Category: Bad Survivalist

Paul Ilechko: Three Poems for Bad Survivalist

Truck Stop The sky was a grid of varying colorsnone of which were visible to the naked eyebut the man vaping in the cab of an F-150knew instinctively that he was parkedbelow a quadrant of the darkest magentathe handle clicked as a door swung openand a body hauled itselfinto the passenger seattattoos glowing fluorescent under…
Poetry for Bad Survivalist: “What a World” by Joshua Stanek

The wind did devotions through the gorge when you arrived.The sun brighter and wet seasons more bountiful. Mountain lions track deer over the swift flow of interstateson bridges made for the deer, the lion, the blackberry bush, and the bobcat with a wild hare in its jaw. You were bornupon a communication boom, you see.…
Nonfiction for Bad Survivalist: “Unruly Roots” by Morgan Rose-Marie

I’ve tried to make this call four or five times this week. Now that my mother is finally on the other end, I find myself wishing I were once again hearing her voicemail greeting instead. Growing up, when I answered the house phone, the caller would inevitably launch into conversation. “I’m Morgan,” I would interrupt.…
Bad Survivalist Hybrid by Elissa Fertig: “Thank You for Contacting The Void. Your Scream Is Very Important to Us.”

Private jets emit fourteen times more pollution than commercial airline flights. With all of the flash floods that have been happening in Las Vegas, we are going to erode the topsoil until all that’s left is bedrock. Last night we went to Dorian’s and I had three glasses of white wine and your girlfriend barely…
Bad Survivalist Poetry: “All Four Toothbrushes Have Teeth” by Jo Morrigan Black

All four toothbrushes have teeth, soI mustn’t touch them the toothbrush her ex left behind five months ago hasteeth the shaggy bristled toothbrush with the suction cup has teeth the toothbrush that she held in her mouth yesterday while she texted that she’d like me to come over hasteeth the toothbrush still under plastic has…
Two Bad Survivalist Pantoums by Dan Collins

~ in which A.I. subroutines struggle with consciousness by investigating human thought through pantoums. A perfect OX Still, I refuse to accept that a perfect ox is the golden meanforged of utility and symmetry, but a stubborn pony cannot providea comfortable ride to the sublime. No matter how it goes, you musttrust what remains of…
Bad Survivalist: Five Poems by Barbara Tomash

Of Ancestors their bodies they knew primarily as instruments of noncompliance almost immortal lost among causes their hearts blacked-out hollows their lungs they pricked trillions of times they could ill afford breath the wrench of speech is that how one dies by sound by echo I repeat you endlessly in a mazy motion above ground…
Bad Survivalist: “Love Poem (with Subtle Anti-Whaling Message)” by Glen Armstrong

I am writing to you with ambergrisand cream, in a style too clumsy to be a hat or even a sunburn.The world has its preferences and I have mine: you are valued.After dinner, I wonder about silence and whales,secrets and beauty that festers then ferments.I am writing to you with a synthetic ambroxide and soy…
Bad Survivalist: Three Poems by Jiwon Choi

Judith Becomes An Eager Iris I woke up this morningthinking I would take good careof the daybut come through it with a dress teemingwith the cells and particulate matter of the soldierI had to kill.It’s because I followed the bird of lustinto a mazethe size of a queen-sized bedwhere I became trapped between bear skinand…