Mike Topp

Mike Topp has been barred-for-life from better little magazines than you or I ever got into. He lives and works in a large, Eastern metropolis and can be reached at mike_topp@hotmail.com

ROCK STAR

Life’s too short. Like, once I read about this weird old woman who like had one dream in life. . . and that dream was to have sex with a salmon. She bought a live salmon at a fish market, you know, and like took it home to have sex with. This is where it gets weird, cuz like she was laying in a bathtub and like had the fish swim into her (where it counts). Then she like held it in there and like, poked its eyes and shit so that it would wiggle all around and give her the pleasure that she was looking for. But she ended up dying from it, cuz she bought a bad fish. The fish was infested with some kind of shrimp eggs and they got inside of her and grew into shrimps and then she died because of it. . . But, hey, it’s totally gross to you and me, but like, this is what this woman really wanted to do. . . and she did it! Like, if you tried having sex with a salmon and you get all fucked up and you end up dead with a fucking pussy full of shrimp, then at least you can look back at it all and think, "At least tried all that stuff that I wanted to try…"

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I broke my mother’s tailbone and came out butt-first (everyone thought I was smiling) when I was first born in Washington, D.C., during the Eisenhower years. A young man with chiseled hair and windblown features, I turned to poetry to divert my attention from drugs and sex. As a bohemian my typewriter was stolen but after a while I got married to a woman who had stolen a laptop from work. The shadow of a twisted hand across my home at times discouraged me but I remained true to my school and wrote almost every day. Although I was not a very good poet I got published a lot but I refused to compromise. The East Village was undergoing gentrification and we had entered the 1990s. I got divorced. I had no choice but to write pornography. Although I would love to stay and chat Mom’s home now and she’s really mad.

BLUE VELVET

My favorite moment in Blue Velvet is when Jeffrey and Sandy first meet. "Are you the one that found the ear?" Sandy asks. "Yeah. How do you know?" replies Jeffrey. "I just know, that's all."

THINGS TO GIVE UP FOR LENT

Dinner mints

Collar stays

Chopsticks

Beets

BLACK HOLES

The black holes will be very hard to remove. Especially this one (old hole).

SOURCE CODE

I think I gave you the wrong source code last time we met because I was

reading it upside down. It's 7734.

THE TRUTH

I need to have these little plastic animals around me because I often feel

lonely.

DEAR FRIEND

I was in the army. As an infant. I carried messages in my diapers. No one dared to search them. But an informer turned me in. I was tortured by the enemy. I told them nothing. I escaped in the bathwater. Can you find it in your heart to send me some money?

Yours sincerely,

Krebs

TROMPE L’OEIL

I went to a fancy French restaurant called "Trompe L’Oeil." I couldn’t find the entrance.

Mike Topp