by Rich Balling
Will she ever know?
Frozen souls become melting snow,
Riding down avenues with pictures of old beliefs.
People forgotten but still seen,
Killing love,
Killing everything!
Unholy witness to a dying dream.
And me,
Alone to hold the blame,
In a desert home left to feel her shame,
Old conversations chase her away.
The magical (four),
Out of (seven) he stays,
Holds her at present,
Not afraid to watch the young woman fade.
Wants her in elder years,
Wants her beyond the past,
Wants her to be the last,
To change with the young man!
To bathe with the young man!
Walking into holy lakes never seen,
The heart has nightmares of a lovers dream.
This one he needs may rest uneasy,
The wounds she feels spill into this night.
He could not sleep again in places she’s been,
Reaching through the air to touch empty sin,
To touch something to defend.
Will this woman love him?
Or will he rest uneasy in a shadow parade,
Left to burn slow in an edited frame,
Pleasure is a show to a past filled with pain,
His heart cannot live as a link in her chain!
The sorrow would push him to Hades’ shade,
Can’t talk to the others,
Can’t make them go away.
So he walks with the struggle-
Love brings a new day.
Erin, my heart hurt last night…
JON ORISON
Oris
Make Love to Good Friends
I want to pretend,
Shake hands with ambassadors,
Make love to good friends,
Trade revenge to open ends.
Cut cards with the holy ghost,
Eat stems off the Lotus tree,
Toast to life till I can focus!
A beautiful world hovers before us.
Come touch and gel with truth,
So free others are invisible to meeeeee,
I walk through them to bring peace and relief.
A lonely soldier to rally the dream,
Cast spell with a whisper,
Turn tricks in the hall,
Let men touch my body,
Let women have a ball.
Walk tightropes smoking cigarettes,
Grab others as they fall.
Remind them of beauty and a short night of lust,
Trust no one to listen.
You are love dipped in blood,
Drip on mouths of stone.
Form taste on their tongues,
Put love in their lungs,
Unleash passion from trees,
Dance naked in the breeze,
When I feel you I feel peace.
CHRIS SHEETS
Rx Bandits
Happy Birthday
You followed me home as a means to an end and promised but one thing to which you could lend
who wants to be the one that we all see? So happy, set free, bent over so cheaply on a knee widespread, the trouble lies inside, but far too deep mindsets, the voyeur released just outside of me
who wants to be the one that we all see? Reaching the summit and setting thoughts free excursions to perversions, salt the earth like the sea loosing it all in a gripped free-for-all don’t know you but you show me every night to the fall whispering words and they don’t mean a thing it’s that look in your eye that keeps bringing me in Skin’s crawling away, and my love, so are you up, out, and over my interest now subdued purging myself in the filth of your body lending itself from the tame to the gaudy The sun will soon be up and strike us down where we lay shade the only testament to a game zealously played hung out and flayed makes the unfolding obscene taking delight in agony we lick each other clean.
JASON CRUZ
Strung Out
Nylon
She is the last verse in a thousand bitter love songs,
Torn from paper sung into void.
She’s the last call when I ain’t even numb yet.
She’s a creepin’ flame up my leg,
When all I wanted was a warm night
Alone.
She comes just when I need her to,
But never knows when to Quit
She calls herself the apocalypse to my new red hope,
Yet she offers no misfortune
When she shows up at my door.
She’s everything and everywhere I look-
in lipstick smeared suicide pumps-
Watching in silent gaze
At the matchstick boy
Ablaze.
JASON CRUZ
Strung Out
Persephone
You’re the illusion of purpose.
Blindly and rhythmically enhancing the destruction of all,
You motivate the will and mortify the senses.
You’re the Jesus in the eyes of a fanatic, pushing your
madness to fruition.
You’re the broken heart in the chest of a fool, lovesick to
Suicidal grace.
You hide your meaning in the eyes of the dead and laugh at
the sane.
You’re the trigger happy lunatic aiming at the only mirror
you haven’t shattered yet,
You’re my best friend.
You’re the music that leads the blind over mountains and off
cliffs,
And you know no end.
So here I wait,
Because you know I will.
JASON CRUZ
Strung Out
Ambulance Crash
HERE I SIT,
LOOK AT ME.
A CASUALTY OF MY ENDLESS SUCCESSION
OF NEEDS AND DESIRES,
ESCAPING ONLY FOR A MOMENT TO DEVOUR
WHATEVER LOST SOUL
FEEDS ITS MOMENTUM INTO THIS,
GLASS MACHINE.
WRITE A LITTLE LOUDER
AND THE WORLD MIGHT HEAR YOUR BULLSHIT,
TALK A LITTLE SWEETER,
AND THEY MIGHT CARE.
YOU SEE IT’S AN EASY WORLD OUT THERE,
IF YOU’RE JUST LOOKIN FOR A CAR CRASH TO
ADMIRE
THAT IS.
TWISTED STEEL AND BROKEN BONE BECOME THE
ART
OF A DAMNED MIND,
SO COOL YOUR EXPRESSION TO HIDE YOUR LUST
FOR ANOTHER EYEFULL OF SOMEONE ELSE’S
UNLUCKY
SIDE SHOW.
YES,
LIFE IS JUST ONE RUN-ON SENTENCE
AND I CAN GO ON AND ON AND ON…
BUT I WONT
UNLESS YOU’RE BUYIN’!
DERRICK SHERMAN
The Modern
I once met a man and asked him if it were true that when you get older you become wiser. He said that the only answer was to get older. Looking back to when I was a kid, I realize that my ignorance was a virtue. I saw the world in colors and shapes. Now my nerves keep me awake at night. I think about the future and what I want to do with my life. I asked that same man if he had any advice for me. He told me to quit living and start breathing. “Look around at the life you lead. Listen to the wind and the trees. Take time to smell the ocean breeze and sleep on the beach.” He said that the beauty of this world was in its complexity and that our lives for the most part are ordinary. He told me to never stop painting, but mostly never stop creating. “You’re as free as your mind will let you be. So, what’s holding you back?” he asked, “fear or laziness??”
ANDY HERMES
The Junior Revolution
Convictions come out through your eyes
Pouring out your dark rimmed, empty glasses
We try to sit and try not to talk
Bo
th waiting until this moment passes
Fishing for feelings as you drive like a ghost
You say I’m a wreck, I feel like a car crash in quotes
TIM ELSEY
The Junior Revolution
-] Self Fulfilling Prophecy [-
We live in a world, where we search for meaning until our
hearts stop beating
We mostly search for ourselves
But what we find may be deceiving
Lost in cryptic meanings
When we look inside our souls
Some say we can’t help who we become
It’s the fault of society of dad, and mom
What you reap is what you sow
Who you become is up to you
We are the products of ourselves
We are the products of self
We are the answers for
Questions worth asking
We are the products of ourselves
All in due time, all in due time for me
All in due time, all in due time for me
Ask yourself, what is real and what is not
Find yourself, unable to tell the difference
Save yourself, but not at the cost of losing others
Save yourself, from me
MIKE ELLIOTT
Blue Sky Mile
Stay in Between the Channel Markers
Stretching out his arms,
as if on, suspension of
the pulpit during swells;
he
with heave and say integrity tried to life preserver others that
he
did not know intimately, yet the reality
of those overboard, now under burdened;
provoked
this good Samaritan to see focally, farther
less than the buoy.
MIKE ELLIOTT
Blue Sky Mile
Using Both Hands to Count
jenny any choir, would stand, staring down,
swaying side to side, as if unimpressed
by the chorus, on altar, claiming their
song as a cause for praise
pitch, and scream.
hands at her side, following her cloth design,
dressily singing on note and in key as
effortless and unarduous as all kids
will be while listening, yet again, to
unheard of melodies.
peaking above the pew line of fine, submerged
behind blank eyes, i could see this was all
more of a damn fantasy achieving
vitality in the limits of pursuit
without the boredom.
her protest is the best one that comes to mind, for
she no longer can find solace with hands clasped
together, interwoven, showing the place, and yes
it’s a steeple, but for all that’s inside, there are not
as many people.
MIKE ELLIOTT
Blue Sky Mile
Christ I Paid Too Much Money for That Trip to Europe
this snow bends branches back
and lays still with a gentle breeze
on these mountain peaks
night contends with distant candle flames
and it lights more suns seen than the day
in this wilderness
a lake, almost frozen,
paved the reflection of the sky above me,
below me as well, with symmetry
on the ground, shadows cast
silhouettes in the snow
away from the heavens
voices air with little orbit
and kindle, as fires,
the strength to keep warm
while sledding the deep dark alps,
all the stars I’ve never seen
but four of them, drifting, fade
is it these visibilities
under this winter solstice
that caption a new moon?
KEITH GOODWIN
Days Away
Call It What You Want
I went from ok to now. Not knowing that this is not what I care about. Thinking I’m right. If I move faster I will pass out. I’m feeling lucky that my hands aren’t still tied down (to me pushing myself around). This is the worst and I still complain. It would make sense not to feel the same way for days. Mixed drinks for the girl and grey. More of a reason for me to stay. Too soon. More time for myself to lose (interest). I’m in this now and then. A bad mood that never ends (quickly).
MATT EMBREE
Rx Bandits
I tear for the pauper’s quote, the invalid’s letter,
misguided and misdirected, buried in insecurity amidst
the piles of discarded dreams, landscapes and memories.
He who commands the unthinkable from the depths of
inhumanity,
the rot and the filth and the undeniable urges stuffed in
bowels
and stinking, putrid and disgusting.
Those who lust for the disaffected and pipe for the terror
of wide-eyes and bleeded hearts. The heat proximity in their
temples and their loins, all erect and function, squirm
and fail.
From moon and sun, through castanet claps overheard the
rhythms,
hips thrown forth like hades’ ember and molten sex.
The come of a thousand, shrieking for the closest moment
to death, the clearest mind-state, the almost touch of
reflection
daunting and powerful the feeling through guts.
They who sew light together with whispering wands and
antelope
leaves, thirsting for a vacation from this reality, to turn in
this past and sever their aortas.
Who fling themselves naked, bored, restrained and helpless
into
the pits of despair so they may find a way out.
They who shoot poison into their lungs and suck saliva from
the mouths of the listless and beaten down. Fresh to your
grave
I commend thee.
MATT EMBREE
Rx Bandits
It’s nice to see you all here with your uniforms on
black on black on black
studs on spikes on silver
posthumously clapping for the wind, trying to chase it as it’s
changing erratically
mocking laughs
winding up to throw gestures into full size mirrors
and cry as they shatter, beautifully
In a dream I picked up a shard and ran it across my wrist
The blood ran down my forearm and dripped from my elbow
they all complained
It was making a mess they said and went on to agree that it
was better when they all stood in a circle, backs to the world
alright with me they said
It’s so nice to see you here, now with your cotton confections
and witty interjections they intersect to complete
I am going to take off my clothes and bleed to death in the
corner
for I haven’t the faintest about chases anyhow.
MATT EMBREE
Rx Bandits
Take all the murder with you
for now we are saved
But you know as well as I that I will tumble
once and a million times again
and I’ll walk in circles, mumbling inaudibly
Maybe I was singing those words for you
only to let you die
with my arm outstretched
like moving lines in a Japanese cartoon
these roads forgive like the souls of the dead
conquered by technology and blonde hair
much like we walk through the streets
with our eyes closed tightly we block out the sound
the grating within our hearts
&n
bsp; it grows light with antiseptic
a healthy dose of falsity to the cranial of society
and our OH SO beauties
who walk the streets in the hippest style
with fashion in their hip pockets
I’ve got the flask
the love, the burn, the icicle wand
I’ll give you the kiss from the shadows
and the scimitar to the belly
we’ll stroll that catwalk together baby
painted and rearing to blow…….
MATT EMBREE
Rx Bandits
How many poppies to fill that voice?
How many angels to kiss those lips?
How many strangers to woo and cuddle under the same stars
running the gauntlet like thieves high on freedom and
sensory lust
The kings of the road, the buffalo of the concrete jungle,
the semi truck diesel burners of the atlantic ocean, too salty
and
dry like morning after sex, crusty and smelling of razor clam
still hip on last nights drunken fumbles tracing thigh veins
and operatic crevice treasure. The miles of time, the soprano
strings, flat at first but climbing to the top. Add to stir
an evangelizing head rush all tip and little shaft. Lick lipped
liability in tremolo and infinity. How long till the blood is
dry on her satin, salty and thick like when my lips curve to
reveal my orthodental sacrifice.
BRIAN MARTINEZ
Dear Ginsberg . . .
I wrote a letter to Ginsberg and
and sent it to the sky,
through my eyes and to the
nearest stars and with pupils
opened wide, I cried and cried,
unashamed, uninhibited. the
angels read aloud to Ginsberg,
