Oatsy, Met him in homeroom class In high school, He was cooler Than James Dean, Even then. No stranger to drinking And fighting, Known to the baddest around, Loved by the coolest of girls, And any who called Him a friend, Never a bully, Not one to start fights, But if you wronged him, You’d best make it right. We drank in bars All over the county, We were known quite well In those days, We drank tequila South of the border, Smoked pot a lot And we took several trips, Explored inner space together, Laughing in unknown lands, Survived the excesses of youth, Like others, we mellowed With time.. Now we are getting Kind of long in the tooth, Still friends, And both, still alive, I work with words And I write... He works on his Norton bike, And a 49 Ford He still drives.
Howie Good
Golgotha You who believe the most astounding lies, who shake hands and then greedily sniff your fingers, who shrug as the last of the old-growth forests succumbs to mass su- icide, any day now your streets will fill up with dancing grannies, and you will smile and nod, but when you look in their eyes for confirmation, all you will see is Christ being murdered over and over and over.
Hunter Hodkinson
Vendetta I feed my gluttony to the page, white and bottomless it takes and takes and takes; its favorite meal is yearning stew and the big fleshly ladles that stir, turning turning turning the contents to a thin paint gleam like the effulgent blood of angels. In Response To Prestigious Literary Journals I’m sure you expect me to sit patient and crumb upon your nine month response to words that weep from my fingers, as you take your sweet and careful time to tell me no your tears are too sour. I’m sure you expect me to smile when I send you money I do not have for an automated rejection; we wish we could offer a more personalized response, but we simply don’t have the time or numbers… I also, magazine, do not have the money for button click heartbreak. I don’t have the time for your no simultaneous submissions policy; so yes, I shall continue to carpet bomb every magazine I see, no matter how “rude” it seems. Like all pain, mine demands to be seen. Emerging Last month it was Ginsberg who uprooted my flowery words and replanted them in the spry soil of famine India. Beginning of October it was Sylvia who beat nails of rhythmic craft into my paper mâché soul. Now it is Anne who’s Sexton stories of fifties madness and feminine isolation strangles my stanzas like the mellow fists of monoxide.
Donna Dallas
Seek Dolphins along the Crest Miami Beach sucks me in with tequila and tits and I - always so easily enraptured duck into a bodega seek the black door find a plastic lover Get caught in a rainstorm laugh wildly run through the sweltering streets meet my death it sucked me in While dying in Miami pulled again through the black door find solace in the needle wake to the waves wonder about dolphins and if they will disappear by the spear or the many propellers worry in such turmoil as if this is my only problem Again black doorway run into my death for the third time we become friends he (death) asks why I’ve been a cunt all my life I not knowing the answer reply just give me more time to get another hit The wave more immense and glorious than before pulls me back to the beach to see a school of dolphins and think this is what I’ve searched for stumble to the shore under speckles of sunlight I bathe in it I see a double rainbow hovering over the Atlantic such vivid stripes of purple yellow blue red it arches right into a sailboat bobbing along the crispness of the sunset How lucky to capture this bundle of color while battling horseflies in fear of dolphin extinction I croon over someone else’s double rainbow dip greedily into their pot of gold I See What the Drugs Have Done I. Hunch back postulating sores the nagging itch white jeans low hung ass red long sleeves it’s eighty degrees wiry hair try to bouffant it to take away from your neck but my eye goes directly to the loose skin almost see the tracks ever so light around your collar bone face more of a hull less of a face around your mouth – smokers jaw those wrinkles crown the lips like an army when cigarette meets lip the lines craft together in an origami of wrinkles II. Those mid-heeled pumps give you some height the heels are wrecked and the top lifts worn down to metal when you walk that hard tap echoes so loud you just kind of slide into your step zombie-like this is what becomes of the life after drugs life after paradise III. You’re sad about it about not having “it” anymore I’ll start to shoot again you say if they tell me I’ve got it cough a deep and guttural phlegm hack light another and pucker for that deep lung-spray drag whichever way will kill you best High School Dropout if I told you in my heart I wanted to go to High School - to finish - to graduate with a diploma and go on to a college, perhaps Ivy League…..if I said this I would be a dead-ass liar as I lay out in the sun on the roof of the old movie theater five of us would climb the fire escape to the top floor we kicked in a window found our way through a storage room to a ladder and out onto the slanted roof with pitch black tarp we smoked angel dust then cigarette after cigarette we’d lay our dreams across the black someone would have to make the long haul back down to buy some bagels and a Pepsi for us to share our throats dry as sand the sun melted us into each other we could share two bagels between four or five of us we broke them carefully like the bread from the last supper what did we know then but nothing we didn’t have a watch we told time from the sun from the passersby down below we would trudge home guilt ridden glazed eyes to the ground when asked how school was we would croak out a word or two through a rasp next morning we’d meet at the bodega and do it all again
Charles Rammelkamp
What’s Love Got to Do with It? Tina wrote her signature hit at the age of forty-four, eight years after she’d left the abusive relationship with Ike, six after the divorce. My friend Rita tells me her tits have exploded in middle age, from the estrogen patches she’s used since the hysterectomy, which had caused night sweats. “I’ve gone up a cup size,” she exults. Recently divorced – likewise from a bully – Rita’s in the market for fun, but doesn’t want a “boyfriend,” much less a third husband. It’s just about using her resources while they last.
Howie Good
Autumn Elegy Rather than reasons for hope, we’re given pills of all shapes and sizes and colors. Not much here can be regarded as natural. Fifteen billion trees a year are sacrificed to make toilet paper. The Wampanoag, the tribe that helped the Pilgrims survive their first Thanksgiving, still regret it 400 years later.
Daniel S. Irwin
A Festival of Belly laughs Well, here it is again, A festival of belly laughs. Ha, ha, ha! It’s the deaf guy. Big laughs at the voting station. He’s missin’ every other word. Holler at the dopey dude. I should be used to it by now. But, it still pisses me off. Lost most of my hearing from Iraqi artillery fire invading Kuwait, Crossed the border from the south Leading the Marines in. Like the 600, cannons to the right of me, Cannons to the left…on again, on again. So now, being nearly totally deaf, I’m the butt of jokes by the good citizens. If I came back missing an arm or leg, It would be, “Aww, poor man.” I don’t wear the uniform that was Ripped up by shrapnel that, somehow, Fortune smiling on me, missed my flesh. So now, it’s just rude jokes and laughs. Makes one proud to be an American.
Stephen Jarrell Williams
The Answer I never thought Doing nothing Could take so long TV on Sound off Blur of news Slump sitting Silent squinting Saturday sunset Grunting to get up From my soft chair Heading to the front door Hurrying down the stairs From my smelly apartment Leaving the door open Halting at the corner Winded but pretending I’m not Getting old bends your back But I straighten up Eyeing the lights of traffic So many souls trapped Forcing my mouth to open Screaming For freedom All the world Peaked to hear Understanding perfectly The doom of us Escalating Near panic Weeping Down inside Hollow chests Crying Prayer After prayer And many of us Deeply feeling The answer is Coming soon Feeling it Feeling now! The Grip The grip Has an invisible whip Media Zip Numbing Speed Lashing As we sleep For we have become bloodless Not knowing how deep the cuts Disturbed and wounded We fight against ourselves Politics Cripple us Divide And conquer us Spinning what’s right And wrong A few Thinking they’re little gods Control Controlling Forgetting They’re outnumbered.
Emalisa Rose
That poem that won't happen It’s been carried through continents. Stuck to my side and my psyche, engraving its stench with its syllables. Cruelly, deleting me, when I try to recycle its dips dots and scribbles that ping through insomnia, in all of those vertical places. Unleashing its verbs, nouns and adjectives, undangling its participles. It peeks to pop up when I’m grounded in dialogue’s dribble, wishing for air and a place to just leave the convenience store and write it already. The one you can’t slip off the pen, forever, in plaguing both you and your muse, stalling it utero. Your masterpiece poem, that won’t happen.
Noel Negele
I pity the un-betrayed When I was a small boy I was a shy boy, but I was blonde and cute and other little girls liked me. It was like this up until high school. There was no abuse other than alcohol back in those days. But girls, girls liked me. I was very conceited as a young man so you can imagine how much I DIDNT get laid when opportunities were offered left and right. I was up there in my head. Not a good place to be. Not in such frequency. Finally, I was betrayed by a girl and my best friend at the time. I remember it feeling as if someone was knifing me from within but the blade never reached skin surface so the injury was never apparent to anyone but me. No one understand the gravity of hurt. It’s in the eyes, in that dour look on a man’s face that hides anger and bitterness It’s the eyes of the man who’s survived and is cautious of the battlefield now. Betrayal. The mother of all lessons. I pity the people who haven’t been betrayed yet, at least once. Because there’s betrayal everywhere and from everyone. Behind every corner or sly smile or half-convincing promises — It lurks behind every love story ready to ruin itself. There’s betrayal in your fucking telemarketers at night. I pity the unbetrayed. For theirs betrayal will echo louder and hurt more than the rest of us. We already know.
The Beatnik Cowboy 