by Rich Balling
sitting in some heaven ness sky,
I proclaimed,
Oh Ginsberg you made me weep
and weep the teariest tears
for all my years, although
only twenty, I aged with you
and sat in my skin
rocking and creaking
like nana’s old rocking chair.
And a soft chuckle,
short gasps of breath
that otherwise would have
been the screams of
beauty like some lonely
streetlight that begs
to be stood under,
orange skinned
and orange tinged …
And to hear you sacrifice
yourself time and time again
and splattered your bloody
ink and your invisible
soul to me and to others
and I wiped my eyes once
again…
I proclaim oh Ginsberg,
you made me wish for a soft body,
and soft hair,
naked touches,
and the power of the nail
that scratches and marks
the skin and be handled
and and and and,
for the cool soft sweat
and shivers under the covers…
You made me want to
jump off balconies and
out of windows testing the limits
of constructed worlds
and falsehoods that look
like movie sets,
and find the rubber air bags
to catch me,
and say ha! I knew it!
Ginsberg,
I apologize for stealing
your style,
I promise I’m not
making a dime…
Ginsberg,
how I am supposed to
write what you have already
written? How will I see
everything anew,
and fresh,
will they come to me?
Or will I have to dig
under the graves of dead
plants, dead water
to see a reflection,
a simile,
a verse?
No wait,
Ginsberg,
don’t tell,
don’t kiss,
don’t, kiss and tell,
stay silent,
I don’t want to know,
I want to know,
but I want to know…
I’ll know
when I see it,
when I feel it,
when I smell it,
and when I do, I’ll weep
for me,
weep for you,
weep for the world,
weep for everything imaginable,
weep for dusty roads,
and highways,
weep for new clouds,
and new adventures,
weep for weep,
weep for weep’s sake.
for this I will sleep and wake.
Dear Ginsberg, thank you.
SCOTT GROSS
From Autumn to Ashes
Male Hooker in a Bathtub
Ok, so it’s a blind chemical machine I’m dealing with here in the frontal temporal lobes of grades 1-4. Your parents thought you were ok until they found you hanging from the doorknob. You’re only four feet tall and that’s a long enough dick to slip into the holes in the palms of my hands. Have faith in nothing or you’ll believe in everything. I believe the receptor when we fuck. We fuck to songs that have no rhythm and that’s why I’m so in love with you. I’m so in love that if you turned your back I’d claw your fucking spine away. I’ll never sleep with medical junkie book reading whores. You’re the perfect whore. I’m losing my ability to do the only thing I know how to do and as the nights are longer I know I must take myself as easily as possible, and I’m not taking you with me. So the stairs are my up and I crawl and I crawl and I sit in the bathtub because the acoustics are better. I hope my mom and my dad are proud. I hope they understand how much I hurt. No water. That copper hit the linoleum and I released before it all fell to my shoulder. Maybe someone cared.
JARED DRAUGHON
Classic Case
Down and Out
My time spent yesterday,
trying to control the way that life would lead me in has
somehow failed.
Now all I do is try to find my way out of endless possibilities of
doubt.
My time spent today,
fighting to remedy all my mistakes has brought more problems
then before.
Still I try to find my way out of endless possibilities of doubt.
I’ve been down and I’ve been out from time to time and in
between.
I’ve been sure that I’ve had doubts of all the truths that seem
to be.
My time spent tomorrow,
will be uselessly hoping to eliminate the inevitable.
I’m sure I’ll be trying to find my way out of endless possibilities
of doubt.
I’ve been down and I’ve been out from time to time and in
between.
I’ve been with; I’ve been without all of the things I seem to
need.
If I keep this pace then I risk everything.
Now this overview of solitude has been reviewed.
I’ve been down and I’ve been out.
I’ve been sure that I’ve had doubts.
I’ve been with; I’ve been without.
I’ve been down and out.
JARED DRAUGHON
Classic Case
Saturated
I will sail until the ocean brings me closer to a land that
welcomes me.
Soon the tide will rise and wash away the island where I’ll die
a castaway.
Meet me down by the water.
Don’t believe in the calm before the storm.
My mind is saturated by the rain that keeps leaking indoors.
The flood will fill the atmosphere; I’ll stay onboard until the
coast is clear.
Meet me down in the water.
Don’t believe in the calm before the storm.
My mind is saturated by the rain that keeps leaking indoors.
Hurricanes seem to stare me down while drowning me.
Now the air evaporates into water everyday.
All the clouds gather rain as they drift toward me insisting that
they won’t quit till I’m washed away.
Meet me down underwater.
Don’t believe in the calm before the storm.
My mind is saturated by the rain that keeps leaking indoors.
ANDREW LOW
The Jazz June
I Love New York in February
“There is a class that controls a country that is stupid
and does not realize anything and never can.
That is why we have this war.”
-Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms
There’s a sting in the air
like breathing too much aerosol
The comrades are restless
with blank stares they learned in boot camp
Your eyes are loose teeth
teething on insides
Poorly drawn war paint
runs in hot tears
evaporating in the steam of the sewers
Concession stands can’t keep up with crowds
forming on 5th Ave.
Stomping for a recount
and a quick camera angle
Acute like the bend of the arm
The poetic nature of real life sprayed in gas clouds
tossed by brick through windows
The highly political nature of the length the underarms
sits side stage
as bomb threat sirens ring from the bus statio
n
PS 101 is out of session this afternoon
due to paper towel rolls disguised as pipe bombs
Kids on lock-down pick gum off the bottom of their desks
with fluorescent rulers
that state Murphy’s Law of, “What ever can go wrong, will.”
A game of Contra is on pause
in the subways of 42nd street
Grey snakes whip through concrete arches
bringing white power donuts to the attention of train
attendees
“They shot down our space ship!” rang through the station
this morning
The mourners navigate through early morning congestion
saluting our flag in an attempt at courage
while outside ducking from crop planes slung low
This wave of filth takes a deep breath, hiccups and coughs
filling the sewers with Rats’ blood
Tonight will be fair warning
and oak tag banners
hung loosely over shoulders
“Let Freedom ring! Lord God all mighty let freedom ring!”
In our ears as we sleep
and digress
Till the wave breaks and salts this bare sunrise
ALEX HOVIS
Paper Models
I’m sorry I never hurt you more than this
My door is shut and your lies will never make it out alive
And I am sorry that I am disturbing
I just find sorrow interesting
I’m pining over you and I really don’t know why
Because I could never look at you
Without wanting to bruise your pretty face
And watch you cry with mascara on my fist
ALEX HOVIS
Paper Models
I will never forget the way you looked sitting next to me
And how you smiled while we rolled around on the ground
But soon we were alone and it was time to learn your taste
And kiss your lips and grab your waist and feel your hips
Late nights have never been the same
And your words a week later could have killed
But when your heart is gone it sinks into the skin
JESSE KURVINK
Hellogoodbye
The Soundtrack to the Summer.
so i guess that this is the soundtrack to the summer? you’ve been sick since april which is about how long i’ve known you. lately you’ve been staying over because you can’t bring yourself to go home and you say you don’t remember what it’s like to be more or less content with your life. well, here’s a little jogger for your memory if you can’t quite recall the countless nights we stayed awake trying to forget about the fall: we were sitting in my room, not getting tired after two a.m. we were listening to “the wild, the innocent, and the e street shuffle.” we were sitting up in bed and i was playing with your hair and you said “the summer isn’t over yet but i feel like the trees are already dead” and i said “maybe that’s just something inside of you that’s been blooming and dying for years,” and you left with my sweatshirt like you always did, loudly out my front door and quietly into your side one. and when i finally convinced you to come back out i took you for a walk and we talked about all the things i’d been afraid to say for the last six months. do you remember now? well, do you?
JEFF DAVIS
Boys Night Out
The Longest Last Call
It’s last call at the hospital.
You slept through it all, and these four walls warn you that
your surgery might not be the key to fix your memory of you
and me.
Last call at the Hospital, emergency room is drowning in
alcohol.
The empty halls, and empty chair means you’re all alone and
no one cares.
You see that flickering exit sign above the entrance to the
morgue, and you can’t wheel your stretcher fast enough. I see
the flickering behind your eyes and your bloody beacons are
begging for pulled plugs and empty sockets.
I traded arteries for batteries to keep you living through the
winter, drained your blood and pulled out splinters, sat back
and watched the curtain close and screamed applause to an
empty crematorium.
DANNY SMITH
The City Drive
Hadley
Gertrude Stein was good to me,
paintings, cakes and l’eau-de-vie
She understood
the bad from the good
A good cafe and a false spring
Ezra Pound knows everything
Ford M. Ford
never gets bored
Hadley’s beautiful, isn’t she?
I wish that she thought the same of me
Jimmy James Joyce in a bookshop
Don’t start him up ’cause he won’t stop
Sylvia Beach
Odéon Street
I went out and wrote today
They put Hemingway in my Café au Lait
Old F. Scott
doesn’t feel hot
when he’s burning
Hadley’s beautiful, isn’t she?
I wish that she thought the same of me
DANNY SMITH
The City Drive
All the Westmount Girls
Call the cops
The rain has finally become bored
and left
Leaving the storybook sun to sneak through the clouds
And this tree
Hitting the brown green grass like
400 flashlights
And there is a moment between buses and taxis
And concrete and steel
Where nature shows who’s boss
The brown green grass belongs to a school
in a city
in a province
in a country which is never taken seriously
A little brother country
A wide-eyed puppy country
But the girls from this country
This province
This city
This school
Don’t care what the universe thinks today
They gambol across the lawn
They smooth the meticulously marcelled waves in their hair
They sit on their throne and
watch the rest of the world make mistakes
Occupying space the size of mountains
Their bodies can do whatever their minds can think
(It’s amazing, really)
And when the sun decides to visit someone else
Tagging in the moon
All the Westmount girls are reborn
Hunting for a place to smoke
And drink
And swear
And be
Broken beds, forgotten names
Fusty basements filled with boxes
Of a show jumper’s past
Marinating in this rotten johnnycake stench is inescapable
But there is music on
At least there is good music on
And the ladybug light glows just enough
To let you look into eyes looking back at you
Vacant and focusing on someone else
Morning
Call the cops
The rain is back
The night has finally become bored
And allowed winter’s water to fall
on this city
on this province
on this country
Where all the Westmount girls know who’s boss
JOHN BOWERS
Nurses
We are destroying ourselves trying to find a purpose, a reason to live. We latch onto things easily, finding a temporary purpose in the clothes we wear, the car we drive, and who we associate with. We allow the allure of the media to shove a purpose down our throats, each commercial telling us to buy something ne
w to define who we are. Very easily we are tricked into believing that the size of our paycheck defines us as a person. What things we can afford then become the measurements of our worth. We give ourselves to these things because we were told they would give us meaning, and when we don’t find happiness in what we bought, we think it’s because we didn’t buy the right thing, or need to buy more and new things. We lose control and become dependent on others to tell us who we are and why we’re here. And it’s so easy to do it that way! Every waking minute we see reminders of what person we should try and be, and what we are lacking to make us that person. We are given a limited amount of options for our situation, and we are told by our society that we get to make our own choices. Any choice we make, we eventually find it doesn’t give us purpose. When we search for more choices, those too are controlled and force-fed to us, ensuring the sale of a thing to a person who feels they need it to tell them who they are, perpetuating the self-depreciation. We are constantly being told we aren’t good enough, that the individual is lacking and must belong to something bigger and outside itself in order to find purpose. We’re told that the individual is worthless unless it attaches itself to something.
We need to step outside of it all, and see the system of failure we’ve set up for ourselves. We need to see that it is all a game we’ve tricked ourselves into playing, and we don’t need all of those things to find happiness. The individual is good enough, and we can be truly happy with ourselves. We have worth as individuals, and if we look past the choices being fed to us, we can see that we have the choice to explore our individual worth.
CRAIG OWENS
Chiodos
Without a window light.
at the touch of the lips was love.
off of a blossom in mid air standing still.
like stars in shapes as tall as trees.
NICO PAOLO SY
Auditory Aphasia
