Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
August 2015
Issue #16
Dear Readers, Thank you, again, for your support of our magazine. Without you, Aberration Labyrinth would not be possible. Keep reading. Keep sending us your work. We want to give you an avenue for your voices. This issue is dedicated to our friend, Garret Erskine, who left us far too soon. He was a strong supporter of our magazine, and we are a strong supporter of his. -AL Loss is The First Step Jessica Gleason I’ve tried to write this one hundred times, and deleted it each time thinking it’s not good enough. It’s never going to be good enough. When the world loses a person, it does not weep. It loses too many people each day for such nonsense. But, that isn’t what happens when a person loses someone else. We’re not built from dirt. We’re fleshy and pink, and we bruise easily, like over-ripe peaches, no matter how strong we seem to be. And like that peach, I am bruised. A tiny piece of me is rotten. And, it’s bound to stay that way until all of me has withered away. Humans can mend themselves, but they’re never fixed, never the same. We bruise over and over and over, and those bruises stay. They fester. They change us, irrevocably. This new wound, one that many others now have, will always remind me of Garrett. Garrett was very special to many people. They loved him. It was impossible not to. His fans, knowing him only through his music, or in passing, will carry this burden as well. We’re all bruising in different shades of pink, purple, yellow, brown and orange. Garrett, the man, was something wholly different than Garret the artist. Though, at times, it was hard to find the seam, where the real person ended and the artist began. His passion for music, for creation, was ingrained in his person. But, he was made up of more than just that one compartment. Garrett loved dwarves. He was impossibly nerdy in all of the right ways. The look of child-like innocence on his face at the mere mention of something Tolkien-esque was enough to charge the entire room. He had a fondness for Dain Ironfoot, a dwarven leader from the Iron Hills. He was a reader, and despite his propensity for glasses that made him look creepy, he did not use them to read. He read books about conspiracy theories , secret societies, serial killers, philosophy and history. He would happily talk with you about Nietzsche or The Freemasons. He was smart. Gifted. He once went to school for radio broadcasting. And, with a voice like his, it’s not hard to Imagine him having had a successful career. He tried working a regular job. Making sandwiches at Jimmy Johns, cleaning and factory work never quite did it for him. But, he did try. In the end, it was Garrett and his music. He was singularly focused on his career. He loved the Fall, Halloween-time, to be specific. He loved adventuring in graveyards and carving pumpkins. He loved scary movies. He’d play board games with you, without putting up too much of a fight. He hated mash-ups. He’d put up a fight about singing karaoke, but he’d do it anyway. He’d sing alternative music from the 90s and pop music from today. Sometimes he needed a hug. Sometimes he needed to be rocked to sleep. Sometimes he loved things too fast, too hard and too much. He liked eating duck strips at dive bars in Burlington, WI. He was noisy. He was impossible. He was respectful. He was supportive. He was kind. There aren’t enough words to sum up all of what he was. He will be missed.
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Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
August 2015
Lullaby Tonya Overstreet Lullaby Sacrificial lullaby Born to a soulless lady Scar on mankind The whore of Hades She dances as one with the fire Dancing round and round In her flaming gown Chanting her desires As she feasts on angel babies Cold as a volcano Buried under ice Shadows in the snow This infant sacrifice Has been salvaged from the womb Now must meet it's doom To blind the adolescent mother's eyes Mouths of lies consume The blood of innocence Doused in sweet perfume They wear her flesh In a masquerade Of regrets they have And plans they've made Infant, mother ,whore Each within itself One from the other bore All the photos on the shelf She shares them with the fetus Sitting on her lap The lullaby is sweetest Just before the eternal nap.
Issue #16
Remembering Old News Tara Alaka Now everything I've ever done (and ever said) is congealed around your thighs, every book I'd said I'd read (but never read), a problematic foetus, a blinkered world, unspoken of.
No Wonder Stefan Berkowitz We call them stars that guide us They're only doors that light up and when some giant looks upon our universe he sees not cosmos backed by nothingness but ordinary things like maybe Orion's belt is just three holes in his lover's face where sometimes metal bits are placed as jewelry and what we see as unfathomed energy is just the light that passes through them when she takes them out to make love then maybe a supernova is when she forgets and the holes are torn a little wider and so the damage in our lives could be a source of wonder to very tiny beings, an inspiration even one to which we have no responsibility
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Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
August 2015
Bring Me The Disease Jonathan Bors
Bring me the disease when there is nothing left after the words and the promise of his eyes are gone Bring me the misery in a crystal cut glass the way it used to last and last from one dark hour into the next Bring it to me embroidered in sequins and sinister masquerade it's all I ever wanted these charmless bowls of sun colored seas everything I will ever need Bring me the disease on a platter made of 14 karat gold precious enough to let me forget an hour of time and a decade of regret 9 am and I wait for this day to slowly end dirty hair and dark frown keep watch with me underground I taste the first drops of freedom through this heartless, narrow spiral full with lies and subtle denial the heart knowing what the eyes cannot see Bring it to me
Issue #16
The More I Try To Live, The More I Die Ariana Nelson These little acts undo, each weave that holds me still. I pull air into my lungs, bite my lips against the chill. The emptiness consumes, yet fills each crack within my bones. I'm tearing at the seams, within the skin I called my home.
The Quietest Times Lex Kogan In the eternal symphony you walked with me in silent nights as those yellow flames reached high above the dying we walked into the early morning hours between the gates of pain and straight into the blood prisons Spring was in the air again new rain would wash away the icy resins of the quietest times abandoning neglected youth we headed south along the rivers of stone we flew in circles of sorrow to capture the eye of the eagle dreaming of endless skies breathing and climbing together unveiling our so called victory at last
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Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
August 2015
Issue #16
Unnamed (for you) Tara Alaka The sky collapsed. How did you expect it to hold stretched tight as it was? It pulled over this wing of houses, past the temple to the ear like a rubber-holed resistance band chafing gum against ankles, hauling up over wrists. Disintegrating droplets on a gauze-wadded forehead these stars.
This drip-dried celestial sphere sweats the pressure of ropes and pulleys, then it stretches to the snap-back of the black hole (your hole) that gave it substance.
Magritte’s Man’s Condition Brandon Roy
The coins on the floor were for good luck. I'm watching the woman across the street undress.She wears red lipstick her cousin bought for her while she was overseas. I used to tell myself that I was in love with her. Those lies make me regret everything I ever did. Her lips pucker for the mirror, cellphone placed on her dresser, distorted light glowing on her skin. Warm to the touch, I wonder if I can sell the dream to the highest bidder. Some days I question my luck. Erotic asphyxiation: Let me place a bag over ours head so that we may die
In The Ruins Of My Rib-Cage Ariana Nelson Words have gone, carried away, by the exhale of my lungs, into places I cannot go. I'm drowning within the ruins of the place I called my home.
in each other's arms.If the voices suggested to me that I cover the walls in small orange skins carefully placed according to my imagination. Being wrong, I admit it when I'm right. I'm entitled to my own destruction.
© This work is the property of the individual authors within.
Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
August 2015
I’m A Bottle Angela Lananna
My body is my bottle, except it has a lock; a place to put my pain so nobody can mock. Trap all of my problems letting them build up, but sadly I'm a bottle and nothing like a cup. My grief cannot pour over, my pain cannot spill out, all my anguish trapped mixed in with all my doubt.
You see there is a crack my bottle is too full, I have a fear, it breaking with any push or pull. I do not want to shatter But I know sometime I will Because my tiny bottle will continuously fill.
Issue #16
American Hero Josh Brown G.I. Joe Was a real American hero Knowing is half the battle But what about the other half? Flint and Lady Jaye Were totally on again off again What about Duke and Scarlet? Destro and Baroness? So many complicated relationships For a Saturday morning kid's cartoon Too many, really The only one who made sense Was Snake-Eyes Silent Ninja Wore a mask Dressed all in black With a pet timber wolf Aroooooooooo He had an uzi and a sword What more Does a man need?
The Patron of Pasig River Brandon Roy At her feet is a river of contradictions poverty and wealth sit on her banks a civilization of slums and fortune The air thick with her praise soundless rich neighborhoods to noisy slums Her toes filthy from pollution and mud into the muck, she sinks deeper in the dirt The street dogs bark She expression is that of weeping with no tears Now her mouth is whispering a scream in The people's darkest hours they look to her open arms but there is no hug to be received Š This work is the property of the individual authors within.
Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
August 2015
Issue #16
Luminous Cross Dustin Pickering
The Last Meal Derrick Paulson
What is Love but Death’s final breath? Who kisses the silence yet does not confess? Only one world will dream the illusions we seem to suffer— only my heart quickens the musical monstrosity. Pace the frozen silence, o Sasha, your eyes comfort the blind. The luminous cross we bury in the sky, fire — never asking why. Defiant, I choose to love you and cannot define why. What is a definition to love’s sigh?
It is a challenge to trek this distance— my Sasha, beloved flame of my heart, your darkness is as satisfying as holiness. I am lost in your arms like a child who remembers his mother at last. Your faith is heartbeat, tensing and asleep. I want to hold You, again in the dark— magic is unveiled, like a book, with drunken heart, drunk as an eye looking back.
Truffles: I thought such obscurity would baffle the pigs. But they were organized, and how expeditious. Oh, I knew. I knew. And I hate mushrooms despite the gooey tissue. I could have ordered a bowl of spaghetti, and, closing my eyes, reminisced with fingers. How simple. Too simple. I should have taken the lobster. I hate seafood too, but how sweet it would have been to see the guards cringe when I cracked open each piece; to make them watch the pick move deftly in and out, in and out.
No Title Ariana Nelson Red pain splashes with monotonous clangor in long hollow chambers -and cracked hearts.
© This work is the property of the individual authors within.
Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
August 2015
Issue #16
Rue the Day Scott Outlar Bring me the innocence of your garden… I will eat the apple and tell naught but lies
Bring me your suicidal cancer… I will rip asunder every turncoat cell
Bring me your ocean of bliss… I will crash the tide and disrupt the currents
Bring me your blackened lungs… I will suck dry the last breath of oxygen
Bring me your perfect homeostasis… I will scorch the earth and ignite the sky
Bring me your worst fear on a silver platter… I will ravenously devour it in a gluttonous feast Bring me the shadow of your psyche… I will slaughter the ego until only a pool of blood remains
Bring me your returning decorated soldiers… I will wrench them from their loved ones and send them back to the desert
Bring me your stagnant habit energy… I will rage righteous against it with terrible vengeance
Bring me your pitiful cries for mercy… I will laugh at your distress and increase the pressure
Bring me your open, honest heart… I will tear it from your chest and stomp it into the dirt
Bring me your monuments of advanced civilization… I will reduce them to rubble and herald a new stone age
Bring me your tender love and affection… I will dig a twelve foot grave and bury it alive
Bring me your theories of evolution… I will send them back to the primordial gene swarm soup
Bring me your high hopes and aspirations… I will murder tomorrow with a deathblow today
Bring me your miracles of salvation… I will counter the offer with an Apocalyptic Revelation
Bring me your deepest, darkest secrets… I will spread them like wildfire across the earth
Bring me your New World Order… I will shove it down your throat with a fresh dose of chaos
Bring me your trust and faith… I will make you rue the day you confessed your sins
Bring me your harvested crops… I will poison every seed with chimera DNA
Bring me your loneliness and sorrow… I will intensify the suffering a thousand fold
Bring me your bags of medicinal snake oil… I will lace the vaccines with mercury and formaldehyde
Bring me your detoxified organs and glands… I will bloat your liver full of acid
Bring me your clear blue skies… I will pump them full of heavy metal smog
Bring me your functioning kidneys… I will transform them into a distillery of toxic sludge Bring me your well-planned path toward health… I will turn it into a cracked avenue of carnage and desolation Bring me your holy verses of inspiration… I will burn them in the fiery pits of hell Bring me your lush jungle of vegetation… I will topple every tree until none remains
Bring me your blueprint for utopia… I will mock the plans with a march toward war
Bring me your clean water supply… I will dump in pollution until it’s frothing with scum Bring me your flag of nations united… I will piss division upon the occulted symbols and stars Bring me your sign of a new beginning… I will teach you that in this life everything ends with a whimper
© This work is the property of the individual authors within.
Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
August 2015
Issue #16
Seduction 1-2-3 Tara Alaka I did not wish to conquer the world I only wished to sit in the palm of your upturned hand (your lips, fleshy titans, sore eyes, soldered open) and buckle the plank that always stood flat in a climax of love, and leave it at that.
Red Owl Josh Brown Comic books were simpler When I was a kid Seventy-five cents On the newsstand at Red Owl My mom would buy me one Maybe two If I was "good" I always was, of course, Even when I wasn't Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Thor, Daredevil, X-Men, Punisher, Iron Man, and sometimes Savage Sword of Conan (I was a Marvel kid) I still have most of them Taking up precious space In our basement I love the way they smell Musty nostalgic memories Of a simpler time.
Saved by the Bell Josh Brown Saturday morning We had this show That wasn't a cartoon It was real A breakthrough Right Through the 4th wall I wanted to be him To have his life His phone, his girlfriend, His best friend His principle His everything Boo Valley Go Bayside Let's get a burger and fries At the Max, with Slater Jessie Lisa Turtle Fucking Screech And Kelly Sweet Kelly Kapow Ski (But what about Miss Bliss?)
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Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
August 2015
Issue #16
Strange Music Saved My Life Michael Madean
You Are Here India Diggs
Strange music saved my life is what her black t-shirt said. I saw her, a twenty something brunette , when I was stopped at a red light in my taxi. She was about to walk into a smoke shop on Southfield, in Lincoln Park.
There are always just things coming out of your head And you feel weak, you feel like crying. They build and fume like smokepuffing from where your brain sits. And you are so beautiful and so wild But you are blind. You are blind because he was blind And he was cruel in the way that he saw you. You are bold and you are freedomthe peace in a crowded room. You are imaginative and you are adventurousfearless in a chaotic world. Your scars sing a tribal song of Survival. And you are here. You are healing and growingwith iron in your bones. You are conscious and you count all your breathsThe daughter of calculated synchronization. But you were blind And bruised And marked because he was blind. You were crumpled and worn and severe because someone told you that you were. Someone told you that you'd be alone. But you are so beautiful and so wild that you can't be missedtearing the scary things apart and looking for battles. You bought a gun to start a war and then fought with your fists. You are so much more than they think.
I thought about rolling down my window and saying that strange music had saved me too, but thought, why would she care about what had saved me, all those years ago, back in my small room in Westland where I had fought to survive. She had probably never heard of the bands and musicians that I had loved, but my dwindling friends had thought weird. Bands like The Replacements, The Stooges, Elvis Costello and The Attractions and Graham Parker and The Rumour. I had become a loner after too much mescaline, pcp, glue, and who knows what else. The drugs had left me unsure of who I was. This music taught me that all was not horrible. I used to spend every dollar I had at a used record store owned by a guy who loved the MC5. Howlin Wolf, Hank Williams, Public Enemy, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, and Bob Dylan, they all kept me from slashing my teenage wrists when everyone else
was listening to hair bands. I should have been a musician, or a rock critic, nothing has given me more pleasure then that music.
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Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
August 2015 14-08-2015 Valentin Haumesser-Savio 1.
Issue #16 2.
home can wait
i've been waiting
i guess i look like any other fool
for an hour now for a meeting for a sorry-ass job
3.
that's not going to see me through the summer
i watch the wine dripping on the floor from the cup
i've been sober for a week and i feel lost in a sea of people dressed in white and red running in front of angry helpless bulls
not going to see me through anything
i just dropped the red of the wine against the orange
i've been sober for a week but everything's still the same or even worse
i'm overdressed
i've been sober for a week and can't talk anymore but only express myself with faint ghostly whispers
freckled french girls in trains hoping thailand spain london would change an obese picasso in his tiny car driving restlessly toward where the dreams end deformed dominicans waiting in dark bars to shout their anger at the world and at me and the trees keep growing i've been sober for a week
but would only slightly postpone my economic death
with my dirty tie holes in my shoes and my beer-stained suit jacket from finland they all look like fools and i'm overdressed 'cause they don't know about the beer stain it doesn't smell anymore I let it dry for two days i want to go i should go show some stupid and vain pride but i stay all the big breasted women i'll see in the metro later going Š This work is the property of the individual authors within.
All artwork for this issue has been provided by Jessica Gleason
of my cheap plastic chair i watch it fall for a while slow rainfall of blood then clean it with a dirty cloth smiling at it wondering why life can't be like that whatever that means wine on the chair drop after drop night after night everything flowing with ease not wondering what will happen money girls hangover heat waves cold waves wars and you