The Bitchin' Kitsch October 2015 Issue

Volume 6, Issue 10 October 2015

the

b’k

bitchin’ kitsch

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about b’k:

The Bitchin’ Kitsch is a zine for artists, poets, prose writers, or anyone else who has something to say. It exists for the purpose of open creativity.

All submissions are due on the 26th for the following month’s issue.

Please review the submission guidelines on our Submissions page (www.talbot-heindl.com/bitchin_kitsch/submissions) before submitting your work.

community copies:

Stevens Point readers, sit down and read The Bitchin’ Kitsch at our community locations: zest, the coffee studio, tech lounge, and noel fine arts center.

advertising:

The Bitchin’ Kitsch is offering crazy low rates. Order ads on our Shop The B’K page (www.talbot-heindl.com/support_us/shop_thebk).

donation and acquisition:

Printing costs can be a bitch, which is why we continuously look for donations. Any amount helps and is appreciated. We also sell back copies of The B’K. To do either, visit our Shop The B’K page (www.talbotheindl.com/support_us/shop_thebk).

resources

On top of being the best publication ever created by human hands, The B’K would also like to present other opportunities that may be helpful to you as creators. If you have suggestions that could improve our list, please let us know. Resources we are privy to can be found at our Resources page (www.talbot-heindl.com/bitchin_kitsch/resources).

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table of contents.

On the Cover

Calendar Girls for ALS Smoky Lake Maple Products Photography

On the Back Cover Surprise Riana Mercado Graphite on paper

18-21 – Origin, Roo Bardookie and Louis Marvin 22 – Blue Orange Evening, Howie Good 23 – Minutes of the Last Meeting, Rodd Whelpley 24-25 – Spit Cups, Riley Vuyovich

28 – Big Red Button, A.G. Price 30 – Joan of Arc Killed By Drones, Raj Dronamraju 31 – Leaving on a Jet Plane, Adam Andreasen 32-33 – Love a Poet, BZ Niditch 34-35 – Outsider in the Rain, Dr. Mel Waldman 36 - Donors and Index

In This Issue

Pure. Natural.Maple Syrup.

38-39 - October Calendar Shot

4 – On Being a Girl, Holly Day

5 – Fukk Artt, Aaron Kent 2016 Calendar of A Free-Spirited Women Making Maple 6 – below the equator, AdamSyrup Au Naturel Middleton-Watts

7 – Faded Thoughts, Adam Andreasen

100% of proFIt beneFIts 8 – LunchCompassionate Break, Lisa Ojanpera Care ALS 9 – Another Day, Rob O’Keefe 10-11 – Pop Quiz 2, Learn Katie more at Jeddeloh

Lake Maple Products CalendarGirlsForALS.comSmoky pg. 15

12-13 – Painting Without Ventilation, Tommy Paley

14 – Be Aggressive, Sarah Frances Moran 15-16 – To be young at heart, Sissy Buckles

26 – Mind Rot, Christie-Luke Jones 27 – The Crypt Self, JD DeHart

Adam Andreasen - pg. 31

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holly day.

On Being a Girl By: Holly Day

When we weren’t hanging out at his house, my best friend and I would take our skateboards and ride down to the beach, to the little skateboard shop that sold high-end skateboards, hang out for hours watching skate videos with the few pro skaters that’d wander into the store. Sometimes the pros would give us tips on how to protect your face when you’re about to crash into a car or a wall how to avoid breaking your neck doing a handplant. later, we’d all head over to the Post Office and try out as many of the tricks we had just seen on TV. I was remarkably uncoordinated, and the only girl so most of my tricks involved showing off how much damage I could do to my body without actually breaking anything. I’d ride my board down the mail cart ramp as fast as I could and slam hard into the brick wall at the far end. Sometimes I’d ride the board down the ramp going the opposite way and slam into the guard rail separating the Post Office loading dock from the street. The bar would catch me right under my rib cage, knocking the wind out of me and giving me a mean buzz. I’d slam myself against things over and over until I could actually feel the pain, and once things started to really hurt, I’d just stop.

No one ever asked me to get back on my board once I stopped.

Sometimes, guys would bring their girlfriends along to watch them skate, and they’d act all stupid and do cute things like stand on their boyfriends’ skateboards and act like they couldn’t keep balance while they rolled down the sidewalk and giggled. The other guys would whisper nasty shit about those girls and how irritating they were, and I was happy because I knew they weren’t whispering that kind of shit about me.

I knew they said stuff about me behind my back, but they couldn’t accuse me of being a stupid skate groupie.

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aaron kent.

Fukk Artt

By: Aaron Kent I forget where I am after midnight, my nest slowly breaks away and the straw disintegrates leaving me unsure of the tree I climbed.

I reach out for something recognisable and fail to construct reality — oh, fuck it, I think I’m depersonalising again.

I couldn’t even be sure the universe was real this morning, my life is just a small section of a sleeping giant’s dream.

I can’t begin to imagine what happens when the giant wakes up.

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adam middleton-watts. below the equator

By: Adam Middleton-Watts

Christ this didn’t make sense the language we had briefly known now lost a foreign mass moving toward us both dark and brooding with twirls of knotted hair covering eyes sparked with solipsism a trashcan fist clutching a finger of foil which we enjoyed later while swimming under the swirling dark of ceiling cracks as roaches thumped about in iron shoes and neighbors eloquently roared their losses the lighter flame left us blind and our inhalations were held for every birthday cake we knew our skin was taken off in portions and I recall my tongue wandering lost miles within you resting in your womb polishing a rib sliding from your mouth days later we left thru the ceiling our bodies warm and massive

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adam andreasen.

Faded Thoughts Adam Andreasen Ink and colored pencil on paper

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lisa ojanpera.

Lunch Break

By: Lisa Ojanpera

Pomegranate drips down the chin of a suit Highfalutin sparks off white pearly grins Supping on the chops of gentle lamb skins Patting the heads of starving, begging kids Dreaming of the green paper to wipe off sins Hollow in the chest lest he become like them Careful not to touch their dirty matted heads Hands must remain clean to shake into deals Profits of the future depend on minds like him Creepy little slaves should not reach above Spit shine the seeds exposited from his jaws Merciful and giving replanting the earth Check the time by the dial on his wrist Lunch break over, time to execute a plan Toss the remains into the nearest garbage can

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rob o’keefe.

Another day

By: Rob O’Keefe

The cauldrons are bubbling again, replete with shades and wraiths, packed and parted in civilization’s stink, I have been left here or led here or birthed here, my origin a question buried too far down to care about, Diesel sweat drips our fortune from above, high above – the stalagmites grow tall with it, Statued in crowded isolation, a lone brick, I wrap myself in marrow and the rumble smell, What if I embrace the mortar and steam, build my barrow and fade, become elastic, Or tunnel out, escaping the caves and commerce, lungs bursting with aspiration, and exhale a new age.

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katie jeddeloh.

Pop Quiz 2

By: Katie Jeddeloh A man X and a woman Y work together in their company’s marketing division. X and Y regularly have drunken sex after nearly every office party after Y was finally coerced by her (Y’s) coworker two cubicles down to go with her (Y’s coworker) the first weekend in February. Up until this date, X had persistently pleaded with his wife to please, please come meet his coworkers and to please, please be part of his life outside their modest but comfortable home. X’s wife went frustrated again to her monthly book club with the PTCO, agonizing1 over X’s continual failure to meet her needs and acknowledge the fact that her life outside their modest but comfortable home deserves attention, too. It is possible that this argument (between X and his wife), thus far unresolved, led to X’s poor judgment with his alcohol consumption at the office party the first weekend in February resulting in the first of many sexual encounters with Y. Following this initial interaction between the two coworkers, their statistics stand as follows: X and Y have drunk sex after roughly 84% of office parties; Y consistently ignores X nearly to the point of blatant avoidance after 100% of drunk sex.2 In the days following their encounters, X is troubled vastly by Y’s lack of affection, or really any kind of acknowledgment after their seemingly pointless fucking.3 After several attempts to smile at Y as she walks to

This is perhaps too melodramatic for what X’s wife did, but “worrying” conveys something a bit too stereotypically womanlike and thus unfair to the development of X’s wife’s character. Other, more active verbiage, such as crying or complaining, exuded something more concrete, yet both seemed excessive. X’s wife feels not so much agony as she feels frustration and disappointment. X’s inability to satisfy his wife emotionally can likely be traced to X’s history of instability only recently improved by his long-term career in the office’s marketing division (with, although unrelated to, Y).

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Drunk sex between X and Y. Y’s ignoring X is mutually exclusive to drunk sex with X, although Y, on occasion, has drunk sex with people that are not X and at parties unrelated to the marketing division of the company.

2

The fucking was only seemingly pointless to X. Y didn’t bother to think of the fucking enough to qualify it as pointless, or useful, or even enjoyable. Y so devalued fucking X that she saw his orgasm as the eventual result of a teleological exercise. It is unclear whether or not Y is simply a cold-hearted bitch or if possibly Y is suppressing a childhood trauma, failed relationship, etc. by willfully ignoring X during the company’s daytime hours.

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katie jeddeloh (con’t). the coffee maker, or to be coincidentally in the break room at the same time as her, X became, much like his wife and for shockingly similar reasons, frustrated. X returned daily to his modest but comfortable home, where his two delightfully average children4 even began to notice the holes in their parents marriage become increasingly more porous.

Over the next several months, Y remains aloof towards X with a tinge of mild dislike,5 apart from the office parties after which the two still fuck drunkenly.

We can here assume that perhaps X is a pathetic and disillusioned man, who seeks physical validation from a practical stranger in place of a real connection with his wife. Through this lens, X is a coward.

Alternately, we can assume X is not cowardly, but rather his actions conflate his own confusion with defiance against his wife as he comes to understand what it is he truly wants in a Relationship.6 Here, we might say his encounters with Y might be considered a poor but concerted effort to Be There7 for a woman.

Y’s affect is unconcerned and never flickers.

Q: Evaluate. Which is the better person, X or Y?

X always spoke of them as bright despite their uninspired mediocrity in relation to other children their age.

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It remains yet unclear whether this seeming dislike was, in fact, a demonstration of quiet contempt for X or rather if X was overthinking things with Y, as X usually fucking does with women and with Relationships.

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Relationship is capitalized here so as to affirm the horrific clichĂŠ of the word. The capitalization

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references the scathing irony with which one is intended to read it.

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See footnote 6.

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tommy paley.

Painting Without Ventilation By: Tommy Paley

“Cry me a river,” an ex-girlfriend once said. “On demand?” I wondered through my tears.

I always wanted to be a part of the clean plate club. Imagine the meetings!

A famous singer on the radio seems to think you can’t fix bullet holes with bandages. To which I reply, where is your can-do spirit?

“Look both ways before crossing the street” I was told as a child. To which I always thought, “there are only two ways to look.”

I’m never fully dressed without a smile? No wonder I feel so light and free!

“Don’t bite off more than you can chew” others tell me. I’m sorry, but have you ever heard of sharing?

Toothpaste brands are always so proud that four out of five dentists approve of their product. Well, I can tie up five dentists in my basement too!

I don’t care how sensitive the situation is, I refuse to spend the better part of the afternoon tiptoeing. Unnecessary strain on my arches.

You say you finished with flying colours? Nothing like an afternoon inside painting without ventilation, I guess.

A close friend once advised me not to wear my heart on my sleeve. The best dry-cleaning bill in years!

“If you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours?” Looks like I didn’t waste my money on that backscratcher after all.

I never walk more than a few steps in another man’s shoes. A woman’s on the other hand, especially if my orthotics fit, enables me to finish my grocery shopping.

“Four-eyes” they called me, underestimating me once again.

Growing up, I was never the talk of the town. Towns are much quieter and more into small talk than you’d think.

“Don’t count my chickens?” I wasn’t going to, but to be honest now you’ve piqued my interest.

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tommy paley (con’t).

I’ve been told that I won’t know what I’ve got till it’s gone, but I’m not at all confident that I’ll even know then. Money back guarantee?

“If life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” said the kind old woman next door when I was young. Sure, but $3 per glass? No thanks!

No pain, no gain? I can’t have both?

“My bark is worse than my bite,” explained my blind date. Use your words!

I made sure that it took an entire village to raise me. No one got off easy.

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sarah frances moran.

Be Aggressive For Ronin Shimizu

By: Sarah Frances Moran There was a flicker and then a flutter and your light went out.

Your dimpled smile, little samurai warrior prince, was punished for playing on the border of the lines we erected and declared that each other couldn’t cross.

Explain extremities to children in relation to their ambitions.

Tell Ronin he’d be alive if he’d simply loved to throw a ball.

Erect a diagram that shows how his penis laid the foundation for everything he was allowed and not allowed to love.

Our sex isn’t a predestination.

It isn’t the manifest destiny for which our whole fate rides on.

Tell that to the others whose colors fit the model.

Tell them, Ronin’s chosen the resolution of his confusion because he couldn’t fit himself inside the restrictions the world made up for him.

Tell them he’d be alive if he could Be Aggressive Be Be Aggressive Be Aggressive Be Be Aggressive because that’s what boys do.

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Pure. Natural.Maple Syrup.

A Free-Spirited 2016 Calendar of Women Making Maple Syrup Au Naturel

100% of proFIt beneFIts Compassionate Care ALS Learn more at

CalendarGirlsForALS.com

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sissy buckles.

To be young at heart By: Sissy Buckles

And for the last time no, I’m not having wild marathon sex with a sailor that poem long ago scorched in my vernal memory and geez, you guys now I’m compelled to tell the rest of the story, turns out that guy had a wife, yup, I was dating a married man, and didn’t even know.

To be fair, he was separated when we met a little fact he conveniently forgot to mention then about nine months into the romance he got a transfer up to the Bay area, secretly deciding to reconcile with the family but still playing both ends against the middle, buzzing me up late at night surprising me with sticky motel weekend visits.

He had a kid.

Given the opportunity I would have tried to understand.

So then out of the blue ‘She’ somehow found my number and ended up phoning me, a very nasty call

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sissy buckles (con’t). of course, her outraged contempt shining through at my misplaced trust and shameful stupidity “but how could you not know he was married?”

And now I’m hearing in a perfect stranger’s mind the keen and fateful turn of the screw where in one juncture her hating me became more important than loving him.

So I’m all “sure lady, no problem to not see your husband again, what do you think, I’m some sort of creep?”

Or something like that.

And oh my tears and carrying on I plumb wore that Patsy Cline Sweet Dreams record out along with my roommate’s nerves.

And then his best friend told me that she got mad one day, chased him around the car and hit him on the head with a ridiculous frying pan, I guess she was lots bigger than him and I know I shouldn’t have, but did I laugh?

Hmmph....you bet.

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roo bardookie, louis marvin.

Origin

By: Roo Bardookie & Louis Marvin “I can show you how it was bounced off computers from private homes, to businesses, to universities. It was sophisticated. It’s why the cybercriminals don’t get caught captain.”

“You know for sure that this went on?”

“Oh yea, it has all the telltale signs. We know what program or pirate of the program it was too. But, you can’t link anything to anybody.”

He was the “bad cop” when they used to interrogate guys. They knew how to shut down cameras just when a guy would slip, or spill hot coffee on himself. Internal affairs said there was a pattern in their interrogation methods, but the guys who hit the switch were never the tech guys themselves. These guys weren’t on the take for money or drugs; they were out to get results. They were one of the most decorated units in the L.A. area for getting the worst of the worst out of the human zone.

They took out the guys that needed to be in places like hell.

There was something about the vent professor. He had dealt with the white-collar creep-aholics before. They were usually dealing on a different plane, and were brought down by the mundane. They usually hadn’t thought of that simple thing, or they went into patterns where they thought they could play games. We also had Link, who had gone to Stanford and Cal. He took psychology and sociology courses, and dabbled in the brain. It was always funny to get him and the clever criminals to say they hadn’t thought of that. He was a natural; classes, IQ tests, and studying be damned.

Dr. Tier left a taste. The tennis pro confirmed it. Dr. Wang said that he had a type of personality to get what he wants with charm, but had to take off the mask while working in these circumstances. She had not read him well, and would not have hired him. She had gone over their interviews in her head many, many times. The E-R-* leader would still have hired him based on what he presented. Dr. Wang should have done better background on him.

The captain got some coffee and eggs, said hello to some of the usual workers he saw in the morning, looked at the news on the TV, and prepped to meet the vent professor in his lab.

He signed in. There was a lot signing in as safety was of the utmost concern. There were two places he could recall hearing about accidents and catastrophes, and the difference between the two. There were the

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roo bardookie, louis marvin (con’t). autobahn accidents in Germany. The police he talked to said that these were like aircraft disasters, or military planes crashing. Another one that hit close to him was in the Phoenix Metro area. You would think that a guy from L.A. would say California Highway Patrol had the worst stories.

While they did have some gruesome tales, it was the police and firemen of Phoenix, where they had boulevards where people were often going and coming in opposite directions, hitting at 50+ mph a piece, where stories of jaws flying into swimming pools, eyeballs popping out and rolling down the road, and stuff you wouldn’t believe abounded. The freeways had dividers. The Phoenix boulevards had painted lines or none at all.

Accidents at the bottom of the ocean were not accidents; they would be catastrophes. They would be enough to turn a co-worker to chunky soup.

He was brought into the heart of the beast of vent and volcanology. It was strange lights here, and artificial pressure there, with poison gas baths for the colorless beasts that they did manage to keep alive. They had to mix and match the water and the spew that came from the vents just right. Everyone used gloves to work, as you didn’t want to get scalded or get the skin exposed to it on a daily basis.

The professor sat in a raised platform where he looked out on all the activities, plus screens that surrounded the room. They had permanent cameras keeping constant watch in night vision hues so as not to disturb the creatures that lived there. If you were to constantly shine a light on them, then changes would occur.

He followed the professor into this office, and took a seat, as there was not much standing room.

“We want to cooperate in any way we can captain. He was our colleague, and the foremost expert and idealist on the vent culture.”

“What does an idealist on vent culture mean?”

“A man can have ideas about how things should be done: a perfect way to do things. A Utopian ideal of how to work with and use the vents.”

“Are you saying you and he differed on what was to happen at the vents?”

“Oh no, no, no, not differed at all. We were like birds of a feather. We

continues on next page...

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roo bardookie, louis marvin (con’t). got along quite well.”

“Maybe you wanted to exploit the vents for more profit? Maybe you had some people to show or some to prove something to?”

“How so?”

“Maybe you are an alpha male in a place where it is best to be symbiotic.”

“Please, I have shared the credit many, many times on projects.”

“Have you ever had a project of this magnitude and importance?”

“Of course. We were some of the committee that put together initial reports on the feasibility of this project as part of this Yi-Er-San project.

Without our initial reports that were checked and rechecked by other experts and computers, there would not be the seat you sit in now.”

“Very comfortable. It must have been hell to see your co-worker vaporize into mush.”

“It was traumatic, and it made me ill.”

“How did it make you ill?”

“I was sick to my stomach immediately, and I have had nightmares since then.”

“Do you know that one of the first hires we made for the police on this project was to get an expert in technology?”

“I see.”

“We hired him away from the government. They tried to match his pay and we played back and forth with the numbers. But, it was the adventure that got him.”

The professor studied the face of the detective. No reaction to his story.

“He tells me, that so far it has been a bore: the usual hackers and et cetera trying to get in. But, we have the best walls and security, and constant changing codes. He was chomping at the bit for something to do.”

“Of course, he thought the adventure would be a romanticized version.”

“So finally I gave him something to do. He takes care of the usual, which is really being done by the computers themselves. But, he has found

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roo bardookie, louis marvin (con’t). that someone might have changed the numbers and calibrations of the vent sheath.”

“I don’t understand.”

“At the exact time your co-worker was in the suit, a program or something changed the calibrations ever so slightly. But, with the extremes in temperature and pressure, the result was Campbell’s Chunky professor.”

“Please captain, a little respect.”

“Respect? Like fake gagging and pretend dreams you tell a shrink?”

“Look, captain…”

“Pressure? Try this on for size Johnny English. You are going to get the young gun as an assistant. You could have gotten along with a guy you came up in the trenches with, but the new breed will see new things and have the tech to do the new things. Pretty soon they will be the favorites of Dr. Wang, and you will the be the new soup.”

“No one understands the vents and what we can do like me.”

“Pressure, Dr. Tier. Every day my tech guy is working and the computer will backtrack. If you fuck up once, then the pressure is on. For now, I leave this case open because I think you or someone you hired pulled your co-workers plug. So I am not putting this down as a simple accident. We can’t prove it yet, but something will give under so much pressure.”

The professor stares out from the pod.

“I’ll see myself out Tier. Thanks for the interview. I’ll leave my card on the seat.”

The professor continues to stare out from the pod. He leans forward to watch the policeman being escorted to the door. He was right; the pressure is giving him a terrible headache.

The captain makes his way back to the snack bar to get another cup of coffee. After he drinks it he will make arrangements to get himself to the surface. It reminds him of the ride at Disney. It was a hybrid of Captain Nemo and The Little Mermaid. You don’t see shit but black ocean for the most part on this ride though. It would not have a long line, and it had no action on it to warrant a height requirement. The villain on the other hand, was not flamboyant enough for a movie, but a villain all the same.

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howie good.

Blue Orange Evening By: Howie Good

The elderly lady posing with an exuberant cactus said she could hear the snatches of doo-wop running through my head. I nodded as if I believed her. Meanwhile, the young parents were working frantically to collect the baby teeth scattered up and down the street. I watched with something like pity, but kept my hands hidden behind my back, well aware that once upon a time I might have felt the urge to help. It was a beautiful evening nonetheless, a kingdom of blue shadows and orangetinted smoke, where gray buildings collapsed with a sigh and then slowly rebuilt themselves, only to collapse again.

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rodd whelpley.

Minutes of the Last Meeting By: Rodd Whelpley

Don’t take serious the man whose fat tie falls well above his navel, blatant proof he cannot figure out the thing’s supposed to be an arrow pointing at his cock.

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riley vuyovich.

Spit Cups

By: Riley Vuyovich I keep a Canada Dry can on my bedside to spit mucus in when i sleep one in my left hand for when im walking one in my right for when im sitting three turned into four and now i have seven total I’m keeping them so i dont forget my emotions at any slight sentiment my phlegm shocks its own cells electric shifts to plasma and i spit i am a mucus professional not a poet expert boogeyman i annoint thee with sneezes when my father told my baby sister he couldn’t remember the last time our mother sucked his dick yellow mucus hissed around my teeth seeped into the lower half of my heart through the smoke holes in my throat crystalized into piss and I spit

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riley vuyovich (con’t).

when I found out what real sex was supposed to feel like that it was more than staring at the moth on the wall through bouncing eyes, behind my laxed lips simmered pink lava we matched grace i called it Svadhisthana java and I spit and that one time stood up and looked you in the eyes with carpet scars on my face undermining my seriousness and I told you I looked deep inside myself and found nothing there at all, I swallowed

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christie-luke jones.

Mind Rot

By: Christie-Luke Jones An omniscient curse has stalked me this turbulent decade, Dripped gastric acid into the cosmic scales and forever tipped the balance out of my favour.

Gnarled limbs have thrown me into the abyss, thrust the drill into my gut and made me an invalid.

An unblinking red mass, I lunge from pane to pane in a frenzied, perspiring panic.

This amorphous malice, this scheming villain of a thousand different guises; It bleaches my skin, bloats my stomach and rubs glass into my exposed nerve endings.

Like Gray, I dissolve solitary into invisible monstrousness.

And when in fitful death I thrash naked upon vast granite slabs, Titan cliffs will beckon me into the godless fathoms of swirling carbon monoxide and piercing solar flares beneath.

Stay and feast, unfortunate wreck. Wash up a sad, expired slob atop a mass of fetid waste.

Anything but the raw, puffy lids, throbbing temples and shredded corneas.

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jd dehart.

The Crypt Self By: JD DeHart

Underneath me is the structure of my own bones that hold me together, Underneath me is the system of my own skin that acts like a sleeve, Behind these eyes are a thousand useless facts, most of them about superheros and few of them about automobiles It’s a nice living, I suppose, if you need to know a secret identity or if you can stop thinking about your own limitations.

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a.g. price.

Big Red Button By: A.G. Price

I got a big red button Right in the middle of my chest I got a big red button Don’t take much to push it Respect issues Employment issues Economic inequity issues Healthcare access issues Political disenfranchisement issues Social and cultural alienation issues Daddy issues Mommy issues Hey motherfucker Watch where you’re going issues I got a big red button Watch out Don’t take much at all Welcome to the new economy Welcome to the new normal I got a big red button Be advised Always on the short list Never in the door Second class citizen In a world no longer mine I got a big red detonator Right in the middle of my chest One day I’m gonna push it for real

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r.t ve se um lb

ta es at re

0g 50

www.ta lb o t - h ei n d l . c o m r.c bl um om “Dancing Girls in Colourful Rays” Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

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raj dronamraju.

Joan of Arc Killed By Drones

By: Raj Dronamraju

Joan of Arc was known Most importantly, Joan of Arc was known They knew her from hand-to-hand combat They knew her as a legend as much as a person They knew her as one who communed with God If Joan of Arc lived now, all that would be known is the location of her next safe-house An unflattering black and white photograph shown on CNN A crudely filmed video of Joan of Arc disseminating her message Full of threats and ultimatums In her time, she died with great drama Burnt at the stake as a matter of public record They’ll praise her mission and make a saint out of a dead warrior In this time, Joan of Arc is coordinates Sold out by a compatriot and targeted by computers and predator drones A distant flash and she, along with those in proximity to her regardless of whether or not they are guilty of anything, die in anonymity

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adam andreasen.

Leaving on a Jet Plane Adam Andreasen Ink and colored pencil on paper

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bz niditch.

Love a Poet

By: BZ Niditch

On a graffiti wall, 2000 by the city’s shelter near the sea board canal after a day passed me by taking this scrawled message as a sign and high water mark for that day’s urban read resolving not to think about it as any poet is burnished by his rubbed out eyes and runaway desire to forget all burnt out old relationships and affairs which like dear John or Joan sent burrs on a bitter fruit with a mushroom candy always seasonally resurface like a bad nightmare evinces my memory by evocative flash-points on my motor scooter and wouldn’t you know, Budd with is endless love conquest reports sees me and waves

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bz niditch (con’t).

near my anchored kayak wounded by hurricane storms after his seagoing eyes make out with intimations of adventure in gestures in his black magical and anti verse lines saying in sexist fashion, with his strong arm humor in his patriot football jacket, “There are more fish in the sea” yet he graciously offers to help me with the chains on my boat by the edge of the dock in this breakable noon low tide and treats me to a lobster roll in the local restaurant where he waits on tables and gets his love sick dates from the weekend tourists by the town’s lighthouse.

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dr. mel wadlman.

Outsider in the Rain

& the mutilated limbs of morning — a flood of fragmentation & blurry perceptions.

By: Dr. Mel Waldman

It pierced my brain & swirled around my fractured self, &

(inspired by James Baldwin’s untitled poem about the rain)

Alone, in private space, I scurry along Kings Highway, take the B train to West 4th Street, step off the icy train & into the seething subway heat; I ride the creeping, crawling escalator & clamber up the burning stairs out into the dying sun & the sprawling Village, before the storm on a dog day afternoon.

Outside, I look up at the Heavens.

The rain’s coming, my mind reveals.

It came early in the sultry night that passed away, & merged with the first light

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out there — beyond the boundaries of my flesh — a ferocious frenzied rain pounded the earth.

It came early & rushed furiously through the veins of the hot & humid morning, but stopped suddenly. & now, the rain’s coming again, my mind cries out, it’s coming forth within the whirling kaleidoscope the chaos of dazzling & divided the flooded fugitive self cascading & pouring out of the broken sky of my punctured mind & the wounded firmament above the Village — sweet phantasmagoric Greenwich Village.

dr. mel waldman (con’t).

I feel the rain & know it’s coming — the omnipotent rain will soon arrive with blinding fury & so I saunter off, along the Avenue of the Americas, an outsider rushing slowly to a rendezvous with myself, looking inward & out at an alien world, & on my inner journey to the center of my unfathomable being in search of the omphalos, the sacred stone within & without, the rain begins to fall, lightly & innocuously, a few dazzling drops in the fading sunlight cascading down my face, caressing my olive skin, &

I swallow the glittering rain until the sky darkens & the gentle rain transmogrifies into a ferocious downpour a monstrous flood the glorious power of the Lord & I meander around the Village; I stagger through the bestial rain, a human dot in the divine universe drenched in doubt & despair & still I breathe celestial awe & opalescent beauty as I stumble through the storm, blinded by the merciless rain & the light that cuts through the darkness

gazing upward with open mouth

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donors, index. artists Andreasen, Adam

7, 31

Bardookie, Roo

18-21

Buckles, Sissy

15-16

Day, Holly

4

DeHart, JD

27

Jones, Christie-Luke Kent, Aaron Marvin, Louis

Dronamraju, Raj

30

Mercado, Riana

Good, Howie

22

Middleton-Watts, Adam

Jeddeloh, Katie

10-11

Moran, Sarah Frances Niditch, BZ O’Keefe, Rob

26 5 18-21

Ojanpera, Lisa

8

40

Paley, Tommy

12-13

6 14

Price, A.G. Smoky Lake Maple Products

cover

Vuyovich, Riley

24-25

Waldman, Dr. Mel

34-35

32-33 9

28

Whelpley, Rodd

we love our donors!

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We love our donors, and to prove it, we’re going to let you know who they are. Without their generosity, the Bitchin’ Kitsch would probably not make it through the year. If you would like to become a donor and see your name here, email chris@talbot-heindl.com and make your pledge. acquaintences of the bitchin’ kitsch ($1-10) - Colin Bares, Casey Bernardo, Teri Edlebeck, Stephanie Jones, Eric Krszjzaniek, Dana Lawson, Jason Loeffler, Justin Olszewski friends of the bitchin’ kitsch ($11-50) - Charles Richard, Kenneth Spalding, Tallulah West lovers of the bitchin’ kitsch ($51-100) - Scott Cook, Keith Talbot partners of the bitchin’ kitsch ($101-1,000) - Felix Gardner, Jan Haskell parents of the bitchin’ kitsch ($1,001-10,000) - none yet, become a parent! demi-gods of the bitchin’ kitsch ($10,001 & up) - The Talbot-Heindl’s

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Surprise Riana Mercado Graphite on paper