Michele McDannold
Author's posts
Aug 05
THE POLISH HAMMER POETRY CORNER: No More Tours by Karl Koweski
No More Tours I first saw Ozzy in concert back in 1992 at the World Music Theatre in Tinley Park just outside Chicago. This was during the No More Tours tour in support of Ozzy’s “No More Tears” tour. Now, I was an Ozzy fanatic from way back, but I fucking hated his newer music. …
Aug 04
2 poems by Lyubel Dyakof
Poetry Addicted I score the syringe words flood in I’m euphoric hours pass looking for a new dose of words I am so addicted to writing but they end fall into abstinence no methadone about poetry Ink and Skin I will remain by soul on ribs by a collection of poems you will tear …
Aug 03
Awakening by Steven Meloan
Awakening I once worked with a guy who wanted to be a songwriter he knew I’d done some recording had even been on the radio He said he needed more classes… in lyric structure in composition in theory I thought… No, you need to wander the destroyed city streets See the suffering the beauty the …
Aug 02
Yearning by Charlie Brice
Yearning Grandpa always sat in my dad’s old green chair by the big picture window that opened onto our tiny street. He’d pound and pound on his leg, just above his knee. It’s the only thing that helps, he’d tell me. The doctor said he needed a knee replacement. I don’t want to have this …
Aug 01
middle aged men at the best buy geek squad tech center by John Grochalski
middle aged men at the best buy geek squad tech center one of us is here because he has a virus he was downloading an unreleased e-book he says but it was probably porn i’m there because i’m too scared and stupid to do basic set up on the new laptop i paid $1000 for …
Jul 31
Summer Wedding by Bruce Morton
Summer Wedding The cicadas chant Their song of sex, sex And longing, like a Greek Chorus, courting The inevitable divorce. Nobody listens. Humidity provides A bond that holds close The ceremony. Everything Clingy–clothes to body, Skin to bone, nerve to nerve– Each to other. Flowers wilt As they should, parched In the heat of the …
Jul 30
Celeste’s Butterfly by Alan Catlin
Celeste’s Butterfly She is looking down on a city through chicken wire and it’s a long way down in this neighborhood that has seen better days. It could have been New York or Chicago or New Orleans, what she sees is timeless and suggests a reason why she is framed in this window thinking of …
Jul 29
THE POLISH HAMMER POETRY CORNER: This is What We Do to Book Snitches Where I Come From by Karl Koweski
This is What We Do to Book Snitches Where I Come From Life has been a blur, lately. Work becomes a weekly series of Bataan death marches. Sixty-six-hour work weeks, four twelve-hour shifts, a blessedly abbreviated ten-hour Friday shift and the obligatory straight eight, 5am to 1pm on Saturday. We’re told this won’t last forever. …
Jul 28
In Service by Zak Mucha
In Service The former Marine with a zipper scar curled around his ear like a topographical map charting a river said he once had to explain to a Texas farmer during a 4 AM training exercise that those men dropping from black helicopters in his fields were U.S. Marines but the government was not coming …
Jul 27
Red Rockets (and a photo) by Wendy Cartwright
Red Rockets It’s the season of the sun, and I feel like I’m on it, the sun that is, with solar cells at peak absorption rates the rays can’t penetrate eyelids or the smog surrounding this moody fucking astronaut who just wants to crash somewhere on earth, but can’t make up their mind where. A …
