by Ed Kauffman
with that said
may death grant you all
the wishes life couldn't
we'll meet again
someday
probably soon
Sadness, Through Male Eyes
i was going through a
drawer in my desk tonight
and came across some
condoms well past
their expiration date
and here they told me i
would outgrow all those
high school feelings i had
of being a loser
The Unexpected Death of an Old Friend
i never realized your beauty
until i saw you in your casket
the soft and gentle features
of your face were lost
upon me until then
and perhaps it was that
or maybe just seeing you
finally at peace
that brought these tears
i wiped them with my hand
and pressed my hand to your lips
who would have thought that
out of all the juices we
shared over the years
the ones that meant the most
would come after your death
Making A List, Checking It Twice
i'm wearing my sunglasses in
a thunderstorm again,
dreaming about the days when
i wanted to grow up and be the politician
who refused to kiss the ugly babies
while drinking my body weight
in southern comfort each day
the grocery store kind though
life is a marathon, not a sprint
back when i thought that all my
freckles would join together one day
and make a glorious permanent tan
that was nothing more than another
installment in my long history of failure
you would think it would end
somewhere but no,
that's what i get for thinking
time to put the brain aside
and listen to the gut
of course
the gut has been nagging at me for
years to turn this pen into a gun,
these words into bullets and this sheet
of paper into a place for
collecting names
i still say i'd be
better off as a poet
but who am i to
question
my
calling
Alan Catlin
Hugh Casey And Ernest Hemingway: The Artist And The Ballplayer
They were two of a kind, the baseball
player and the best-selling author,
hombres muy simpatico, off-season in
The Keys. The middle aged macho,
full white beard and face aglow showing
the wild man the riggings, deep-sea
fishing and all the rest that goes with it.
After, in the taverna, they toast
The Revolución with Cuba Libres, the biggest
bar joke of the mid-century: the drink
was nothing more than a rum and coke
with lime and the revolution years away.
Later, still, Papa and Casey don lightweight
boxing gloves in the writer's living room
and begin swinging, no holds barred, no
knockdown rules or regulations just two
men punching themselves silly toward dawn,
a confrontation not even the wife
of the moment can stop by saying,
"Sure, keep it up, break every stick
of furniture in the fucking place,
what difference does it make?"
Finally, the man who threw the wild
pitch in the World Series against
the Dodgers arch-rivals, the Yankees,
the pitch that made Mickey Owens famous
and Casey a dark footnote in history,
shared one elemental fact with the man
who would win the Nobel Prize for Literature:
when all else fails, a shotgun in the mouth,
a last image that rips the back of your
head off.
Working Girl
Small sips are
all she can manage
taken from brown
bagged Tall Boy
beer too tired to
move from this
spot in the sun
her eyes permanently
bagged clothes
wrinkled dirty
hair uncombed
a mess as always
burned out beyond
belief well into
her middle age in
her twenties yet
somehow ageless
this sad eyed
lady on leave
from fucking the
endless armies
of the night
No Smoking
I work at a half way
place for vets-
that's half way between
here and nowhere-
old age and death maybe-
The director is one of
those pressed shirt and tie
gung-ho REMF's
That's a rear echelon mother
fucker in american
can't wait until
the no smoking rule
goes into effect
All those guys have now
is one room to puff in
I try to tell the director-
these guys all fought
in wars
you know what I mean?
Had cigarettes when
they were nervous
scared
relaxed
relieved
wounded
They can't drink anymore
can't chase no women
or run with no wolves
so they smoke
They don't have anything left
that's why they're here
8-30-06
Midnight
Hurrying footfalls
4 shots
then someone yells,
"Go, go, go!"
Some kind of military
action on Furman Street
Dark car disappearing
where there are no
street lights
Then all is
quiet
for a while
Leonard J. Cirino
Logic
The dog’s mouth
snaps on a leg
of lamb
A bomb goes off
in the church
while a mosque burns
Three children
hide in the basement
The attic is full
The soldiers enter
All hell breaks loose
The dog’s mouth
snaps
on a leg
Modern Times
At dawn, every face is a nightmare,
freckled children and heavily-bearded men
swirl about with garbage cans and school buses,
all checking the clock and rocking the streets.
Later, the business suits turn their eyes
to their watches as their wives gather
on driveways or porches, wave good-bye
wishing the absence would last longer,
or maybe not as long, while they struggle
with pucker-faced kids dawdling in doorways.
> The laments they could turn into songs
remain frozen in their modern minds.
Dreaming of ten thousand Buddhas,
they go on, hopelessly fruitful.
Sorrow And Joy
“seeing double in the human soul.”
—Federico Garcia Lorca
Let me address you Lord, from one who has taken
the words of Satan to heart, and had his soul eaten
by the lyrical hawk of sadness and joy, with his beak
in my eye, talons ripping my tongue, and the crown
of my sorrow nestled in his cruel and lovely heart.
Let me tell you I've wandered far from the spirit
of human joy, and into the Ninth Bardo of hell. Somehow
I returned and am able to consider both the bloody truths
and the crucible of beauty. I've fired flesh and consumed
the body, even while all my dreams float in a canoe
down a peaceful stream, overrunning the banks, lapping
joys and kissing the slopes with a religious passion
known only to the most fanatic saints and fervent sinners.
Look at my heart Lord. It is soiled with sweat and the dew
I glean from midnight and dawn, when I finally settle
into a foreboding sleep. Still, I navigate these waters
with the joy of an old man who crosses himself
and plucks persimmons at the end of a cold autumn.
The Rich And Famous
The night is hazy and I dream of monks,
young kids fighting, hip-hop punks jumping flanks
of cops armed to the teeth, protecting banks
and the houses of the rich and famous.
I disdain these shills, their pussy, pompous
frills, as if they were clowns in a circus,
playing games with the beasts and audience
when all they really mean is malfeasance
to the masses. Their cronies look askance
at their filthy deeds and ask no questions.
I can quote their hateful thoughts verbatim:
No negroes, queers, or wetbacks, no abortions.
I spit at them and wish them a painful death:
that or the hope they drink Macbeth's broth.
Or as the songwriter said, Life's a bitch,
it's time to go ahead and eat the rich.
Glenn W. Cooper
A Room Like This
There are ways of moving through things
like this. Just lately I have found myself
restless to wake up
in unfamiliar surroundings; to wake, for example,
in some dirty hotel room, wipe the sleep
from my eyes in the half light, momentarily
unsure of where I am
or why. To lay for a moment, observing
the details of the room, remembering
the circumstances of my arrival.
Listening to the light
rain outside, the traffic moving through it.
Then to rise naked from bed, draw back
the curtains and expose the people below.
To light a cigarette. Wonder
about what it is that propels us onward
in the face of so many reasons
not to move onward. It takes a room
like this, early morning rain, cigarettes
in the half light, to help a man
reach certain conclusions. Like
the one about remembering to forget.
There are ways of moving through things.
This is just one of the ways.
There are others.
4 Year Old Collecting Eggs
little Katie
has a new hen
and the first egg
is something
of an event.
but when she
tries to gather
it up the brittle
shell splinters
and gooey yolk
runs between her
fingers and
onto the ground.
without knowing
it she sees for
the first time
the fragility
of her world.
A Destroyer Of Men
Sean O’Grady,
with over eighty
professional
fights to
his name by
the age of 23,
gave new meaning
to the expression
“glutton for
punishment.”
But heck, he won
70 of them so
I guess he
dished out more
than he took.
The kid could
really punch.
Now he sells
real estate
for a living
and is learning
all about
destroying men
in other more
subtle but
no less brutal
ways.
Some Men
it is said
that Picasso always
did three things
before embarking
on a new
creative period.
first he would return
home to Spain, then
he would buy a new house,
then finally he would
get himself a brand
new woman.
just like that.
some men have it all
figured out.
Christopher Cunningham
Words Like Terror
make
good poems.
words like
savage
and
light.
words like
grace and
asphalt
and guts and
thunder.
like
screaming.
like
the laughter
of
dying
and
like
sal
va
tion.
Nothing Is Remembered
the grave stone tilts
above the
plastic flowers.
maybe a lawnmower
rubbed up against it.
someday the
damn thing is going
to fall.
nothing is
remembered
forever.
A Moment Of Something Glittering
it is late in the day
and the last bit of sunlight
cuts its way thru
the last bit of
autumn leaves
left hanging
on shadowy tree limbs.
it catches the roofs of cars
and broken glass on the pavement,
it pushes on the back of an
old woman struggling up a small hill,
it lingers in the eyes
of birds perched above the street.
there are facets cut into the air
and it is a moment
of something
glittering,
something gem-like,
before the smoke of night
and the darkness of time
conspire
like thieves
to bear it away
value
in the
impermanence
of
everything.
These Quiet Nights
after the storm
there is a hush.
a held breath
in the moist silences.
after the storm,
these quiet nights
are all that remain.
we work hard all our lives
battling forces
/>
we cannot defeat,
our voices mingling
with the roar of passing time.
but after the storm
there are
chances to wipe the water
from our eyes and
see with
uncertain clarity,
to rest our ragged throats,
to hope.
these quiet nights
refuel us
as
dark clouds
gather
in
threatening
skies.
Soheyl Dahi
No, Not Me
After Harold Norse’s ‘I’m Not a Man’
I am not a real American
because I speak English with an accent
even though I don’t think with one.
I am not a real American
because I don’t play or watch baseball,
I hate apple pie, red meat, pick up trucks
and sleeveless t shirts.
I am not a real American
because I won’t die for oil,
or vote republican or democrat.
The difference between the two is the same
difference between Pepsi and Coke.
I am not a real American
because I will not do the pledge
and I smile at those who tell me,
"go back to where you came from."
As a citizen of the only empire,
I have a right to be here
or anywhere.
I am not a real American
because I don’t hate Jews, Arabs, Blacks, or Latinos
and I won’t sell my house if one moved to my street.
I am not a real American
because I don’t care what people do in their private lives.
Hell, if two men or two women want to get married,
that’s all right with me.
I am not a real American
because I don’t think homelessness is a fact of life.
I am not a real American
because I will not call a human being illegal.
I am not a real American
because I like poetry and art
especially during war time.
I am not a real American
because I listen to KPFA
and I have friends who say they are
communists or anarchists.
I am not a real American
because I refuse to work 80 hours a week
for a corporation which will chew me and spit me out
at its convenience.
I am not a real American
because, unlike 89% of the population,
I hold a valid passport.
I am not a real American
because I cry when people are called
collateral damage.
I am not a real American
because I speak English with an accent
even though I don’t love with one.
