romance – Cajun Mutt Press

The Film Critic

The film critic sat sullen-hearted in the suburban all theater wishing it was dingy hard boiled
1970’s decaying metropolitan porno theater instead
There was a time when cinema was real
more real than real itself
reels of reality
restoration of being
resurrecting thought
profound contemplation while jerking off to depressing Russian literature and French
existentialism

amid cowboys snorting coke lassoing used cars at the sundance advertisements and say “no” to
drugs propaganda and sports
the trailers played
which used to be the best part of going to the movies

franchise fatigued
wars in the stars
twilight of the superhumans
stillborn resurrections from days of the future past
toys from decades ago brought back into our neo-retro present chasing fleeting visions future
tense spoiled by demonic nostalgia tainting something once there ever allusive

the film critic couldn’t quite put their finger on it

they packed a gun
fully
intending
on
using

it
fondly reflecting on stolen solitary Saturday nights
lime in a cheap imitation Mexican beer
as short-lived domestic
sipped lightly between bites of frozen pepperoni pizza
a taxi driver flying over the cuckoo’s nest apocalypse now desiring a street car
pale rider rom-coms played on fueling the fault in our stars
hindering true romance for a lack of love

they’d never purchased snacks of this sort before
a slim snap of spicy meat
nut-coated rainbow iced cream
bagged
sticked

unlike Oedipus, there was no mother to fuck
just the incest of greasy engineered populism for entertainment
no kingdom to abandon
but the wasteland
at the zero-hour
at this midnight theater

they broke

movie spectators, half on their phones
glued idiotically to screens
somewhere there
or other

what do you want me to say? You know where this is going…the film critic gouged out their
own eyes from the sheer banality of it all silently screaming having no real voice at all, crimson
flood from sockets soaking where an erection had ever seldom been used

and the quiet vampires
not noticing
lingered

Mike Zone is the Editor-in-Chief of Dumpster Fire Press, co-founder of Deadstar:Control, and manager of the band Tail From the Crypt along with being a producer for the record label Paranormal Vinyl Cassettes Hair Extensions. He is the author of Wonderful Turbulence, Fuck You: A Fucking Poetry Chap, The Earth Was Shaking For Days, Shedding Dark Places. Also coauthor of The Grind and Razorville. A frequent contributor to Alien Buddha Press and Mad Swirl. His work has been featured in: A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Black Shamrock Magazine, Horror Sleaze Trash, Better Than Starbucks, Piker Press, Punk Noir Magazine, Synchronized Chaos, and Cult Culture Magazine.

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Coffeehouse Romance

I see you,

alone,

reading Raymond Carver

at a table for two.

Straight, black hair—

lightly greased—

falling in your face.

You brush it away,

saving a page

with your right thumb,

I notice

the smoothness

of your hands,

the fullness

of your fingers.

Your eyes

are lost in ugly life–

I think they are brown.

The angles

and curves

of your face

sing

in their own silent poetry.

You turn a page.

I long

to dip my face

into your cupped hands

and drink in

the smell of you.

To taste the sweat of your palms.

To kiss the fingertips

that have touched

the sum of your parts.

You catch my eye

so I look away.

You keep reading.

I wonder–

for a moment–

what it’s like

to be that chair.

You close your book

and get up to leave.

Passing me by–

warm—

smelling

of faded cologne

and sweaty jeans,

I devour you

at every inhale.

You leave me,

unaware

that for a moment

you

were everything

that mattered—

my cathedral–

and with the ghosts

of fingerprints

lingering

upon my tongue.

David Estringel is an avid reader, poet, and writer of fiction, creative non-fiction, & essays. His work has been accepted and/or published by Specter Magazine, Literary Juice, Foliate Oak Magazine, Indiana Review, Terror House Magazine, Expat Press, 50 Haikus, littledeathlit, Down in the Dirt Magazine, Route 7, Setu Bilingual Journal, Paper Trains, The Elixir Magazine, Soft Cartel, Harbinger Asylum, Open Arts Forum, and The Good Men Project. He is currently a Contributing Editor (fiction) at Red Fez, editor/columnist at The Good Men Project, and an editor/writer at The Elixir Magazine. David can be found on Twitter (@The_Booky_Man) and his blog, The Booky Man.

Tag: romance

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 08/23/23

The Film Critic

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 04/12/19