Mat Black Online Magazine - March

Featured Authors

Poetry 
W.J. Nunnery

P.A. Levy

William Doreski

Ben Nardolilli

MAT BLACK ONLINE MAGAZINE

(March 2011)

Poetry

W.J. Nunnery

W.J. Nunnery was born in Madison Wisconsin.  Recently, his work has appeared in Yes Poetry, Mad Swirl, and Vox Poetica.  He currently is a sophomore at Concordia University in St. Paul.  

 

 The Old Johnson House

Funkedelics “Maggot Brain” was playing in repeat, blasting from the paint chipped silver boombox—a Christmas gift from Uncle Luke, probably stolen—that stood isolated on a square glass table at the room’s other end.  Across the street, The Dropouts were burning down That Old Johnson House, hurling Molotov cocktails through the windows and pointing blow torches at the shrubs and pouring gallons and gallons of cheap gasoline through the inside’s hollow, on the walls, the carpet, the furniture. 

Me and Dad watched it on the nightly news, both sitting silently on the same warm leather loveseat.  In my gut, I could feel the engrossed flames rising, like the sound of a wolf’s cruel howl as a concrete colored full moon slides further towards some windless night sky’s unseen peak—that point when driving in a car or glimpsing out a nearby window, just for a second, one might think: oh, wow, look how gorgeous the moon is. 

Mom was gone.  Dad said a week earlier at breakfast “Of course she’s coming back, but for some time, here, it’s going to be just you and I.  We’ll be fine, though, trust me” 

Against my face, the television flashed white.  Everything smelled like gasoline.  I wanted to open the door.  But the whole thing, it was all on the screen, right in front of me, so there was really no need and that night, me and Dad, each of us not sure exactly how long “sometime” was going to be, we feel asleep on that warm leather loveseat, flames cackling in our ears, shoes still on, he in my arms, me in his, a pained electric guitar seeping timelessly throughout our forgotten dreams.      

A Circle

there was a three legged dog that followed us like we were her tail

spit sapped tongue dangling half dead from her open mouth

she asked us to walk in a circle

she said please

so we did

the same circle

day and night 

one night after two quick barks
she made a run for it

and we watched her hobble off and we

let her go   

 

Again

Play it again.  I know there’s almost no one here.  But play it again.  The place smells like cigarettes, even though there’s a no smoking sign dangling on the wall and the piano’s gazing at the night’s moonless burden and there is so much cold in where I sit that the lights are shivering and mumbling cuss words towards the custodian.  He’s wearing a white tuxedo stained brown and all sorts of blues and greens and dark reds from times he told me worse than these and he’s drunk on his own gin and the girl next to me’s gin because she said he asked so politely and looked too dirty to be trying to clean anything.  I’ve already forgot the song.  But I remember it was in a minor key and that the melody, just a moment ago, belonged somehow to the both of us.  I’m not sure though; I might be mistaken; occasionally I am.  So just play it again, just once more.  We don’t even have to start at the beginning.  Only somewhere close. 

P.A. Levy

Born East London but now residing amongst the hedge mumblers of rural Suffolk, P.A.Levy has been published in many magazines, both on line and in print, from ‘A cappella Zoo’ to ‘Zygote In My Coffee’ and many stations in-between.  He is also a founding member of the Clueless Collective and can be found loitering on page corners and wearing hoodies at www.cluelesscollective.co.uk

Inheriting Shade

somewhere on a lonely planet

perfectly formed

was the first hand i ever held

that i could feel an inner silence

of a lost song within

we

the blue eyed

shared affinity with 

the orphaned pulse of our shadows

but the surrender of blood

forced us

to let go

and now that song can no longer be heard

we’re just left holding hands

with our ghosts

William Doreski

Talking to the Hanged Man

The small crowd disperses.  The air

hums with fragmented hymns. Sunday

always feels too vague, the hills

burdened with what Yeats called “autumn

glory” and others call “sorrow

of leaf-fall.” Somewhere a python

digests a full-grown man. Somewhere

a bomb erupts in a trash can.

Somewhere a mob of rapists

plots to ravish a tiny village

where the men have died in war.

Here in the brassy roadside weeds

of New Hampshire, plastic bottles

sulk unredeemed, little crimes

that define us. I consume

more than my share of culture,

but like the snake spend little time

with mastication and far too long

with digestion. This afternoon

the slant of light re-sculpts the trees

to suggest a Halloween terror

not even tiny children believe

but everyone wishes were real.

I recall the garage down the street

where a man hanged himself to prove

his love for his unfaithful wife.

More than half a century ago

I tormented myself by staring

into the dark of that ruin

until I saw the hanged man hanging

and forced him to catch my eye.

The creak of rope on rafter

still lingers. The whisk and shudder

of windy leaves across the highway

suggests many lost conversations;

but my foolish attempt to talk

to that hanged man is my only

instance of self-defining speech.

Freelance Security Guard

As freelance security guard

I roam the streets in search

of guilt and find it everywhere,

A man gnaws an English muffin

with a smear of butter on his cheek.

A woman drags a tiny dog

that wants to pause to sniff the spots

larger dogs have deployed.  Teen

age thugs spout obscene laughter

at a wino slopped on the curb.

The short autumn day bristles

with angst. Voting season rouses

famous cultural pornographies

historians will someday enshrine,

including a former governor’s

career as beauty queen, a slur

of epic proportions uttered

by a senator wannabe,

and the first public accusation

of witchcraft in a hundred years.

I want to arrest everyone

running for office, but the badge

I bought in a pawn shop offers

no authentic power but that

of the public scold. I deserve

a dunking, but the shy criminals

on the street lack kinetic force,

and the lawyers and realtors plotting

in plush offices lack conviction.

I scold and scold under my breath

and flash my badge at children

skipping school. I drag the wino

from the curb to a bench and drape

a crummy blanket over him,

then point my unloaded pistol

at the sky and fire a single shot

only witches and beauty queens hear.

 

Ben Nardolilli

7/25/07

I only ask to die

Before the tragedy sets in,

When all I can see

Is a happy ending ,

Believing the world

To be a comedy.

Incarnate Gaps

Relaxing and still awaiting you,

I wonder how this feeling survives,

I can rest and sleep, expecting

Your arrival, do I already know

That it is going to happen, nothing

Delaying your return this time?

How quickly you disappeared,

But how much time it has taken

For you to stitch your world

Back together again, with every date

For coming together missed,

And the excuses so finely woven,

I could not begin to think of the truth.

And should I begin to trust again

The words you send me, not even

Spoken, nevertheless all I have now,

Even the memories I cannot believe,

And offer up for sale to anyone interested

In a picture show that went nowhere.