hell – Cajun Mutt Press

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 08/02/23

August 2, 2023 James D. Casey IV

Prison

How much longer
Will this prison
Hold me

This body
My cell
This earth
My hell

Will heaven
Embrace me
Once my time
Has come

Will I fall into
Another hell
An eternal one

Maybe I’ll live forever

Maybe once I close
My eyes
It all ends

I stare out these windows
Into the fire that surrounds

Always wondering when

Always contemplating

The length of my sentence

Michael E. Duckwall was born and raised in the Ohio Valley. Growing up in a small town that most people have never even heard of, Blocher, Indiana. He’s been writing poetry since late elementary school and hasn’t shared his work with anyone until the past couple of years. Now that he’s opened up, he has so much that he wants to contribute to the writing community. This is how Michael describes his poems: “I don’t write, I release. I’m not sure if I could hold any of this in, even if I wanted to. Poetry.. my therapy, my friend, my release.”

Brother Duck also has a new book available; Ramblings of a Recovering Poet.

amazon.com/Ramblings-Recovering-Poet-Michael-Duckwall/dp/B0C9SDLPMG

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 07/26/23

July 27, 2023 James D. Casey IV

THE AFTERLIFE BLUES

Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath
and Alejandra Pizarnik
are sitting together
in a cafe called
the Afterlife Blues.

Pizarnik and Plath
drink black coffee
from white diner mugs.
Sexton just chain-smokes.

There’s nobody else
in the cafe except them
and a fat guy in a white apron,
who looks like Curly Howard
and occasionally appears
to offer refills
from the steaming pot
in his hand.

“I did it,” says Plath,
“with the oven in my kitchen.”

“I did it,” says Pizarnik,
“with a fistful of pills
in my bedroom.”

“I did it,” says Sexton,
“with the car in my garage.”

Plath sips her java.
“Didn’t you say
that yesterday?”

Pizarnik swirls
the dark liquid
in her mug.
“I can hear you
through your wolf mask,”
she says. “And you did.”

Sexton puffs on
her cigarette and scowls.
“Quit showing off,”
she says, exhaling.
“You don’t even know
what the fuck that means.”

Plath drums the sides
of her mug with her nails.
“Well, you did,” she says.

Sexton ashes on the floor
and licks her lips.
“Save it for someone
who gives a damn.”

Curly waddles in
through a swinging door,
brandishing his coffee pot.
“A little heat, ladies?”
he asks, brightly.

“No,” say all three
women in tandem.

“For the two-millionth time,”
adds Sexton, brushing
her brunette hair from her eyes
with a long, delicate finger.

“Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!”
laughs Curly, as
he heads back
to the kitchen.

Jack Phillips Lowe is a resident of the Chicago area. His poems have appeared in Clutch 2023, Rye Whiskey Review and Poetry Super Highway. His most recent book, Flashbulb Danger (Middle Island Press, 2018), is available on Amazon. Lowe is currently working on a new poetry chapbook.

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 07/19/23

July 20, 2023 James D. Casey IV

There’s No Bridge Over the Styx

I’ve burned many, many bridges in my life,
perfectly sound constructs that never
did anyone any harm.

I drenched them in four-star,
tossed a lighter over my shoulder, movie-style
and strode off without a backwards glance.

If there is a hell, a fiery one, not just other people,
I think mine will be to relive every last immolation,
ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

Likely they’ll provide a bucket: “Here,
for your tears, to douse the flames or
build ash castles afterwards. Your call.”

Jim Murdoch has been writing poetry for fifty years and has graced the pages of many now-defunct magazines and a few, like Ink, Sweat and Tears, The Lake and Eclectica, that are still hanging on in there. For ten years he ran the literary blog The Truth About Lies but now lives quietly in Scotland with his wife and (increasingly) next-door’s cat. He has published two books of poetry, a short story collection, and four novels.