Jason mashak

No One Will Ever Notice

We took the extra virgin

often enough from the olive oil,

leaving little spots on the sofa

like some kind of avant-garde art

no one will ever notice

Avoiding the Scene

Where people build corkscrews

stronger than shovels, the Metaphor Man

has collective courage enough to be schwa,

published primarily as a plea

to leave the editors’ lovers alone.

He prefers beautifully sculpted gargoyles

to cheap plastic angels, though

with both he’s found protection

limiting.

A Good Christian Education

*only available in the American South

Dinosaurs weren’t allowed on Noah’s Ark

because they were genetic experiments of Cain’s

Lucifer-infested lineage of half-ape

bestiality babies that later gave us black people.

They could, however, be allowed into Heaven,

but only if Jesus would straighten their backs and smooth

their scales a bit (dinosaurs, not black people). The Devil’s gotten into

must be everything, a scientist himself to put sin in DNA

of even animals, and now they eat each other.

It’s also why some women wear red sweaters or have nipples,

born into harlotry as they are. Stay away from them

– they bring too much worldly fulfillment.

How to Know the One

It has been prophesied that

many fake Elvises will try to deceive

but the way to know the true Elvis is

his feet will never touch the ground

as he hovers in the clouds

with mint julips and angel bands

playing “Burning Love,”

taking the dead first

(ever grateful) to meet him,

signing autographs for the next

1000 years and then placing us

all, everyone, everything, back

into a new hellhole, complete

with a newly painted wall

for Bitching and Moaning and Wailing.

Inscription in a Book

(FOR DAVID E. OPRAVA)

The Slavic sky’s been cold this summer,

the sun breaking through enough, however

regenerating pivo thirst.

Men will be boys, and fathers must be

hard-working children. I’ve invested countless

hours pruning trees in 2010,

preparing the fruit for its eventual

septic-tank glory. The dog has mange.

The rope hangs not because we will

ever use it, but to remind us of options.

Epicurean Stoicism is my only religion,

the only one that’s never failed me.

Jason Mashak (b.1973) resides near Prague, Czech Republic, after a previous life in the USA (via Michigan, Georgia, Tennessee, Oregon). His writing can be found (as if by magic) in numerous journals and anthologies. Mashak edited a Czech-centric issue for Ekleksographia in 2009, and Haggard & Halloo (Texas) published his own book, Salty as a Lip, in early 2010. He has work forthcoming in two Czech-based collections of mostly translated work (with his own poetry also translated to Czech).