Whatever Happened to the Cheshire Cat?

There is a darkness in this play

Words and rhythm

Lead me down the wrong rabbit hole

Wounderland has scars I don’t remember

Alice doesn’t look quite right anymore

None of this world smells familiar

Pluck out my eyes rather than sully childhood’s memory

Nonsense seemed much funnier as a youngling

The need for sense and meaning burrow into my self

Slipping slick tendrils around my brain stem

I dance to their logical beats of

Meaning and direction

Purpose finds a perch on my shoulder as we walk

Slowly back through the looking glass

Too certain too look behind

I slip into the warm embrace of the

Madd Hatter’s 9-5 logic

MediaVirus Monday

Addicted audience, give us your ear! MediaVirus Magazine enthusiastically presents our new Issue #5! Featured in this month's issue are poets Casey Quinn, Ben Nardolilli, James Eric Watkins, and Phil Lane. Author Cindy Rosmus graces our fiction page and emerging graphic artist Erin Descoteaux colors the art page. Stewart and myself offer selections from our libraries in the editor's corner, and poet Holly Day is this month's editor's pick. Relax and breath deep, MediaVirus Monday is here!

The skin biz

Have you ever had

a sunburn so bad it

blistered?

Once

but it wasn’t

too bad

considering.

Considering what?

Considering

the sun is

50 million degrees

fahrenheit.

Is there any

history of skin

caner in your

family?

I came here because

I have a wart on my foot and

I want it removed.

The foot?

The wart.

Please just answer

the questions.

No history of skin

cancer.

Thank you. Have

you ever had a mole

removed?

What does this have to

do with my wart?

Please just answer.

I’ve never had a mole removed

but here’s one for you.

Have you ever woken up face down in someone else’s pillow with last night still wet on you. So sick and sober the only thing that can save you is one more whiskey?

I’m not really comfortable…

Really?

then let’s dispense

with the personal

questions and get to

removing my wart.

Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros - Straight to Hell

Einstein’s Observer

Lifetimes away a star pops

Dante’s nightmare made manifest,

As worlds burn to dust

Pregnant clouds seeded with

Heavy elements draw new life

From gravity’s embrace, falling

Toward stellar nursery’s rebirth

Lavoisier tells us

Nothing is ever destroyed

Even in a star’s death furnace

Mass to energy, energy to mass

In an endless life giving decay

Today’s dust is tomorrow’s Earth

Waiting for Sol to deliver a similar fate

We’ll be dead before the nova’s light reaches us

Seven minutes for goodbyes

But even in those last moments

As space boils around us

Would it mean anything if we weren’t there to see it?

Red Mohawks

Sixth grade the wolves came out

leapt for the throat but got the ears

music changed, the radio died

jangly guitar with whisky delivery

cigarette riffs and three chord sex

mom thinks I’m too young for this

too late, damage done

educated on six inches of plastic

Box

I’m pulled in by muted horns and ecstatic neon

A smooth old bar patrolled by rough old men

Blue smoke and earthy piano just past the door

The brass screams, greedy for attention

The sax growls low anger

The beat pushes me deep into a chair

Crawls slow up my spine

And settles with envy at the base of my neck

I never could turn air to song

Get up says my brain, you need a new drink

But the band won’t let go

I turn to a hazy eyed patron

Hey man what club is this?

This? You’re in the Pithos, and that’s Pandora up on stage