the

b’kbitchin’ kitsch

7Vol. 4Iss. Apr. 2016

Lydia Armstrong 20Roo Bardookie 4Matt Borczon 13Jen Breen 12Cristin Dora 24Gregg Dotoli 27Rachel Geraci 6-8Paul Hiatt 14Cattail Jester 28Maia Johnson 15Jihane Mossalim 5Keith Moul 10Ben Nardolilli 3Marianic Parra 23Jeri Peterson 30James Prenatt 17Sy Roth 11Seth Ruderman 16Wayne Russell 26Nathan Alan Schwartz 9Sanjeev Sethi 22B R Stafford 21Dr. Mel Waldman 18-19Eliza Weatherby 25

THE TALENT

Cover: “Drips” by Emily Rose Schanowski.

3

BEN NARDoLILLI | Violation RepoRt | PoETRy

Who fell into here? Is this who we have to choose from? This is no grand jury. Just a chorus.You, Judge, you’re the ringleader of this set. What a massive ballot boxthey compile together. Eyeballs and blackballs. Over here the defendant has too muchloneliness. Shall I perform all kinds of impressions of happy little trees?

My cornucopia is too old for this. Could we do this on a Saturday? I’m debating takinga happy father’s day off. I don’t empower anybody unless they can identifythe gunman. Google is honoring the wrong conceptual horse.Fixing to be a broken night. This is the obtaining of property from a sovereign citizen.

I never got the gun. That was a dream song. I was trying to boost military morale with a Woody Allen monologue. I’m surprised any of you even know what guilt is. We’re so far from Hannah Arendt now. We’re completely sober too. Tonight’s plansto be naked, fatbellied, and smelling of ash will have to wait by the curb for pickup.

Chorus, make up your minds. Did I conspire, confederate, or combine to obtain,withhold, take, or hold? Did I do it to forge a writing, to wit: a check with full prejudice towardsthe rights willingly failing to appear? I’m worried you’re missing the big one.Fraudulent use of a third person to utter or attempt to employ a true possession of a schedule.

Roo BARDooKIE | pajama man | PRoSE

hey man, want to see a real man that has come to the conclusion that a real entity is haunting his small home? hey, do you want to see the face of a man that knows just outside his door, stands something that will turn his heart to jelly, with fire out his right brain, and overload the left

hey man, want to see a man that can’t decide if he has gone insane, or the ghost is just playing cat and mouse with him?

look no further, because the knob is turning, real or imagined, he is haunted

he is a man who lives in pajamas for a week at a time, until he smells their ripe odor

the neighbors wonder why he only hangs pajamas on the clothes line

now you know

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JIHANE MoSSALIM

JIHANE MoSSALIM | some light | DRAWING

RACHEL GERACI | say something | PoETRy

Please,Say something to me.I need to hear a ring.I can’t bear to see one.I’ve started to believe your lies,That the ruler of this universeIs complete in cruelty.But to digest this dream of you—I have had too many problems withUnderstatements. I am beneath you.I sorely wish I was underneath you. Below.Bellow. A nasty sound from the mouthsOf forgotten disciples. The ones you turned.(Away. Away.)The girls with pearly skeletons as their presentAnd future.You beat them to a fruitless pulp,Shoved out to a broken, half-hanged door,Out of your dishonorable,Personal closet.Privacy is a must. Technology must pay the price.This is Sodom. This is the South.What was your aunt’s floral name again?And does you mother understand suffering?She doesn’t. She’s dead.You are no freer than your brother,Who spends many evenings a-dazzled,Sincerely secretive Saturday nights,Sneaking away just before dusk hits,By and by, a few dozen brightly painted,Plastered.Queer.There were about as many ‘maresAs the days that have since gone by.And to somehow believe in you—Who could ever be so quick to denySuch comfort, such solace? Warmth.To feel warmly about those who gravitate.Radiate. Ah, debauchery.I have disassembled your aged body in my

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CoNTINuES

Sick, senseless mind. The rabbit hole.Insanity. I have examined eachOf your many definitions. Closely.Closer.You’re an expert on the subject.And there, I have objectified youAs you have made an intolerable issueOf my delicate experience. With you.And what about you?The ruched, rosy bits and creamy, freckled skin.A once cancerous legion in the left-wing.Tell me now, how does it feel to win?I could not tolerate it. I am livid about it.Those flaking, parched judgments,The lack of iridescent, silver linings,Boundaries, conviction, decisiveness—Was there ever a piece of me broken off?A piece of valuable commiseration?Here is your consolation prize:Knowing intimately of an eternal disguise.Was there a piece of you thatWas made up entirely of only me?I cannot possibly be the only one capable Of understanding what it truly meansTo feel so broken, miserably,Crumbling into consumables.Maybe this the height of all I amounted to,In your eyes.Eyes of rime.The eyes to end all of time.A beacon of pure pleasure, And witty, calculated enjoyment—To rub off onto your labia until you’re free!That sickening, succoring, dangerous want,Ecstasy that instructs your soul,Rapture transforms you into a predator.A cougar, they may start to say—in defense,

RACHEL GERACI | say something

But push it away and find the spots. Pursue me.Maybe I was underneath, all along. A sure, subtle sleep.Tomorrow, you’ll wake up renewed,And you won’t be broken anymore.You won’t feel the impulse to write again.You won’t feel the desire to make amends.This will be the last sobbing, sullen lullabyWith her rosy, beaming face branded on it.

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An abundance of jet fueled hate is mounted on walls of respectable caring homes like moose heads

&

hanging garden fists punch holes in broken homes &

anger plays devil’s advocate asking the questions no one will or wants to ask & heaps of greasy days go by slipping so easily into juvenile hands & eyes are easily punctured when swords are coming out through tongues on concrete ears

&

a frail trench coat can only defend so much against harsh winter words that bang against doors & launch missiles through glass

&

It’s all so simple when setting bomb fires in hearts

of microwave love.

through crusty pizza boxes and Budweiser cansmicrowave love

NATHAN ALAN SCHWARTz | BomB FiRes | PoETRy

KEITH MouL | BelligeRent action | PoETRy

Had sun shone on the fateful day, much would have been the same,beyond peace keeper’s control, but more people would check orchardsbursting with early regional fruits, spring rivers plunging to the valleys.Not everyone saw, and few believed, the newspaper reporting of a war.

True to say, but aggressive war begins best in summer as commandersconsider convenience of attacking troops and temporary shock amongthose peoples targeted for destruction. Later, these will be “good times,”long days advancing without much resistance, lightning war, wildfiresof panic as the fifty millimeter leaves total separation in its bloody wake.

At headquarters, commanders scrutinize intelligence, offer calm assurance.Armed forces always train to expert readiness. Rapid deployment, much asminutemen with muskets, instant mobilization relieves the worried citizensof doubts regarding immediate total tactical invasion by land, air, or irony.

Militias not well-regulated retaliate by skirmishing along impromptu lines.News arrives, is immediately touted from the capital. Citing provocationand insolence among the people, the land army attacks on multiple fronts.

By a shivered wall a soldier stands hunched over, his eyes icy like yellow tile.The wall itself has erupted mortar, tips, and finally yields to early corruption.

What possessed supporters to lend their wills to misadventure? So ardently?To win this victory over neighbors who for centuries sang drinking songs,woke up to labor in the fields, fish the streams, fix a clock, love their wives?

Beyond the wall, now powder, a teeter-totter hoists two children into smoke.One brandishes a wooden sword, the other a toy rifle equipped with real bolt,and they rise and fall and rise and fall, rise and fall as on a fiery white steed:from ground atop the smoke to see the battle unfold in all the ruined acres.

Policies may change as leadership changes. Policing commences an occupancy.Streets now broil with distrust. The old are worse for change; the young rearm.

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So slow the rainsInk my windowAn ancient misblown glass.TheyDistort the cars.In their ambling, shuffling meanderingsMisshapen dogs drag their ownersClutching plastic bags filled with their shit.

FlashThey gurgle by.

So slow,Creeping inches of time,Microseconds of timeFull-fledged invasion of cellsRapid mitosisTimed to implode—

Explode.In Krakatoa rains—

Bulbous explosionTo splash the skiesWhen the no more comes.Malformed ideas less intactwither in the delugeAnd the swinging bags of shitTossed in cans, overflow inA Mauna Loa of lava.

Threatens toSmother existence —And the rains creepAlong the slippery glassAll smudgedWith icy, crystalline precision.

ObservedDrowning in a vale of tears.

Sy RoTH | so slow the Rains | PoETRy

JEN BREEN | tRaFFic | FICTIoN

I thought you were a girl Dean jumping from the pages of “On the Road.” I didn’t understand what the stories meant until the night I saw you selling yourself on South Street in a white Marilyn Monroe dress, spike heels. You always wear white when you’re bad.

You acted like I embarrassed you—to drive me off. Like we were 14 and I wouldn’t know. Too many summers had passed to still see that hazy curtain of what we want to believe. Your laugh blended with the tired horns and thumping radios suspended in traffic as you sunk into the sidewalk and the adventures melted into dog-eared postcards.

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everyoneasked meif Iplanned toget atattoo as aremembranceof thewar noI saybut Iwill tattooanythingyou likeif itwill helpme forgetthe warbut whatabout thenames ofthe soldiersyou workedon who diedthey askthere isnot enoughroom onmy bodybesidesI neverlearned theirnames onlytheir facesand wherewe senttheir bodiesto.

MATT BoRCzoN | tattoo 4 | PoETRy

PAuL HIATT | the hat speaks | PoETRy

i am a hat riding on a man’s headspeeding on the 5am Lhe has a shapely skull that gives off a steady heati can smell the perfume of his shampoofeel the blood throbbing through his brainalmost in rhythm with the smacking tracksthe riders are silentbug eyed with caffeineor dead looking, with moldy bread eyesand worn faces, above too big coats, dull brained statistical averages, lurching towards cubicles

the poor bastards, sad like dead men’s shoes draped on a wirejust hanging, tied and going nowhere they meant to gogoing and going and going where they believe they mustthe same, endless, formless gray, until the strings rot away and the sodden things fall, unnoticed

being a hat ain’t so badyou get left alone most of the timemisplaced, left somewhere quiet, out of the wayi keep my shape most days, and that’s enough

he straightens me again and again, not used to being hattedi catch him checking his reflection in the black windowhe clears his throat, buttons his coat

it’s going to be hell outsidethe wind will have teeththe snow is massing, a system is forming off the lakei can feel it in my woolall i can hope for is that he’s smart enough to walk into the windat an anglethat he keeps hold of me around cornersand doesn’t let go

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MAIA JoHNSoN

MAIA JoHNSoN | Untitled | PHoToGRAPH

SETH RuDERMAN | tReadmill waRRioR | PoETRy

The race began in a Weight Watchers classfifty pounds and ten pairs of jeans agowhere he vowed to ditch the baby weight he’d gained eating his way through his wife’s pregnancy only to give birth to elastic waistbands in his wardrobe.

The race continued at 6AMevery morningone step, one pound at a timenext to the regularsand irregularswho cared to race him in place.

80s punk and 90s rap set the pacewhile he turned it up,brought the noise clamped down and stared ahead at the cinderblock wallmile after milein front of his facethat Chuck D and Joe Strummerurged him to run through.

Baby weight gonehe continued downthe neverending roadadjusting speed and inclinewaiting for the oscillating fan in the cornerto provide the wind at his backso he could finish ahead of the lululemon momto his leftwith the baby at home.

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You try to find the words, but when the blank page greets you,you realize parenthood is not a character in a noveland children aren’t first drafts.

You thought paying the billsand keeping her at homewould make you a bigger man, but that just made you hate yourself morefor ending up like your dad.

You wanted the Family American.The formula for happiness: a house five miles from where you were born, a BBQ wedding and high school-friends reception, 24/7 mom career, and a nights and weekends daddy deal. That lifetime contract was torn up sooner than it was signed.

That kind of life is too much to handle.That kind of love is too much to handle.

You lock those thoughts in the closet, baby and all. Marriage becomes a broken baseball game. You strike, they run.That minor league batting average is buried under major league dreams along with your insecurity, a pile of put-off billsand the part of you that lacked the big time gutsto hold her hand in the hospital gown.

It’s a boy. It’s mine. It’s yours. Ours.

That other thought is locked in the closet with her, too, in tears:You’re her everything and you’ll hate me someday.

JAMES PRENATT | Family ameRican | PoETRy

DR. MEL WALDMAN | a BRooklyn metamoRphosis at lily poind while sitting

with the Beat poets | PoETRy

(on reading Gregory Corso’s excerpt from the poem Transformation & Escape)

The first snow of winter flows & falls inside the ominous darkness&

I disappear down a black spiral staircase in the House of Dreams

intothe black hole of yesterday yearning for the chimerical Kingdom of Heaven

&the first snow of winter flows & falls & I return to Lily Pond,

smellthe scent of luscious zephyrs floating above the glittering waters,

&taste a succulent calm, the juicy flower of creation

&the lovely flow of opalescence at Lily Pond

&I return.Here, in this Heaven on earth, a place of sweet serenity,

I ride celestial waves while gazing at the soothing sensuous swirls

&my brainwaves caress the stillness of Lily Pond

onthe Brooklyn College campus, circa Summer 1962,

herein the quiet Before-Life

&I am.

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&in a fantastic metamorphosis nestled in an eternal moment

Igrow an angel’s golden wings and a mammoth halo

&I am happy

&I summon the Beat Poets for they are beaten & battered & in need of joy

&I sit with Ginsberg & Ferlinghetti while Anne Waldman strolls around Lily Pond

& we listen to Gregory Corso recite a silly funny crazy beautiful poem about Heaven

&Ferlinghetti whispers The World is a Beautiful Place again and again

&Ginsberg & Waldman wear Buddhist grins

&we are one with Lily Pond

LyDIA ARMSTRoNG | the 4th waR | PoETRy

Mr. Hare has a face like a jack o’lantern,Everything hangs.He walks like he just got off a horse.Wears a cap that says he earned itEmblazoned with military insignia,Mr. Hare served in three wars.He says he doesn’t belong here,He’s got a wraparound porch back homeAnd his own goddamn medicineAnd it comes in a glass bottle.In the dining room I say, what do you want for lunch todayAnd Mr. Hare says, my freedomAnd I say, what do you want that I can get you,And he orders a hamburger.He grumbles something that sounds likeindigestionBut when I remember the mustard,His hanging jowls lift.He croaks a rare thank you and leaves mostof the burger uneaten andSmeared yellow on his plate.Tomorrow he will refuse to eat and will sitin the lobby until he shits himselfAnd the nurses will draw straws for cleanupduty.The loser will say, come on Mr. Hare,Let’s get you changed,And Mr. Hare will spit on the floor and sitstinking,Waging his fourth war on age.

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B R STAFFoRD | coFFee tooth demands tRiBUte | PoETRy

Coffee Tooth leans in, Grabs attention.

Lower left-and-center, lodged between upright whites,The Ugly One cool kids use as camouflage,ground unevenly and jauntily canted just so, offers no apologies.

Cocky, that Coffee Tooth.

Persian flaw.Unselfconscious scoff-law.Hell yes, Coffee Tooth!Libation forthcoming.

SANJEEV SETHI | nostos | PoETRy

(1)Blindfold me in an alleyof your own.By your touch, by your truthsI will tell. It is you.

Sprinkle the spacewith our pillow talk.These tentacles will find me.

(2)Familiar sound.Safe scent.

Familiar belchKnown breath.

Familiar groan.Same grunt.

I know…I’m home.

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MARIANIC PARRA

MARIANIC PARRA | silence UngUaRded declination i i | DRAWING

CRISTIN DoRA | demons, ash, and lightning Bolts oR the lack oF all thRee, at the end

oF the woRld | FICTIoN

“Bombs away,” the news anchor said last Sunday. Commercial media always finds a way to sensationalize even at the end of the world. Just a week ago, I lazily sat on my couch, boxers and beer, watching broadcast television. I never knew how much could change in seven short days.

Most places in the world have been boarded up, save for the coastal town I have lived in ever since I can remember. All of my old neighbors forgot to do the boarding when they fled hurriedly into hiding in order to save themselves and their loved ones. Evidently, they did not have a working knowledge of how Armageddon worked. This place looks exactly the same except now there isn’t a single other being. All the while I walk along the beach, smelling salty air and listening to the crush of the waves. I have been given the gift of time to finally enjoy life as humanity nears the end.

What does the end mean anyway? Another day gone, just like before in the life I had known.

I always thought that when this day came, there would be a blinding flash and everything I had known would turn black and cease to exist, but that has yet to happen. At least absolute chaos would have given my fellow humans some kind of satisfaction. The ground would have opened up and swallowed my species. Lightning bolts would rain down from the sky to strike down people. These would of course cause fires to erupt all over the damn place. When one would cease to ash, ten more would start in its place. Also, demons would be eating people because the bible said so.

However, the sky is becoming increasingly gray. Maybe all that death and mayhem is happening somewhere in the world as it always has. The earth becomes more silent with every day of waiting and all I can really do is wait for myself to quit existing. There’s a lack of anything better to do in the world at the moment.

So it was then that I found some more time to sit in the sand thinking that all that praying I was told to do for my salvation when I was little actually worked. I guess I prayed better than anyone else. Or maybe the Devil never knew my home existed. The irony I feel for all my neighbors who left in a panic.

Back on the boardwalk, I open a can of beer and pull an old lawn chair to the very edge of the pier. I chug the can quickly. Empty, I drop it into the ocean. Bombs away.

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ELIzA WEATHERBy | oUR loVe is Rose gold | PoETRy

Our love is rose goldfashionable, flawlessmultitouch surfacesover lithium ionlightning charged bonestwo ten trillion terabyteflash memory soulsit’s twenty million megapixelsthrough mayfair, lux, valencia filtersorientation and proximity sensorshigh res, backlitsatellite guided, voice controlledour love is advertisedand contract freeno payment upfrontessential, tradeablereplaceable, nonupgradeablebuilt to be breakableand outdateable and obsoleteby 6 AM tomorrow.

WAyNE RuSSELL | apocalypse aFteR sUndown | PoETRy

Stumbling on uneven sidewalks after apocalypse dances upon graffiti tombstones’, undeterred by the homeless fighting over their last can of beer and the lackluster silver dollar found in urine stained gutters of this mad city at night fall.

Naked moon beams cast her blood thirsty banter into lifeless pubs where downtrodden barflies’ slowly nurse watered down drinks like they are newborn’s suckling from the soul of Dionysus himself.

Somewhere in the distance a dog howls of loneliness, the sharp pangs of hunger that probably erodes its belly, shall ring in my ears for days.

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GREGG DoToLI | appRoach | PoETRy

Relearn the approach toward wordLike the bread-handed child coaxing a BluejayFor the feather and blue close-upto satisfy his curious natureto get peace — closeto observe not cullThat child is pure in objectiveAnd sincere in goalBut becomes polluted and eco-alooftime shed innocenceinstills neglect towards naturelike humankind’s empty approach to changing weatheranimals and plants wordlessly weep Nero fiddled while Rome burnedand we look away as nature diesRelearn the approach toward wordget peace — close to word accept waning nature , man as viral polluterEarthThis is our circle, every point Words deny, nature never lies

CATTAIL JESTER | cadaVeR | PoETRy

I am undressed in front of the crowd,but I am not doing the undressing. Latea few nights ago, the world closed in,pop it went, like the weasel. Now, I ambestowed the gift of visits, steady, busyhands over me, working diligence. Theymake me more beautiful than I was inlife, a splayed bloom. I am suddenlyembarrassed to be so plain and nakedin front of the crowd. There is a beautifulredhead in the first row. I do not wanther to see my inner self, the contents ofmy stomach, the stretches of humanity.I acquiesce because I have no choice,and am wheeled away in my chagrin.

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HISToRy — THE B’K

The Bitchin’ Kitsch (2010-present) or The B’K is a compzine edited and published by The Talbot-Heindl Experience, LLC in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

The Bitchin’ Kitsch was created as a monthly zine for artists, poets, prose writers, or anyone else who had something to say. It was born out of a necessity to create an avenue for editor, Chris Talbot-Heindl, to remain artistic after school, with her subversive style, while continuing to live in Central Wisconsin.

It exists for the purpose of open creativity and seeks to be an outlet for people who may not otherwise have an opportunity to show their work.

Although the idea was created as a “what-if” brainstorm between the Talbot-Heindls’ whilst in bed and sort of groggy, it has since blossomed into a legitimate publication that has gone international Through the grace of the Internet, The B’K has had the opportunity to create a juried book and the opportunity to publish two juried chapbooks.

Here’s to the past five years, and hopefully many, many more.

JERI PETERSoN

JERI PETERSoN | BaRn head #2 | oIL oN CANVAS