The OCTOPUS REVIEW #3: Winter 2018

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,

out of nowhere, once
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.

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.