NATIONAL PAST TIME

PART ONE: TEAM ROSTER

1st Miguel Rodriguez
2nd Skeet McCoy
3rd Kevin Boyle
shortstop Jiro Watanabe
right field Raoul Herrera
center field George Kowalski
left field Jason Sugarman
catcher Gilberto Aragon
pitcher Elroy Lincoln
pitcher Michael Timmons
pitcher Jennings Masters
team manager Pappy Hargrove
bat boy Travis Fleming



PART TWO: NECESSARY RITUALS

Second Baseman Skeet McCoy carries in his left
front pocket a rabbit’s foot dyed electric blue.

Center Fielder George Kowalski never goes
out onto the field without making certain
that he steps on the foul line with his left foot.

Left Fielder Jason Sugarman avoids the foul line
altogether, avoids the chalk as if it were death.

Closing Pitcher Jenning Masters eats a huge platter
of fried chicken the night before a home game but
on road trips he consumes two McDonalds Double
Quarter Pounders. No cheese. A chocolate shake.

First Baseman Miguel Rodriguez makes the sign
of the cross each time the pitcher winds up.

Starting Pitcher Elroy Lincoln shaves his eyebrows
the night before his turn in the rotation to start.

Team Manager Pappy Hargrove wears mismatched socks,
counsels his players to abstain from drink and sex.

Relief Pitcher Roland Hemms carries on a chain
around his neck a tiny vial of weaponized anthrax,
hermetically sealed and concealed beneath his shirt.

Right Fielder Raoul Herrera, masturbates into his
glove before the game while holding in his mind
a mental image of his teammate, Skeet McCoy.

George Kowalski votes Republican. Elroy Lincoln
votes Democrat. Miguel Rodriguez practices a form
of Santeria entailing the ritual sacrifice of cats
which are easily procured from his neighborhood.

Pitcher Michael Timmons keeps his own spittoon
in the clubhouse, toting it to dugout or bullpen,
even on the road. A monagram etched in brass.

Shortstop Jiro Watanabe has also acquired
a brass spitoon, though he has yet to acquire
a taste for chewing tobacco. Only Chiclets.

Raoul Herrera sleeps with his favorite
Louisville Slugger, limbs twined round it.

Third baseman Kevin Boyle drills holes in his favorite
Louisville Slugger into which he pours a small quantity
of molten lead. It adds heft to his swing and connect.

Catcher Gilberto Aragon chews Bazooka
Bubble Gum. He consults the tiny comic
strip wrapped around the gum, believing
Bazooka Joe is a modern day oracle.

George Kowalski seeks relief in primal
scream therapy. Sometimes appropriately.

During lulls in play Kevin Boyle scans the female
fans in the nearby stands hoping to catch a peek
up a skirt, needing only a camera to snap a shot.

Pappy Hargrove walks the bases clockwise during
pre-game warm-ups striving to undo The Curse of
The Pig. Piggy, please come back, he chants.

Jason Sugarman taps his bat on home plate three
times upon entering the batter’s box and only once
between pitches, drawing strength from the earth.

Bat Boy Travis Fleming stations himself at the dugout
entrance, always at the ready to hand each player the
appropriate bat and each player in turn will rub the
close-shaven head of the bat boy before going on deck.
On the back of his neck he sports a tattoo of a pink pig.

Raoul Herrera taps the plate five times butt end down
to discharge the negative energies and then twirls the
wood back to business position. A smile and a wink.

Michael Timmons practices in his back yard,
pitching against a scarecrow, aiming for the
stuffed head, drawing a bead to throw a beaner.

Sixty-six years ago an inebriated bricklayer named
Walter Kakatonis was refused entry to the ballpark,
not because he was drunk, but because he was toting
a toddler pig under his arm. Claimed he never went
anywhere without his piggy and if he and piggy were
barred from watching the game then, by God, there
would never be a World Series played in this ballpark.

Travis Fleming dreams of pigs. Miguel Rodriguez
dreams of cats. Kevin Boyle dreams of snatch.

Skeet McCoy refuses to bathe while mired in
a hitting slump. He must sleep on the couch.

Jiro Watanabe keeps taped on the rear wall of his
locker an 8x10 glossy of actress Gillian Anderson
portraying Agent Scully. He has never seen The
X-Files. He keeps in his wallet a photograph of
actress Katee Sackoff. He loves Gillian, but thinks
Katee is lucky. Some things are difficult to explain.

Michael Timmons keeps in his wallet
the loyalty cards for the local strip joint.
Buy five lap dances and get one free.

Gilberto Aragon is diddling the wife of Skeet
Mccoy, who also used to be the wife of George
Kowalski and before that was the on the road
mistress of Elroy Lincoln. The Game is her life.

The skipper is porking the bat boy, mentoring
the lad in order to instill a strong Spartan ethic.

Gilberto Aragon affects silk boxers worn over his
protective cup. Chili peppers, dollar signs, red hearts.

Roland Hemms eats only Mexican food before a game.
The hotter the better. When he throws heat, he farts.

Around the horn as horsehide slaps leather,
a brown jet splats brass. Cleats truffle up
the turf. A harrowing gut-scream, the tap of
a bat. A wrinkle of wrapper, the rattle of
Chiclets. A whiff of burrito, the swish of silk.

Around the horn. Come back, Piggy. Piggy, come back.

At attention to salute Old Glory the players all stand
to mumble the half-remembered anthem, hat in their hand
over their heart and commence play at the umpire’s command.
The ball seems be flecked with genetic material and
Kevin Boyle has garnered the attention of a husband.



Sigerson pitches from a left-handed stance and it's always a knuckleball fucker. He writes poems and prose. Go here. Or we'll find you with baseball bats and lubricant. Don't fuck with Sigerson, hombre!

Pantifesto is an aspiring karaoke singer in Korea.

XIII. Through Television Eyes into Cosmic Fade

no longer dreaming of Atlantis and a waitress ass
like convicted cowards behind retinal bars
dreaming is becoming sodomy of the duped
mangled tubes of empty K-Y on motel nightstands
dreaming is becoming stolen Bibles of Gideons or New World Order
in fetal curled asylums of the same hotel rooms
nicotine tingeing of cigarette butts on tub-skirts
and crayons of makeup for failing marriages

no one fucks Lady Scaramouche anymore
watching bareback canoness being buried beside hookers
both spread eagle on parallel armed crosses
virgins buried abreast cadavers of strippers
refracted in colossal Prismatica left immaterial
like watching fragments of pay-per-view
in sodded humdrum under cosmic spotlight of stars
watching purgatoried hitchikers under raven wing of night time
pecking buxom worm from fast food trays
incubated heat lamp dynamo winking one eye down
the brainsick madman behind the counter
diffusing twisted ends of a pencil thin mustache
in a perma-grin love affair with teeny-bopper cashiers

watching thunderous guitars blur into talismanic wands of MTV
voodooistic reverbs and shaman riffs on Headbangers Ball
Cable God and his minions of puppeteering on strings
sublimating from frizzy faces of four feet speakers
from one eyed shrews of blue-toothed CD players
in sermons of Saint Anger from a carpet pulpit
watching Air Jordans hotfooted and wagging tongues
legends climbing into constellations of market share
where planetariums pay homage to existence
their pudgy circles orbiting godliness
in rings of of cosmic diamonds and rave
watching pitchers hit homeruns cuz the chicks dig the long ball
and tearing out ACLs with plastic sporks
of having overdosed them to bone brittle
flipping a hundred channels of narcoleptic stare
every fifteen minutes of meaningful drama poorly interupted
by twelve dancing rabbits with toilet paper

laughter-loving children who once were irresistable forces
now mummifying into immovable objects
giving birth to billions of remote controls for vision sake
growing old with eyes like cantaloupes and no brain behind them
watching waves run like wet dogs along beaches
their salty tails wagging into pools of skin-breakers
their starving hound nostrils in clumping sand and Cheetos
beside venerable white-haired lady and her Universal Lie
in a metal detector for reposing retirement
this human hope of prolonging man’s irrevocable torment
engaging with autistic dimensia of lover-hood
proposing to prophesied wives in Japanese Shangri-la
looking up like wanting coy from a pond of austere knees
shooting heart up through phiz of broken glass
and left wheezing in rejection on her lap

watching facades slip into alterior conscience
traveling into caves of ancient beastial divination
scrolling pages of holistic medicine or retardation
with shaking fingers and pang of hallucinogenic hangover
waiting for someone to answer in a room of deaf
awaiting slip of blade from gospel torreador
staring back with autistic eyes and imbroglio
weeping at the solace of their passing
furrowing into rabbit holes after that skinny bitch
her shrooms and mescaline breath always unattainable
lolling in spent lover sheets in sweating withdrawal
finding comforts in alleyways with someone else's daughter
in illusionary prom dresses and skinned up knees
like plastic dolls atop a wedding cake

why is Barbie killing the American woman?
making her up in two story and pink Corvette
and sending her off to vowing church with Ken


BIO:
Cochise is a poetry and prose writer from Charlotte, NC [Ric Flair country] who is currently attending the University of North Carolina. He used to live in Florida, where prose and poetry writers talk about geckos and smoke good weed. He hates posers and is a real sucker for brunettes. He is also the walking reincarnation of Aldous Huxley in this editor's opinion, so give him some mescaline and a notebook and watch that motherfucker fly!

Go here, motherfucker, and read some more of his work. And we might let the gimp out of the basement for some sunshine and water: myspace.com/silentgunslinger

I blame Capt. Yossarian

..............

The traffic lights seem to change the mood of the room with every switch they make, red a soft seductive light, yellow an almost too bright for what is going on in this bedroom light, and the green, oh the green was the I am clearly going to remember all of this in the morning light. The noises she was making were border-line frightening, I half expected the police department to be kicking down the door at any minute, mixing an array of streaming red laser lights to the yellow that was making me feel so guilty. Three fingers fully involved, a strange notion in the pit of my stomach, I could keep my thumb, palm knuckle deep in her now sopping wet pussy and touch her knee with my out stretched pinky. ‘I can do this, just keep your eye on the prize' I continued to encourage myself. I fondled her breast some as I began to slide my fourth and smallest finger inside her. 'Almost there' I thought as she started shaking, 'I hope she doesn't cum yet, I really do not want to have to do this again.' slowly I added some rhythmic movements, curling my fingers up, tickling her G-spot. With the quickest of upward thrusts, I managed to mix my thumb in and was mid-palm deep inside her. Wait, maybe I should explain how I got to this point...

A couple days ago I was enjoying a mid-afternoon smoke outside my apartment complex and this guy I know pulled-up in his lame-ass canary yellow Pontiac Fiero, with one of the not-so-hits of the 80's playing on his stereo. I could see the three high school girls holding back their laughter as they crossed to the opposite side of the street, once they reached a safe distance one of them yelled something that was muffled by the scratchy voice of Tiffany, or Debbie Gibson or Peter Gabriel, whoever sang that song "I think were alone now" but I can assure you that is was not a complement. Troy, not sure what his first name really is but I have called him Troy sense I met him, he doesn't seem to mind, maybe it’s his name. Troy turned off the engine and killed the horrid music.
"ahh, love that song, just love it. Don't you?" he asked. I shook my head and replied
"Umm, no man, reminds me of aerobics in eighth grade gym class." He just smiled as he rounded the front of his car. I thought about how cool it would be for him to do some 80's movie style slide across his hood, falling and landing in that puddle of oil and soda and God knows what.
"Oh man, where the fuck did you get that?" I was pointing to his wicked awesome belt buckle, Pabst Blue Ribbon, bout the size of a twelve ounce beer can, just as shinny and just as cool.
"oh, this thing!" he grabbed it with both hands moving it up and down like he was trying to catch the sun and blind me with it, "shit man, had this thing for years." I couldn't stop staring at it, knowing full well I was fixated on this odd mans crotch.
"I need to find a damn midget, where can I find a fuckin umpah lumpah?" I thought I said this under my breath but he responded with
"did you say midget?"
Oh shit here we go, some long speech about how they hate to be called that or something
"yeah man, I said, I need to find a midget."
"Hell dude, just go over to Rays this weekend, there is this group of five or six little people who party there every weekend man."
Rays yeah I know that place, it’s a gay bar on Mondays Tuesdays and Wednesdays I think, but Thursdays it’s all you can eat nachos and two dollar margaritas. "Right on" I said as I flicked my smoke out onto the street and walked away. I wondered why he didn't ask me why I needed to find a midget, and then reminded myself; this is California.

I climbed out of the pool, the water running off me cooled my feet as I walked across the hot concrete. I put my hat back on as I sat under the umbrella table, the only shaded spot out there. My friend had sent me a text that read, 'any planz 4 2nite' I hate what texting has done to language I thought as I sent back, 'ahyut, gonna grab some beers downtown' then lit the last smoke in my pack and moved my chair out into the sun, cracked open an ice cold Pabst and couldn’t help thinking about how awesome the day has been thus far.

Later that night at Ray's I meet Beth, nice girl, long dark hair, deep blue eyes, a huge head, and only bout four feet tall. After three Long Island ice teas she was dancing like she could bend at the knees. You need to know at this point, I am six feet three inches tall, she is three feet nine inches tall, yes, we looked awesome out there cutting a rug. She could suck my dick right there on the dance floor and people would think we were just slow dancing. but, with her sitting on the bar stool and me standing we could make-out just fine. She grabbed my cock after about two hours of flirting and told me to take her home and fuck her. I paid the tab, hailed a cab, and took her back to her place. I didn't want her to know where I lived. We staggered up the stairs to her apartment, well, I staggered she waddled. She put some music on and we crawled into her bed. With the bare bulbed lamp turned out I noticed the way the traffic lights on the corner lit up her bedroom, reached for my cell phone to try and get some video of this event but the battery was dead...

Last night I didn't just fuck a midget, I fist fucked a midget, and not just for the fun of it. Last night I fist fucked a midget for a tee-shirt, a tee-shirt I hope is worth all the nightmares I will awake to, all the memories of her biting my arm as I drove my cock in her ass. Her looking up at me and screaming "YES, YES, YES..." and me thinking how she looked like a puppet with my whole right hand inside her. One good thing if nothing else comes from this. My dick has never looked bigger than it did in her one knuckled stubby fingered hand! ...

Murphy Clamrod, lives in Fresno, CA. now, recently relocating from the New England Area where you park yr cawr, next to the bawr, where it isn't that fawr. He has a strange fascination with PBR and subscribes to Asshole of the Month Weekly. He also has "a face for radio" and hosts several Blogtalkradio shows about poetry, prose, and the like.

Slugs and Soft Drinks

Taken by surprise I fell into the hole. Squishy membranes succeed the rush of blood I waded through. Warhol watches porn to my left, witches chant in tongues in another corridor. The blood flow slows.

A demon asks, “are you Jack Dilaudid?”

I shake my head. He grasps my hand with slimy soft drink cup hands. Slugs snag on my bare feet that smell of grated cheese and feces. Into a room he pushes me, the demon that looked like my father. Red in the eyes but under no narcotics.

In this vicious room, televisions are everywhere. I sit on a swollen couch, swollen with the stink of death. Blood stains are evident wherever my eyes go. Ugly women are at my feet, begging for my sickly penis. The penis of a dying dog in an alleyway sullen and lonely and fading fast.

From a door in the distance I could not see, an old white man appeared. He walked infallibly confident. Like a porn star's horse erection. Slimy and with a Texas born man’s strut. I thought it was God. I thought I had been wrong my whole life. All the drugs and the breaking of hearts and the disappointment that has been my life would be shown, reel by reel, a single frame at a time, a billion frames of sin, debauchery. The things that make legends.

I stare at him. He stares back as if to read my mind. I tried to extinguish the guilt beneath my blackened eyelids. Prophets come into your life once. This was my prophet. It had no wings. No halo. No golden light to lift me up. It was a crusty old white motherfucker that was here for my salvation. What I’ve hated in life has become my savior in hiding. The end.

But Jack will be back soon. I never stay away for too long.







Jeff Sibley is one sic fucka

Cop Light

She got ran through by the Brit marines. They pulled her in with their Apollo physiques and documentary accents. She told me she felt ashamed. I told her “I am not a puritan and I can’t say if it was wrong what you did or what they did.” I said that so she didn’t think I was judging her, if she thought that, I think I would loose her. She told me it was wrong because “none of them loved her.” She said she was “a joke to them.” They were soulless I knew that much, they were begging chick mouths with out stomachs, bottomless pits of wanting and taking, never giving, pure psychopathic Id. She thought talking to me would patch up her souls hymen where her innocents was leaking out. She wants me to be a little boy, brother and a father, the clean male relationships. I thought of my black Tom cat. When the mother of his kitten died he let the kittens suckle on his empty nipples. I am an empty nipple that cant fill your stomach. All day I tie noses in my skull hanging every memory of human road kill, and floating bodies I fished out of the drink. Why would I help her get her dignity back just so she can loose it again down the road. It’s good its gone early. I should toughen her up. But she looks like a kid, I want to be soft and silly around kids. Her mom would fuck for drugs while she was in the bed. She made me think of my momma’s eyes swollen shut Vaseline tears covered the top of her blue black brown face, her cotton filled cheeks, she drank blood it dripped dried on the side. She couldn’t express here self her face was stretched to the limit. Cops took pictures, dad incoherently denied unrelated matters, Black Sabbath continued to played in the back ground. Cop lights danced off blinds, broken glass Moms face, I was glad she couldn't see me, I think she would have been embarrassed. I can’t stand embarrassing scenes in moves, I change the channel until there over. My dad was now in a cop car banging his head against the window his moth foamed with spit his unblinking eyes glared at me, the flexi glass looked like it was going to give. If his eyes had hands he would of squeezed my head until it popped like a zit. Then they all went away mom, dad, cops. It was me in the house alone. I watched a get smart marathon. No one came home, I didn’t go to school. I went to the library looked at photography books with tits in them, I turned the page and I saw a guy rolling in shit with his dick tied to his feet. People were standing all around him. I learned art is a shocking ritual. The deference between religious ritual and art is that religion summons old gods and demons, art makes new ones, fiction only moments before. Bums came to the library to sleep, masturbate and read weird shit like genealogy books. Maybe they are looking for their name next to someone, anyone, somewhere to go and say with hands out “its me!” Her hands were out I took one, and said “kid what ever you need I will try to do.” “I don’t know much about family but I will treat you like I think one should be, you can tell me when I am wrong.” She didn’t say anything she most likely though I was full of shit, but I think I meant it.

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