Revolution on Canvas, Volume 1

by Rich Balling

  for his Latin speaking enemy.

  Words with a thousand pictures

  of cemeteries, ruins and antiquities.

  BRANDON BONDEHAGEN

  Christiansen

  You’d die to formulate the perfect summer excuse

  while dreamin about another girl.

  You drive to the point to make out with each other.

  Play her a song, brother this one.

  Screw until dawn.

  And then go on tour.

  BRANDON BONDEHAGEN

  Christiansen

  Thoughts trapped inside the box, concede the dying numbers.

  Patterns mold designs. Capsized in time.

  A kaleidoscope of styles, inside the cannon fodder

  Smashing the shape of things, to criticize.

  KENNY VASOLI

  The Starting Line

  Plane of thought:

  Here lay a pensive lettering of my thoughts gathering around and chatting about ratting out dreams to the conscious knowing you are waking up soon. With the facts I am given, and to say that I even know what’s going on isn’t true, I could use at least one or two clues before I can get back to you. But I’ve got a few questions open for suggestions. Like what does it mean when a dream just won’t leave and you wake up to face a figment of belief? If I made the corrections and constant reflections to mistakes I made would a single thing change? It is strange for me to feel this way? And I wait. . . Make lightning strike if the answer is yes! If it’s no. . . then so be it, but I still want to know who I ask about the reason behind history repeating itself. Could someone be the least bit of help?

  KENNY VASOLI

  The Starting Line

  Have a nice life:

  I received one kiss for the duration of the trip and it was loveless as if made by lifeless lips. These lips are sealed you bitch, so keep that one locked up because it’s all that you’ll get. Your life (in my eyes) isn’t worth my time on the five-hour flight. Have a nice life and thank you so kindly for ruining mine. I hope you and Daniel are living it up, and I hope you don’t miss me and don’t give a fuck. Because I’m sure with my luck this will happen again and someone will replace the distaste created by the sound of your name. This could be the last chance I have to elaborate and display the choices I made and the patiently waiting I did for the day when you’d say that “my feelings for you are quickly receding, almost as fast as your heart is beating”. When it stops they will stop, when you drop then I’m off to get on with my life and leave yours with the ghost of the past.

  CHRIS MARTINEZ

  Plans For Revenge

  If I Had to Say…

  dotted eyes making holes in the skies

  winter kiss licking my lips

  and i somehow fell into the way

  the hair falls in your eyes

  the angle of your neck

  and sucked into…

  your finger tips slide down my face

  and all these thoughts i’ve defined in you.

  CHRIS MARTINEZ

  Plans For Revenge

  Behind the Smiles

  the staples in my eyes

  the nails in my wings keep me from flying too high

  I’m choking on my words

  pathetic imitations

  surrounding you and I

  take my mask and this disguise

  I won’t try and hide behind all the smiles

  my plate is full of knives

  biting on the blades and choking on the lies

  my wings are made of wax

  if the sun burns them away will I fall out of the sky?

  CHRIS MARTINEZ

  Plans For Revenge

  When I Die

  peel the skin off the glass

  the blood stains wash away

  i still can’t remember you

  but i do know it’s raining

  and the black top is bleeding

  kill the lights

  and sing with the black birds

  if i could wear another postcard

  and write another letter

  you’d all be dead.

  all these clouds are grey

  i fell asleep with

  anesthesia supplements

  feathers and voices

  this was just the first time.

  NICK TORRES

  Cassino

  I am the cannon that will wreck your home

  I am the sword that will reshape your bones

  I am the piano that nobody plays

  when everybody’s home

  I know your veins so much better than you

  I know the condition of your heart

  I can smell the glue

  I know where you keep all the diamonds and the meat

  I know how to eat them when they shut off the heat

  I know the devil

  He taught me how to smile

  without showing my gums

  He taught me which end is shallow

  Now I know how fast I gotta run

  So keep those pictures on the shelf

  And keep your prayers to yourself

  We live like this for the laughs, for the fun

  And not for God, Not for anyone.…

  I hear the devil is mixing up some sugar and tea

  Round and round with those old rotten feet

  So just the basics, no need to poison me please

  The bitter the sweeter the better for me

  BRANDON PHILLIPS

  The Gadjits

  Onyx Heart Pendant

  lovers worn

  trinkets, charmed gypsy baubles

  amber and apron string

  by my wrist

  arms of silver slither

  shark’s teeth dangling

  apache tears strung upon an anklet.

  Pierced and pierced

  with silver to kill the wolf

  in me jingling like a bird-proofed cat.

  cart, pots, pans, beads, rags

  brown girls

  teaching white girls

  drink wine and dance barelegged

  satanic string bands

  lecherous campfires

  lashing tongues and hot taboos.

  skills of ten generations

  sadly galvanized only by white girls

  creating for them

  masterworks they

  will never stay to see.

  BRANDON PHILLIPS

  The Gadjits

  Body

  torn all asunder pistol-kisser

  like tornado blown barn doors

  Archibald person on the wall

  in the basement of the world seated

  omniscient cyclops

  daddy-taker

  saw all in one deep eye

  (the way craters record

  ancient rocks

  vacuums broken)

  ancient blunders

  broken vacuums of faith

  hope hung up upon

  receiver uncradled

  no heard dial-tone.

  JAMES MUÑOZ

  The Bled

  Balladeerhunter

  this is my nightmare on fuck street.

  my codependent collision

  near the corner of falsehood and trust.

  our beauty,

  our tangled wreck,

  our masterpiece,

  worth endless gazes,

  do you believe in the bedpost we’re cuffed to

  and the mattress in flames?

  we’re the lovers

  with secrets.

  and we’ll burn in our shame.

  JAMES MUÑOZ

  The Bled

  Pillhead Charred by His Own Sense of the Sixth Dimension

  blister come hither! relinquish the sinners

  who trespassed on greener grass,

  traded an ox for an ass,

  your wedding day mass;

  doused in tourettes

  and rung out by bulimics,

  your hope will dissolve in a
goblet of semen

  we raise a toast to our children’s prosthetics,

  drink up young cynics

  your flaws are forgetting,

  to mention we baptized our guilty old critics,

  in troughs full of carefully pulverized gimmicks

  linguists danced with her on plateaus of treason,

  waltzing on Neptune’s shores,

  clogging Octavia’s pores,

  down on all fours!

  sweet sulfur princess (impaled by repulsion)

  you wore the tiara like a primetime abortion

  we raise a toast to our forgotten believers

  the jealous and jaundiced road-rashed deceivers

  who left us on empty and up to our necks

  in sweet-tooth colonics and model train wreck

  JAMES MUÑOZ

  The Bled

  Little_Gone_Louder_Hung

  so i gave in

  and ate five rotten apple cores

  from the tree of knowledge

  and that

  in turn

  propelled me thru my memory bank

  where i cashed in a gangrened wedding band

  for a picture of you

  (our anniversary)

  being fisted by a diamond dealer,

  gnawing the ball-gag with such tenderness,

  those tears of joy running down your face,

  0000000 0,

  i wish i could give you something so pure,

  0000000 0,

  this frame

  is faulty

  and this

  camera’s a fake,

  sawing off your cuffs,

  so sick of dragging dead weight.

  ADAM FISCHER

  Fear Before the March of Flames

  dance!answer!bend!swallow!

  all hail to the conch(our love)

  dance!answer!bend!swallow!

  rip the flowers from their soil

  grab the song bird by its fickle throat

  threaten the sun

  belittle the moon

  this is our dance…there are no survivors

  TIM MCILRATH

  Rise Against

  them’s fightin’ words

  stage set

  curtain

  song cued

  expectation

  spotlight

  act one

  applause, bow

  repeat steps

  can’t you see right now my hands are bleeding?

  blisters broken dripping from the ceiling,

  I don’t want to be here now…

  I’ve fallen apart and I cant pick up the pieces,

  I cry in the dark and I cup my ears to seashells,

  to hear the solitude they bring…

  so many faces, so many voices

  so many reasons to give this up

  this goes on and on.

  can’t you hear right now my ears are ringing?

  head held in my hands to stop the spinning,

  it stops only to start again…

  my home has long since been replaced

  with a world behind this window pane.

  so many faces, so many voices

  so many reasons to give this up.

  this goes on and on.

  have I finally gone too far to come home?

  this world might wait for me tonight, but she won’t.

  now only time will tell if these wax wings will melt,

  only moments to spare…

  we fall asleep with the color of the sunrise

  we count the years on circles under our eyes

  we dream in shades of blue and grey…

  we speak in tongues of metaphors and stories

  we bleed the ink of subtle allegory

  we are the needles in the hay…

  so many faces, so many voices

  so many reasons to give this up.

  this goes on and on.

  JOSHUA PARTINGTON

  Something Corporate

  Firescape

  The Doctor’s Waiting Room

  A plain cream betrayal, hides behind these walls

  Distantly voices of referring phone calls,

  The nurse seems to say, behind noise-proof glass,

  This kid thinks he’s different, why should I ask

  I almost stood up and walked to the door

  But a promise to mother kept my feet on the floor

  The hallway was scattered with irrelevant pictures

  And cupboards of cures that they swear by like scripture

  “Ahead on the left” she said with a smile

  I thought to myself, this hallway’s a mile

  I looked for a desk, but saw couches and chairs

  And she sat looking at me with the blankest of stares

  “so how would you say all the problems started?”

  I looked to the sky as if deeply departed

  What an obvious start to an embarrassing tale

  Of a life that I loved and couldn’t curtail

  A family that loved me, an art that I loved

  A time that I simply had too much of

  “Are you drinking a lot? Are you sleeping OK?

  It seems like these things could have come into play”

  Of course I was anxious to tell her the truth

  This had become my family’s telephone booth

  If I broke down here, what would that mean

  Was I not as strong as my father had been?

  But I think I can fight this all on my own

  With a handful of happiness that never was shown

  We talked about writing, we talked about fame,

  We talked about why they all called me insane

  She talked about being the one that was great

  I didn’t know much about that, that wasn’t my fate

  The only truth that ever came out of this mouth

  Was a phrase that seems true only after you shout

  “I guess I just can’t handle the pressure,

  I wish I had taken a walk for the summer”

  The time winded down and we finished the session

  My eyes had been fixed on the clock, it was pleasant,

  I left to the waiting room, men waiting for wives

  I thought of my friends and their interesting lives

  And I stood at the door, the session was done

  And I thought to myself, what have I become?

  I walked slowly and careful not to cause a big scene

  I knew others would be waiting here long after me

  Now when I think I had it all on my own

  Is now when I realize, I’m really alone.

  JOSHUA PARTINGTON

  Something Corporate

  Firescape

  Burnt Vacant Red

  This Headache, Incisions,

  Machine washed your letters and tore up your pictures

  This Handle, This Feeling,

  Your hatred: the floor, your love: the ceiling

  I wish I, could take it,

  All back from saying the lines I was faking

  You never noticed

  I never said

  I’d never need

  Burnt Vacant Red

  This Longing, This Tear-eye,

  I wish I could find you alone on a highway

  And tell you I’m sorry,

  I cried at your wedding and rained on your party

  And if I don’t make it,

  Feel bad for one moment and after that shake it.

  Cause you never told me

  And I never said

  That I’d never need

  Burnt Vacant Red

  Remembrance, Sedation,

  A plane ticket home and a life of frustration

  A gift horse to glance at,

  Thrown away food for beggars to stare at

  I’m Broken, I’m Tired,

  I still miss the times when I was inspired

  I’ll never tell you

  What’s all in my he
ad

  And pity me hiding

  Burnt Vacant Red

  Intentions, Submissions,

  An analog clock compromised my position

  The Fragile, The Dagger,

  Still on Broken glass I drunkenly stagger

  The voices inside me,

  Are stand-alone fixtures and reasons for hiding

  And I never showed you

  When we went to bed,

  That this heart in my chest,

  Is Burnt Vacant Red

  NATE RUESS

  The Format

  On Your Porch…

  i was on your porch

  the smoke sank into my skin

  so i came inside to be with you

  and we talked all night

  about everything you could imagine

  cause come the morning ill be gone

  and as our eyes start to close

  i turn to you and i let you know

  that i love you

  well my dad was sick

  and my mom she cared for him

  her love it nursed him back to life

  while me i ran

  i couldnt even look at him

  for fear id have to say goodbye

  and as i start to leave

  he grabs me by the shoulder and he tells me

  “whats left to lose

  youve done enough

  and if you fail well then you fail but not to us

  cause these last three years

  i know theyve been hard

  but now its time to get out of this desert and into the sun

  even if its alone”

  so now here i sit

  in a hotel off of sunset

  my thoughts bounce off of Sam’s guitar

  and thats the way its been