Category: Bad Survivalist

Three Poems of Bad Survivalism: Sebastian Hunter

The Vintner I saw a lot of miracles on my descent to the gardenInnumerable rodents in crotches of carmine redstained with halos and television antennaeStand close enough and you can pick up messages for the unemployed,calls from one desolate sibling to anotherAt the base of the alder lazes the young vintner,preoccupied with “filtration” and what…
Fiction for Bad Survivalist: “If, Then” by Iryna Somkina

Prologue: SPLIT SECOND “I pierced it myself”. He lifted his shirt to prove it. We weren’t that close—not really. But we shared the same side of the joke more often than not. He once teased me for not getting a kiss I wanted. I got him back—called him by that dumb alias he picked up…
Fiction for Bad Survivalists: “Butterfly Knife” by Joshua Wetjen

My dad waves the shiny blade in front of my face. “This is a real weapon,” he says, patting my fingers closed over the handle. My mom sighs and leaves to help Marnie make dinner in the kitchen. “What’s wrong?” Dad asks. Mom hates all weapons and violence. She hates how I’ve seen all the…
Bad Survivalist Poetry: “All My Ducks” by Charlie Brice

I sit across from the sweet Black womanat my doctor’s office. She’s checking me outafter a visit where I, once again, dodged the bulletsof mortality, bobbed and weaved to avoid morbidity’s blows. I love looking at the tchotchkes on her desk, especiallythe little plastic ducks along the front of her computer.I always say, Looks like…
Bad Survivalist: Four Falling Sonnets by Eugene Ostashevsky

VI. Having children is exploitative. Children may become more than children. Those who have more children before the war, may have fewer after the war. Let us chide both children and the having of children. Having children is expletive. Children may cause lasting damage. To themselves, to everyone around them. They are just not safe.…
Bad Survivalist: Two Poems by Armando Jaramillo Garcia

Metamorphosis With the window open, the room comes to life with a variety of sounds, the street, just outside, I believe is a ventriloquist, making me think all its quarrels and serenades are just behind me. The sun, now riding under the earth, has never set, it just sits there, not thinking but giving off…
Fiction for Bad Survivalist: “The Pit” by Sarp Sozdinler

People come to Cannon Hill for two reasons: to die quietly or to watch the gators. The gator pit is behind the Shell station. There’s a faded lawn chair wedged in the fence and a warped “NO TRESPASSING” sign that everyone ignores. It’s not an attraction in the official sense. The town doesn’t list it…
Bad Survivalist: Three Poems by David A. Kirschenbaum & Sean Cole

Colorado Naropa—1992, 1993, 1994, 1997, 1998 Naropa—1996 I missed you and now miss you. I mean, not now, because you are here. (I just touched you.) Of course you did. After all I’m newly 40. 15 years since pilgrimage to show Ginsberg four poems. July 4th picnic, him making graphite pizza from all my drivel.…
Gerald Wagoner: Four Poems for Bad Survivalist

Your Second Marriage The instant she spoke you knew it was coming. When she wanted you to meet him, it was a long freight trainlaid out across a distant prairie sky. You knew something was coming.She fucked you suddenly on Monday. The train stretched over yellowing grain. A black horizon on a fair weather day. She white…