Gloom Cupboard

I know, I know. What happened to March’s issue? you ask. Well, funny story. I got caught up with school, work, internship and life. Actually, that wasn’t remotely funny one bit.

It’s hard to update the poetry issues regularly, and it’s even harder to do so when you are inundated with really good poetry submissions. It’s a blessing, it’s a curse.

For this month’s issue, we proudly present the sweet smell of Napalm, incredibly long “brief bios” and the crotchless panties made accessible through communism.

So, you know, same old shit here at Gloom Cupboard.

Poetry Editor,

Luis Rivas

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Valentine’s Day is a day away. Christopher Jordan Dorner is presumed dead. So let’s take this time now to enjoy some war and destruction poetry by people with names so good they sound fake who address me as “Mr.”

Count how many times god or God is mentioned in this issue. Hint: less than three, more than once.

This semester I’m taking a Chicano studies class on religion and spirituality and last week we learned some Nahuatl terms. The one that stuck out was Tlamatinime, which roughly means poetic theologians. The Tlamatinime were revered as ancient artists who had the divine power to communicate with the world’s energies through creative arts.

Essentially, that has been the permanent task of the poet, either to document and communicate with god-things or document its non-existence.

In longing,

Luis Rivas
Poetry Editor

—

Valentine Poem for the Tired
By Zach Fishel

Of all the women
I’ve shared
the fragile death
of holding hands
with or the dinners
eaten alone
as the neglected
flowers crumbled
in their vases
with the wasting of
time Failing us,
It’s always a result of
looking back
to each new
first kiss,
reaching for the
wisdom teeth
of our ghosts.

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“What happened to December’s issue?” You ask. You ask because you read poetry. You ask because you read poetry featured on Gloom Cupboard.

“I think the poetry editor guy is kind of batshit and inconsistent,” You say. You say this because you’re right, and if one wishes to subscribe to batshit crazines, let him or her be consistent with it. But, alas, the poetry editor is not.

December was a month of moving, a culmination of my junior year at California State University, Northridge. So some stuff fell through the cracks, one of which was releasing a poetry issue for the month. I apologize. But enough of that. In the immortal words of the Alien Poet Lil’ Wayne, “On to the next.”

In this month’s issue you will find poems about love and bullshit.

Gloom Cupboard Poetry Editors
Luis Rivas & HenryAjumeze

—

love in
By Steve Black

let us barricade ourselves in
let us hold eachother to ransom

let us stockpile guns and ammunition
let us prepare for armageddon

let us make our love on a bed of dust
let us gift the world our pornography (more…)

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It’s Spring Break and I am reading pages and pages of poetry. Strangely enough though, it’s rewarding. I want you to think of underage drinking in Florida as boys and girls tan, listen to horrible techno music and ultimately and temporarily fall in love and subsequently contract STDs while you read these poems. The poems have nothing whatsoever to do with Spring Break but I like controlling your thoughts. Pick up the remote, throw it out the window.

Yours Gloomy,

Luis Rivas
Head Poetry Editor

—

ON CAMBRIDGE STREET
By Barry Z. Niditch

That ex-landlord
was wiping
his moist white mustache
in a low pitched voice
smelling of beer
from his stolen school van
hands out
laced brownies
between his dirty palms
when we were ten,
always threatening
the poor neighbors
with “Do not go there”
once rumored to be
a religion editor,
crime reporter,
comic strip writer
in a defunct
yellow tabloid,
an extra in x rated
stag films,
a spy for the enemy
whoever it was
at the time,
once saying,
“Only men could appreciate
his movies,
Male War Bride
or Moby Dick,”
often sitting shoeless
exposing his Navy wounds
and Popeye sailor tattoos,
showing off
those knife collections,
the alley’s feral cat
his newspaper
and toe clippings
he saved
for anyone coming by.
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