Mark G. Pennington was born 1985 and lives and writes in Kendal, UK. He has recently been nominated for the Pushcart prize.  He has poems in TL;DR, Scarlet Leaf Review, Futures Trading, Poetry Super Highway, The Blue Nib, Not Your Mother’s Breast Milk, Visions with Voices, Shot Glass Journal, Cease Cows, Poetry Pacific and is soon to appear in The Oddville Press and Moledro.  He has also published a first book in 2012, titled Lithium Clockwork under the name J. Rose.

The linen I threw to the washers

The funnel sat upon a shelf
by the loading bags,
looked like a form of mask
I had thought about fashioning,
it sat pointing up
like joker’s hat,
beside the mute radio.

Rolling machine and cogs
fire on like valiant pistons.
Hands resemble skeletons,
blood short and strangled,
fury and sickness, bitten by dust;
born here to catch gutted boar.

Begging for crutch,
lusting for water;
sheets strewn across the belt,
perfumed air with dead dahlia,
refuge, urine and
burning vomit.

My cactus lips,
the deadbeat sky,
and heathen dogs:
money was a dancer’s drum.