The Factory of Your Lungs
Every exhale is counted, weighed, and sold to someone who doesn’t live here—
someone who has never woken to the rattle of dawn
shaking the dust from its pockets
like a tired god clocking in for another shift.
In this town, breath is a currency.
The children trade theirs for recess,
the elders for a quiet afternoon without coughing up
another gray feather of the sky’s exhaustion.
We are paid in particulate promises:
tiny specks of maybe, someday, almost.
The smokestacks rise like stern foremen,
tall as verdicts delivered without trial.
They do not blink.
They do not bargain.
They take their tithe of oxygen
and leave our chests echoing like half-collapsed warehouses.
Still, we show up.
We shoulder the sun.
We lift the morning until it glows faintly,
a lantern swaying above the picket line of our ribs.
Some nights, a breeze sneaks in—
an outlaw wind slipping between the factories
with news from somewhere greener.
It whispers: breathe deeper,
your lungs are not a ledger.
And we try—
inhalation as rebellion,
exhalation as prayer—
each breath a small strike
against the empire of smoke
that believes it owns us.
Subway Graffiti as Prophecy
The train rattles past midnight slogans,
each one a warning written in neon dust.
Letters drip like fresh constellations
on the ribs of silver cars—
WE WERE HERE, NOT YOUR CITY,
EVERY WALL HAS A PULSE.
Beneath the murmuring advertisements of tomorrow,
a sharper gospel flickers in unauthorized color.
The tunnels memorize it.
The rats translate it into twitching scripture.
Even the conductors read it with their eyes closed.
A crown made of spray caps rolls along the tracks.
A halo of sirens hums in the distance,
late as always, faithful as gravity.
Someone has stitched a future into brick and speed,
a prophecy that refuses to wait for permission.
We pretend not to see it,
eyes trapped in glowing rectangles of curated hope,
while the walls scream in wild typography:
THE CITY IS A DREAM EATING ITS DREAMERS.
BREAK THE SPELL.
By morning the messages will be skinned raw by cleanup crews,
bleached into respectable silence.
But the night will remember.
The tunnels will rehearse.
And the next train will arrive already whispering
what the daylight is afraid to admit.
A Brief History of Sidewalks
Concrete remembers the soles it carried,
the faces erased, the corners abandoned.
It remembers the soft geography of need—
bus tokens warm in palms, the choreography
of waiting, the loose change mooning in cups.
Once, this block spoke in many tempos:
domino slaps, arguments, laughter stitched
through open windows like second curtains.
Then the paint arrived first—
that clean lie of renewal—
followed by names no one here could pronounce
without learning new mouths.
Rent rose like floodwater without rain.
Porches narrowed. Lives folded.
Now the coffee costs more than the day’s wages
of the ghosts who still cross here at dusk.
Dogs with better health plans
tug silver leashes past the places
children learned the art of swerving traffic.
Even the weeds have been rezoned.
But listen closely at night
when the foot traffic thins to memory:
the sidewalk exhales names it is blamed for losing.
Each crack’s a ledger.
Each stain, a stubborn footnote.
Progress keeps receipts in erased feet.
And still—
the pavement waits, wide and patient,
for the next unpermitted story
to step back into the light.
Bob Carlton
“bathe the brain...”
bathe the brain
in a wave
of chemical pleasure
sing away sorrow
in joyful song
notes bent
to a
microtonal
blue
***
“sta/g/ger...”
sta
g
ger
to some
dest
i
nation
all my
all al
one
Mitchel Montagna
Catskills, Late 1970s
I thought I saw Kat near the bus station, beneath sparkling leaves
in sleek summer clothes, dazzling as the morning light
Treetops split the radiance around her; I know if she smiles, she
will fuse those fiery shards together
But I don’t wait to see. I turn away, looking for the 10:05, because
she probably doesn’t know me at all.
On 17 north near the mountains, cotton-blue sky, bluffs and
meadows like shimmering gardens
If you doze, you feel the tingling of haunted canyons; graffiti
carved by those who have become ghosts
After a steep climb the Grossingers sign looms, overlooking a world
at end, as our bus slips cautiously by.
Riding through Liberty, pale granite and dust, gasping old stores; strutting
unemployed, pretending to own the streets
I settle into a small cabin, then walk outside, purple twilight
descending on the woods nearby
A sparrow chants; a young woman sits cross-legged at a picnic
table and asks who I am.
Her dark eyes mirror the changing sky; a breeze carries a pine-needle scent;
her smile is clever and makes me smile
I’m here for a new beginning, I admit. She points to the moon, impeccably round
just above the horizon
Stars seem to creep out as if from behind a curtain. She brushes hair from
her cheek, and thanks me for a gorgeous night.
Joseph Farley
That Sense of Wonder
That sense of wonder
You had as a child,
Did it go away?
Sad isn't it,
To experience such a loss.
If you miss it,
You should not worry.
Not much.
There is hope.
Hope in the return of wonder.
Hope in a sense of hope.
It can come back.
Not necessarily
The same as it was.
In a different genie’s bottle,
Aged right for you.
Eyes will open wide again.
You will see it, feel it, know it.
Not as it once seemed,
As it is. As you are.
As miracles unfold
For only you to see.
Merritt Waldon
While the shadows read Milton__
Cold winter thoughts crackle
& Warm next to the yule fire
Orange flickering fingers
Glow all around our vision
While the shadows read Milton
Aloud in poor taste & too much
Wine that makes us believe
We’re not slowly freezing to death
Two bums in a slow freeze while
Listening to the shadow recite
Classics next to a dumpster fire
Somewhere in Pistol City
---
Orman Day
Pumpkin Pies
To honor Dad’s memory
at family celebrations,
bake a pumpkin pie spiced
with nutmeg and cinnamon,
serve it warm topped by a crown
of homemade whipped cream,
pass each plate into hands
trembling with anticipation.
Take an extra pie to a park
near a rescue mission,
divide it among homeless men
who lick their fingers clean,
are grateful for a gift delivered
without a preacher’s threat
of eternal damnation.
James Kowalczyk
Answers Questioned
night is midwife to dreams
through inverse osmosis
a rapid conversion to
weapons of mass dysfunction
they say a crucifix of self-pity
tops looking up from underground
but lived backwards is devil
and the details don’t lie in
wait while the stench of
stale rhetoric rots the blood
pudding corpses while we
shiver to think for ourselves
John Swain
The Sand Sheet
Sun gauzes the honeycomb ceiling,
transparent netting shelters
the bed of your sleeping revealed,
you lay braids,
the light ferns,
the spectrum beams,
the sand sheet rivers by indigo lilies,
the atrium opens to date palms,
we stand behind the candle glass,
we move through windows of water.
Harold Bowes
A Gift
There is a bookcase in the bedroom
Next to where I sleep
It was a gift from her
When we lived in the same house
It was made to look like wood
Maybe there was a layer of wood involved
I set cups and dishes there
One day, and this never happened before,
A cup, it must have been very hot,
Left a white ring on the surface
That has never gone away
Daniel S. Irwin
Killer Joe Blow
So, I'm just out like a roving fool
Barefootin' it down the boulevard.
Then holy terror at the cross walk,
A high tech extreme vehicle electric
Zips past me screeching to a halt
Shredding the rubber-esc tires as
Now one with the pavement.
Hot damn! It's Killer Joe Blow.
Lord, 'hadn't seen that wild son
Of a fishmonger in beaucoup ages.
I thought the creature was surely
Locked up in prison or an asylum,
Maybe both. Dig, man. Nutzville
Joe, on the spot, presented me
With the offered opportunity to
Roll on down in his classy buggy
While choking down a tundra-cold
Brewski or two. Bounce back, bro.
My actual self had to head to the
House. The fridge was babysittin'
My Swanson TV dinner. Had been
For a group. Not that important,
Just avoiding hangin' with this
Bonafide fruitcake named Joe.
The Beatnik Cowboy 