The October Selected Poet is Robert Veveridge

Please feel free to email Robert at: xterminal@gmail.com

HORROR

you pierce my
hand as I take
another drink
I can’t get away
from you

My cortex changed
but my medulla didn’t
blood flows into rum
but it would hurt so
to pull out a fountain pen

FAIL, WITHDRAW

The Procession of the Meathooks
draws the rats, the cockroaches,
the homeless. Even the dwellers
in penthouse apartments all wrap
themselves, come out their doors
for perhaps the first time this year.
Splashclank of oiled metal
on asphalt twelve times a minute,
sun through cloudless sky
oppressive against black shawls,
mesh masks. A stray cat looks
up from the gutter, haggard,
meows. A young girl frees her hand
from her clothing, reaches down
to pet it, is snatched
by the closest meathook, razored
into strips. The procession continues.

AIN’T NO FALAFEL IN THE WELL, MY FRIEND

Remember the time we used
the Bigfoot myth to get a gross
of landlords out to the motor
lodge so we could knock them
off one by one and have those
wonderful buffets? The larder’s
looking kind of thin and there’s
a motion to overturn rent control.
Fire up the RV, Bertha, I hear
the mating call of the yeti.

LEAVE YOUR MARK

the lips
of the needle
caress her skin
like the lazy
raindrops
of my lips
last year

the world
grinds
to a white halt
through her
blurred vision

she thinks
she’ll live forever
and maybe
when she’s dead
she’ll be right

Robert Beveridge (he/him) makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry in Akron, Ohio. He has had recent/upcoming appearances in Red Coyote Review, Deep South Magazine, and Aromatica Poetica, among others.