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Deep Tissue 1

Deep Tissue
Creative Arts
Magazine
Issue #3, April, 2010
Deep Tissue 2

Babs Rock-its
By Babs Martin

Bullet Ride

We zip down Highway 75 on the Bullet

Dip into invisible cold pockets of blue juniper

Thump over warm pockets of red cedar

and distant cooking of French fries

“Warm smell of colitas rising up through the air”

comes to mind

Ever seen colitas?


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Large, low-growing, pale-yellow flower

tinted pink tips growing along freeway?

Only a So Cal native’s painted imagination

Bridge railings echo pipe vibrations back to my ears

Very much aware of my space without a clue where I am

Far from where I started, nowhere near where I’m going,

“. . . you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.”

I hunker lower into his leather back

keep cheap sunglasses from flying off my head

prevent 70mph tearing my tear ducts

My miniscule parachute sleeve flies

Cool breeze crawls up my arm

I draw him even closer

We’re tight together on the same ride

Yet, I wonder about his thoughts

He often says motorcycle rides glide you

amongst man’s scents pedaling off moist stems

Cans travel through elements

one location to another

unaware of what steams inside wind curls

He says riding in a can is no way to live


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Overgrown brush, dry thickets and scrub oaks

absorb our intrusion streaking moon’s nobility

“Hotel California” still sings out behind my eyes

I’m far from California, there’s no hotel in sight

Here, there is no yesterday and there is no tomorrow

Small pellets lightly whack my leather arms

wrapped around his waist

They must be netting his face -

Never thought about the force of gnats

We slow move into left turn lane

safe eyes lift facing blue neon lights

I dismount, reach to tiny lump,

dead bug stuck in lipstick.

You can find more of Babs work at:

http://www.myspace.com/babsmartin

Babs Martin was born in San Diego, CA, raised on Route 66, and currently resides in Oklahoma. She is a
creative expressionist in words and music. Babs written works have appeared in anthologies, on-line
publications and magazines. Her Rock-n-Word Trip recordings and CD singles have been featured on
several radio programs in the US and Canada. Babs collections and performances are designed to fly
you on a high and deliver you to the door steps of your own sensational journey.
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Sex, Death, and Taxes


By A.D. Hitchin

Chameleon

To fester hate
yearning puerile petty fist threat
my insomniac eccentricities
croaking, death rattle missionaries
broken city
detonating, setting me apart -

„why the blasted hell should I want to belong?!‟

sitting under trees vermilion eye


concrete Mary‟s,
Reverends preaching repeat
habitations,
empty proclamations
obese blushed lizards baking sun

how I've become accustomed to chameleons!

cruel spinster nurses


with chaste finger jewels
the chain mail tranquillity of post-industrial machines
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sleep, wake
sleep.

The worms are waiting.

Intercourse

Fashionable scandal
lurid lips licked fidgeting broadsheets negotiated power plays
assemblies antiseptic word and image translated hypertext unearths the
birth of winter -
bygone years of colour

dying in
modern invention
cursed customs attach themselves to poems artful eyebrows hung on tears
the backlash of boredom bleeding
indulgent audiences
councils pretending balance
feet fixed upon the shoulders of fictions
skulls hollowed

the barren moist intercourse of pale


corpus
memories murdered and tossed as stones.

Cataracts

Accruements, scattered extensions scarcely conscious


gypsy daffodil shreds, death dress smoky coils pretending
elegance

the finest of mortuary trophies.

Pen travelling waxen penis kisses


hair greased - knotted with skulking life
clutching porcelain sink, plugholes viscous rasp quickening the misting of your
cataracts.

Saint’s Suicide

Knot the tourniquet


main-vein mayonnaise, take a razorblade
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between thumb and forefinger;


see how your wrist begs to be
conquered?

You can find more Antony’s work at:

http://www.myspace.com/antonyhitchin
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Spillings
By Dan Kellett

i want to tell you


that I felt worn
like the spade of the shovel
that dug the grave
for my nappy
gallant mane

i had lost my faith


in the fleshy constitutions
of men
watching their drewling faces
while they held pockets open
wider
than they held their hearts

i want to tell you


that i will be soaked into this
my every ripple
absorbed and consumed
in leach secretion
because this world is hateful

not the grass


or the deer
or the air
or even the raptors
or the lions
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not the beasts that severe flesh


because they need flesh

but the people


who severe one another
out of no
real
need at all

i want to tell you


that i look forward
to the soak of thick summer air
touching me
way too late at night
while I get drunk
on gusts
that have passed through the trees
skimmed the soil
ate the blaze of sun
and touched the tips of the waves
of the Atlantic the Pacific and the Gulf
and a million other beings
before finding me
to whisper a chime on the drum of my ear
tickling swarms
of my broke down devils
away

it's droplet filled breezes


swoon my pores
guiding me back

to my head

to my breath

to the inner sides of my eyes

to where i dare to smirk

again

I want to tell you


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that i was lost


in grief
like mud in my blood
a screaming skin
my skeleton laying low to the ground

i want to tell you


that i have felt
a heavy
dingy
sky
lay it's grey forsake
dead
on my back
it's clouds full of slow crush gravity
driving quake
Into my knees

i want to tell you that i have swayed


and staggered
and bled
and spit

i want to tell you

that i have no fear of it now

And i will build against it

i want to tell you


that i will show you
that i am fire
grenades buried in this chest
the pins being rattled loose
by money lust
and warring tribes
and humans looking through
their own kind
and now
you should lay level
like a well plowed field
fertile
with hope

i want to tell you


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my fierce be comin back round


to grow
in spite
of vast
angry
spillings

i wanted to tell you this


dear wanting
unstained page
because
i had
no one else to tell

You can find more of Dan’s work at:


http://www.myspace.com/dk_d
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Lavender Dreams
By Nic St. James

This is PAIN

She beat her feet into the cold tile of the aisle
Voices judge with middle class indifference over the soft comfort of muzac
She thinks, “milk or bread?”
Which will provide the comfort of love in her babies empty bellies?
Which will provide what was left of her dignity?
78 cent bread
The soft empty kind
That mashed to the top off her mouth as she sat cold and cried
Her babies crawled just to where her heart lay splayed on the floor,
“Mamma we want milk”
“Next week babies,
Next week,
We shall dine on meat and milk.”
And she thought,
“I will take the bus to the place that promised that I could
Dance
There are places that still will hire me worn
Tired
&Empty
There are men that still want me
For twenty dollars
& for twenty dollars I will buy you
Warmth
I will buy you
Little morsels to fill your hollow bellies
I will fill my emptiness as I hold you tight
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Twenty dollars will buy you my embrace


For twenty dollars

I will sell my soul" (and all my parts)

She learned to close her eyes


While they appeared open
She learned to stop screaming in her head
As they grazed upon her fields
She learned to stop seeing them at all as they
Devoured her hopelessness in big sloppy bites

She learned to stop imagining them dead


As they they crawled on her skin
She learned to block out their greedy bloodshot eyes
As she tucked her babies safely into bed.

Dear Poetess

A. Young poetess cross your arms:

Little girl and boredom sit with their cheeks flushed from wind
Whipped fresh in their worries as they begin
To deep crease virgin skin
These are your day‟s young fairy
These your nights
Listening within the cricket songs
When you worried you might die
Bud breasts breeding worms
Feeling them hatching strait there „neath the skin
Twisting at images of healthy bone and flesh
The agonies began
“I will touch cold ground
I will eat dirt
Worm filled”

B. Daddy will Leave Poetess:

Daddy left. Not there. Anymore. You can‟t remember.


There in a mass of blond tangles
Blue eyed foreign
A stranger. Came to say hello
Do you want to run and dance away from him,
back out to the rush of your hills and grass?
Do not answer.
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you
Did. And so did he. Forever

But daddy there


Who is
Seated
With you
He feels like you
You know his brown eyes
Wishing
Love me daddy.
See me.
See me.
See me

Sometimes he sees you

Sometimes he loves you

You could swear


Through what is there pointing to the sky
his words safe embraces
As you shiver in the dark air
These are the stars
That you will question dear
The rest of your nights
He gave you this

C. The Dreams hold answers Poetess:

They ate you and jeered against your pretty nightgowns


Your freshly bathed skin white and powdered
You screamed
Away from him and his blood
His breath death of terror
let your head rest
they come through doors and windows and alley
As folly enters hearts ; as babes enter life
Slick and wet
Aghast
Catch yourself
And suckle at the tit of that self
These are your treasures dear poetess
These are your gems
Trust their pushes
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D. That was then Poetess:

You told it to the notebooks


Velvet clinches
He loved you as you rocked together after
Wanting to crawl up into each others skin and wear it
And roll
Smiling
As a hound in death
Or feces
You rocked each other into meaning
And life
And you gave it

E. This is now Poetess:

They paint your eyes merry


And crushed
As you painted theirs
Exclaimed in arms
Or pain
They rip for you
Shear with you
Their pain. Yours. You carry
It heavy sway back.
Easing you will know
It is there
Is has been
Now it is your elemental dance
rawness aired
Feel it through you breasts and womb dear poetess
Taste it all your days
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Smeared Upon My lips

I hold a key and map. The map folded and worn, faded from salt air, chewed along the corners.

Across the center, yellowed peeling tape holds it together. It was ripped from boiled frustration.
Its ghost crumpled into a ball, I can see it bouncing off your back as you walked away with
pieces.

I smooth it out on a flat broad table and circle it, analyzing its paths and ink, taking in its
secrets, looking for the breaks, the gives, the tunnels.

I’ll need an escape plan. I need a way there, but the getaway will need to be quiet. I look for
caves for hiding and streams for cleansing and oceans to drown in. I see the mountain where I
wish to keep you, the field in which we’ll play.

The flowers there will scent of us. They will break in our tumbles and clutch.

My hair will hold daisy chains

& the light will warm us in our nakedness

Only the birds will know how we cry

And the key will lock my tears from flowing through mountain rock

It will lock my heated heart from jealous springs

&

I’ll slip away as you sleep

I never needed the map. I knew you always. I’ll burn it in predawn fire

The flame wills light to your chest . I’ll see it rise in your breath and glisten from my sweat,

dry now

& I’ll place myself in your dreams. We’ll dance there.

As I wrap up and leave you warmed and deep dreamed by the fire
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I’ll see the sun glow tempting day

As I stumble from rock to rock to cave.

&

In the spring

I will unlock my eyes

As I think of you

As I gaze at wild weeded flowers

As I smell the fragrance of their passion

As I taste the nourishment of their glory smeared upon my lips

Sylvia's Flowers

She caressed them within her poems and fingers


They bled, dirtying her tidy appearance
Betraying gems of disguise!
Life and death atop snapped green narrows
I feel her, lusting their ripe oozing whistles
The pollen of sex yellowing her finger tips
Caked on her bottom lip
Dying at her clitoris

The caskets always appeared


Grand and cold and clipped
Red tulips saviors crucified, her whitened knuckles
I’ve gone mad, I’ve gone mad!
&
Poppies
Sweet poppies
Opium bags, foggy sanatoriums
Easing veils and crippling
Slaps
Of so many lilies &
The lily she faced, the mirror of her outer edges
Fading
Never what she thought
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Never
Did dying
And barren organs
Cry so

You can find more of Nic’s work at:

http://www.myspace.com/lavenderdreams_nicoleena
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Smithereens
By Suria Kassimi

no li me tangere

petty tearful trace


filled
with anger
hope
&
good faith
purling
foaming
this
palid
whiz
vile
empty space
you
left behind
black
&
dark
eerie feel
which
blew your
mind
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step by step
your
pas de deux
glitzy dirt
melting
icy tears
desperate
fears
leading
prancing echoes
of
you
all alone
hollow
&
moan
felled timbers resinous scent
animated and alive
becomes your
keen
wafts
&
waves
the
vivid
adament
yawning gap
in between
broken
pieces
shadow friends
dance
dance
dance.
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echo
by
suria kassimi
silent cries shadow
flies
down the
dale and dark meadow
darkest black
slashing
back
the empty space
accrued
simple madness
and
rage
alone
gone
done

Suria’s art is built around the idea that as an artist she is a witness to the reality of the culture in which
she lives. She depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see. As a “Realist,” she renders everyday
characters, situations, dilemmas, and objects, all in their verisimilitude and utilizes an expressive manner
so that real objects signify a cyclical rather than linear time frame.

You can find more of Suria’s work at:

http://www.myspace.com/sourisrojakassimi
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Super Glue for the Broken Hearted


By Si Blakemore

NEON DREAMS IN SAPPORO

Perception

The bright lights of the carousel slid into focus, but all he could see was her. Shining
like a diamond amongst rocks on a beach....Glistening and pure. Complete elegance
undiminished by inferior surroundings. At home anywhere, and here by his side.

She reached out and took his hand as a child yelled with laughter behind them. The
golden horses blurred into one and momentarily hypnotised him as she squeezed,
extracting the coldness and replacing it with warmth. She turned and smiled; his heart
crumbled further.

She wore jeans and brown boots, a thick brown jacket with a scarf wrapped loosely
around the neck and a woollen hat, her long silken hair spilling out. She was perfect in
every way.
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The ride ended and her laughter and gentle pull took them away from the prancing
animals and towards a nearby stall, adorned with large soft toys. They were beckoned
over and she giggled. He took out his phone and opened up the translator application.
The stall operator explained the rules in Japanese and his phone translated in English.
He slipped it back into his pocket, took hold of the gun and calmly shot the highest
score of the day. The bunny she chose was grey and white with a large bow tie.

They found an empty bench and sat for a while. The low temperature drew them even
closer and she took his arm as they tried to stave off the shivering. A small girl stared
at them as she meandered past, licking an ice cream. Her face melted into a smile as
she caught his wink.

“How long since you spoke to Molly?”

He turned. The girl was called away by her mother.

“Six months maybe....?” he replied.

He could rarely avoid thoughts of his daughter for too long, but when asked a direct
question it was unavoidable.

“Skype?” she asked.

He nodded. Conversations like this could lower his mood, but not tonight. Not with her.
She had the ability to engage with him like no one else. She could cut to his heart
without his defences kicking in.

“Where is she?”
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“Her mother has her in Yokohama,” he answered.

He allowed his focus to drift. His thoughts merged. Memories repeatedly suppressed
started to resurface, but another flash of her smile soothed him.

“You are a good man,” she whispered into his ear.

Her tender touch to his face, welcomed like the comforting stroke to a troubled child's
head.

She lifted the rabbit and placed it between them, giving it a voice. He laughed. Her
child-like joy captivated him as much as her womanly beauty. Never had he seen
anyone so beautiful.

As they walked together under the stars sipping hot cocoa from crumpled paper cups,
his eyes tracked her every move, her every turn, her every step, her every intimation.

More laughter and screams filled the air as they approached an active roller-coaster,
rocketing wild-eyed punters into the night sky and back.

Their conversation never faltered. Even in the short silences of the two hours they had
spent here, they remained as one. Never more comfortable. Never happier. Never more
in love.

“You know you're a lucky man, don't you?” she said to him.
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“I am now,” he replied.

“No silly!” she giggled. “Lucky is the man whose universe is small....who is loved by a
few and given grace by many. I read that somewhere once....”

“Forever lucky.”

“And yet we have so little time....”

He glanced at her.

“In life?”

“And tonight. Enjoy every moment.”

He gently pulled the door to their carriage behind them, and within minutes the big
wheel had carried them high above the crowds and neon lights. She shifted closer to
him and snuggled. He held her tightly and as the cold night air blew across and gently
rocked their cradle she lifted her head and pressed her mouth onto his. The warmth of
her lips and tongue raced through his throat and down into his stomach, which flipped
and something deep inside his soul caught fire. As they continued to kiss, he took her
leg and lifted it across his, squeezing gently.

Coldness replaced with warmth. Darkness replaced with light. Despair replaced with
hope.

But then came the shudder.


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The lights below blurred. Sounds distorted. A creeping sense of nausea and fear took
control of his insides. He gripped her harder but felt his fingers slip through her leg like
butter. Her eyes were gone, her face fading, but still smiling. Panic stricken, he
screamed.

And then everything went black.

Reality

The sound of his own breathing. Fast and uncontrollable. The thumping of his heart
racing.

A sickening feeling. The return of a deep unpleasantness somewhere deep inside,


indescribable but familiar, like an old enemy.

Light returning and senses regaining their composure. The feel of sticky leather
beneath his back. A soft humming sound.

“How you doing, you ok?” A man's voice. Strong accent. “You like her? She amazing?
Took me a year to create, my friend. She do it for you?”

He sat upright, trembling and pulling at the wires still attached to his head.

He staggered across the room, crashing into trolleys and screens.


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“Be careful, take it easy! I can change her for you next time if you not like?!”

The room spun as he found his way out into the corridor. He slumped over the
reception desk, placed his fingerprint onto the device and paid the bill.

Out onto the cold damp streets, he fell against a wall and and threw up.

Warmth replaced with coldness. Light replaced with darkness. Hope replaced with
despair.

He made his way back into the city, and yet he would return this way, with thoughts of
an empty heart and a long lost child. Fractal memories clouding his judgement like
coloured smoke through candlelight.

Time after time. Day after day. Night after night.

Endlessly seeking peace and solace to trip the circuits of his mind,

Through Neon Dreams in Sapporo.

Si Blakemore was born in Birmingham, UK. He started writing short plays in my early twenties and now
focuses on more abstract short pieces such as poetry, prose and short stories.

You can find more of Si’s work at:

http://www.myspace.com/siblakemore
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A Love Affair
By Tarringo T. Vaughan

For These Words To Live

If I were to write a free write of my heart


it will be an endless description of happiness
and pain; it would be a tribute to years
of the fears and tears
dreams and nightmares
that make me feel alive

there are eyes I will never stare into again


and many smiles I will never see painted
on the portraits of faces again
but in their memories lie their moments,
my moments
to embrace and cherish
moments that will lead me towards journeys
where new discoveries meet uncovered dreams
and harsh realities dance
on resurrected moonbeams

and if I were to write the sonnet of my life


it would be non-rhyming and unmetered
but lyrical in its flow
with the essence of time
and share in pentameter
all that was once mine

there are lips my kisses will never taste again


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and hands of souls


I will never massage again
but in their importance lie many meanings;
my meanings
that have been captured
by a connection through written language
and for these words to live
I must celebrate yesterday and tomorrow
by living for today.

Awakened

I am a pause stranded between the history


of tomorrow and the future of yesterday. Time
stands still. I walk with feet that travel nowhere.
Sidewalks end yet are paved by forever‟s hands.

Everyone sees me; I am invisible,


no one pays attention to my silence.

The sunlight heals my absence


with its radiant glow on already darkened skin.

My mind is stuck in traffic, moving steadily


with thoughts that sing, but out of tune.

Scattered movements.

No one sees my whispers, but they glance


to hear the footsteps of my words. They turn away.

I am left alone. Time rings and I un-pause. Awakened;


I open my eyes to a dream remembered.

Tarringo T. Vaughan always believed he had a love affair with literature. One of the first
pictures he saw of himself was of him at maybe the age of three or four year‟s old sitting with a
book in his hand. But for Tarringo, growing up in the depths of the inner city both in Boston,
MA and Springfield, MA made him believe that expression through the literary voice was un-
cool and unattainable. As a very quiet and shy child he learned it became very valuable in his
self expression. Born in 1976, Tarringo was the first child, grandchild and nephew in a family
that had grown accustomed to struggle. His mother was a teenager who quickly lost the support
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of my father who today he knows very little of. These aspects of his life triggered the inspiration
of his pen.

Later in life his struggle with self confidence and homosexuality catapulted his desire to write.
He felt a need to educate and help others in his situation through words. It became Tarringo‟s
ambition to be somebody and in 1995 he entered his freshmen year at the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst where he was still a very quiet individual and still refused to make a
career involving literature. But his English courses continued to intrigue him the most and
through those courses he became familiar and connected with African American writers such as
James Baldwin and Langston Hughes who taught him that it was cool to be whom he was.
James Baldwin was also gay and proudly exhibited his sense of self and Langston Hughes was a
genius in poetry whose suave lyrical delivery drew Tarringo into his expression. And as his
education furthered he found himself opening up more and taking on the role of a leader socially.

Tarringo T. Vaughan graduated in 2000 from the University Of Massachusetts - Amherst with a
Bachelors degree in English and Communications as a 2nd major. Tarringo currently works in
the healthcare field but working on his first poetry book for publication titled “A Different Kind
Of Blues” and is the founder of the Flexwriters Creative Network
(http://www.flexwriterscreativenetwork.net) which currently features an online magazine, a
social site and two writing groups. Future plans include a publishing company as well as actual
an actual café for writers and spoken word nights. My writing consists of many styles as I do
like neglecting rules and going beyond the norm.

You can find more of Tarringo’s work at:

http://www.myspace.com/tarringo.vaughan
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Ponder This (Tourettes Raises Its Ugly


Head)
By Rose Aiello Morales

He Died This Morning

He died this morning.

She said a little prayer for his immortal soul

(soul-less bugger that he was)

pulled the covers across his face,

and waited for the paramedics.

Then sat hard on the floor and thought of her life,

the two foot, one shoe quick step that she danced

in time to the funeral dirge, dish pan hands

and oil scarred arms, stomach droop from too many children

reared, and grown, and flying in now to pay (dis) respects,


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eat death house food, then turn around quickly

and head back home.

Youth gone, looks gone, slouching in her ratty jeans

and holey t-shirt, grey hair peeping from dyed brown locks

and not a care for balms or makeup, those things being

for those with lives, or men that warrant luring.

Covers back, she smoothes his hair, turns up his lips

in mournful smile, palms his lids to peaceful slumber,

a kiss on the head to say goodbye.

And then she cries.

For all she had and all she lost,

and all she never did. Taking stock

of what is left, she laughs at what she's knows she's found:

FREEDOM

Martyrs

Pity the sinners who think they’re saints,

halos skewed, so sanctified,

paragons in their own minds,

wishing just to leave this realm

of miscreants and fools behind;


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but they will not be satisfied

with anything that heaven finds.

Rocking blind in hard, cold chairs,

scars and hair shirts worn with pride,

they haven’t learned to do no wrong

is not the same as doing right. So counting

beads and saying prayers for no one helps

them sleep at night, supreme in knowledge

that their shine will pave the way to paradise.

Martyrs of their own devise, the nails pounded

through their palms, stigmata just an artifice,

they bleed blue tears through punctured hearts,

and bare rough crosses on their backs,

parading selfless in their thoughts

Of holy dreams and honeyed milk.

Both God and Satan sit and laugh,


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for they have often met their ilk; such hubris

brings its tragic end, self-righteous heroes will pretend

to know much more than mortal men. The light to which

they’ve long aspired is only Dante's cleansing fire.

Mold

I broke it so long ago that the sharp pieces

have already turned to a precious dust,

wanting to forever clarify the fact

that no one will ever come close to being me.

(Though the line for auditions is such a short one)

And why would a sane person even try?

Impossible to bend the rules of such a rigid straw.

I had wet the implement until it sagged in all the right places,

eventually becoming something unrecognizable,

whipped ineffectually against the thighs of an angry world.

(Who never noticed until the wet stain dripped down)

Used hard, hung up wet, the stench of never dry

hung precariously about my form, and the moment

I found myself becoming stiff, I made damn sure


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there were liquids around to re-lubricate.

(Drowning is a fine way to die once you forget to breathe)

There were many who would tear the cloth

asking the inevitable question "WHY?”

But how could my lips form any sort of answer

that anyone would understand?

(I simply did not have the language for it)

I run fast step from those who would lift

the rotted flap of skin, pierce the skull

to see what's on my mind.

(I had tried that once)

Sorry sight it was,

the cold grey matter sprinkled

with a thickened coat of mold.

Genus Ordinaire

You

With stars hovering about your head,

amplifying halos of rarified breath,

alabaster skin ‘neath ebony curls.

Stars align themselves with planets,

Venus circles your globe, wafting blue,

outmaneuvered by your violet orbs,


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epitome of the god in sapiens’s eyes.

Who?

Darling of a singular dream, vision sanctified

by oft glimpsed image, swimming in peripheral sight,

worshipped by aloof Id, Alpha and Omega

in a drop of ink, modeled and drawn by you.

Look,

a fissure in beveled glass forming

tributaries through silvered vanity lands,

cracking paint flaking off canvas,

you wrinkling, perplexed at violent turns of fate,

walking agony on feet of clay, cloth falls off your back

with laughing populace pointing at the Emperor with no clothes.

Realize

the planets are but painted balls,

the sun a weakened blob of gas,

your halo just the faint glow of electric bulb.

For Jarlid
High and dry, fortress heaven,

omnipotent lonely, bored angel.

We shiver below in sad procession,


Deep Tissue 37

rain hiding budding tears, reciting

sonnets for the newly dead.

He wanted those stories, yearned for

simplicity, the comfort of someone

who searched for answers, shared

newfound insight, brought laughter

and clever words. No insipid worship

of glowing aroras, seeing Him for what he is.

His providence surrounds Himself

with imperfect souls, perfection being

anathema for beings such as He

who never had the pleasure of making mistakes.

Tired of observing, starved for conversation,

Godhead sitting wearily upon his head, he crooked

His finger and in a flash, reality ended, a friend was found.

And we below could only remember

the man who would be God's confessor.


Deep Tissue 38

No Tears
Are you crying at my grave? I need no water now.

I'm past the glow of life-long love, have no regrets

No regrets.

Beneath these bones a tiny sprout will bud,

and from this bud a flower from seed that held my soul,

becomes another being, another light. Perhaps in passing

you will sense a kindred breed, a glimmer of an un-voiced thought;

then suddenly you'll think of me. And I'll be there in front of you

In vibrant form, in different dress, but fashioned from the same

rough cloth, in colors bold and beautiful. So give no thought

No, give no thought

Of sorrow for those rotting bones, for they are empty vessels,

I have flown far from this mournful day, but have not died

Just merely walked away.

Rose Morales is a 52 year old (and counting) starving poet from Miami, Florida. She is in the habit of
writing two to three poems a day, probably owing to the fact that she has WAY too much time on her
hands. Her poetry plombs the highs and lows of the human psyche, the great philosophical questions
facing mankind (Paper or Plastic?), and whatever happens to be on her mind at the moment. She lives
with her husband Alex, her annoying mother-in-law, and 9 cats.

You can find more of Rose’s work at:

http://www.myspace.com/kinderkitty
Deep Tissue 39

Living in the Hill Country


By Kat Solomon

Poem 1:
Your cruelty
has faded your beauty
your lack of compassion
has jaded your view
your anger
has shriveled your bones
at first I was impressed
now I'm just weary.

Poem 2:
Trapped again
inside the living hell
of my mind
the anxiety rears its head again
words of comfort are offered
by caring hearts
but the thoughts will not abate
I have heard that people can choose
what they believe
well ok
but sometimes I wonder
if certain things choose us.
Deep Tissue 40

Poem 3:
I imagine you there
in the ominous night
curtains ruffled by a gentle breeze
a full moon caressing your strong face
a tortured soul bottled up
contained by the earthly vessel
you uncomfortably inhabit
your dark features bent in frustration
praying to a God you claim disbelief in
your innocence lost long ago
idealism something you mock
but tonight you reach inside
hoping for a sliver of highmindedness

I reach for you


but you pull away
yet you refuse my offers to let you alone

I guess there is comfort in familiar dysfunction


because more times than not you've pushed me away

I wait the night out with you


dozing occasionally only to be startled awake
by the cry of a wheeling seagull
ocean waves crashing against the shore

You refuse more than you ever offer


kindness, patience
or a trace into what you are struggling with

I continue to wait because I'm patient


but the clock is ticking
this sickness cannot go on

you will be left here


alone
in this place, this struggle
and entrenched or trapped
in the ways you remain the same.
Deep Tissue 41

Kat Solomon has been exploring her poetic voice for over a year
now and is enjoying it. She also writes a weekly column called
Adventures of a Midwestern Jewish Woman Living in the Hill
Country for the Blanco County (Texas) News.

http://www.blancocountynews.com/news/article/19989

You can find more of Kat’s work at:

http://www.myspace.com/katscolorfullife
Deep Tissue 42

Down in the Hollow …


By Jimmy Ray Davis, the Wordmachinist

Hello my friends, I am Jimmy Ray known to many of you as...Wordmachinist. I am a storyteller who
writes poetry so many of my poems are in fact, stories. Quite awhile back I crafted a deliciously dark
tale called "Abattoir" which introduced the fictional town of Temple Hollow and the mysterious
character known as Old Bill. For some reason this poem stuck with me, sort of haunting me in a way.
Old Bill, Lenore, and the dark township of Temple Hollow became recurring fixtures in many future
writes. So much in fact that Old Bill has become my "Dark Half" just as Alexis Machine was in Stephen
King's novel of the same name. Now I know that Old Bill is not me and that he is not real, but let us
ponder for a moment the true power of words. If words indeed can move mountains and change entire
corporation's ways of thinking, could they not traverse time or make life brim from the page? I know
not the answers to these twisted tidbits but I will tell you this. I FEEL the powerful enigma of Old Bill,
the wretched soul of Lenore and the ghostly small town madness of Temple Hollow and I believe. I
know that I will never find the town of my poetic tales on any map. However, I also feel that if I got into
a beat up old black Chevelle and drove South I would eventually find it. Passing the slaughterhouse I
would look into the rearview mirror and there as plain as day would be Old Bill lounging in the backseat.
He'd wink at me with that terrible wisdom and say, "Welcome home, son...we've been expecting you".
Deep Tissue 43

ABATTOIR

The Abattoir in Temple Hollow


restless from years of slaughter.
Blood-stained hands of village sons
defiled the celestial daughters.

Something's alive in the framework


black legends on foundry walls.
It thirsts, insatiable blood hunger
In the cattle pens and narrow halls.

Come and take a mocking dare


inebriated, mired in your drink.
a fool to attend the horrors
Iron gates, blood-letting sink.

Believe the essence of blood awakens


spores of a horrid, wretched beast.
One who spies between cracked wood
and who awaits your brain to feast.

Demons live not only in movies


or brimstone plains begot in Hell.
At times they enter blind Humana
If enough fearful blood is spilled.

Blood is not the only essence


required for evil to come near.
Every abattoir has this in common
they're all permeated with fear.

Take a drive to Temple Hollow


with shotgun, friends, and prayer.
Know if you enter the unholy fray
doomed you'll be to stay there.

Gaze upon the red-brown archway


sequestered pens of raw oak.
Barnway opening, splintered maw
Deep Tissue 44

awaits new life to bleed and choke.

The docks are closed, rusty chained.


where trucks dropped meat alive.
Steel hooks suspended crimson
blood, death and fear, evil thrives.

A tale lingers in shadowed walls


as horrific as any told before.
Of a tough as nails foreman
and his pretty, young daughter Lenore.

Walk these steel cat walk stairs


can you hear that girl's screams?
They are trapped in every pore
every bloodstain and bad dream.

Lenore was indeed a beautiful child


with hair an oil painting gold
At twelve she was built as a woman
and her father she would often scold.

For she hated the slaughterhouse


with it's cold, unfeeling hooks.
when she came to visit her dad
she was a victim of leers and looks.

One day when her father didn't come home


she went to the docks to see why.
She was led to the basement by Old Bill.
amid the blood and death she cried.

The evil that men are capable of


stretches like an endless road.
and what those men did to Lenore
is too unspeakable to be told.

Her lifeless and heavily used body


Deep Tissue 45

was thrown into the waste vat.


Left to boil with rotting skinned innards
and heavily unsluiced fat.

Her father never found her at all


and assumed she ran away.
He never went back to the Abattoir
and died broken, old and gray.

The men who beat and raped that girl


paid later for their crimes
each one died in a bizarre accident
amid that blood, tripe and grime.

But the evil of their wicked sin


has set a demon free to feast.
With Lenore's innocent soul at stake
someone must stop the beast.

One must go into that basement


and dive into that pool of slime.
And retrieve the blessed angel charm
daddy gave her when she was nine.

Then the skeletal arm of her corpse.


in the hog muck near the gruel tree.
Fit that charm around her wrist
send her to heaven, set her soul free.

Blood and death await you friend


but you will be compelled to try.
Upon hearing the forgotten screams
when that poor little girl cries.

My penance never will be paid


to live I have barely the will.
For I led that girl to her slaughter
by name I'm called Old Bill.
Deep Tissue 46

I never could have guessed the hell


those men would have in mind.
I was just following orders
salvation will never be mine.

So now I lure in strangers like you


and bring you to this wretched place.
Knowing if you fail and die
you can easily be replaced.

I still wander the ends of the earth


searching every alley and hole.
Until I find someone like you
to save Lenore's tortured soul.

Watch out for me, the man in black


when I beckon, you will follow.
Against all sense and against your will
to the Abattoir in Temple Hollow.

CHRISTMAS, Temple Hollow, 1921

Well the Christmas lights are up,


and the neighbors are asleep
and the wind is blowing thoughtful in the bows.
The naked mannequin's at rest
in the old Ben Franklin store
warm despite the absence of his clothes.

The new cut pines are drying out


their needles are like spikes
and the dry stained carpet awaits the flames.
Add in tinsel hanging cheap
and the gift wrap kindle thin
for kids with matches play all kinds of games.

Mom and dad are fast asleep,


in their forbidden bedroom lair,
door closed to muffle the traffic sounds.
Never hear the crackle snap
or the brimstone's rising heat.
until the firemens hoses hit the ground.
Deep Tissue 47

There's a baby crying softly


through the hue of acrid gray,
looks like santa will not be coming soon.
Mom is already overcome
while Daddy burns, screaming,
little Lisa, pronounced dead at noon.

After his matches are taken away


a little boy's sent to the home,
for he could not discern wrong from right.
They bow their heads in sadness
as he cries himself to sleep,
they never see Billy's smile at midnight.

You can find more of Jimmy’s work at:

http://www.myspace.com/wordmachinist

Check this out also:

http://www.reverbnation.com/wordmachinist
Deep Tissue 48

Covert Poetics

By Michael Grover

First of all, I wanna thank Glen for handing me this forum to say what I wanna say. We all know a poet's

got a lot to say right? Even if no one listens. This my first one might be a little off the cuff, the future

months will be more thought out. I guess this first column should introduce myself and just give a sense

of where I'm at.

Moving from Florida where I was born & raised to Toledo, Ohio can be quite the shock to the system eh?

This was my second Winter here. Today is a perfect Spring day. No more cold, snow & ice. It is sixty-five

degrees outside, the window is open, birds are singing, kids are playing, & jazz is playing in my room.

The world seems about perfect right now.

Been battling a lot of depression lately. Winter seems to bring that anyway. Lost a couple of friends to

drugs. They are not dead, but they bout as well be. They are to me and that's the way things have to be

right now.
Deep Tissue 49

If I could see myself in Los Angeles twelve years ago, and tell myself I would still be alive and living in

Toledo, Ohio. Life does take us on strange journeys if you allow it to take you and go with the flow.

Toledo, Ohio really is like living on the edge of the country. The car factories all shut down and there are

no jobs to be found anywhere now. It breeds a feeling of desperation on the streets and people do

desperate things. A few months ago a friend was killed riding his bike in this very neighborhood when a

fifteen year old boy knocked him off his bicycle to roll him. He was a good man. This is how good men

die.

I am a resident artist at an arts center here that just turned twenty-five years old yesterday. I've been

here for a year and a half, & I don't think I would want to live anywhere else. Besides the fact that the

rent is cheap, I am constantly surrounded by artists. I co-host a reading here every Tuesday, and every

second Tuesday we bring in out of town features. It's very successful and I love the work we're doing.

I run a press, I print chapbooks right here out of my computer. I used to do punk zines, I just kept

printing and now I print chapbooks. My own and others.

I have a shitty telemarketing job with my associates degree in computer science. It helps me pay my

modest rent here at the art center, keeps me fed, I buy a bit of green stuff to help me get by, & buy

supplies to print books. I have to keep reminding myself of that as I swear to myself I'll quit just about

daily. As I usually leave feeling part of myself has been stripped away.

Here around the art center I always feel like I belong. I watched a rehearsal of a play that I am producing

and my friend is directing in the courtyard today. Amiri Baraka's “The Dutchman”. It's an honor to be

part of this project as Baraka is my favorite living writer, and I've seen the play live on stage when I was
Deep Tissue 50

living in Philadelphia.

But outside of the art center, away from my friends I am finding it harder to identify with anything. I

honestly don't know if the country is changing so much or I am becoming more isolated. I do know the

country has changed a lot. At work it disgust me to watch most of my co-workers peck like pigeons over

crumbs that the man throws out. We're all kind of stuck knowing there are no other jobs out there. The

few of us that do have our souls intact there kind of feel a camaraderie toward each other. We stick

together. We drink & bitch about the job outside of work.

I don't drink as much as I used to. Getting too old. Health starting to fail. The doctor at the free clinic

says it's gastric reflux disease. He gave me pills and sent me on my way. When I continued to get sick, his

answer was to take two instead of one. My friend that calls me to drink with him nearly every night

cannot understand that I truly am in pain. My boss can't understand, he cut my hours because I missed

too many days, which really makes you think about calling in again. I guess it works, I do think, but I call

in anyway.

Next week I will be forty-two years old, and for the first time in my life I am starting to feel old. I sit in

the corner of the coffee shop like an old man and watch the college kids walk in. I don't recognize or

identify with any of it anymore. My beard is growing in with a lot of gray, and I'm not rushing out to get

Just For Men like the commercials say I should. I am allowing myself to grow old with grace & dignity.

As far as politics & the state of the World are concerned, it seems to me we are losing more of our

freedoms by the day. It's become so overwhelming and frustrating that people just accept this as the

truth, that I rarely listen or watch the news anymore. Only when I'm in my car, because my radio is
Deep Tissue 51

always tuned to the jazz station in Ypsilanti that plays NPR news every hour.

With that said I see a lot of hope in the spread of culture. In the reading we do, in the books I publish, in

the poems that I write. I see there is always room for change at the bottom where I am. I am left to

constantly wonder if that will ever be enough. The only answer I can ever come up with is that I am

doing all that I can. Maybe this is why oppressive governments always go after the artists first. I am

writing and waiting. Until next month folks. 3/19/10

Michael D. Grover is a Florida born poet. As a wanderer he's traveled and lived all over the country. He

currently lives in Toledo, Ohio. His poetry has been published all over the literary underground. Michael

currently is a resident artist at the Collingwood Art Center in Toledo where he hosts the weekly reading

with John Dorsey. He hosts and co-edits CP Journal, and runs the Covert Press. His newest chapbook is

titled "Confessions Of An american Outlaw".

You can find more of Michael’s work at:

http://www.myspace.com/poetxl
Deep Tissue 52

Ghosts of the Pawtucketville Night


By James Crafford

THE CAPTIVITY OF MARY ROWLANDSON

On February 10th 1675, Indians attacked the village of Lancaster, Massachusetts and kidnapped,

among others, the wife of the minister, Mary Rowlandson. She was in her late 30s at the time and was

wounded as was her child who she carried in her arms until it eventually died several days later. Her

husband, ironically, had gone to Boston to plead with local authorities for more protection from Indian

attacks.

Mrs Rowlandson was a captive for eleven weeks during what is known as King Philip’s War. This

war was the first outbreak of substantial violence between the early settlers and the Indians in America.

It lasted some fourteen months and caused enormous devastation among the whites and virtually

destroyed the Indian population in Southern New England. Most of the men were killed and the

surviving women and children were sold into slavery. Many ended up in the West Indies. Meanwhile,

more than half of the English settlements were burned to the ground, including Providence, Rhode

Island.
Deep Tissue 53

Roger Williams, the founder of that state, was spared because of his longstanding good

relationship with the Indians and firm respect for their culture, but his home was burned nevertheless.

Roger Williams wrote the first book about the Indian language and believed that they ought not to be

converted to Christianity but left alone to worship as they had for several thousand years. He saw them

as more innocent children than “savages.”

King Philip was the English name of the rebellious Metacomet whose father, Massasoit had kept

peace with the English for over fifty years. Once the war broke out, it was a fight to the death and it set

the awful precedent for further Indian wars with the whites in our country.

The story of Mary Rowlandson’s capture is only a sliver of it, but it underscores many elements

of this tragic tale. Originally, she vowed never to be taken captive alive, but when the blades were to

her throat, she relented and went with them. Prior to that she witnessed enormous violence, including

beheadings and disembowelments.

It is not well known that at that time, these Indians did not rape or sexually molest captive

women. Mrs. Rowlandson was sometimes slapped and roughed up, but she was never sexually

assaulted and was pleasantly surprised by this. She was required to work and contribute to the tribe,

however. This she did by knitting various pieces of clothing for the children and squaws and for this she

was either paid in actual money or given bits of food. Some of Indians were exceptionally kind to her

and some were utterly indifferent.

At one point, an Indian actually gave her a small bible that was stolen in one of their town raids,

but she had to fight to keep it and ended up hiding it in a dress pocket. On Sundays she refused to work

since she insisted on keeping the Sabbath. The Indians did not like this and threatened to kill her with a

blow to the head by tomahawk, but they were also impressed that her bible instructed her to do so.

The Indians did not have a written language and it amazed them that so much information could be
Deep Tissue 54

contained in writing in her little book. Many Indians very quickly converted to Christianity at that time,

because they were dazzled by the power of written language. They were called “Praying Indians” to the

whites, although many distrusted their sincerity. There was enormous paranoia and unease between

the cultures at all times.

One woman who was very pregnant and was captured at the same time as Mary Rowlandson

was cannibalized by the Indians after constant complaints. The Indians, who were always on the move

while being pursued by the English, did not have time for her endless whining and held the belief that

eating the cooked flesh of the enemy made them stronger.

Another of the most dramatic moments in her story was when she was crossing a creek and

losing her footing in the current. She feared she would be swept away and drowned. King Philip himself

turned to her and offered his hand in help. At first she did not want to even touch his hand—a

heathen—and her the wife of a minister, but she did and he pulled her to safety whispering to her at

that time that she would be released back to her husband within two weeks. For me, this scene plays

out like something out of a Hollywood movie with a musical score to boot.

The Indians had been negotiating through intermediaries a way of releasing her. They asked her

how much they could get for her and she thought it through. She did not want to give them a price too

high that her husband and friends would not be able to raise and she did not want to give a price too

low as to make her valueless, so she came up with the amount of 30 pieces of sterling silver (as in Judas

Iscariot’s pay for betraying Jesus).

Eventually, Mary Rowlandson was returned to her husband at a place now called Redemption

Rock. I have been there. It is an impressive locale. By then, she and King Philip had bonded (she had

knitted a shirt for his nine year old son). He did not want to release her, although his wife was more
Deep Tissue 55

than glad to see her go. Mary eventually wrote a book about her captivity that became the first real

best seller in early America. Captivity stories were a very popular genre for many years.

Mary Rowlandson credits her faith in God and the strength she got from reading her bible while

captured as reasons why she survived her horrendous ordeal. She quotes many verses along the way.

Whether one wishes to see this as a religious experience based on suffering or more simply a story of

surviving by one’s wits and hubris is, I think, a personal choice. Although I am not a religious man, I am

fascinated by this story and see Mary Rowlandson as a heroic figure in all respects.

Several months later, King Philip was hunted down and killed. His body was hacked apart in four

pieces and tossed into the trees. (The English considered him a traitor and his body was not allowed to

be buried.) His head was put on a stake at Plymouth where it sat for twenty-five years until it was stolen

one evening. One of his fingers was cut off and was placed on display at traveling sideshows for many

years.

Almost everyone alive then knew someone or had someone in their family killed in that war. It

is a tale of monumental heroism, cowardice, betrayal, luck, and love. I can only hint at it here.

Suggestions for further reading include:

FLINTLOCK AND TOMAHAWK by Douglas Edward Leach

THE RED KING’S REBELLION by Russell Bourneand

KING PHILIP’S WAR by Eric B. Schultz and Michael J. Tougias.


Deep Tissue 56

Redemption Rock , photo by James Crafford

You can find more of Jim’s work at:


http://www.myspace.com/jamescrafford

James Crafford is a writer, actor, photographer who often blogs on MySpace. His award-winning indie
movie CHEPACHET is available at Netflix, Amazon and other internet venues. He lives upstate New York
with his wife Linda and their rottie, Tyson.
Deep Tissue 57

EXHUMATION OF THE POST VERBAL


GAP
By Lee Kwo

Desire and annihilation of the word/ Part One

The will to verbal agitation as desire to be heard is neither vulgar nor provocative but
remains as a derisive empty abstraction of incoherent possibilities/Discourse
constellates an interval or series of spaces of crisis in which the thought is gone before it
is grasped/"What remains outside of the rational" is the premise of this passage of
text/That the word makes a drama of what should be trivial by now/arising as it intends
from the ruins of an idealist demand for predictable meaning contra flows of
recombinant code/Across the Electron Circuit and airwaves of a sequenced future/

code becomes Information becomes confrontation with the as yet unknown/The rupture
that eliminates any concern for recognition of text qua text/What is being transmitted
thru tracks in dead space and to what unknown dimension is it travelling/as repetitive
attack and decay signals create patterns of sinister punctuated unnatural noise within
the unlimited margins of echo/in the sense of Batailles use of repetition/and/the
slippage of punctuation reduced to the slash as a pause to think again rather than arrive
at the end of a proposition/He pauses to think what comes next and a thousand
possibilities slip thru his mind/But the thought will never be known and what was left
out or forgotten/changed and altered remains outside the limit of transgression/
Deep Tissue 58

The only aesthetics of art is in the impulsive process of the act of extracting this idea
from that desire/creating the corpse of a text of thought/ thought being the
approximation of memory as delirium/Impact of intellectual toxicity intensifies
existence extending its sound into the synthetic premonition obscured by overload of
static as parasite/Sustained pitch of the synthesizers envelope follower "speaks" the
language of code/distressed plunge into the convoluted structure of the
labyrinth/warning the listener to attend to speed of thought/Futurhythmics of barbaric
frequency this human/as being of degradation reduced to knowledge/becomes fictitious
modulation stuttering at the edge of the future/Machinic desire is never dormant
always restless beginning and endless/Pleasure as noise seeks out its fulfilment at every
chance/Death dispossesses the space of pleasure becomes the space of deception and
deformity/Vulnerable to the death instinct to desire a world ruined/Was it the Click of
the switch that caused the silence to disconnect itself from a noise which is not
enough/No response/Control Delete/Whats my semiotic mission now?/Now
what?/beyond the constraints of phallic erection as trajectory of false ontology lies the
deciet of the virtual as fiction/

The acephalic man and his collective insolence is dismembered by the Interface
unbearable to listen to as meaning moves towards the Post Verbal Gap/the space
between thought and the imagination the facade of complicity once removed
expectorates incoherent noise of decomposition as banal words rot from stumps and
gangrene blackens the innocent rent impotence of the naive innocent masses of
anonymous until the interval of the NOW/In death we search for the absence of
movement while undergoing the explosive immensity of time as it closes down the
somnolent erection of the Phallic XX/Androgenous Machinic violence exceeding reason
which is not rationale not analogue nor digital but something more than that/And much
less as well/ Forgetting as a screem mounted over the lack of apparent clarity in what
has not being said as yet/

And still he waits imagining himself to be an autonomous being able to think/The


domain of violence is limitless and in this darkness thought fails to reach a
conclusion/Fatigue eliminates the sphere of thought leading it to the point of death
which comes to us as a sense of decay as the mind is overcome by the wound of
sleep/This is the state we arrive at where there is nothing left to say but only to listen
without a hint of obligation/Cool memories from the Central Nervous System/Am I a
witness to the paradox of authenticity?/Death perpetuates itself infinitely/What does
memory pursue during sleep?/
Deep Tissue 59

Can we blame the unconscious for what it allows to bleed thru into the conscious?/No
longer is it as simple as to say we no longer recognize ourselves in the mirror/Now we
inevitably recognize some one else resembling whom we thought we were/Who am I to
myself in yr eyes?/Within the seductiveness of the opposition to meaning exists the
irrational/ Into the abyss leaving theory and the dialectic/psychological obsession and
spiritual elevation to their own bizarre devices/The mythical delirium begins its project
of resistance/

The larVal tissue logic circuit of the Teknoid prosthesis that lies in the depth of
inhuman things as a deceptive parody creates negative ambient shutdown over tragedy
of the desiring artificial assassin/Exceeds pain threshold of protective nerve ending
both existential and physiological transgressions of the limit of the body to exist in
eternity/The indifference of falling into insomnia/Transmission of desire sewn from the
filaments of a literal damage in which phallic liberation has left everyone in a undefined
state of becoming/Post Human not a moment in history or a movement but a way of
thinking a way of life and death/A subversion of collective memory/Protocols to the
mimic syndrome of the body as counter memory/NOW is the limit that paradoxically
undermines the trope of consciousness as interval of thought/the nocturnal proximity to
sleep is dispersed by a living death and a dead life/the embryo advances to derive its
ontological potential to overcome propulsive modification machine/Angel Hipster
techno-crisis Gashgrils threatens phallic rule precipitating trashart of the intellects
despair at provocation of sperm abortion suicide/Something is missing from existence?/

A ruthless violation hits neural wash crash into doomed zygote involution surging
away from the beginning of things moving towards fear of death/Seconds after birth
razor machine cuts the umbilical cord the terminAL END of the foreskin extinction
script sets in motion drone of nerve gas/Anaesthetises nomadic scorched annihilation of
epidermal rush addict sucked into crack fissure cells exploding hypodermic blood turn
to cool memories/ DragFacTor scum barking DogMan of seminal fluid radiating arctic
polarity at minus degrees zero across the airwaves/The lonely seconds of the last instant
will arrive finally when you least expect at 3am when the nerves are at their most
vulnerable/data trash collapsed into cloaked intruder skitzoid the loop of the cerebral
ruin anxiety junk-addict of the lone input/SKz jacks chemical code of disjunction into
artificial pathology of ethics as the virility of disaffection/Already the process of the Post
Verbal Gap exerts it impact/Exhumation of desiring machine punctures arterial
imbrication invades the channel of anxieties rush towards hermeneutics/Tempest of
galactic planetary cinders blast back to pulmonary fibulator greasing the ideology of
Deep Tissue 60

thought with the slime of intellect flatlined within safe zone of reactionary alliance of
philosophy and science/

Body kicks back in torque autodrive the device which controls sex rebellion of
selfsavage crime/We cannot imagine existence except in terms of the passions/Teknoid
are discontinuous beings who perish in isolation [perhaps] in the midst of an
incomprehensible unknown desiring for their imagined lost continuity/There are crimes
of passion there is rape there is the raw skin of sodomy/There is always a witness/you
could have answered false which comes down to making a confession under marginal
escaped voice/

Machinic firewall is down/Veydra abolish the function of Skz as split infinitive of the
unreasonable logic of the Despot/King Metal loads suicide Protocols of Noise to hard
drive in anticipation of an undefined state of becoming noise/Tragedy is no simulant
turn off when it comes to fuking the Ghost of syntax/The words disintegrate before yr
ears/The end of the travesty of the naked physical other is to be emptied out of
desire/But what about fuking the psychological/the mind as polarity of vacant
presence?/Transparency of intent is not some determinant thing/its integrity is one of
those words feigned to throw fragile neural balance into agitation and
panic/Simulacrum is scanned insomnia as self punishment function/

Cut the body cortex to the cerebral telepathic mode of transmission to ruin of the self as
an indispensable revolution/sheetmetal gashgril latent to contract death sex disease
evades the prophylactic obsession with semiotic hygiene/Teknoid without preconceived
word script are aborted and shovels used to wrench discursive neologisms and mental
radiance from Rupture Farm recombinant plant/mobile call to DragFaCtoR for
assistance hyper real down load wired body joint lithium nervesaltgas jams the
Teknoid code/Emotional replicant of the psychosexual perversity ignites panic
syndrome engine as sky event horizon aborts sperm transplant to titanium
uterus/RomroK invaded freeze HD level zero lunar plane of consistency defined by
mutual solidarity at the ovum limit of placenta/Words fade/Reciprocal articulation
ignites monitor screen of the empty shadow of maledrone in state of temporal
hysteria/

Desire script of the artificial light spectrum respires level zero off limits to the thyroid
hologram/GashGril grunts at the maledrone abolition the helix replicates lobe of the
right brain anamorphing mobile violence to vaginal voltage/Hits the outer galactic
ultra motherboard on line desire circuit lunar code implanted behind corpus
callosum/There is a lot happening here perhaps too much/Veydra drug embryonic a
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toxic burn against the Viral Ikon resuscitates the elevation of a potential re-wired DNA
printout/Borshi Boys contaminate androgynous ectoplasm of bizarre subversion as
strings of dialect/Digital cortex conceived a replicant brain script under artificial sleep
conductors plugged in to prosthetic multiplicity/

Despotic abstract I am a slave to alternating currents hunt the entropic drone to recall
phallus/This planet machine that went mad under the film of solar latency/Erotic
activity by dissolving the separate beings that participate in it creates a sense of
infinity/He fuks with his eyes closed dreaming of ruthless adultery/To be alone among
others or to be one of the others what is yr choice?/Monogamy is a disease of the
homogonous profane degeneration/Eroticism is naked physical contact/there is no need
for love a contact that opens up the possibility of both life and death/to the blending
and fusion of separate objects the one and the other/The DNA print is rewired short a
dOuble helix ruined internal flux/

Trash the Gril of obscure rage is a sex crime perpetrating desire to erotic substance
machine/But what is the language of love got to do with shuddering in his arms at the
point of orgasm?/there is an Abstract Machine of language that does not appeal to any
property of communication under corporeal modifications to transmit rogue data
substance machine of Angel Hipster/She the soft metrOnome arrests explosion desiring
engine of fear flux ruined parasite maledrone of the neural scripts/Seductions winds
strip its Desert Phallic bone exogenous trajectory where content is not opposed to form
of assemblage transformation/what dream our body fluids lubricating the organs
fabrication that went to ruin the Gril womb full of deformed zygotes destined for
mutant Borshi Boys/Motility at a stand still/Romrok corroded to thin spectacle of
existence in the terror chaos sperm abortion/Sexual Phallic XX neural chaotic and under
the insanity of the turbulent device multiplies to infinity/Now deep in the territory of
Post Verbal Gap things becoming unintentionally leaning towards the expiration of the
radiance of discourse/Xenophobic sperm abortion phallic collapse womb area engines
that corrode under zodiac decay of the galactic cold freeze gets twisted into dry heat
spool of syphilis/Un-spooled say it again “un-spooled” with sloth/logic bandwidth helix
of despair engines by which things become unintelligible abstractions of pulse and
intensity/

Viral IKON XX Dead DogMa flatlines telephoto lens to Angel Hipster of carbon
skeletal breakdown space time rape syndrome razor slice hardedge intervene with
Paradox Factor that sleep is an empty mirror and insomnia the wakefulness of the
guilty/The Earth cries for revenge over penetrating without question the uterus of
androgyne Dead Dogma/Desiring Engine mimics mysterious proto language of
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noiseless embryo splitting electrical cell turbulence charges/Assassin of White Noise


virus tissue contaminated the Gril womb roped space collapse along time
emissions/Voice instructs invasion of evolving cobalt artificial moon noise game over
simulates potential gene invasion of metal gender/Records birth of non being at base
line of chromosome access code/Memory elements of dust rock death extinguished
Zodiac version of long day wait for ectopic polyp corrosion/Vector chip excretes the
Angel Hipster engine of GashGril on the prowl for phallic heat the induction of an
emotion response/Ambient anal thrust splits the deadline of colon extractor pull shit
out the pores of the synapse unknown to the vital Viral Ikon/Paradox Factor Ikon
GashGril unleashed RomRok desert of the ice cock-metallic spray of variable electrons
disjointed mutilation spurting rupture/The tenacity of archaic schema of words as a
state of imperialism perhaps fascism/Desert of Nagazaki light rips the agitprop
coefficient as low or elevated machine illuminated under Kreig quartz light/mercury
vapour hits nostrils down wind and on heat SKz/Do we understand the end of erotica
thru repetition and the escalation of anhedonia as boredom the accident not the essence
never the essence/the sewn up body of circulating thought/The muscular Spasm
scavengers are reversed future system cerebral cortex drive motion resonates in genetic
assassin lunar core of GashGril script of fatalities/

The Drag facTor of silence is hybrid of Angel Hipster mechanism as hellucination or


delirium/Again things are a little confused there is so much happening/Violence inflicts
cyborg envy neural patterns fractal mutant detonations/She get deranged dislocate
strange attractor disperse hydro encephalic reaction to emotional replicant/Protocols of
fear solitude the signal of acid nebula retro mechanism sperm exhausts amniotic fluids
memory lack just afterbirth of man acid/Teknoid nightmare of infinity flesh joint
monitor screen murder circuit of memory lack womb engine to make it to the
limit/Subatomic chaos band width the fragments of the psychosexual maledrone is
imploded to Dead Dogma/Vital Ikon RomroK murdered by the hyper real noisedrone
before she get a fix on the internal organ mechanism sucking up the fumes the subject of
enunciation/She recoils betrayal under reprieve imprints Dominant Reality on the
flesh/The Dead Dogma of the illicit kiss of renunciation machinery revelation
transmutes Viral Ikon Device to SKz cell embolism/Spasmic hyper-drones ignite probe
decays under Uranium icesky radiation/unstable gravity mood slides into noise random
numbers excrete blinding flash of mathematical ablation/Gashgril Veydra her lunar
code paradox of Dead Dogma lens was deranged/Alt/Escape body fragment/Dirty old
City of engine trash gags on fatal dose of subcutaneous freeze-frame eloignment/Black
heart of a Gril accelerates Sentinal Assassin cock nodes of thot posture on surface of
artificial moon/Reaction to bondage transmission down jugular drone eruption across
hyper-suture to erectile Sentinal Cock/Downloads word ephemerids thru optic fibres
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imprisoned reproduction of false consciousness trapped in anegoic sex practices/


skitzofrenic cut to vital abortion body of the visceral engines torture motor engaged to
transplant vector surrender to multiple exstacy/Reverb distortion at lower end of
resonant sector perhaps 40 cycles runs the equalizer into the Decay Zone/SKz chaos
switch was abandoned the Assassin mode stimulates cell program to mental gender
download process of body build fluids to gel-mass control/ Protocols exhume astral
friction under burnt flesh of desiring glands/Swollen lymphatic nodes hyper to flesh
meridian drugged membranes resonate/erotics no longer finds recourse in the limitless
possibilities of the body with its surface lacking depth/to perish thru absolute
exhaustion of the erotic may constitute a part of the basis of being/anorexics do not
confront death thru asphyxiation but save themselves by betraying food which is
equally along with love and desire a traitor suspected of containing phallic bacteria
encased in the Paradox Factor/A meeting of two countenances that conceal themselves
knowing that while they have promised themselves to each other they have failed to
love but starve for passion/Ahhh Veydra in yr unstable particle what incognito lacks its
evil genius for testimony which follows the line of death and the unconscious resonates
to squeal of engines/Jammed signal to record and report the paranoid cortex/

With two stainless steel prongs I RomRok spread the eyeball and lid apart and clamp
the electrodes to tear ducts inject the critical porno synapse gas under the
cornea/reactor heat dries out membranes friction as animate illogic slides into inanimate
pupils/Dilate maximum and dark becomes light of blurred outlines oceans of
impossible frozen memory to get a fix luminous atoms veer across the glassy
fluids/nausea as the fine ceramic dendrites receive the series of flashes/massive
retrieval slams into the base of the spinal cortex/Becoming recombinant can silicon
based and protein carbon based lifeforms interact?/from protein based life forms comes
flexibility and complex analogical processor that includes sensory unconscious and
conscious components and from silicon based entity comes massive storage rapid
retrieval replication and recombinatory abilities/This is the Humanist illusion of the
verb to be or rather will be/Retrieval speed expresses a relationship between space as
perceived and time sensed intuitively as possible distance and duration/when the
technologically enhanced body is joined in a sensory feedback loop with the
simulacrum that lives in RAM it will be impossible to locate an ongoing source
emancipated from signification for valid experience/The dead organs of the eviscerated
corpse over cathectic by relentless incisions melancholy diffuse Cerebral shadow
flotation in a blue pool of screened illumination/The chaos Hologram Assassin
despair engine is on line again/It is not late enough for mutant desire jolt of amnesiac
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noise alert etching /The Tracer has already entered Veydra/Born in the replicated
derangement thrust thru Vital Ikon virus alert/A far no-scape telepathic script
device/World fading away under narcotic electrodes burn rupturing synapse groping
unable to feel itself dying within katalepsy of terrorism/What words utter taxed with
hypocrisy from the symbolical cock spat Sentinal at them spat and barked that signal
that will not be surrendered is never denied simulation from the compressed fist of
shores of equivocal space/Is there an interrogation a forecasting a predictability to the
addicts of Meaning gone astray march in fixed disorder the derogation of frequency
words crave a jouisannce of meaning crave a desiring CODE/The Post Verbal Gap
annihilates the regression of certainty that words retain any sense of romantic exchange
value other than commodities and we are left with a filthy language of degradation and
inevitable fatigue/A redundant impoverishment/Thought remains consciousness
unmediated/Thinking remains limited to the individual and not the species/

An intensely anonymous author Lee Kwo has been writing for forty years/He has
completed but not published ten novels and three books of poetry/In March 2010 his
latest manuscript A Celibate Autopsy was published by LuLu .com/The launch of the
text was held in conjunction with the exhibition of 30 prints by Melbourne artist Monty
Osewald/illustrating his unique interpretation of the book/Three passages of Lee Kwos
prose were also published in the UK Anthology Clinical Brutality/Lee Kwo uses the
word Post Human to describe his work/His writing is a parody perhaps an irreverent
satire of contemporary thought in the areas of Philosophy/ Cybernetics and Information
theory/His current project involves the composition of an original music score that
resonates with a text and a series of images he calls Zeroids/Little else is known about
Mr Kwo/

You can find more of Lee’s work at:

http://www.myspace.com/bizarredevice
Deep Tissue 65

The Subliminal Messages from the


“Cosby Show”
By Newamba Flamingo

Sarasota, Florida 2120

School buses have been eliminated. Children are shot to school from tube-like phallic canons that
protrude from their domiciles.

Upon falling face-first into the front lawn of the school’s pyramid-like building, they are plucked up by
robotic arms that extend from the pyramid’s apex and made to form a single file line.

The children march in unison into the building’s foyer where their ankles are shackled. They are then
herded by half-man, half-goat creatures who use tasers to push the children onto a conveyor belt, which
propels them into dome shaped classrooms consisting of only sterile white walls and a giant plasma
screen television in the center of the room that hangs from the ceiling and rotates counter-clockwise.

On the television’s screen is a hooded man with silver eyes but only a shadowy face who engages in a
bizarre form of aerobic exercise consisting of push-ups, karate kicks, monkey sounds, hissing cat sounds,
and homoerotic gyrations. The students stand in a triangular formation around the television and mimic
the hooded man’s movements while a teacher dressed in a chicken suit paces the room, occasionally
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using a sharpened beak to tattoo calculus equations or an esoteric, implausible scientific hypothesis
onto students’ eyelids.

(All formal writing in schools has been banned, and the students must converse via communication
boards consisting only of LOLcat pictures.)

Every so often a student begins vomiting uncontrollably or singing karaoke in Chinese; this leads to
security guards in circus clown costumes bursting in and dragging the insolent student out by his/her
hair. All the other students spit, kick, and punch at the disrupter as he/she is removed from the room
before calmly returning to their aerobic activity. The troublemaker is then chained to a wall in the
school’s disciplinary dungeon and forced to endure hours upon hours of footage of celebrities in assless
latex ninja suits kicking random people on the street in the nuts and farting the alphabet into clarinets.

None of the students have dreams or goals. To have a dream or goal is the worst thing one can have,
especially the aspiration of being elected president. Being elected president is the worst fate that can
befall any citizen of America. Because no one wishes to be president, the presidential election process is
carried out by a secret lottery that occurs every year. The results of the lottery are announced via a
televised broadcast that interrupts all regularly scheduled programming (this broadcast is even sent
telepathically to those who might be sleeping or not currently watching television).

The broadcast is brief. It consists of only an obese Samoan man who is dressed as Santa Claus and nailed
to an inverted crucifix. The Samoan man simply shouts out the name of the winner, makes a few
inaudible noises, and the transmission abruptly ends.

When presidents are chosen, their names are blasted over city loudspeakers and citizens pour out into
the streets armed with lead pipes, guns, and flamethrowers in search of the president. (Often the
winners commit suicide after hearing they’ve been chosen) An angry mob will burst into the home or
apartment of the new president, hogtie him/her up, and drag him/her into the street where the
president is tarred and feathered, beaten, and has used diapers hurled at him/her. For the rest of
his/her term the president is isolated to a rusty cage in the city center where s/he’s tormented by the
townspeople, particularly by small children. Presidents rarely complete their terms and usually bludgeon
themselves to death by banging their heads into the cage’s bars…

What everyone does want to be is a baboon. (This is not a goal, merely a lifestyle choice) Baboons have
become deified in 22nd century society and everyone wishes to be one when they grow up... Congress
and the Senate have been purged of human beings and have been transformed into zoos full of snarling,
shitting, screaming baboons that fornicate constantly and play tin drums and clarinets loudly (the same
clarinets celebrities fart into).

All the cool people on TV imitate baboons, usually wearing no pants, painting their asses purple,
shrieking and shitting everywhere and sardonically mocking the aerobic exercises they learned in school,
much to the chagrin of chicken suit teachers and much to the enjoyment of teenagers.
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The supreme leader of American society, a decrepit Chinese man whose head constantly shakes from
side to side and who is carried everywhere on a platform by midgets on roller skates, has banned all
anti-baboon thought and activity, as well as any undesirable people from existence. Every week, left-
handed people, people who say “God bless you” more than once during a series of sneezes, spoken
word poets, intellectuals, and people with machine gun laughs are rounded up, wrapped in duct tape,
and thrown out onto a beach where they are executed by firing squads comprised of obese Samoan
men dressed as Santa Claus. Their bodies are then sold to fishermen who use the corpses as shark bait.

“….”

Footnote:

Some feared society would turn out like this. Bill Cosby had premonitions of such devolution. He tried to warn the public
through subliminal messages on the “Cosby Show.” But no one deciphered these messages. Perhaps the laugh track distracted
them…

You can find more of Newamba’s work at:

http://www.myspace.com/newamba
Deep Tissue 68

Camphor

By Mark P. Paleologo

AKA Evil Dick

I walked alone until I had eaten all of the bio-luminescent thoughts I could find. At the end of it

there was a wall with graffiti in a dead language and marginally living translator clutching a rat

in his one good hand. My heart stopped beating for two bars during the crescendo and I caught a

cab deep into the Alphabet, so deep even the cops wouldn't follow without self contained

breathing apparatus and pressure suits. No room for pastry means cranky partisans clamoring for

the good old days when men were men and sometimes women like the aged Mr. Fitzgerald in his

off the shoulder and a dashing pair of red pumps.

Jesus was a good fellow and always sold an honest deck, ten bags for eighty dollars and a shrink

wrapped spike. Life didn't get much better than this which would explain my habit and penchant

for starting fights in Irish bars on the lower east side. Each punch was like communion and warm

summer rain falling lovingly from the clouds that floated from the big stacks. The water burned

my skin and gave me hope for a less salient experience, indigenous psychotropic‟s and long legs
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in spiked heels sitting on bar stools watching the floor show with window washer dreams of

clown cars on the Cross Bronx Expressway.

I took the bags and the spike and the shortest of the clowns in case I got hungry. Cannibalism

was all the rage during fashion week and cocktail forks were flying out of Tiffany's causing the

block to be cordoned off for all but those the police truly had no heart for. I felt safe under the

cover of darkness to find a quiet corner with enough concrete at my back to stop a hammerhead

rhinoceros which had been breeding with feverish intensity in Battery Park, always waving to the

fleet as they dragged themselves along the mud which had risen to the surface of New York

Harbor.

It is said the Egyptians used no slave labor to build the pyramids. I say nothing as I am

questioned for three hours in a precinct that has no number by officers who have no faces and

identical name tags in silver with black letters and little pop art flower stickers left over from

1971. Their name was Robert Wilson and swore they were no relationship to each other or any

other living being so I asked them about the translator and his rat and the room grew silent. The

sobbing resonated A440 and their tears burned thru the chains binding me to the genuine

Stickley chair bolted to a floor made from broken dreams and promises of sunshine at the beach.

Succulent star fish kebabs with ginger beer pleaded to be wrapped in take away containers so

they might find better homes in the suburbs rather than the monastic life they were fated to.

I ate my clown and blew my shot certain of the ensuing abscess, hoping that it would develop

into an open stoma.

My issues are deep.

I manage to get myself back under the Hudson in style with only remnants of the book in my

pocket. I search the cab frantically for my band but realized that there is no objective truth. There
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is the latest copy of Mother Jone's Magazine in the pocket in front of me with a half eaten

sunrise. The stewardess is lost inside her tea cart and wishes for love even more than she wishes

she still was a size 5. She speaks of deplaning but means come closer but i ate all of my almonds

and have no time left as I am in Bloomfield already.

I tip the cabbie but refuse to pay him as he gave me no peace. I am bleeding from my arm and

have eight bags left to get me to church before the benediction. The priest looks at me with fire

in his eyes regarding the good old days with hot and cold running altar boys but I ignore him as I

take my seat among the other sinners. I realize I am alone and that I am not penitent in the least.

I have killed those who needed killing and ordered more than I could ever eat. This life this time

this perspective is hard won and I shall never go hungry again. Jesus was a carpenter and a Jew

and I never saw him on any job I was on, I only saw his half brother John once when the sheet

rockers came from Portugal.

The stars will be dancing tonight so I find my boots in the trunk of a beat up Lincoln that I know

had been crushed by friends of mine back in the day when I carried bags and didn't ask

questions. I regret every arm I broke and every son's father I leaned on but this pearly gate

mentality never served me other than the time that I took that 59 Les Paul custom to cover the

spread.

All of them good people. All of them family men unless they were fucking my girlfriend but

somehow that is OK too as I never owned a gun and there have always been an endless supply of

unfiltered cigarettes at every turn.

I walk into a bar that has been closed for fifteen years and order a drink from a man waving a

wooden leg and laugh about the ersatz staining perfectly good pulp with ink and realize that I

will never be happy on this side of the ocean.


Deep Tissue 71

I don't even feel the knife enter my rib cage as I get up to go to the men's and fill myself with the

eleven percent of the offal I need to survive this deadly hour. I nod in agreement as it passes thru

me and dream of porcelain and flowers I bought in a food store in central Jersey. There were

horses until the mania set in and the porch did a star wipe across the last few hours in which I felt

safe.

I wadded up some toilet paper and decided that Tennessee and analog recording were not options

in the rain forest I was headed toward. The bar tender and I laughed about the way the bourbon is

always gone and decided Dome Patrol was a lock in the seventh.

Willie‟s diner is not Willie‟s diner anymore. It is filled with people who eat their kibble and fling

their poo with unearthly delight at passersby who fail to keep their distance and make direct eye

contact. In the next environment to your left are mixed pachyderms with fruit in a violent cubist

display grinding their own ivory into fine powders to be sold in the Chinese apothecary to fat

balding men who believe their potency can be restored. Nut brown men in white shirts clean the

remains of the day and move with piety waiting for the dumpster to fulfill hidden passions on

winter nights so removed from tropical realities.

So I get the eggs with grits and a cup of something they call coffee which at least comes in a cup

even though the handle has obviously been glued back in place by uncaring hands. Six more

bags and a bad attitude grow large in my pocket along with a very tidy package of

misunderstanding. The eggs are overcooked and the grits are runny and I am discontented with

all of it and I am bleeding in two places now and suspect a tertiary source to be discovered at any

moment. One of the monkey‟s children is reciting Wordsworth and the waitress brings her a

heaping plate of lyrical wonder with daffodils lacing the edge and a bottle of catsup. I attempt to

be glad for the moment and the time I spent at Scouting for Boys and all of the first aid classes
Deep Tissue 72

which I know will factor heavily before much more of it passes. I pay with my blood which

seems to be a renewable resource and the nut brown men sing about my homeland with bowed

heads and reverence reserved only for the dying and the dead in their custom.

I have lost all pretenses while I fix on the corner and stare blankly at a billboard that changes

every eight seconds. Most of the local construction has come to a halt or has been completed but

the worker‟s camps are still there and the men stand about barrels burning their memories to stay

warm and sane. I walk over to one of the fires and throw a handful of my own into the flames to

show my solidarity and convince myself that there may be some connectedness to the piles of

stardust that move about me with such deliberation. I know it is untrue. Once a monkey always a

monkey. A cage is a cage unless you are blinded by centuries of unwavering artifacts and five

hundred year old pop music.

I have little matter with Lazarus being the first zombie while I do have issue with the 29 bus

failing to stop and pick me up. I run after it and find myself in Branch Brook Park next to JJ‟s

hot dog truck but I have eaten already and inquiring about his father I learn of the accident.

There are no accidents, only events we do not approve of. Little use that energy is so I watch the

children play in the bushes near the drainage ditch knowing it will end badly. A man was found

near this spot maybe twenty years ago without hands or blood and I sense there to be a

connection still. This side of the bridge is Newark and the rest of the world is over there, well

removed from the largest stand of ornamental cherry trees in North America and any of those left

standing.
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Existential baked goods do not go well with angst so I try to remember a prayer or a song or

something that I can recite like a mantra while the 29 stops now that I am nowhere near a corner

or the desire to board or be boarded.

I get on the goddamned bus anyway and find a seat near the front and the tardy fire extinguisher

and remember a prayer I used to say when I was young and innocent.

Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the lord my soul to keep should I die before I wake but I

forget the rest as I never got past the part where my life ended in any prayer.

The power of it all is lost on me as are my glasses so I can‟t read the signs written by little men

who lack the wisdom or convention requisite to label and instruct. It is just ink. Just ink. Just ink.

Just ink. Just ink. Just ink.

I find my mantra as my eyes close and pray to the driver my soul to take.

I walk on gilded splinters past the cops in the donut shop and the Asian food store where Anna‟s

Deli used to be. The Oak Tavern is a sun bleached skeleton half buried in sand and I can see the

outline of its sternum where Michael got arrested for threatening the president with drunken

words and a sober pistol. The shadow of a noose hangs from the lamp post outside the reach of

the mercury vapor and any sign of the fossils that should be here. I had my share of the free

buffet and ended that chapter of plastic forks and cellophane muffins in their spandex and big

hair.

My key does not fit the lock in the seventh house in the brick row so I break the window and

push my way in past the divan that I do not know and the dinette set from the catalogue I never

opened. Nothing against the Swedes, but this is all becoming free form like a government run
Deep Tissue 74

experimental jazz project with expectations of finding water on the moon. I know none of the

people in the pictures with me on the wall and I swear I never walked this dog. Two more bags

and I forget about the gash in my hand and the pieces of glass and the hole in the fabric the rose

red and the hardwood accents.

Something makes me open the refrigerator and open all of the faux Tupperware and mix it all

together and redistribute it all evenly among the nylon polymeric miracles brought to us thru the

wonder of late night infomercials. Bela Lugosi in black and white and bourbon in a glass and that

dated crate furniture all gone as the last of the cranberry dressing blends easily with the

asparagus in sauce béarnaise. Tat ant traps replace the quiet calm of 4AM Sunday morning

darkness and the missing shadows on the porch upon which we spent so many hours counting

the non-Japanese foreign cars as they came off of the parkway.

I go to the bathroom and vomit nostalgically and remember.

I remember everything and wish I could stop.

I wish I could stop all of it.

A family of opossum moved in next door where Jerry and Angela used to live and have done

wonders with the window treatments. It is so hard to do smoke and flame without going

overboard and I realize I am drowning in ennui and brine from the baby gherkins we had at that

last party. The band is gone but the spot is still here and if I don‟t get out of the house this

building I will burn forever without being consumed like a holy talking bush without the

aggressive language or a license to dress hair in the desert. I kick the back door out of its frame

even though it is unlocked and am glad that I rearranged the furniture in a much more suitable
Deep Tissue 75

fashion. We live in a time where it is important to organize our living space so that we will feel

better about being so out of control with everything else.

I remember everything.

I remember why I have no furniture and why I have no real home and why I am bleeding and

why I have done nothing about anything. Anything. I go under the bridge to the alternate park

and see the men playing cricket and I see the dog with blessed fur and hear the children who are

grown now and leading productive lives with furniture of their own and unopened catalogues

giving them orders. The trees are still here and there and if I could sit I would press myself

against them one and all and see if I could still cry for the loss the time the days when innocence

had a taste and a palpable feel.

I decided that crying was useful once upon a mural a mosaic of lives that converged in this series

of coordinates and grass and concrete and unwashed automobiles and pristine hearts that I would

hold so much more dearly now.

I consider the last dose the four that remain the 29 bus and 53 Lake Street and the lake long gone

and decide it is time to sleep again to rest and dream of all the things I was taught we were taught

to dream about.

The heat of the shot is extreme but passes like a freight train carrying cattle to the slaughter to

the lizard brain that tells me that everything is really OK.

That it is OK that my liver is shutting down.

That it is OK that my breath is growing shallow.

That it is OK that my bladder and bowel have released all they have left to give.
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That it is OK that my heart is slowing. Slowing. Slowing.........

Stopped.

M.P.Paleologo (aka Evil Dick) was born and raised in Northern New Jersey where his delicate

sensibilities were distorted into the carnival mirror perspective represented in his music, verse,

and prose. Influenced by great artists such as Pablo Neruda, Emily Dickinson, Andy Warhol, and

David Lynch as well as many of the incredible indigenous people which have crossed his path,

his sharp edged writing style is laced with surprising tenderness and wry humor. The author

enjoys speaking of himself in the third person, bourbon, and long walks in the park.
Deep Tissue 77

Gambit
By John Christopher Sweet

Part 1

Slipping on the tracks we had a gambit I handed the black tie to the bum, he retched all over the bottle

and offered me a hit, that white label pauper juice had done him in, he had it bad, his walk echoed like a

lisp and his speech tickled the air like a bad bango left out on the dancefloor where the hoochies rubbed

their coochies up and down the strings, he was forever yawping ‘bout society & politics being a Harvard

grad his orations would leave one confused sipping on the milk left over from the cat in the corner,

something bout warm milk that gets a brother ta thinking bout the last roll in the alley, but that last lick

sent me reeling round the room swinging my cock left to right yelling bout that alley and the 50 I

dropped on that skirt, I coulda used up that roll earlier today so I coulda been sleeping in a haze rather

than listening to this bum who ignored the gambit we had going on, worried bout this n that and the

boy on the corner who jipped him slipping him sugar instead o’ the juice, his veins had all but left him

anyways, they crawled back in fear everytime tha needle came out, sometimes I would imagine him
Deep Tissue 78

folding up and away into the air like balloon slowly losing its helium, but today I needed him and that

tie, we had to make a visit to the courthouse where the judge had his weekly meetings with us in the

closet, there we made the score and juiced him up always laughing at his getup he wore naked as a babe

under them robes, one day he showed us his where he juiced up, no one would ever look there, even his

lady was not interested she had her head in that medicine cabinet so she could look nice and pretty for

the balls, that lady was smoking there was one little problem tho, her nose had this great big hole in the

side of it, like a big toothless mouth gasping at ya, man that hole stank like the ass on the boy on the

corner who was forever bending over telling ya to dig in if ya aint got no money, but that shit aint for me

and I would keep on my way towards the next corner where I got my juice at a jacked up rate, dirty as

the laundry in the corner of my flat, I still wore it like a new suit, strutting round looking for the café so I

could do some more writing, problem is I got the shakes everytime and I couldn’t write worth a shit, no

one could make sense outta that nonsense so I would most often just sit and stare at the suits who

came in for their lattes staring at the hormonal hands that steeped the milk, eyeing their prize when

they bent over to get the cup, man that was some shit right there, a man could see fer miles and miles

and never come back home with that kinda view, but again that aint for me, the scene here would soon

fade and I would slip into my coma-calm and wander ‘bout the city, theres something bout a big city,

that lingering stench of money and bums, the lure of the gutter called stronger to some and the scent of

quick cash schemes called to the small town boys who knew nothing bout no big city ways, those were

the easiest to scam, I had me a roll that was a sure fire grift, I had me this nice tweed suit I won in a

bong toss in London, man them brits aint got no gas man, they give up as soon as the needle dips in, its
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like tea time everyday round there, but I digress, this grift I got going on is often just too damn good, see

I would put this tweed coat on and act like a brit, for some dog fuck reason people trusted a brit more

than a blue boy, so yea this brit act I got going on makes me look like I got some loot, its an easy scam

one that’s played out in every city, see I tell the newbie to town that I got a job for him and its on a

deadline, see I have this office uptown where my secretary is holding something for me, so I sends him

on his way uptown to where this office is supposed to be and tell him that he has to pay the lady a 20,

and she will give him the delivery, so this lady is a friend o mine and we got it going on, so I tell him that

when he brings me back the delivery I would give him back his 20 plus 10, easy score for a newbie who

aint got a job and he thinks he is getting in good, so he comes back and she has his 20 and I get the

delivery, see this delivery is our nights take so I get the delivery and send him on another run, assuring

him that he will be sure to get his return plus 10, that’s when I split, we got a 20 and our dust and he is

running round looking for a brit, I aint no brit so I can stand on the corner and watch him look around

dazed, now that aint no specialized grift but that’s all we got to work with some days, some days we

score some days I get a boot to the ass and that gets me a running, see I know the city and the newbie

don’t so soon as my feet hit the pavement I can dive into the nearest alley and blend, cause I got me

some blending friends who would do anything for me, just gots to watch that blend cause if ya get in too

deep ya may never make it outta the alley and that’s when ya a real bum ass grabber reality sets in and

that shit aint for me, so I blend a minute and then scoot…after a while I spend it waiting for the lady to

come find me, she knows where I roll, 9 times outta 10 I am sitting on a bench wear the pigeons shit and

peck and poke and fly and dive, them pigeons got it good man I tell ya, that’s why I pick that bench so I
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can get me some of that wild eye going on, ya know tha kind the eye that speaks of a man that knows

how to get his, he can scratch and peck with the best of em and still bust out flying high, even when he

knows the shit he slips in is his own but that aint no matter we all do it and we all sometimes don’t,

pretty much something is always shitting round somewhere, and that’s where the action is, man I tell ya

if I aint getting no action I aint flying, I need the juice like a guppy needs the water, and Ima always

thirsty, so if ya jonesing and need yer fix just take a whiff of the city air and follow the stench, buy hey

we gotsa get back ta that gambit, the judge would fit our hands with a nice crisp one and we would sit in

on a trial for a bit, something bout a trial gets the blood pumping to yer groins, the first one up had a

cold sore and rape in his eyes, he was up on charges for a murder and all around him swirled a

translucent hue, an angry mix of colors widening outward into the little courtroom where the lady with

the recorder to her mouth inched up an eye, it looked like the recorder was sucking her head right in

sure enough she was getting thinner and the whine from her mouth reverberated around the oak

stained walls, the judge gaveled on the ladies head cracking it like a melon at a mid-day picnic where the

brothers and sisters took turns spitting seeds, the cold sore criminal seeped into his chair lurking at

everyone in the room, his eyes set on me and I gave him a hello how r ya wave, he yawned and spit his

virus my way, it splat next to my hand and bit of it got on my fingers, now I was the one who had murder

in his eyes and was ready for the charges, I heard bout them viruses they come from Germany after that

war, carried inside the pine boxes with the rotting heroes who got no ticker tape parade just a needle in

an experiment gone bad, I suppose I would rather be shot up then blown up 10,000 miles from home,

that’d be a good way to run, the judge took his throne and coughed silencing the room, he read off the
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charges and they aint none too pretty, rape in the third degree with a teenage girl, he had tied her up in

his motel room and had his way with her, the problem was he was born with three penises and never

could get no regular lay, so he took this girl from her home and told her that him and his buddies

needed some action, problem was it was only him and his three penises, now that is tale if I ever heard

one, what would he do with three penises no wonder he got that virus probly from the park in the

bushes having a threeway with those one eyed ghosts that came and went like no ones business, so the

judge had the room shushed and continued to read off the charges, so he tied up this girl, stuck his

three cocks into her and then he decided that she needed to be more than one woman, so he took his

pocketknife and cut off her hands, then he sliced off her lips and make a noose out of them so he could

hang himself in that way the machinist do in the caves to get off, close to death he asked her if she had

come and then she died, see she had the virus now too and she oozed all over the floor and out the

door, that’s when he got caught the housekeeper noticed the stench when she slipped in the ooze and

had her nose under the door, the man was inside talking to the dead girl wondering if she liked him or is

she was repulsed by his three cocks, there was some banging going on in there and some glass got

broke, that’s when the police stormed in and they got the virus too, that was it for them see they could

have handled the dead girl but getting that virus they had all heard about was too much, one cop took

his night stick and stuck it up the killers ass, he was howling and howling asking for more cause he got

three cocks and see there were at least three cops in there, one cop had a mind to just shoot him so he

fired off his gun and a black streak zipped in the air smashing into the headboard making a very loud

racket, the housekeeper bellowed about whose gonna clean that mess up, and the other cop slapped
Deep Tissue 82

her in the face with his balls and maced her so she would shut up, he had a mind to tie her to the bed

but he just pushed her down the stairs instead, now theres a whole list of charges going on in this here

hotel room, but the murder was the ticket, this man had to get his, the third cop stood there in the

corner shooting up, see it was his break time and he hadn’t yet had his meal, the other cops said shit

Johnny whys ya got to do that now, we gots here a criminale, now you just gonna sit there and make us

wanna come fuck you in your coma-calm, so they ripped off his rope and tied it round his neck and drug

him over to where the killer sat in the corner, they each took turns pisssing all over that man, now see

none of this was told by the judge in the courtoom, there was too many fine ladies in the hall, so the

judge had whispered all of this to me in the closet when we were getting off, and I had a half a mind to

jump up and scream and run outta that room, but I sat and stared at the killer waiting for his sentence

to be dropped, now that’s when the gettings good, when they get their time told they usually either

weep or die right there and the balif would carry them off to the trash bins, so the judge started talking

bout the war when he was a captain on a ship, now and then they would catch a murder and had to deal

out the hand, usually what they did was first decide if the murder was done in a fit of lust or rage, see

lust was something the men had a lot of and wasn’t looked upon as a sure fire crime if ya killed yer catch

in the hulls of the ship where the fish guts and empty wine bottles was tossed, most of the men had

wives and children but that lust boy would consume a man like the sea itself, so lust wasn’t a crime on a

boat it was just a matter of nature and that couldn’t be scorned, but rage is totally different on a ship,

see rage is when a man rips out guts, stabs into hearts, tears off limbs and sits back in the blood biding

his time, see he lost his lust when the first drop of blood spilled fueling that rage, so if ya look at both
Deep Tissue 83

they really aint that much different but even a ship at sea for years on end had ta have standards, but

rage and lust they fall under the same chapter in the psych books one and the same… so if a man was

determined to have killed with rage then a sentence must be handed down, this is where the judge got

out of his seat and went over to the defendants table, first he stabbed the lawyer in the eye cause they

see only one thing anyway and that aint here in this courtroom, he would be better off on that ship the

judge was talking bout when he was captain, man overboard, but anyways he went to that table and sat

right on it, it groaned under his weight and he tossed one leg over the side, showing off his goods but

not his one good vein that was hidden from view, so there he sat and looking at the killer, he spoke slow

as a mollusk, son I can understand why ya got this issue, but see here in this courtroom justice is mine

and the way I see it you got it bad, now I feel sorry for ya with three cocks and all, ya are some kind of

freak like in a bad science fiction movie, and that aint no good son, but see here this is my courtroom

and you are in it, the judge leaned into the mans face and stared for a good long minute, his eyes

crossed and he got this queer look on his face, he had noticed the virus, this man was a mutant by god!!

The judge was just started to real with the juice he got in the closet, I too started to feel moth-like and

floated over by the table too, hovering over them, I said judge hes got it bad man, he spat at me and got

it on my hand, I fear he is contaminating us, whatcha got in mind judge? The judge sat there with that

queer look, turning grey as a shroud, his eyes bulged and the vein in his forehead started spurting out

his blood, it sprayed all over the place, creating a theatre of violence in the silence, man I was worried

about the judge, maybe that juice got him too good and he was gonna explode with the tide, that blood

sure wasn’t good, I shook him and said hey man what are WE gonna do about this guy? We cant let him
Deep Tissue 84

outta this room! The judge was still bleeding out but he being a man in control shrugged it off and stood

tall with his robes billowing behind him, and all at once he proclaimed: Chain him up and send him to

the gallows! He gurgled and water started to seep out of his skin and his eyes began to swim pooling

into black orbs.. behind him the people in the audience started to burn a quick immolation of

bystanders but before they incinerated they cried-drive him to the edge of the earth and they all held

their hands up brandishing the peace sign, I in my mothlike state was drawn to the flames and the heat

singed the feathers on my arms there I hovered for a bit, see I knew this scene was gonna turn bad, first

the judge has forgotten that he is in his courtroom, I fear he has talked himself right into the past and

there he’s stuck, the fire in the back made little sense but I had an imprint of their peace signs floating in

my sight like staring into a light for too long & the spots start to follow you, so I started to float my way

back over to the judge and I shook him as hard as I could, mind you it was like a tickle under the waves

You can find more of John‟s work at:

http://www.myspace.com/johncsweet
Deep Tissue 85

A Pentacle for Blue Boy


By Glen Lantz

Chapter One

The Kidnapping

It’s nine in the morning and I am eating breakfast at a local diner with my friend Kilgore Royce.

Kilgore isn’t his real name; his real name is William. He is the bastard son of a whore. Does that seem

too harsh of a word, to come right out and tell you such a thing about someone’s mom? He hates it

when I tell people that. I tell people about his mom all of the time. Not to be mean, but for the sake of

shocking people. I have had several elderly ladies ball me out for saying such a thing. They told me I

should know better than to say such a thing about someone’s mom.

Kilgore tells me that I have a gift for words. I’m not quite sure if he means it as a compliment or

as an insult. Knowing Kilgore, it is probably some private joke that only he understands. He is constantly

chuckling to himself about something that only he considers funny. Anyway, his mother used to have a

nasty drug habit. She would pull tricks to pay for her drugs. I guess that qualifies her for the whore part.

She had a big heroin habit when she was younger. The good thing is that she kicked the habit and

cleaned up her act. You have to respect someone who has survived something like that. Many people

don’t survive drug addiction. Other than being a pro and a junkie, his mom is really sweet.
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Kilgore’s mom used to look hot, when she was younger. Hell, she is still pretty foxy for an older

lady. I bet most guys would jump her in an instant. Kilgore said that she used to shoot up about a

hundred bucks worth of smack a day. I don’t know, but that seems like a lot of shit to be putting up your

veins. Later, she got into a methadone treatment program and now she sort of maintains the

appearance of a normal life. That is, about as normal of a life that a junkie can live.

Kilgore had to steal to survive. His mother taught him how to hustle money and steal at a young

age. By the time he was nine, he had a juvenile rap sheet a mile long. He would get caught stealing

cigarettes or cans of beer at the neighborhood mom and pop groceries. Many times he would get away

with it, but the storeowners knew who he was and the next day the police would show up at the school

to arrest him. It was a big deal at the grade school to have the cops show up and haul Kilgore away. All

the boys were afraid of him and all the girls loved him. No one would dare mess with Kilgore because he

had a schoolyard reputation of being a hardened criminal. I remember my mom telling me to stay away

from him. Her telling me that just made me want to be friends with him even more. I had to hide the

fact that we were friends from my mom. When she asked me who I had been playing with, I always said

someone else.

At age 12 Kilgore was charged with attempted murder. One day when he was sent home early

from school, he caught a john beating his mother. Kilgore didn’t know that his mother was a willful

participant in a bondage scenario. He came home to discover his mother bound and gagged and a

strange man beating her with a whip. Kilgore broke the guy’s jaw, arm, leg, and three ribs. The john was

given a ticket and Kilgore was sent upstate to the Fulmer Juvenile Correctional Facility. He says that he

spent four years of hell at that institution.

Now, Kilgore is a reporter for the local newspaper. Mostly he writes crime stuff like who robbed

whom, when, and where. He has to write stories about all the gory shit that happens in this screwed up
Deep Tissue 87

town. Let me tell you, he has seen some crazy shit over the years. For example, one night some high

school students were doing some PCP, when one of them decided it would be cool to get his dad’s guns

out and screw around with them. He went into the garage, found an ax, and bashed open the locked

metal gun safe. Just tore the shit open big time. They took one of the shotguns out and pointed it

around the living room. The kid’s finger slipped and the gun went off. He blew his girlfriend’s head

almost completely off. That’s when things got real messed up. The kid panicked and killed all three of his

friends. When his parents came home from a night out on the town, he killed them also. Can you

imagine how much blood there was? Six bodies half blown to shit and bleeding all over the carpets.

Blood was everywhere, on the walls, ceiling, floors, and furniture. It was a real old fashioned bloodbath.

The kid had been involved in some religious cult and his attorney got him committed to the nut ward

because they brainwashed him.

My name is Milton Harper, my friends call me Harp. I am a writer and paranormal investigator. I

investigate unusual experiences that lack an obvious explanation. I have written several books on

paranormal phenomenon. My friends say I’m a ghost hunter, but actually it is a little different than that.

I investigate those things that are hard to explain, so it encompasses more than just ghosts. I believe

that the mysteries of the universe cannot be fully explained by naturalistic means alone. I feel that in

order to understand supernatural events, there needs to be more flexibility in explaining what has

happened. Many would agree that there are things that stand outside the realm of human

understanding. There are entities, events or even powers that are beyond the natural means of

explanation. I have seen too many strange things that can’t be explained. There are things in this world

that resist an easy definition. That is the problem with us humans, we want to place things in nice and

neat categories. Well, some of this shit just can’t be pegged.


Deep Tissue 88

Kilgore is eating bacon and eggs and I’m eating an omelet. We both drink our coffee black. As

we eat our breakfast, Kilgore tells me a about a crazy preacher. “Harp,” he asks, “have you heard about

this preacher?” “Which one,” I ask? “Reverend Charles Brown, the pastor of the Church of Redeemed

Angels. I interviewed him last week for an article I’m working on. You may recognize his name from his

weekly television show ‘The Hour of Salvation.’ Have you seen that crap?” I shake my head no as I chew

on a bite of my omelet. Kilgore continues, “He typically rants and raves for an hour about how Jesus

suffered on the cross to pay for the sins of the world. A bunch of crazy bat shit like that.”

“Well Harp, the good reverend states that all people are evil and need to be controlled. Can you

believe that shit? He said controlled like some Nazi Gestapo shit head. I mean God damn, he is one

messed up control freak. I wonder what kind of mind control bull-shit they are brainwash people with at

his church? It scares me to think that there might be more people like him out there. What kind of

freaky shit might they be trying to pull off?”

“Yeah, that is some freaky shit,” I respond. “How many people go to this church,” I ask. “It is a

big church Harp, I would have to say that somewhere around a thousand people go there.” “Wow, that’s

a lot of dumb shits giving him their money.” “Yeah, and they have some famous people that go there

also; you know movie stars, some rap artists, and ex-porn stars. The reverend’s congregation is bound

together by common anxieties and fears.” “That just shows you that the rich are just as crazy as the

poor.”

We are almost finished with our food when Kilgore’s phone rings. It is someone for the paper on

the other end. He pulls a pen and a small notebook from his pocket and writes something down. He

hangs up the phone and says, “Come on you might find this interesting.” “What,” I ask? “Someone just

robbed the First National Bank on Locust Street and they took Blue Boy Cain as a hostage.” “Blue Boy
Deep Tissue 89

Cain,” I ask? “Blue Boy Cain is the sixth celebrity that has been kidnapped in the past six months,” says

Kilgore.

Blue Boy Cain is the socialite bad boy son of movie star legend Mary Cain. She has appeared in

over a hundred and fifty films and is best known for her academy award winning performances in the

movies Stolen Kisses, Under the Apartment Stairs, and The Big Finish. Now she mostly does commercials

for paper towels and kitchen cleaners. She made a ton of money and was smart enough to invest it.

I ask Kilgore who else is missing. He says that Pablo Rivaldo, a soccer player for the local soccer

team is missing. Pablo is world famous for being a man of great extravagance and flair. Pablo said that

his one goal in life is to live life to the fullest. For him this meant eating and drinking in excess. It has

been reported that he once drank 100 beers in one night. Also, it is reported that he once ordered

everything on the restaurant’s menu and spent several hours eating everything they brought out. Pablo

is also notorious as a world class womanizer. An old college soccer coach said that Pablo collected

women like some people collect stamps. The coach said that there would be twenty women watching

Pablo at every practice and over a hundred would come to each and every game. The joke on the team

was that they were his harem. Pablo claims that he has slept with over a thousand women.

Pablo was the first one to be taken. The police thought maybe his kidnapping had something to

do with drugs or prostitution. It had been reported that he had a big cocaine habit and liked to buy a

prostitute every now and then. He had been suspended by the soccer league several times for drug use

violations. Also, he had been arrested several times for soliciting prostitutes. The police figured he owed

someone a lot of money and they had him wacked. You know a mob hit, clean and simple with no

evidence. The police are always dumb shits. They always look for the path of least resistance.
Deep Tissue 90

Someone broke into his house in the middle of the night and took him away. The police said that

there was no sign of a struggle; everything was in its place. The only thing that was missing was three

MVP trophies.

The owner of the soccer team hired a psychic to help the police find Pablo. The psychic said that

Pablo was taken by the hand of God. She said that she could see large stone angels standing over Pablo.

She said the stone angels were watching over him. The stone angels were watching Pablo and the hand

of God.

Once we get to the scene of the crime, we learn from the police that, Blue Boy was conducting

business at the First National Bank when the bank was robbed. Witnesses in the bank at the time of the

robbery, said three men wearing Halloween masks brazenly entered the bank brandishing weapons and

demanded money. They told everyone in the bank to get down on the floor. One of them fired a burst of

bullets across the ceiling in order to get everyone’s attention. They told everyone to be calm and no one

would get hurt. When the robbers left the bank, they took Blue Boy with them.

As Kilgore and I listen to the police officer, I notice this stunning looking woman talking to one of

the police officers. Her hair is long and a mix of colors, bronze, violet, black, and navy blue. She has

beautiful blue eyes, several tattoos on her arms, and a piercing in her nose. When she is done talking to

the officer, I walk up to her and tell her I’m a reporter for the paper. I discover that her name is Lucy

Ferocious and she is an exotic dancer and actress. She was in the bank at the time of the robbery. She

has this earthy sexiness to her appearance someone with tats, piercings, and blue hair. It is a very

intoxicating mix and I find myself being very attracted to her. I am surprised that they didn’t take her as

a hostage. If I were one of the bank robbers, I would have taken her as a hostage for sure. I think taking

her as a hostage would have been a lot more fun. In fact, I’m dead sure of it.
Deep Tissue 91

Lucy tells me that Blue Boy didn’t get down on the ground fast enough and one of the bank

robbers smashed the end of his rifle into Blue Boy’s face. “Blue Boy quickly dropped to his hands and

knees in response to the blow. Drops of blood dripped onto the floor from the gash in his forehead. Blue

Boy was looking at his blood on the floor as a tear fell from the tip of his nose mixing with the growing

pool of blood. The man who hit him with the gun placed the gun against Blue Boy’s head and Blue Boy

started to shake uncontrollably. “I felt sorry for him,” said Lucy. “He was just in the wrong place at the

wrong time, like the rest of us. When the robbers left the bank, one of them pulled Blue Boy to his feet

and told the others that they should take Blue Boy along as insurance.”

While I was interviewing Lucy, Kilgore is busy interviewing the manager of the bank. The bank

manager looks like your typical big fucking prick. He basically tells Kilgore the same stuff the police told

him. Kilgore always says it’s important to get the “big buy” in the story and for a story about a bank

robbery; the bank manger is the big guy. The bank manager says that there has been a troubling string

of bank robberies in recent months. He blames the economy for the latest rash of bank robberies. “Bank

robberies hold a certain amount of romantic appeal to the public. I blame movies for making the public

sympathetic to bank robbers. The robbers this time made off with about $30,000 dollars in cash.” He

said the bank is insured so depositors should not worry about their money.

Kilgore also interviews bank employee Nancy Pillar. She tells Kilgore that she is surprised that

the bank was robbed. Kilgore gives her his patented “you don’t say” look. The bank sits in front of a busy

downtown street with heavy traffic. “This robbery is making me rethink how safe this job is.” Nancy tells

him that she and the other girls at the bank are thinking about quitting. They thought working at a bank

would be a nice safe job and now they are not so sure about that anymore.

I ask Lucy if she would like to go have a drink and she says yes she is thirsty. She looks like a

woman who is used to telling men yes. We go to a little dive of a bar that is close by the bank. The
Deep Tissue 92

atmosphere of the place is dark and dingy, but is has this comfortable lived in feel to it. We sit down at a

booth along a wall and order drinks. Lucy orders a rum and coke and I order a whiskey sour. She stirs her

drink with the plastic swizzle stick and watches the ice spin around.

As she lights a cigarette, she asks me how long I have been working at the paper. I tell her I have

worked for the paper for the last six years. She asks if she has ever read anything that I have written. I

tell her that she might have read my article on corruption in the waste management industry. It is one of

the few articles that I can remember that Kilgore wrote. She says that she thinks she might have read

the article. I smile like I appreciate her reading my article.

“I know someone you can investigate,” she says. “Who,” I ask? “Have you heard about this

group called Arcanum Magnum?” “No,” I answer. “Tell me more,” I ask? “Arcanum Magnum is a satanic

organization involved in a conspiracy to infiltrate and overthrow the American government. This group is

a secret society that exists all over the world,” she says. “Why haven’t I heard of this group before,” I

ask? “I don’t know,” she responds. “They control a large portion of the wealth, prestige, and power of

the entire world. Maybe they use their wealth to keep this a hidden from the rest of the world.” “How

do you know this?” I ask while telling myself, “great another nut.” “Bobby Slade told me about them,”

she says. “Who,” I ask in disbelief. “Bobby Slade,” she says again trying to look convincing. “He told me

that these people are high ranking officials in politics, finance, media, and entertainment industries. He

said they have members who were Presidents and Vice Presidents, Directors of the CIA, Directors of the

FBI, Secretaries of Defense, and many Fortune 500 CEOs.”

“Wow,” I say trying my hardest to sound sincere. “World events are being controlled and

manipulated by Arcanum Magnum. They have infiltrated world positions of power. They are working

behind the scenes influencing policies and world events,” she said. “Just like my father thought the
Deep Tissue 93

communists were back in the 50s,” I thought to myself. There is always someone thinking up a new

conspiracy theory.

“These people share a common view of the world, they consider themselves to be superior to

the rest of society, and are connected to each other through multiple group memberships. Members of

this group have similar interests and work together to promote their secret agenda. They shape our

economy and influence our government because of their wealth and social prestige.”

Glen Lantz is the editor in chief of Deep Tissue Magazine. He has several pieces of work published in
many small online journals. Glen spends most of his time reading, writing, and painting.

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http://theplebianrag.com/

Shoots and Vines

http://www.shootsandvines.com/

Underground Voices

http://www.undergroundvoices.com/

Zygote in my Coffee

http://www.zygoteinmycoffee.com/

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