Hallelujah, it's finally here! And what a fine issue it is. Thanks to all my contributors for your patience. It's my first year doing this and it turns out late December is not a great time for a project deadline : )
So, without further adieuz…it's The Octopus Review #3 --
…………….
…………………………………………………………………Matt Borczon
Cigarette
Once in
college an
art teacher
told me
the best
way to
stop ruining
my paintings
was to
walk away
often so
the coat
could dry
he said
it would
take about
the time
it takes
to smoke
a cigarette
at 19
this was
a new
way to
think about
time
in the
time it
takes to
smoke a
cigarette
paint dries
in the
time it
takes to
smoke a
cigarette
the first
girl I
ever loved
said what
are we
anyway but
two people
who fucked
a lot
in the
time it
takes to
smoke a
cigarette
a doctor
told my
father they
were taking
him off
chemo so
maybe he
could feel
good in
the weeks
he had
left
in the
time it
takes to
smoke a
cigarette
a stroke
killed Toni
while her
family attempted
CPR
in the
time it
takes to
smoke a
cigarette
my wife’s
heartbeat dropped
below safe
level during
childbirth
in the
time it
takes to
smoke a
cigarette
stars are
born and
die
in the
time it
takes to
smoke a
cigarette
flowers bloom
in the
desert
in the
time it
takes to
smoke a
cigarette
I met
my best
friend
in the
time it
takes to
smoke a
cigarette
Jesus turned
water into
wine
in the
time it
takes to
smoke a
cigarette
my daughter
walked for
the first
time into
my wife’s
outstretched
arms
but on
that day
in Afghanistan
when we
knew we
could not
save the
baby the
only survivor
when the
car hit
the IED
Doctors mixed
a cocktail
of chemicals
strong enough
to end
it’s life
in minutes
and gave
it through
an IV
but the
child held
on for
4 days
while we
watched helpless
counting the
minutes like
beads on
a rosary
waiting and
praying and
almost believing
we were
watching a
miracle happen
right in
the middle
of the
hospital
but in
the end
the war
won again
and the
child died
but it
took 4
days instead
of minutes
because time
is an
angry bitch
you can’t
measure
with cigarettes
or tears.
 |
| COLLAGE #1 by Matt Borczon |
The honest poem
wants me
to sit
in my
car all day
the honest poem
puts a
towel on
my head
after nightmares
the honest poem
reminds me
to spell
my name
with capital letters
the honest poem
puts 3
sugars
in my coffee
the honest poem
is better
than a
drink after work
the honest poem
reminds me
there is
life after war
the honest poem
is magic
and loss
grace and
Buddhist calm
it's salt
it's ash
it's bourbon
it's God
and the devil
it's a
strait flush
a strait
razor a
year sober
a serenity prayer
an hones poem
is a
promise
that there
is more
to life
than work
and pain
and burying
all our dead
Ron
was imitating
Sylvester Stallone
and making
everyone laugh
as he
pretended
to shoot
everyone
in the room
his eyes
were deep
black like
mineshafts
and there
was a
tiny line
of spit
at the
corner of
his mouth
that I
could
still see
the war
on his
face made
me worry
a lot
about both
of us.
Matthew Borczon is a poet and navy sailor from Erie, Pa. He publishes widely in the small press. He has published 6 books of poetry, the most recent The Smallest Coffins are the Heaviest was released through Epic Rites Press this year. He is the father of 4 kids and he works way too many hours to survive.
 |
| OMAR by Tony Egler |
***********************************************Ryan Quinn Flanagan
Gene Krupa on Drums
My father’s fingers would never stop going.
At the dinner table, against his knee, on the wall…
Drumming a tune that he would hum sometimes.
Always to himself.
I doubt he even knew he was doing it at all.
It was probably subconscious.
Maybe his father did it
and his father before him
and he just picked it
up.
Children do mimic their parents
from early on.
And my father kept doing this for years.
Gene Krupa on drums.
When I moved out some years later
and caught myself doing it,
I would admonish
myself.
My father was wrong about so many things.
He couldn’t be right about this.
I imagine when he is dead and in the ground
the worms will get a drum solo for the ages.
Brain activity continues after death.
My father’s fingers likely will
as well.
Fashion Week in Sinai
Come down from the mountain.
Your catwalk of ash and soot is waiting.
This cough is straight from the lungs.
Not tubercular, but determined.
When I clear my throat, the homeless
population is rounded up and lead off
into guitar solos no one can seem
to remember.
The hypnotist could help,
but he is kept under lock and key.
Groped all these women while
they were fluttering eyelids.
Come down from the mountain.
In something closed-toed if I were you.
No one likes sand between the toes.
Not even the sand.
Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, The Octopus Review, In Between Hangovers, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.
 |
| COLLAGE #2 by Matt Borczon |
*******************************************************Juliet Cook
Not a Member of Your Snake Handling Church Organ
I want someone to love the way I am now
rather than hear someone insinuate I used to be better
in the past. More balanceable, smaller, younger.
More willing to be surrounded by hissing snakes.
Those who will never stop hissing behind my back,
I want to move their extended tongues away from me
and my cluttered open space. I refuse to lock every piece of me
behind closed doors so they don't have to look or think
about the current me and can just keep on backtracking
to back when I was easier to control. That was the past.
They can choose to interpret themselves.
They can interpret me their own way too, but
they can't tone me down or tidy me up.
So what if I am the opposite
of their dream?
 |
| YARN CATS by Claire Vanessa Gray |
Inflamed
I clawed my neck across the carpeting again,
because that's what sometimes happens
when I have another unexpected seizure.
I end up with temporary memory issues
and wounds. A random bruise on one knee.
Rearranged books all over my own bedroom floor
with no recollection of why, when, or how.
A big messy tear in a new pair
of web net thigh highs that I bought
at a Halloween store a few weeks ago,
hadn't worn yet, hadn't even removed
from their package until I did so subconsciously
or semi-unconsciously or in the midst of a convulsion
or maybe they were just born that way.
The way things feel these days, it's probably my own fault
for having my seizure on my own floor in front of books
and thigh highs, as though I wasn't aware
that would give some men the wrong impression.
I mean, come on, what woman buys her own
legwear at Halloween stores unless
she's an evil fucking witch who deserves to burn?
Juliet Cook is a grotesque glitter witch medusa hybrid brimming with black, grey, silver, purple, and dark red explosions. Her poetry has appeared in a peculiar multitude of literary publications. You can find out more at www.JulietCook.weebly.com.
 |
| ANXIETY by Claire Vanessa Gray |
************************************************Sudeep Adhikari
mother internet
Mother internet; the new space-time
the all-pervasive matrix
of countless digitized raves,
the all-pervasive matrix
of countless digitized raves,
out of nowhere, once
told me; "On average, there are
178 sesame seeds on
each McDonalds BigMac bun".
told me; "On average, there are
178 sesame seeds on
each McDonalds BigMac bun".
I did not know what to do with
that mini-enlightenment. I felt like Jeff
Lebowski stranded in the middle
of a career fair.
that mini-enlightenment. I felt like Jeff
Lebowski stranded in the middle
of a career fair.
 |
| SELF PORTRAIT by Tony Egler |
hollywood goes to hell-ywood
Few weeks back I noticed my
friend from L.A marking herself
safe on facebook from
harvey weinstein, like one of those
hurricane or terror-attack thing.
And the next week, I saw blogosphere
OD'ing on "hashtag-me too" campaign
and it was painful to realize,
how many raptors are out there
with a dick, but no balls.
And this week, I met a douche
named hollywood at a party. I asked
him what he does. He said
"I make movies, but mostly inappropriate
sexual advances to women and kids".
Don't blame me for blowing
up an activism's balloon here. But we
need to detox ourselves a bit, if we really care.
Sudeep Adhikari is a structural engineer/Lecturer from Kathmandu, Nepal. His recent publications were with Beatnik Cowboys, Chiron Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Midnight Lane Boutique, Occulum, Silver Birch Press, Eunoia Review, Utt Poetry and Spilling Cocoa Over Martin Amis. His poetry volume, ‘The Art of Changing Nothing to Punk Gigs’ was released by Alien Buddha Press in July, 2017. He is currently working on his manuscript titled ‘zen of tripping zeroes’, scheduled to be published early 2018.
****************************************************Tim Anderson
BLUNT FORCE TRAUMA
It's said a child can't remember
he did
all of it
Darkness into light
Being bathed in a sink
First steps around the coffee table
Men who were not his father
kissing his mother
Screaming, clutching her skirt
innately understanding
she wasn't coming back
It became an acquired skill
The art of disassociation
Pushing past the ruins
A bourbon enhanced father
wielding a leather strap
sharing his pain
on the son
He struggled with the day
he always did
Tepid water escaped his face
mixed with lucite tears
falling from his fingers
back home
to a pockmarked porcelain sink
Immobile in thought
frozen
blindly dancing
with who he was
becoming
How long before he dreamed of
electric sheep
"You’re in a desert Leon
walking along in the sand
when all of the sudden
you look down and see a tortoise
It's crawling toward you
you reach down and flip the tortoise
over on it's back Leon
The tortoise lays on it's back
its belly baking in the hot son
beating legs trying to turn over
but it can't
You’re not helping
Why is that Leon?”
He looked up
into the mirror
and had to laugh
The reflecting glass
above the sink
spiderwebbed in disbelief
as his forehead slammed into it
He laughed again
Tranquil
he sat cross legged
With the same slow deliberation
of the passionate
lustful
pause
between new lovers kisses
He picked each bullet up
immersing it into the willing clip
He stood erect
concealing the weapons
and headed for work
Today, tortoises were going to bake.
Tim Anderson originally from Memphis TN spent a great deal of his youth with his back-pack on traveling the States. Having a penchant for honky-tonks, free spirit women and roadside taverns there are many of these States where his welcome was worn out.
 |
| CONSTANTINE by Claire Vanessa Gray |
***************************
ARTISTS:
Matt Borczon holds a degree in fine arts from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. See his poet bio above to learn more about him.
Claire Vanessa Gray is currently an art student living in Florida. Check out her gallery of work here https://www.instagram.com/fwooshcox/
Tony Egler is an electrical estimator. Before he was an electrical estimator he was an architect. Before he was an architect he was an artist.
