Aberration Labyrinth
Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
May 2015
Issue #016
A Note From The Editors: We’re sorry for the delay of our Spring issue. Jessica was out of the country on a business trip, blame her.
Aberdeen II Leaf Arbuthnot
Aberration Ramona Thompson
Do you prop up your smile with pylons? Hook the corners of your lips on the outstretched metal arms and meander off, to nose at tin-studded bushes, to slip on tongues of latex half-mashed by boots into soil and sod?
I am that which you cannot kill Cannot murder nor ever escape I am eternal Forever right behind you Only ever a few short steps away Following Breathing close Hellfire down your back I am the monster Always hungry for more Never full A sinner never forgiven On no knees do I rest To a lesser god then I believe I dare to argue I dare to be my own savior Dark lord of my own twisted destiny
I think so. It was the pylon grin you hoisted up our last night in Aberdeen. Leaning over our tabled tea light, you hooked it up and wandered off.
I am an unholy fire Burning and burning Flames licking eager To taste the charred ashes of your mortal flesh The night is my cover In cruel dreams I come Will you awake come the morning light? Oh no Not if I should catch you first Dozing upon your pillow
Without Ceremony A.J. Huffman I allowed you to sacrifice my heart. I wore no robes of flowing innocence. You needed no sacred sword, only metaphorical fingers to breach my breast, squeeze my life into suffocating submission.
Alliance
Ramona Pina Vocal chords wiggle like brush bristles shaken violently. Warm colors bleed through the coarse canvas. Sharp soprano reds gargle over into a sea of alto blues. Hues and tone meld like burning copper to commence bonding. Artistic palates hungrily lick expression. It swallows without chewing and ingests genius. Inventive remnants stick to its folds. They jolt loose at the most unexpected moments; Leaving vocal ciphers spinning out of control. Turrets times the infinite spin to spray paint words.
I am the ulimate The first, the middle and the last My wordless word is law No grave can hold me No prayer can save you Tonight or any other night I am your neverending fright A battle useless to fight For the day you were born Your soul was branded mine I am the aberration And tonight I feast Flesh, blood and bone Once the darkness falls Under those covers Abandon all hope For you who dare to sleep here Tonight surely die here
Š This work is the property of the individual authors within.
-AL
Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
May 2015
Issue #016
Observing A Future Financial Derivatives Trader in Wal-Mart John Unger He was in Wal-Mart buying boxes of Fruit Loops, canned chocolate shakes, and Banquet's best dinner entrees. Plenty of monosodium glutamate to keep him young for awhile A laughing blonde boy of four or five was in the front entrance, riding an old coin operated red jalopy priced at fifty cents a ride. His paisley dressed patient mother waited. A snakeskin purse hung with jaws open in the crook of her arm. The boy bounded and rolled, his face softly bobbing up and down. Sputtering giggles let loose from his lips and spilled on his chin, until, the ride stopped, and he reached into the purse.
The jaws snapped shut on his fat pink wrist, and he started to scream for more.
Negative Light Jeremiah Jerdee The top peeled away and exposed like the dry hollow skin of snakes leaving only the truth underneath it is shocking to see not disfigured or scarred but equally appalling instead it shows what was never meant to be revealed the frailty, the shame, the misguidedness shoved deeper into the corners of the soul the mistakes of the past and their promise to impact the future all bottled up and cast in such negative light the flesh might relent but the spirit cannot hoping for a better life a light to guide from the darkness to shine on the cobwebs of the soul although the thought of exposing light is terrifying it shines on us too brightly illuminating the darkest spots while leaving our proud accomplishments half hidden in the overlying shadows muddled together and indistinguishable from another Perhaps it is better this way let the ugly and defiled shine forth so as to not be disguised by our pretty lies and our masquerade faces so easy to put one on and slip away into the laughter of the crowd into the ether of the in-between where we first were laying half formed waiting to be born to live to lie to die return to the emptiness of that null void and let the negative light shine the path onward
Š This work is the property of the individual authors within.
Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
May 2015
Issue #016
The Quiet of a Pickwickian World Sy Roth In the silence of my Pickwickian world, A transcendent quiet stands vigil. Left to its own devices it rattles around, a lonely brown-suited courier, Hefting weighty cargo from one sooty corner to the next. Seeks tranquility in a world where, Fettered by golden reins Hobbled by unceremonial chain mail Lanced by coronets of thorns, Astride, a long-in-the-tooth steed Spurred on to wrestle shredded windmills, A cavil of unrepentant correctors rest. And they still come-Tidal waves of disturbances, Tsunamis that rip ashore and sweep all away Into a loathsome pile, Bilious flotsam of a generation bereft of empathy.
A forced silence clings to the dusty rafters Where sages once stood Hanging like KKK castoffs In a closeted Jim Crow attic of rules and regulations gone mad. A quiescent quiet demands quiet. Nestles behind muffled screams Of ages of piles of rotting flesh. Dolorous vision of a peaceful world Where peace packed for a long vacation To Edens that exist only in fairy tales. Bring with them untruths of understanding Swaddled in bloody, soiled bedclothes.
Warning for the Faithless Matthew MacDonald Beware the ones with that unbreakable faith you'll know the bunch they've got it dripping from their mouths like a paralyzing case of rabies and they'll look at you with those black and white raccoon eyes eager for a trial of persuasion so they can shoot it down like a pearl harbor plane fighter. know, to possess this wisdom is to become a hated minority of the times and those that carry the faith like fire will seek to save you but their warmness and friendship will be like loving a scarecrow eventually they will push you to do something radical and all will stand in awe like statues as you burn their sacred icons in a heavenly fire. but it's not enough no it will never be enough and soon you will fade into the background of history like a photo in sunlight on the dash of a car. ideals will lose their meaning change will become a myth that scales with technology culture will die romance will become a foolish art and the faithless will be forced to heave a heavy smile years will pass like this and you will almost die of boredom but one day when you're just about to kick it forever some kid will print your face on a magazine or newspaper and zing you are a revolutionary and the faithful will come running
Leave me to my silence, Lave me of the Ash Wednesday smudge Where realities come home to roost in the dim corners Where the highwaymen have no access.
Š This work is the property of the individual authors within.
Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
May 2015
Issue #016
Orgasmic Mistakes Ramona Pina Orgasmic mistakes quake my core. The whore in me seeks to fix fuck ups through tantric therapy. "One more session!" she screams, penetrating my scattered thoughts; Stacking excuses like bricks to build a fort of denial and worthless bargaining chips. A sweet kiss on the neck and lips convince me of nothing but she lets me believe for a brief moment, a few minutes and a split second. Still... somehow the end road always leads to the conclusion of rejection. Me of him and how he should follow suit, even when the sleeves are too tight, and hem too high. Muscles pulsate into perfection and god willing the devil is with her. He licks her tender places, pinches then embraces and ends in nibbles. Supple nipples encore the show but it ends and she must go on. The wrong of the right moment feels worse, And she clutches her purse; refusing to give another two cents. The session ends and they set a date for the next meet.
Insomnia Summer Coby
a mind lies awake tonight feeling as solemn as the moon over sleeping bodies One lies, eyes too wide, Adjusted for the sun at the peak of its absence a mind it will take tonight it will swallow it whole in its gaping darkness, for every night the sun dies And eats the broken hearted ones whole a mind is forsaken tonight a mind is being made to nourish a dead sun so there will always be a supply of broken hearted fools to lose track of their physical embodiment
Š This work is the property of the individual authors within.
Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
May 2015
Issue #016
Luke With His Muffins Mitchell Bergeron
Black Box Obren Bokich
It was tough to cut the English muffins with the one clean, butter knife. I had to put the muffins in the fridge so they wouldn't mold. I bought them last week assuming Jim would have some of them with me, turns out he hates English muffins. I tried my best to spread the Jif Extra Crunchy across my first muffin. Tried is the key word. The second one was too hot to handle, and one half got stuck in the toaster. "Do I smell something burning?" Jim asked from the other room. "No it's some piece of bread stuck in the bottom of the toaster." "If you say so." I took a big bite into my muffin, the peanut butter globed to my gums.
What do we fear most?
Stumbling Into Authenticity Bob Eager
The blast, ravaging savaging destroyer of life and limb and mindful and all that is holy and solid, or the nightmare falling falling so far, (who'd ever thought there was so much sky), to the culminating splash in the boiling sea, or the descent through black choking blood to a hopeless bed far from our air? Who could survive such cataclysm, such fierce demise, save
Mumbling through cathartic therapy Inner dialogue Truth and untruth debate, Rumbling through internal catastrophe, Digging, Digging, Digging, Tumbling through adversity, Stuck in moments of duplicity. This process and motion is slight; A quiet Notion of reciprocity, Forced into a purgatory state... A Lagoon Nebula If you will,
our little black boxes?
Winter Chill Ken W. Simpson
The pale ghost of dawn A grove of trees Faded derelicts Without leaves A tracery of branches Bent and twisted Shades of grey On a grim, cold day.
finally composing oneself and Stumbling into Authenticity.
Š This work is the property of the individual authors within.
Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
May 2015
Issue #016
Cute Like Children Digging Graves Justin Conklin
Four Roses Left Out in the Morning John Flicker
Silence, Not so silent, Whirring, humming, ringing. False light shines dimly On false hopes, Artificial translucence In the darkened cathedral, Machinations of human divinity. All for the sake of progress, They said.
We felt the tinkling of ice that shimmered from my broken glass, holding drops of amber liquid in the Midtown of our quarter years. You grew tired when I left out lonely bottles, with the sticky bottoms swallowed, looking sallow in the noonday sun giving refuge to the horse flies. More importantly I traded you like copper, when your silver finish faded. I broke into the back window as a final sauntering into your finite life.
Innocence was The fall from grace, The arguing, bickering Of old white men Who made names for themselves By creating lies. Mars is rising, And Venus is bleeding. The space between is taut. People as commodities, Bought and sold For entertainment. Slaves to systems that perpetuate Their misery, Drenching them in their own sweat, Feeding them their own shit, The same dance day after day. Mephistopheles has met his match, A market willing to drown itself In the blood of naivety, Faust himself would laugh
Harpy Harpeia harpazein Michael Estabrook
Our name means that which snatches we are the snatchers of the ancient world particularly food snatchers and defilers getting our first notoriety by stealing food from poor hapless Phineas the Prophet nearly starving the poor bastard to death. (We were sent by ever-envious Zeus what choice did we have seriously?) We are great eagle-like birds but with a woman’s head and breasts described first as beautiful bewitching siren-like creatures (men are suckers for breasts any breasts whatsoever) but later as ugly bird-women brutes placed by Dante himself in his Inferno in the branches of trees in the Wood of Self-murderers forever tormenting the souls of the suicide sinners: They have wide wings, and human necks and visages, clawed feet, and huge feathered bellies, they make lament above on the strange trees . . . in which the suicides themselves have been entombed punishment for having destroyed their physical bodies. Even though they have been named for us we are not the elusive Harpy Eagles in the rainforests of today (they are after all mere birds not monsters such as we)
Š This work is the property of the individual authors within.
Aberration Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805
May 2015
Issue #016
Minotaur Asterion minotaurus
Mermaid Marmennills sirena
Michael Estabrook
Michael Estabrook
I’m the victim do you hear me! I’m the fucking victim here! My mother Pasiphaë satisfying her unquenchable lust (damn Aphrodite) by copulating with a bull – a damn bull! Who does that, seriously WHO! My mother that’s who and what am I supposed to do with that image where am I supposed to put it not to mention having to deal with it psychologically. So of course I’m born a hideous monster a slaveringly insane ferocious half-man half-beast scared the bejesus outta everybody I can tell you that so they bring in Daedalus the Crafty who constructs a vast maze beneath the palace of Knossos as my prison to ensure that my life is a living hell.
Well of course I ate people it was an age of human sacrifice loved those succulent virgin girls and boys sacrificed to me every 9 years what an idiotic thing to ask. What else would you have me do stuck in that damnable ceaseless labyrinth until Ariadne with her stupid ball of twine leading the great immortal hero Theseus ooohhh to the very heart of the matter where he . . . yes and then there was Theseus what am I to say? The perfidious little bastard snuck up on me in the dark spearing me in the face fucking coward how was I supposed to know he was there no one was ever there NO ONE! BUT! HA! I got the final laugh because I live on yes I do you’ll be relieved to know I live on immortal as the beast in everyman do you hear me! DO YOU! I am the beast within you man at his very worst and shall so remain until the end of days.
Yes we do exist what an insulting ignorant question the great ancient civilizations knew depicted us in their mythologies and folklore Atargatis of Assyria the Sirens of Greece (Homer was no dummy) Melusina in Europe the Babylonians Chinese Japanese Hindus Africans Polynesians Columbus all saw us swimming Blackbeard the Pirate too there are even prehistoric cave paintings. Like whales were once land mammals with hooves long dense limbs and skulls returning to the sea 50 million years ago so did we 7 million years ago (the Aquatic Ape Theory look it up on your Internet) the whales are our brethren we often travel with them for camouflage and protection.
In addition to our split fish-like tail we have webbed hands a hinged ribcage long flowing hair and we’re bewitchingly pretty you’ve seen the paintings and sculptures. But if you are still skeptical what about the Israeli town of Kiryat offering up a $1,000,000 reward for the first tourist to take a photograph of one of us! What about that? Now you know for certain that we exist so catch us if you can.
© This work is the property of the individual authors within.
All artwork for this issue has been provided by Ben Mohr