The Camel Saloon

Bird Watching

2012-01-31T06:25:00.001-05:00

by James Babbs

I see blueblack feathers
on the backs of the blackbirds
as they strut and flutter
their way
across my backyard and
I listen to
the noises they make
sounding almost angry and
sometimes
when I’m standing near the window
watching them
they spread their wings and
puff up their bodies
rising up
without leaving the ground
screeching at the other ones and
I wonder
if this is suppose to be
some kind of warning or
maybe
an admonishment
for something
one of them did wrong
but I don’t know
that much about birds
I just like watching them
from time to time and
these are some of the things I see

Assemblage of America

2012-01-31T06:25:00.000-05:00

by Helen Vitoria

First, I tried to love you Dow Chemical
for you, I scavenged bone gears by DuPont
in my General Electric teeth
unfurled a BP burning trauma
of pulp fittings & United States Steel cogs
O Exxon Mobil, you were spitting
poisons on my doorstep

Hell

2012-01-31T06:24:00.003-05:00

by Chris Butler

I’ve been to hell

and back

but I found the weather

to be better

down there

than it is up here

on earth,

even when I left

with a sunburn.

And although heaven

has the best view,

I know I’ll never rest

eternally next to you.

Peter, Pan and Mary

2012-01-31T06:24:00.001-05:00

by Claudia Rey

Peter Pan has grown old
and doesn't fly around any more.
Last time he tried his old tricks
his back started to ache
his arms felt heavy
gravity went to his head
and he had to hurry back home.
He's fifty-seven, after all.
He still doesn't wear a jacket
or a necktie - for heaven's sake!
But his green elf costume
is shrunk and frayed at the edges,
so he had to accept jeans
and a green sweatshirt.
And desert boots.
Mary Poppins... well,
she aged more graciously.
Her hair is greying
but the new wavy cut
gentles her face.
She is still a bit stern
her manners are flawless
she's a real lady, after all.
But she smiles
from time to time
and she started to wear pastel colors.
Specially when she meets Peter for tea
in Kensington Gardens.

176. Testicles

2012-01-31T06:23:00.002-05:00

by Taufiq bin Abdul Khalid

Man,
A creature torn
Between the mystical
And the testicles.

Staff Meeting at Auschwitz

2012-01-31T06:23:00.000-05:00

by Donal Mahoney

We’ll tell the Fuehrer how we've tried
everything to make this lady say
where the rabbi lives but she won't talk
so now it’s time to call the plumber.
Tell old Franz to bring his drill.

We'll tell the plumber the prisoner won't talk
so now it's time to start rodding out Camille.
"When you're finished, Franz, bring her back
and we’ll see if she will yield. And if she won’t
you’ll try again, rodding out Camille.”

Remember, little Rachel?
Once she saw the plumber's drill,
she told us where to pick up 30 more.
If we had Rachel, she could warn Camille.
It would save old Franz a trip.

jersey turnpike pornographic elegy

2012-01-29T07:30:00.002-05:00

by Stephen A. Rozwenc

broken white lines
streak by
like horny laboratory rats

a mildly titillated Plymouth Neon car
careens through traffic
tough-in-cheek headlight beams
night licking
between gulping 18 wheeler thighs

the whiny dildo
swerves dildescent
onto an exit ramp's kinky black garter belt
only to halt
squealing vicariously
before the blood gorged pubic tollbooth
death mask

whereupon
the nine headed penis of money
whips out
of the driver side window
and demands
eleborate punishments
for any congenital release

then squirts merrily off
for blonde strands of Walt Whitman Bridge lights

Phiadelphia bound
for more of dead Eric's playful dialogue

Le Morne

2012-01-29T07:30:00.001-05:00

by Amit Parmessur

O my dearest friends, have
you ever slid down the back of a serpent?

It is the same going there, to Le Morne —
just that on the reptile’s back there is
no such wonderful, original scenery.

There are no such delightful breezes
to charm you and rippling waters
to whisper silent stories into your ears.

Le Morne is Le Morne.
Home to tired slaves,
grave to runaway rebels

its basaltic Le Morne Brabant, that
gargantuan bump in the soil that no wind
can flatten is still a lighthouse for fishermen.

If you go there you might just
sense, see and suffer for the slaves
who bled for us,
who worked for us,
who perished.

Le Morne has guided the blood of many
unsung heroes into the haven of its oceans.
Le Morne is Le Morne,
a serpent that can charm any snake charmer!

Its calmness, a tireless journey into infinity
will always mock any form
of man-made turmoil.

Le Morne is Le Morne.

How to turn a train into a shark through G&T

2012-01-29T07:30:00.000-05:00

by Sarah Louise Crewe

Slither his tail end
on smoke periphery.
Coin eyes conceal
sea dog soul window schtick.
Coach ends as scaled
parenthesis. Surge
thrust/pulse out of water
in your palms. Trans-postcode
pendolino dolly with
shark's eye poppy round her neck.
Watch wound up to dilate
Polysubstantial bite marks
and it's not just the quinine
That is setting her to burn.

you stain

2012-01-29T07:29:00.000-05:00

by Linda M. Crate

your poured your bitterness
on me, told me it were a salve
for being lonely; you must have
thought I was born yesterday
or either I was a slave to your
heart, it doesn’t truly matter
for you’re a toy I’ve outgrown —
you taught me that I was a fool
to trust you, that wishing on pennies
is untrue, that I wasted my purple
Cinderella gown on someone that
wasn’t my prince; you proved to
me that you weren’t a star just
a glimmer of hope pretending to
be one, you were the smashed mirror
of Snow White’s wicked stepmother —
trying to project your bad luck onto
me; as if it weren’t enough that you
cut me to the core with your words
sharper than the ends of jagged rocks;
I want to wash out this damned spot
from my life, but Lady Macbeth it
seems to be giving me some issues.

The Greatest Show on Earth

2012-01-26T06:23:00.004-05:00

by Bobbie Troy

the circus came to town
in 1793
hundreds of years
after the birth of Christ

the Greatest Show on Earth
Kyrie Eleison

in the midst of circus preparations:

a meditation
among roustabouts
before setting up the tent
for the big event

a conversation
between two people
in the same act:
don’t go up
the wire’s not safe
it doesn’t matter
i’ve found what i want

and just before she fell
he saw that her eyes
were filled with relics

the Greatest Show on Earth
Kyrie Eleison

Chasing That High

2012-01-26T06:23:00.003-05:00

by Chris Butler

I’ve been

chasing that high

for such

a long time,

like a dog

dizzyingly following

its stubby nub

of a snipped tail

in circles

until it burrows

into the earth,

that I’ve

forgotten

what that high

ever felt like.

UP TO YOU ALL THE REST

2012-01-26T06:22:00.001-05:00

by Randall Rogers

Filling
what
was
once
nothing
I tired
less
than half
way through.

And the work
was
hate to say
more than
beyond genius.

The Night Players

2012-01-26T06:22:00.000-05:00

by Kevin Ridgeway

darkness descends early
on autumn streets,
dim lights echo
from window to window
the players on the stage are
met to the wind’s fanfare,
dead leaves dancing in front of their
eyes marking their outdoor disguises
as they gather aluminum and glass
from the trash, Waiting for Godot
purgatory transcribed into one sentence
obscenities whispered breathlessly
across flannel chests chins drooped
inward looking down for fortune
that is hidden and scattered
across the bedroom neighborhood
and no where beneath the
spotlights of the street lamps
the daylight comes and the
shadow plays end for another
twelve hours until more
sequels are born.

Casper the Basking Shark

2012-01-24T06:22:00.001-05:00

by Sarah Louise Crewe

storm in the Port
the rain could break
a bone shark's neck

you wade in
200 tiny teeth -set on edge
skin hisses fissures from

lampreys cookiecutters
scan for a dock
a place to caaaaaaalm
dowwwwn

but you rarely rest
jaw is a cavern
flash your three bar
grill at Baby Blue

raise a crescent moon tail
to omnipotent sky

i cannot believe that you came here
to die

My Mother’s Birthplace

2012-01-24T06:22:00.000-05:00

by Amit Parmessur

is where I’ve learnt the contours of Bhojpuri
from the lips of the old people spending their
day bowing to the soil and their crops.

O Crève Coeur, I have run with my brother
in your beautiful ginger fields.
Your ginger smell still haunts my fingers.

From grandma’s house, we have flown
a kite that could tickle your mountain trees.

I have laughed at the old man
who swims naked in your river, with
a couple of naughty cousins stealing his
funny clothes away while he is in the water

which flows proudly along
redolences of bananas.

I have played in cow dung and performed
long jump in your soft, reddish brown soil.
I have scored goals on your football
ground and won the
rural trophies of sincere friendship.

The scissors of my mind still cut
through your rustling sugar cane leaves to meet
the places where my once nimble feet
would play hide-and-seek with the
village boys, until the time of solemn stars.

I have also disobeyed and slipped into
the stable to caress the beard of an old goat.
I have gamboled with naked neck hens

and chased the domineering roosters, dropping
my heart in the heart of your heart
in the process.
O Crève Coeur you
are the adorable place I really come from.

joy snatched away

2012-01-24T06:21:00.001-05:00

by Linda M. Crate

solemn child without a smile,
I know her well; I was her at
her age, laughter left me years
ago; the topography of a smile
is still hard for me to find; I
wax nostalgia for the conversation —
not because the moments fill me
with joy; those times already
seem to have been spent by someone else —
yet I’m the one that feels the weary
seep into my bones, the marrow
sucked out; I wonder which old woman
used up my reserves of mirth for her
own sick pleasure and left me here in
her straights of lonely moon silver eyes

Set in Stone

2012-01-24T06:21:00.000-05:00

by Bryan Murphy

The King
The fortress refracts the silent scorch of noon;
here below, warriors scream and kill.
The King cannot endure this fate for his men,
torn at the roots by a maelstrom of greed,
short lives halved in his service.
Yet fate wills the fortress be his.

It is done. He staggers among those excised
from self-awareness. Is he the only soul alive?
His eyes burn with sweat and blood, his own,
sinuses aflame with the stench of others.
He tastes vomit, spills it, drops to his knees.
The fortress is his. This cannot go on.

He prays. There is no answer. Duty
lifts him to his feet, forces them forward,
up the grassy knoll toward stone walls
untouched by mayhem, aloof
yet vanquished, one strong link
in the chain he would see set
around his neck before it is severed.

The sun slithers toward the mountain backdrop,
mutates into two cold orbs in a female face
that pierce him, halt his steps, tell him
all he wishes to hear: peace in his time,
abundance, fertility, his name blessed.
He knows her provenance; the price
seems trivial.

The Actor

Midsummer sun lays siege; inside the fortress walls,
damp chill inhabits every patch of shade.
Costumed bodies move between two seasons,
today’s future and tomorrow’s past: self and role.

Seeing is believing: the dungeon walls ooze,
set-lights dazzle. I cover my grief,
but let it show, at my adviser’s grisly death.
We are all entombed below the Alpine stone.

From indestructible ramparts, my brother
heralds my kingship over all I survey.
For this, I have traded my children’s souls
with the Underworld queen.

I wonder about driving conditions
back to the city as I renege on that deal.
Mayhem will follow.
(They should be okay.)

Sun sets into stone; we shoot and shoot.
Every man-jack of cast and crew gives all:
it’s only a B-movie, but it’s our B-movie.

The Emperor is Afraid of Zhu Yufu

2012-01-22T07:28:00.002-05:00

gathered by The Camel Saloon

Media sources report that Zhu Yufu, 58, a Chinese writer and democracy advocate, was charged with subversion in Hangzhou earlier this week for writing a poem urging citizens to gather in public squares and create a Jasmine Revolution.

The poem, titled “It’s Time” appears here and in translation by Andrew. E. Clark:

是时候了，中国人！是时候了
广场是大家的
脚是自己的
是时候用脚去广场作出选择

是时候了，中国人！是时候了
歌曲是大家的
喉是自己的
是时候用喉唱出心底的歌曲

是时候了，中国人！是时候了
中国是大家的
选择是自己的
是时候用自己选择未来的中国

It’s time, people of China! It’s time.
The Square belongs to everyone.
With your own two feet
It’s time to head to the Square and make your choice.

It’s time, people of China! It’s time.
A song belongs to everyone.
From your own throat
It’s time to voice the song in your heart.

It’s time, people of China! It’s time.
China belongs to everyone.
Of your own will
It’s time to choose what China shall be.

The Camel urges all of its readers to learn more on the repression of Chinese poets. For starters, see: http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/chinese-poets-public-enemies/

Sources for literature and news of dissident China include Ragged Banner Press at http://raggedbanner.com/ and the Transparent Chinese Translator at http://www.bruce-humes.com/.

Poem and translation used by the generous permission of Andrew E. Clark.

Naming and Re-Naming

2012-01-22T07:26:00.001-05:00

by Michael Ceraolo

I am looking at a map of the watershed:
on one,
            the creek and its various tributaries
are complete and unobstructed,
                                                as they were
before man went to work and live by them,
                                                              and
are blue and thick like the veins of weightlifter;
on the other,
                   the creek and its tributaries
                                                             are thinner,
something easily explained by different graphics,
                                                                        but
the second map also has a second difference:
it shows the hand of man
                                        Parts
that are culverted are not shown on this map,
                                                                   leaving
stream sections that seem to go nowhere,
                                                               and
look like varicose veins to boot
                                               It's unlikely,
as long as people live here,
                                         that all
the buried sections will ever be unburied
(though some will):
                                they go
                                    under
                                                roads,
                                                          municipal buildings,
                                                                                        shopping malls,
                                                                                                                etc.
Even without being completely free-flowing
some of the streams are claiming,
                                                   or re-claiming,
                                                                         their names
(The watershed itself has begun announcing its presence:
signs have started appearing on the watershed's edges
informing people they are now entering the watershed;
some signs are a bit inside the boundary,
                                                              but
this is a case of something being better than nothing)

The U.S. Board on Geographic Names:
"the Board promulgates official geographic feature names
with locative attributes"
                                     and
"Any person or organization,
                                          public or private,
                                                                   may . . .
request the Board to render formal decisions on proposed names"

                                                                                                  and
in October 2007 the city of Richmond Heights
(briefly called Claribel Village when it was culled
from Euclid township nearly a century ago,
                                                               until
the town fathers decided the name
                                                     :is effeminate
and is not appropriate or suitable for a municipal corporation")
sought to re-claim,
                             formally,
                                           the original names
given to five tributaries or branches,
names that had fallen into disuse
                                                   And
on March 13, 2008,
                              the Board approved the five names
(did the other two tributaries never have names to be re-claimed?)
Those five were:

                             East Branch,
                                                  about
12,000 feet of the creek contained in the city limits,
a name already informally in use;
obeying the geographic imperative;

                                                       Redstone Run,
"storm drainage from Richmond Town Square Mall"
"flows through a culvert under Richmond Road"
"into an open stream flowing northwest"
"into twin 58" x 60" culverts"
                                            and
eventually into Euclid Creek
(length about 14,000 feet),
                                       named
for the Berea sandstone of the Devonian,
also known as red sandstone,
frequently shortened to redstone;

                                                  Stevenson Brook,
"flows from a retention pond"
"and from storm sewers north of the Mall"
flows along one of the newer developments
"into a 91" x 58" oval culvert running north"
and eventually empties into the East Branch
(a length of 10,000 feet),
                                     named
for the Stevenson family who came here,
from various places,
                              in 1837;

                                              Verbsky Creek,
"begins in farm ditches"
"flows westerly through a 42" culvert"
"then northerly through a scenic ravine"
"and through a 72" culvert under Highland Road"
                                                                       and then
meets up with the East Branch and flows into
Euclid Creek
(a total length of 6,000 feet),
                                           named
for the Verbsky family who came here from Bohemia
in 1861,
             and operated a sawmill
and had vineyards on the west end of the city;

                                                                     and
Claribel Creek,
                       which
"comes from a small retention pond"
"that collects a series of drainage ditches and storm sewers"
from the city of Highland Heights to the east
"flows north through a box culvert under Highland Road"
"then flows westerly in an open ditch"
flows past several City buildings,
enters,
           and then exits,
                                  a heavily-silted Mayfair Lake,
                                                                             and
eventually empties into the East Branch
(length about 10,000 feet),
                                        named,
                                                     supposedly,
for the daughter of one of the first postmasters of the city
(creeks,
             unlike cities,
                                  apparently
                                                    can be effeminate)

There are other tributaries in other cities
that have no formal names,
                                        though
some may have informal names
                                                (I seem
to remember reading of a study of water quality
in a tributary called Meadowood Creek)
Some are marked as
Tributary to the West Branch
or Tributary to the East Branch;
others haven't even merited such generic designations
(naming a tributary Tributary
is like titling a poem Poem),
                                          and
have culverted sections and flow through
similar landscapes as the named creek above
                                                                     Let's first
find names for all those unnamed branches,
                                                                 then
let's put signage
                         (in the correct places)
                                                          broadcasting the names,
and then,
               wherever possible,
                                           let's work
toward restoring the streams to free-flowing form-------

The Cart Pusher at Wal-Mart

2012-01-20T07:14:00.000-05:00

For my brother
by Zach Fishel

Struggling with
frozen gates and people who drive
while texting,
he pushes on.
Making due in the sleet,
hail,
downpours of misery in the small
town that only
equals dead end opportunities
except he
doesn’t get the benefits of
the Postal Service.
He gives a damn,
making sure people aren’t
trashing the lot
with their fast food wrappers
and commodities,
he doesn’t know hot water
tanks or gas bills
that exceed warmth.
He gives a damn,
like a priest celibately struggling
through a whorehouse.
One day when
he leaves that town,
he will take his work ethic
with him,
and nobody can take that
away as the carts
pile up
in parking spots like corners
of never
cleaned houses.

The Postman’s New Mouth

2012-01-19T06:36:00.001-05:00

by Robert Ridley-Shackleton

A chain to hold
The square together
To stop me falling out of myself.
The sun is beaming to the spine,
I watch in envy as I sit
Among an air of silver axes,
Only a postman for company.
He looks at me from down in his world
Even though were light years apart.
The axes hurt him to much
That he tells me to lift his arm.
I do so but it only makes things worse.
His stomach splits in half
And through the split,
Razor sharp teeth snarl,
His nipples become eyes
And he loses his mail.
I do what any bone would do,
I cuddle him
And send him off to sleep.

FACE

2012-01-19T06:36:00.000-05:00

by Andrew Harrell

The few simple shapes that make a face.
Only a matter of perception.
Only a matter of existence.
I lied about reading your letter.

Fickle

2012-01-19T06:34:00.000-05:00

by Douglas Polk

As if I finally found a home,
between her legs,
She in my arms the only times,
my soul untroubled,
even though her eyes could look upon my soul,
yet after a time her ability to do so became uncomfortable,
I no longer wanted a home,
but would rather wander the world,
Free and alone.

Celestial Discharge

2012-01-19T06:33:00.000-05:00

by Kevin Ridgeway

the angry sun
beats against parking lot tire streaks
that lead to the
linoleum, fluorescent hell
of a suburban emergency room
one person after another
wheeled back
into curtained rooms
bleeding,
unconscious,
conscious,
semi conscious
the ripple effect
of injury and disease
rolling into
the fuming theater
of medical science
a man screams
as injections
are plunged
into every orifice
of his defecating
ruptured body
another man had
the post-holiday blues,
and leaped
from a freeway off ramp
dressed in his
Christmas presents
his skull caved in
and unthinking
overhearing
the hawk nosed doctors,
the male nurses
admonishing doomed drunks
the flying man made his exit
from the world
"celestial discharge"
one doctor muttered
scribbling notes

the doomed man's
family will buy him
a new gift
a neatly wrapped
plot in the earth
or a stocking stuffer
cremation urn,
dust and teeth
rattling against tin

Asphalt

2012-01-17T06:26:00.002-05:00

by Sarah E. White

He walks in with her
Defeated, deflated
Dragging his head low
It scrapes the asphalt
As he puts one foot in front of the other
Upon the asphalt
At least this feels real
Stinging his face
He wants to hide his tears
To collapse in a quiet release
In the defeat of surrender
A battle lost in silence
Fought by a brave man
Yet he walks in with her again
The same thing every other day
The focus is her, married to her mania
Surrounded by her selfish attempts
Wondering when she’ll succeed
When he won’t be able to save her
Every other day, he walks in
He sits, he waits
For her to recover
From her reality, or not
While he slowly withers
Patiently waiting for whatever happens
Waiting to begin a new day of his own
A day where he doesn't walk in with her
A day like tomorrow, which is his
Like it should be
Real doesn’t have to feel like scraping asphalt

66. Love That Has No Reasons

2012-01-17T06:26:00.001-05:00

by Taufiq bin Abdul Khalid

Ya WADUD!
Lock my heart in love for Thee
With love that has no reasons
So my mind can never sway me
With words all wise but treason.

Lock my heart in love for Thee
With love that has no seasons
So neither snow nor sun in spring
Will steal me from my Loving King.

Lock my heart in love for Thee
And chain me to Your Ocean
Throw away the prison key
And take away my freedom.

Lock my heart in love for Thee
And make my soul Your Garden
Plant in me Your Jasmine Tree
With roots that reach Your Ocean.

Lock my heart in love for Thee
With love to awe this heathen
Make AHAD my beating heart
And make Ahmad my passion.

Walking the Sugarloaf on a January morning

2012-01-17T06:25:00.003-05:00

by Cath Barton

On the upward our hearts pump,
Feet squelch in mud,
Muscles contract in effort and sweat. Seeing us tramp past,

Sheep pause in their chewing
Bemused, then resume. Above it all our vision clears.
We catch the flail of the wind

And the savour of the day. We have walked the circuit,
The moon gate,
Hearts’ ease.

Editor's note: (to visit the Sugarloaf, click here)

Ode to an Irish Bumm

2012-01-17T06:25:00.000-05:00

For Caroline,
for the back of her sock drawer
by Craig Eldon Reishus

The road is nothing like the map.
The map shows a straight red line.
Yet here it is, the road,
half washed away by rains,
and the half left over hooks,
twists, jags, swipes,
bends, knuckles,
every wicked which way.

A drunken road engineered by a pickled brain.
And the map maker some pied mad hatter!

Inside of nine weeks
you went from my housemate slash
daughter to slash
sister to slash
lover to slash
slut fucking her least favorite son.

Your bumm as perfect as that narcotic afternoon
you improved upon timeless Keats:
Beauty aches to be truth, truth beauty.
And deep within my graspless self
I suffer to hold on to this
even as your right hook floors me (nearly).

Early the next AM,
striking out alone again,
rounding yet another bend –
beyond some man tossing sticks
into the daybreak for his dog –
I glimpse, blushing behind the glorious mist,
the spitting image of your bumm comely dewed with Irish parting.

Tá áilleacht sa bhóthar ólta
'is tá ciall íontach sa léarscáil chacach.
The drunken road is beautiful.
And the shite map makes brilliant sense.

In the DunesAfter reading The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles

2012-01-15T07:16:00.002-05:00

by Ray Sharp

2 a.m., 2-below, bivouacked downstairs
under the south window, adrift
in the dunes with Port and Kit.
We’re bouncing in the back of the truck
from El Ga’a to Sbâ , sirocco blown grains
of snow, typhoid fever death chill gale –
only one of us will return.
Down, down the deep well of night
paralyzed by the thought that
the sky hides the night behind it,
shelters the person beneath
from the horror that lies above.
Consulting Madame La Hiff’s Gypsy Dream Dictionary
waiting for a sign in the indolent heat.
Later – has it been minutes or weeks?
– the full moon breaks through the ground blizzard
like a midday Sahara sun. I wish I were
on the terrace of the Café d’Eckmühl-Noiseux
under the awning a-flap in the soft evening breeze
reading the maps, or on the surface
of the immaculate moon aloft
in the center of the sheltering sky.

I can see my breath

2012-01-15T07:16:00.001-05:00

by Roger Butterfield

I will
Point to a Glorious Moon
That may not be
(T)here at all

And hope
That many friends will follow
My red fingers
At the sky.

Won’t Write You a Love Song

2012-01-15T07:16:00.000-05:00

Linda M. Crate

you asked me to write you a
love song, but scoffed when

I reached for the pen, you
cut me with words jagged as

rocks so I could paint it in
blood, but I’ve always been

a substandard painter which
is embarrassing given my

uncle’s talent; the one I told
you about that passed away,

but you insist upon me doing
this, demand it, as if all your

joy depends on this appendage
of words that remains in the

valley of things not constructed —
I decided it was time to cut you

loose; I will not sacrifice every
thing I have for someone that

never cared about me to begin
with, choke on your arsenic lilts;

you won’t wilt my lilies anymore —
you have no power over me now.

BLUE ARTISANS

2012-01-15T07:15:00.000-05:00

by Stephen Jarrell Williams

Too much magic in the mess we've created...

Multiple paintings
far reaching
shore to shore, cities to walls

our click clicking thousands
acrylic
crayons

hordes roaming
mad in our dreams,

changing our style

we can't stop the flood
lightning jagged in the night
rumblings of thunder shaking windowpane
glass breaking us awake,

who's there?
the loud quiet in our ears
leaking linseed oil,

sitting up in our beds
we're a tribe of selling artists

paint brushes and pencils under our pillows

we're miles from the sea
sketching nudes in waves
tying down the sexy ones with wet sheets in the sand,

moon warm
pastel skin
gleaming highlights on an endless canvas,

we never finish night after night
assembly line
rain dripping
sometimes smearing our best lines drawn,

the sun's spotlight showing our tricks of living forever
in the paint.

blues for Janus

2012-01-12T06:22:00.000-05:00

by Jack T. Marlowe

a bare bulb
lends its im-
poverished
light to the
work of

ragged
hands on
the grave-
yard shift
mostly
avoiding
the shift
key, they

type an
epitaph
for yet
another
year
that has
passed

the usual
medley of
nods and
curses
sepa-
rated by
sighs
in lieu of
commas

a paper to
file away
and a new
year to
face, they

pop the
cork of
another
bottle
pouring
just
enough

a new
glass
half full
of mis-
givings

Ken

2012-01-12T06:21:00.001-05:00

by Savannah Stuitje

I liked you because you were the ken doll I wanted when I was little.
People say we marry our fathers, but it’s not true, we marry the
people that fit into the dry cleaners bag of the life we think we
want. We grow up and grow out our bangs and learn to drive but we
never leave the past behind us no matter how we fill out. You reminded
me of tan lines and cheerleader skirts and prom dresses, stereotypes
no one is supposed to want. We came together at the stroke of twelve
like cake batter mixing. Mellowed out and willing to ride out any wave
that came at us simply because our schedules needed filling. Maybe if
we hadn’t found each other so quickly, it wouldn’t have gotten boring
so fast. Basking in your rays I could feel the heat of jealous eyes
sliding over me and maybe even leaving something different behind, the
most gorgeous tan. My ken doll, holding your plastic hand in the
hallway, the accessories you came with, cars and acknowledgments,
chocolate on Valentines Day. It’s too bad you didn’t come with a
matching heart and voice box too, but what can you expect from mass
produced perfection? It’s hard to come home to someone that isn’t home
but I wonder who stopped showing up first? You, with all your other
plans, or me, who always figured it was too good to be true.

Joan of Arc

2012-01-12T06:21:00.000-05:00

by Daniel Wilcox

So
Joan
of Arc
trans--
ported
on the deluge
of history to us,
feminine ‘noahing’
opening up a window
to heaven
i don’t
believe.
no, Joan,
hilted
swords
aren’t
crosses.*
so
up
s
i
d
e
d
o
w
n
a
n
a
c
t.

*Reverse of Miguel Unamuno’s infamous
statement in The Tragic Sense of Life that
a sword is like a cross

The Tender Years

2012-01-12T06:20:00.000-05:00

by Cynthia Ruth Lewis

I've been told

that I'm far too intense about things;

that I'm much too negative, bitter

and cynical regarding people, situations

and life in general

they say

it's a shame to view everything in a bad light,

to always be doubtful of outcomes,

expecting only the worst

they tell me

to attempt putting things

in a different perspective;

try looking at the world

through the eyes of a child

I tell them

that depends on the child

The Dissatisfied Mirror

2012-01-10T06:41:00.001-05:00

by Glenn Cooper

A mirror grew dissatisfied with its human.
Another mirror said, a man cannot help his own reflection.
That may be so, the dissatisfied mirror said, but nor can I help the desire for something more.
If you break your human you will endure seven years bad luck.
Who said anything about breaking him?
It’s in your tone.
I think the silent treatment should more than suffice …

Hand-Powered Ventilators

2012-01-10T06:41:00.000-05:00

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

Hand-powered ventilators, like so many geese chased from corporate lawns, or
Comparable to planograms’ incipient arguments for placing housewares near hosiery,
Seem to exist for purposes suiting the parvenu best.

City parks, chess sets, sandboxes, feral dogs, share contentions, plus lice. Otherwise
They occupy crossing guards, eyes fixed on whirling lights, least lucidity interrupt clerks’
Orders of eschbeche alongside “Freedom Fries.”

Sibilant law makers frequent bondage appointments, act insane when named, whine
For hot spots’ provision of antimony runcibles, horns borrowed from goats, also tails
Used to dress down rascals intent on taking money from the critically ill.

Overheard in the Shop Rite Parking Lot

2012-01-10T06:40:00.001-05:00

by Annmarie Lockhart

We laughed when I bit you,
remember? Joking about
taking that to your Puerto
Rican girlfriend in the Bronx.
I said no bitch is stupid
enough to mess with
you once she sees the
marks I put there.
Do you remember?

She was sitting in her car,
windows half-closed, the pitch
of her voice carried across two
empty spots and the street
light shone on her flayed heart
pulsing in sync with her sobs.

I didn't know she was real.
I was teasing, didn't believe
you could do that to me.
And you have the balls
to tell me it wasn't even
some cute girl in the Bronx
but some horsey side of beef
way up in some New England
bullshit? Are you fucking for real?

I could not hear the sorry words
of her errant man on the other side
of the shaking phone. She gagged,
covered her mouth. I saw red
nail polish chipped and glittered,
blue eyes drowning. I tried to look
away, to listen to Jingle Bell Rock
on the radio, but her wrecked
voice could have been my own,
her wild hands clawing through
the ice and hurt to rescue
my own bruised heart.

MY STRANGE DREAMS

2012-01-10T06:40:00.000-05:00

by Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal

I stood beside the dead man.
He did not know he was dead.
I could not hear him talk.
He did not know he was dead.
A little girl in braids held his hand
and this comforted him. This
was one of my strange dreams.
Last week I dreamt I was a fish.

Paper Chaser

2012-01-08T07:55:00.001-05:00

by Sarah Gamutan

They wake up by their selves and
pull one another from their pale cozy
beds. They jump off the wooden chairs
and start to impress us with their faces as
they start to light the room which was left
by its owners two scores ago. They turn their
heads to the window and rhythmically throb
the glass screens and start to rip their thin bodies

as if they are nothing but a paper. At first, I
appear like a fairy and slyly slap their red faces;
yet, they uncontrollably cut their skins like they
are not at all torn. In fact, they only light a cigar in
a hot summer night with some fellow wee papers,
drink beers, talk their own paper language and cry
until they melt their fragile skins. They insist their skin
is made of gold- though they are lethal. These creatures
brag that they live rarely but barely find their counterpart.

Deadwood

2012-01-08T07:54:00.000-05:00

by Summer Qabazard

I’m scared of this dark
in blood cells
in space
in skulls
felt it flutter
nightly

I’ve seen the base of it
its taproot
wire bone
stone gray

trunk grows
around grave

I grow a foot
imprint
hold it to the ground
I’ve known it struggle
pathetic wing-pinned
flailing, flapping

smoke snakes in breaths
turning tones of ash
of such force, a storm

even in darkness
want shadows
shadows

I have to
scream
now.

“How do I get to Elm?”

2012-01-08T07:53:00.001-05:00

by Joseph Hargraves

A thin, black-haired, blue-eyed
girl stopped me on
High and Main Streets.
She asked me “How
Do I get to Elm?” Because I say
whatever pops into my mind
I told her I once stabbed
a guy on Elm because he
called me a “faggot.”
I explained how easily
the knife entered
up under his rib-cage.
She asked: “How
do I get to Elm?
I told her I would
exchange good directions
for her phone number.
She wrote “Becky: 327-9553.”
When I got home
I dialed knowing
she gave me the number
to Luigi’s Pizza Parlor.
The phone rang and
a sweet voice said:
“Hi Joe, this is Becky
I was hoping you’d call.”

Always remember:
People are unpredictable.

The Reason That Drunks Dont Recycle

2012-01-08T07:53:00.000-05:00

by Jenny Catlin

Humiliation, morning seven am embarrassment.
The clanking of cans
chirping clank, too many bottles compete for space.
Hang dog slide down the fire escape. gotta wait. for the right moment
No neighbors in the hall
smiling maintenance guy. judgment eyes
party in a one room apartment, 105 no ones invited!
Clink clang click…nothing good ever comes in or goes out in a black bag.
Porn and booze and bodies.
Space out the symphony with folded pizza boxes.
Sunday morning functioning, the church bells of shame
But Wednesday, that’s another thing entirely.
Rock paper scissors, who gets the job? Three days a week of pile up and stock up
Gotta go.
Gotta go down all five flights no matter how careful the tip toe
The side step
Still the shame-siren wails in the parking lot
Neighbor’s pit bull head cock. No chicken bones, or other forbidden goodies.
No food for days, just bang-smash the bottles and cans…I can identify the brand
the sound of opening, parlor trick in a parlor-less walk up…but still.
the old woman who swims the dumpster for these lost fortunes
one more guilty verdict for her jackpot.
Think about global warming, the trash island.
Guilty gap mouthed purple plastic is giving me the eye again,
While I feed it’s too full neighbor up with all that broken music.

Redheads With A Guarantee

2012-01-05T06:12:00.003-05:00

by Richard Hartwell

Received the call at school,
called from the classroom
with a P.E. teacher to cover;
said it was an emergency call
from my wife; had to answer.

Took it in the library, publicly,
surrounded by young literature,
out-of-date encyclopedias, old
card catalogues, and wood tables;
“Royal’s dead,” she said. “What?!”

“Royal’s dead,” she repeated,
adding that he hanged himself.
She said hung, but the teacher
had to correct her; stupid to do it,
the hanging too, and she grew angry.

Later, when reaching his sister,
learned that their younger brother
found Royal hanging in his closet
after the weekend when he didn’t
show up for the graveyard shift.

He’d kicked over a chair, but had
not broken his neck, only strangled
slowly with lots of time to think
about the last time his wife left him,
taking the kid and his truck with only

eight payments left, on the truck,
many left yet on his young son;
asked, “Did you call his wife?” in
innocence; “That red-headed bitch
hung up when she heard my voice,”

his sister told me; that’s right,
recalling, his wife was a redhead
just as he is, was, had been, his
kid too; that’s how he found her, a
website to match and join gingers.

They guaranteed compatibility;
Royal’s still waiting for a refund.

Gum Chewing Not Allowed

2012-01-05T06:11:00.001-05:00

by Annmarie Lockhart

I don't like gum chewing
you said
Yeah, well I don't like
being overlooked
I replied

We pondered these
limitations, wondered
what they meant

I will make you feel safe
you said
Yes, and I will make
you feel strong
I replied

And so negotiations began
and preliminary terms
were struck

I added
a monitoring clause
that wouldn't pass review

and the unseasonable storm
wound down, sunshine through snow
flakes, light, heat, bed, bear

and I wondered why any woman
would ever consent to a man
who didn't love her hair

The Beauty Part

2012-01-05T06:10:00.000-05:00

by Robert R. Bell

Older and uglier by the day
…and damn proud of it.
Life has done this to me
… and damn sure of it.
Not important what you see here.
Everything needed is out there.
Plastic, silicon, dye, and ink.
But rotting corpses will always stink.
Spending fortunes to make a change.
All of these parts we can rearrange.
Before long you won’t need to wonder.
Resembling neighbors six feet under.
The truth was there from the start
…and that’s the beauty part.

Hopeless Romantic

2012-01-05T06:09:00.002-05:00

by Chris Butler

I write her love letters

without a signature,

while falling for her

on tendon bended knee

after tripping over

my stuttering words,

as I present flowers

to grim reapers,

sing love songs

with my one man band,

and offer rings

to quadriplegic mistresses,

by proposing engagements

for dates set by fate.

I’m a hopeless romantic

claiming to be a poet.

After the Fall

2012-01-05T06:09:00.000-05:00

by Sarah E. White

My own personal apocalypse
Losing all power
All control that I thought I had
Metaphorically and physically
My mind and my reality
Colliding in perfect unison
Dancing dangerously close to crazy
Spinning like a top
Twirling off this hard wooden table
Spinning into a collision carefully predetermined long ago
By someone other than me
I have watched my life, like that top
Shoot off sideways
I never really realized that the table was that tall
Or that the distance to the floor was that great
I am now mesmerized by the reality that I am about to collide with
My own aching truth
Stunned like that deer in those damn headlights
Then the crash
Then what?
What comes after that?
So I start to wonder as I lazily plummet
Is there anything after this fall?
Could this really be the ultimate of ends?
I hope for a new beginning
I hope, as I fall
As I spin straight off the edge
Straight off the end
Cataclysm or clarity await

TIRED EYES

2012-01-03T06:16:00.000-05:00

by Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal

I wake up with tired eyes.
The morning light blinds me.
I shut all the doors and all
the windows and return home.
I fall back into bed to rest
my tired eyes. The world can
wait. I fear the light of day will
kill the little life I have inside.

Polaroid

2012-01-03T06:15:00.000-05:00

by Brian Rosenberger

Her face hidden as is yours
turned away most likely not from shame,
but pleasure.
Her mouth swallowing your cock anonymously
The road sign in the background signals
a curve ahead.
I see only art.

The Open Air And Empty Spaces

2012-01-03T06:14:00.001-05:00

by Michael Palmer

What time
this open door Her
buried eyes averted
bitter end

Small chance holds
when all else would have us running
fired from this

Stop pacing
Stop sulking
How long do we have
Not long enough

Bury this truth with your pride
together
beneath the tree in the yard with blossoms

Red
and black
red again
shining white

This life will take us fighting against it

But they yet remain

Those hands
and fingers so bare and frosted
quite unusual
more real than the walls the open door
and air between alive with misdirection
a magician’s game
the truth yet hidden with each new telling
each fresh face
pulled down and turned away
pushed up and to the left of here

Twenty Seconds with God

2012-01-01T00:19:00.001-05:00

by Taufiq bin Abdul Khalid,

One - and I am undone,

Two - then I thought of You,

Three - I said that wanted to be free,

Four - so You showed me the door,

Five - I was born and I am alive,

Six - I was fooled by my ego's many tricks,

Seven - So I turn to You, yearning for heaven,

Eight - Wishing o' Lord that I was dead,

Nine - And You answered, "You will return to Me when it is time.."

Ten - To which I reply, "O' Lord... But when?"

One - "When the moth returns to the Sun."

Two - "When you cease to think only of you."

Three - "When you stop climbing the money tree."

Four - "When you come knocking on My door."

Five - "When you find the Prophet's honey in his bee hive."

Six - "When you can fast weeks upon weeks."

Seven - "When you look for Me and not My heaven."

Eight - "When you serve the living and honour the dead."

Nine - "When you learn to be kind..."

Ten - "...And remember Me in any circumstance."

barbarians

2011-12-29T06:18:00.003-05:00

by Norma Jean Demaggio

a foot bound, its skin mangled and bones broken all in the name of beauty
the pain, sweat and tears put into the pursuit of beauty
our society say its barbaric and wrong
but are we any better?
with our injections to get full lips
rhinoplasies to get the perfect nose
and let us not forget the endless amounts of silicone used for the perfect breasts
not much has changed in a thousand years
barbarians are we

SEVEN APHORISMS

2011-12-29T06:18:00.002-05:00

by Richard Kostelanetz

Anyone who advertises himself as a crook can’t be surprised if people avoid him.

If you don’t know what you’re missing until it’s gone, get rid of everything you own.

Imagine what the planet Earth might look like if seen from the sun.

All ghosts know what they were but do not tell.

Stealing what nobody wants, you’ll never be arrested.

The bloodless can’t blush.

Begging for pennies is less profitable than begging for millions.

Birds

2011-12-29T06:18:00.001-05:00

by Subhankar Das

There is a saying that the crow is the vehicle of the God of Death. So falling at his feet in supplication, imploring him to eat this morsel of sacrificial food for my dead mother, so that I am allowed to eat. How long can you be on plain air o crow? If you do not like this milk and water have this morsel of buttered rice.

In cities inevitably there are no birds except crows. Crows do not live in forests; they love to stay near human habitation, near the world of humans and not in the non-world.

The dressed meat of the fowl has already gone straight to the kitchen or in the chicken roll. Thus the notion of being the most accepted bird. This meat is cheaper than the fish in the market. Where is the chance for it to fly to your roof top? The pleasure of being accepted.

Though I have seen a peacock in Mathura city that never misses a chance to dance if it gets to eat bread. It is not that it does not dance for the peahens on the sly on roof tops and parapets just like ordinary men full of sexual urges

The Sane One

2011-12-29T06:18:00.000-05:00

by James Valvis

Another night: no sleep.
He sits restless in his bed,
cursing away the hours.
He read somewhere,
maybe in a magazine,
or some bromidic novel,
when you can’t sleep
you should take time
to listen, close your eyes,
hear whatever it is
the world wants to say
so much it keeps you awake.
Why not? He shuts his lids,
hears nothing but clock,
hum that haunts his wall.
No revelation, no insight.
He tries once again,
decides there’s cars also,
late night traffic that’ll turn
into the morning rush hour
he will soon be joining.
Nothing else. Once more
he tries, but this time nothing.
He supposes his heartbeat
is down there somewhere,
but he can’t hear it, nor
the voice of his dead father,
the weeping of his mother.
Bah, after a few minutes
he gives up the project.
All that happy horseshit
is for loafers and layabouts,
religious nuts, poets,
weirdos who hear voices,
kooks who howl at the moon,
he thinks, then turns over,
reaches for the Xanax,
and a shot to wash it down.

Halfway to Naked

2011-12-27T06:10:00.004-05:00

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

Among hobbledehoys, some simple friends seem more adept at dressage
Than do slatternly peers with obdurate, chthonic tendencies.
Those others, who also perform the rites, remain all but larky.
Hardihood lacks sufficiency to face down persons engaged accordingly.

Consider that carnal factotums, after a time, disintegrate to dust.
Similarly, blackboots, selectively mute, can be found risen to grandeur,
Or otherwise assigned to mirandole princes devoid of ugly-minded gaffers.
When such peerage shakes, the world rushes to videotape their trembling.

As for the rest of us, we homunculi, no amount of alacrity gets us
Beyond halfway to naked; it’s a shamefaced truth that minions
Decenter their superiors time and again out of need, nefarious intent notwithstanding.
If only, liberties were equitably spread, we might better our lots, rejoice, rebel.

The Falling Of Glass Swans

2011-12-27T06:10:00.002-05:00

by Jason E. Hodges

Bells chime softy overhead
I V’s drip silently across the room
Drip with drops of crystal like hope
Hope that you will live through the night
These drops move like swans
Like Plush-Feathered-Swans floating atop the glass like lake of better tomorrows
I’m sleepy now, but I can’t sleep at all
As the clock ticks off yet another hour
The mechanical lungs breath in perfect rhythm
Graceful they look pushing your chest up and down
Keeping you alive at least for the moment
They work all through the night never missing a beat
Breathing
In and out, in and out
Floating you through to the next day
Then back into the night
And the swans keep falling
Dripping like diamonds
Making their way into your veins
Thirty hours have passed
And there’s still no end in sight
And the bells keep chiming
Sounding off that all is okay
For now it is early morning
Or early night
It’s hard to tell at this point
For this room is covered in darkness
As dark as a Night Rose glowing dull in the moonlight
And the swans keep falling as I close my eyes for the night
While the Angel of Death sits doing his crossword
Patiently waiting for your name to be called

Tangled path to heaven

2011-12-27T06:10:00.001-05:00

by Alex Stolis

An October burial: a sun, bottled between
two clouds, there is quiet, there is a still
room, there is incidental music roaming
down the hall. You change your clothes,
close the windows. I watch, hat in hand
foot out the door. Don’t tempt fate. Turn
off the lights. Fuck me, make me a drink.
Let the laundry dry on the ledge. I’m no
longer afraid of heights. You ghost your
way through the day; mechanical, black
and white. This isn’t how the movie ends.
Coffee maker drips awake, telephone buzz;
winter is a shard of glass away. Your dress
is wet. I am idle, too far away to remember
clearly. Too close to fake it. We are a push
away from yearning. One more kiss, then
one more, finally another. Follow this vague
idea. We’re home free. Ready to dream stories
of tin stars, rope ladders and ordinary days.

meat market blues

2011-12-27T06:09:00.000-05:00

by Jack T. Marlowe

Bar Girl sizes up
the night's
poor prospects

urchin eyes
and mercenary
smile freshly
painted

for the
parade of
mannequins
who approach

the march of
hollow warriors
armed with
potpourri of
rancid cologne
desperation
and denial

some

looking
for love or
distraction

most

looking
for a hot, wet
remedy
for
a malady
of the soul

"all men are
just interested
in one thing"
Bar Girl
complains

while
dispensing
generous eyefuls
of cleavage
and leg

A Half-Moon Christmas

2011-12-25T06:36:00.003-05:00

by John Pursch

Snow collects, Mass transpires, cathedral-goers flit about; children slink upstairs, damn the sleigh bells, and drain the treacle from Mother's sullied slap shots. Baiting all but a pure, ivory idol, midnight friezes coalesce, decorate the banister, hang suspenders on a Christmas boil, and serrate a kneeling pulpit. Wedged in soot at every stop, Santa traduces many a rocking housewife to stunt marsh, all beneath the trapdoor's trembling tinsel. Spilt bottles beautify his bald spot, sound the martial gong, sop up knees, and introduce a loaf of dread to making ruckus. Baking in her rooftop tether, Vixen comports herself wildly, coming out of stirring pods; creamed thus, owned by nomads, Rudolph's quivering bulb makes for gyro cheese, licks her tongue, and lives to plunge an otter into resting jewels. Booties on, mantle affixed, our newly sane Santa smarts off, abuts a chimney, and calcifies his florid shaving gears, hobbling half a moon. Frondose and harboring newts, indentured turtle doves shuck clean cornerstones, cooing in the dawn.

WINTER

2011-12-22T06:29:00.000-05:00

by Devlin De La Chapa

The horse drove heavy
beneath their winding feet

above the pasty red clay caliche
midnight black and moonlight white cursed

blistering coals paving the dense trails
between heaven and hell’s gorge

her body was weighty
within the barren of arms

the poison of love’s tempting betrayal
became a burden across the wintry desert

the tears that fell from within scorned eyes
once virgin were thrust between the throes

of the rains that came early in the year
and with it, yielding the scour of sin

slithering between the bare of peace
breaking the fruits with pride over lust

now she rendered paralyzed within those other souls
her spirit resting amongst those lost to the winter

he remembers chopping wood
beneath the vacant of his own soul

listening to crickets scrambling their dead
their heartbreak settling

like decaying cinders
on his dead lover’s tongue

just before he pulled the reins
all that remained on saddle

was the first crest of snows fall
and a bottle of piss warm Whiskey

drinking from the horse who dances on ground to the beat of drums
tuneless within the raging fires of the dead he carried

Last Saturday Night

2011-12-22T06:28:00.000-05:00

by James Babbs

1.
I remember
I was talking to this woman
trying to tell her
how good I thought she looked
I told her we weren’t used to
seeing women like her around here and
it was just about that time
when he came bursting through the door
with this big wave of excitement
rushing in behind him
he was laughing and
talking really loud and
he started buying everybody drinks
we had all called him Buck
for as long as I could remember
I guess because
he never seemed to have any
but tonight he was throwing money around
like it was nothing more than sand
he’d gathered from the playground
over at the school and
he kept saying my friends
like he wanted to give a speech
but then he’d just laugh and
buy us all another round of drinks
he threw handfuls of quarters at people and
told them to go play
something good on the jukebox and
word must have got out somewhere along the way
because people kept pouring in all the time and
whenever I found my glass empty
another drink would magically appear and
at some point during the night
I thought I heard people singing and
I don’t remember how I got home

2.
when I returned to the bar on the following Wednesday
the bartender hurried over to me and
asked me if I’d heard about Buck
I started to laugh
thinking about last Saturday night
they found him this morning
the bartender said
I guess somebody went to check on him
because he hadn’t been to work for a couple of days
the bartender slid me a beer
then he said
I guess he hung himself in his garage
I already had the bottle to my lips and
I took a long drink

Coming Down

2011-12-20T06:25:00.001-05:00

by Sarah E. White

Feeling high
A sweet, sweet drug
The tingle on my skin, the heat of it pulsing through my veins
The pounding of my heart
Intensifying into a frenzy of wild and wonderful sensations
Breathing you in to me, completes me
In an almost unexplainable way
Filling my voids finally
Loving you is an addiction
The cravings are so strong, unbearable at times
Kisses penetrating into my lips right through my soul
Like the back heat of liquor soothing my throat
I drink you down
Warming me through and through
I am high on you
But even the best drug must come to an end
There is always the dreaded coming down
You leaving me is nothing but torture
I ache from your absence
My stomach in my throat from the force of the fall
You make me high
Flying above all that exists in my world
Then you clip my wings with one word, goodbye
I plummet
Falling face first through all of my feelings
Back down to the bottom
Leaving my body wrecked and weak
I huddle and shiver in the depths of this lowness
As I come down
Coming down from you

Dream vehicle

2011-12-20T06:25:00.000-05:00

by Jamie Hubner

I walk a corridor of sanctimonious espionage,
Constantly battling against a double agent,
Flittering between him,
and gravities underlying grip upon me.

The projected trajectory of thought made hideous,
By mornings judgmental gaze,
Thought is most certainly floundering,
While the rest of my heart secretes a sweet wanderlust.

I have entered the arena of the unbeknown,
If god created earth and us beasts in tandem
Then he undoubtedly presented us with these liquids,
These mind and reality altering tools,
With which I have created a labyrinth, returning to my true self,
Modifying my mind into a finely tuned dream vehicle of deception,
Driving a reality we cannot control,
Not due to fates subtle push,
Nor the firm grip of human interaction or fault...
But because control is nonexistent and unheard of in this world,
Passion,
Love,
Dementia,
The feeling is all the same.
A Comatose emptiness alluring you like a promiscuous temptress,
Winking and tugging at your sleeve.

We are all unwell and attention lacking,
Perhaps this is the constant devouring of us from the inside,
A parasitic force drowning us in a temporary sea
of twinkling stars to help us forget,
Nasty medicine does you good
Like a tarnished reputation adequately fits the bill,
Mendacity and deception the tricks of my comrades trade.

We become lost...

Victims of a seducing, liquefying whisper,
Delivered on the breeze.

The night is young,
As I welcome you to the inner sanctum of my daze.
Home to palatial rapture,
And a confidence trickster,
Tiring by each pass of day.

The Writers Guild Veteran

2011-12-20T06:24:00.001-05:00

by Robert Laughlin

You don’t know who puts the words into the mouths of stars.
LA loves its writers just as Venice loves its cars.

Umpqua Barques

2011-12-20T06:24:00.000-05:00

by Richard Hartwell

Ponderous lines, unwieldy, graceless, and abnormal,
yet possessed of elements of durability and staidness;
these were the houseboats on the lower Umpqua River,
homes to generations of families of stationary river folk;
eyesores, lost value, and potential hazards to those whose
vested interests lay with eradicating the “estuary squatters.”

At night myriad beams peek from many windows,
shining like eyes focused on the bouncing Umpqua,
the contrast with the brooding valley mountains and
darkened feathered forest becomes the majestic milieu
to jubilant, shattered splinters of light, and the aberrant
barques become glorious by conjurers’ tricks of deflection.

Bomb Expert

2011-12-18T07:08:00.004-05:00

by Douglas Polk

angry eyes watch the clock,
awaiting his return,
her anger a bomb,
the living room clock ticking down the time,

pensive he pours another drink,
studying the clock on the bar room wall,
a bomb expert,
measuring, waiting for the safest moment to detonate.

My Dead Come Down

2011-12-18T07:08:00.002-05:00

by Art Holcomb

In the early hours,
my dead come down
from the alder tree behind my house
and drink from my swimming pool

cautious hands dip
scoop by scoop,
eyes on me,
as I stand on the other side
of my patio door.

I sip my coffee
and slowly crack the door open
just a bit,

just a little bit.

They (suddenly) do not move.

And I quietly, through the crack,
steal a breath of
our common fortune

I hold that breath;

it’s heady

and they,
having had their fill,
retreat back through the landscaping,

to vanish

electric coil glow like taillights
as we both make for the dawn.

In the Store Parking Lot

2011-12-18T07:08:00.001-05:00

by James Babbs

he was an old man
I knew his name and
I’d talked to him a few times
but I wouldn’t say we were friends
but when I saw him
coming out of the store
I said hello
before asking him
how he was doing
he told me not too good
he’d been to see his wife
earlier that morning and
she was in a nursing home
suffering from Alzheimer’s and
she didn’t even know
who he was anymore
he started crying
standing there next to me
in the store parking lot and
I didn’t know what to do
I didn’t know what to say
I wanted to say something
but I’m sorry just didn’t seem like
it was good enough
but I said it anyway
feeling the sun on my face
watching him wiping his eyes
with the back of his wrinkled hand
I told him
I had to get going
because
there were some things
I needed to get done and
it was starting to get late

Mermaids and Curses

2011-12-18T07:08:00.000-05:00

by Jason E. Hodges　

Walking where water once stood
Where waves once crashed with power on the shoreline
All, now sea land, as far as my eye can see
Littered with twisted bits of coral and shell
For the tides have pulled out to the dark depths of the ocean
The Shoals, spotted smears of soft salty sand cushion my feet
As I walk out on what was once called bottom
I see, sea creatures swirling and trapped in puddles
In this place that’s only here for an hour
Suddenly, I hear a faint cry in the distance
My steps move toward what’s now turned to hypnotic singing
Then I see her, in all of her beauty, trapped in a small pool of holding
Half woman, half fish
Her eyes blue as sky-crystal-cloud-burst
Her lips red and full with temptation
Golden hair draped softly over her breast
Her singing seemed to hold me in place
Her words begged me to stay
Then the tides water starts to flow in around me
Faster, and faster
I struggled to walk with all of its rising
I thought, I’m never going to leave here alive
Now I’m swimming in panic for the safety of the shoreline
Trying to break free of her incredible grasp
The undertone of her begging and pulling will surely drown me before this is over
The curse of the Mermaid has a hold of me now
Suddenly, I awake to the sun climbing midway in the sky
Sitting up I see a lifeguard frowning and writing a ticket
The next time you drink and pass out in the water, I might not be here to save you

RAIN

2011-12-15T06:01:00.001-05:00

by Joanna M. Weston

she stirs old things in memory
hangs them like a calendar
to be seen and turned daily –
that kiss exchanged at dusk
moon-rise over the lake
his diagnosis shared

these curled hands
retain the trembling past

A Story

2011-12-15T06:01:00.000-05:00

by Holly Day

once upon a time
we were in love
and then we weren’t
time has turned my hair gray
and my skin gray
and my eyes blind.
I wonder how he’s aged.
I hear the dirt moving
far above my head
the shovel draws close.
pebbles fall on my face as
metal bites into wood.
I have composed
so many love letters
down here, in my head
started conversations
mumbled explanations
but I can’t say a word that he can hear.
I see his face in the opening
framed in moonlight and wet earth
if I could feel
I’d feel him pull the ring from my finger
the skin sliding off the bone with
the cold metal
if I could speak
I’d ask him about the new girlfriend
ask him
if she’s prettier than me.

Growing Pains

2011-12-15T06:00:00.003-05:00

by Cynthia Ruth Lewis

I've been writing so many angry poems

about you lately, that the whole world

probably thinks I'm nothing but a

bitter, spiteful bitch

and I don't blame them

but they weren't there;

they weren't in my shoes

they weren't subjected to the likes of you

and I hope they never are

assholes like you ought to come

with a warning label,

instead of subtly enticing clueless women

to swallow your twisted bullshit,

until they're almost as low as you are

so excuse me while I rant

and get it all off my chest

and beat the living crap out of objects

with a baseball bat,

working off the frustration

while trying to repress the hurt,

wishing I could have experienced

only the best of relationships,

but realizing true growth

comes from the worst

This can’t be real

2011-12-15T05:59:00.002-05:00

by Dionna Liggans

I bear a tiny scar shaped like a lowercase L on my hip and one in my belly button. I thought that stuff like this only happened in the movies, yet here I am being pinned down and taken advantage of. Here I am on this beautiful snowy December night crying silently as I keep my voice down for fear of waking my parents. The slight blue glow from the CD player casts haunting shadows across their faces as they tag each other in as if I were just a childhood game of jump rope. I close my eyes and wait for it to end. Months go by, no words are uttered. No one will believe me, they will all say it was my fault and I wanted it so I keep silent. Long nights are spent tossing and turning because the stomach pain is so excruciatingly painful. Hold yourself together I utter silently to myself. This is your secret. I go through the motions as the pain finally makes me collapse in class. My worst fears are confirmed. “You have pelvic inflammatory disease,” the doctor utters as I lay hopeless in the starch white hospital room. I take a deep breath and fill my lungs with the cold antiseptic air “what does this mean?” “Your fallopian tubes are severely scared and we’ll have to go in and take a look. You may end up infertile from this, but we don’t know for sure.” I stared as the doctor stepped out into the hallway, the only noise coming from the room was the sound of my mother’s tears falling on the cold concrete floor.

Relapse

2011-12-13T06:25:00.003-05:00

by Dionna Liggans

Just when I thought I had you out of my system
Here you are
Again.
Your poison running through my veins
like blood.
Tempting me,
Teasing me,
Pulling me in deeper and deeper
Until I'm so deep I can't breathe
I can't sleep
I can't eat
All I can do is sit in thought of
You.
Of us.
In thought of that first kiss
and how
Your lips molded so perfectly into mine
As you cupped my face in your hands.
And I thought,
this can't be real,
yet there you were right in front of me.
In thought of the first time we made love
and how
you were ever so gentle
treating my body like it was your own private temple.
we became explorers.
searching every curve of each other
oohing and ahhing at our amazing finds.
Thinking about how good it felt to have my body intertwined with yours.
It's as if you became a part of I.
Or maybe it was I that had become you.
But that's all over.
you left me
Sitting here alone
Trying to cope with what happened.
And as soon as i came to grips on what can and can't be.
You walked back into my life.
And like a true addict,
I can't help but
Relapse.

VETERAN

2011-12-13T06:25:00.002-05:00

by Will Monigold

On Friday nights
She talks to the Jesus.
On other nights she
Drinks fortified wine from
Heart shaped bottles.
A thousand boxes
Are stacked around
Filling rooms
That are otherwise
Unoccupied.
She practices piano
In a church basement
Where they feed the homeless
And track children
Who have no place
To cry after school.
Late at night
She questions
Her right to live.
Mostly she defers
To the lack of wisdom
Others maintain
populates the universe.

The Unhearable Brightness Of Seeing

2011-12-13T06:25:00.001-05:00

by Omar Azam

Take it.
It will be forever.

God imagine
what else could be sent
to make permanent
that particle
of time
before I snap.

The camera
is in me
now.

Your brown eye

dark-
in
my face.

It is infinite -
So is my
power at this
same
particle.

Your hat was
your only
way.

It made you.

Now
You are
bare but
not exposed -

Not yet.

For once,
I have
the chance
to make me
equal
to you.

I
take it away.
You mean nothing
then.

Just
like me.

Apocalypse TV

2011-12-13T06:25:00.000-05:00

by Ben Rasnic

Sinister apparitions on horseback
vaporize into particles
of atomic snow.

Barely discernible,
the shriek of human suffering
marquees in closed captions.

On the count of three,
the ones who know too much
swallow tiny green cyanide capsules.

Ungranted Wish in Little Armageddon

2011-12-11T06:26:00.000-05:00

by Brandon Copeland

Morning and sunrise.
One rises, a mourning and no surprise.

A lonely heart is the expert lecturer,
pained
a soul restrained
the body, in unison remains.
The lecturer ponders in cries
and cries are unanswered by angels and saints.
But on the mind’s battlefield
where the forces of good and evil
play out a deadlocked and unwinnable war
one’s eyes take sight to worldly duties.

By the constant flow of the
current of undammed tears
the lyrical testaments for unsung combatants:
posthumously undamned.
Eyes do not see the darkness that breathes
smoldering tendrils of discontent:
and the lecturer prays for an end.
For the bittersweet notes that victory brings
in a scythe’s rapid swing.

Alas, in little Armageddon
This humbled offering of wishes is ungranted by the Lord:
"Offer more prayers on the wind" He advises.
You live day by day:
A taciturn vessel full to the lip with 24 hours.

Awake!
And I see now.

Homecoming

2011-12-11T06:25:00.002-05:00

by Adhar Maheshwari

Above shrubs of gold and auburn
in a forgotten ghost town,
the grey skies darken the afternoon.
It feels like a dream. A bad dream.

The road that wanders up the hill,
welcomed me when I was a child,
now it’s trampled, directionless.
Arthritis, maybe. And a sprinkling of Alzheimer’s.

I see my old hut,
still standing swooped and bent.
Amongst skeleton trees that remember
things that should never have happened.

What lives in my hut I don’t want to know,
though I do want to see whether it crawls or snarls,
or if its dying a quiet death,
and feeling right at home.

Arsenic is too old fashioned,
these days we use memories.

Talking Shit About Respect

2011-12-11T06:25:00.001-05:00

by George Anderson

In the quiet drone of the morning carriage
an old guy perks up, his voice alarmingly loud,

‘I spent most of yesterday in the garden. It looked like rain
Most of the day so I couldn’t spray the weeds.’

A woman near him, in a thick Cocky accent agrees,
‘Yes, you need to spray at least seven hours before rain.’

In my seat two down from them on the left I cringingly take it in-
my woolen beanie pulled tightly over my eyes as I try to sleep.

The old man’s gnawing voice rebooting every five minutes or so
in response to the woman’s inane refrains.

They talk about pesticides, talkback radio, shopping, the rain.

Later, as I stir and walk by their seat to disembark, I mutter:
‘Do you know what time it is, Sir?’

He glances at me dismissively as if I am a new breed of vermin.

I tell him as I scurry down the stairs, ‘It’s time you stopped
talking so much shit. People have to work, you know.’

The old man is quick & jumps up & follows me
onto the western platform of Sutherland Station.

‘What did you say?’
You heard me. Turn up your volume if you can’t hear.

I bound up the stairs to catch my connecting train and he screams at me,
‘you young pricks have got no respect!, you’ve got no respect! ‘

And as I glance back his train slowly rolls out towards the weeping heart of the city.

On the yellow line, he futilely attempts to wave down the tons of passing steel.

Kaleidoscope and Harpsichord

2011-12-11T06:25:00.000-05:00

by Donal Mahoney

As I've told my wife too many times, the meaning of any poem hides in the marriage of cadence and sound. Vowels on a carousel, consonants on a calliope, whistles and bells, we need them all if a poem is to tickle our ears. Otherwise, the lines are gristle and fat, no meat.

Is it any wonder, then, my wife has had a problem, for decades now, with any poem I've given her to read for a second opinion. This is especially true when we both know the poem has no message and I simply want to hear the music, assuming there is some. Miles Davis made a living doing the same thing in jazz clubs. Why can't I have a little fun and give it a try even if my instrument is words?

The other night in bed I gave my wife my latest poem to read. I said it was fetal, not final. Afterward she said that reading this poem was no different than reading all the others I had given her over the years. She had thought I'd improve by now. Maybe I should switch to fiction or the essay, she suggested, or else stick with editing the manuscripts of others since I had made a decent living as an editor for many years.

"You've been writing poetry for decades," she said, "but reading a poem like this is like looking through a kaleidoscope while listening to a harpsichord."

Point well taken, I thought, point well said. The nuns for whom I toiled all those years in grammar school would have liked my wife. They might have even recruited her to join their order.

Then I asked her what a man should do if he has careened for years through the caves of his mind spelunking for the right line for a poem only to hear his wife say that reading his poem was like "looking through kaleidoscope while listening to a harpsichord."

Should I quit writing? Start drinking? After all I quit drinking when I started writing and I discovered that the hangovers from both were equally debilitating.

The following morning she said, "You should never quit writing."

At that moment, she was enthroned at the kitchen table, as regal as ever in her fluttery gown and buttering her English muffin with long, languorous strokes Van Gogh would envy.

"You should write even more,” she said, “all day and all night, if need be. After all, my line about the 'kaleidoscope and harpsichord' needs a poem of its own. It's all meat, no gristle, no fat."

ESCOBILLA 2

2011-12-11T06:20:00.001-05:00

by Claudia Rey

A year later and nothing has changed: the sand is still warm, there are hundreds of stars over our heads, the waves are luminescent with plankton and roll gently towards the beach. We are here for a different reason, though. We did come to see turtles, but babies and not mothers.

It is nearly seven, already dark, and at first the beach looks desert and still. We sort of expected a frenzy of movement, but the only sign that something is about to happen is the loud quak of garzas, black birds similar to crows but bigger and uglier.

“They are waiting” explains our guide Luis. “They know that in a while they will have a good dinner.” I shiver. Okay, the laws of nature and so on, but do garzas have to eat baby turtles? Now?

We walk for some minutes by the light of our torches, but we only see broken whitish eggshell. Then Luis stops us. “Look, a nest” he says pointing to a spot where something is moving. I fall to my knees. A tiny black head, the size of a hazelnut, is surfacing from the sand… then I see a flipper. Slowly the tortuguita emerges from the nest, moving very weakly as if it was drunk. Another follows, then another. And soon there are dozens of them, stepping one over the other in their desperate quest for air - and the security of the ocean.

I'm dying to touch one of the little creatures, but I'm afraid a human hand might affect them in some way, possibly removing some protective film or whatever… “Of course you can” smiles Luis. So I reach slowly and caress the shell, which is surprisingly hard, while head and flippers are as soft as velvet. The babies are not bigger than a hen's egg and look sweet and vulnerable, but are in fact strong and resilient, and very good at fighting for life. At the end of their nose they have a sort of hard needle which they use to break the egg shell, and after emerging from a rather deep nest - which is in itself a challenge - they run to the sea and they start swimming, without eating anything for at least three days. Not bad for newborns, with no mummy to tell them what to do or at least to encourage them.

As if an alarm clock had started, hundreds of hatchlings are now leaving their nests all at the same time. It is nearly ten, the half moon is shining and we don't need torches any more. Now the sand is swarming of small creatures, at least fifty for each nest, and we walk from one nest to another very carefully to avoid stepping on them. Here and there we can still see the big round form of a mother turtle laying her eggs, but those are the younger ones who probably lost their way, explains our guide, and they are very few. The two events are very well spaced by Mother Nature: first the delivery, forty-five days later the birth. And they rarely mix.

Well, it's time to leave the babies to their business. But the real treat of the evening has still to come: we are allowed to put a tortuguita on our hand, and Luis takes an infra-red photo. The proportions are amazing: I can only imagine how scared the babies would be if they could see themselves on our giant palms. But they couldn't care less, or so it seems.

The tide has changed and big waves come nearer. A dozen of newborn have nearly reached their goal… then a wave enfolds them, taking them away. “So long, babies” whispers the lady near me. She has come from Puebla expressly to see this "milagro" as she calls it. “And now, let's have a nice cold beer” she suggests.

Sure, why not? Right now, a cold beer seems just the thing.

Personal Space

2011-12-08T06:25:00.005-05:00

by Lori Lipsky

What a surprise you’ve never learned

No matter how many times you bump your

Tray into mine, you will reach the front

Of the cafeteria line at the same time

Unfilled seats abound

At the movie theater, but

You sit directly in front of me and

Drape your coat back so it hangs on my knees

One restroom stall occupied

Twenty still available

You choose the one

Closest to me

In the long line for the cashier

You hit my backside with your

Cart seven times

As we wait

Empty lockers at the gym

Are in plentiful supply

You pick the one

Adjacent to me

Groups of available chairs

Are open at the concert

You plop down

Right beside me

Must your hip touch my hip?

Must your shoulder rub my shoulder?

We’ve never met—the rule on a bench ought to be

Three inches on either side

Another moan squelched

You should hear my thoughts

A scream right now would

Lighten the load

The Light of a Thousand Moons

2011-12-08T06:25:00.003-05:00

by P. L. Powell

I am what I am.

Like you, I have my complaints

and more confusions

than a small skull should hold.

There may be pearls here

but pillars elude me.

This is no age for builders;

they tell me swimmers only need apply.

A doctor and nurse,

sex on the surgical table

in the dim of night...

What can they say to the dying?

Since we are all dying…

I am what I am.

You are what you are. And there

are peacocks in Wisconsin.

FELLOW DRINKER

2011-12-08T06:25:00.001-05:00

by John Grey

The man is spun into the world
by the bar-stool beneath him.
I'm not drunk like he is drunk.
My body and my head are still enjoined.
I'm not legs going one way,
mind drifting backward.
I don't see the hills above Montpelier,
the cows, the children tossing baseballs,
or young girls dipping toes in cold streams
while my knees give out
and my face slams against the sidewalk.
Waiting for someone as I am,
I'm just a little in my past.
And I know to drink just enough
to keep my bones in line.
Sure I see the hills, but the mirror
behind the bar's more clear.
And there's a few cows
but they're scattered among the gin bottles.
The bar-tender keeps the conversation going.
The baseballs whiz around his head.
And for every young girl felt up by the chill,
there's a lovely woman who'll be with me shortly.
But I order another drink
just in case she doesn't show.
My body's been this way before.
The sidewalk is on standby.

Rising

2011-12-08T06:25:00.000-05:00

by Darryl Price

The coin, so little, the watch chain, the youth,
so to speak, each hand, the panic room, the
here and there, the ashtray, the stumps, the distance now,
the feathers, the jump, the radiant shadows, the spine
in gold letters, the arc, the circumstances, the mirrors,
stories, the talk, the torn away grasses, the collective
nouns, the esthetic, the city limits, the next year,
the correct use of the young money's predicament, the
voices, the hell, the hunting of the relevance of
the object, these boys, the light of the lamp,
the bonkers world, the baseball cap, the old pine
trees, the flapping din, by contrast, the most maddening
thing, the darkening apartment bricks, just outside the window,
the lighted fire, the strange smell, the endless appetite
beneath, biting the inside of my mouth, the small
lie, if you insist, the puzzled exaltation of rising.

Red on the Sky

2011-12-06T06:21:00.000-05:00

by Savannah Stuitje

We are everything and nothing and dust on the wind
We are the burning maple tree, red on the sky
Sugar dripping onto the coals, the flames bright and angry
I will not be satisfied until I hold your heart between my teeth,
And my hands are inside you,
Playing among your bones, your steaming intestines
Until I have eaten your brain with knife and fork, sucked the marrow
from your ribs and wiped my lips with a linen napkin
Until you are looking down from my wall, your eyes glassy and cataract
spotted from where I have stolen your knowledge and savored it with a
fine brandy,
I will not be happy until I feel your arms around me in a new fur coat.
I will not breathe until your scent is gone from the wind
Until my ears no longer lie flat against my skull
Until your blood is on my hands, I assure you, I will not spill my own again.
We will toast my success in crystal glasses,
Praise the brilliant red of it, the hearty bouquet that assails us
I will not blink until you are gone from the places my mind goes when I drift
Between each spoken sentence, when I must ask others to repeat themselves
My mind wandered...
You will be scrubbed clean off me and discarded with yellow plastic gloves
And I will leave you standing at attention
Until your bones are aching with expectations as mine have,
Your eyes squinted with the cold, waiting for me,
Waiting to be let go,
Waiting to be remembered and taken home by the hand,
Until you give up and realize
You have been forgotten
I will leave you adrift in the falling snow
Your hands shaking, your breath short, your nostrils quivering
You will fall with melting snow on your cheeks.

untitled

2011-12-06T06:20:00.001-05:00

by Vidousha Bundhoo

I am engulfed in darkness...
Vanity smiles at my every humble step,
And I turn into this monster
Who uses words like two-edged swords
Who gets into a frenzy of hurting
While being hurt
And causing even more hurt
More to myself than to others
By the hate,
The rejection,
The camouflage
And egotism,
I force a demon into my core
And feed it with my anger
And narcissism.
Often we kiss,
Just after I’ve just used looks and words
To slay the confidence of others,
To demean the gentle,
To crush the innocent.
My demon and I share orgasmic victories after each assault on humanity.

Things I want to learn how to do:

2011-12-06T06:20:00.000-05:00

by Jen Ralston

Lay bricks
     (so I can build my own house)
Weld
          (to make a paragliding bicycle)
String a tennis racket
               (how hard can that be?)
Stay in love once I’m there
                    (I think I got this one down but time will tell)

A Hawaiian Shirt Inside a Greek Restaurant

2011-12-06T06:00:00.002-05:00

by Robert E. Petras

Leaves all shed, we drove

past a lawn with a nativity scene,

next to one with a toy graveyard and ghosts,

on our way to a Greek restaurant.

Inside my tongued jackknifed pronouncing

pastichio and souvlaki, the menu

not so smooth to my tongue

as the flamingoes and palmettos

on my Hawaiian shirt, and I

mispronounced gyro, which is more like Hilo,

which I pronounced like the Hi the owner

greeted with, asking our name.

Petras, he said as if taste-testing fakes,

are you Greek?

No, I reply, I’m Slovak.

It means rock cutter in Greek,

he said. Enjoy.

After we left, we drove back through town,

past pumpkin displays, past glowing Christmas lights,

wearing our name the best we could.

CHANGE IN LUCK

2011-12-04T07:59:00.000-05:00

by John Grey

lime on the tongue
worm in the bottle
newspaper opened
in front of her
at the horoscope
of all places

nowhere
does it say
'you will get
horribly drunk
in some faux-Mexican bar
that calls itself
a cantina’

it merely reads
'today your luck
will change'

it's a week old newspaper
printed before her luck
changed back again

WINTER PLANS

2011-12-04T07:58:00.001-05:00

by John McKernan

Throw the dirt back in the grave

Level the ground Plant new grass

Kneel down Knock your skull

On the granite twice Wait for Spring

Untitled

2011-12-04T07:58:00.000-05:00

by Michael O'Brien

winter snow blocks my path
i bet the well is frozen too
three months of little light
stogy roots for nourishment
no friends to drink my summer wine
but wait.... is that a robin?

SOME DANCE TO FORGET

2011-12-04T07:57:00.001-05:00

by D.L. Tricarico

I see you in the picture
wearing your black dress
with the red chiffon sash
and dancing with him
in some kind of celebration
and suddenly it is as if
the swaying of your body
has erased the past two decades
as if I never gave you daises
by your classroom door
as if you never sang to me
as we parked in my parent's car
near the undulating ocean,
as if we never held
each other in the cool gray
of the almost dawn.

Sea

2011-12-04T07:57:00.000-05:00

by Darryl Price

To our credit we walked into the coral
caves with our ancestral humanity and
an open air of resolute courage.
To shore, of course, and then to the big messy

plants that have always been the islands. Stars like
lavender shoes command all the attention.
It follows from this that the slower-moving
molecules will have this same energy path

eventually in the grand scheme and turn
back into absolute mind, to being, rather
than God, a good landscape for the sun to
affirm or deny again and again.

prosthetic life

2011-12-01T06:35:00.001-05:00

by SK Iyer

wooden-footed future gathers lampblack
from the wick of life
when shadows seek to hide light
looks for synonyms of happiness
in the lexicon of life

words fail -
singing and dancing
since the days of fairy tales
they have lost their shine

in the clichéd darkness
begrimed by the forerunners
travels the same time-bridged path
overburdened by footprints
towards the same destiny
one-footed