demise in the afternoon - ben nardolilli & king, three skulls, the gift - evan spears

Demise in the Afternoon

Take tickets, take seats,
Grab a view for you or two,
Things are happening
And the earth is deciding
To try and shake us off for good,
You don’t want to miss this.

Our sins are finally reaching
The threshold for poetic justice,
The circle, once broken,
Will now be finished off,
This is the one and only appearance
Of this apocalypse.

Ben Nardolilli currently lives in Arlington, Virginia. His work has appeared in Perigee Magazine, Red Fez, Danse Macabre, The 22 Magazine, Quail Bell Magazine, Elimae, fwriction, THEMA, Pear Noir, The Minetta Review, and Yes Poetry. His chapbook Common Symptoms of an Enduring Chill Explained, has been published by Folded Word Press. He maintains a blog at mirrorsponge.blogspot.com and is looking to publish his first novel. 

KING, THREE SKULLS, THE GIFT - Evan Spears

erspears.deviantart.com

erspears.tumblr.com

Taking the Cake & The Untied Stales - Paul Hostovsky w/ Life Drawing - Evan Spears

Taking the Cake

The urinal

cake, that deodorizer

thingy: small, white,

hockey puck-

like, lozenge-like,

lemon Italian ice-

like, deceptively

fragrant in the urinal's

sepsis, ultimately

irresistible

to the three-year-old

that you were

when you reached your hand in

to take it

and put it in your mouth

while I stood next to you,

not seeing you,

because I was looking

blissfully up

at the dropped ceiling,

peeing

the jumbo regular

coffee of the last

rest stop out in torrents,

exhaling contentedly,

feeling good about

life in general

and you and your beautiful

mother waiting in the car

in particular,

not to mention my perfectly

functioning bladder

emptying itself

the way it should,

which always feels

good no matter how

you cut it. 

The Untied Stales

of America, my daughter

has written over the map

of the lower forty-eight

a little carelessly,

transposing two letters,

forgetting to cross one t,

the map itself colored in

a little sloppily, dark crayon

spilling in from Canada

and bleeding into Mexico.

And how perfect is that?

Taking the Cake & The Untied Stales - Paul Hostovsky (PaulHostovsky.com)

Life Drawing-Evan Spears (erspears.deviantart.com / erspears.tumblr.com)