The Minetta Review

Andrew E. Colarusso – observation.

hjj220 — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:38:45 +0000

muddied handmaids hand clapp
ed close the privledged booth of
Grendel & Man. Midnight boys
with danger tucked waistbands
promise to return the story; a lo
udness in brow sweat

Sida Li – Nostos

hjj220 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:01:13 +0000

The apartment’s back parking lot was empty after nine a.m. a
horseshoe lining of trees for the animals to hide almost
drowning taught us how to swim Mom
gave us a flashlight for when we got scared of the dark don’t
forget to spit on yourself where I shoot you or else you’re dead.

Cars with square edges fell out of fashion the
Sunoco on the corner kept changing its logo we
played Freshman soccer for the hoodies our
best conversations happened over beer and ping-pong when
the intonation of our voices turned drunken accusations into questions of life?

Hillary Juster – forests of paper

hjj220 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:59:50 +0000

ok fear whatever
ok dreams and pow ems pilgrim bottles hats and longjohns in comfort floors sometimes i need to breath sometime i write the things you read the things and maybe c ry st als yo u s ee the d ark and mayb e wel l it m akes me nor mal cry you know and it is you and tor nado but the w ar ni ng doesnt sc a re me the ta cti c wo r ks in newne ss wa ys an d a ll the ru l es ar e ju st th er e ju st f or e st s of p ap er wa s i t awes ome it was fu n wo nt y ou ju st say so met hi ng.
i will come you were had gone for recipes luck for luck naughtiness averted.

Sida Li – Self Portrait as a Saturday Night

hjj220 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:58:14 +0000

Let me buy you a drink or something strange happened to my
friend hates me now I know why they call it the bends like that
wobbling pencil trick a guy into thinking this is a dress this is my
dress this is my address do not bother calling ahead when you
ring the doorbell close your eyes and ask for Butch.

Alexandra L Dalton – A Neurotic

hjj220 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:56:34 +0000

I think I see him, at his desk, biting the tip of his pen gloomily. This is the end for me.

Tell people like you what happened to you.

At length, after a long mental struggle, he sets his pen to the paper and writes:
“They were sexual deviants.”

The People of Lot. It is possible for a neurotic to get over his disturbance, and for another person to help him do so.

Subject: u wouldn’t believe what they’re doing—they’re punishing them
Subject: OH MILDRED!
Subject: how r they torturing?

He paces up and down his room for a few minutes.

Subject: Superglue up their asshole, then they were force-fed laxatives and water until their insides explode
Subject: OH MY DARLING!
The best way to live with a neurotic is to help him overcome his neurosis.

Subject: OH MILDRED!
Subject: OH HAROLD!
Subject: OH MILDRED!

They embrace.

Is it possible? Can an emotionally disturbed individual actually get better? Be effectively cured? Categorically, yes.
Subject: when did it start being so bad?

Categorically, yes. But it certainly isn’t easy.

He nerves himself with a cigarette and writes boldly, blindly:

Always we lived with fear and threat but nowadays the threat become more and more and we faced that when before three days when some of persons wearing a black color clothes stopped our car and started to ask us about our names? Jobs? Addresses? Families? Where we go?

Because the disturbance invariably stems from irrational, unrealistic ideas which are learned rather than inherited, it is possible for a neurotic to get over his disturbance, and for another person to help him to do so. (with some difficulty)

“The very first time I saw you—you remember? It was in the Orchard.”

She presses his hand.

“The Apple Blossoms?”

He deletes the apple blossoms.

“Well, at the first moment of seeing you, I knew, even then, that I loved you!”

The dead were normally buried in an extended position with their head towards the North and their legs toward the South.

I am like JFK, they have always wanted to ritualistically me.

Hillary Juster – rehab

hjj220 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:45:47 +0000

I am visiting you at rehab. I see another friend I know. I see the furniture. There is a group meeting and I am trying to check the mail. There are people sitting in front of the mail. One of these people says to me, “This used to be much more difficult to access. We removed the ledge. But now we’re sitting here.”
The friend I know shows me around. There is no furniture, of course, and the walls are light blue in the dark. I meet Jesse on the couch in the middle of the room. It is now yellow. I say, “I’m not ready for this. I’m unhealthy. Most of the people I know are in rehab.” You say, “Not healthy? You’re the picture of health. You shine in here a beam of health. You give us all inspiration. You are so healthy.” We press together but we are fully clothed. We will stay fully clothed and maybe it will be healthy.

Husayn Carnegie – Red Ants and Father

hjj220 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:43:49 +0000

I planned to be a tiger. Eleven feet nine inches.
Each day I hung from the rusted water pipe,
shoulders popped and tendons stretched, trying to get longer.
I licked ants straight off the tarmac, building a taste for blood.
They’re sour you know, like Warheads even,
and I had to clamp my tongue to the top of my mouth
and scrunch up my eyes and bring my head in real close.
Like a turtle seen a badger.

I remember that one belt.
The middle looked something like stucco
from when you leaned against the burner
and the cheap shitty plastic bubbled and popped.
I was keen on that one.
It hurt less than the genuine leather one from Montreal,
which left streaks against my rangy sides.
There’s violence to love. Mum carries pup by the scruff of his neck
and Toots left scratches all over my back and shoulders,
but it’s different see, she kissed my neck and eyelids.

Dan Herschlein – Brunch Poem

hjj220 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:42:43 +0000

Quite the calm clammy feeling, it was.
Her palms with mine, dripping
smothery honey dew
juices all over our breakfast
plates in the morning.

Each shining dawn we’d sit
and eat as savages eat.
In a pit of pigs,
our spittle was as spears.
The sunlight would croak

in a fit of mud and reverie
with streamers and full spectrum confetti
floating down sloe rivers, glittering
canine teeth and gin. Such was the bacon
we’d eat. Oily, like a bird in a gale

dropping, unborn, eggs upon our heads
that would crack and ooze
in our hysterical eyes
with smiling battered lashes.
And as some of misfortune did miss us,

they’d crash down upon the hot black asphalt
below and bubble and fry
beside our stinkin’ feet.
“What a waste of youth!” We’d shout and
in the night we’d walk, I

and Grace, hands undone, in use.
We’d stop under dim yellowed streetlamp
light, unnoticed on a corner,
and Grace would look to me,
drooling diamonds,

salting thoughts in preservation, nourishment.
She’d smile wide like the moon would,
the lamp light illuminating
her pearly whites, and she’d bite
clean into her moist midnight melon.

Open Mic Time

hjj220 — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:33:34 +0000

Open Mic Time Facebook Time

Time to read your words at NYU.
November 18th 6:30-8:30
Kimmel 904
We bring food.

We want to hear them words

<3 HJJ

Hillary Juster – 3 Days of Crime

hjj220 — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:01:57 +0000

On Tuesday I buy some candy walnuts, go to the library, eat a salad in the cafeteria, and go up many stairs, which are all illegal.

Wednesday I wake up illegally in the middle of the night, and I remember the cookie nightmare I had, which was also illegal.

I skip classes against the law. I go to the bathroom against the law. I go to a christmas movie function with a fog machine against the law. Illegally I don’t finish my wine which everyone knows is against the law. I now have a cold which is very illegal and I eat some illegal vegetable broth with rice noodles.

Thursday is illegal. I eat oatmeal with raisins in my kitchen for breakfast illegally. I go to the bureaucracy against the law and wait there for 1.5 hours illegally. I make some copies against the law, write down my riverboat zoo dream against the law, sort through my things against the law. I have not showered once against the law or brushed my teeth against the law since I’ve been against the law.

I see the woman who tells me that I am against the law. The man keeps looking in my face for some signs. I pay my money and get into bed. I listen to my computer. I eat many American crackers and drink a cup of tea.