort of way. He grabs me by the hand
And leads me inside. In my poorly furnished living room
He removes his dress as if to seduce me. His body
Is pregnant with tumors. I put his cowboy hat on
And kiss every baby bump I can find. Afterwards
I tell him to get on his knees and call me daddy.
I think I’m crying, because millions and millions
Of unanswered prayers are swirling all around me
And I start to panic, because I’m not sure which one is mine 
But even if my words are somewhere out there, in that dust cloud
I’m not sure I want to hear them. What I think I want
Wanders a lot and I’m afraid I like it that way. 



Gathering Together Dead Body Parts to Assemble the next President of the United States

It’s summer here so frostbitten crust punks
Are touching themselves in the amber glow
Of backyard bonfires on Buffalo’s
Lower west side. They’re trying to warm up
To the idea that Bernie Sanders will not be
The next President of the United States.
I can hear them weeping and moaning
As I walk up Delavan thinking about my on-again 
Off-again girlfriend. Sometimes I dream 
That I’m Frankenstein and she’s my bandage-wrapped bride
And we’re both composed of dead body parts
From all the people who’ve screwed us over.
I over-romanticize everything, but it’s so important
To be connected to something larger than yourself.
Even in this sea of sadness, choose your battles wisely
And hang on tight. Tonight, I will make love to my on-again
Off-again girlfriend on a bed of Bernie Sanders
For President yard signs and afterwards, we’ll dream
Of better things. It’ll be like necrophilia
And when we wake up, there’ll be snow
On the ground and all this will be lost.



A Beach Party for Animals That Have Gone Extinct

She tried to stab me with a vibrator
I was in the process of moving out
I got the hell out of there
But before leaving I took one of her bottles
Of Fireball Cinnamon Whisky
I don’t even like Fireball
But I couldn’t resist the poetry of the moment
A relationship was over and done with
Extinct, as if it was hit by the asteroid
That killed the dinosaurs
In other words, the dinosaurs drank too much fire
I was hoping the whisky would do the same to me
I did really love her
So I drank the entire bottle
And wandered around the city
I must’ve blacked out
Because when I came to
I was on a pretty beach somewhere
Which was strange
Because there are no pretty beaches
Where I come from
I was at a beach party for animals that have gone extinct
There were Neanderthal DJs
Spinning fossil records
On a couple of x-ray turntables
I was grinding up against a wooly mammoth
And tickling its ivory keys
It was the hottest thing I’ve ever done
The music of extinction 
Gets the dance floor moving
I got into a fight with a saber-toothed tiger
And won I pulled out its teeth
With rusted pliers and cried afterwards
The big angry cat was so beautiful
When the sun started to come up
A bunch of dodo birds took flight
And they were holding tiny vibrators
In their weird-looking beaks 
I watched them fly over the water
Where they dropped the vibrators
Like they were sad sex bombs
It was the most amazing thing
I’ve ever seen, not to mention
That dodo birds lost the ability to fly
While they were still alive
So I guess that means 
It takes a little bit of extinction
For us to regain the best parts of ourselves
It filled me with optimism 
Watching those dumb birds fly
Watching those vibrators drown
In the dirty water 
So I guess that means
We shouldn’t focus so much
On pleasuring ourselves
Because if we do 
We’ll just end up drowning alone
That maybe we should focus
On pleasuring the dead things
That are all around us
That maybe we should make sense
Of extinction and hope for the best 
When the sun did finally come up
I was walking to a café
So I could eat an overpriced bagel
And drink lukewarm coffee
And hopefully plan for the rest of my life



We're Living in Closets Full of Snow

“It’s like drilling for oil,” Sam tells me
He’s shoveling snow 
And still wearing those therapy pajamas
With the bottom part of the pants cut
It’s bitter cold out here
Like something out of Game of Thrones
But Sam likes getting frostbite
Says it makes him feel alive
That the freezing of body tissues
Reminds him that he still has a body
And that’s all you can really ask for these days
The backyard is full of glow-in-the-dark junk
A lawn sprinkler douses us in bare-knuckled bourbon
And bruises my spirit but not Sam’s
He has shoveled three times so far tonight
Convinced that there are Vitamin D supplements 
Buried under the snow he tells me that happiness
Flashes suddenly and is gone like how when you fall asleep
In the Rust Belt and there’s no snow but then you wake up
And see that some blizzard painted the ground with its tears
While you were dreaming and Sam dreams a lot
Like he’s Edgar Cayce or something, a lot of times he dreams
Of this small town graveyard full of television sets 
And they’re all tuned in to a live coverage
Of dead men’s stag parties he tells me that testosterone
Is leaving this land but that might be a good thing
He yells at me for falling in love with the same kind of girl
The kind that feels the urge to jump off a bridge all the time
The kind that will probably get postpartum depression
I tell him he’s being sexist and Sam tells me I’m probably right
Sometimes Sam shovels even when there isn’t any snow
One day I’ll cut bathtubs out of his eyes and soak in his speakeasies 
Of sadness and together we’ll hold hands and jump off a bridge
We might be fuck-ups but at least we’re not douchebags
And that’s pretty important, to still give a shit
To still think there’s happiness out there somewhere 



Your Melancholy Is Straight out of an Edith Piaf Song

In Buffalo the love is cheap
A pretty girl wondering what to do
With the dizziness
There’s only so much whiskey I can drink
In hopes that things will get interesting
Or real to the touch

When you black out
Your brain loses its ability to form memories
But your heart gains the ability to spit passion
In all directions
Like a cobra projecting venom from its fangs
When defending itself
I’ll take that trade off every time

And yet there are nights I want to remember
Nights I want to kiss you in the glow 
Of the Buffalo State Hospital
Where the phantoms of psychosis are held down
By the giants of memory
Where birds of feelings
Are always crashing into invisible windows
And their little bodies Hindenburg out of the sky
Until the ground is littered with what appears to be
Dry, dead leaves

Sometimes things fall apart
So that better things can fall together
Sometimes it’s the simplest fucking thing
That makes me happy

Watching you dance in the rain
While I conjure the ghost of Edith Piaf
With a smartphone Ouija board

Todd Moore, The Founding Force of Outlaw Poetry, and Dennis Gulling's The Blood Dark Sea

Most people don't know this, even people sort of well-versed in the history of the small press, but Outlaw Poetry was started right here in the Rockford area. Belvidere to be exact. By an English teacher at Belvidere High School named Todd Moore. I read with Todd Moore several times, including one time in a basement in Stillman Valley with another legendary small press poet, Lyn Lifshin. he is one of the few poets I ever sent a fan letter to, and my geographical proximity had nothing to do with that. He was a revered small press poet, and probably had a better chance being recognized in Los Angeles than here in Rockford. Like virtually every small press poet I wrote to, including Charles Bukowski, he turned out to be friendly, encouraging, and took time to answer my questions about what it meant to be a small press poet.

Dillinger by Todd Moore

he made an impression on a great many prospective writers, including one of his students, Dennis Gulling. So much so that Dennis became a sort of protege of Todd Moore, and began writing his own impressive Outlaw Poetry during high school. For nearly thirty years he has been quietly compiling some of the most impactful poetry of anyone writing in the Midwest. Because of his reclusive nature this has gone unnoticed to many. But those who know speak the name of Dennis Gulling with a respect and appreciation for his canon of work.

Now, for the first time, his poetry has been collected into a full-length book of poems, The Blood Dark Sea. The selections were made by Dennis Gulling himself, and compiled and published by Zombie Logic Press, also of Rockford, Illinois. I am, in fact, the editor of that book, Thomas L. Vaultonburg, and I can report the more I read these poems, and I believe I may have read them more than anyone else on Earth, besides Dennis Gulling, the more I am convinced this is a tour de force of not only Outlaw Poetry, but poetry itself. 

I start out this sequential set of poems from The Blood Dark Sea with the poet's own ode to his mentor, Todd Moore. 

SOMETHING FOR TODD

The words poured off him like water

Through a broken dam

I was sucked

Into the flood

Clear and cold

Held under by its weight

And I’ve been

Drowning ever since

Diving deeper

Into the darkness

HOW I LOST $10

Bill Quincer banged on

My back door with a towel

Wrapped around one hand

Said he’d cut off

A finger with his band saw

And wanted me to drive

Him to the hospital

On the way over

He took a bloody handkerchief

From his shirt pocket

Held up the finger

And said

What’ll you give me

If I walk into the emergency room

With this thing up my nose?

 TRENCH COAT

The guy in the trench coat

Paced back and forth

Outside Goodman’s Cafeteria

With his hands pushed

Deep in his pockets

Putting his face to the window

Every few minutes

Until he fell back suddenly

Into the shadows

As a guy in a leather jacket

Came out the door and started

Down the street

Trench coat stepped out

Of the darkness

And said a man’s name to his back

Leather jacket turned around

And his eyes got big

He made a run for it

While a pointy bulge

Appeared in trench coat’s right pocket

Something popped

And leather jacket was pasted

To the air just for a second

Then he started walking

Like the sidewalk had melted

Did that for a few yards

Then stopped in his tracks

In front of Greenberg’s Variety

His legs jackknifed at the knees

And he went over sideways

Between 2 parked cars

Trench coat’s giggle

Was broken glass in the night

He danced a little jig

Then walked the other way

SHE SHOT HIM

She shot him

In the head 3 times

Then chopped his fingers off

With a hatchet

And put them in her purse

Beside chewing gum

Kotex and keys

Later

At the Hoot ‘n’ Holler Café

She dropped a thumb

In an ashtray

Next to a smoking butt

And laughed

All the way out the door

EVIL

A voice in his head

Told him his index finger

Was evil

So he took a ginsu knife

And cut it off

Then he left the house

Until the evil could

Run out the open end

His wife came home

From the grocery store

And dropped her bag of stuff

When she saw all the blood

On the kitchen counter

Then noticed the finger

On the floor pointing toward

The front door like it was saying

He went that-a-way