Fade Into You By Matt McGuire The stars trailed off behind us as we blazed through the cool desert night in my old convertible the summer before you died. We rushed towards the silver black horizon holding hands and trying not to look at each other. I was taking you away from nothing, really. We were headed towards nothing and running from nothing into a future of nothingness that didn’t matter anymore because we had three months, tops. The doctor whose name I can’t remember told you that you...

Henna By Matt McGuire I come from the cities of the plain Long tresses Blackest ebony eyelets Embers glowing softly The music of the night Nurturing and noir Saibaba sings somnolence The memory of my man keeps me whole while the Turkish tyrant reaves my soul for a rupee and a rose Rend my flesh for the butcher Leave my saffron remains for the carrion birds Foul flesh eaters Fur-lined gloves glaze garrulous and gabardine a peasant queen Saharan majesty and the flower of his eye no more I say n...

Gethsemane Tears of blood tear the mantle of the hours spent in limbo Sensuous temple slave saints linger in the halls of Diana singing hymns of my pain Punish me slowly as a Son Sacramental gall witch wine dulls the soul’s thin ghastly virtue Eyes foreign to the blind deaf and dumb bones Pyre blazes upon the cooling deathdark sands The pale glimmer of twilight torment Dead Sea alive with torches Holy seafarers tarry The conjurers of fate and fear Iberian gaol ghosts and succubi slumber Scarl...

Gethsemane Tears of blood tear The mantle of the hours Spent in limbo Sensuous Temple slave saints linger in the Halls of Diana savoring My pain Punish me slowly As a Son Sacramental gall Witch wine Dulls the soul’s thin ghastly Virtue Eyes foreign to the blind Deaf and dumb Bones Pyre blazes upon the cooling deathdark sands The pale glimmer of twilight Torment Dead Sea alive with torches Holy seafarers tarry The conjurers of fate and Fear Iberian gaol ghosts and succubi The slumber Of my com...

Two For the Road We took off that summer, two latter-day saints hell bent for ladder bars on bad trucker speed for the end of the road that ran cross-country to the left coast and through nothing but brush, bastards and beltways. We were getting away from our deadpan lives and our dead end jobs at the Circle K. Wherever we went, there we were, but where we were was getting us nowhere so somewhere else sounded better than there. I was popping two pearly white gravestones an hour and you were h...

Dolly This is my dream. Don't get excited. Red Charles of the Ritz lipstick looks lovely with a black eye. And a busted lip. My name is Dolly. Dolly Divine. My cigarette tastes like blood and candy and I’m coming down off that cheap cocaine that the jake ass in the next room fed me to get in my pants. Haha. He don’t know that I have his wallet stashed in my pretty pink panties and no time to waste with 50 year old, small change used car salesmen who can’t get it up unless they’re beatin’ on a...

Dolly Red Charles of the Ritz lipstick looks lovely with a black eye. And a busted lip. My name is Dolly. Dolly Divine. My cigarette tastes like blood and candy and I’m coming down off that cheap cocaine that the jake ass in the next room fed me to get in my pants. Haha. He don’t know that I have his wallet stashed in my pretty pink panties and no time to waste with 50 year old, small change used car salesmen who can’t get it up unless they’re beatin’ on a woman and cheating on their wives wi...

A Curse For This Town “5 seconds. I’ll give you five goddamn seconds to put that knife away before I blow your fucking face out the back of your head.” It was a hot, blustery August afternoon and the hashish smoke hung heavy (redolent also with the burnt tin, plastic and ammonia smell of the meth amphetamine that the stuff was laced with) in the thick air of Jade’s two-bedroom dive at the top of Hill Street. I had just finished off the last of her Vietnamese hot sauce with a long, liverish dr...

Dolly By Matt McGuire This is my dream. Don't get excited. Red Charles of the Ritz looks lovely with a black eye. And a busted lip. My name is Dolly. Dolly Divine. My cigarette tastes like blood and candy and I’m coming down off that cheap cocaine that the jackass in the next room fed me to get in my pants. Haha. He don’t know that I have his wallet stashed in my pretty pink panties and no time to waste with 50 year old, small-dicked used car salesmen who can’t get it up unless they’re beatin...

Santiago De Compostela By Matt McGuire Dark obelisk setting Sun she waits by the gates Of morning mourning for the Crusaders lost in dreams Dust and djinn Lust and barren loins A sundered sea of sin The right knows not the left The helm of salvation is cleft Legendary lives and loose tongues Scarlet crossed white warhorses Salt of the untilled soil Deeds undone in quatrefoil Hammers sing and death still stings Sacrosanct signet ring kisses Scimitar’s swing a deadly thing But a guided lie neve...