#najia zayed

[cantomagazine]

Capitalist Prism, or, For Mike & At Emmalouise's

Capitalist Prism, or, For Mike

 Underneath my fully clothed body is the foreign

couch I passed out on,

my fingers laced with strands from

Old Catan, my red jeans around my ankles with the keys

flopped out, and dozens of

nickels, dimes, and pennies

scattered across the white stain I leave behind.

I check my texts and have received one.

Tall Tom emerges from his room in all stripes

to cook French

toast, and Mike still sleepwalks in and out of

corrugated elevators

plummeting down the levels of Earth one

ounce of misanthropy at a time.

Last night in the Brick, he told me what it’s

like on the bottom floor,

and all about the final boss, the acrylic seven-headed whore,

and I realize that

somewhere downtown, with seventy dollars in

my coat,

that’s where

I am.

  At Emmalouise’s

 It is almost ten.

I lounge on the wooden deck,

eyeing pages of phrases of

Gravity’s Rainbow, her

father’s copy, possibly read.

 I have a little Nikolai sour

and reread two sentences about

God knows what, so complex

I wrack my tongue and throat,

hoping they were never written.

 The breeze is cool.

The pool’s filter bubbles frequently

through my alarmed ears and

I hope I get an even tan.

Why not just skip whole pages?

 I can’t read this shit.

I can’t write this shit.

What should I do?

 ©Nilson Thomas Carroll, 2014

[cantomagazine]

clockstruck

Time spins always,

without my permission.

 Hours-minutes-seconds-everything between

tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tick

 I could have sworn it just skipped a beat.

Staring at me, the white face bends a smirk.

 Each tick of this teasing clock is torture.

Each hand a throbbing splinter

wedged deep,

deep between my fractured skull.

 Analogue gears grind my teeth

down to dust. I can’t stop the

machine before it stops me.

 My eyes are slave to the hypnotic swirl;

infinite axe crashes down clockwise,

and always swings round for seconds’

 Red line patterns beam a digital dream.

Paralysis faster than a snoozing bullet.

A buzzing shrill is my electric chair;

I fry every morning.

 Each precious second

is slain by the next.

A cycle ticking toward extinction,

forever the bloodless war of our time.

 Another day dies as

I wander hopelessly

toward tomorrow’s end.

 Spring forward, recede back.

Wake up, die down.

What is this torment?

 © Cody Schweickert, 2014 

[cantomagazine]

Greater than any drug or drink

A normally strong man Of will and wisdom Intoxicated by your eyes Becomes weak and dumb Numbed from the sound  His name from your lips The shake from your hips

 © Benjamin Deegan Bresee, 2014

[cantomagazine]

DELUSION OF G I B B S

you next to me in my forest, gripping the wood while I grip yours. [the BELGRADE v i c t o r y beats] my legs around your waist cellophane handcuffs. our gaze is met; playing films of  m e g a l o m a n i a 24k flecks distract; I am in the snake pit you stop to turn the tide. and then again and again and again with one hand gripping my f r uit we moan in synchrony until there is  silence to our b e a t i n g hearts. trustinme.

© Paulina Swan, 2014

[cantomagazine]

Weights and Measures

Ever since man has been able

To look upon all of earth's treasures,

Always he needed a table

Of weights and measures.

 Early, the men were designing

The methods to see through the madness.

Never, they thought of defining

The weight of sadness.

 Seconds can calculate waiting.

While Celsius, temp'rature only.

Nothing exists for the rating

Degrees of lonely.

 Numbers can mark all the pages

And chapters assist in the reading.

Units fall short when one gauges

The sting of needing.

 Kilos and tons are for weighing

And pounds per square inch, for compression.

What though can help with portraying

Amounts depression?

 Oceans and systems of weather

And countries on maps have been charted.

No one knows quite how to measure

The broken-hearted.

 © Carson Brown, 2014

[cantomagazine]

Freudian Slip

I made The Freudian Slip after headlines

Motivated people not

to work and

Coffee perked a second pot

already, then

Her bowl of cereal was finished

and mine remained

 I made The Freudian Slip when screaming,

"You bitch, you

"ruined my life,"

While her cereal soaked up

My milk,

I meant to say, "Could you pass

me the honey, babe "

 © Jake Thornton Ezell, 2014

[cantomagazine]

An Echo in Eternity

Icicles along rigid walls

wind as subtle hints.

In yesterday's snowfalls

stories in the prints

speak of the winds wail

and from under what we see

a quietly spoken tale,

an echo in eternity.

An echo in our bones

in all that was and will be here

in last summer's pine cones

in the fruits of next year -

winter day, overcast,

stories told at dawn,

whispers of a distant past

sky like the wing of a swan

all speak of the sacred

all bowed to their knees

as voices from the unborn and the dead

come from visions in the freeze.

 © Andy Conley, 2014

[cantomagazine]

All Seems Well

The cold air cradles my breath violently. My pallid face is dry. Hand grenades take shape of half-pint chocolate milks. Lobbed from the elementary school playground over high chain-link fences, they explode muddy shrapnel, speckling my Hamlet suit. Wind streams carry their laughter even on grey days without a smirk from our infant star.

Daydreaming in grandeur: narrow stone roads, meandering Irish hills, littered with sheep, old faces, our breath thick with stout. I notice my smile in your gasoline shades. Pearls tucked behind a ruby pucker.

Awake. I scoop broken cartons leaking sweet, brown milk pulped full of frozen fragments, and toss them in an empty bin. The fresh milk stains spread into thin puddles on the chewed blacktop, filling shallow cracks like a smear of Nivea over broken lips. The puddles appear to blossom obscure faces, and hands reaching toward my faded black oxfords. Muddy voices stifled on the frozen pavement, palms upward with tributary fingers. I feel indifferent, and step over their muffled beckoning, and longing limbs outstretched, perhaps groping for an unknown need: a primeval desire to feel the warm touch of skin, like a child yearning for a listless parent.

Innately compelled, I glance over my shoulder to observe the spill, and address their unkempt bodies.

“It was the children that birthed you,” with a selfish furrow of my brow, feeling comforted by a chill on the left side of my neck just below the ear. “You are THEIR responsibility, not mine,” getting louder. The sensation in my neck lingers.

Their reaching has ceased, as smiles sink into the jagged, black surface. Holding onto themselves, wide eyes close, and they dissolve into one another. My breathing has slowed, but my concern has grown. I drop to my knees, and run my hands through their soaked remnants. A silky grit over my knuckles reeks of lost potential.

No response. My eyes blur with salty deposits and the pulse thumping in my throat has an unfamiliar arrhythmia. I attempt to drink them, but all I taste is chipped asphalt between minute dashes of Grade A. Too much neglect, and never enough time to rectify my inconsistency.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. Please, do not be upset,” pleading with the form. I close my eyes slowly with a heavy sense of loss. A moist pair of earthy lips meets mine with precise care. Breathing heavily through my nose, the chocolaty fumes invade with a calming relief. Our brazen kiss ends tenderly, and undressing my lids, the murky mouth whispers “thank you” inaudibly, but content, then dissipates into a chaotic sprawl on the uneven driveway. Upright, I stretch my wet palms to a lighted sky, the unadulterated rays cleanse my dirty countenance, still tasting all that was our suspended moment.

© Nathaniel Hall, 2014