the buck moon

I’m so very thrilled that a new poem of mine, the buck moon, was included in this wonderful magazine!
Into the Void, is available in both print and digital form.

Included in ‘Nine New Lit Mags You Need to Read’ as one of “nine new journals that appeared on the scene within the past couple of years and have already made their mark on the literary landscape” in the November/December 2016 Issue of Poets & Writers.”

the buck moon

there is a moon where newness emerges
from above the forward brow line
 placid black almond eyes
antlers and smooth skin twist
against harder things
strip away velvet underpinnings 

wrap the chilled arms of night air
forest canopy dulling shadow
 dancing silhouettes vague 
 and 
 slippery
vulnerable newness pressed to pounding chests
no light
 forecasting the future
suckle the dark together
escape 

 alone

The Dipping Bread, new flash published in Chicago Literati!

just in time for Halloween
I’m honored to be included in Chicago Literati, with my flash piece, The Dipping Bread
I hope you enjoy reading, as much as I enjoy writing about vampires and their victims 😘

THE DIPPING BREAD

It happens at the Fondue Palace. Near the cheese fountain. Two lovers twirling their fondue forks suggestively. He’s been ignoring his inner voice all evening. “Something is very wrong with your date, John.” The very same voice that hours before implored him to make an escape out the backdoor. Get out before it’s too late. Too late.
Suri’s sultry eyes are vacant things. John can’t gaze into those shining black planets orbiting his date’s face. He turns away from the closeness of her flawless skin. She giggles and flicks her tongue into John’s exposed ear. He laughs nervously. He senses a curious warm spot on his cheek. 

Crimson droplets appear on the dipping bread.

His hand touches his face and traces the warmth down to his neck. The wetness tints his fingertips. He slides his thumb and middle finger together. Then apart. His eyes focus on what he sees. He’s unable to wrestle out the weak cry pinned behind his gum-line. Other unwitting customers continue gleefully stabbing at bread cubes. Drowning baked dough in pots of hot liquified cheese.

No words will leave John’s chained voice. Suri’s fondue fork finds her date’s palm. She guides the two-pronged metal, like a serpent’s fangs, along the meat of John’s hand then sweetly plunges the sharp points into his flesh. She guides his limp fist up to her wine-colored mouth. Her satin skin smells like ancient ice. A burning sensation shoots from John’s brain to his groin. An explosion unlike any erotica he’s ever experienced.

Suri’s slim, powerful hand slides beneath John’s shirt. His sweating back is buckling. She holds him up effortlessly with a polished finger. John clenches his jaw. His uninjured hand reaches around his date’s cool neck. Forceful and swift–he pulls her face to his. He kisses this “woman” in a manner unfamiliar to his own lips. Their mouths sucking like uncontrolled siphons. Lightning between his legs. Shockwaves ripple inside his thigh muscles. Metallic saliva flows back and forth between their twisting tongues. Cold bliss blankets John’s dying instincts.

It’s blood, John. 

It’s blood.

dragon’s eye

after image, new poem published

new poem, after image, in NowthenMagazine, October Issue, Word Life Section
this is a wonderful magazine, honored to be included in the October issue

after image

when you close your eyes and fall asleep
your mouth changes
your lower lip sets back
like the life holding it in place has let go
can’t help but imagine this is the face whose cheek
I’ll tenderly kiss
when your body ceases

behind this thought comes another
I desperately hold

your beautiful face not defined by age
rather your brilliant smile and eyes
infused with the will of a thousand newborns

AM Roselli

Leftover Sensations, new flash piece published in Free Lit Magazine!

LEFTOVER SENSATIONS

LEFTOVER SENSATIONS

When Luthien woke his skin was the color of flat sand on a starless evening. What the hell happened last night? He sees a sky not quite black. The moon, a shredded toenail hanging on a milky weave. Leftover sensations of tepid glass–thick tumbler, lazy ice.

Last evening he stopped on his way home. Between shots of Jack Daniels, Luthien remembers a powerful mouth. In the small bar–a big woman whose billowing lips could suck the enamel off teeth. What did he do? Did that insane mouth hoover the color from his body? Luthien’s fair skin that goes lobster belly pink on the beach is now dull grey. Was he vacuumed dry? Luthien hopes he’ll wake and find his skin its proper shade. But Luthien you are grey. Too bad.

Nervously he squeezes his eyelids shut. Shelby and her tears. She’d found him and Cassandra porn-style in ‘their’ bed. So what if he and Shelby picked out the duvet with coordinating sheets. The woman in the bar had lips like clamps–tight and hot. Big, deep red wet lips. Did he hear a name from that strange sucking mouth? Martianna, Maliana, Marvianna? A sentence slithers into his ear. A velvet tongue like he’s never tasted in thirty-eight years. Translucent hands pulling his hair so hard his head whacks the bar wall and he doesn’t give a shit. Her surreal mouth, a serpentine force plundering his desperate throat. Did that burgundy wet nurse utter something to his bourboned-out body?

Think Luthien. You almost talked Shelby out of leaving post-Cassandra fuck. The name. It will be important. Take a moment. Go through the minutes after her lips sucked your dick through your throat. Those red lips whispered something.

“When a heart is shattered, its pieces fall to earth. Tears of pain water and grows the blood rose that springs forth the serpent that feeds on the rat.”

The bedroom clock screams. Luthien wakes to the sun’s rays slithering past his silk curtains. His mane of hair, dripping sweat, soaking the grey cotton sheets. Saturday morning. Shelby would have slapped the alarm off then woken him with a tender kiss. 

They used to make love on Saturdays.


Love writing flash fiction, especially monster-themed. I let loose a bit more when invoking character voices. Hope you enjoy, leftover sensations, as much as I enjoyed writing it 😘
As the writing gods sometimes align themselves, my dear, faraway writing friend, DS Levy also in this issue with a masterful short, Pit Viper.
adore this cover art by Aisha Ali!

new prose published, Raven Hall Pool, published in Firefly!

new flash piece, Raven Hall Pool, Firefly Magazine

Raven Hall Pool

She tells me childhood stories as pool water laps our mouths. Her words grow flippers and soar to the steel beams above. A lifeguard duo with prismatic baby blues. Cerulean so clear, their angular faces disappear beneath water. Both brothers displaying the rock-hard swagger of overtaxed muscles. Gluteus sauntering along Raven Hall’s perimeter causes much chlorinated gulping. Mouth-to-mouth the prize.

I understand water is the best place for many reasons. Below the surface you imagine heaven. This pool is old. Its white edges gray. The ceiling is missing a few tiles where words can get trapped. If the roof spoke, it would have a lisp. Yet the water sparkles like her stories. Here all are weightless. I’m thankful the world is mostly water. In salt-aqua things older than the universe continue on. I’m sure she cherished Raven Hall Pool for the same reason. And those lifeguard brothers. She dated the younger and was infatuated with the older. Not difficult imagining two handsome lifeguards all the way down to their bulging confidence. And her first kiss.

The water temperature is perfect. Never over-chlorinated. I keep my eyes open while swimming beneath. No goggles or cap, not ready for those. When we lift our legs up the steel rungs, it’s with grateful exhaustion. Until the next time. And there will be more swimming sessions. Many more I pray. To hear stories and watch her words grow flippers. This pool is worn, but in the underwater silences a dream makes its best escape. The world is mostly water. Imagine, all those words swimming to the sky.

ghosted background photo you see is my gorgeous mother showing off that movie star smile of hers!❤️

 

deliciously dark

DS Levy is one of those brave writers who pens the heart darkly. She transports you to uncomfortable places and makes you think, sometimes cry. This isn’t sweet and saucy fare. A Binary Heart is brutal emotion, honestly formed.
Just got my copy today!

who are you?

bathroom flower

kind beauty in her young eyes