One for the close of 2011

End

chiseled in the rock face

characters askew

hard to read

unsteady hammer blows

against cold steel

into stone

the inscription

slurred

and permanent

the last strike

hit his thumb

proving it was indeed

over

R L Raymond

Shuffled

I keep getting shuffled to the bottom of the deck.
Roll them bones and snake eyes every time.
I fall from the knight and lose my hat,
lose my sword,
scattering the chess board.

I lack the luck.
I lack the skill.
I lack the will to go all in.
I just don’t have the cards
or the bluff.

Deal again.
Deal again.
Someday I’ll get out from the bottom of the deck.
I may lose but at least I’ll play.


John Tustin

The Train Was At Two

© from the Archive “Listening to Love” www.SilentLotus.net

Semi-Pro - Lawrence Gladeview

CLICK FOR FULL SIZE E-BROADSIDE

Poetry and Photography by Lawrence Gladeview

Dandy-lines

I wandered lonely through a crowd,
Along streets, alleys and avenues,
When all at once I saw a shroud
Of people forming ord’ly queues,
Beside the bank, beneath the sign,
Shuffling slowly along in line.


Anthony Ward

Jesse

The last time
I saw you
Was in late September

You were bumming
For change
In front of King’s Place

Man’s gotta make a living,
You said

Couldn’t agree more,
I replied,
And dropped a five
In your ball cap

Then I made
Some excuse-
An appointment uptown-

Terrified
That you might request
Something else,
Though in truth you hadn’t
Even asked for my money-

I jumped in a taxi
And tried not to think about you
All the way to the mall


Jay MacLeod

Thinking about going out, after the fact

Sometimes when I get in from the cold, I think I should’ve done more
out there, you know
because now I’m warm and uncoated and burrowed
Who knows when I’ll venture out clothed
who knows the next time the red neon lights will glow pink off my face, snowflakes falling from space,
as I steal a fry from a stranger
blowing through the streets like a limp-legged ranger
hunting hopeless prey?
Sometimes when I get inside I wonder where I was
because there seems to be a fuzz over my memories, a phlegmy hegemony
kept me from having a look around
I certainly wasn’t looking at the ground-
so, how did I know where to go?
Sometimes I think there are too many things that I do not know
from a dark hole music was drifting up, smoky blue and true to the time
and a mystery jazzman making history with his mouth and fingers,
burning lines in my mind like drunk kids with sparklers
somewhere to my left
I’m not deaf, so
why do I drown in silence?
Sometimes I wish I could go into all the cafes of the world
and order some pie
and make faces at waitresses hurrying by
who were once pretty once
or become an expert on the blue collar man’s face-
a craggy terrain, turtle dove, wasted love
I would be his cherished pain
but I hurry past windows of cafes and bars
because I don’t have anyone waiting inside


Angela Easby

I Guess You’re My Husband

she whispered the morning after, considerately
bringing me complimentary coffee and newspaper
and underling our names on the marriage license with her finger.
Words don’t lie but poets do – I’m thinking –
Is there some way out this now? A loop
hole I can exploit or claim exploitation.
I know she’s been waiting for this.
The moment I would let down my guard.
The carefully constructed character of rationality
presented everyday to the outside world.

She knows I know I’m not who she imagined
marrying
as a little girl, not quite so beautiful as all that.
Not so handy either.
But he wouldn’t have agreed even if she converted.
Catalytic or a-
catalytic made no difference
to him. Not so liberal as all that.
So she and he agreed and settled on me.
A man, yes, torn between two worlds.
Born and powerful in my own respect.
Proper appendages in proper proportions
and so enough.

When the time came they called
our number – I’m remembering now – Elvis.
No wait. Buster Keaton. Speak now
and forever hold your peace. Looks like
I found it
lying in the flower pot. They were pink.
Carnations I think.

Robb Dixon

Solitude

Nothing good
has come 

of my solitude

except
perhaps 

the cleanliness of my teeth.

I brush them
a half-dozen times
each and every day

sometimes more
just to have
something to do.


Joshua Chase

to the men who shoot deer

on this late November
Michigan morning

I hear your attempt
echo across the
lines of creek bed
and barbed wire
as I walk through
this cold light rain
rain like a touch of
nail polish on
power lines
and tree bark

you didn’t see the
two deer jump
              just now
across this
pine needled
dirt road

the way my
soon to be
ex-wife and
I didn’t see
the shine on
either
lawyers’ shoes
as they fell
so softly
on the
clean
courtroom
floors


David LaBounty

A new poem by Penn Kemp

Age Appropriate Appropriation 

A long and involved meeting, debating political issues for women in a large, packed hall. 

Three of us are facilitators. A New York Times photojournalist is doing a story on the topic,

shooting especially the lovely young woman and man, my colleagues. I look bedraggled in 

comparison. By the end of the day, as we gather to wind up business in the kitchen, I’m tired, 

cranky and aching but don’t say anything. A wealthy old woman I know, bejeweled and 

sharp-nosed, interrupts the discussion to complain about her rheumatoid arthritis in exhausting 

detail. Her rant allows me to mutter my complaints as well: I think I’ll have to be carried home 

and check to see who would be strong enough to lift me. The doctrinally idealistic young couple 

would rather not hear. Suave brows wrinkle in distaste at such crass disruption to sublime thought. 

The middle-aged woman I recognize from my neighbourhood greets me at the table. Shyly she 

asks me to go for a walk. When I agree, her whole face lights up. Friend found, friends left behind.

Penn Kemp

In the Summer of Huts

Click for full size

Poetry Lavonne Westbrooks / Photo R L Raymond

Walk a mile - Poem & Photo

CLICK ON IMAGE

Poem by R L Raymond

Photography by Jude Dillon - www.judedillonphoto.blogspot.com

Yerington

It’s a day like any other
the kind we all wake up to
maybe a siren in the background
or like here, there’s a huge belfry
and it sounds every hour on the
hour from 8 a.m. through the day.
It’s like a park, closes at sunset.
(The bell, not the church.)
Although it’s doors are firmly locked
and they’re pretty thick doors. Not
like the door at the motel
in Yerington, Nevada, where in order
to get into my room, I had to shove
my right shoulder hard
against it to get inside. Even
with the Calvary Christian School
football players on either side of me, I
had to play offense. Later, driving
to Virginia City and the Bucket of Blood
Saloon, I saw a road sign named 
Break-a-Heart Road.


Ann Menebroker

Starry Night - Haibun

(Starry Night was painted by Vincent Van Gogh at Saint Remy in June 1889)


Vincent they are allowing you to have a little freedom. What will you do outside of these protective walls? What will you be thinking... will you find your essential yellow?

crescent moon and stars

larger than life halos - light

a writhing landscape

Of course the cold baths will continue they are essential for your well being. A cold bath can bring sanity to the end of a day.

a tormented sky

curves and breaks in damning waves

diminishing Saint Remy

The warden who helps look after you Vincent knows his job, he watches your every move. He doesn’t believe you can be cured Vincent. How he will react to what the starry night inspires.

cypress trees from hell

black flames flickering, scaring, 

scorching existence

The locals perhaps realise more than anyone the significance of cypress trees - they call them graveyard trees.

these twisting dark shapes

have planted their symbol of death

in your mind Vincent

Les Merton

Uncle Teddy

Away at the big war,
the girl he was to marry
was struck by a car.
He never loved another.
For almost two decades,
he lived alone, and then
my grandmother moved in.
Though he never finished 8th grade,
he could finish a crossword quicker
than you could your breakfast,
otherwise he ignored the newspaper.
He liked the Mets and the Giants
but never went to the games
because he hated the fans.
When he had to pass gas,
he pointed his finger at the TV,
let loose, and said, “Got ya.”
Watching boxing, he’d say,
“Hit em, I don’t feel nuttin yet!”
He worked his entire life,
sometimes two jobs,
but never got ahead
because he drank too much
and gave his money away
to relatives he didn’t like.
He died by hyperventilating,
a faded picture
of that long-dead girl
tucked into his breast pocket.


James Valvis

At the Shell

Two beautiful
full-blown blondes
standing by the beer cooler
cackle cruel as drunk
teenagers.

In line ahead of me
an attractive
weekend smoker
refuses the two-pack special:

“I don’t smoke that much,”
she lies.

As I leave,
the middle-aged clerk
leaves too
for the day.
Her gait says finally.

She mutters to herself
as she twitches across the lot
premeditating her first hard hit
of something.

A serious young man
gases up his
perversely clean 4x4.

A grey-headed old-timer
checking the oil
in his small, dirty Civic
notices me,

drinking burnt tasting gas-station coffee
in the middle of the day,
forever gawking at life
and its sincere participants.


Steve Lambert

I used to be intimidated

I used to be uneasy
‘round the freaks and all their friends
I used to be intimidated
particularly by the mean ones
I was sure
they were making fun of me

you’d think because I considered myself an artist
that I was just like them
or almost like them
or even sorta like them
but in college they thought I was a narc
and later
in LA
they thought I was an attorney
it’s true I liked nice clothes
it’s true I didn’t much like drugs
it’s true I didn’t even drink until I was thirty-two
but I dreamt big dreams
really I did
just like the dreams I felt certain the freaks dreamed
though I never had dreads
and I never got even the smallest, hippest tattoo
and you will not believe this
no earing
no piercings of any kind

and now, my virgin body is aging
the ripples and splotches rising with an unpredictable regularity so that
I maybe should have
Might as well have
Gotten those tattoos


Greg Prestopino

Another Multi-Media Poem

Lawrence Gladeview

Two Multi-Media Poems

Lawrence Gladeview

Tumbleweed

piles up on the patio
by the motel

you pick me up
worn and ready
under the trees

you nail the wheels on asphalt
whip under me

Now

twigs the antlers of power lines
peels the last held leaves
and swerves


Jude Dillon

Grilling Baby Backs

You wouldn’t eat that
if you knew what went into it
she said
between bites of her veggie burger,
turkey nuggets
and tofu salad.

Yes I would
I said,
dabbing the remaining smokey bits
of barbeque sauce
from my salt and pepper beard;

Yes,
I would.


Ben Rasnic

2 poems of streets and reflections

on the corner

on the corner
across the street
sun beating down on my face
and I do not torture myself
over shortcomings


Jhon Baker


Mirroring Thought

I sit on the verge
Looking at this guy
Looking at me
Wondering if he’s thinking
What I’m thinking
While all the same
Feeling indifferent
To what he’s thinking at all.


Anthony Ward

Derivative Tripe

Which cheesy 80s one-hit wonder has yet to be pastiched
into a rap or pop or R&B chorus
Which movie has yet to be made
remade, requelled, sequelled, prequelled
trilogized, quadrilogized

We tell stories like horoscopes
familiar somehow, ubiquitously relatable
we feel these stories are sung for us

In the era of fake plastic everything
a pink wig passes for empowerment
and just like MDMA the white noise
the white imagery, keeps us sensory-overloaded
way too happy to care


Tom Legge

Barking

“The beauty will save the world”,
someone screamed in my ear, and
I looked toward the horizon
at some hint of rain.
The living goes with the living,
and the dead goes with the dead –
This is the philosophy of life
that we never fully understand.
My time will come,
and your time will come,
and we will see the truth at the end,
but until that happens let’s look at
the painter who’s drawing that dog,
which looks like it will open it’s
mouth.


Peycho Kanev

adultery

there is
red wine
in a
clean glass

there is
walking
barefoot
in the
cool
wet
green
grass
of
someone
else’s lawn

none of
this matters

when the
wine glass
is emptied

when the
shoes finally

get put back on


David LaBounty

2 Poems by Jay Passer

WAR

there’s news
from the trees

crows report
meds in short

supply at the
front

I reach for the
remote


THE BLACK BULL

with swift strokes
the bull charged across charcoal
machismo

the man did not want to answer the door
when they came with intelligence
on whereabouts of stolen

artifacts
ashes in the fireplace
debris of the urban astronaut

from the sonic gallery to the side of the road
where that feeling of
indigestion

precedes a last blurred glimpse
of the reservoir at
Crystal Springs


Jay Passer

Dent de lion

Gold pricks her scalp.
Her children shake from her hair,
launched on crazy winds.

She taught them how to force
their own toes
into a groomed lawn.

Yellow weed raising hackles,
the sawtooth leaf.

She taught her children
how to tangle deep roots,
to thrive where adventure lives,
far from gated gardens.

The lion’s tooth
grinding dirt
in her jaws.


Lindsey Walker

Lost River

When it rains in the gully behind the row houses,
when it really rains for days without stopping,
the rain draws up water from deep artesian springs;
then the old bed floods, drowning the tangled grass
she thought was safe where it lay.

The new current loosens odors of rotting earth
and beer from rusting cans crushed against the rocks,
and she stands in the middle—socks wet in her shoes—
thinking a river should flow faster, should push and shudder and roar.


Jillena Rose

Morning in Shenandoah County, November

The engine groans, and shaking icewebs off
from all its glassy eyes, it rumbles, wakes
the tawny field from stiffened slumber, breaks
the breath of Cedar Creek’s unchallenged voice
which lullabied the mountain through the night.

We shiver, huddle tight our shoulders to
the wool and denim coats that blanket us,
and to each other. You and I were made
for rivers, for the rooted valley land,
for nights so huge they tell us once again,
“The world can rear up on its massive legs
at any moment, take you as it will,”
so that we know the danger’s there for us
to live within, to move ourselves throughout.

At such an early hour, starting up
the car across the gravel scar that cuts
the mountain’s chiseled face, the steam released
from cups of coffee, plates of scrapple off
in town, await now nothing but ourselves,
that moment we’ll emerge from winds that bite
our heels like foxes, into two remote
and sheltered wombs that are the diner’s rooms.

See Paul and Tony up the road? They bind
a deer with ropes, the frozen corpse and car
becoming one. They say they found it dead
already, plan to eat it.

                    Morning here,
it tastes like smoke from fireworks you and me
and Tony spent the last night firing up
and lighting lidded eyes with, flinging out
like raindrops into water. Way up here,
the sun that struggles, peering through the trees
in late November, makes the space around
feel bitter, like the hops rolled bitterly
across the tongue in winter, warming with
the voiceless strength communion brings to those
who choose to stay through cold, through shortened days.


Shenan Hahn

Trees II

1.

Listen, he says,

Sketch a door,
                    stitch a ladder,

grab the knotty tree bark.

Your hands are frantic birds,
                    a swarm of bees.

The world is made of felt and cotton.

2.

Open your eyes, she says,
                    You’ll want to see when it’s darkest.

Mary Lou Buschi

Endangered Species

It wasn’t
the polar bear’s

fault

there were
black footprints

plunging
across the sky

and with a man’s face
that wasn’t mine

and the silence
so acute

it glittered

like silvery
gray barracuda

disturbing
the depths


Howie Good

Spider Woman

If there were flies round my milk jug,
I’d tie four stones in the corners of a hanky,
plonk it over, job done.

But some woman, with no TV,
cut this circle of calico,
smaller than a tea-cup’s brim
and stitched down the raw edge.

Over and over with a narrow hook and doubled thread,
she pierced it, knotting each strand,
then tatted a border of holes too small for a fly.
But the calico dragged the lace,
and fouled the milk.

So thinking of me and my four stones,
she trimmed it with beads,
blue and clear as insect wings.

After four days it was done.
She took it to the jug,
covered curdled milk
trapped the flies in.


Sue Lozynskyj

IRON COUNTY

The whole length
of the interstate,
both northbound and south,
reeks of cedar.


Judd Hess

The Smoking Dogs

After my poetry read at
Shakespeare & Co.
Bookstore in Paris, we
went to Au Chien Qui Fume.

In the 30's
the proprietor had a Brussels
Griffon that smoked a pipe
& a poodle that liked cigars.

Prominent portraits by famous
painters adorned the walls.

All I could think about was,
I hoped our cats weren't
raiding my tobacco or
burning the house.


Catfish McDaris

John Dudek - 2 poems

American Zen

I race my neighbor Sunday mornings,
when my wife is at mass and his in bed,
to see who cuts his grass faster.
There's not been a week that I haven't won.

This is partly because my neighbor, Doug,
doesn't know about the game we play
but mostly I think it's beliefs neither
would change that keeps my title safe.

Doug crosses his lawn in mower-width bars
to give the effect of a massive flag,
green and sprawling before his house.
He and Linda never had children.

Consequently, they don't care for kids
and puppies tramping about their property.
To part the blades with prints or worse
is to defile their tiny country.

My style is more organic,
starting with the perimeter and spun
like a moon shell, mutated to hold
hydrants, mains, and lampposts sitting

like the stones on my desktop sand garden.
Concentric rings ripple from surfaces that may
play a part in the enlightenment I skirt
on Sundays with that violent machine.

I'll beat Doug any day for time
but there might be something to his pace.
While my lawn looks like a Zen landscape,
he's the one smiling with every lap.

Deus Ex Machina

Jim Clamper whipped
out his tool shed
on a homegrown
chariot last night.
I saw him blow
under the street lamps,
all gold and lapis
skinning some
diesel golem
with a dog leash
from his famous
blue wheelbarrow.
It was fastened
with tow chains, boy
the sound it made
was furious. Like a—
salt-truck full of BB’s.
He did a full lap
around the cul-de-sac
and tore down the street,
one boot on the rim
of the barrow,
snapping that leash
like a bad mower’s
dry-rotted pull start.
There’s a trail of grease
and enriched gasoline
dotting down to Ms.
Blackthorn’s sterile
cherry tree.
I must be the only one
to have seen old Clamp
finally take off—
he always talked
about it I guess.
But God damn,
he had an ace
in that secret
shed of his.
And if I’m
to be honest,
I wish I were him.


John Dudek

Bar, 1999

After “Bar Giamaica, 1959-60,” by Charles Wright


Not the Giamaica, not Milan, but a small spot in Florence, out of the way.

No photo, no friends, no graveled courtyard—but if a picture,

Laurie’s snapping it and you are drinking a beer

and l am drinking something but not Campari (not then,

as when Kenneth was visiting Janice, which would be lovely,

but Kenneth is in New York) and Franco, our bartender,

brings our drinks and if Frank O’Hara were here,

we would see many more people, like Jane,

like in that poem by Charles, but Frank died

and we sit, a pair of Americans

writing postcards to our children and stretching the afternoon long

until we can respectably say “Evening”

or “Buona sera” and walk down the street to eat

and our last night in town Franco is not there

but we write him a thank you note in one language or the other

and you get me drunk on grappa because this seems like a good idea—

and we don’t have a shot of that, either.



Joannie Stangeland

Degré de familiarité

tu and vous
merging into a you
let's have a drink
at the speakeasy

Virginie Colline

Early Bird

The crows have

                    the guns

the pigeons have
                    the numbers

the parrots have
                    public opinion

and most of
                    the birdseed

we scattered

Darryl Davis

Passing Sainthood

This year, once again
I miss sainthood.

I could have been elected
had I waited death out quietly.

As always I slip away,
stiff-choosing to

hide among leafy branches,
popping memories.


Don Shaeffer

Gary Beck - 2 poems

Pilgrim

Leaving my land, place, roots,
another strange American
dazed with hungers,
breakfast cereal anticipations,
for change, glory, just enough lust
to risk Moloch-belly flames
licking fire at asbestos bones,
spinning and circling a torturous orbit
returning me to beginnings,
stubborn, ruthless, orphan greedy,
playing no more rhymes on my toes, Granpa,
past twiddling, caring about rag clad dreams,
leaving me shivering for survival
from the frostbite of vindictive atoms
unseen in the bustling commotion
in the churning harbor of unrest.

Fleeting is Desire

Beyond knowing that desire
is tissue thin
lasting the extent of inclination,
known only sense deep
the turmoils of the flesh,
as brief as vacations
with flared beginnings
incandescent continuations
progressing to destruction
that present evidence
of future crises
on passion’s extinction.

Gary Beck

Renewed Plans

A new year like a present
received by post from someone unknown,
another point from which
life could go further with more determination.

A visit of some strangers

while in a foreign country
where they had written about you in a paper,
like a meteoric consolation
for all that had been bad.

A common dream which
others could get afraid of,
already insinuated into every gesture,
while seeing the wheel spins again
and you can renew the plans for another attempt.

It is a real wheel creaking in the cold
on Prater’s empty field in the heart,
long ago,
when amazed you found
that one could sigh alone
with no problem at all.

Vasile Baghiu

Beating Writer's Block

er um ha ho hee hee
oh um aah whoa
er er hum hum
teediddle teedaddle
fee fi fo
fum
i smell

Milner Place

Reloj de arena

Reloj de arena


    Holes
          in 
            my
                 palms
                            of
                   paper
                in
          the
              hour
                    glass
                         the
                            sand
                       runs
                   like
           water


Virginie Colline

Family Ties

The ducks in the swimming pool
Return each year
To mate and build a nest

Said my sister as she chopped the cabbage

Then the skunks come
Last year it was a family of five
And they eat the duck eggs

As my sister adjusted the sound on the radio

Anyway if you see any ducks
In the pool could you please
Scare them off?

It’s because they shit in the pool isn’t it
I said
Not because the skunks prey on their young

My sister looked at me
And said
How long are you planning on staying?

Jay Passer

Worried to Death

He worried that one day someone would kill him.
And that someone would destroy everything he’d achieved.
Someone who no longer had a care in the world,
Who no longer had anything to lose.
Someone he would have least expected.

Anthony Ward

ROOK

Rook
before seven
lifts bread
from next door’s lawn
and drops it
in our pond.

Rook
returns at eleven
to check
consistency,
to break
into pieces
to swallow.

Sandra Davies

Chess

you gotta watch
how the game

is bein’ played
on the chessboard

you don’t
watch the queen

the king
or the bishop

or the knight
or the pawn

you gotta
pay attention

to the hand
movin’ the pieces

Nahshon Cook

Poem Written After Drinking Too Much...

Poem Written After Drinking Too Much
on a Day You Came Through Town
and Didn't Call Even Though You Said
You Would 

Today it was three glasses
of wine before I could leave
a message on your phone,

then I got drunk
while waiting for mine to ring,

my head full of worlds
that no longer exist;

like the first time I saw you
walk into a room like somebody
just turned on the sun

and how you looked in that dress
smoking cigarettes
in downtown doorways
as the rain came down like god's
broken promise.

I guess the days aren't built
for that kind of beauty
anymore

and all things considered
I suppose it's for the best.

But the thing is,
I just wanted to be beautiful
for you one more time.

William Taylor Jr.

Dust in the Waters of Life

I can't be lookin’ at Eb no more.
Ain't sure I can love 'im no more.
I sold m' life fer his soul, thinkin'
I wanted what all he wanted.

He wanted a fam’ly.
I giv’d ‘im one.
He wanted a young’un.
I giv’d ‘im one.
He wanted a boy.
By God's Grace,
I giv’d ‘im one.

Still that weren't 'nuff fer Eb.
He still weren't filled.
Somepin' was missin'.
Or perhaps he wa’r o'erfilled
With the waters a' death,
'Stead a' the waters a' life.

Somepin' dried up;
Dried up the land,
'N dried up us,
'N dried up me too,
I'm guessin'.

He, us, me -
We los’ ever'thin';
Los’ the farm,
Los’ the car,
Now we los’ our way.

Preacher man bin talkin’
'Bout the waters a' life.
What ‘bout 'em I ask?
Even m' milk bin thinnin'.
M' baby ain't hardly gettin'
Nothin' no more;
Thin trickle from m' paps;
Bin dryin' up,
Lost, done soaked up
By the sands a' m' man's soul.

Pro'bly lose the boy,
Lose us,
Lose me.
Pro'bly lose hisself too,
'Tho he bin los’ to us
Two, m'be three mon’s now;
Dried up 'n all, blowed away.
Jus' blowed away.

Ain't nothin' t’ be done.
Ain’t nothin’
Worth nothin'
No more.
It jus' all flowed
Away in the wind. 

Richard Hartwell

A Grandfather

Last night my brother kept us up until past 4am. 

When my mother went to sleep, she dreamt
of my father and his father, of that other
very stressful time in her life.

Today a man came in to our shop,
smiling. He said he was on his way
to West Virginia.

I did not know him,
my father's father.

I am beginning to have faith
in my mother's ability
to conjure people.

I think she is too.


Cindy M. Kelly 

Diner

Cool chrome legs

reflect the stained tile floor

which hold a million footprints

as tight as a hangman’s noose.

The black and white squares

create a path, left to right—

followed only in the darkest nights

between stops of utter failure.

Alone again, she sits,

yet this time more in shadow

as if to hide from the neon light,

flashing bright blue

akin to the firefly near the end of life.

Again she waits

in anticipation of his return,

reminiscent of an old movie

tattered and faded,

repeating the ending over and over.

She waits—lipstick red,

polished shoes and a renewed hope,

waiting to hear the chime above the door

ring for her once again.

  

Gary Scott Gebert

We struggled...

WE STRUGGLED TO KEEP THE MICE OUT WITH OUR FINGERS
AS THEY ASSERTIVELY RUSHED THE POTTING SHED

Normally disconsolate
over a comma,
we found our new home
less cramped than implied.
The lack of running water
soothing.


Colin James

these days

you’re a bottle blonde
but who isn’t these days

you’ve nice cheekbones
a small, straight nose and
a thin-lipped yet pretty smile

your plastic jewelry and plastic shoes
betray that your tastes
are more extravagant than your means

your laugh is pleasant enough
even if it seems forced
and I’m sure you’re looking at 40
from your rearview mirror

you look good from where I sit
and I want you to be sexy

I want you to make an impression
and become a pleasant memory
that suddenly comes out of nowhere
and pries a smile out of me when I least expect it

but you won’t
I’ll forget you
right after I watch you leave

if I remember anything
it will be the incubus you’re sitting with

do you find him as boring as he does?
“George said…I told George…then George said to me…I had to explain to George…”
he’s been yammering on so long
that piece of chicken on his fork is going to petrify soon

the way he’s waving it around
it looks as if he’s brandishing it as a warning
to all the other chickens or perhaps
conducting some bizarre barnyard orchestra

I want to reach over there
and shove the chicken and the fork and his arm to the elbow
down his throat just to shut him up
how can you stand it

what’s compelling you to smile and to laugh
every time he’s not funny
he must sign your paycheck
or play golf with someone who does

I wanted you to be sexy
but that’s just not going to happen
it must be the company you keep


Mike Harris

Slave

A cheat’s laughter

Violently proud

Of humble achievement.

Wretchedly vain

Stinking of diesel

As if it’ll cover up the stench.

Slave

Broken down

Desperate for a smile

Taking an interest in things

She has no interest in.

She has no interests

Pleading for a smile

Recognition of her efforts

As a good homely wife.

Three apple pies

And a rhubarb crumble.

Relentlessly chastised

Forgetting the salt

For a cold potato.

Serve it up on a plate

Have the cake and eat it.

Salt the cake

I have no taste for it.

Jack Cooper

Men's Haircut $13 / Walking Wounded

Men's Haircut $13 

Silently,
I watch
as the barber
picks up the broom
and sweeps my remains
into a pile in the corner,
mixing with
all of those
who came before.



Walking Wounded 

I want to go back
to the car accident,
to that night
the guy
plowed right into me,
centered on the
driver's side door,
like he'd been aiming.

I had to climb out
the passenger side,
my door was so
punched in.

Sitting on the sidewalk,
I watched my car
bleed out
a full tank of gas,
the puddle expanding,
covering the road,
reflecting the traffic signals.

When the paramedics came,
they checked me,
called me “walking wounded,”
and led me laughing
to the ambulance,

not a bruise on me.


Matt Galletta

The meek

The snow has left us.

The humble and the meek

Have dug their way out

From their burrows,

And drawn ever on

By hunger and love,

Litter the highways

With their carcasses.

Ah, patient beasts,

You will inherit

Everything,

If you do not go

Extinct,

Before we do.

Joseph Farley

Stealing Lorca’s bones

It was easy –
a shovel
a bit of moonlight
and then, not far down,
wedged between roots
and rocks,
his bones.

I stuffed them in my
backpack – in my backpack –
Lorca!

I rode swiftly home
on my bicycle
humming a tune about Andalusia.

I baked them – I am not mad –
I crushed the bones into powder.
I added the powder
to my coffee.
Just a teaspoon.

Then, pen in hand,
I waited.


Sonja de Vries

Poetic License & Speeding Tickets

The
Parking garage attendant
Held  a doctorate in
Sustainability

She
Was  in love
With  a man who

Under
Artificial   light
Painted stripes       on    the   highways
If  the moon   wanted     a     night               off
And god wasn’t
Answering


silent lotus 

Linden Tree

My mama didn't raise me right,
it was trees that did that.
She was too busy forgetting herself
in Byron and gin,
slapping back every word from me,

choices that sank like stones in her womb,
settled on a husband whose swagger and
leather jacket were big brother's hand-me-downs,
a brother she sat near during holidays,
watched the smoke curl from his unfiltered,
rise like steam to his lips
drawing in desire between them,
didn't care that everyone watched her
watching him.

No one came to visit,
invite her out for a beer.

I spent a lot of time in the linden tree
learning to root,
feeling how skin becomes impenetrable,
but allow bees to find sweetness,
make their way home with it
gathered in close.

Sheri L. Wright

why old men drink gin

life lesson number one:
decisions

determine
the pattern
of bruises


Tiko Lewis

why cows die with eyes open

it comes hard
     like a catapulted
     melon

death is never
the goal

it’s insincere
to claim
otherwise


Tiko Lewis

PigeonBike Footnote - This is the first poem inspired by "Trash & Crackers." 

i am hundreds...

i am hundreds of 
pages away from
the peace we’re
looking for and
finding in quick
kisses in the
park the peace
we thought we
found when the
earth spelt our
names and said
encouraging things to
busy us with
pirateships and
firefighters once upon
a time

I am hundreds of
pages away from
the peace that lives in
the belly of a bluebird
and fills the clouds
with treelimbs like
a blank page


Dustin Holland

Untitled

Silhouetted
pigeon
perched
in cherry tree
pretending
to be
sparrowhawk



Sufficiently
convincing,
at a glance,
until it
coos.


Sandra Davies

More Pigeon Love

Pigeon Head, Pigeon Fed

the
poets
threw me
crumbs
&
i
choked
on my
eagerness


Lawrence Gladeview

From a poet who gets it...

the PigeonBike

is flying straight
from the underground
to the cybersphere
to the hard drive
to the printer's
to the cardboard box
to the carpet
to the envelope
to the mailbox
to the p.o.
to the gunnysack
to the 18-wheeler
to the other p.o.
to the white plastic carton
to the boxy white van
to the leather bag
to the door slot
to another carpet
to the coffee table


Tom Riordan

Mark Jackley - 3 poems

AFTER A NIGHT OF LOVE

Four a.m. Two musics,
Thelonious Monk roof rain
and honeysuckle streaming past
the bedroom window like
a stampede at a concert
maybe the pilgrim slugs
can hear in their wet bellies
as they shine.


AT THE HOSPICE

In the end,
we are villagers.
There is magic and a wolf.

Shuffling,
she clutches
her coffee like a torch.

SEPARATED

This motel room, spare,
cool as a shoebox.

Perfectly designed
for things that walk away.


Mark Jackley

Poeticism

Red bricks
hanging over the rugby pitch.
I'm pulling off
and passing
pieces
of poetry, written on -

a text message that's torn.

Those bricks
stirred something in you.
A gasp. An actually
maybe we were wrong
about this
one.

I don't like you for it.

The toilets are
still old:
we all meet there

exchanging loo-roll.

Train tickets
in my wallet - I'm scared
it's so long ago.

Ice cream sounds
coming down -
the hill

how poetic?

Jack Cooper

Brendan after fifteen years

I am married now
and living in England,
not quite respectable, but
no one calls me taigy anymore.

The house is falling to bits.
We’re poor, but that’s relative.
I’ve fitted locks, but never a smoke alarm.

It is different here, now.
In The Sun they would call you a paedo.
While at home there were other crimes.

Sometimes I still
get funny ideas:
Apollo was a sniper,
Cupid too.

To these men fell the lovely
ethics of trajectory. Like them
you knew how a heart
was made more immaculate
by the number and size of its arrows.

I am married now
and living in England.
I read Nabokov, not
The Sun.

Fran Lock

A Good Day

a serene day
a singular cumulus
escalating the ambience
rays ventured across the sky for miles
and what a bountiful blue sky it was
as bright as it was
i still noticed the bark on every tree
sitting so still
sap seeped into the ground
quietly, calmly, healthy
i still noticed the stumps
never any sturdier

i also noticed
the bulldozers readying themselves
for the call
and when the call was relayed
the claws raked into the bark
like a ravenous dog chewing on innocent flesh
wheels pressed up against the stumps
and rammed into the wood, sap, and homes
leaves rustled and tumbled
the foundations, the roots all cracked
snapping in two, five, or seven
eventually thats what became of the trees
the noise was like a thousand homes crumbling at once
crack, crick, rip, whoosh, a fall
they all fell for a reason
the real estate signs proved it

I guess thats what passes as a good day
these days
or for these people

Emanuelle Cartagena

a poem without a shootout

The bus has gone by

with

maybe 5 or 6 riders aboard

the bars

along

the side-walk

that have been slow to fill up

for

most of the day

are

now

muffled

with the evening crowd

at 4:00

we sit down

shake a few hands

and

look upon this world with very little wonder

as

girls walk bye

ready for summer

and

dogs are rounded up like horses

outside

of

our watering holes

I

carry a flag

on my chest

on my back

on my tongue

in

every

word

I write down

with

cash in hand

we

will

drink

until

the crazed have been subtled-

Mat Gould