God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 03/10/2026Today's second feature, courtesy of Alden Nagel — read 'My Father, The Panty Thief' "I don’t imagine there’s much going on in his mind at that point other than the alcohol-fueled, libidinal forces that cause someone to get this far in their plan." godscrueljokelit.com/a-nagel-my-father 000
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 02/10/2026"I clenched my teeth, shut my eyes, and felt the blonde’s hips buck and writhe beneath me. Then I wondered if she’d remember who I was. It’s a terrible thing to feel like you’re less than a memory—and worse if you’re not sure you were even that." godscrueljokelit.com/myer-rambler... 000
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 19/09/2026New story from Roshni Veeramachaneni this weekend - read 'Equilibrium' "Little exchanges like that remind me of one of Newton’s laws, every action has an equal and opposite reaction." godscrueljokelit.com/roshni-v-equilibrium 011
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 15/09/2026Read some new horny Dragonball-themed poetry from Reza Jabrani - 'Dragon, dragon' "Here is my future, I thought. / She is me and we are one. / Bad puns, cosplay, brains melting / together in animated, 2D, / seizure-flickering worlds." godscrueljokelit.com/jabrani-dragon 030
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 09/09/2026"He spun on his heel and the altar-bearer’s hood had fallen back. Its face was a ruin in painted plastic. Skin flecked and green, jaw distended, a little eyeball popped from its socket. A harsh, piercing whine came from behind the surface." www.godscrueljokelit.com/ruhland-port... 011
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 02/09/2026New story from @malikbtxt.bsky.social! Read '...And Then Everyone Clapped' "It may seem corny to applaud yourself, but something has taken hold of you. Euphoria, disbelief, gratefulness. It’s hard to define in a single word, but you clap anyway." godscrueljokelit.com/berry-everyone-clapped 001
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 29/08/2026New review from Hugh Blanton this evening, reviewing Mike Andrelczyk's novel, 'Submarines'. "The French have a term for men such as Moreau: flâneur. A slacker, so to speak." godscrueljokelit.com/blanton-gambler 000
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 27/08/20262 new poems today from Ulyses Razo! "I can’t stand to see outside / my window, a song / from my phone playing the name / of a friend I’d forgotten / poetry’s paper at the bottom of / the shredder / stains on the beige carpet / virus green" godscrueljokelit.com/u-razo-2-poems 010
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 22/08/2026New story from @kurtnewton.bsky.social - 'Urinal Cake' "I watched twin kernels of white fly from my lips and enter the vortex where they disappeared down its long black throat. Pain electrified my mouth and I realized my front teeth had broken off." godscrueljokelit.com/k-newton-urinal 011
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 18/08/2026From @bebopally.bsky.social - read 'The Killing Thought' "Six weeks out and only now, finally, seeing care—being provided the electrochemical means to shut off the killing thought, the visions of the void, the unenviable experiences of the dead." www.godscrueljokelit.com/j-mars-killi... 011
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 12/08/2026"These attempts to capture their coring spheres have no goal but to leave you wantless. One’s eyes appear as shark fins cutting water. One has the marks of bear claws for a face." - 'Bag of Throats' by N. Casio Poe godscrueljokelit.com/n-casio-poe-3-poems 000
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 08/08/2026"After the last drop of Red 40, the specimen began to emerge from its test tube. It looked the nurse in the eyes. She felt attached. This whole operation was a mistake. The doctor gave that thing a dead, soulless stare. He found it hideous." godscrueljokelit.com/mcgrath-bad-chemistry 020
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 31/07/2026Three new poems tonight from Julian Thumm! "Oh delicate flower / swollen anther & stamen / fragile seed-head dandelion / that quivers in the changing breeze. / Why do not the flowers rage / against the winds dispersing / their flustered dusty seed?" godscrueljokelit.com/thumm-3-poems 000
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 26/07/2026Tiny summertime piece today from Eliot S. Ku - 'Our Moment' "All of summer was encapsulated in the magic of those five hot muggy cicada-blaring days that we huffed from spray paint cans turned gravity on and off with the flip of a switch..." godscrueljokelit.com/e-s-ku-our-moment 000
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 24/07/2026"Veris spends a lot of time in the same few postures, mantislike, half-curled, placid. Her apartment is a sanctum like a big egg. This makes it easy to construct her as some sort of puppet master secluded in a tower." - 'Same Time Nice Living' by Henry Cecchini godscrueljokelit.com/h-cecchini-stnl 021
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 08/07/2026"Once she finished her incision, stopping at the base of her stomach below her belly button, she tossed the utility knife into a pile of dirty clothes on the floor and began to pry herself open with both hands." -There's Nothing About Mary - Anthony Lien godscrueljokelit.com/lien-nothing-about-mary 000
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 30/06/2026New poems! @shanmonster.bsky.social "His first breath sounded like his last: / long choking wail / of fear, confusion, and thirst for air. / Blue when he was born, umbilical / cord wound around his neck / and when he dropped, it unspooled / like a yoyo string." godscrueljokelit.com/powell-2-poems 011
Reposted by God's Cruel Joke literary magazineShantell Powell @shanmonster.bsky.social · 30/06/2026My extremely dark poems "Unnamed" and "White Sheets Rust" are up at God's Cruel Joke. Content note: death of a baby. @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social www.godscrueljokelit.com/powell-2-poemsgodscrueljokelit.comShantell Powell - 2 Poems — God's Cruel Joke 012
Reposted by God's Cruel Joke literary magazineBasile Lebret edits Cult of the Dog @evoripclaw.bsky.social · 27/06/2026Yesterday I edited Pastcard which I count as part of my ritual trilogy. Alongside Mating Rituals in The Anthropocene Epic and Rope Ritual published by @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social . Have your read it? www.godscrueljokelit.com/b-lebret-rop...godscrueljokelit.comBasile Lebret - Rope Ritual — God's Cruel Joke 022
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 27/06/2026"Solids, gone liquid. Waves crashing, angry, foaming. It is like me, in a way. And yet endless. Endless and unformed. Unembodied. As though they drilled deep holes in millions of others like me, and then let us all drain out, mixing together." www.godscrueljokelit.com/cline-milksp... 010
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 25/06/2026"You are nothing but a body, nothing but glossed flesh, primed and lubricated. Make your way down the line. Find peace in the machinery. Struggle against the order. Or don't. Sway in the flow of the air conditioning. The whirring is like a song." www.godscrueljokelit.com/fishpaw-2-po... 000
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 17/06/20262 poems tonight from R. J. Gooseman! "Did you know pangolins are trafficked in China? / Their scales are said to promote lactation / in new mothers. Their meat allegedly melts / in your mouth. Legend says their spirits linger. / ¥36,000 per kilo." www.godscrueljokelit.com/gooseman-2-p... 000
Reposted by God's Cruel Joke literary magazineOllie Swasey @olliews.bsky.social · 12/06/2026My latest is now available to read for free with God's Cruel Joke. Things haven't been the same for Emma since her fall, but at least she has her daughter Jane to take care of her now. There's nothing quite like the love a daughter has for her mother, the way Jane loves Emma. Nothing in the world. 111
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 11/06/2026Read 'Nearest and Dearest' from @olliews.bsky.social A sudden memory came to her, of pressing her own lips to Jane’s forehead as a little girl, to test for a fever. Whatever Jane was afraid of, at least they had each other. No one could take this love away. www.godscrueljokelit.com/swasey-neare... 000
Reposted by God's Cruel Joke literary magazinethedrevlow @thedrevlow.bsky.social · 04/06/2026"You don’t have to like golden showers per se, you just have to learn to like getting pissed on. You don’t have to like Cleveland steamers per se, you just have to learn to like getting shit on." @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social www.godscrueljokelit.com/b-drevlow-2-...godscrueljokelit.comBenjamin Drevlow - 2 Poems — God's Cruel Joke 022
Reposted by God's Cruel Joke literary magazinethedrevlow @thedrevlow.bsky.social · 03/06/2026Feel like it's destiny that I'd get published by a lit mag called God's Cruel Joke, but I still can't thank Lee Pearson enough for publishing these little ugly babies including the line: "You don’t have to like golden showers per se, you just have to learn to like getting pissed on." 052
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 03/06/2026Two new poems this evening from @thedrevlow.bsky.social "I didn’t become The Amazing Spider-Man. / That’s all you. / I just got a big old arm bump filled with puss. / And a lifetime of recurring nightmares of spider babies crawling around me everywhere." www.godscrueljokelit.com/b-drevlow-2-... 010
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 02/06/2026The first of two features today comes from Mario Senzale - read 'The Money Shot' "The main apparatus was a ring of synthetic material - somewhere between silicone and flesh. It had a faint sheen to it, like wet skin." www.godscrueljokelit.com/senzale-the-... 000
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 27/05/2026"Both couples arrived in my office with the same set of issues – same quibbles and mannerisms and strongly held beliefs about themselves and significant others. What else can I say to get my point across? They were the same people." www.godscrueljokelit.com/kauffman-cou... 010
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 22/05/2026"Her hands tighten around my neck and drag me out the door. She flings me against a wall. I pull my hair back to retch, then slide down beside a puddle of myself on the filthy concrete floor, watching the train depart with the woman I could love." godscrueljokelit.com/myer-l-shaped-cafe 010
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 20/05/2026New short story from Alex Osman tonight — read '...And The Award Goes To:' "Those were the unhappiest times of my life. I was adored, but there's such a vast difference between adoration and love, and I desperately wanted to be loved." www.godscrueljokelit.com/osman-and-th... 052
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 15/05/2026Review today from Hugh Blanton, covering Joshua Trent Brown's debut novel, 'The Walls Are Closing In On Us', about a man in the aftermath of his attempted lynching, recounting a life in the segregation-era South while suffering a heavy dose of hemotoxin. www.godscrueljokelit.com/h-blanton-ru... 020
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 15/05/2026We got some fresh bondage poetry tonight from Hayden Nox. Read 'Bound to Choose'. www.godscrueljokelit.com/h-nox-bound-... 011
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 12/05/2026Tyler Plofker's making a team. "We are a team. A crew. A collective. We go by many names: Sausages Delight AKA the Organization AKA the Many Hands of God (or sometimes God is replaced by Lucifer or sometimes replaced by Azrael) AKA the Department of Dudes." www.godscrueljokelit.com/t-plofker-the- 000
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 08/05/2026Though most of Joshua Martin's work tends to defy definition, it always manages to evoke a deep sense of unease in me. Today's feature is an unrelenting word barrage that shatters meaning through total sensual overload. www.godscrueljokelit.com/j-martin-re-... 000
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 06/05/2026Very short story today. Jake Tavares tells of a formative encounter with Rocco Siffredi. Read 'The Wet Spot'. www.godscrueljokelit.com/j-tavares-we... 010
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 28/04/2026"Pain does not exist without the obsession we have with pleasure. I look at you and I feel the promise of new sensation, of possibility and renewal. Your body is an object of the mind’s eye, of satisfaction of perpetual desire." godscrueljokelit.com/m-g-cooper-one-eyed-god 010
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 25/04/20263 new poems today from Kristi Joy Rimbach "Regardless of my efforts, / my flesh is losing its grip, / loosening like an overused / elastic waistband. I scoop flesh / into "lifting" yoga pants, / wear shrugs over tank tops to hide / the droops and bulges" godscrueljokelit.com/rimbach-3-poems 000
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 21/04/2026"He thinks of the bell tower that used to crown the castle, the warning clanging it would crash across the fields, how there’s nothing in the monastery now that resembles a bell or its tower, just Father Mochan’s words saying what was once there." godscrueljokelit.com/c-bethea-exhuming-absence 011
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 18/04/2026Start your weekend off right with some new poems from henry 7. reneau, jr. "The people...as a theory / , has the heft of trebuchet stones lobbed into still water , and the collective conscience complicit / , rippling outwards—a- / mass in motion..." www.godscrueljokelit.com/henry-7-rene... 000
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 14/04/2026New story today from @nealauch.bsky.social where an audition turns sour. Read 'The Casting Couch'. "The sound grew louder. She could hear it echoing from behind the walls: tissues being rearranged, bladders filling and draining, fluids intermingling." www.godscrueljokelit.com/n-auch-casti... 021
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 07/04/2026Very special feature today from poet and artist Bill Wolak: The First Thrill of Abandon, The Sudden Enigma of Offered Nakedness & Midnight Spiders. www.godscrueljokelit.com/b-wolak-3-ph... 010
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 03/04/2026Phenomenal new story today from Hayli McClain. "Perhaps Queenie was simply shouldering a portion of her best friend’s woe and worry. Every woman’s struggle is inextricably linked, yet they each echo through their own unique well of loneliness." www.godscrueljokelit.com/mcclain-ever... 000
Reposted by God's Cruel Joke literary magazineBasile Lebret edits Cult of the Dog @evoripclaw.bsky.social · 31/03/2026Rope Ritual (by @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social ) is also about reminiscing. But it's about finding a tree once used by some serial killer, and remembering that your serial killer obsession stemmed from your ex: www.godscrueljokelit.com/b-lebret-rop...godscrueljokelit.comBaslie Lebret - Rope Ritual — God's Cruel JokeAll around the forest stands either grey and silent beneath the moonlight or bright yellow beneath Julie’s flashlight. 141
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 31/03/2026We're closing out March with some superb necrotic smut from @ristypula.bsky.social. Sink your teeth into Strawberry Preserves. www.godscrueljokelit.com/stypula-stra... 021
Reposted by God's Cruel Joke literary magazineRi Stypula @ristypula.bsky.social · 31/03/2026Posting news twice in one day? Couldn’t be me. But I have new words out now with @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social! If your life has been lacking (surprisingly sweet?) zombie erotica then check out “Strawberry Preserves” 💀❤️🔥🍓 111
God's Cruel Joke literary magazine @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social · 24/03/2026"My intrinsically melancholic, sex-pot, subservient nature came out of the woodwork of a dacha surrounded by birch trees. Justification precedes violence. Violence is painless, it’s inevitable in the procurement of enlightenment." www.godscrueljokelit.com/zhichkin-2-p... 020
Reposted by God's Cruel Joke literary magazineBasile Lebret edits Cult of the Dog @evoripclaw.bsky.social · 20/03/2026This is the beginning of Rope Ritual, my short story about finding a tree once used by some serial killer. It released today on @godscrueljokelp.bsky.social and you can read it here for free: www.godscrueljokelit.com/b-lebret-rop...godscrueljokelit.comBaslie Lebret - Rope Ritual — God's Cruel Joke 022