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.

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.

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.

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.

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.