INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Chris Lord
Joseph McNair
Duane Locke
Lazlo Slomovits
Alan Britt
Shutta Crum
Tolu Ogunlesi
Jerry Blanton
Paul B. Roth
Fred Wolven
Felino Soriano
Sharon E. Boyd
Joanie Freeman
Jumoke Verissimo
Running Cub
Jeanpaul Ferro
S. P. Flannery
Kristina Marie Darling
Gary Beck
Dike Okoro
Karyn M. Wolven
The sound of the bathroom door opening;
a strong jasmine scent wafting into the room
off a damp, naked woman form. I felt more
than saw her before she slipped between the
sheets, covered my body with hers; covered
my mouth with her mouth & slipped her hand
behind my neck, never relinquishing the liplock
she had on my mouth, & tongue...
Into the center of a circle,
into the center of
circumscribed space,
containing trace elements of every
experience & all discrete knowledge
heretofore gained;
I languished in freefall with
no acceleration other
than that provided by the
gravity of circumstance;
no deceleration other
than the aerodynamic
dreamdrag of
my spirit quest & soul yearning...
I settled into her kiss; opened her mouth
wider with my tongue. She used hers to
fence with mine; paint my lips & cheekwalls
with sensuous sigils & prurient pentalphas,
drawing me in; firing my nerves to
sustained spiking responses; her fingers
deflecting my skin, sending radiating ripples
of pleasure in every direction...
Within that self-center,
within that sacred soular space
I find my spirit feet
& steady myself as I step forward; step
toward its circumference. Certain forces,
certain experiences cling like shadows
stirring & awakening; dormant senses
& powers, rages and terrors, make
themselves felt;
take on shape & form
coalesce into maleficent
embodied consequences
of my defunct past
haunting the thresholds of self.
Our mouths one; her tongue/my tongue,
her teeth/my teeth/her hands/my hands
& fingers kissed, sucked, licked, bit, stroked,
kneaded, squeezed and slapped; provoked
sensory interface--an electrochemical cascade
of sensory process/input path, motor control
& glandular function--released pressure &
vibrating energy; unleashed pheromones,
hormones, love juices & organic joy...
I am a multi-planar spirit;
my body, senses & consciousness drawn
from the circumferential
substances of the planes on which I exist.
A threshold dweller, born of the detritus
of my past faces me on each plane;
challenges me, bars the way to ascending
planes of light: a chthonic figuration, this,
of my monotonous &
annoyingly protracted
self-doubt & contempt;
my incandescent rage &
prodigious lust--
Can I prevail? Will I win through?
I sighed, breathing my pleasure into her;
the sigh slipped sweetly through my lips and
teeth. She slipped off of me and onto her back.
Her brown, scented vision embossed on my skin,
her large, slightly slanted eyes closed. Her wide
African nose with its broad curving nostrils
anticipating, waiting to flare again in the
next spasm of body whispers and murmurs
born of ecstatically firing neurons.
My dweller is about me,
a separate malevolence that embodies
every thought, every
act which serves me not. I face my
adversary now with squared stance, my
weighty resolve evenly distributed, willingness
the driving force behind any forward thrust.
We grapple; any hold, trip, or throw permitted.
Insight intrudes, illumines;
I embrace my shadow,
hold it close. This upsets it,
takes it out of position.
I pin the dweller with my love
it submits & disappears...
"I love you," she said.
My lips found her neck, shoulder & then
her naked nipple, I let them suck, a gentle
suction drawing in the entire tip. Her hand found
my penis & squeezed--a terse, urgent communication
made by sliding her hand up & down its shaft;
made by cupping my swollen scrotum, foretelling
how soon it might be falling heavily on her.
Beyond blended form and sound,
before piercing concentric planes
of the Self made of mind
is a great silence where all the world seems
to vanish and the spirit is a feelingfloat
in an ocean of light; a sweet colloidal
eternity of now--& lo, even here there lurks
a dweller born of the misunderstanding of ideas--
a radiant construct of
guilt, glamor & illusion
to test my besotted intuition;
my ability to hold the mind
steady in the light; transmute the
dweller into an Angel of the Presence!
I pried her pistonhand from my tumescence
I turned away from her clutching hands but
in a way that I could easily reach the petals of
her vulva and touch them with a master's hand.
I waited until her inner petals peeled & parted.
I took my mouth to her other breast, & let my
slick fingers capture & claim their sweet,
juicy prize...
the dweller here pits lusty cravings
against soul yearnings & initiation; the appetites
against self-transcendence.
A false contest, this, for human desire is no
less sacred than supernal love & my flawed
life no less divine than anything else made of
& a part of God. This time I surrendered & took
refuge in my heart's center; found a place
of great wonder. I surrendered
my separate self & moved to my
conditioning's edge; I meet life anew.
I relinquished the impulses of
thought, feeling and desire,
if only for a moment...
I found her "eye in the body" & covered it
with mouth & tongue. I smeared my lips
with her "honey" until the rippling currents
of her contracting muscles ran river-like through
her skin. She caught my hair in claw-like
fingers, pushed-pulled my mouth away. With
salacious grace she straddled my face, and took
my homologous offering in her mouth.
& in my heart I self-reflect; I, immortal in
essence, though draped in ratiocinative clothes,
am lunar & solar--a twin mystery;
divine & profane, Father & Son one; innocent
& without blemish; neither stain can pollute
nor punishment reach. Yet do I suffer the imaginary
pain of mortals, the sin-sickness of the false god
Mammon & die the little deaths 'tween every breath
until the time of fulfilling the
unfulfilled comes; until Devachan--
until efflorescent spirit yearning screams
unheard in the great silence;
until I repine for another sojourn
between defining deaths!
She measured my length with her snaking tongue,
licking from root to tip, sending pulsing down
my shaft surging waves of pleasure; depth
charges exploding in the spaces of my soul.
I grabbed her bubbled buttocks, palming
globes of erotic delight; wrapped her sweet
vulvate trinity 'round my chine & impaled her
on my intrepid talking spear.
I emerge from the chambers of
my heart, a golden sphere, a being of highest
purified mind,
a vortex of orbiting heart-shaped energy
whose pulsations are so intense they become
dense, appearing, even, to be standing still.
Is there no dweller here? Yes, there is one.
It is I... who stands trembling before
the Angel & the Presence
it protects. I am the Angel
& yet I am not. I must free
myself even from the Shining Ones
who would turn my eyes down;
who would make my consciousness fall.
So wet was she her fluids dripped & tracked
my face like misdirected tears. My throbbing desire
at her fragrant gate pushed past its slick, slippery
portal. She took me in her hands to guide
me along its silken foyer until stayed by yet another
membranous gate. She drew me in as far as
the gate allowed, then grabbed/gripped my hips
with all her strength and pulled.
Instead I life my eyes to the vision of my soul
& in its light reach for union; reach for the
guarantee & promise of the radiant sun
it reveals in its turn. As the light of the moon
guarantees the sun's existence, so does the light
of the Sun guarantee an even greater light & life.
I am the dweller & the dweller is me & is no more;
the paradox resolved. I join those who have
broken loose from the aura of evolution;
liberated themselves from the devic ocean,
from the angels of darkness & light
& pierced/penetrated divine will; who have
liberated their own identities and sent them
forth angel/agents of redemption!
I felt the membrane stretch and finally burst,
felt the rush of warm fluid as she cried out;
felt the tearing, searing pain register cold, then hot
of my own free nerve-endings until washed in
the blood. I felt her vaginal grip & pull; take me deep
inside; into a cosmic rhythm we could both sustain,
clinging to each other, holding on until the
fabric of paradoxical reality began to shred.
Joseph McNair, Miami