“Old Courage”
There was an old bravery
in my younger days,
when beer,
hidden in a paper coffee cup,
tasted like courage
instead of yellow flowers
commemorating the inevitability of death,
and I was content with my hangovers
being just another punchline
in a joke I thought would always be
funny, until I realized laughter dies
the same as the rest of us.
“Blood Memory”
I’ve always had this strange vision
of sitting at my kitchen table
at eight or nine AM
drinking rye on the rocks,
and I think this is blood memory
from a grandfather who drank
himself to death
before I was even born.
I guess some ghosts
don’t need rattling chains
or footless footsteps in an attic
to prove they exist.
John Jordan
no words
My uncle is telling me again
Neil Young was a genius
his empty rocks glass glinting
in the late summer air
smoke and skylight giving way
to the darkening season.
His Camel smolders by the fire pit,
the boombox mewling 70’s rock
and I have no words
but know not to look in his eyes
when he pauses to tap his watch,
a gift from my drunk grandfather
he says, a vintage Calatrava
which means nothing to me.
He lumps up from his chair
to piss in the bushes, passing
his palm through my hair,
a kindness I do not understand.
He returns for a moment, sits
to gather himself for bed, tells me
the bourbon hurts his heart
but it is what it is he whispers
by the dying firelight
better to burn out than to fade away.
Philip Ash
LIVESTREAM
Lumpinee Boxing Stadium,
Bangkok
Atomweight women’s kick-
boxing: no elbows
Crimson stains the canvas
from earlier bouts
L.A. Latina defends her belt,
a swift counterpuncher
Bad blood; neither extend
a glove to start each round
Tattooed Teutonic throws
more aggressive hooks
Both wear cornrows;
could be my daughters
Red flows from the German’s
nose – flash knockdown –
Latina rises slowly, loses
a split decision
Usually, I don’t like to see
women beat up
But I’m sure they had
the time of their lives
D.R. James
April Fool
Just because it’s linearly April the Second,
who’s the boss who says this punk-ass snow—
reduced now to an intermittent drizzle whizzing on the roof—
and this one-tone, tag-along slab of sleepy gray—
since the sun’s just up—
and this white elephant of an extra hour before barreling in to work,
and then the kids coming tonight from their mom’s
for Sorry—
or not,
as’ll happen—
who says it can’t all go perfectly
with this seasonal transition’s shy thunder
clearing its phlegmish voice
over all these leafless trees,
with this mismixed black-and-tan of mismatched Spring?
I’ve let myself grow fond of longing
for set pieces,
for still-lifes requiring
one from Column A,
another number I forget from Column B,
a soundtrack from, I’m only guessing,
Column C,
figuring it has to be this prissy mania
for the alphabetical.
Meanwhile, while the world gets away
with spinning its weighted wheel any which way
it wants, our singed hearts roulette
for whatever weather rolls in off a controlling coast.
But what of these self-tranquilized tendencies,
our domesticated blood?
Couldn’t we eat a rich lunch at ten,
decide on another at two,
boldly call it supper
and be ready for breakfast by five-fifty,
then call it a night
or, even better, a new day?
In any case, couldn’t we be more awake, more
Thoruvian, with “Rock Around the Clock”
our invocative alarum
not some old benedictive ex∙e∙unt?
(I’m beginning to sense some hostility.)
Which reminds me of the time my third good idea—
that one involving literature and the golden summer of ’77,
which we spent largely melting into a solitary beach
until our bones felt as though they’d bake along
and last forever together—
turned out to be just another in a long
but entertaining line
of nice-to-have-known-you usurpations (though by now
it’s taken the form of a couple
tortured
decades),
which was before poetry—
wide-wale cords
worn thin across her bony cheeks—
materialized from the dust, squatting
predictably over an opened road,
and smirked me into this other,
this more welcoming,
dementia.
Swimming
Apparently it has been said
that two lions guard
the door to Enlightenment. But
Paradox and Confusion, two
of the best friends a guy could hope
to leave behind,
seem more like two winos
blocking the door
to your apartment, trying
to avoid enlightenment,
though they don’t know it.
You could step over them
but you’d risk their awakening.
I wish I were an abstraction
in the form of a non-cognizant
but ferocious mammal. Not only
would I be warm-blooded
and highly respected and
sporting a non-thinning mane,
but I could save all the time
I now spend attempting
consciousness. It’s also been said
that I tend more toward
the cold-blooded (possibly
reaching luke-warm when sunshine
heats up the lagoon) and not
regularly regarded, since I’m off
swimming the world, looking
for the world in which I swim.
Which is funny if I think about it.
Which I can’t. I’m like
Prufrock in his flannel pants,
pushed around by a Symbolist,
three teeth cracked on peach pits,
love life always aground
around tea-time, sleeping
just out of earshot
so as not to drown.
Zhu Xiao Di
Do Not Stir Up Grief
If grief is stirred up
it would be on fire. Even
when flames are gone
the grey ashes remain soft
and hot. The stubborn
heart silent, just like
a piece of hard coal
Daniel S. Irwin
Self-Styled
So we got these self-styled
Avent-garde cocksuckers
Writing this bullshit about
How life has been so terrible.
Abusive far-less-than perfect
Parents. Designed neglect.
Childhood with no rules for
Punishment meted out to
Deal with supposed infractions
Of unwritten rules. Rags for
Clothes and shoes with soles
With holes so big that your
Socks wear out and feet get
Soaked in the rain, frozen in
The snow. Spaghetti for every
Meal when you ate. It was
Cheap. If you were lucky, it
Came with the special sauce
We call salt. Television was
Something you saw through
The windows of other houses.
Even the poor kids at school
Looked down on you. Always
Picked last at basketball, if
Picked at all. Cry over your
Lot in life. Tough shit. What
Makes you think you’re the
Only member of the club?
That was then, this is now.
Kick ass and move on.
John Grey
Living Together
Did we really live in that apartment,
so cold in winter,
we walked around with blankets
draped around our shoulders
like cloaks.
And the furniture...
what wasn't bought at thrift sales
was a carton or a crate.
We didn't even have a shower,
washed our hair in the sink
those days when the hot was working.
A lumpy mattress,
tiny black and white TV,
meals that dog food would have shamed.
But all that worried you
was unplanned pregnancy.
Unplanned adversity
was bright and bubbly
as a child to us.
Dan Holt
Listening To Monk
The room feels smoky
The lights are dim
Nothing but the piano
and the player
Coltrane and Miles
Rollins and Powell
Listening
Watching
Learning
The piano sounding
slightly out of tune
as the chords
so precise
follow each other
one by one
The melodies so deep
so thought out
yet almost random
sounding off the top
of his head
I can see him
Thelonious
alone in San Francisco
Orman Day
Gathering Moss
A guy sharing his table
in the Costco food court
tells me he’s working two jobs
so he’ll have a comfortable retirement,
and I say he’s trading his youth for money
while I’m spending my old age remembering
when I danced the samba in Carnaval rain
and hopped a freight train to New Orleans,
so while he can, he should be a rolling stone
gathering not moss but memories.
Livio Farallo
abracadabra
there’s a noise
in the alchemy of
the
countryside. there’s a beaker
of saltwater flush
as an
ocean. i can’t dance
like a snake, so i slither
in olfactory
exhaustion and bite down hard.
the sun is a bright mountain
defy-
ing gravity: houdini with a smile. and
someone is
waiting in the siberian traps with a demitasse of dna,
ready to slurp: ready to
scald. and i am a clown
with my own nose
rid-
ing ponies like a surfboard.
a whine comes from a snowdrift,
adumbrates
a whisper, a snore, somnambulism that floats
like a ghost through
basement windows. it could be the wind murmuring “presto”.
it could be the giggling of a pint-sized giant
pulled from a hat.
but the only magic i’ve seen
is simply a hand
gun
fir-
ing backwards and a
cell phone that smokes.
The Beatnik Cowboy 