Do you love the color
of my hair?
Do you miss it
as it turns?
From red.
To gold.
To black.
You hope for gray.
But that’s not the way I rot.
Conventions --
such as life --
shun me.
I don’t belong in any of their light.
And yet I cannot disappear.
I am the slate of a mistake.
Wash me.
Trace me.
Re-erase me.
I rise again and again.
I am a phoenix of misuse.
I dream of abuse.
Not mine.
It is my desire.
To be the devastation.
Without the fire.
Though this dream too will fade.
In time,
I remain:
a stain.
Unforgotten.
And the ash in your mind
is my sin.
You will hear it calling.
Long after night
has claimed my skin.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Dusting off the Blood
by A.J. Huffman
Wormwood
by Jessica Otto
She has black dirt on her face.
The ruins of a garden plucked
for winter stain her hands.
She has scratched that greenery free
and bathed in the empty
soil, praying for next year’s harvest
with touches
of bare arms and thighs.
She rubs the flesh of the earth,
places stones in her mouth
careful of her teeth
though she knows
this is ritual.
Her tongue rolls in the grit,
Hips turn the ground like a spade.
She says, “I will starve myself for the gods
so I can grow poison in the spring.”
She has black dirt on her face.
The ruins of a garden plucked
for winter stain her hands.
She has scratched that greenery free
and bathed in the empty
soil, praying for next year’s harvest
with touches
of bare arms and thighs.
She rubs the flesh of the earth,
places stones in her mouth
careful of her teeth
though she knows
this is ritual.
Her tongue rolls in the grit,
Hips turn the ground like a spade.
She says, “I will starve myself for the gods
so I can grow poison in the spring.”
IN THE NEW GARDEN OF ASHES
by Stephen Jarrell Williams
They say it will be the end of the world
Soon
Cities blazing with blue flame
You're swallowing hard sitting in bed
Staring across the room at the mirror
I'm massaging your bare back
Window fan blowing in cool
Outside blur of what will come
You whisper
There's no way out of this
Our house between dying
Memories and desperate hope
Only some will survive
In the new garden of ashes
You sigh
Turning to me smiling
Swishing your breasts side to side
Whispering
Let's burn the bed down.
They say it will be the end of the world
Soon
Cities blazing with blue flame
You're swallowing hard sitting in bed
Staring across the room at the mirror
I'm massaging your bare back
Window fan blowing in cool
Outside blur of what will come
You whisper
There's no way out of this
Our house between dying
Memories and desperate hope
Only some will survive
In the new garden of ashes
You sigh
Turning to me smiling
Swishing your breasts side to side
Whispering
Let's burn the bed down.
You and Me
by Aashish Thakur
And you said “window is not a window, it’s a door”
And I opened my heart,
Then you said “sky is an empty bowl, lets fill it with our love”
And we have done our prayers on bed
Then you said “some years don’t give birth to spring”
And like a fallen leaf, silently I sang the autumn
Then you said “the spirit of seed lies in its longing and pain”
And you walked away;
And then I said “what is falling on your palms, are my tears not the rain”
And you said “window is not a window, it’s a door”
And I opened my heart,
Then you said “sky is an empty bowl, lets fill it with our love”
And we have done our prayers on bed
Then you said “some years don’t give birth to spring”
And like a fallen leaf, silently I sang the autumn
Then you said “the spirit of seed lies in its longing and pain”
And you walked away;
And then I said “what is falling on your palms, are my tears not the rain”
The Feeling of Mountains or Your Body
by A.K. Jackson
Beauty makes me feel trembling and small.
This morning I lay like an infant, clinging
to the safety of breasts but was a woman
again by the time I fully rose.
I held your soft fistfuls and felt a closeness,
as if blood was running from one girl
to the next. You are the beautiful things
in the world. Your heart beats all
the plants and animals into my brain.
And now I am leaving you, driving
through mountains that fill me with fear.
Life is such a fragile moment, pressure
in my ears and a long way down.
But I see your shape in the landscape,
mountains peaking like a girl on her back
and danger is suddenly as safe as comfort.
There are new birches growing, saplings
springing from cracks in the rocks.
They start out soft, and pale green
some to bend and some to snap.
Beauty makes me feel trembling and small.
This morning I lay like an infant, clinging
to the safety of breasts but was a woman
again by the time I fully rose.
I held your soft fistfuls and felt a closeness,
as if blood was running from one girl
to the next. You are the beautiful things
in the world. Your heart beats all
the plants and animals into my brain.
And now I am leaving you, driving
through mountains that fill me with fear.
Life is such a fragile moment, pressure
in my ears and a long way down.
But I see your shape in the landscape,
mountains peaking like a girl on her back
and danger is suddenly as safe as comfort.
There are new birches growing, saplings
springing from cracks in the rocks.
They start out soft, and pale green
some to bend and some to snap.
the lake grows
by David Mclean
the lake grows its untiring expectation,
though the expectation is projected
and the lake just is, like birds singing,
and the fell rain fell, like years fall
into a missing god's empty pocket,
consciousness stops because of bodies
and the way they always die forever,
but the lake is growing its autumn
and the rain is feeding the contented trees
so they grow another years obligation
though soon there is no memory left
and no live body for me to be
the rain sets history free
the lake grows its untiring expectation,
though the expectation is projected
and the lake just is, like birds singing,
and the fell rain fell, like years fall
into a missing god's empty pocket,
consciousness stops because of bodies
and the way they always die forever,
but the lake is growing its autumn
and the rain is feeding the contented trees
so they grow another years obligation
though soon there is no memory left
and no live body for me to be
the rain sets history free
My Black Pearl
by Carmen Eichman
I can breathe at the bottom
where bubbles burst from boiling surfaces
blacker, deeper places where I have not reached.
Sun light moves, sways me, above me,
people walk, sometimes hurried, sometimes languid
from this angle, but I hear nothing
as I watch from underneath, holding
my breath, waiting, waiting, waiting
for the dream, the black pearl, I swallowed
long ago, won’t digest, safe keeping in
the oyster of my guts, without it I die, again
and again, and again. Down here I gulp hope,
settle into a mechanical movement along
sandy bottoms, my blink a salute to the dry stars,
slip among the ordinary pearls
that just won’t do.
I can breathe at the bottom
where bubbles burst from boiling surfaces
blacker, deeper places where I have not reached.
Sun light moves, sways me, above me,
people walk, sometimes hurried, sometimes languid
from this angle, but I hear nothing
as I watch from underneath, holding
my breath, waiting, waiting, waiting
for the dream, the black pearl, I swallowed
long ago, won’t digest, safe keeping in
the oyster of my guts, without it I die, again
and again, and again. Down here I gulp hope,
settle into a mechanical movement along
sandy bottoms, my blink a salute to the dry stars,
slip among the ordinary pearls
that just won’t do.
HOW THEY ROB MEN IN CHICAGO (1900)
by Ricky Garni
HOW THEY ROB MEN IN CHICAGO (1900) PT 1
According to what I saw on the Mutuscope in O-Naught, a bonk on the head and then scram. A policeman runs up to see where the fire is, looks around, sees the coast is clear, steals the dough off the limp body. The whole movie lasts exactly 25 seconds, a masterpiece and one cardboard set. Yet with all the suffering in this world, I cannot bear to see it again.
In the sequel, the policeman buys a pistachio ice cream cone. He admits he is a homosexual in court joins the foreign legion and in order to avoid legal prosecution for his crimes against nature and because he likes the Frank Sinatra song but unfortunately gets trampled by elephants in Nepal. Back home in Brooklyn, the chief of police calls up to the apartment to tell the family the news. His mother leans out the window and says SERVES HIM RIGHT but she really is his son. And he gives birth again, and his mother says I DO. My brother is my uncle is my sister is my mother hijinks ensue. This is one funky family. The chief of police doesn’t bother with it because it isn’t his beat. One year til retirement. There is no honeymoon and no funeral and it rains blood.
HEY. It’s my sequel and I can do whatever I want.
HOW THEY ROB MEN IN CHICAGO (1900) PT 2
According to what I saw on the Mutuscope in Naught-Naught, a bonk on the head and then scram. A constable runs up to see where the fire is, looks around, sees the coast is clear, steals the dough off the limp body. The whole movie lasts exactly 25 seconds, a masterpiece of the era and one cardboard set. Yet with all the suffering in this world, I cannot bear to see it again.
So I make a sequel.
In the sequel, the constable waits on the curb for the man to regain consciousness. The constable presses a cool hanky to his forehead. “What th--?” the man asks. “Everything will be OK,” he replies “you were robbed, but you will be fine. Rest here for a moment. Then you must come to my house. I insist. It’s almost time for dinner now and my wife makes a terrific beef stew.”
We don’t know all this because it is a silent film.
And since I hate subtitles there are none of those either.
Some people will be reassured by the hanky and the smiling but if you are deaf than this is the movie for you. The constable has beautiful, supple lips, and he speaks slowly. The man enunciates clearly and deliberately, perhaps due to the injury. There is more smiling in the end than there is in the beginning. And there seems to be happiness there.
But when the movie ends and the lights come up, some of the audience is confused, and some look a little bored, but there are some people, a very few people, who are walking out into the night with their mouths watering and smacking their lips. They turn to each other to discuss the movie. Their fingers are moving like crazy. They loved it! They feel wild! This movie is really just about them.
But what happened to the money? Did the wife really make a terrific beef stew?
Sorry: there will be no sequel.
HOW THEY ROB MEN IN CHICAGO (1900) PT 3
According to what I saw on the Mutuscope in OH NO-Naught, a bonk on the head and then scram.
It just keeps happening.
And then, as usual, a constable runs up to see where the fire is, looks around a little but not much, the coast is clear but what else is new, steals the dough off the limp body that just wants it all to be over with.
Enough already. The whole movie lasts exactly 25 seconds, but it seems a lot longer,
I mean, it takes forever, and I guess it is a masterpiece of the era but I don’t care anymore.
But I should care. I want to care. I need to care. So I make a sequel.
NO! I SAID: NO SEQUEL!
HOW THEY ROB MEN IN CHICAGO (1900) PT 1
According to what I saw on the Mutuscope in O-Naught, a bonk on the head and then scram. A policeman runs up to see where the fire is, looks around, sees the coast is clear, steals the dough off the limp body. The whole movie lasts exactly 25 seconds, a masterpiece and one cardboard set. Yet with all the suffering in this world, I cannot bear to see it again.
In the sequel, the policeman buys a pistachio ice cream cone. He admits he is a homosexual in court joins the foreign legion and in order to avoid legal prosecution for his crimes against nature and because he likes the Frank Sinatra song but unfortunately gets trampled by elephants in Nepal. Back home in Brooklyn, the chief of police calls up to the apartment to tell the family the news. His mother leans out the window and says SERVES HIM RIGHT but she really is his son. And he gives birth again, and his mother says I DO. My brother is my uncle is my sister is my mother hijinks ensue. This is one funky family. The chief of police doesn’t bother with it because it isn’t his beat. One year til retirement. There is no honeymoon and no funeral and it rains blood.
HEY. It’s my sequel and I can do whatever I want.
HOW THEY ROB MEN IN CHICAGO (1900) PT 2
According to what I saw on the Mutuscope in Naught-Naught, a bonk on the head and then scram. A constable runs up to see where the fire is, looks around, sees the coast is clear, steals the dough off the limp body. The whole movie lasts exactly 25 seconds, a masterpiece of the era and one cardboard set. Yet with all the suffering in this world, I cannot bear to see it again.
So I make a sequel.
In the sequel, the constable waits on the curb for the man to regain consciousness. The constable presses a cool hanky to his forehead. “What th--?” the man asks. “Everything will be OK,” he replies “you were robbed, but you will be fine. Rest here for a moment. Then you must come to my house. I insist. It’s almost time for dinner now and my wife makes a terrific beef stew.”
We don’t know all this because it is a silent film.
And since I hate subtitles there are none of those either.
Some people will be reassured by the hanky and the smiling but if you are deaf than this is the movie for you. The constable has beautiful, supple lips, and he speaks slowly. The man enunciates clearly and deliberately, perhaps due to the injury. There is more smiling in the end than there is in the beginning. And there seems to be happiness there.
But when the movie ends and the lights come up, some of the audience is confused, and some look a little bored, but there are some people, a very few people, who are walking out into the night with their mouths watering and smacking their lips. They turn to each other to discuss the movie. Their fingers are moving like crazy. They loved it! They feel wild! This movie is really just about them.
But what happened to the money? Did the wife really make a terrific beef stew?
Sorry: there will be no sequel.
HOW THEY ROB MEN IN CHICAGO (1900) PT 3
According to what I saw on the Mutuscope in OH NO-Naught, a bonk on the head and then scram.
It just keeps happening.
And then, as usual, a constable runs up to see where the fire is, looks around a little but not much, the coast is clear but what else is new, steals the dough off the limp body that just wants it all to be over with.
Enough already. The whole movie lasts exactly 25 seconds, but it seems a lot longer,
I mean, it takes forever, and I guess it is a masterpiece of the era but I don’t care anymore.
But I should care. I want to care. I need to care. So I make a sequel.
NO! I SAID: NO SEQUEL!
A Mid-Winter Revolt
by Melanie Browne
Finding crows in a
church yard is bad
luck, one -thousand
surrounding us
in a theater
of gravestones
is a nightmare,
I run at them,
waving my arms
wildly about,
they fly nowhere,
I yell that I have
no bread,
nothing to satisfy,
I watch as they
break the beauty
of a mid-winters silence
with their ghastly 'caws,'
pulling the repulsive
sky
along for the ride
Finding crows in a
church yard is bad
luck, one -thousand
surrounding us
in a theater
of gravestones
is a nightmare,
I run at them,
waving my arms
wildly about,
they fly nowhere,
I yell that I have
no bread,
nothing to satisfy,
I watch as they
break the beauty
of a mid-winters silence
with their ghastly 'caws,'
pulling the repulsive
sky
along for the ride
Underbelly
by M.P. Powers
A beggar with dreads and bloodshot eyes
toothless
except for a fang
raps on the window of my truck. "Goz any
change?" I look in the console, shake my head
no... He trudges
off. The light changes. Miami is a different
beast
for everyone, at any given time, but today,
on NW 27th
Avenue, the beast seems only evil.
I see it in the three
grimacing faces at the bus stop,
dark faces
like "rainbeaten
stone," and the heavy stormclouds.
There's an old
Spanish
mural pealing, and a place where nothing
grows: the one-story motel
under
the railway, a soulless
agglomeration of no-frills
fuckshacks
overlooking a glorious
empty parking lot.
As I pull near, I imagine
some of the dark secrets
those rooms
know. Make up a few scenerios of my own.
And then a door opens. A skinny white
crackwhore
creeps out, barefooted, hair a mess, purse slung
over her shoulder. She limps
up the sidewalk,
bony jaw
working, eyes, wild. A man howls
something
at her
from up on the trestle.
A train shears by. 11 a.m.
on a Monday, and the naked
light jiggles.
Birds of agony,
rise.
Earth moves
softly in its soiled wingless
mystery.
A beggar with dreads and bloodshot eyes
toothless
except for a fang
raps on the window of my truck. "Goz any
change?" I look in the console, shake my head
no... He trudges
off. The light changes. Miami is a different
beast
for everyone, at any given time, but today,
on NW 27th
Avenue, the beast seems only evil.
I see it in the three
grimacing faces at the bus stop,
dark faces
like "rainbeaten
stone," and the heavy stormclouds.
There's an old
Spanish
mural pealing, and a place where nothing
grows: the one-story motel
under
the railway, a soulless
agglomeration of no-frills
fuckshacks
overlooking a glorious
empty parking lot.
As I pull near, I imagine
some of the dark secrets
those rooms
know. Make up a few scenerios of my own.
And then a door opens. A skinny white
crackwhore
creeps out, barefooted, hair a mess, purse slung
over her shoulder. She limps
up the sidewalk,
bony jaw
working, eyes, wild. A man howls
something
at her
from up on the trestle.
A train shears by. 11 a.m.
on a Monday, and the naked
light jiggles.
Birds of agony,
rise.
Earth moves
softly in its soiled wingless
mystery.
Monday, November 1, 2010
LINENS
by Ana Vidal-Guardia
In my absence
white powder owned the hours
and the minutes were given away free
attached to rented bodies,
ephemeral divine power
exhorted in some filthy hotel room.
The sweaty sheets
begged for laundry treatment,
while the bodies,
choleric trapezes oblivious to mercy,
performed night after night
balancing synthetic life
inside dehydrated fish bowl spaces.
On the long black nights
I waited for you
sewn to the kitchen table.
And anger replaced sadness.
And I wished death would plunge
inside your adulterous bones,
for no diamond
will ever sweeten
the bitterness of your sinful lips,
the same ones you will use
to kiss our children
when tucking them in bed,
the sheets smelling all so fresh
In my absence
white powder owned the hours
and the minutes were given away free
attached to rented bodies,
ephemeral divine power
exhorted in some filthy hotel room.
The sweaty sheets
begged for laundry treatment,
while the bodies,
choleric trapezes oblivious to mercy,
performed night after night
balancing synthetic life
inside dehydrated fish bowl spaces.
On the long black nights
I waited for you
sewn to the kitchen table.
And anger replaced sadness.
And I wished death would plunge
inside your adulterous bones,
for no diamond
will ever sweeten
the bitterness of your sinful lips,
the same ones you will use
to kiss our children
when tucking them in bed,
the sheets smelling all so fresh
SUPERFICIAL SOLUTION
by Alan Britt
That’s the funny thing about heart disease;
no matter what, it always reserves season tickets
to the local symphony,
Beethoven’s String Quartet in Hellish Existence,
or even his Eroica, sans Bonaparte.
Imagine Beethoven on his deathbed
celebrating life,
remembering stories
about black rains
flooding
Venetian canals
and mildewing the cobblestones
of 17th Century Vermeer townhouses;
or, perhaps, you’d prefer, instead, the movie star type
that Dion DiMucci sang about.
Hell, you might even dream
about a superficial solution to all the world’s problems.
The fact is,
the perennial court jester,
a la Hamlet,
held his own
for quite awhile,
until a CEO discovered him
wiling away his time
in a boxcar
bound for glory
filled with 50-millimeter new-age cannons.
I believe that love is still, however, willing
to climb the lattice
of windy eyelashes,
instead of using
a glass elevator;
it’s merely what
our god-forsaken culture
requires of silly humans.
But who am I to question
Darwin’s heroes of the Industrial Revolution?
What’s that you’re hiding
inside the worsted wool pockets of your soul?
A second ago,
I saw you!
Sometimes, standing here in Ophelia’s moonlit grave,
waving my wooden sword through ironic lamplight,
I hope I’ll be around long enough
to kiss your crumbling headstone.
The Banshee
by Sheldon Lee Compton
At night he drinks pints of black and throws spit from the mountaintop, cupping his hands at his mouth, the old dirt of the ridgeline pinched beneath his fingernails. Hours spent digging for ginseng.
The ridge is his property line, is the edge of his world. The family pushed him off the porch years ago, boot-toed him across the yard until he could stand and make his way into the hills.
When he speaks, the words leave him as spring rain leaves the clouds in sunlight.
And when he speaks it is with words tied by strands of wind. He says mostly these words in this way – love, hurt, mother, father, babies, mine, marriages, children, babies, woman, mine, women, hurt, alone, nothing, mother, father. The words weave into one another and in the end they become a single wail across the valley.
To the knuckles he pushes his fingers into the overgrowth at the base of the cliffs. The roots are there. He pushes into the old earth with his muscles, the bones of his arms and shoulders, tearing away the bloodline of the plant.
It's how he gets to sleep before daybreak, tiring himself out before the stirring moon has a chance to remind him again of all he has lost.
And when he remembers, it is the throwing up again of sunlight words in the darkness.
At night he drinks pints of black and throws spit from the mountaintop, cupping his hands at his mouth, the old dirt of the ridgeline pinched beneath his fingernails. Hours spent digging for ginseng.
The ridge is his property line, is the edge of his world. The family pushed him off the porch years ago, boot-toed him across the yard until he could stand and make his way into the hills.
When he speaks, the words leave him as spring rain leaves the clouds in sunlight.
And when he speaks it is with words tied by strands of wind. He says mostly these words in this way – love, hurt, mother, father, babies, mine, marriages, children, babies, woman, mine, women, hurt, alone, nothing, mother, father. The words weave into one another and in the end they become a single wail across the valley.
To the knuckles he pushes his fingers into the overgrowth at the base of the cliffs. The roots are there. He pushes into the old earth with his muscles, the bones of his arms and shoulders, tearing away the bloodline of the plant.
It's how he gets to sleep before daybreak, tiring himself out before the stirring moon has a chance to remind him again of all he has lost.
And when he remembers, it is the throwing up again of sunlight words in the darkness.
The Bottom
by Abigale Louise LeCavalier
The strain of sobriety,
the glossy look
in my eyes;
reoccurring.
And the plastic
feels like glass.
As I wash down
a few hours of sunshine.
Taking slow, deep, breaths.
Before
the bottom
drops out.
The strain of sobriety,
the glossy look
in my eyes;
reoccurring.
And the plastic
feels like glass.
As I wash down
a few hours of sunshine.
Taking slow, deep, breaths.
Before
the bottom
drops out.
Your Departure Left Me in Pain
by El Habib Louai
Sometimes there were cries
I hear somewhere long before
They arrive to my open door
On a lonely long empty road
Cries from a distant void
I hear them as they echoed
In the bushes of my dreams
Dreams I dreamed in empty
Curves of a labyrinthine well
Other cries of people I knew
Met them high before they vanished
I saw souls of members dismembered
And I cried alone as you left me
Your face I saw between two wings
It smiled to me before it faded
Will you ever come to me again?
A question formed on a sand grain
Your departure left me in pain
And I wish I could be then
As you wanted me so near
Melancholic, I sit wherever I dare
I count little moments and flick away flies
As time mercilessly in phosphoric bubbles flies
Sister moon comes to journey the night
Again alone just as it did, unceasingly
To somewhere I will never see
Will you be there for me?
Among those weary travelers
Formed in brown scattered clouds
Tinged by curving caravans of dreams
Borrowed from unfinished Arabian nights
Will you be there for me?
To leave fresh parting kisses
On my scorched sweet lips
I beg you as I perpetually did
To have mercy on me
My brown-eyed lady
The only one who walks really
In such never-withering beauty
Sometimes there were cries
I hear somewhere long before
They arrive to my open door
On a lonely long empty road
Cries from a distant void
I hear them as they echoed
In the bushes of my dreams
Dreams I dreamed in empty
Curves of a labyrinthine well
Other cries of people I knew
Met them high before they vanished
I saw souls of members dismembered
And I cried alone as you left me
Your face I saw between two wings
It smiled to me before it faded
Will you ever come to me again?
A question formed on a sand grain
Your departure left me in pain
And I wish I could be then
As you wanted me so near
Melancholic, I sit wherever I dare
I count little moments and flick away flies
As time mercilessly in phosphoric bubbles flies
Sister moon comes to journey the night
Again alone just as it did, unceasingly
To somewhere I will never see
Will you be there for me?
Among those weary travelers
Formed in brown scattered clouds
Tinged by curving caravans of dreams
Borrowed from unfinished Arabian nights
Will you be there for me?
To leave fresh parting kisses
On my scorched sweet lips
I beg you as I perpetually did
To have mercy on me
My brown-eyed lady
The only one who walks really
In such never-withering beauty
coping...
by jkdavies
You have knocked the life out of me,
I shovel dead things into my mouth
but I only taste the fermented stuff.
Honesty looks good on me, but on you?
I didn't need to know how easily
you put me out of your mind.
You made me feel alive and I hate
to think how long ago that was now,
I want to quicken myself but it does not come,
I can not come, it is an exercise in friction and
though the flesh is willing the mind is freaked.
Reject, side dish, bit of fun, reject,
slut, tease, reject; words bicycle in my head.
Dead mould, mushrooms for tea.
Yes, on the side, by the pallid fish flesh. I will
shrivel up in the non-weight of your disregard.
This time, can I make the silence stick?
Can I pour in enough alcohol to make
me tongue tied and not voluble?
Bitter exudations, oozing failure, and
in the morning, sweet rancid sweat.
Success and failure both are counted
by apathy, not talking to you.
Your life goes on, maybe to her you will
seem a little distracted, maybe?
Maybe not even that, after all, she didn't
even notice when you went to her,
rubbed raw from our exertions.
I try another tentative rub, but no,
rejected by my own flesh. To drink
to sleep; to sleep perchance to weep.
You have knocked the life out of me,
and now half digested dead things
come back out of my mouth.
You have knocked the life out of me,
I shovel dead things into my mouth
but I only taste the fermented stuff.
Honesty looks good on me, but on you?
I didn't need to know how easily
you put me out of your mind.
You made me feel alive and I hate
to think how long ago that was now,
I want to quicken myself but it does not come,
I can not come, it is an exercise in friction and
though the flesh is willing the mind is freaked.
Reject, side dish, bit of fun, reject,
slut, tease, reject; words bicycle in my head.
Dead mould, mushrooms for tea.
Yes, on the side, by the pallid fish flesh. I will
shrivel up in the non-weight of your disregard.
This time, can I make the silence stick?
Can I pour in enough alcohol to make
me tongue tied and not voluble?
Bitter exudations, oozing failure, and
in the morning, sweet rancid sweat.
Success and failure both are counted
by apathy, not talking to you.
Your life goes on, maybe to her you will
seem a little distracted, maybe?
Maybe not even that, after all, she didn't
even notice when you went to her,
rubbed raw from our exertions.
I try another tentative rub, but no,
rejected by my own flesh. To drink
to sleep; to sleep perchance to weep.
You have knocked the life out of me,
and now half digested dead things
come back out of my mouth.
Of Wilderness and Philosophy
by Rebecca Gaffron
If I wait in the rain and you don’t show, does it mean something? And would the meaning change if the evening weren’t so wet. Or cold. Or green. My wilderness is green. But I have always longed for rugged, stony greys. It’s human nature to covet that which we are not. To crave poison in the form of delightful dissimilarity. And so I’ve been drawn up steep granite slopes. I’ve felt the wind lift my feet from razor backed fells where I believed I’d found myself, even as golden curls whipped my eyes, casting them downward, back to the patchwork of verdant emerald and olive and jade. Back to geographies more akin to my own. Or yours.
If I wait and you don’t show, is it because you’ve chosen to be a lone wolf? That is an anomaly. Wolves are pack animals. But you are not. Not a pack animal. Not a lone-wolf. This is clear, at least to me. You speak of wilderness. Of pines that spire like church steeples into starlit skies. Of rivers rushing, coursing, bursting in abandon before turning still and soft. Of quiet unspoiled by human chaos. You seek these out in small doses. Not allowing yourself to stay over-long. Avoiding too much stillness, afraid it might keep you. Or deliver the message you’ve been seeking. Something about finally allowing the wound to heal. Something about strengths found in vulnerability.
And if I wait by not waiting, will it change things? If I escape the lonely rain and cloudy shadows by settling into the warm glow of some social wilderness, surrounded by cheerful noise, might I find clarity? Or faith. Enough that when the phone vibrates in my pocket, I will know without hearing that it’s you. You, whispering the delicious promise of intentions-kept in my ear before appearing at my side. Then we will examine our philosophies. We will seek hidden meaning in IPAs and old Bluegrass songs. You will decry false rhetoric, calling out for more joy. More romance. More beer. While I argue the metaphysical merits of jokes unfit for mixed company.
If I wait and find you walking me out, away from the safely of the purely theoretical, will your wilderness envelope mine? There, in the wet and cold, where our greens still pulse under oily black darkness, will I convince myself that us is not something I’ve longed for? Will I see my hopes and fears reflected in your eyes? What if the pull is too great? What if we fall and in the descent lose ourselves, like pebbles dropped in a bottomless cave, plunging on and on forever, into nothing?
If I wait in the rain and you don’t show, does it mean something? And would the meaning change if the evening weren’t so wet. Or cold. Or green. My wilderness is green. But I have always longed for rugged, stony greys. It’s human nature to covet that which we are not. To crave poison in the form of delightful dissimilarity. And so I’ve been drawn up steep granite slopes. I’ve felt the wind lift my feet from razor backed fells where I believed I’d found myself, even as golden curls whipped my eyes, casting them downward, back to the patchwork of verdant emerald and olive and jade. Back to geographies more akin to my own. Or yours.
If I wait and you don’t show, is it because you’ve chosen to be a lone wolf? That is an anomaly. Wolves are pack animals. But you are not. Not a pack animal. Not a lone-wolf. This is clear, at least to me. You speak of wilderness. Of pines that spire like church steeples into starlit skies. Of rivers rushing, coursing, bursting in abandon before turning still and soft. Of quiet unspoiled by human chaos. You seek these out in small doses. Not allowing yourself to stay over-long. Avoiding too much stillness, afraid it might keep you. Or deliver the message you’ve been seeking. Something about finally allowing the wound to heal. Something about strengths found in vulnerability.
And if I wait by not waiting, will it change things? If I escape the lonely rain and cloudy shadows by settling into the warm glow of some social wilderness, surrounded by cheerful noise, might I find clarity? Or faith. Enough that when the phone vibrates in my pocket, I will know without hearing that it’s you. You, whispering the delicious promise of intentions-kept in my ear before appearing at my side. Then we will examine our philosophies. We will seek hidden meaning in IPAs and old Bluegrass songs. You will decry false rhetoric, calling out for more joy. More romance. More beer. While I argue the metaphysical merits of jokes unfit for mixed company.
If I wait and find you walking me out, away from the safely of the purely theoretical, will your wilderness envelope mine? There, in the wet and cold, where our greens still pulse under oily black darkness, will I convince myself that us is not something I’ve longed for? Will I see my hopes and fears reflected in your eyes? What if the pull is too great? What if we fall and in the descent lose ourselves, like pebbles dropped in a bottomless cave, plunging on and on forever, into nothing?
THE BOOK OF HALLUCINATIONS
by Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal
I.
Where the book of hallucinations
begins, a shadow turns the pages
and another shadow highlights
the words. Rocks have voices and
the sun is cool. The shadows fill
with sadness when the book is
closed. There is a secret poem in
the book of hallucinations. A
heart beats for a moment and each
shadow could hear it. They don’t
know what a heart is. They don’t
know for what purpose this heart
beats. How could a shadow know?
The book of hallucinations is not
for the faint of heart. There is no
form in each poem. The rocks who
speak give way to muteness. Their
hardness dissolves to dust and
the grass in the book of hallucinations
calls out to each reader. It calls out
to each shadow, who have trouble
understanding it. The book of
hallucinations puzzles each shadow
and the secret poem begins to beat
suddenly. It is a dazzling poem,
which makes one’s eyes water.
Suddenly, the book of hallucinations
quotes from the Book of Revelation.
II.
Blue birds recite verses from the book
of hallucinations. The blue birds sing
and swoop in the celestial skies. All
through the day the blues birds sing
off key. The book of hallucinations
devours the blue birds. The verses
are highlighted blue by the shadow
who turns the pages. The other shadow
could not remember what color it
always highlighted the book of
hallucinations. Without memory
the shadow which highlighted the book
of hallucinations gave way to serenity.
Both of the shadows felt the beauty
all around. They started to measure
each drop of beauty in the world.
The cool sun dropped rays of light
throughout the morning. The light
rays navigated through each page of
the book of hallucinations and the
blue verses were wiped clean. The
shadow which turned the pages did what
it always did. It left the highlighting to
the shadow which highlighted the pages.
There were fragments of blue wings
throughout the book of hallucinations.
The shadow which turned the pages and
the shadow which highlighted the book
of hallucinations could not remember in
what part of the book the secret poem
was hidden. The blue birds walked from
page to page, through each verse, looking
for a love that flight could not reach.
Waves of blue birds walked on. The cool
sun set their hearts aflame and tore
each of their wings from their bodies.
The secret poem gorged on the blue birds.
III.
In the book of hallucinations there was a
shadow which desperately sought a new
body. The shadow read every single
word in the book of hallucinations hoping
there was some kind of clue there, a place
where it could live in harmony. There was
a shadow which had similar ideas, only
it was not as desperate. It would highlight
every other word in the book of hallucinations.
This shadow was looking for a body with
a pink head. It would highlight every
word from pink to red to white. The shadow
which turned the pages observed the other
shadow and feel a certain uneasiness. In
the book of hallucinations there was no
guaranteed harmony. Each shadow kept its
hopes and dreams alive as best they could.
IV.
Words would dissolve without warning in
the book of hallucinations. Sometimes
blood would spurt out of certain pages from
time to time. The cool sun would release rays
of light and wipe the blood off. The cool sun
was always around in the morning and in
the afternoon. By the time evening settled in,
the cool sun would be gone. It would always
return the next day. Inside the book of
hallucinations, there was an old heart which
would beat on and on. The old heart would
beat faintly. The cool sun behind the moon
would drop rays of light toward the old heart.
It would go silent. The old heart did not like
being silenced. It would start beating louder
and louder the moment the cool sun was
not around to silence it with its rays of light.
V.
The rocks in the waves would speak, but no one
understood what they said. One particular
rock in the book of hallucinations could throw its
voice. It could sing like a blue bird. This rock
had great range, but only for a few hours. In
the book of hallucinations, there was a shadow
which turned its pages. It did not understand
what each poem said. However, the shadow would
recite each word. There was another shadow which
highlighted every other word. It would never
recite each word. In the book of hallucinations
the shadow which turned the pages had a pronounced
stutter, which was dreadful. Fortunately,
the shadow lost the stutter and eventually its voice.
I.
Where the book of hallucinations
begins, a shadow turns the pages
and another shadow highlights
the words. Rocks have voices and
the sun is cool. The shadows fill
with sadness when the book is
closed. There is a secret poem in
the book of hallucinations. A
heart beats for a moment and each
shadow could hear it. They don’t
know what a heart is. They don’t
know for what purpose this heart
beats. How could a shadow know?
The book of hallucinations is not
for the faint of heart. There is no
form in each poem. The rocks who
speak give way to muteness. Their
hardness dissolves to dust and
the grass in the book of hallucinations
calls out to each reader. It calls out
to each shadow, who have trouble
understanding it. The book of
hallucinations puzzles each shadow
and the secret poem begins to beat
suddenly. It is a dazzling poem,
which makes one’s eyes water.
Suddenly, the book of hallucinations
quotes from the Book of Revelation.
II.
Blue birds recite verses from the book
of hallucinations. The blue birds sing
and swoop in the celestial skies. All
through the day the blues birds sing
off key. The book of hallucinations
devours the blue birds. The verses
are highlighted blue by the shadow
who turns the pages. The other shadow
could not remember what color it
always highlighted the book of
hallucinations. Without memory
the shadow which highlighted the book
of hallucinations gave way to serenity.
Both of the shadows felt the beauty
all around. They started to measure
each drop of beauty in the world.
The cool sun dropped rays of light
throughout the morning. The light
rays navigated through each page of
the book of hallucinations and the
blue verses were wiped clean. The
shadow which turned the pages did what
it always did. It left the highlighting to
the shadow which highlighted the pages.
There were fragments of blue wings
throughout the book of hallucinations.
The shadow which turned the pages and
the shadow which highlighted the book
of hallucinations could not remember in
what part of the book the secret poem
was hidden. The blue birds walked from
page to page, through each verse, looking
for a love that flight could not reach.
Waves of blue birds walked on. The cool
sun set their hearts aflame and tore
each of their wings from their bodies.
The secret poem gorged on the blue birds.
III.
In the book of hallucinations there was a
shadow which desperately sought a new
body. The shadow read every single
word in the book of hallucinations hoping
there was some kind of clue there, a place
where it could live in harmony. There was
a shadow which had similar ideas, only
it was not as desperate. It would highlight
every other word in the book of hallucinations.
This shadow was looking for a body with
a pink head. It would highlight every
word from pink to red to white. The shadow
which turned the pages observed the other
shadow and feel a certain uneasiness. In
the book of hallucinations there was no
guaranteed harmony. Each shadow kept its
hopes and dreams alive as best they could.
IV.
Words would dissolve without warning in
the book of hallucinations. Sometimes
blood would spurt out of certain pages from
time to time. The cool sun would release rays
of light and wipe the blood off. The cool sun
was always around in the morning and in
the afternoon. By the time evening settled in,
the cool sun would be gone. It would always
return the next day. Inside the book of
hallucinations, there was an old heart which
would beat on and on. The old heart would
beat faintly. The cool sun behind the moon
would drop rays of light toward the old heart.
It would go silent. The old heart did not like
being silenced. It would start beating louder
and louder the moment the cool sun was
not around to silence it with its rays of light.
V.
The rocks in the waves would speak, but no one
understood what they said. One particular
rock in the book of hallucinations could throw its
voice. It could sing like a blue bird. This rock
had great range, but only for a few hours. In
the book of hallucinations, there was a shadow
which turned its pages. It did not understand
what each poem said. However, the shadow would
recite each word. There was another shadow which
highlighted every other word. It would never
recite each word. In the book of hallucinations
the shadow which turned the pages had a pronounced
stutter, which was dreadful. Fortunately,
the shadow lost the stutter and eventually its voice.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
My Blood
by Jenny Picciotto
My blood runs
thick and red
between my legs.
Wolf,
teeth bared,
eyes flashing.
Red fear,
Red anger
Red Danger.
I place my red
heart,
beating,
bare,
into your hands.
My heart, exposed,
bloody,
vulnerable.
My blood flows,
recirculating in my
body.
No Where
for the anger
to go.
An image.
A woman:
eyes glazed
in the
stupid
seductive
pose of the harlot.
Why do you love
me
this way. Not myself.
The image of self effacement.
What is the harm
of acting out
your fantasy?
Your precious fantasy.
This
is the way
you
imagine
me...
Stripped of self awareness
out of touch with my own
strength
feeling.
A puppet of your desire.
My heart cries out
against the invisible
chains
you place around me.
My sexuality
The mindlessness of a
possessed
girl
without self determination.
Her moods
posture
dictated by the man.
Why is this an attractive image to you?
Do you so enjoy me
stripped
of my strength,
stripped
of my sense of self.
Sex with my body
only
is not
making love.
For there is no
recognition
of the individual
to love.
Fucking my body
is an unconscious act
of
animal passion. But
I
am not there
with you.
My blood flows red,
into my eyes,
down my thighs.
Crucified,
this body,
by the rhythms of nature.
Sacrificed,
this body,
for the development of my children.
Used,
this body,
for your pleasure.
Alone.
You leave me to bleed-
the anger of my heart
silent
in the ecstacy
of your orgasm.
My blood runs
thick and red
between my legs.
Wolf,
teeth bared,
eyes flashing.
Red fear,
Red anger
Red Danger.
I place my red
heart,
beating,
bare,
into your hands.
My heart, exposed,
bloody,
vulnerable.
My blood flows,
recirculating in my
body.
No Where
for the anger
to go.
An image.
A woman:
eyes glazed
in the
stupid
seductive
pose of the harlot.
Why do you love
me
this way. Not myself.
The image of self effacement.
What is the harm
of acting out
your fantasy?
Your precious fantasy.
This
is the way
you
imagine
me...
Stripped of self awareness
out of touch with my own
strength
feeling.
A puppet of your desire.
My heart cries out
against the invisible
chains
you place around me.
My sexuality
The mindlessness of a
possessed
girl
without self determination.
Her moods
posture
dictated by the man.
Why is this an attractive image to you?
Do you so enjoy me
stripped
of my strength,
stripped
of my sense of self.
Sex with my body
only
is not
making love.
For there is no
recognition
of the individual
to love.
Fucking my body
is an unconscious act
of
animal passion. But
I
am not there
with you.
My blood flows red,
into my eyes,
down my thighs.
Crucified,
this body,
by the rhythms of nature.
Sacrificed,
this body,
for the development of my children.
Used,
this body,
for your pleasure.
Alone.
You leave me to bleed-
the anger of my heart
silent
in the ecstacy
of your orgasm.
A Cheer for the Dwarf Clown
by Jay Coral
thank you dwarf clown
if i were a child again
i will invite you on my birthday party
and you will be playing man-child with us
you and your man's body and short limbs
will be dolls and toy soldiers to our delight
you will be a walking sphinx to gape-struck mothers
haha imagine the circus of confusion in their faces
your face will be covered by a mascara
but us children will not see through your bulging eyes
the ugliness you hide nor your soul's lacerations
after i blow the candle and make a wish
i will tell you you are a clean shapen creature
then i will smash the cake in your face
you will growl and show us your pointy incisors
but it will be a happy growl.
thank you dwarf clown
if i were a child again
i will invite you on my birthday party
and you will be playing man-child with us
you and your man's body and short limbs
will be dolls and toy soldiers to our delight
you will be a walking sphinx to gape-struck mothers
haha imagine the circus of confusion in their faces
your face will be covered by a mascara
but us children will not see through your bulging eyes
the ugliness you hide nor your soul's lacerations
after i blow the candle and make a wish
i will tell you you are a clean shapen creature
then i will smash the cake in your face
you will growl and show us your pointy incisors
but it will be a happy growl.
WHO QUOTETH A BIRD?
by Randall Rogers
OF ONE THING I AM SURE
NEVERMORE
WILL I ALLOW A DRUNKEN
CROW TO FLY AROUND MY
HOME
NOR AGAIN WILL THEY FIND ME
BLOODY AND PUKING
CURBSIDE IN THE GUTTER
DYING, THEN DEAD
SAYING AMONG THE CRITICAL ACCLAIM
HE WAS A GREAT WRITER
AND YOU KNOW THEY THINK AND ARE ALONE
SO MUCH
WELL,
THEY ALMOST HAVE TO DRINK
OR SMOKE
TO STOKE THE CREATIVE FIRES
INSPIRATION
GET IT DOWN FAST FLOWING
THE PROSE WRITING THE AUTHOR
MUSIC PLAYING YOUR WRITING OR TYPING HAND(S)
HEMINGWAY DRANK WHILE HE WROTE
SO DID BUKOWSKI
AND ALL THOSE ALCOHOLICS LIKE CHEEVER
KEROUAC
SINCLAIR (MIRACLE HE MADE IT TO SIXTY SIX THEY SAY) LEWIS
FITZGERALD
RIMBAUD
DYLAN THOMAS
CHRISTOPHER HITTCENS?
ALL NOTORIOUS DRUNKS
HOW MANY OF THEM ACTUALLY
WROTE DRUNK OR LIKE CHEEVER I THINK
HE WOKE UP EARLY AND CLOCK WATCHED WRITING
UNTIL TWELVE NOON THEN THE SQUEAK OF THE LIQOUR CABINET OPENING
WOULD SING ALL AFTERNOON AND INTO THE NIGHT
I THINK HE STOPPED WRITING TO DRINK
THESE OTHER ALCOHOLICS I WOULD THINK WOULD HAVE TO BE
DRUNK OR HUNG OVER WHILE WRITING SOME OF THEIR WORKS
EVEN IF THIS WAS NOT THEIR ESTABLISHED WRITING ROUTINE
LIKE ME RETURNING HOME DRUNK FROM THE BAR AND WHIPPING OUT
SEVEN TO TEN POEMS
THE IDEAS WORD SOUND SING TRUE OR ODD
COOL
NAILING THE POEM
LIKE A TEENAGE CHINESE DIVER
OR GYMNAST
LIKE A GANDY DANCER HAMMERS A RAILROAD TIE SPIKE
LIKE THE NAILS THROUGH JESUS’ WRISTS AND ANKLES
THE BLULLETS FIRED INTO GHANDI’S SLIM FRAME
THE GRENADES AND FULSADE LET LOOSE ON SADAT
BOOTH BLASTING LINCOLN’S NOGGIN
AND KENNEDY’S LURCHING ABOUT LOSING HIS HEAD
(AND WHAT ABOUT THAT LOYAL WIFE SCAMPERING OUT OF THE CAR IN SUCH A FRENETIC HIS-HEAD’S-GONE-AND-I’M-OUT-OF-HERE UNLADYLIKE CLAMBERING OUT THE BACK OF THE CONVERTIBLE, ‘A PUSHING SECRET SERVICE GUYS OUT OF HER WAY AS SHE SELFISHLY LIKE A CORNERED CAT SHE CLAWED HER WAY TO WHAT SHE THOUGHT MIGHT BE SAFETY. HOW UNSEEMLY TO FIGHT SO DESPERATELY FOR LIFE? SHE COULD HAVE “STOOD BY HER MAN” AND OFFERED UP HER CRANIUM FOR BLASTING TOO. HER SELFISH SCAMPER TO PRESERVE HER LIFE AFTER HER HUSBAND’S HEAD EXPLODED LIKE A SMASHED WATERMELON INTO PIECES WAS JUST DOWNRIGHT UN FIRST LADY LIKE!)
ARRANGED WORDS
AS DEADLY AND DANGEROUS
ENLIGHTENING AND FUN
AS THE AUTO BIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X
OR JOEY: PORTAIT OF A HIT MAN
THE BOOK AND MOVIE THE GODFATHER
THE ANARCHIST'S COOKBOOK
AND ALL THE METH AND HOW TO MAKE HOMEMADE DRUGS
SITES NOW ON THE INTERNET
COMBINED WITH THE GREAT FOR FREE PORN
TIME AND PRIVACY ENOUGH FOR A SMOKE AND
A GOOD INTERNET KINK DRIVEN WANK
TO SUM, SHORT POEMS, INAPPROPRIATE OR TABOO
SUBJECT MATTER, MADE SEMI PALATABLE
INTERESTINGLY PUT
AND EASY TO UNDERSTAND
FOR IDIOTS WHO ACTUALLY GO
FOR BUKOWSKI’S DRIVEL
LIKE ME
OF ONE THING I AM SURE
NEVERMORE
WILL I ALLOW A DRUNKEN
CROW TO FLY AROUND MY
HOME
NOR AGAIN WILL THEY FIND ME
BLOODY AND PUKING
CURBSIDE IN THE GUTTER
DYING, THEN DEAD
SAYING AMONG THE CRITICAL ACCLAIM
HE WAS A GREAT WRITER
AND YOU KNOW THEY THINK AND ARE ALONE
SO MUCH
WELL,
THEY ALMOST HAVE TO DRINK
OR SMOKE
TO STOKE THE CREATIVE FIRES
INSPIRATION
GET IT DOWN FAST FLOWING
THE PROSE WRITING THE AUTHOR
MUSIC PLAYING YOUR WRITING OR TYPING HAND(S)
HEMINGWAY DRANK WHILE HE WROTE
SO DID BUKOWSKI
AND ALL THOSE ALCOHOLICS LIKE CHEEVER
KEROUAC
SINCLAIR (MIRACLE HE MADE IT TO SIXTY SIX THEY SAY) LEWIS
FITZGERALD
RIMBAUD
DYLAN THOMAS
CHRISTOPHER HITTCENS?
ALL NOTORIOUS DRUNKS
HOW MANY OF THEM ACTUALLY
WROTE DRUNK OR LIKE CHEEVER I THINK
HE WOKE UP EARLY AND CLOCK WATCHED WRITING
UNTIL TWELVE NOON THEN THE SQUEAK OF THE LIQOUR CABINET OPENING
WOULD SING ALL AFTERNOON AND INTO THE NIGHT
I THINK HE STOPPED WRITING TO DRINK
THESE OTHER ALCOHOLICS I WOULD THINK WOULD HAVE TO BE
DRUNK OR HUNG OVER WHILE WRITING SOME OF THEIR WORKS
EVEN IF THIS WAS NOT THEIR ESTABLISHED WRITING ROUTINE
LIKE ME RETURNING HOME DRUNK FROM THE BAR AND WHIPPING OUT
SEVEN TO TEN POEMS
THE IDEAS WORD SOUND SING TRUE OR ODD
COOL
NAILING THE POEM
LIKE A TEENAGE CHINESE DIVER
OR GYMNAST
LIKE A GANDY DANCER HAMMERS A RAILROAD TIE SPIKE
LIKE THE NAILS THROUGH JESUS’ WRISTS AND ANKLES
THE BLULLETS FIRED INTO GHANDI’S SLIM FRAME
THE GRENADES AND FULSADE LET LOOSE ON SADAT
BOOTH BLASTING LINCOLN’S NOGGIN
AND KENNEDY’S LURCHING ABOUT LOSING HIS HEAD
(AND WHAT ABOUT THAT LOYAL WIFE SCAMPERING OUT OF THE CAR IN SUCH A FRENETIC HIS-HEAD’S-GONE-AND-I’M-OUT-OF-HERE UNLADYLIKE CLAMBERING OUT THE BACK OF THE CONVERTIBLE, ‘A PUSHING SECRET SERVICE GUYS OUT OF HER WAY AS SHE SELFISHLY LIKE A CORNERED CAT SHE CLAWED HER WAY TO WHAT SHE THOUGHT MIGHT BE SAFETY. HOW UNSEEMLY TO FIGHT SO DESPERATELY FOR LIFE? SHE COULD HAVE “STOOD BY HER MAN” AND OFFERED UP HER CRANIUM FOR BLASTING TOO. HER SELFISH SCAMPER TO PRESERVE HER LIFE AFTER HER HUSBAND’S HEAD EXPLODED LIKE A SMASHED WATERMELON INTO PIECES WAS JUST DOWNRIGHT UN FIRST LADY LIKE!)
ARRANGED WORDS
AS DEADLY AND DANGEROUS
ENLIGHTENING AND FUN
AS THE AUTO BIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X
OR JOEY: PORTAIT OF A HIT MAN
THE BOOK AND MOVIE THE GODFATHER
THE ANARCHIST'S COOKBOOK
AND ALL THE METH AND HOW TO MAKE HOMEMADE DRUGS
SITES NOW ON THE INTERNET
COMBINED WITH THE GREAT FOR FREE PORN
TIME AND PRIVACY ENOUGH FOR A SMOKE AND
A GOOD INTERNET KINK DRIVEN WANK
TO SUM, SHORT POEMS, INAPPROPRIATE OR TABOO
SUBJECT MATTER, MADE SEMI PALATABLE
INTERESTINGLY PUT
AND EASY TO UNDERSTAND
FOR IDIOTS WHO ACTUALLY GO
FOR BUKOWSKI’S DRIVEL
LIKE ME
It's Sunday
by Joan McNerney
Your laughter
comes in cascades when
I toss your curly hair
tickling those big ears
with long blades of grass.
We stop at the lake startling
frogs just before they leap
away. Listen to squirrels brush
over carpets of crunchy leaves.
You turn to hold me hold me
hurry it's late. O Michael
pink clouds ribbon heaven and
I want your arms around me forever
Your laughter
comes in cascades when
I toss your curly hair
tickling those big ears
with long blades of grass.
We stop at the lake startling
frogs just before they leap
away. Listen to squirrels brush
over carpets of crunchy leaves.
You turn to hold me hold me
hurry it's late. O Michael
pink clouds ribbon heaven and
I want your arms around me forever
Il Piacere (Pleasure)
The Second Hump invites its friends to view Il Piacere (Pleasure), a work of words and art by Leila A. Fortier at:
http://camelsaloongallery.blogspot.com/2010/09/il-piacere.html
http://camelsaloongallery.blogspot.com/2010/09/il-piacere.html
Ignition
or Algebraic Sequencing of
Double-Helix Nightmares Told in Real-Time
Minus the "Whole Truth & Nothing But the Truth"
All the While Dreaming of a Future in Astroscience
“To be young, to have a thirst for society,
to be hungry for a woman” Balzac in “Le Père Goriot.”
by J. R. Pearson
1.
You have two fingers & a wall socket
full of lightning. Insert. Repeat
until an unexplainable thirst for iron holds.
Take a short break. Get to know yourself a little.
Body image fading down corridors of television night.
Bright ghosts burning blue haze thru the sky's broken bones.
Welcome back!.. to your muted mouth glittered in hot gold.
To liquid sand from a poisoned silver skin.
You must believe this can all be summed up by the deaf
immensity of snow & your hatred of anything dead-white.
Instead, imagine a new body. A whole new you
plus no additional charge nocturnal cinema!
Dreams that come on in desert night like live-wire voodoo.
Think: braille bred in the bone
the texture of flowers that open tombs of suspect sentences.
Picture: sky tablecloths into 9 volt verbs
pressed to taste-buds.
Speak: this feels so unbelievable
without some kind of chemical dependency!
Wonder: do you have to sell skin to the sunrise?
Answer: no fine print written on the underside of eyelids.
Promise: as a fact all that's possible is a hard blink.
A tongue contorts into your arms
just the right distance apart.
Your heart is an eyelid curled with fingers.
Your heart is a snow-bright cataract.
Your heart is opening a large wet eye.
Your heart is an oven. You're ignition.
2.
Just think of it as the blind bandwidth
of tongue touching tongue.
The riddled rain in bubble casting of innocent falling light.
Thru an open iris the desert swims into mind
& unseen hands prepare volcanoes
for a distinct country's recasting.
It's serious. Thoughts full of august shade,
you forget that black boils
into moons rising beneath fingernails
into spoons over an open flame
into an addict's wish-sharpened needle
into ignitable veins clawed up arms
into this whole thing that keeps gibbering
a voice in my head and if I focus
on its mouth I can change the words
but they never never stop coming out
so I just form syllables into smoke rings.
Do you remember what mountains felt like as a child?
Do you remember what the skies were like as a child?
Wait! The moon's shade just arrived, watch starlight fall
like rhythm behind the eye for missing breath.
Don't worry, this can all be healed
with a scalpel's width & lungs spread like wings.
We're talking genetics honey.
Double-helix cash money.
Pain-pink pills & the cotton-crawl of a quasar
thru your chest. Put the universe to your mouth.
It's ignition. Decapitate your cybernetic girlfriend
with riffs from a lightningaxe. Ignition.
Maybe a sigh of the times?
That was rhetorical.
How many Richters will it take to raise the dead:
you're two adjectives away from the great American Killer.
3.
Born gutter smoke, wing welt & dance done,
nothing left on the dream hill leaves you felt washed.
Be whatever you have.
Harp-fisted angel of naked death for one.
Ephemeral scream fleshed to a golden
brown velocity for two. Open your mouth: a nation
of fireflies lift off from teeth bleemed to a smolder.
It was then I knew you would eat me alive.
It was then I knew the pleasure of drowning.
My burial plans include evaporation.
My burial plans include doppelgängers.
My burial plans include space-time.
My burial is the "blind crease in the song."
This poem has a pulse, proud as a spine.
Hold it! I remember you clear as an ice-age sold into sunlight
:whisp of c4 unfolded thru the flick of an eye
:nitro rubbed into lipstick a shade higher than plasma
:tar-dark loadstone in eyeliner: left a phrase in my head
:bones are a beach-blank canvas dreaming a still life;
tell me the sweet taste of twilight won't hold
in the second coming of your last breath.
Don't kid yourself honey. I know the temperature
that turns ice to fractured femurs.
Anger swims clear under its own weight.
Smoke flowers in your mind.
Brain full of bush flame. A dance detonates down limbs.
Seamless as a held breath that pulls fingers into fists.
Your iris blooms rivers.
It was at this time I knew you as the sharpened wind
in my chest. It was at this time we both saw this leading
to an event of perfect negative motion....
like nightmares without all the drama.
I have an irrational fear of dying kindly.
Promise: you'll shoot me into the sun.
4.
One by one a year of nights flash thru your face.
One by one I am a thousand untouched pages.
One by one syllables creep from your mouth in socks,
careful not to wake the brick of shade
with eyes like snow-drowned caves in the corner
of your mind. Volcano behind the hairline.
It's the lifting laughter that seeds the feral storm.
Glacial grift of the desert's slow advance
ripens in us like a haloed anger & heat stammers
into memory. This encrypted silence between us
is troubled with sun. For a moment, let's examine the topography
washed up on the corners of your mouth.
All opulence reduce to surf.
It cannot shake tomorrow; we are just recently a pattern!
Let's cycle thru this sequencing
& become the sole survivors of inertia's mistaken verve.
We're talking planetary erasure here.
Sol finally turns off its megaphone, we can sleep.
We've shaken the dice together.
It's all written before the advent of thought:
Pre-prophetic post-apocalypse melody-strung notes
by hoofbeat, heartboat, & heft that won't float
plus (for the first 30 callers) a sing-sung muffle
of prayer beads abstracted
from winged deified, mummified, exemplified
curious corpse that resists eyesight.
The cicadas are building in my spine
to heaven
to madness.
5.
Cure me honey & recant your favorite speech:
I, anonymous uterus of the universe
gave birth to you.
Four score & 15 minutes ago
(I am talking universal minutes!)
you were nothing without me:
a brilliant paper cut
a bloom in the blank between dreams
a vertigo curled around my cortex
a polyphonic thought passed into cloud
a S dash O dash S spelled in blind need
That not withstanding, there you were.
All choking wet & focus of light.
Arithmetic or arrhythmia? Doesn't matter.
After that I couldn't stop talking
about your unbelievable torso.
After that your exhale hit
me right between the eyes.
After that you were leftovers blown to bones.
After that you were banked
evangelical particle chances of ascension:
a placid face dropped in ripe ponds:
floods gushed thru the gate
left unlocked in your chest.
For now. Sleep. Beautiful, sleep.
Rumor acts like a mirror.
When we k ss your eyes d sappear.
When you walk that swing
my abdomen turns to mud. Again.
Your flesh, the last isthmus.
Your flesh, the last desert.
Your flesh, the last fossilized footprint.
Your flesh, the last ripe peach.
Your flesh, the final blackbird.
Copper sands crawl hand-pressed cliffs;
boulders never roll uphill
so let's trade minds & talk about me:
there he is blind lips in midnight shade.
Said he wants to feel your skull
on his fingertips. When lips meet
he whispers to his hands
that know your spine like a memory.
Says when you touch his ears fill with surf.
Wants your fingers to pound him into ivory
like an old-fashioned pianola...
& that's just about everything you'll ever need.
to be hungry for a woman” Balzac in “Le Père Goriot.”
by J. R. Pearson
1.
You have two fingers & a wall socket
full of lightning. Insert. Repeat
until an unexplainable thirst for iron holds.
Take a short break. Get to know yourself a little.
Body image fading down corridors of television night.
Bright ghosts burning blue haze thru the sky's broken bones.
Welcome back!.. to your muted mouth glittered in hot gold.
To liquid sand from a poisoned silver skin.
You must believe this can all be summed up by the deaf
immensity of snow & your hatred of anything dead-white.
Instead, imagine a new body. A whole new you
plus no additional charge nocturnal cinema!
Dreams that come on in desert night like live-wire voodoo.
Think: braille bred in the bone
the texture of flowers that open tombs of suspect sentences.
Picture: sky tablecloths into 9 volt verbs
pressed to taste-buds.
Speak: this feels so unbelievable
without some kind of chemical dependency!
Wonder: do you have to sell skin to the sunrise?
Answer: no fine print written on the underside of eyelids.
Promise: as a fact all that's possible is a hard blink.
A tongue contorts into your arms
just the right distance apart.
Your heart is an eyelid curled with fingers.
Your heart is a snow-bright cataract.
Your heart is opening a large wet eye.
Your heart is an oven. You're ignition.
2.
Just think of it as the blind bandwidth
of tongue touching tongue.
The riddled rain in bubble casting of innocent falling light.
Thru an open iris the desert swims into mind
& unseen hands prepare volcanoes
for a distinct country's recasting.
It's serious. Thoughts full of august shade,
you forget that black boils
into moons rising beneath fingernails
into spoons over an open flame
into an addict's wish-sharpened needle
into ignitable veins clawed up arms
into this whole thing that keeps gibbering
a voice in my head and if I focus
on its mouth I can change the words
but they never never stop coming out
so I just form syllables into smoke rings.
Do you remember what mountains felt like as a child?
Do you remember what the skies were like as a child?
Wait! The moon's shade just arrived, watch starlight fall
like rhythm behind the eye for missing breath.
Don't worry, this can all be healed
with a scalpel's width & lungs spread like wings.
We're talking genetics honey.
Double-helix cash money.
Pain-pink pills & the cotton-crawl of a quasar
thru your chest. Put the universe to your mouth.
It's ignition. Decapitate your cybernetic girlfriend
with riffs from a lightningaxe. Ignition.
Maybe a sigh of the times?
That was rhetorical.
How many Richters will it take to raise the dead:
you're two adjectives away from the great American Killer.
3.
Born gutter smoke, wing welt & dance done,
nothing left on the dream hill leaves you felt washed.
Be whatever you have.
Harp-fisted angel of naked death for one.
Ephemeral scream fleshed to a golden
brown velocity for two. Open your mouth: a nation
of fireflies lift off from teeth bleemed to a smolder.
It was then I knew you would eat me alive.
It was then I knew the pleasure of drowning.
My burial plans include evaporation.
My burial plans include doppelgängers.
My burial plans include space-time.
My burial is the "blind crease in the song."
This poem has a pulse, proud as a spine.
Hold it! I remember you clear as an ice-age sold into sunlight
:whisp of c4 unfolded thru the flick of an eye
:nitro rubbed into lipstick a shade higher than plasma
:tar-dark loadstone in eyeliner: left a phrase in my head
:bones are a beach-blank canvas dreaming a still life;
tell me the sweet taste of twilight won't hold
in the second coming of your last breath.
Don't kid yourself honey. I know the temperature
that turns ice to fractured femurs.
Anger swims clear under its own weight.
Smoke flowers in your mind.
Brain full of bush flame. A dance detonates down limbs.
Seamless as a held breath that pulls fingers into fists.
Your iris blooms rivers.
It was at this time I knew you as the sharpened wind
in my chest. It was at this time we both saw this leading
to an event of perfect negative motion....
like nightmares without all the drama.
I have an irrational fear of dying kindly.
Promise: you'll shoot me into the sun.
4.
One by one a year of nights flash thru your face.
One by one I am a thousand untouched pages.
One by one syllables creep from your mouth in socks,
careful not to wake the brick of shade
with eyes like snow-drowned caves in the corner
of your mind. Volcano behind the hairline.
It's the lifting laughter that seeds the feral storm.
Glacial grift of the desert's slow advance
ripens in us like a haloed anger & heat stammers
into memory. This encrypted silence between us
is troubled with sun. For a moment, let's examine the topography
washed up on the corners of your mouth.
All opulence reduce to surf.
It cannot shake tomorrow; we are just recently a pattern!
Let's cycle thru this sequencing
& become the sole survivors of inertia's mistaken verve.
We're talking planetary erasure here.
Sol finally turns off its megaphone, we can sleep.
We've shaken the dice together.
It's all written before the advent of thought:
Pre-prophetic post-apocalypse melody-strung notes
by hoofbeat, heartboat, & heft that won't float
plus (for the first 30 callers) a sing-sung muffle
of prayer beads abstracted
from winged deified, mummified, exemplified
curious corpse that resists eyesight.
The cicadas are building in my spine
to heaven
to madness.
5.
Cure me honey & recant your favorite speech:
I, anonymous uterus of the universe
gave birth to you.
Four score & 15 minutes ago
(I am talking universal minutes!)
you were nothing without me:
a brilliant paper cut
a bloom in the blank between dreams
a vertigo curled around my cortex
a polyphonic thought passed into cloud
a S dash O dash S spelled in blind need
That not withstanding, there you were.
All choking wet & focus of light.
Arithmetic or arrhythmia? Doesn't matter.
After that I couldn't stop talking
about your unbelievable torso.
After that your exhale hit
me right between the eyes.
After that you were leftovers blown to bones.
After that you were banked
evangelical particle chances of ascension:
a placid face dropped in ripe ponds:
floods gushed thru the gate
left unlocked in your chest.
For now. Sleep. Beautiful, sleep.
Rumor acts like a mirror.
When we k ss your eyes d sappear.
When you walk that swing
my abdomen turns to mud. Again.
Your flesh, the last isthmus.
Your flesh, the last desert.
Your flesh, the last fossilized footprint.
Your flesh, the last ripe peach.
Your flesh, the final blackbird.
Copper sands crawl hand-pressed cliffs;
boulders never roll uphill
so let's trade minds & talk about me:
there he is blind lips in midnight shade.
Said he wants to feel your skull
on his fingertips. When lips meet
he whispers to his hands
that know your spine like a memory.
Says when you touch his ears fill with surf.
Wants your fingers to pound him into ivory
like an old-fashioned pianola...
& that's just about everything you'll ever need.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Bob Dylan is Dead
by Melanie Browne
He got tangled
up
in truth
Folk Angels
wearing pink
hot pants
hitch rides
across the desert
The fuchsia flowers
drip from
their hair
Dead rock gods
fly over
the night sky,
sad & blue
while
palm trees
quiver
& beat
their tambourines
He got tangled
up
in truth
Folk Angels
wearing pink
hot pants
hitch rides
across the desert
The fuchsia flowers
drip from
their hair
Dead rock gods
fly over
the night sky,
sad & blue
while
palm trees
quiver
& beat
their tambourines
Rain in L.A.
by Sean Pravica
a rain cloud over Los Angeles
brooded like a rebel
boasting a storm
and taunting the drivers
who are suddenly young children again
taking baby steps
not quite sure what to do
and a little scared
though they’d rather not admit that
except maybe to their mothers
depends on what kind of car they drive
what job they hold
and how much gas is in the tank of their gut
that is
how much of their lives
they can actually stomach
if we could run away forever
or drive on an endless highway
we might still fear we’d slip
and let up the ghost
of our vulnerability
before a sky that knows better
knows that already
in this hot place
a sun bright enough to illuminate the buildings
mirrors everywhere for smitten people
examining the objects of their affection
in passing glass surfaces
the sky can’t always hold back its tears
even though it’s tougher here
having seen the dreams lost
and others become
only to slip away
back into the reflective face of a bank
untouchable
and lost
behind the fake marble
while the rain begins to fall
and drizzle along the sidewalk
the smell of the street rising
time to go home
and face the traffic
a rain cloud over Los Angeles
brooded like a rebel
boasting a storm
and taunting the drivers
who are suddenly young children again
taking baby steps
not quite sure what to do
and a little scared
though they’d rather not admit that
except maybe to their mothers
depends on what kind of car they drive
what job they hold
and how much gas is in the tank of their gut
that is
how much of their lives
they can actually stomach
if we could run away forever
or drive on an endless highway
we might still fear we’d slip
and let up the ghost
of our vulnerability
before a sky that knows better
knows that already
in this hot place
a sun bright enough to illuminate the buildings
mirrors everywhere for smitten people
examining the objects of their affection
in passing glass surfaces
the sky can’t always hold back its tears
even though it’s tougher here
having seen the dreams lost
and others become
only to slip away
back into the reflective face of a bank
untouchable
and lost
behind the fake marble
while the rain begins to fall
and drizzle along the sidewalk
the smell of the street rising
time to go home
and face the traffic
Soul Effort
by Brenda Blakey
His was a fool’s dream
To wish for her requited love.
He had failed before but
This time he would succeed.
One last whisper in prayer then,
While his body slept on goose down,
His spirit hovered over her house;
He wrenched out his heart completely.
It salted over her sleeping form.
Now she would return his love.
But, unfortunately, he would no
Longer have the heart for it.
His was a fool’s dream
To wish for her requited love.
He had failed before but
This time he would succeed.
One last whisper in prayer then,
While his body slept on goose down,
His spirit hovered over her house;
He wrenched out his heart completely.
It salted over her sleeping form.
Now she would return his love.
But, unfortunately, he would no
Longer have the heart for it.
Four Poems
by Suchoon Mo
Awakening
a cat barks
a mouse farts
the sound of awakening
in silence
the buddha meditates
Sin
whenever she sings
she omits "g"
she sins
d
ever since she met david and married him
she has been stuttering at d
d-d-d-david
d-d-d-damn you!
d-d-d-
d-d-d-
Duet
together two women sing
one sings a serenade
the other sings an elegy
they sing a same song
they sing a requiem
Awakening
a cat barks
a mouse farts
the sound of awakening
in silence
the buddha meditates
Sin
whenever she sings
she omits "g"
she sins
d
ever since she met david and married him
she has been stuttering at d
d-d-d-david
d-d-d-damn you!
d-d-d-
d-d-d-
Duet
together two women sing
one sings a serenade
the other sings an elegy
they sing a same song
they sing a requiem
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Hermes' Dream
by Christina Murphy
Hermes was a clever baby god stealing his brother Apollo’s cattle and
hiding them in an Arcadian cave
Apollo seeking revenge took Hermes before Zeus for judgment, but Hermes
even so young placated
He offered a tortoise shell and leather strips as a lyre to Apollo who
recognized the music within
Apollo the Sun God and Hermes the infant god created music from a theft
and a deception
Hermes understood and Apollo agreed that the earth was the place for song
so filled with promise and sorrows
So they asked Iris, daughter of Electra and creature of celestial energy, to create
the rainbow and fill the clouds with light
Iris, running with the wind, knew in her heart that the stars and the earth were
one with the music of the lyre
So she placed the rainbow in the sky above the earthly broken dreams
of humankind—
The rainbow to split the clouds and free the songs of the heavens as
rain fell and rose from the earth
In appreciation for the gift of the lyre, Apollo gave Hermes a golden rod,
the sign of the peace maker
Asleep in his cradle in a cave on Mount Cyllene, Hermes dreamed the
dream of rainbows and stars
As Iris, the night for her companion, kept watch in the heavens, filling
the sky with light before the dawn
Wet April Flows through Fleece
by Rebecca Anne Renner
April
mops the yellow
scent of rejection
off its thighs.
It
clings to daybreak
like a perfume
sodden whore,
fat, docile,
where
a tigers claws
and serpent's
tongue once grew,
soft
with years of lying
down in rutted soil
too paltry for a summons
or a call to tea,
a simpering
orchard is born
and withers.
Real Beauty
by Len Kuntz
I made it look like an accident, an iris happenstance, tearing the blue out of my eye, first one pupil then the next. The sun was the only thing that went down that day, stayed there, head in the dirt, glowing in the ground like a brim but nothing more, blinded, not even breathing. After the fire, you said I’d never love you the same, your face full of scar melt now. But you were wrong: here are my eyes to prove it.
I made it look like an accident, an iris happenstance, tearing the blue out of my eye, first one pupil then the next. The sun was the only thing that went down that day, stayed there, head in the dirt, glowing in the ground like a brim but nothing more, blinded, not even breathing. After the fire, you said I’d never love you the same, your face full of scar melt now. But you were wrong: here are my eyes to prove it.
Push(er)
by Lynne Hayes
Hey you?
Looking for something perhaps,
to erase the fears or by chance can
help you launch face first into my
Sweet Oblivion.
Nights become days become nothing,
but a Wicked spiral of ins, outs
Sideways, slide ways of messiness.
Trade me your usefulness
and I will return to you a bounty of sloth
then let me Rape your smile
and replace it with a line on the horizon.
Allow me to assist in your flat line of Vitality.
Please, keep taking from my claw the
sweet poisons of eternal voids
and I will offer the demise you so
Unconsciously Crave.
Retreating into the abyss
without ropes, tethers or any ground beneath
your feet I can ensnare the future you
so willingly offer for my economies.
Hey you?
Let me assist in the Remains of your day.
THE MINUTE
by Kenneth Pobo
Villa Park, Illinois found out
I was gay, the whole town
caught fire. The mayor ran
down Oakland Avenue beating
a pan. Respectable Repubdads
dashed outside naked,
carried their kids’ bikes back
inside, careful to lock each door
and bolt all windows
even if meant burning
alive. My friend Dippy had
blurted out my secret. Firetrucks
clanged from street to street,
evaporated. Fire shaved its legs,
slowly devoured everything.
I thanked Dippy on smouldering
ashes, gave him my
peanutbutter and jelly sandwich. On the Last Tube Train to Tibet
by P.A. Levy
Let the barbed wire whistle
laments of breezes caught on CCTV;
phantasmic fluttering plastic
and a song bird tapping a beat
on a window twenty floors high;
caught in the wink in a daisy’s eye
from downhearted-lands, concrete lands,
where crushed diamonte of broken bottles
twinkle in the star-shine of Telstar’s offspring.
On the other side of the pane
speed queen Susi never shuts up.
Six stone six of jaw and bone
rolls over, pants, begs for wraps
pouts in a tea stained T-shirt
and moody Nike trackie bottoms
she nicked from Roman Road market.
Bass rhythms. Base rhythms.
Resonates in the hungry cries
of her cunt spew brat;
a free gift that came with a drunken fuck,
but she loves her little SMA junkie to bits,
sings lullabies of far away places
where twilight swoons
with nightingale voices
instead of sirens wailing
and the undulating rumble of another tube train
heading east
beyond Barking.
Skunk farms. M25 raves. Pirates rule
underground air waves.
Worshipping at the twin deck altar
DJ MDMA plays wicked tunes for his
faithless bong children.
Loved-up Susi
looking for someone
searches the acid house attic, looking
for someone in laser lights, someone
to hold, euphorically hold
in drum vibrations,
riding vibrations,
riding the last tube train to Tibet.
Let the barbed wire whistle
laments of breezes caught on CCTV;
phantasmic fluttering plastic
and a song bird tapping a beat
on a window twenty floors high;
caught in the wink in a daisy’s eye
from downhearted-lands, concrete lands,
where crushed diamonte of broken bottles
twinkle in the star-shine of Telstar’s offspring.
On the other side of the pane
speed queen Susi never shuts up.
Six stone six of jaw and bone
rolls over, pants, begs for wraps
pouts in a tea stained T-shirt
and moody Nike trackie bottoms
she nicked from Roman Road market.
Bass rhythms. Base rhythms.
Resonates in the hungry cries
of her cunt spew brat;
a free gift that came with a drunken fuck,
but she loves her little SMA junkie to bits,
sings lullabies of far away places
where twilight swoons
with nightingale voices
instead of sirens wailing
and the undulating rumble of another tube train
heading east
beyond Barking.
Skunk farms. M25 raves. Pirates rule
underground air waves.
Worshipping at the twin deck altar
DJ MDMA plays wicked tunes for his
faithless bong children.
Loved-up Susi
looking for someone
searches the acid house attic, looking
for someone in laser lights, someone
to hold, euphorically hold
in drum vibrations,
riding vibrations,
riding the last tube train to Tibet.
Regarding Kay
by Robert Vaughan
She sits there just
waiting just sitting
and waiting...
She talked two lifetimes
worth in fifty years
despite his insults:
blabberpuss, motormouth,
and so on
and so on
In one ear and
out the other
she followed siren
screaming fire trucks
to their destinations
she had a drive
about being perfect
and two critical eyes:
you're not wearing that,
do you have to be such a slob?
A gifted pianist
she would yell corrections
A sharp! Or E Flat!
preparing dinner as
I practiced daily lessons
She couldn't live
with him
but she did
just as she had
with her abusive father
she couldn't live
without him
but she did
she disappeared daily
more and more in
his house long before
the home at St. John's
she held grudges
she could be kinder
to strangers than
loved ones
her letters needed
deciphering with a
fine tooth comb
to discover any warmth
more like tombs
her words
in preparation of a
vacuum into which
her life fell
she loved Frosted Flakes
W-H-A-M
quiet family walks
on Sunday afternoons
into Park Lane fields
later developed
raspberry picking for
her notorious berry pies
Swimming and
skiing keeping
her shapely and fit
her breasts shriveled under
husband's insults
Laundry, vacuuming,
cleaning was laborious
and we heard the
laments: the victim,
the oppressed, the
creative juices eeked
out of her mundane
existence, reduced to
conversations with Rose,
coffee with Shirley,
or Sally
not the life she envisioned
as a promising young
musician meeting a
divorced dapper doctor
at the ripe age of 21
She fought the move to
the farm in Macedon
much like she fought
the alcoholic husband or
the disappointment of
her children, or the
onslaught of a disease
with a german name
which would rob her
of her august years
not even able to protest
she slipped beneath
the surface of ice
into an abyss
I cannot comprehend
I did not know her
I never really knew her
no
I never knew her
although I am her
we are all her
in life, and in death
On Fate and Fortune
by April A.
This northern city with headlights-eyes
Has buried me in its cold and gloom;
You'll see this place in a dreadful guise
And once sweet home will seem a tomb
Once you're aware there's no way out,
Once dreams of youth say goodbye and grin.
It goes farther and makes me doubt
In all the things I have ever seen.
Its blood has turned into ice and snow -
It's endless winter in every heart.
The winds of grief never cease to blow,
The art of grief is the greatest art.
And once in this cradle of dirt and despair
A wandering stranger demanded my mind.
He asked me about this damned northern air
I'd better not breathe - I would leave it behind.
He said: "I'm in love with this misery, miss.
Destruction is right what we need to create.
True art is in grief, I've been dreaming of this.
My yesterday's fortune's tomorrow's fate.
I know all secrets my destiny knows,
So this boring dwelling won't be a surprise".
I thought: "He's my twin, and it clearly shows".
That evening he opened my widely shut eyes.
A perfect stranger has built a wall
To be a shield from this gloom and lies,
From endless rains of this city's gall
That falls on me from the shattered skies.
The wave of feelings can warm the days
Of dull existence in Bitterland
And melt the ice in this rotten place,
In every heart that it's due to mend.
This northern city with headlights-eyes
Has turned us down in its nasty voice
And... brought together. We've paid the price
Of fate to fortune. We've made the choice.
Tropical Dangers [jaguar 1, whiteman 0]
by Devin Streur
Things that eat whiteman
jaguar
piranhas
Things that whiteman eats
tapioca
cayenne
Things that leave whiteman alone
tapir
toucan
petunia
Spun Gold
by Cath Barton
All our minds
have fizzing corners,
synapses spluttering,
casting out in faith
like spiders
spinning their invisible
connections.
Keep alert,
for there’s gold
in the web
of your memories,
and you could be caught
unawares
by its shine.
All our minds
have fizzing corners,
synapses spluttering,
casting out in faith
like spiders
spinning their invisible
connections.
Keep alert,
for there’s gold
in the web
of your memories,
and you could be caught
unawares
by its shine.
A Spirit and a Goat
by Michael H. Brownstein
and I am the last person left in my world.
Can you not see this? Is lightning that bright?
Is there not a Godhead named Mithras
watching over goats and ewes and every colt?
Yes, yes, and no.
The sea has a way of washing itself,
the hand of thick grass holds to its own rhythm,
stone finds a detour and a stream and more stone.
The feet of the umbrella pine lift from a crush of earth.
Once upon a time there was such a thing.
Moon madness. This I know.
and I am the last person left in my world.
Can you not see this? Is lightning that bright?
Is there not a Godhead named Mithras
watching over goats and ewes and every colt?
Yes, yes, and no.
The sea has a way of washing itself,
the hand of thick grass holds to its own rhythm,
stone finds a detour and a stream and more stone.
The feet of the umbrella pine lift from a crush of earth.
Once upon a time there was such a thing.
Moon madness. This I know.
Meadow Madness
by Cheryl Zovich
It's genetic, this madness
and addiction to color,
to textures. Lusting for the
precise arrangement of
height and hue, I toil
to restrain nature, struggle
with forcing chaos to
conform to my idea
of beauty. But the meadow
presses in, unfettered by
limitations. No balance or
arrangement by color chips of
perfection, no agenda, conundrum
or rules. It doesn't waste
precious time wishing
portulaca might be blue.
It's genetic, this madness
and addiction to color,
to textures. Lusting for the
precise arrangement of
height and hue, I toil
to restrain nature, struggle
with forcing chaos to
conform to my idea
of beauty. But the meadow
presses in, unfettered by
limitations. No balance or
arrangement by color chips of
perfection, no agenda, conundrum
or rules. It doesn't waste
precious time wishing
portulaca might be blue.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Vengeance
by Sara Fitzpatrick Comito
I want you
prostrated
by the damp
in the yard
weeping silently
as my music
seeps out
the window
with the sweat
of my onions.
I want you
to pound
with an
impotent fist
as my glass
goes clink,
so cute
it's impossible.
I want
your tears
as verses
useless
as semen
spent
on grass.
I want you
prostrated
by the damp
in the yard
weeping silently
as my music
seeps out
the window
with the sweat
of my onions.
I want you
to pound
with an
impotent fist
as my glass
goes clink,
so cute
it's impossible.
I want
your tears
as verses
useless
as semen
spent
on grass.
she blues (blue for a boy)
by P.A. Levy
ladyboy assassin
drop dead gorgeous
drinks salty hormone cocktails
to die for
keeps a warm gun
between his thighs
loaded
his life
an argentine tango dance
gyrated for an hourly rate
until he had enough bucks
cash up front
for 36B breast implants
now
she struts her sassy stuff
high heels size twelve
paris fragrance by coco chanel
topless dance-by
amassing numbers and collecting bling
happiness is a spent gun
kept in a jar
on the mantelpiece
ladyboy assassin
drop dead gorgeous
drinks salty hormone cocktails
to die for
keeps a warm gun
between his thighs
loaded
his life
an argentine tango dance
gyrated for an hourly rate
until he had enough bucks
cash up front
for 36B breast implants
now
she struts her sassy stuff
high heels size twelve
paris fragrance by coco chanel
topless dance-by
amassing numbers and collecting bling
happiness is a spent gun
kept in a jar
on the mantelpiece
Ma
by Kaye Linden
Ma just paid off her house and the café in back. She now earns more than enough with her shamanic cures for tourists, and can provide free biscuits and beer for homeless clients and dogs. Customers gather seven days a week at Ma's Place, drink warm ale, Turkish coffee and Bushell’s tea, served by Ma's brother, Midget, and sister, Possum. The middle aged, the elderly and the lonely, sit together and socialize, as was once their custom in outback towns.
Ma’s Place: Offering illumination through body art, alternative clothing, vision quests and ritual scarring.
So say the ads in the Morning Herald, so say the flyers pinned to the Ma’s Place bulletin board, and to telephone poles around the city's western suburbs. At one fork of the Shepherd's Highway, where the peak hour traffic halts, one massive billboard pictures Ma’s puffy, pale face, plastered with yellow paint and framed with a buzz of white hair.
Ma’s house and the cafe sit fifty feet from the highway where people toss garbage from cars. Ma combs through the front yard every day and collects discarded treasures such as hamburger wrappers, tarnished rings with fake rubies, used white handkerchiefs and half-burnt cigarettes that she smokes later.
At ninety-nine years old, Ma stays upright with the aid of a mixture she invented, one from rainwater and white cement powder gathered from the abandoned building site at the end of the street. Once a week she applies the goop with a painter's brush, and hangs herself out to dry on a clothes line on the roof. The potion takes twenty years off the way she looks and feels as it straightens the scoliosis she inherited from childhood hunger. Ma smokes her cigarette stubs in the gap between her two front teeth, even while performing daily meditation at five a.m. In truth, she has shaved off her remaining wisps of white hair. Ma prefers to choose from her collection of kangaroo fur wigs, so she might appear attractive in photographs.
In Ma's Place, neighborhood hanger-outers drink beer or black tea with cream and sugar. While customers eat homemade lamingtons smothered with wild honeysuckle jam, Ma passes around her menu of shamanic offerings that include non-clothing and clothing options. Three or four of her customers return each full moon to regain the sense of liberation and excitement they feel when naked at Ma's Place. Most clients choose to wear at least one body decoration such as the alternative choice of two white cockatoo feathers sewn onto each scapula like angel wings.
One regular hanger outer, a ninety year old gentleman, sits at the same corner table every day. He adorns his naked body with skeletal white stripes.
“We must remember what lies under our skin,” he says to Ma as she serves goanna stew.
“Well, I know what lies under your skin!” Ma teases.
The old man winks. “You’re a cheeky one, Ma,” he says and she hands him a free beer.
Tourists come to the café dressed in city clothes such as six inch stiletto heels and designer trousers. After a few hours, Ma transforms them.
"If you want to live, you must die to your old ways," she says. "Clothes hide your true nature, that of flesh and blood, of death to come. Wake up to who you really are!"
Ma sings to the courageous few who undergo the clothes stripping ritual. With a smile, they donate their clothes to her charity box. The gratefully awakened leave Ma's Place wearing only body art and tiny scars that will remind them of her words. Ma rips up the donated suits for use as bandages, offers the prettiest dresses to her neighbors, and gives the stiletto heels to homeless dogs who have no bones to chew.
When interviewed by The Shamanic, one British tourist said: “I couldn’t believe how much better I felt once my clothes were gone! I’ve ordered five jars of red body ochre.”
“I’m bringing my husband here,” a tourist from Perth added. “He works eighty hours a week in the used car business. I’m hoping Ma can help him remember me.”
The police in Australia voice concern over tourists who file into Ma’s house and file out wearing only body piercings and stripes. One officer voiced his complaint on the front page of The Rattle Nest: “They could catch their death of cold," he said. Later, the officer visited Ma to see for himself, and left dressed in feathers and red paint. A reporter wrote that he saw Ma wearing a man's police uniform the next day.
Sometimes, Ma decorates the neighborhood dogs just for fun. She dresses the naked mutts in white cockatoo feather skirts, feathered beards and shell necklaces. The dogs sit in her tiny kitchen and whine until she clothes them like uppity city dogs from the north shore. In return, they bring trinkets from the streets.
To maintain a steady stream of clients, Ma places another advertisement in the newspaper:
Ma just paid off her house and the café in back. She now earns more than enough with her shamanic cures for tourists, and can provide free biscuits and beer for homeless clients and dogs. Customers gather seven days a week at Ma's Place, drink warm ale, Turkish coffee and Bushell’s tea, served by Ma's brother, Midget, and sister, Possum. The middle aged, the elderly and the lonely, sit together and socialize, as was once their custom in outback towns.
Ma’s Place: Offering illumination through body art, alternative clothing, vision quests and ritual scarring.
So say the ads in the Morning Herald, so say the flyers pinned to the Ma’s Place bulletin board, and to telephone poles around the city's western suburbs. At one fork of the Shepherd's Highway, where the peak hour traffic halts, one massive billboard pictures Ma’s puffy, pale face, plastered with yellow paint and framed with a buzz of white hair.
Ma’s house and the cafe sit fifty feet from the highway where people toss garbage from cars. Ma combs through the front yard every day and collects discarded treasures such as hamburger wrappers, tarnished rings with fake rubies, used white handkerchiefs and half-burnt cigarettes that she smokes later.
At ninety-nine years old, Ma stays upright with the aid of a mixture she invented, one from rainwater and white cement powder gathered from the abandoned building site at the end of the street. Once a week she applies the goop with a painter's brush, and hangs herself out to dry on a clothes line on the roof. The potion takes twenty years off the way she looks and feels as it straightens the scoliosis she inherited from childhood hunger. Ma smokes her cigarette stubs in the gap between her two front teeth, even while performing daily meditation at five a.m. In truth, she has shaved off her remaining wisps of white hair. Ma prefers to choose from her collection of kangaroo fur wigs, so she might appear attractive in photographs.
In Ma's Place, neighborhood hanger-outers drink beer or black tea with cream and sugar. While customers eat homemade lamingtons smothered with wild honeysuckle jam, Ma passes around her menu of shamanic offerings that include non-clothing and clothing options. Three or four of her customers return each full moon to regain the sense of liberation and excitement they feel when naked at Ma's Place. Most clients choose to wear at least one body decoration such as the alternative choice of two white cockatoo feathers sewn onto each scapula like angel wings.
One regular hanger outer, a ninety year old gentleman, sits at the same corner table every day. He adorns his naked body with skeletal white stripes.
“We must remember what lies under our skin,” he says to Ma as she serves goanna stew.
“Well, I know what lies under your skin!” Ma teases.
The old man winks. “You’re a cheeky one, Ma,” he says and she hands him a free beer.
Tourists come to the café dressed in city clothes such as six inch stiletto heels and designer trousers. After a few hours, Ma transforms them.
"If you want to live, you must die to your old ways," she says. "Clothes hide your true nature, that of flesh and blood, of death to come. Wake up to who you really are!"
Ma sings to the courageous few who undergo the clothes stripping ritual. With a smile, they donate their clothes to her charity box. The gratefully awakened leave Ma's Place wearing only body art and tiny scars that will remind them of her words. Ma rips up the donated suits for use as bandages, offers the prettiest dresses to her neighbors, and gives the stiletto heels to homeless dogs who have no bones to chew.
When interviewed by The Shamanic, one British tourist said: “I couldn’t believe how much better I felt once my clothes were gone! I’ve ordered five jars of red body ochre.”
“I’m bringing my husband here,” a tourist from Perth added. “He works eighty hours a week in the used car business. I’m hoping Ma can help him remember me.”
The police in Australia voice concern over tourists who file into Ma’s house and file out wearing only body piercings and stripes. One officer voiced his complaint on the front page of The Rattle Nest: “They could catch their death of cold," he said. Later, the officer visited Ma to see for himself, and left dressed in feathers and red paint. A reporter wrote that he saw Ma wearing a man's police uniform the next day.
Sometimes, Ma decorates the neighborhood dogs just for fun. She dresses the naked mutts in white cockatoo feather skirts, feathered beards and shell necklaces. The dogs sit in her tiny kitchen and whine until she clothes them like uppity city dogs from the north shore. In return, they bring trinkets from the streets.
To maintain a steady stream of clients, Ma places another advertisement in the newspaper:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming city shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I offer transformation inside my shaman's door!
Bird Lady
by Michael Lee Johnson
They call her old maid Misty, as in fog, she misses the sun.
She runs a small pet store, more for the injured and lame,
alone and half the light bulbs have burnt out.
In the backroom everything smells of dust and feathers.
The cockatoo is cuddly and named Brenda, but has bad toiletry manners.
The macaw is well hidden, and fetches a high price on the open market, called Ginger.
Misty is surrounded by wired bird cages,
jungle noises in unfamiliar places,
and sleeps on a portable cot.
When parrots or parakeets shout shrills in the night,
her eyes squint and flash out in the dark but no one sees it.
Squinting is a lonely habit.
Misty works alone and is getting old.
On a wall, near her cot, hangs a picture-
but is it Jesus, or St. Jude Thaddaeus
carrying the image of Jesus in his hand or close to his chest,
difficult to tell darkness dimmed at night.
Misty sometimes sleepwalks at night from small room to the other-
she bumps, sometimes trips and falls, her warfarin guarantees bruises.
Misty tosses conjectures: “I’m I odd, old school, or just crazy?”
Her world is eye droppers, bird feeders, poop in cages, porcelain knickknacks.
Love left Misty’s life years ago, when World War II ended and so did her marriage.
As she ages everything is measure in milliliters, everything seems short and small-
medications in small dosages day by day.
Today is dim, raining outside, and old maid Misty still misses the sun.
They call her old maid Misty, as in fog, she misses the sun.
She runs a small pet store, more for the injured and lame,
alone and half the light bulbs have burnt out.
In the backroom everything smells of dust and feathers.
The cockatoo is cuddly and named Brenda, but has bad toiletry manners.
The macaw is well hidden, and fetches a high price on the open market, called Ginger.
Misty is surrounded by wired bird cages,
jungle noises in unfamiliar places,
and sleeps on a portable cot.
When parrots or parakeets shout shrills in the night,
her eyes squint and flash out in the dark but no one sees it.
Squinting is a lonely habit.
Misty works alone and is getting old.
On a wall, near her cot, hangs a picture-
but is it Jesus, or St. Jude Thaddaeus
carrying the image of Jesus in his hand or close to his chest,
difficult to tell darkness dimmed at night.
Misty sometimes sleepwalks at night from small room to the other-
she bumps, sometimes trips and falls, her warfarin guarantees bruises.
Misty tosses conjectures: “I’m I odd, old school, or just crazy?”
Her world is eye droppers, bird feeders, poop in cages, porcelain knickknacks.
Love left Misty’s life years ago, when World War II ended and so did her marriage.
As she ages everything is measure in milliliters, everything seems short and small-
medications in small dosages day by day.
Today is dim, raining outside, and old maid Misty still misses the sun.
Dudes My Age
by G. Tod Slone
Out there in the motel lot,
I see them scrubbing away
on their shiny Corvettes—
reds, blues, greens, banana.
About 10 of them are parked
in a perfect line,
their proud owners scrubbing
and polishing over and again,
all morning long.
One of the guys scowls at me,
a big coot with shiny bald head
and CORVETTE written
in big letters across his tee-shirt
—must have been a marine
or maybe even a state copper.
Seniors in bliss or almost,
they are the successful ones
of my generation,
the retired fellows dressed
uniformly
in khaki shorts.
Out there in the motel lot,
I see them scrubbing away
on their shiny Corvettes—
reds, blues, greens, banana.
About 10 of them are parked
in a perfect line,
their proud owners scrubbing
and polishing over and again,
all morning long.
One of the guys scowls at me,
a big coot with shiny bald head
and CORVETTE written
in big letters across his tee-shirt
—must have been a marine
or maybe even a state copper.
Seniors in bliss or almost,
they are the successful ones
of my generation,
the retired fellows dressed
uniformly
in khaki shorts.
From 8 Equations
7. Platonic Tragedies & Top Ten I'm Sorrys
In a "Brief History of Glass"
In the Advent of a Water Landing
this Poem May be Used as a Floatation Device
by J. R. Pearson
Let's go way back. Back past mathematics’
knuckle-fucked abacus & Euclidian misnomers.
Back to Plato's top two
ways to succeed in tragedy:
one: kill the victim & everyone he knows
two: kill the victim several times until
he forgets he's dead
Implied lines of evidence for rational behavior in complex social settings?
Act like men grow handcuffs in the earth's womb.
Pretend tempers are buried in dynamite.
Furrowed brows made from nitroglycerin, finely molded
& set firmly between two lit corneas.
Freeze! Act natural. Move slow
like nothing matters except what fills
your empty hand at said moment:
Gun folded into the flick of a finger:
Daggers spent with the lick of the lips.
13 codas with a blade playing backup.
Sphinx-mouthed & waiting. It's always the waiting--
Spartans knew the External Principal
of Practical Ahimsa: the only real victim is yourself!
All this & who knew a Geiger counter blitzes
a finger at thoughts of plutonium tangled in amino acids.
It's 2000 ways not to build a lightbulb &
a killingwave unwound in a wind of RNA
that rises like a bleach tomb hung
up by its hind heel in sky stripped to the bone.
There's no geometric formula for the point
where two bodies touch.
But let's count anyway: all things equal
touch lips just in case:
run fingers over skin ponds cut cleanly at the damp edge:
scratch the march of long whistles
in the stained-black dream warped & turning on a gramophone: lifts
like madness shed by a twist in the heat:
opens the drawer of earth
beneath your grave:
I'm sorry. I mistook you for the moon
I'm sorry. Your proteins don't fold properly
I'm sorry. I wrote you a message on the galactic
arm; Alpha Centari is the period.
I'm sorry. You were born in a nebula; fell to earth in a flame.
I'm sorry. I thought I heard your wings whistle in a drawn-back sky.
I'm sorry. Your tongue keeps hammering me.
I'm sorry. I read your heart thru
an open wound.
I'm sorry. Sacred incantatory sweat glands must be spoken
I'm sorry. I only see some steel
Egrets singing with sky
I'm sorry. There’s a man torn in two
by the door
Don't worry we can fix him.
Humans manufacturing humans.
He says:
I know I'm dead if I dream in perfect pitch.
I know I'm asleep if I taste blood on your lips
where a word tore into song. I know I'm alive if the flame
in one eye whips mad like moonlight & the other's hard set
on "shudders loose in the brief history of glass".
Three cheers for an "unswept place in-between lives!"
Three cheers for raw linen over the sky's black mouth!
Three cheers for breath on a broken pane gone smoke-white
into a glass-sweep of sky you know doesn't exist..
In a "Brief History of Glass"
In the Advent of a Water Landing
this Poem May be Used as a Floatation Device
by J. R. Pearson
Let's go way back. Back past mathematics’
knuckle-fucked abacus & Euclidian misnomers.
Back to Plato's top two
ways to succeed in tragedy:
one: kill the victim & everyone he knows
two: kill the victim several times until
he forgets he's dead
Implied lines of evidence for rational behavior in complex social settings?
Act like men grow handcuffs in the earth's womb.
Pretend tempers are buried in dynamite.
Furrowed brows made from nitroglycerin, finely molded
& set firmly between two lit corneas.
Freeze! Act natural. Move slow
like nothing matters except what fills
your empty hand at said moment:
Gun folded into the flick of a finger:
Daggers spent with the lick of the lips.
13 codas with a blade playing backup.
Sphinx-mouthed & waiting. It's always the waiting--
Spartans knew the External Principal
of Practical Ahimsa: the only real victim is yourself!
All this & who knew a Geiger counter blitzes
a finger at thoughts of plutonium tangled in amino acids.
It's 2000 ways not to build a lightbulb &
a killingwave unwound in a wind of RNA
that rises like a bleach tomb hung
up by its hind heel in sky stripped to the bone.
There's no geometric formula for the point
where two bodies touch.
But let's count anyway: all things equal
touch lips just in case:
run fingers over skin ponds cut cleanly at the damp edge:
scratch the march of long whistles
in the stained-black dream warped & turning on a gramophone: lifts
like madness shed by a twist in the heat:
opens the drawer of earth
beneath your grave:
I'm sorry. I mistook you for the moon
I'm sorry. Your proteins don't fold properly
I'm sorry. I wrote you a message on the galactic
arm; Alpha Centari is the period.
I'm sorry. You were born in a nebula; fell to earth in a flame.
I'm sorry. I thought I heard your wings whistle in a drawn-back sky.
I'm sorry. Your tongue keeps hammering me.
I'm sorry. I read your heart thru
an open wound.
I'm sorry. Sacred incantatory sweat glands must be spoken
I'm sorry. I only see some steel
Egrets singing with sky
I'm sorry. There’s a man torn in two
by the door
Don't worry we can fix him.
Humans manufacturing humans.
He says:
I know I'm dead if I dream in perfect pitch.
I know I'm asleep if I taste blood on your lips
where a word tore into song. I know I'm alive if the flame
in one eye whips mad like moonlight & the other's hard set
on "shudders loose in the brief history of glass".
Three cheers for an "unswept place in-between lives!"
Three cheers for raw linen over the sky's black mouth!
Three cheers for breath on a broken pane gone smoke-white
into a glass-sweep of sky you know doesn't exist..
Existential Hitchhiking
by Chloe Caldwell
“I always get my period when we hitchhike,” I told my brother.
“That’s nice,” he said.
“No. It’s shitty.”
“Oh. Okay.” He wanted to be done with this conversation.
“I think it means something though,” I told him, feeling bored and feeling bold. I was trying to get a rise out of him.
It worked. He looked at me from over his shoulder:
“Why does hitchhiking always have to be so existential---“
“I know!”
“----With you? No Clo, only with you.”
“Oh...”
“This isn’t what hitchhiking is like with other people.”
“Oh.”
It was six in the morning and we were tired. It was August and it was humid. My brother was beyond irritated with me, and for good reason. He was hitchhiking with me to Paris from Berlin because I didn’t know how to do it alone. He didn’t feel like doing it. Neither did I. We hadn’t even spoken for months. Instead of living with him and making art and music, I’d decided to erase myself and stare stoned out of a window.
Luckily though, we only had to hitchhike to a small town in Germany, where a friend of a friend Pablo was going to meet us with his car and drive us all the way to Paris. We couldn’t wait to sleep for hours.
Then Trevor got a text from Pablo. He’d decided he needed to get on the road early. He left without us, even though he’d told us to meet him at nine am.
Buying a flight out of Paris to New York because it was cheap seemed exotic when I purchased it in June. In June, we’d been excited about the quest. Now we just wanted to go back to bed. Now we were on the side of the road unprepared to hitchhike for two days. We had half of a baguette that Trev had baked and thirty-five cent Brie that was melting in the sun. Ooh la la.
My brother didn’t let it go. I hated him when he acted this uptight.
“No, really though, Clo. I’m curious. Why do you think when we’re standing on the side of the road trying to get a ride, why do you think that’s the best time to analyze your life?”
“I don’t know. Cause’ it feels weird to be standing on the side of the road. Like we’re outside the world.”
“You should be putting your energy into getting a ride.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay, but you do it every time.”
“Sorry.”
“And take your Ipod off.”
“It makes me dance and look friendly.”
“It makes you look rude.”
“We always get a ride when I put it on and dance. Remember? And they can’t even see it from the car.”
“It’s rude. Put my guitar in front of you; it’ll make you look pretty. People like girls that play guitar.”
“I don’t know what to do with my life.”
“Ahhhhh shut up.”
“But I don’t!”
“Hey, didn’t you have to clean yesterday? If you wanted to, you could use the euros you made and just buy a bus ticket to Paris. They’re about 65 euro.”
“I didn’t go clean yesterday. I don’t have any extra money.”
“Why didn’t you go?”
“I was tripping on acid.”
“Jesus Christ, Clo.”
“What’d you say?”
“Take your damn Ipod off!”
“It makes me look friendly!”
“It makes you look rude.”
“It makes you look rude.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Stop copying me.”
“Stop copying me.”
“ I’m serious Clo.”
“I’m serious Clo.”
“What are we five years old?”
“What are we five years old? I’m not stopping.”
“You just did.”
“I always get my period when we hitchhike,” I told my brother.
“That’s nice,” he said.
“No. It’s shitty.”
“Oh. Okay.” He wanted to be done with this conversation.
“I think it means something though,” I told him, feeling bored and feeling bold. I was trying to get a rise out of him.
It worked. He looked at me from over his shoulder:
“Why does hitchhiking always have to be so existential---“
“I know!”
“----With you? No Clo, only with you.”
“Oh...”
“This isn’t what hitchhiking is like with other people.”
“Oh.”
It was six in the morning and we were tired. It was August and it was humid. My brother was beyond irritated with me, and for good reason. He was hitchhiking with me to Paris from Berlin because I didn’t know how to do it alone. He didn’t feel like doing it. Neither did I. We hadn’t even spoken for months. Instead of living with him and making art and music, I’d decided to erase myself and stare stoned out of a window.
Luckily though, we only had to hitchhike to a small town in Germany, where a friend of a friend Pablo was going to meet us with his car and drive us all the way to Paris. We couldn’t wait to sleep for hours.
Then Trevor got a text from Pablo. He’d decided he needed to get on the road early. He left without us, even though he’d told us to meet him at nine am.
Buying a flight out of Paris to New York because it was cheap seemed exotic when I purchased it in June. In June, we’d been excited about the quest. Now we just wanted to go back to bed. Now we were on the side of the road unprepared to hitchhike for two days. We had half of a baguette that Trev had baked and thirty-five cent Brie that was melting in the sun. Ooh la la.
My brother didn’t let it go. I hated him when he acted this uptight.
“No, really though, Clo. I’m curious. Why do you think when we’re standing on the side of the road trying to get a ride, why do you think that’s the best time to analyze your life?”
“I don’t know. Cause’ it feels weird to be standing on the side of the road. Like we’re outside the world.”
“You should be putting your energy into getting a ride.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay, but you do it every time.”
“Sorry.”
“And take your Ipod off.”
“It makes me dance and look friendly.”
“It makes you look rude.”
“We always get a ride when I put it on and dance. Remember? And they can’t even see it from the car.”
“It’s rude. Put my guitar in front of you; it’ll make you look pretty. People like girls that play guitar.”
“I don’t know what to do with my life.”
“Ahhhhh shut up.”
“But I don’t!”
“Hey, didn’t you have to clean yesterday? If you wanted to, you could use the euros you made and just buy a bus ticket to Paris. They’re about 65 euro.”
“I didn’t go clean yesterday. I don’t have any extra money.”
“Why didn’t you go?”
“I was tripping on acid.”
“Jesus Christ, Clo.”
“What’d you say?”
“Take your damn Ipod off!”
“It makes me look friendly!”
“It makes you look rude.”
“It makes you look rude.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Stop copying me.”
“Stop copying me.”
“ I’m serious Clo.”
“I’m serious Clo.”
“What are we five years old?”
“What are we five years old? I’m not stopping.”
“You just did.”
Robbed
by jkdavies
Still I wish for you;
The sap rising in the trees
I will not blossom.
-
Yes, it is calmer
without you close, rain clouds scud
across the grey sky.
-
Ripe for seeding, sun
falls on open eyes, legs, heart;
you push into me.
-
You pull out of me,
drive from the hotel; litter swirls
windblown vortices.
-
Your seed trickles out
a wet patch; summer is due,
sunshine flew away.
-
Your words trickle in
Why do I let you? Cut, not
clutch at memories...Thursday Night on the Metro
M.P. Powers
When the train stops at Blanche, an old man sidles
aboard. He's wearing a dark motheaten fleececoat and
has an accordion slung over his shoulders.
He peers around, the brim of a battered fedora
shading his heavylidded French eyes. The eyes of an artist.
The door closes; we lurch forward and he begins
with an old Parisian song. His fingers frolicking
about the keys; fingernails broad and shining like tiny
clamshells. He sways about the hips, beats softly
time with his foot, and when he finishes his two
minutes of wondrous music, he draws a small leather cup
out of a case. He gives it to the lady beside him; she looks at it
with disdain and passes it on.
It goes to the front of the train and comes back
around, still empty... He returns it to
its case and sits down, resting the accordion on his knee.
He slumps over a little bit. Meanwhile, the train jostles along,
moving us all
through the night; the tired, the spiritless. All of us,
huddled together,
without music, barely alive.
Sexual Congress and the Post-consumer
by Melanie Browne
I
swallow all of
your post-
consumer
fibers
I became one
with all
of your
post-consumer
dreams
We lie
together,
post-coital
two post
consumers
watching
the stars
mingle in
the post-consumer
night
The Morning After
by Chris Butler
The morning after
I
forget last night.
The morning after
I
awake covered
under her blood;
reaching for the
silver .44 beneath
my unleaded head,
with each chamber
full of malicious
intent, as my thinning
eyelids close but still
envision red, despite
the sun rising upon
my nightmares.
The morning after
my
skin pinches
itself to induce
consciousness.
The morning after
I
have a hangover.
The morning after
we
awake together.
The morning after
my
dreams never come
true.
The morning after
I
forget to remember
her name,
referring to her
only as babe.
The morning after
she
swallows the pill
with a puddle
of palm water,
as I counteract
cottonmouth
with a cup of
dust encrusted
whiskey.
The morning after
I
neglect to remember
urination after ejaculation
to prevent
urinary tract infections.
The morning after
she
showers and I
consider joining
her, yet deciding
to stay asleep
until she leaves.
The morning after
she
exits, pecking my
turning cheek.
The morning after
I
embrace a frigid
pillow case.
When I awake she
has long ago arrived
for her nine to five
in the same ensemble
she wore the
day before, as
I circumcise
my latex
foreskin.
The morning after
I
fear she’s periodically
late
despite our prior date.
The morning after
that
she doesn’t call.
The morning after,
bored,
I sext her pictures.
But
the morning after
the
next I forget her number.
The morning after
I
forget last night.
The morning after
I
awake covered
under her blood;
reaching for the
silver .44 beneath
my unleaded head,
with each chamber
full of malicious
intent, as my thinning
eyelids close but still
envision red, despite
the sun rising upon
my nightmares.
The morning after
my
skin pinches
itself to induce
consciousness.
The morning after
I
have a hangover.
The morning after
we
awake together.
The morning after
my
dreams never come
true.
The morning after
I
forget to remember
her name,
referring to her
only as babe.
The morning after
she
swallows the pill
with a puddle
of palm water,
as I counteract
cottonmouth
with a cup of
dust encrusted
whiskey.
The morning after
I
neglect to remember
urination after ejaculation
to prevent
urinary tract infections.
The morning after
she
showers and I
consider joining
her, yet deciding
to stay asleep
until she leaves.
The morning after
she
exits, pecking my
turning cheek.
The morning after
I
embrace a frigid
pillow case.
When I awake she
has long ago arrived
for her nine to five
in the same ensemble
she wore the
day before, as
I circumcise
my latex
foreskin.
The morning after
I
fear she’s periodically
late
despite our prior date.
The morning after
that
she doesn’t call.
The morning after,
bored,
I sext her pictures.
But
the morning after
the
next I forget her number.
Kindling
by Len Kuntz
My brothers were sunk, they took me with because they were babysitting. Still, the girls there had wavy, wheat-blonde hair and dance-floor lips that shimmered back question marks. “He’s so cute, isn’t he?” one asked. “He doesn’t look like either of you,” another said.
When they paired off and retreated to rooms, I turned on “The Mod Squad.” Julie looked like one of the girls, only thinner. I could hear both girls hyperventilating, as if they were a pair of kittens being smothered. But the air was sheer, pulsing and hot everywhere, so I got up to open the kitchen window, only the stove was there, as was a roll of paper towels and cook books nearby, a butcher block made of wood, mail and newspaper… so much kindling.
So, yes, okay, I did it. I started the fire, but I didn’t end it. I left before then.
My brothers were sunk, they took me with because they were babysitting. Still, the girls there had wavy, wheat-blonde hair and dance-floor lips that shimmered back question marks. “He’s so cute, isn’t he?” one asked. “He doesn’t look like either of you,” another said.
When they paired off and retreated to rooms, I turned on “The Mod Squad.” Julie looked like one of the girls, only thinner. I could hear both girls hyperventilating, as if they were a pair of kittens being smothered. But the air was sheer, pulsing and hot everywhere, so I got up to open the kitchen window, only the stove was there, as was a roll of paper towels and cook books nearby, a butcher block made of wood, mail and newspaper… so much kindling.
So, yes, okay, I did it. I started the fire, but I didn’t end it. I left before then.
THE MINUTE
by Kenneth Pobo
Villa Park, Illinois found out
I was gay, the whole town
caught fire. The mayor ran
down Oakland Avenue beating
a pan. Respectable Repubdads
dashed outside naked,
carried their kids’ bikes back
inside, careful to lock each door
and bolt all windows
even if meant burning
alive. My friend Dippy had
blurted out my secret. Firetrucks
clanged from street to street,
evaporated. Fire shaved its legs,
slowly devoured everything.
I thanked Dippy on smouldering
ashes, gave him my
peanutbutter and jelly sandwich.
Malawian Cafe
by Juliet Wilson
It's a mud-built cafe
on the dusty corner
of a village alley.
Dark inside and cool
despite the day's hot sun,
lively with laughter
and warm conversation.
The menu is simple:
bean stew and nsima;
chicken with rice;
Coca Cola, Fanta
and Carlsberg greens.
The walls are covered
with postcards
of its namesake
The Ritz.
It's a mud-built cafe
on the dusty corner
of a village alley.
Dark inside and cool
despite the day's hot sun,
lively with laughter
and warm conversation.
The menu is simple:
bean stew and nsima;
chicken with rice;
Coca Cola, Fanta
and Carlsberg greens.
The walls are covered
with postcards
of its namesake
The Ritz.
MAD WORLD
by Sandy Benitez
It's Halloween
and I'm attending
a masquerade ball
dressed as a Geisha.
Zombies saunter by,
leaving trails of toilet
paper and irritating moans.
Vampires offer me glasses
of bloodwine
but I politely refuse.
Ask if they have Saki
instead. One hisses at me
and I check his bottom
for a tail. The clock
strikes midnight
and suddenly the room
is spinning, no disco lights
to be found. A skeleton
approaches me, smelling of
sulfur. Says he'll show me
Hades for a copper penny.
With a wicked grin
I tell him we're already there
and all the madness
is completely free of charge.
It's Halloween
and I'm attending
a masquerade ball
dressed as a Geisha.
Zombies saunter by,
leaving trails of toilet
paper and irritating moans.
Vampires offer me glasses
of bloodwine
but I politely refuse.
Ask if they have Saki
instead. One hisses at me
and I check his bottom
for a tail. The clock
strikes midnight
and suddenly the room
is spinning, no disco lights
to be found. A skeleton
approaches me, smelling of
sulfur. Says he'll show me
Hades for a copper penny.
With a wicked grin
I tell him we're already there
and all the madness
is completely free of charge.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Black Gold, or The Sea of Tears
By Raphaelle O'Neil
My heart, an open wound once flooded, and since recovered,
Bleeds again, and now is covered in Black Gold.
Not the black and gold that brought us the victory
That signaled our new place in this city’s history,
But the Black Gold whose poison bleeds as the world watches
A new nightmare, slowly, but surely, unfold.
Something wicked this way comes,
Leaving a trail of tar baby birds in its wake,
As it gushes, seeping endlessly into the sea.
Not even our sea of tears can jerk us awake,
Nor help us unmake this mistake.
As the tides bring us closer to this unfurling disaster,
The winds carry with them a toxic scent that whispers,
And begs us to remember,
The shrill promise of “Drill, baby, drill!”
But, no, all is not well.
For even while I can still make believe that it is,
This endless well from hell, spills, and spills.
Black Gold has only begun washing up on our shores,
On our beds, on our schools,
Washing away with it the dreams that used to fill
Our bellies and our hearts,
While what was once our dearly beloved way of life,
Turns, yet again, into strife.
Yes, some of us can still pretend, but till when?
As horror draws near, how are we to defend
That which is most dear? As lies try to reduce our fears,
It becomes clear (unlike our waters),
Things won’t be the same again, at least not for years.
Meanwhile, the men who tried cutting corners,
All in the name of saving time and some dollars,
Are now trying to save their own collars.
The Black Gold is theirs, as well as the shame,
Yet still they try to keep their good name,
By dispersing and hiding the evidence,
And pointing fingers, displacing the blame.
How exactly are we supposed to take comfort
When asked to trust those who unleashed this mess,
To tell the truth, for once, and do what’s best
Letting them lead in the effort to recover?
Time and time again has shown, when left to their own, They only protect their self interest!
So, waiting for this sad story and toll to be fully told,
We hold our breath,
As worthless Black Gold approaches,
And encroaches its tenacious fingers into our harbors,
And engulfs our Gulf, and that of our neighbors.
O, would that our sea of tears be enough to replace this sea of death!
My heart, an open wound once flooded, and since recovered,
Bleeds again, and now is covered in Black Gold.
Not the black and gold that brought us the victory
That signaled our new place in this city’s history,
But the Black Gold whose poison bleeds as the world watches
A new nightmare, slowly, but surely, unfold.
Something wicked this way comes,
Leaving a trail of tar baby birds in its wake,
As it gushes, seeping endlessly into the sea.
Not even our sea of tears can jerk us awake,
Nor help us unmake this mistake.
As the tides bring us closer to this unfurling disaster,
The winds carry with them a toxic scent that whispers,
And begs us to remember,
The shrill promise of “Drill, baby, drill!”
But, no, all is not well.
For even while I can still make believe that it is,
This endless well from hell, spills, and spills.
Black Gold has only begun washing up on our shores,
On our beds, on our schools,
Washing away with it the dreams that used to fill
Our bellies and our hearts,
While what was once our dearly beloved way of life,
Turns, yet again, into strife.
Yes, some of us can still pretend, but till when?
As horror draws near, how are we to defend
That which is most dear? As lies try to reduce our fears,
It becomes clear (unlike our waters),
Things won’t be the same again, at least not for years.
Meanwhile, the men who tried cutting corners,
All in the name of saving time and some dollars,
Are now trying to save their own collars.
The Black Gold is theirs, as well as the shame,
Yet still they try to keep their good name,
By dispersing and hiding the evidence,
And pointing fingers, displacing the blame.
How exactly are we supposed to take comfort
When asked to trust those who unleashed this mess,
To tell the truth, for once, and do what’s best
Letting them lead in the effort to recover?
Time and time again has shown, when left to their own, They only protect their self interest!
So, waiting for this sad story and toll to be fully told,
We hold our breath,
As worthless Black Gold approaches,
And encroaches its tenacious fingers into our harbors,
And engulfs our Gulf, and that of our neighbors.
O, would that our sea of tears be enough to replace this sea of death!
Love Song
by Rebecca Gaffron
Bottle blue rolls over dirty walls, now primed and waiting for Pictish patterns. You are the only Scot in me. And you are in me, deep in my bones and blood. We are held together by sparkle and spit, by old songs sung by pixie children. Us, couched in resolve and pain, a single hair’s breadth standing between sweet-perfect union and oblivion. But that is as it ever was. Nothing’s changed except the clarity of our vision.
Bottle blue coats my fingers. I smile at this Scot-like brand, relieved to have found it, to know it blazes even when I’m too blind to feel and too hurt to see. You still warm me like Lagavulin. I squeeze my fist shut, longing for your opposite polarization. I thirst for purrs. Or gray-green tears. Whichever you choose to offer. And know that I have fallen in love again.
Bottle blue rolls over dirty walls, now primed and waiting for Pictish patterns. You are the only Scot in me. And you are in me, deep in my bones and blood. We are held together by sparkle and spit, by old songs sung by pixie children. Us, couched in resolve and pain, a single hair’s breadth standing between sweet-perfect union and oblivion. But that is as it ever was. Nothing’s changed except the clarity of our vision.
Bottle blue coats my fingers. I smile at this Scot-like brand, relieved to have found it, to know it blazes even when I’m too blind to feel and too hurt to see. You still warm me like Lagavulin. I squeeze my fist shut, longing for your opposite polarization. I thirst for purrs. Or gray-green tears. Whichever you choose to offer. And know that I have fallen in love again.
BOATMEN OF SEASONS
By A.J. Kaufmann
Virtue clouds expand
think, serve symphonies
obliquely well, black yawning
aspiration – world through birth with mountain-billows immortal
iron scraps, white and hot, scarlet in fire and hail
restless boats pass, quiet
through a steely, sudden motionless Night
melting, sour squeamish pretence to fail
retorts, boom city noise
pierced misty rainbows
bleed their leaves all over the station,
drag forces, cleft smoke, haste love
spare dusks bend, crack pavement roses
in putrid sleep, dark tops of greed
against the poet’s distance, folk immune to infection
blur transfers, monotonous books
smell like time, licking the smoke
while somewhere beside the shops, hate-lives healing rain
jokey beggars ooze across the years
with the boatmen of seasons
Virtue clouds expand
think, serve symphonies
obliquely well, black yawning
aspiration – world through birth with mountain-billows immortal
iron scraps, white and hot, scarlet in fire and hail
restless boats pass, quiet
through a steely, sudden motionless Night
melting, sour squeamish pretence to fail
retorts, boom city noise
pierced misty rainbows
bleed their leaves all over the station,
drag forces, cleft smoke, haste love
spare dusks bend, crack pavement roses
in putrid sleep, dark tops of greed
against the poet’s distance, folk immune to infection
blur transfers, monotonous books
smell like time, licking the smoke
while somewhere beside the shops, hate-lives healing rain
jokey beggars ooze across the years
with the boatmen of seasons
Serenity
by Glen Binger
When the dusty fifteen inch television grows boring
And the three day old magazines smell of sweaty palms
I tend to doze off into
The most deranged and completely
Insignificant dreamscapes.
No matter where my mind
Goes, there is always this desiring notion to
Repair something that isn’t really broken.
Or ruined.
Or even damaged at all.
Maybe it’s because of this haunting
Dependence I have on medication that isn’t mine.
Recently, however, I’ve been filling my stomach with violet-blue pills before I get to the
Emergency room with a piece of tattered paper stapled to my shirt that
Advertises the stench of day old vomit each time. And
Maybe each time this note says, “Please…
Save me,” but I can’t ever remember what I write; I’m too busy trying to breathe.
When the dusty fifteen inch television grows boring
And the three day old magazines smell of sweaty palms
I tend to doze off into
The most deranged and completely
Insignificant dreamscapes.
No matter where my mind
Goes, there is always this desiring notion to
Repair something that isn’t really broken.
Or ruined.
Or even damaged at all.
Maybe it’s because of this haunting
Dependence I have on medication that isn’t mine.
Recently, however, I’ve been filling my stomach with violet-blue pills before I get to the
Emergency room with a piece of tattered paper stapled to my shirt that
Advertises the stench of day old vomit each time. And
Maybe each time this note says, “Please…
Save me,” but I can’t ever remember what I write; I’m too busy trying to breathe.
The Patron Saint of Unaccountable Muses
by Jessica Otto
The lady is an iron vulture, a
drunken shadow teetering
on the edge of the shore line,
voted most likely to trip
over a horseshoe crab.
She was throttled and hung
from a phallic cactus when
the stock market crashed
for the second time.
No one stayed around for her
resurrection, no one
watched her catch a crow in mid
take off, stick two fingers down
its throat and pop her eyeball
out of its broken beak.
She kept the noose for its neo-hippie look
and moved into an alley off of
Capitol Street. Last I saw of her
she was feeding the stray cats
slightly green slices off her right
arm and passing out cigarettes
to the working girls.
The lady is an iron vulture, a
drunken shadow teetering
on the edge of the shore line,
voted most likely to trip
over a horseshoe crab.
She was throttled and hung
from a phallic cactus when
the stock market crashed
for the second time.
No one stayed around for her
resurrection, no one
watched her catch a crow in mid
take off, stick two fingers down
its throat and pop her eyeball
out of its broken beak.
She kept the noose for its neo-hippie look
and moved into an alley off of
Capitol Street. Last I saw of her
she was feeding the stray cats
slightly green slices off her right
arm and passing out cigarettes
to the working girls.
42 MINUTES AND A BURNED OUT CLUTCH
By Loretta Franta
When Doe got out of prison I saw her on the street and she said
--What’s up, my little white bitch?
That’s how she talked to me so I didn’t blink.
Doe.
Five foot three, bright skinned, beautiful till she opened her mouth.
Like they say, drop dead beautiful.
Short for Doretha.
Nobody was supposed to know.
She’d been set up.
Some violation.
Probably about money.
She went to downstate women’s prison when six months pregnant.
It was nothing new—jail or pregnant.
When her time got close, she got transferred out of general population to Cook County Jail Hospital.
She delivered a boy.
Then they called Shorty the father.
Shorty: because whenever he went to buy a bag he was always short.
Nobody cared because he was such a good customer.
He put his driver’s license in his back right pocket, borrowed my car and took two women.
They both worked for him so they didn’t really have a choice.
Shorty parked on California Avenue.
Nita and Millie didn’t come in.
They waited in the car, high as kites.
At the hospital, Doe and Shorty had ten minutes together, tops, without the three-inch glass between them.
It wasn’t much of a conversation.
Shorty signed a Department of Corrections receipt and swore he had someone in the car to hold the baby home.
Then a deputy handed Shorty the baby.
He smiled at the baby until the elevator hit the first floor.
He walked back to the car and handed the baby to Millie in the back seat.
Nita was in the front to keep Shorty awake for the drive back.
42 minutes, start to finish.
That’s what they give you.
On the way home, Shorty burned out the clutch.
--What’s up, my little white bitch?
--Not much. You owe me six hundred bucks.
When Doe got out of prison I saw her on the street and she said
--What’s up, my little white bitch?
That’s how she talked to me so I didn’t blink.
Doe.
Five foot three, bright skinned, beautiful till she opened her mouth.
Like they say, drop dead beautiful.
Short for Doretha.
Nobody was supposed to know.
She’d been set up.
Some violation.
Probably about money.
She went to downstate women’s prison when six months pregnant.
It was nothing new—jail or pregnant.
When her time got close, she got transferred out of general population to Cook County Jail Hospital.
She delivered a boy.
Then they called Shorty the father.
Shorty: because whenever he went to buy a bag he was always short.
Nobody cared because he was such a good customer.
He put his driver’s license in his back right pocket, borrowed my car and took two women.
They both worked for him so they didn’t really have a choice.
Shorty parked on California Avenue.
Nita and Millie didn’t come in.
They waited in the car, high as kites.
At the hospital, Doe and Shorty had ten minutes together, tops, without the three-inch glass between them.
It wasn’t much of a conversation.
Shorty signed a Department of Corrections receipt and swore he had someone in the car to hold the baby home.
Then a deputy handed Shorty the baby.
He smiled at the baby until the elevator hit the first floor.
He walked back to the car and handed the baby to Millie in the back seat.
Nita was in the front to keep Shorty awake for the drive back.
42 minutes, start to finish.
That’s what they give you.
On the way home, Shorty burned out the clutch.
--What’s up, my little white bitch?
--Not much. You owe me six hundred bucks.
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