2. As editor of the long-running zine, Smile Hon, you’re in Baltimore! said recently, if you’re not above paying for sex….

3.  Wall Street 2 comes out in a month.  Pro: Michael Douglas returns as Gordon Gekko.  Possible con: That kid from Transformers.  Could be a good thing: Wasn’t written by Oliver Stone.

4. Started reading a collection by Henry David Thoreau.  He’s been on my “to read list” since high school.  Now I wonder, where have you been all my life, you beautiful proto-hippie?

5. Since Dexter and Californication have ended their seasons, I haven’t been watching much TV, except for Family Guy reruns.  Surprise!  My productivity has gone up.

MELANIE BROWNE

Just the way she likes it

He makes toast
just the way she likes it,
drizzled with butter
and cut perfectly in half,
a magician’s morbid trick

She dreams about a tiger
that scorches his tongue
the tiger moans and
she wakes,
screaming.
He holds her head
against his chest
the way she likes it

Makes love to her
in darkness, their bodies
a chorus of
wild barley weeds
wailing away underneath
a scalding sky

the sneaky baby

she had
always
been
sneaky

always
sneaking
around

she was
always
listening

to her
mother
when
she
spoke

popping
the
nipple

out
of
her
mouth

her
baby
eyes
glazed

with
blue
and
magic
milk

the
sneaky
baby

she
would
trip
you
when
she
crawled

she
was
always

sneaking
around

pretty
little
sneaky
baby

she
heard
her
mother
tell
her
friend
she
fantasized
about
the
Irish
construction
workers
fucking
her
on
the
rooftops
and
afterwards
sharing
a
cup
of
tea

while
chatting
of
Irish Opression

with
the
whole
gang
of
them

and
that
the
word
“laborer”
turned
her
on

like
mad

sneaky
little
baby

saw
mommy
kiss
a man
that wasn’t
daddy

the
sneaky
baby
never
forgets

blind tightrope walker seeks cartographer
chiromancer or catalytic converter
for mutual mental masturbation

interrogation skills a must
let no words be safe

your hands: 12 string enormous
your hands: wrap stars on a wand like spun sugar
your hands: never fumble for the key

me: self-loathing narcissist, side-swipe dreamer
kiss me backwards make me forget which way is up
bring ice water, clean towels

must read minds, palms, a compass
must coast clouds during stretches of silence
and seduce other women in plain sight share

kiss start each day, tackle wild beasts in the attic
lie to me when you need to which is often agreed

helpful if you suffer spontaneous amnesia
and can fuck me like you would a stranger
long adored from the doorway

There’s no time for chasing whiskey with shadows, when the cross is crooked and graffiti covers it like a hip hop totem pole. Territory marked with piss, Love is a card trick you see on the street corner, sex is fake currency and propaganda for the illuminati.  I used to carry a gun, tucked in my pants.

Self-Absorbed and still leaking, I cut Joan of Arc’s hair with an old rusty straight razor.  I would strap on a chainsaw and take Wendy O’ Williams right here on this floor.  I would sit next to you on the porch swing if you’d tell me a story.  Just remember I’m too old for fairy tales and I never believed in santa claus.
Georgia O Keefe prints line the walls of my therapist’s office
I saw the gift horse there once, but he kept his mouth shut because he didn’t want anyone to see his rotting, slimy teeth.
At your triage in this whole pyramid scheme, many people will ask you to repeat your allergies along the way.  Then I think the answers are super-micro-ultra-uber-zapped into the giant “Welcome to the Machine”.
I’ve never been anyone’s girl next door. Women, take control of your sexuality, stick out your chest, and put down your spiked heels.  A psuedo -socio-voyeuristic photo essay exploring my thoughts on the term “feminist”. Is what I told you I was writing about.
claustrophobic. We are both just using each other for one last breath. So sometimes when you are sleeping I put my lips on yours and inhale as much as you in as I can.  I’m not sure who I’m trying to finish off, I only feel the approaching suffocation, and choking on wishes granted by shooting stars.

for the birds, may all beings be well

every year, just before spring,
my skinny legs would wobble
a kitchen chair in the middle
of my grandmother’s backyard,
the scissor-scissor of the spray
bottle mixing with the sun to border
my body in rainbows, comb-comb
cut, comb-comb cut, march’s wind
carrying with it what fell

she would tell me the birds
needed it more than i did

the bendable beauty of
my auburn hair winking
in the spring sun, weaved in
mud, twigs, bits of newspaper
& string, whatever she could find
to build a home

i think of her heart, four
hundred beats per minute
warming & waiting for
the sharp squawks
that follow

the constant give
& take that a
mother’s love
brings

FEATURING
PRIS CAMPBELL

Plymouth

We see them everywhere from our boat,
these men and women dressed up
in Pilgrim clothes, as if Plymouth
is the new Brigadoon reincarnated daily
around a fake rock.
Had I been a real Pilgrim
I would’ve run off with a handsome
Medicine Man, slept on rabbit fur,
visited with Pocahontas.
I would’ve warned my Medicine man
husband about the carnage already
brewing in the ships riding here
on the easterly winds. I would’ve
asked him to cast spells upon all
the birds in the forest so
their songs would bring peace
to  land-greedy white men with guns
and Indians painting themselves
black and orange beside sparkling war fires.
Village and woods would be filled
with children of all colors,
beads clattering around their necks,
bellies filled with porridge.

I try to smoke the peace pipe with my lover,
one quarter Indian, himself,
but I never ran off with the Medicine Man
and the birds never sang their magic.
He slashes my throat with a word
and I bleed onto the deck until our boat
is drenched with the color of sunset.