by Ed Kauffman
Our rock spiraling rapidly
around the Sun
chasing tomorrow.
Mike Kriesel
The Great American Novel
Grows up in a trailer park
in a small Nebraska town.
Bored as corn, he rides a bike
on gravel roads where flecks
of mica flash with sunlight.
Thinks about joining the navy.
Writes in spiral notebooks.
Sometimes holds a page up
to his face like a mirror.
Never knew his father.
Lying on a picnic table.
A meteor blinks past like one
of God’s fallen eyelashes.
He sees the zodiac of possibility
hovering above the world
like a Ferris wheel.
Feels weightless for a second.
Things pivot, then settle again.
Nothing stands between him
and the stars’ roulette wheel.
Country Garage
Working on a Chevy
with my cousin
underneath the buzz of
old fluorescent lights
corn outside the
cloudy windows
scratching at
the muggy night
swearing at ourselves
we hammer at neglect
along with any bolts
that rusted tight
repeating shit we did
back in the service
lies to grace our lives
like fireflies tonight
September’s Almost Gone
Reading a zine on the steps our poems connect
on the steps the pages lift sometimes like leaves
a thousand people brief as leaves spreading watercolors
see these poems singing to themselves in the trees
Watching Boxing
When dad After dad If there’s
and I died I boxing
watch boxing quit on TV
on TV watching I leave
the action’s boxing it on
usually though and go
too fast I kept do something
for me his easy in the
to follow chair other room
Ellaraine Lockie
Man About Town
His stride was a study in meter
And any female looking his way
from the Leaf and Bean
as he crossed the street
would become an immediate student
Black leather blazer
Body cigar-straight in blue jeans
tucked into boots
Dark hair growing out of his halfway
unbuttoned tan shirt
Two-day stubble and longhair look
of a GQ model
Five sips of coffee later I look up
And he's ransacking
the four trash cans out front
Toasting other people's excess
with paper cups
In moves as fluid as the lattes
chai and chocolate milks
that slide down his throat
He's become a fine wine connoisseur
Who couldn't be bothered to replace
hiking boots with soles wallet-thin
Whose domestic help forgot to hem
the lining that hangs below black leather
Or wash the once-white shirt
that wears the foods he's scavenging
Now he's the city sanitation engineer
conducting a field study
Who sets aside samples of pizza
submarine sandwiches and chicken wing bones
Scoops it all with bureaucratic certainty
into a threadbare backpack
And not one of us watching
wishes to humble him
with the truth of a hand-out
Censured At Starbucks
The book bumps my
Swiss chocolate bar square
off the tiny table
To the freshly wiped wooden floor
Where the carefully rationed quota
of daily decadence
Winks cocoa bean brown eyes
in clandestine persuasion
I'd pick it up
and plop it in my mouth
(Suspecting the life expectancy
of most germs outside a medium
is less than sixty seconds)
If it weren't for the three-year old boy
watching like a dog-in-waiting
to see what my next move might be
Role model mindful
And with maybe meagerly concern
for castigation from customers
old enough to consume coffee
I proceed with the picking up part
and place the chocolate by my thesaurus
The implied trip
to the trash can in the corner
is obscured behind a need to write longer
than a three-year old's attention span
and a clientele's turnover
When I can carefreely complete
my consummation of the culinary act
Edge Of Night
Black with blue swollen veins
He sits in stained denim
on the train station bench
Elbows on spread-eagled knees
Sparrow hands on head hung low
A plastic produce bag for a hat
pulled over his ears
Preserving the rising heat
The fragile lobes from frostbite
As winter eats its way
into the San Francisco Bay
with butcher knife teeth
If You Go To Budapest
You'd better pack
hair dye and dark glasses
Because the mafia breathes heavy at night
Its halitosis imbuing bars
that submit $600 bills for three drinks
And police turn up their paid-off noses
at the whiff of tourist protection
So you're required to remit
Or run in hopes that
you're smarter and faster
than the two steroid-fed flunkies
standing at the front door
You'd better pack
a wig and make-believe beard
if you go to Budapest
Because when you're walking
down Vaci Street after dark
An oncoming woman wearing store-clerk clothes
could say you owe her for a hand job in an alley
And the authorities would trust the ten witnesses
who blink red light retinas and fist folded forints
And swear her swollen eye
resulted from your sadistic satisfaction
If you don't race to your hotel
In hopes that the city will be reconciled
by swindling the next dupe
who dares go to Budapest
Adrian Manning
For Tomorrow
maybe there’s nourishment
still left in the bones
of yesterday
don’t discard them thoughtlessly
pick the choicest ones
wrap them in rags of the mind
for tomorrow
may bring fuel for the fire
feed us well
but tomorrow may be lean
and empty and those bones
may make all the difference
Your Anger
; let me paint your anger
if it be your wish.
watercolours, oils
no matter which.
vermillion, permanent
red, ivory black
I’ll paint it thick and brooding
something to spit at
it will be ugly and terrible
a vehicle for exorcism
then when it is finished
I’ll make an incision
I’ll pick out some yellow
or a little orange
we’ll touch it in
I believe
it needs
to breathe
There Must Be A Way
There must be a way
of seeing things
in dream light
a way of
opening tomorrow
without cracking
its shell
there must be more
to the illusion
a trick
a slight of hand
there must be a way
that rattles like bones
shrouded in loose skin
forming the shape
of things
Black Days
when it makes frantic
obvious sense
to leap to the liquor store,
treading on the pavement cracks
like I did when I was a kid
shouting "I WANT to marry a rat!"
raping the flowers
and hatefully beheading them,
punishing them for an eternity
of beauty,
hammering on a strangers door
asking them "WHAT DO YOU WANT?"
stamping on their toes,
singing protest songs to nobody,
chasing butterflies on fire,
entering the bearcage
telling him "you don't frighten me
you ol' bag o' bones"
grabbing old ladies by the hand
and kissing their wrinkly foreheads,
Scaring young children with
a natural ugliness
before hopping and skipping
back home with wine in the bottle
to end up lying on the living room floor
waiting to wake when it is over
to be totally sane and dull
again
Hosho McCreesh
Call It A Battle Cry, Call It Guttural,
Call It A Harbinger, A Prophecy, A Vision,
Call It Begging, Pleading, Call It Last Ditch,
Call It The Knelling Of The Rusted Bells Of Damnation,
Call It Whatever The Hell You Need To Call It
To Get Them
To
Listen...
I grow tired, hoarse—
all this screaming
& still
nothing.
They march
onwards,
insisting on misery,
denigrated by choice,
a careful architecture
to all their
frustrated sadness,
it hangs around,
low & bright like
children,
& they continue living lives
that make you
flinch,
make you want to
turn away,
they sit behind TVs & locked doors,
sit atop their pyre,
waiting,
curled up & shivering like
shaving planed from wood,
a hot wind enough to
scatter them.
Thus far, the bulk of it has been
wasted,
an earth-sized pile of meat
so useless it has never even
flavored our
greens.
Tear open their mouths,
pour molten metal down their throats,
& it would return a cast
without edge, without definition,
return a crumpled, unusable foil.
I have less & less time
for gaping yaps,
for hollow maws,
there’s hardly room enough
for the forgotten &
the unavenged…
I say: Out with you
if you sense
nothing
miraculous
in your very
marrow,
nothing
volcanic
in your center,
we have centuries & eons & ages of
ruse & trickery to unknot,
centuries & eons & ages
where it has all been
swindled from us…
What I want
is
this:
for all of us
to do more
with it,
to do more
with
whatever
it is
we’ve
got
left.
Die
trying.
Dank, Dark, Ignored Spaces,
Forgotten, & Unkempt Corners Within
Buried Somewhere Under My Shoulder Blades,
& It Feels Like The More I Say,
The Less It Matters...
…& the world
simply is
what it
is
& I cannot
change
that,
so I suppose the best
I can do
is write, paint—
because that’s what feels right,
because that’s what makes sense inside,
& then I can leave it all in there,
in the writing, the painting,
leave it all behind,
all the
struggle
failure
dreams
arrogance
insolence
heartache
madness
insecurity
victory
ideals
treachery
worry
mistakes
lies
& the damning, cackling truth
so, maybe, someone else
isn’t consumed by their own demons,
so, maybe, someone else
doesn’t feel they have to
go it
alone.
Yeah,
I like the
sound of
that.
In Every Place The Sun Drags It’s Light,
& In Every Shadow That Aches For It,
In Every Single Place That Exists,
& In Every Single Place We Can Imagine...
…the irrefutable, undeniable
truth
is that
despite maybe
wanting to,
we
cannot
do it all
alone,
our humanity
prevents
it—
for the
better
I think.
Brian McGettrick
Alright ?
“everything will be alright.”
he nearly spat on me
forcing this lie out.
and I crack the
seal on another
bottle,
the sound it makes
is like a thousand
bones breaking.
then I sit back
and take a
good, long drink,
unwilling to believe
in a clear,
doubtless existence.
From The Shore Out
the aching
heart
betrays
what is
here and
shouldn’t
be and
what should
be here and
can’t be
my smile breaks
like colour torn
flee
give
every
thing
eliminate
return.
Tanning The White Band
her balled up pink underwear
plugs a small leak in the shower stall
meanwhile
I slide down her lash
and look her in the eye.
that hot summers still happen
and quiet mysteries are created by the young
is no surprise
and she is so young
a contradictory cynic
with more love than her heart can hold.
I used to have a sense of belonging
in the place where mistakes are made
but now my lies rest up against her easily
and there’s little left to defeat.
This Drawn Out Thing We Do
I used to know a guy
who would keep his alarm clock set
through the weekend
for the time he got up for work.
it was so that he could reach over
turn it off
and go back to sleep.
hey,
take your victories
where you can get them,
create
them
even.
Amanda Oaks
Sirens & Lullabies
wide awake
at three
in the am &
my skin
is lit
there are only
a few things
within reason
that i
can do
quietly
& by candlelight
so that i
won't wake you
even though a-
rousing you
is the only thing
i really
want
to do
Gravity: Iron Hearts You Can’t Save Or Kick Start
you see, she sat there
& didn’t say a fuckin’ word
worth hearing all night,
sipping on her light beer,
she was some kind of sadist alright,
with a silver grin & wine-red nails,
inhaling & exhaling
every solitary soul in the place
dead-center at the bar,
she stole glances of herself in the mirror
behind liquor bottles half full,
behind the bartender’s petite tits,
viper tongued & slick lipped
she easily got lost
in the process
of rolling cigarettes,
she was devoted to the labor of hating,
laborious, one might say,
but oh no, she wasn’t foolin’ me
or anyone in the place
because under that hardy masquerade,
that she paraded around
every fading day,
