Destino

Good morning!

Needles for Teeth Chapter 6

Now available for viewing at MightyMercury.com.

Ciao,
SO

Growing Strange issue 5

The winter issue is complete and ready for viewing. Click the cover image for the direct link. Many thanks to all the contributors, great work folks.

Enjoy!
Shoun Otis

Needles for Teeth continues…

with chapters 4 & 5 @ MightyMercury.com.

Where our hero starts his new job and meets a muppet with war stories.

S.

Needles for Teeth Chapters 2 & 3

Now available at mightymercury.com

Here’s the direct link:
Needles for Teeth

Thanks for reading.

S.O.

Needles for Teeth

New online arts and words magazine The Mighty Mercury has kindly published the first chapter of my serial novel titled Needles for Teeth. I believe chapters will be posted on a weekly basis, but I’ll update here of course when a new chapter is available for viewing.

There are other interesting work there as well, a colleague of mine, Jason Heller, has a particularly wicked piece of word play called Spacesuit Day. Dig it.

There is still time left for submissions to issue 5 of Growing Strange, the deadline date is October 15. You can check out previous issues at the link on the side there.

Now get back to your porn!

Otis!

The Catholic Boy

Been off the feeds a bit, just got this info:

Jim Carroll, the poet and punk rocker in the outlaw tradition of Rimbaud and Burroughs who chronicled his wild youth in “The Basketball Diaries,” died on Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 60.
(text linked to NYT obit)

RIP JC

Call for submissions for Growing Strange issue 5

GROWING STRANGE is an online art and photography magazine based in Denver, Colorado and we are working to test the limits of the written word and visual art to generate creativity in its purest forms. We are looking for contributors and supporters of this idea to help take online publishing to what we hope to be a new area of artistic creation.

We are now accepting submissions for its fall/winter issue. In addition to visual art we are now accommodating written work in the form of prose and poetry as well as examinations of music, art, and film within our and your community.

Our word count for prose is 4000 words max, 500 minimum. Poetry submissions are 5 poems per sub.
Creative non fiction is 3000 words max
Film critiques 2000 words max,
Musician and Artist portraits 2000 words

Photography and original art submissions can be up to 10 pieces per sub. Color or B&W is fine.

The most important factor to consider is that whatever you submit, it must be compelling, original, and well written. Experimentation is encouraged; romance, westerns, preteen wizard and teenage vampire based love stories are not (unless you can take these genres to a level never done before).

We consider excerpts from novels already accepted for publication. Please provide publication info (publishing house, release date, etc) in a cover letter.
The excerpt has to work as an independent short story. If a piece doesn’t come together in one way or another because it’s part of a larger narrative, its chances of succeeding as a short story is limited.
The excerpt has to be titled and presented as a short story.

With the exception of visual art submissions we do not accept file attachments unless we ask you specifically. All submissions should be sent in the body of your submission
E-mail to growingstrange@gmail.com

In the subject line please write your name and title of the piece

Example: Attention editor: Julio Cortazar-“Hopscotch”

We look forward to discovering and publishing new voices.

Ciao,
Shoun Otis
Publisher/Editor

Growing Strange Temporary Site

The work featured in this journal is under copyright protection by the individual authors and artists and may not be duplicated or reprinted without their permission. Copyright © 2008-2009 Growing Strange

Cosmic Slop

There was nothing else to do but laugh. We’d been drifting for a long time now; time doesn’t mean a goddamn thing. We didn’t even know where the hell we were, after passing through the black hole, well, we didn’t know what the fuck anymore. So we just drifted. Our generators had been dead since we came across; all we had is oxygen. We’d eaten all we could before the refrigeration went dead. We killed the last of the booze and all that was left were the psychotropic dope we were saving for the return trip. With these new shuttles you just have to set the remote pilot, pop a cap or two and space out (no pun intended) until we land. The passengers seemed to be okay. Everyone was either fucking away, or doped up and fucking away. At first my co-pilot and I thought the people would panic and eventually kill each other, but after thousands of films about space travel and the perils of it, no one was too surprised. They were laughing about it. Instead of a mile high club, we were a black hole club; top that everybody in flight school. My co-pilot made it with The Pop Star; she was in heaven after that. I never thought I’d make it with Jenny, the stewardess, had my eye on her for a few months. She wasn’t what I thought she’d be though, a little on the side of the starfish, but whatever, I ain’t complaining.
My co-pilot was the first one found half eaten. The Pop Star found her, half her face was gone, her neck ripped, her left thigh clawed and chewed. Everyone freaked of course. The Pop Star blamed Melissa, but she was fourteen and we didn’t believe him. We shot him out of the airlock after the remains of my co-pilot. Jenny we found next, same as my co-pilot. Everyone freaked, they called for Melissa’s head, but her mother and I defended her, and soon found ourselves fighting with everyone else. I killed a few of them, I saw Melissa biting Mike Conner the politico; she did her share with gusto. Melissa’s mother was caught before we made it to the lower hull. From the screams, I could only guess that they ripped her apart.
We’ve been in the hull for some time now, could be days. The mob outside won’t break the doors, they’re coded and three feet deep. I still carried a few caps, held on for the final moments. I gave one to Melissa, she gobbled the damn thing. I took two and laid back. Melissa took a bite out of my leg as soon as I peaked. There was nothing else to do but laugh.

one for the honey, two for the zoo

The Moth

As the moth soars above the flames
Of desperation
I’m telling the boss off
Making my escape
Out the front door
Away from
Files, Carts, Lawyers,
And talk of meaninglessness.
My chin held high and prominent
I’m saving what’s left of my swirling mind,
I’m saving the souls of my shoes,
I’m saving my conversation,
My blood

As the moth soars above the flames
Of despair
I’m considering my loses
And my time spent in confusion
I’m erasing her number from my phone
I’m deleting her playlist
From my GODDAMN iTunes™
I’m changing my email address
No Facebook
No MySpace
No Hope

As the moth soars above the flames
Of destruction
I’m sitting here
Watching the show
He glides, swoops, drops
Teasing the fire
Rolling the dice

Testing the limits of it’s
Existence
Playing with fire

The gamble goes on
The moth flies in
I fly out
And you fly on
———————————–

Yr Friends

When you tell your friends about me
Tell them that I’m fun at parties
Tell them that I know a lot of good jokes
Only a few are racial
But still funny and original.

Tell them that I know how to dance
That the floor fears me
That the spotlights run for shade
I glow so bright.

When you tell your friends about me
Let them know that I’m smart
And capable of holding long conversations
About anything concerning politics
To space travel or the Spanish Inquisition.

Tell them that I’m a snappy dresser
Pants always pressed,
Socks tight at mid-calf,
Always clean
With two tone shoes
And a silver pocket watch.

When you tell your friends about me
Tell them that I am completely sane
That I’ve never had raging fits of drunkenness
That I’ve never dropped that much LSD
And can greatly decipher reality from fantasy
Tell them that the rumors of my time in the crazy house
Are made up to slander me.

Tell them that some people
Just don’t understand
And are simply jealous.

When you tell your friends about me
Tell them that I’m a nice guy
Tell them that I’m good to you
And for you
That you’ve never met anyone like me,
And you know that I’m a keeper.

But whatever you do
Don’t tell them the truth…

Or you’ll regret it.
—————————————–

Ghost Town Vagrant

Here’s the deal honey

I am a man influenced
By images
Moving or still

Stand still and I’ll take yr picture
Post it on my wall
And let you tell me stories
Without moving yr lips

Silent tales of the mind
Loud in my head

All’s I need is a good Hi Fi
For the soundtrack
We’ll get along swell
And talk all night long

As a boy I’d stare at photos of my father
Long gone by the time I could see straight
Sitting still in the fatherly chair
Cigarette and whiskey in long fingered hands
Eyes half shut, tired nose hanging low

His stories seemed true at the time of the telling
But later I came to realize they were false

I made them true anyway
And moved along at my pace
Turning page after page
Listening to stories of The War,
Marriage, arguments
New York City and the Missy-sip
Of his travels from north to south
And back again.

Sitting in that chair that he used to sit in

I moved on to photos of my brother
Also gone early on
Off to see the world
And I got his stories too
My brother in his stillness
Told me to spilt that beat up old town
See the sights, chase the girls,
Get drunk, and fight in the streets
Live the life that’s meant for livin’

I’d see my brother from time to time
Whenever he got leave from the military
And made his way back to Chicago

The stories were never the same tho

And soon enough he was gone again
On his way back to wherever his stories were waiting
To be lived
I’d stare at the recent photos taken of him
And hear his words through his deep dark eyes,
His large strong stature
His moustache proclaiming to me
“Boy, you better see the world before it passes you by, ain’t no time to be watching no damn TV all day!”

Years later I finally turned that damned thing off
And stepped from the photo albums
To get a good view of things
Then I bought a camera

I tell silent stories of my own now
They talk to me in different ways
Than in my youth
That ain’t so bad really

I wander though them
In and out like a ghost town vagrant

The voices loud and rambling
But the stories just as good

Soon
I’ll get a photo of you

And know everything about you

Just stand still
I’ll show you
What I mean.