The loneliest people ever accosted by bright lights and blaring sounds
Flow about me like a river, borne in currents of cheap tobacco smoke
Either window dressing or bad luck, they bark at me for losses
Blame the interloper, not the machine designed for soft bankruptcy
I dare not pull the lever myself, even as the lights twinkle and sing
For the dead eyes I see at every turn, the listless mechanisms of loss
Were they once as wary as I, before beckoned into the neon arms
Sure that just one pull, just twenty dollars, would be the end of it?
November 26, 2013
From “Those Listless Gambling Eyes” by Nicosia Trosper
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: casinos, fiction, poetry, story |Leave a Comment
October 6, 2013
September 27, 2013
From “Limerwicky” by Tom Roso Heeg
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: doggerel, fiction, humor, poetry, story |1 Comment
In the town of Down there was a longstanding tradition
The catching of a goose was a young man’s mission
With goose in hand
And holdings in land
A young man became a man
And marriage could be his plan
They gathered in Down on the first day of fall
Fat boys, skinny boys, greedy boys, all
When the starting gun fired
They chased what they desired
But in the goose-flock down by the gap
The wily birds avoided their traps
Except for one bright young lad
Who got what geese were to be had
Returning to town
All laden with down
The others asked how he had done it
“My bicycle, lads, was all of my kit
I haven’t oiled it in weeks
And surely you know
If you’ve gone with the flow
That the squeaky wheel gets the geese”
September 18, 2013
From “Haiku to Discarded Trousers” by Koji Umebayashi
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: clothing, fiction, haiku, humor, Koji Umebayashi, pants, parking lot, poetry, story |Leave a Comment
August 10, 2013
From “Spambot Poetry” by 192.74.244.97, adapted by Altos Wexan
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: Altos Wexan, fiction, poetry, spam, story |Leave a Comment
Almost for Valentine’s Day, a gift basket
She gives marriage tips just to use famous food quotes
Of far-off movies with stock options
Brought together in estate planning trust
She has his life insurance policy, here
For the bookkeeping service
We all wish for an inflatable escape slide at our jobs
Airplane style out into the street
She thinks 80% of us would quite like that
Anybody out there?
There is an opening for a stockbroker at my job
She is smiling and weeping
July 15, 2013
From “Digitangels” by Andryw D. Gint
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July 12, 2013
From “The Last Desk” by Altos Wexan
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: Altos Wexan, fiction, poetry, story |Leave a Comment
I saw a man flirting with a girl behind a desk
Leaned over to suggest the casual amid a careful pose
I wanted to hate him for it, lips curled silently
For I envied him that pose, that desk, that woman
(For she seemed lovely and intelligent, in as much
As observation suffices for such qualities)
But I could not
For I have too often been leaned over that desk
A thousand, ten thousand of its sister desks
Striking the same too-obvious pose
Fumbling for the same words
Listening without listening
Smiling without smiling
A mirror’s brutal truth
The same hollow act, the same hallowed act
I saw myself in him, and my ideal in her
I left them be without a word, a sound, a gesture
Not with hate, but with hope
I hope he has better fortune than I
I hope this desk will be his last leaning
Lean no more, my brother; lean no more
July 6, 2013
From “Song of the Old Cell” by B. Berri Bowled
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: fiction, poetry, story |Leave a Comment
We are the castoffs
The forgotten
The passé
Useful still
But no longer new
Scars of hard days
Long days of use
Worn heavy on us
Your former partners
Left to molder
Drawers our pockets
We see the new
And wait for it
To be beside us
Looking out
With envy
On a world passed by
May 10, 2013
From “The Pangea Stains” by Wanda Glandon
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: continent, fiction, grease, humor, oil, poem, poetry, story |Leave a Comment
One day in the parking lot I spied
Africa-shaped greased stain
The net day when my car had died
I saw an oily continent again
This time the Americas were greased out
On that lonely roadside shoulder
After that the stains did flout
As coincidences they grew bolder
Australia, Asia, Europe all appeared
Even lonely Antarctica was found
Upon pavement with auto grease smeared
If things keep up I know I’m bound
To find another stain afore long
But wonder I must at the shape
If to Earth all the stains belong
What alien landmass will next I gape?
Excerpts From Nonexistent Books 