Featured Poet: Juliet Cook

"Juliet Cook is a poet and the editor of Blood Pudding Press. A few of her recent publication credits include ‘DIAGRAM’, ‘OCTOPUS’, ‘Spooky Boyfriend’, ‘Taiga’ and ‘blossombones’. Some of her print chapbooks can be acquired via www.BloodPuddingPress.etsy.com

. Her first e-chapbook, ‘Projectile Vomit’, is forthcoming from Scantily Clad Press—and another print chapbook, ‘Gingerbread Girl’ is forthcoming from Trainwreck Press. Her first full-length book is slinking around, mewling and hissing and seeking a peculiar home." SLUMBER PARTY SCANDAL 1. cheerleader/lawnmower mishap she used to be a cheerleader now she’s a gimp dragging that past behind her like some parasitic umbilicus disguised with pink nail polish dragging that hacked-up left leg behind her like some pep rally back of skirt menstrual blood blurt phantom limb of a split jump off that human pyramid period in which his fingers slid into her panties as she tried to keep her balance on the top feeling like some tainted christmas tree angel burnt cookies slimy salt lick when they were expecting a sugar cube trail (in the dreams the girls are dogs with coagulated fur and blood-stained nails straining against choke collars baring their teeth barking at her in the dreams his fingers are blades at first she thought the girls were barking CUT HER! like a threat but they were really barking CUTTER! like an accusation as if she sucked his fingers in there on purpose with her whirring underside with the burning rubber of her flesh) now it’s gingerbread house crashing and all the other girls at the slumber party neatly file to the restroom to purge the pieces of her out of their aerosol halos even their vomiting is petite saccharine sweet a hushed chorus of whispered secrets she wears the smallest bra she doesn’t know how to use tampons her golden brown tan is fake she doesn’t even know how to put on the brakes she slips some nail polish remover into the lemon cupcakes To a Modern Dance Soundtrack Another ballerina malfunctions and her pointe shoes send shards of pink shrapnel into the crowd. Her toes couldn’t take the pressure. Our voyeuristic vitreous humor streams down cheeks, soaks the plush velvet of theater seats until we are sitting on red sponges, gumming soggy popcorn, no longer able to see her suppurating stumps, her sequined tantrum— puppet strings jerking mutant limbs. A pervert’s eyeballs pop like a soft atomizer squeeze & the whole auditorium fills with the aroma of wormy cheese. Her phalanges twitch every which way. Little sausages splitting out of casings. Recombining in different forms. Recombinant DNA, gene splicing, string theory, finger sandwiches dangling from tiny nooses, fingering of crumbs from puckering eyeholes. During intermission we will be fitted with our 3-D glass eyes and mind boggling electrodes. The better to watch her die. Smoosh How did that sticky gaggle grope its way out of its crimped-tight packaging? Don’t they know they can’t escape the hue of artificial fruit and spoiled milk? Just who do they think they are, getting carried away in this queasiness-inducing parade: Circus Peanuts with centipede legs, Circus Peanuts with tiny fright wigs, Circus Peanuts in heat, trying to mate with the crayfish of the murky creek bed, with the sickly sweet roil of fake banana etouffee. Is that a banana in your pocket or are you just smuggling a Circus Peanut injected with human growth hormone? Are you linked to the black market trade of glowing Circus Peanut Fetal Pigs, planted into the bellies of Visible Woman Model Kits (with Pregnancy Option included) so that grade school kids can pluck them out and practice a new breed of dissection? Scythe off their ooey gooey heads— so chewy, so plush, so stuck between teeth like a sugary snuff. How does that taste, little girl? Like a squishy orange polliwog bluff, they keep giggling and squiggling in increasingly iffy incarnations, growing too legion for the ranks of transparent anatomically correct female abdomens. Now we’re substituting Visible Horse Anatomy Model Kits or Transparent Roswell Alien Models for the pregnant women. Just who do these in utero mutations think they are, or maybe it’s the conniving uteri themselves, popping out Circus Peanuts with nipple clamps and decorative ruching or are those surgical incision scars? Circus Peanuts with club feet and tiny crutches or are they Circus Peanuts AS tiny crutches? Either way, we can’t risk a Circus Peanut insurgency. This Circus Peanut infestation must be stopped. Do you want Circus Peanuts leaving their gelatin droppings inside your designer high-heeled shoes? Do you want to give birth to a slime-encased Circus Peanut, then be tempted to cannibalize that malformed marshmallow fluff? Do you want to turn into a fat orange frump, a sugar-laden shapeless blob, a cheap candy nightmare spawn with engorged Circus Peanuts where your heart belongs?