"I am said to be a revolutionist in my sympathies, by birth, by breeding and by principle. I am always on the side of the revolutionists, because there never was a revolution unless there were some oppressive and intolerable conditions against which to revolute."
-Mark Twain
RUNT RACCOON REVOLUTION
ISSUE #006 / AUGUST 2014
photo by Kari Ann Spencer
IN THIS PARTICULAR CRACK IN THE SYSTEM:
POETRY
- A.J. Binash
- E. Black
- Dominic Bond
- J.J. Campbell
- Dreamer
- Shawn C. Murdock
- Domenic Scopa
PHOTOGRAPHY
- Sam Lennon
- Kari Ann Spencer
- Captain Thornton
EVENTS
FEATURES
- "By The Throat" by Eyedea & Abilities
- "First Born" by Eyedea & Abilities
- The Literary Underground
- Meeko & The Runt Raccoon Revolution
Fuck Art, Let's Dance
ONE POEM - DREAMER
Breathing in snowflakes
I have more faith in smoking crac to cure gaunt body than a government that'll work
When it comes to love
even money can evolve worthwhile.
Wearing a to shirt with my name and address on it to bait a burgler to kill justified
I like looking at star gazers more than stars.
Even when I'm in my head
I'm out of it
My ribs
my belly
& my
hurt.
When it comes to love
even money can evolve worthwhile.
Wearing a to shirt with my name and address on it to bait a burgler to kill justified
I like looking at star gazers more than stars.
Even when I'm in my head
I'm out of it
My ribs
my belly
& my
hurt.
#ThisIsPoetry
The Literary Underground
This Is Poetry was the drunk on the weird side of poetry. Hosted by The Literary Underground, poets brought their protest / love / obscenities / & bass line natures to Springfield, I.L., to tackle the issues of who is fucking art, and who is dancing.
We gathered and performed a little of both.
We gathered and performed a little of both.
photo by Kari Ann Spencer
The event was sponsored by Citizens for Decent Literature Press, Punk Hostage Press, Red Fez Publications, Zygote in my Coffee, Blotterature Literary Magazine, Nostrovia!, , and Books & Shovels. There was an eclectic voice pattern that vocalized at The Legacy Theater, August 9th, 2014.
This was Books & Shovels 7th gig, & an amazing, collaborative experience.
This was Books & Shovels 7th gig, & an amazing, collaborative experience.
Sam Lennon covering Books & Shovels
Ron Whitehead, Ryder Collins, Craig Ultraviolence Cady, Bill Gainer, A. Razor, T. A. Noonan, Carleen Tibbetts, Russell Jaffe, Ryan Snellman, Michele McDannold, Jeremiah Walton, and John Swain were among the poets and artists who rummaged through their skulls for us.
Kari Ann Spencer was the evening's camera hawk, and captured the moments below.
Kari Ann Spencer was the evening's camera hawk, and captured the moments below.
photo by Kari Ann Spencer
photo of Craig Cady by Kari Ann Spencer
photo of A. Razor by Kari Ann Spencer
photo of Jeremiah Walton by Kari Ann Spencer
ONE POEM - J.J. CAMPBELL
High Society
one of those places
where you had to take
off your shoes as soon
as you entered the door
a little voice inside of
you said it would be
best if you just turned
around and left
the same voice you have
ignored for years now
you notice as you start
to walk the hole in your
left sock, a bit of hair
and a dirty nail
the little voice coughs
and reminds you not to
drown your embarrassment
in alcohol
a few too many glasses
of scotch later and you
have ruined an expensive
toilet
and it's right when you
are contemplating wiping
your ass with a hand towel
you awake laughing
they don't allow poor
fucks like you in places
like that
where you had to take
off your shoes as soon
as you entered the door
a little voice inside of
you said it would be
best if you just turned
around and left
the same voice you have
ignored for years now
you notice as you start
to walk the hole in your
left sock, a bit of hair
and a dirty nail
the little voice coughs
and reminds you not to
drown your embarrassment
in alcohol
a few too many glasses
of scotch later and you
have ruined an expensive
toilet
and it's right when you
are contemplating wiping
your ass with a hand towel
you awake laughing
they don't allow poor
fucks like you in places
like that
ONE POEM - DOMENIC SCOPA
Kindergarten
I.
All was moving.
Teammates crowded Richie
who was fetal,
cradling his broken ankle.
The coaches huddled
with a first aid kit,
rummaging for gauze and tape.
Grass stained my soccer pants.
I had slide-tackled Richie.
My babysitter scolded me.
II.
Inside my nightmares,
my babysitter’s in my childhood room.
He unclothes himself,
unconsciously graceful,
his naked body walking
window to window
drawing all the curtains,
so daylight will not wake us early.
He kills the lights.
I turn them back on
and hope he will not show me
how to move my tongue
the way that gets him off.
III.
The soccer pants are still crumpled
in the closet’s corner
where the babysitter tossed them.
I was afraid of my closet
for years after he took me.
People ask me what happened to Richie.
I don’t know. I haven’t seen him
since I broke his ankle.
All was moving.
Teammates crowded Richie
who was fetal,
cradling his broken ankle.
The coaches huddled
with a first aid kit,
rummaging for gauze and tape.
Grass stained my soccer pants.
I had slide-tackled Richie.
My babysitter scolded me.
II.
Inside my nightmares,
my babysitter’s in my childhood room.
He unclothes himself,
unconsciously graceful,
his naked body walking
window to window
drawing all the curtains,
so daylight will not wake us early.
He kills the lights.
I turn them back on
and hope he will not show me
how to move my tongue
the way that gets him off.
III.
The soccer pants are still crumpled
in the closet’s corner
where the babysitter tossed them.
I was afraid of my closet
for years after he took me.
People ask me what happened to Richie.
I don’t know. I haven’t seen him
since I broke his ankle.
photo by Captain Thornton
Runt Raccoons & Revolution
Captain and I lived in a station wagon with a dog, raccoon, and two rats as we headed to New Hampshire.
Above is a photo of Meko playing with Captain's hand. Raccoons are wonderful companions. Meko played well with my eight year old brother.
When we met him, he was a mewling and half starved creature. Meko is a runt, discarded by his mother. Picking him up, you can feel the lack of baby fat on his body and the sharp edges of bones.
The little bastard shit on my leather jacket, the one my rats chewed up.
Above is a photo of Meko playing with Captain's hand. Raccoons are wonderful companions. Meko played well with my eight year old brother.
When we met him, he was a mewling and half starved creature. Meko is a runt, discarded by his mother. Picking him up, you can feel the lack of baby fat on his body and the sharp edges of bones.
The little bastard shit on my leather jacket, the one my rats chewed up.
by Nostrovia!
It took some time for us to come to terms and adjust to each others company.
Meko adopted Captain as his Person, and Captain adopted Meko as her Raccoon.
Bringing Meko to New Hampshire radically changed what was to happen. A mass family visit to the hospital for rabies shots, during our stay in New York City for the 2014 Poetry Festival, Sam & I had to go to a Harlem Hospital for shots, Fish & Game came looking for him, and Meko fled, off into a near-wild situation, a fugitive of Man & Raccoon alike.
With fellow runt raccoons, Meko is organizing. He will not stand for the mistreatment of his fellow runts. The glorious milk his brothers and sisters he craves. He is not a marketable toy, a kiss ass, a threat. He is a freedom fighter apt to be labeled terrorist by his parents.
Contacting Meko is difficult. He is preparing for the New Hampshire Winter.
We will have his Word for you soon.
Meko adopted Captain as his Person, and Captain adopted Meko as her Raccoon.
Bringing Meko to New Hampshire radically changed what was to happen. A mass family visit to the hospital for rabies shots, during our stay in New York City for the 2014 Poetry Festival, Sam & I had to go to a Harlem Hospital for shots, Fish & Game came looking for him, and Meko fled, off into a near-wild situation, a fugitive of Man & Raccoon alike.
With fellow runt raccoons, Meko is organizing. He will not stand for the mistreatment of his fellow runts. The glorious milk his brothers and sisters he craves. He is not a marketable toy, a kiss ass, a threat. He is a freedom fighter apt to be labeled terrorist by his parents.
Contacting Meko is difficult. He is preparing for the New Hampshire Winter.
We will have his Word for you soon.
by Captain Thornton
ONE POEM - SHAWN C. MURDOCK
the draff.
Once I loved an artist.
She drew me a picture, a portrait of me (or more accurately, drew the soul from the husk of me). She drew me like she loved me and loved me as she knew me when she caressed my dirty face onto a glossy page.
She allured me, yet could not consume me. She was just a speck on a speck among the chaos of cosmic debris, but I believed she wanted me by how she drank with me when I would drink.
She lived in a city where I didn't want to be. She fell off and gave way to lesser things.
I once loved the object of an ugly name.
I won’t say the name for beauty’s sake, but she understood only loosely which of her illusions were truly deceiving. She fetishized humbling mortal places and was aroused mortally by painful absurdity.
I burned the doodle she drew me, a two-headed purple- and green-necked drag-beast with HSV lipstick on its teeth. She called it a draff but a draff wasn’t what she thought it should be.
A draff rises fifty feet over the great white empty with a gaze that flatters like ground glass and consumes everything to satisfy an insatiable hunger. Its body shudders with an inhuman shriek and the pitch sears your face with electric seizure while you shatter to pieces in its blinding stench and taste the blood boiling inside your tongue.
A draff destroys things.
There was once an artist who created me in the heart of a big city in memory of a time when I would drink in the country. I lost my reach, she fell away. Lesser things filled her empty place.
She never returned to forgive me.
She drew me a picture, a portrait of me (or more accurately, drew the soul from the husk of me). She drew me like she loved me and loved me as she knew me when she caressed my dirty face onto a glossy page.
She allured me, yet could not consume me. She was just a speck on a speck among the chaos of cosmic debris, but I believed she wanted me by how she drank with me when I would drink.
She lived in a city where I didn't want to be. She fell off and gave way to lesser things.
I once loved the object of an ugly name.
I won’t say the name for beauty’s sake, but she understood only loosely which of her illusions were truly deceiving. She fetishized humbling mortal places and was aroused mortally by painful absurdity.
I burned the doodle she drew me, a two-headed purple- and green-necked drag-beast with HSV lipstick on its teeth. She called it a draff but a draff wasn’t what she thought it should be.
A draff rises fifty feet over the great white empty with a gaze that flatters like ground glass and consumes everything to satisfy an insatiable hunger. Its body shudders with an inhuman shriek and the pitch sears your face with electric seizure while you shatter to pieces in its blinding stench and taste the blood boiling inside your tongue.
A draff destroys things.
There was once an artist who created me in the heart of a big city in memory of a time when I would drink in the country. I lost my reach, she fell away. Lesser things filled her empty place.
She never returned to forgive me.
Runt raccoon revolution! Runt raccoon revolution! Runt raccoon revolution!
ONE POEM - DOMINIC BOND
Leaves
I have been loosing skin to
a bush in the garden that
deceives with it's leaves
that leave me with cuts.
I knew a girl who always
covered her arms so her
Dad wouldn't see hers. They
came out as she held me
before the tune changed, my
hands wilting. Her sleeves
like a padded bra, my eyes
naked.
a bush in the garden that
deceives with it's leaves
that leave me with cuts.
I knew a girl who always
covered her arms so her
Dad wouldn't see hers. They
came out as she held me
before the tune changed, my
hands wilting. Her sleeves
like a padded bra, my eyes
naked.
Runt raccoon revolution! Runt raccoon revolution! Runt raccoon revolution!
THREE POEMS - A.J. BINASH
I am Bored. So I am In Love
I am listless in the ambiance of minor chords.
Staring at memories
As if they were photographs.
Why do I think on this in solitude?
When my moments
Are most pure and private.
When I should be thinking of poems.
I suffer from a pregnant past.
That births the infant that is nostalgia.
I care for it
Like I would a child
I want to drown in a bathtub.
Staring at memories
As if they were photographs.
Why do I think on this in solitude?
When my moments
Are most pure and private.
When I should be thinking of poems.
I suffer from a pregnant past.
That births the infant that is nostalgia.
I care for it
Like I would a child
I want to drown in a bathtub.
Masturbating Is Evolving
The first addiction a proper fiend discovers
In the realm of dark euphoria,
Comes in the form of bleached anuses.
Ah, to the bourgeois layman
“Pornography.”
So, when blonde haired Davey
Is shaking the screws loose from his computer chair,
Mother better knock twice.
Conceal a locked doorknob
With a sweating palm.
Wait ten seconds
Before seeing a comforter
Providing censorship.
The same comforter bought months ago
In the
“Throes of innocence.”
The same comforter
Stained with Davey's greatest intent
Towards achieving man-hood.
That's where the real ambition exists.
To exploit sexuality.
In return perpetuate a cock measuring contest
Between growing alpha-males.
Rome had orgies.
Some would argue
The most successful Empire.
Most cultures had eunuchs.
In some form of desperation,
Modern men will castrate themselves.
When feeling inadequate
To Justin Bieber's dead eyes.
There is beauty in orgasms.
Sexual release is a meditative experience,
Comparable to a study lesson with Siddhartha.
But with so many fiends
Comes the desire to cover a growing market.
The saturation of mental anguish
Is a white-knuckle grip,
Coupled with a dilated heart.
Pumping heroin into a jubilant bloodstream.
Or.
It's just masturbation.
In the realm of dark euphoria,
Comes in the form of bleached anuses.
Ah, to the bourgeois layman
“Pornography.”
So, when blonde haired Davey
Is shaking the screws loose from his computer chair,
Mother better knock twice.
Conceal a locked doorknob
With a sweating palm.
Wait ten seconds
Before seeing a comforter
Providing censorship.
The same comforter bought months ago
In the
“Throes of innocence.”
The same comforter
Stained with Davey's greatest intent
Towards achieving man-hood.
That's where the real ambition exists.
To exploit sexuality.
In return perpetuate a cock measuring contest
Between growing alpha-males.
Rome had orgies.
Some would argue
The most successful Empire.
Most cultures had eunuchs.
In some form of desperation,
Modern men will castrate themselves.
When feeling inadequate
To Justin Bieber's dead eyes.
There is beauty in orgasms.
Sexual release is a meditative experience,
Comparable to a study lesson with Siddhartha.
But with so many fiends
Comes the desire to cover a growing market.
The saturation of mental anguish
Is a white-knuckle grip,
Coupled with a dilated heart.
Pumping heroin into a jubilant bloodstream.
Or.
It's just masturbation.
Never Die
1.
When we die
Our social media personalities
Become living corpses.
Facebook profile
A
Tombstone.
Twitter account
An
Epitaph.
We haunt illusions of grandeur.
Smiling photo-shopped teeth
That contain more latex than condoms.
Propose great philosophical quandaries
Such as:
Do all children take Selfies
By their rice bowls?
2.
Before dinner I'll wash my hands of this.
Let the hot water pour
Until steam rises from the sink
And envelopes the faucet.
Through the building fog,
Open the bathroom door.
Glowing like a bug-light
In the distance
Will be my laptop.
For a second the light of God will be upon me.
Before the screen saver turns everything to black.
When we die
Our social media personalities
Become living corpses.
Facebook profile
A
Tombstone.
Twitter account
An
Epitaph.
We haunt illusions of grandeur.
Smiling photo-shopped teeth
That contain more latex than condoms.
Propose great philosophical quandaries
Such as:
Do all children take Selfies
By their rice bowls?
2.
Before dinner I'll wash my hands of this.
Let the hot water pour
Until steam rises from the sink
And envelopes the faucet.
Through the building fog,
Open the bathroom door.
Glowing like a bug-light
In the distance
Will be my laptop.
For a second the light of God will be upon me.
Before the screen saver turns everything to black.
Runt raccoon revolution! Runt raccoon revolution! Runt raccoon revolution!
w/ love