Anthem
If we think history’s anthemic,
think again.
The soaring black anthems of jet engines
and nation-states from hell.
They speak of transcendence
but what of vacant lots
with chainlink perimeters
and in the midground
the ugly human soul
and for me,
the paranoid itching
of dull afternoons,
what of that? Do
we contain the inventory
of agitation and irritability–
The myriad cruelties
don’t bother me today.
Neither do manic energies
reach me, like I’m
plugged into the wall–
today sunrise looked like sunset
more red than yellow
the ocean its ambient self,
everything’s a landscape.
All these years I’ve
written nothing
yet failed to see
I thought
in verse,
an ashcan went full floral bloom, and bent.
Zhu Xiao Di
Education
After you forget
everything taught
at school
what is left
is your education
Someone once said so
How sharp that is
I feel the pain at once
as if I were cut
by my missed education
Damion Hamilton
A Real Beauty
Sitting on the grocery store
Parking lot and not expecting anything exceptional to happen
I do this so much while looking
At my phone
And I see her, a real beauty walking,
Young cute face, long model-like legs
I work in a large building with many women
And she's easily more beautiful than them all
It's always unusual to see a pretty woman walking, they so many options, someone will always give them a ride
Whatever I was thinking about is not even a memory
But…
When is she getting out of the store I wonder
Should I offer her a ride?
She comes back and she's staring at me the way a panhandler would stare at me, so she's friendly
Greet me and greet her back, putting on the charm
She says, “ I look like the guy from the movie House Party.”
Oh yeah, i get aroused even more
I get her name, and she gets mine. I could use a friend
She's carrying frozen packages of meat chicken steak roast as if she stole it
She's on a mission and wants me give her a ride to a local motel known hookers and drug dealing
I tell her I can't go there
Something bad can and will usually happen, along with the cops watching the hotel.
If I was ten years younger maybe I
Would have
But not now
This safe middle aged man, I am now
I go back to looking at phone,
And she walks away, heading towards the hotel
Away from me and my desire
J.J. Campbell
a pending waterfall
sometimes writing is like
squeezing water out of
a rock
if you're lucky, you can
get lost in a lazy river
i prefer the chance for
death
so a canoe and a pending
waterfall will do
they think this is easy
just take a blank page
and throw some shit
down
decide if it should rhyme
or have the occasional use
of the word fuck
cross the t's and dot the i's
and there you go
they tend to forget the
sweat
the blood, the angst
the perpetual fear that it
will never be good enough
and they wonder why only
a few of us ever live long
enough to be remembered
-------------------------------------------------------
on a blank canvas
yet another rainy night
arthritis is the reminder
that you are old
make a drink
put on some jazz
and break out the
watercolors
let the pain drip on
a blank canvas
they say this is the
kind of therapy that
helps the insane
might as well try it
too poor for cocaine
too lazy to make some
coffee
a little red for the horizon
blue for a drying lake
where to put the fucking
happy trees
you have to wonder if
bob ross ever just told
someone to fucking find
another way to deal with
stress
i have found art is for
the depraved
the souls lacking
something
may they eventually
find it
Richard LeDue
“Letting the Light In”
Even the light needs to creep sometimes
under a door or through some curtains
on a Sunday morning,
when the whisky can do nothing
but remind me it’s never enough,
and sickness from a hangover
becomes just another sad sunrise
I tell myself I didn’t want
because it’s always been easier
to hate instead of love.
“The Madness We Shared”
Seeing my friend who is now sober
is a sad feeling- not for the madness
we shared on those nights
when the days seemed too long
and the only answer we had
was Christmas Brass
on vinyl and rye whisky,
but for how it all makes the past
seem more past, while the present
does a drunken bellyflop into a pool,
splashing my grey hair.
Chris Jewell
COLD FRONT
Dance, the crush! Like a wind of navels, its womb kept quiet, as if
swallowed! And fingered at the source bitter, tight. Criminals,
crowned by much weight, wrap their weapons and poems in skin and graze
the streets brightly like queens. For the moon is empty, here, as an
eyeball, playing with its freshly streaming colors. Stupid, and of
"impious sweetness to the lip". Run, oh run! Your flaming divining
tongues for the sake of orphaned suns and their wailing and raining on
fantastically pale foreheads. Oh, pure blue of a footprint, have
you wasted the dance? And, with your demonizing guitar, strummed afar?
Do you pretend that I have, fingers?
Daniel S. Irwin
Faith, Hope, and Dope
Sunday mornings and
Wednesday nights are
The time to get high
With Jesus. The rest
Of the week is for doin'
Dope with your friends
Hoping that the law
Don't catch up with you.
A good Christian man
Knows how to hide his
Stash. Always has his
Head raised well above
The common man, the
Filthy devout main-liners
And all the humanistic
Heathens. God is love,
Dope is hope. Especially
In jail.
Liv Campbell
Walk Back Kiss
On the walk back to my car, I told you about how I probably killed my hamster. They play dead when they hibernate because I wanted to stall the kissing part of the date. I haven’t kissed anybody since I felt good, and what if I show you what could happen? Maybe you’d be flattered by my hives. Until I fall and have to tell you more. Male giraffes punch the female’s stomach to taste her pee before mating. My dog died before this. I didn’t kill her though. I have something. My dog never knew I had something. For the entirety of a family vacation to Las Vegas, I was seven and convinced I was pregnant because a friend and I had played house a little too hard. In the reflection of every slot machine, I would cup my bump and ask my Samantha doll if she was ready to be a big sister, ask myself if I was ready for TLC and then hell. Could I be on I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant if I definitely knew? They’d have to lower it to Seven and Pregnant just for me. The streets were doused with cards of naked ladies and my parents kept telling me to look up, only for there to be billboards with more naked ladies. Crows remember faces. God remembers sin. The something I have is not a baby, by the way. I don’t know if I like you. I’ll get back to you on that. Thanks for understanding. But I do think we should have sex.
Zhu Xiao Di
Fable
Some sages say
marriage endures seven years
beyond that, forever
or nothing at all
America, NATO, Europe
sharing one cold bed
the sheets smelling of dust
their heaven thinned to air
Treaties yellowed, vows forgotten
the old union leans to flame
Far in deserts beyond chapels
Arabian brides lift their veils
Margie B. Klein
Why I Long for the Days of the Old West
I journeyed out west to find the sun, the warmth, and the adventure.
What I found was burning heat and so much figurative cold.
Las Vegas would have been better off left in pioneer days
as a travelers’ stop along the westward trail.
I long for the days of the old west. They seem to have been filled
with real and honest living. Not that all daily incidences were ruled by good,
but at least they were taken for what they were. You knew where you stood,
which side was which, and how to deal with either.
And nothing was conjured, artificial, or pretense. No iphones,
no cosplay, no ai. And if you didn’t possess common sense,
your road would be extra hard. These generations had to live
by their wits. Danger was plentiful and you had to know
how to deal with it. Trust was a serious deal and betraying it
was dealt with appropriately. Relationships were a gamble,
but if you were lucky, they could make a fruitful partnership.
It was a time and place when folks were obliged
to be connected to the land – their survival depended upon it.
Homes were built out of the wilderness, food came
from what you grew, even transportation was of the earth.
They made use of it, but they mostly respected it.
Jump a century or more forward and that western frontier
is all but a memory - Las Vegas, in particular. Even in
the seventies and eighties when I first started visiting,
development wasn’t that bad, still reminiscent of a detached outpost
in the middle of the desert. 21st century Vegas is a nightmare.
Over three million people and all this cursed development.
They thought they would quit building when they got
to the mountains – they didn’t. They said they would stop
when the resources ran out, but they didn’t. In olden days,
there were natural springs providing the little water
the small community needed. Now all things are dependent
on a reservoir called Lake Mead, which has drawn down
so far as to impose heavy water usage restrictions. Native
vegetation and wildlife species have been pushed out. Exotic
and pest species have moved in. Man-made lakes have
brought in mosquitoes. Aquatic vessels from across the country
have brought in quagga mussels. The homeless are on the streets
more than they ever have been. Meanwhile, city, county, state,
and federal lawmakers are bought off by special interests.
I spent years fighting for appreciation of the wild areas,
preserving carrying capacity, and educating the public.
But you can only hit your head against the wall so
many times. Retired and somewhat damaged
from the fight, I retreat into my own created desert
preserve on a small plot of land, where native
plants flourish and a few native bird, lizard,
and mammal species can find escape.
That’s what I’m looking for, too.
The Beatnik Cowboy 