Sean Kilpatrick is currently writing an extended script for Out for Justice in which the villain, Richie, is not simply tossed at kitchen appliances with cheap judo, but has his bastardly say, including the following commercial stint

Ode to William Forsyth

              by Sean Kilpatrick

I asked my friend Gerard Breitenbeck to portray sublime crack-smoking mafia rampage screen icon Richie, who is brought down way too quick by Steven Segal in Out for Justice. From an ode in progress honoring actor William Forsythe.
 

note: I’ve started this feature up as a kind of homage and alternative (a companion series, if you will) to the incredible work Alex Dimitrov and the rest of the team at the The Academy of American Poets are doing. I mean it’s astonishing how they are able to get masterpieces of such stature out to the masses on an almost daily basis. But, some poems, though formidable in their own right, aren’t quite right for that pantheon. And, so I’m planning on bridging the gap. A kind of complementary series. Enjoy!

Gary J. Shipley was grown from man-seed using the very latest hydroponics

BE SKUNK

by Gary J. Shipley

***

You got to be always skunk. There’s fuck all else to say – it’s the only stink there is. How else you gonna save yourself from the weak-assed perfume of just being okay, if you can’t stink it up more than them reekers too afraid to reek of anything?

What genus? Spotted, hog-nosed, hooded, any one’ll do. Just be that cunting skunk!

And if it happens, and it will, that you stink so good and proper people reckon you ambrosial, ask around for someone with a nose for anal air, death-row inmates, ambulance men, porn stars, plastic surgeons, any fuckwit with a voice, and ask them what it is they cannot smell, and the death-row inmate, the ambulance man, the porn star, the plastic surgeon will give it to you straight: “If you’re going to smell you might as well really stink like shit. Or else risk not being smelled at all, so go be skunk, skunk yourself the fuck up! And don’t stress the genus any, spotted, hog-nosed, hooded, malodour is where it’s at and always its own reward.”

***

 
I imagine ol’ raisin-nuts Baudelaire turning slowly yellow, his tits in a sack, his liver like a pockmarked turd, and I long to save him from all kinds of intoxication. I want to preserve him for unborn generations, who will recognise him not by sight but by the cut of his scent, a scent I’m proud to have initiated and prouder still to spread.
 
 

note: I’ve started this feature up as a kind of homage and alternative (a companion series, if you will) to the incredible work Alex Dimitrov and the rest of the team at the The Academy of American Poets are doing. I mean it’s astonishing how they are able to get masterpieces of such stature out to the masses on an almost daily basis. But, some poems, though formidable in their own right, aren’t quite right for that pantheon. And, so I’m planning on bridging the gap. A kind of complementary series. Enjoy!

Nina Gagen-Torn (1900-1986) spent 1936-1942 in the Kolyma labor camps

The Dying

by Nina Gagen-Torn

What does it mean—exhaustion?
What does it mean—fatigue?
Every movement is terrifying,
Every movement of your painful arms and legs
Terrible hunger—Raving over bread
“Bread, bread,” the heart beats.
Far away in the gloomy sky,
The indifferent sun turns.
Your breath is a thin whistle
It’s minus fifty degrees
What does it mean—dying?
The mountains look on, and remain silent.

 
 
When I’m not drafting up posts about “positivity” (for and against) I like to read books like Gulag by Anne Applebaum. The 16th chapter of Gulag begins with this poem. (I am staring out now at the sky). Proximity to death, in Art or in life, fills my veins with a kind of icy fire.

note: I’ve started this feature up as a kind of homage and alternative (a companion series, if you will) to the incredible work Alex Dimitrov and the rest of the team at the The Academy of American Poets are doing. I mean it’s astonishing how they are able to get masterpieces of such stature out to the masses on an almost daily basis. But, some poems, though formidable in their own right, aren’t quite right for that pantheon. And, so I’m planning on bridging the gap. A kind of complementary series. Enjoy!

Sam Pink’s looking for a rich ‘big beautiful woman’ to take him to AWP — (“i’m a mobstaaaaah”)

DOG STORY

by Sam Pink

***

there’s this dog that lives a few blocks away from me. i always see him lying down in a fenced-in patio area out back. one time i saw a guy walking his dog by the fenced-in patio area and the guy stopped and stood there distracted–talking on his cellphone–as his dog pissed on the head of the dog lying down, who didn’t move.

***

i wrote this poem after rauan asked me if i had any poems. the main inspiration is a dog i saw getting pissed on, and also, rauan asking me for a poem.
 
 

note: I’ve started this feature up as a kind of homage and alternative (a companion series, if you will) to the incredible work Alex Dimitrov and the rest of the team at the The Academy of American Poets are doing. I mean it’s astonishing how they are able to get masterpieces of such stature out to the masses on an almost daily basis. But, some poems, though formidable in their own right, aren’t quite right for that pantheon. And, so I’m planning on bridging the gap. A kind of complementary series. Enjoy!

Danielle Pafunda resists the day’s terms even as she’s complicit in and bound to them, to carry them out. The children are calling that Playmobil cop Uncle Shootser, again. She’s taking unflattering pictures, no, she means just actual pictures of her navel while she reads Elisabeth Bronfen.

Your Conscript

by Danielle Pafunda

Get the fuck away from me. I’m sick and free.
I’ve puked my heart out and also my other organs.

My liver spills, my kidneys spilled, my blood
turns the color of a nuclear sunset and hums across

the spoiled garden path. I’ve been at these stones
with a shotgun. I’ve been nailing the doors shut.

In any event, I drowned your book in the river.
At the river, two large men grabbed my arms

and pinned me against a shipping container.
They tore your words out of my throat and held them

in the pink arc cast by a security light. Give him up
they told me, and I did. Over and over again

retching into their outstretched sack, retching
money and grief and the look of your hair

plastered down by an oily rain.

When I first ate that rat after I first regurgitated that rat (see Johannes) and wouldn’t you know that rat was high on cocaine and babies (see Scientific American January 2006) I had the tongue of a songbird stitched into my tongue (see Chelsea Biondolillo, see Katrina Van Gouw, see Philomela). A blank spot on my tongue. A salt scar on my tongue. I only speak English. I make a high-pitched whinny at which babies coo (see babies). I can identify tone. You have your search terms.

note: I’ve started this feature up as a kind of homage and alternative (a companion series, if you will) to the incredible work Alex Dimitrov and the rest of the team at the The Academy of American Poets are doing. I mean it’s astonishing how they are able to get masterpieces of such stature out to the masses on an almost daily basis. But, some poems, though formidable in their own right, aren’t quite right for that pantheon. And, so I’m planning on bridging the gap. A kind of complementary series. Enjoy!

Lillian Dylan lives alone. She dyes her hair every other week. All 300 of her facebook friends are gay. She likes it that way.

This poem is the result of a combination of two journal entries: one about my ex-boyfriend and another about my current boyfriend. The parts about loss refer to the former, the parts about sex, the latter. I write in my journal about sex and loss a lot because those are the two things I feel I have experienced most in my life. Although I don’t think of myself as a poet, I like the idea of taking things written in my journal and turning them into little crystal-like objects that I can observe, neatly, and throw away. I am currently in a loving 24/7 BDSM relationship.This is my first published poem.

note: I’ve started this feature up as a kind of homage and alternative (a companion series, if you will) to the incredible work Alex Dimitrov and the rest of the team at the The Academy of American Poets are doing. I mean it’s astonishing how they are able to get masterpieces of such stature out to the masses on an almost daily basis. But, some poems, though formidable in their own right, aren’t quite right for that pantheon. And, so I’m planning on bridging the gap. A kind of complementary series. Enjoy!

Sandra Simonds lives a pretty boring life in Tallahassee, Florida. She works as a professor in Thomasville, Georgia. She is always tired. Sometimes she parks her car in random parking lots and just sits there and listens to music.

In some sense, this is a conceptual piece of writing in that it takes verbatim language delivered in one context (the stalker to me) and subverts it by delivering it back (me to the world) in an entirely different context/ new audience. It moves from the private (email) to the public (website) and in this sense it moves from the relationship of abuse (me and the stalker) to the relationship of reality/ sympathy and understanding (me and my other social relations). I would have never dreamed that I would write this sort of poem a year ago, but after having been stalked and harassed by this person for so long, after having called the police, after having ignored the stalker and fought back, I felt like writing the poem was my last recourse.
 

note: I’ve started this feature up as a kind of homage and alternative (a companion series, if you will) to the incredible work Alex Dimitrov and the rest of the team at the The Academy of American Poets are doing. I mean it’s astonishing how they are able to get masterpieces of such stature out to the masses on an almost daily basis. But, some poems, though formidable in their own right, aren’t quite right for that pantheon. And, so I’m planning on bridging the gap. A kind of complementary series. Enjoy!

The Penis List

Jim Behrle was recently featured in “Kill List” as a comfortable poet. It’s possible that he is the least famous poet to earn such a distinction. He lives in Jersey City, NJ. By day he wears a green t-shirt and a nametag at a university bookstore, fetching textbooks for people with bright futures. He lives his broken dreams, a famous internet poetry troll, he’s probably better known for crap like “Best American Poetry: The Cartoon”, “Stone Cold Poetry Bitches” and “What the Hell is Up With Your Author Photo?” Behrle really has to get more of that Ruth Lilly money somehow.

by Jim Behrle

Jim Behrle has a half inch penis
The Kill List Kid has a three inch penis
Vanessa Place has a six inch penis
Billy Collins has a four inch penis

The Poetry Foundation has a $100 million penis
But Poetry Magazine has a two inch penis
Your iphone is a mile long penis that’s
Always secretly fucking you

When you look at your iphone think “penis”
Google is a huge penis sticking out of
Everything everywhere
And where ever you go you bump into them all

Poetry is a huge warm wonderful vagina
But everyone treats it like a narrow
Tight, unbreakable asshole that only
One penis at a time can fit in so

You’ve got to out-penis everyone else
Manhattan and Brooklyn take an inch off
America’s penis is old and gross
But we’re working on it now 

The internet takes a half
Inch off your penis, snip, snip
Let’s just cut off all penises
Or yank them all out by the root

What will survive is love
And penises usually fuck that up, too

Kafka once wrote “We are incapable of loving, only fear excites us.” Behrle quotes this all the time, it is the only thing he’s ever read from Kafka. And he wants to sound smart. This poem began as a long list of poets and their perceived penis lengths but once he got to the line about Billy Collins penis he lost his stomach and turned it into something else. Vanessa Place’s penis on the other hand kills poetry every night, aw yeah. Behrle. . .

note: I’ve started this feature up as a kind of homage and alternative (a companion series, if you will) to the incredible work Alex Dimitrov and the rest of the team at the The Academy of American Poets are doing. I mean it’s astonishing how they are able to get masterpieces of such stature out to the masses on an almost daily basis. But, some poems, though formidable in their own right, aren’t quite right for that pantheon. And, so I’m planning on bridging the gap. A kind of complementary series. Enjoy!

“Seth Abramson” is a Google Alert.

 
 When I was six or seven, I skinned my knee. It’s an experience that’s never really left me. This is a poem about that. And the magic of poetry. It’s called “Ars Poetica,” which means “small gift” in Latin. This poem owes a significant debt to Dottie Lasky and also to the magic of poetry. 
 

 

note: I’ve started this feature up as a kind of homage and alternative (a companion series, if you will) to the incredible work Alex Dimitrov and the rest of the team at the The Academy of American Poets are doing. I mean it’s astonishing how they are able to get masterpieces of such stature out to the masses on an almost daily basis. But, some poems, though formidable in their own right, aren’t quite right for that pantheon. And, so I’m planning on bridging the gap. A kind of complementary series. Enjoy!

A Good Titty Is Hard To Find

Reb Livingston has amassed 2250 Facebook friends, 876 Twitter followers, 625 Google+ circle inclusions, 568 Goodreads friends, 309 Pinterest followers, 234 LInkedIn connections and has been awarded an impressive 60 Klout score. Upon turning 40, Ms. Livingston was unanimously declared the champion of the Male Series of Middle Aged Poets, the first woman to achieve this honor since the award’s inception in 1919. She resides in Northern Virginia with her husband, son, dog and a solitary fish named Wolverine who just won’t die.

by Reb Livingston

O if I had two titties to rub
together I would rub them
together until together they
created one good one

and I’d strut around with
my one good titty
that I’d push up with my firm palm
imagining that it was your firm palm

and I’d keep it in place with packing tape
imagining that it was your packing tape
and eventually my one good titty
would spill over

my custom one-tittied tape bra and
disappear into my scoop neck crop top
but before it did
I’d use my one good titty to pound your face

like my titty was some soap in a sock
participating in a retribution

my sweetness, please, give my one
good titty, a little more time
to settle and

stretch into a lithe hand of delight.

 
One morning I woke up very sad. So I decided that since I was a poet, I would express my sadness in poem form. This poem explores the concepts of friction, combination, sexuality, gender, aging, gravity, fashion, metamorphosis, violence and love. The titty works as metaphor for a much larger idea.