Peter Magliocco writes from Las Vegas, Nevada, where he’s been active in the small press for several years as editor, writer, and artist. He has recent poetry in The Literary Yard, Pulp Poets Press, The Pangolin Review, Harbinger Asylum, and has been nominated several times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net in poetry. His latest poetry book is Go to the Pain Lovers from Duck Lake Books.

Poem Inside a Poem

The keen moment of undeniability
in the raven sun of being
cascaded across the throw rug
embroidered by my missing hand
I will write these lines with.
The divine is not in me tonight
as I scour the city
for vulgar escapisms, bloated
by enough illusions to cripple
myths of my middle-age.
Carousing, I’ll yet banish memories
of all the bad jobs I’ve had:
how I screwed-up carelessly
serving ice cream at Thrifty’s
(my hands, so bacteria-laden).
The aging phantasm still arises,
now plaguing me with neuro-pricks
& senility’s creeping onslaught,
cutting me no slack in neon sunsets.
I turn inside/out, a reversible jacket
of sorts, seeing my life flip-flop
into an upside-down book
of nothing but run-on sentences
stumbling down the pages,
just another censorious scribbler
 
& pot-boiler
In the “typo”
flesh

Yesterday with the Cam Goddess at Starbucks

The extant muse climbs the tightrope
of yearning, falling fast
into an abyss of desire
 
(where I wait
Limbic,
to catch her)
 
before the gameboy Mars rover does,
signifying dream-shadows we awake
to prosaic wan mornings together
as street cleaners purge streets
ravaged by the nightly detritus
 
spawned by nature’s timeless discontent;
nothing interrupts the wankers
parading into Starbucks for java,
while on your smartphone you plan
the day’s detailed event-agenda
 
dressed in your retro-90s winter wear
(& listening to radio mind-warp)
you dread going into work,
preferring the occupation of idleness
where there’s little pay to speak of
 
& retirement unmarred by nightmares
of natural or unnatural forces
interfering with a plenitude
of infinitesimal micro-pleasures
of flesh peeling away soft layers
in the cheap porn theater
of your being
 
where the digital politicos chuckle
waving rubbers like placards
trying to sexually redress your body politic
you decry the serial killer shooters
                                                                                   
 
 
performing public euthanasia nightly
in nooks of midland Americana.
 
I explain how another woman left me
(countless years, & years, ago:) but of course
your ear of sympathetic listening goes
with the swiftness of migrant refugees
or the crows outside, winging dully away.
 
“There must be some way out of here,”
croons the legendary rock star
over the store’s invasive speakers
with their static-ridden white noise
of sound & same-old discontent taking you
& myself, the homeless derelict, reaching up
for your cyber vision with stigmatic hands