“Rock Lobster” Plays at the Plaid Party

by Jean Janicke

I remember a sea of clashing plaid

On the dimly lit basketball court.

Circled by chaperone nets,

a school of pre-teens descended

with the slide down a guitar string,

inched lower like sinking fishhooks.

Down, down, down, down.

We had climbed the ladder

to the high dive of double-digit years

cannon ball crouched at the edge of the board

looking down at deceptively smooth surface

of high school and deep water.

Down, down, down, down.

And then the new wave riff returned.

We pogo stick bounced, a sort of hop

all our gangly knees and elbows

and self-consciousness could manage.

Many molts later, I drew lines for the White House

showing shipments of lobsters losing ground.

Tucked in a crevice of spreadsheet cells

was rock lobster: dried, salted, smoked, or brined,

cooked by steaming or boiling water.

My boss said, “Jean and the lobster team,

that sounds like a rock band.” And

crisscross graphs blurred into plaid.

BIO: Jean Janicke has been listening to the B52s since the days of cassette tapes. She is a writer and dancer living in Washington, DC.  Her work has appeared in The Yellow Arrow Journal, Instant Noodles, and The Last Stanza.  

Lava

by Clem Flowers

Glass of seaside sailing

on the back end of

the lightning snare as

the giant porch-as-party-

line rocks too much threatening

to send us all spilling out and over

into the endless beyond as the

swamp of lonesome hearts funds

kinship solace in the rapid beats

twangy leads & the up up up

up up up fun fun fun of Fred, Kate,

and all the rest of the B-52s who

leave you gassed breathing thru

your eyes as you watch awe

struck at how they bloom beneath

the salamander broil stage lights

when the youngest is just

a hair past 65 -

            the pains the sorrows

            the misery were all

            left at the nice old

            fashioned coat check

            in the front lobby. Won't

            need that here bags will

            be there when we're ready

            to head back home

                                                                        now we're all in the sway of sweaty, glitter dusted

Southern.

charm as we ride off to under the guiding light of lava plumes out in the sugarcane in the real world

we're bankers librarians mindless faceless office drones but deep down out here for one night for a few

hours all of that beige is lost in the wind ache to roam if we want to shakes our bones and out here as

we bang on thru the magma of the world at large to the freedom a party can bring we cry we grin we

kiss strangers we hold one another our wigs hit a slightly sloshed poorly done but so much fun dance

around just in the name of keeping a good time going until the cheap dance floor finally falls thru and

we have to go home but thank God that's not happening anytime soon now please please hit us with

another round of confetti

BIO: Clem Flowers (They/ Them) is a poet, soft-spoken southern transplant, low rent aesthete, pizza man lover, the Aristocrat of Tenderness, flamingo enthusiast, & dramatic tenor living in Home of Truth, Utah with their sweetheart & delight of a husband, Moon, as well as their sweet kitty, Luna

Hella queer & Non-binary AuDHD Pushcart & Best of the Net nominee. 

Publication credits include: Olney Magazine, The Madrigal, Pink Plastic House Journal, fifth wheel press, Bullshit Lit, Corporeal, Holyflea, Anti-Heroin Chic, Messy Misfitsclub & Warning Lines Magazine. 

They are the author of chapbooks Stoked & Thrashing (Alien Buddha Press,) TWO OUT OF THREE FALLS (Bullshit Lit) eating rain// matchstick graveyard (Alien Buddha Press) Snakeskin Stockings (kith press) motel neon (back room poetry,) I KNOW NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT (Bullshit Lit,) KUDZU (Cowboy Jamboree,) Make The Lights Work For You (fifth wheel press,) and the full length collection I'VE BEEN GOING THRU SOME THINGS (kith books) 

53 Miles Left of Venus

by K.D. Zwierz

I spun the violet disc and at once a net descended.

So there I was, in the whirl of awakening,

I rode in a purple Cadillac with dreams and death,

Leant upon the window and watched the world with a sigh,

And they called me depression, and they weren't really wrong.

They smiled at the dark cloud that hugged the rolling asphalt

And I slowly sank into the thick cream bucket, no longer held there but for a song,

A melody tripping the horizon,

Where rising suns melted and sinking moons shrank.

Now was, was lost.. and will be? Who knew.

All the objects in Eden turned inside soap-bubbles

And I drifted on a haunted invocation that rolled to the sound of thunder

Down highways, and currants, and sparkling spiral arms

That glided speechless between the great dark divisions of space.

The disc kept spinning upon a single seed of harmony.

Countless things passed away their visible forms,

Just as I had surrendered mine,

My wings pulling me up and up

Far into the sky.

BIO: K.D. Zwierz's poems have appeared in Poetry Pacific, Bindweed, Tincture and Buzz, amongst others. He was anthologised in Ukraine in the work of international poets (Literary Waves), published in the UK and Poland, and is a co-editor at Beyond Words Literary Magazine (Berlin) and Pointing South (London).