The Day My Dog Died They put me under and cut me open, removed parts of my spine and then glued my skin back together. Early the next morning, calling me by the wrong name, they sent me home. I was greeted at the door by familiar barking. No one else was there, though the radio was on – an old tape of Glenn Gould interviewing Glenn Gould about Glenn Gould. The dog slinked off. I gingerly climbed the stairs, undressed, and fell exhausted into bed. I may have slept for a few minutes or I may have just thought I did. The anesthesia still in my system was messing with my perceptions. I smelled ocean. A family of orcas bent on revenge for past humiliations might have been angrily battering the hull of a trawler. I tried to pretend that it all made some kind of sense. The dog reappeared, her tail pointing down, a sign that, like me, she was feeling troubled. A massive volume of water flooded into the room even as I spoke to her in my most soothing voice. No worries, I said, no worries. I would never be sure she understood. Man Is a God in Ruins From where I sat on the sand, it looked like a bulky carcass of some kind, a great grayish mass upon which a dozen or more seagulls perched, was floating in on the tide. The lifeguard vigorously blew her whistle. Most of the people playing in the water ignored the shrill alarm. Other beachgoers actually reacted with anger. “Whatever happened to the right to be lazy?” I heard one sunbather complain. I’m not into cosmic things, but I didn’t have a choice. The dismal clouds that had begun to gather over the bay resembled nothing so much as a band of estranged angels coming to take revenge. Only if you have ever experienced a broken heart yourself can you truly judge.
Author: The Beatnik Cowboy
Peter Roberts
The Spectrum Stikes Back It was always a numbers game. The elusive fiftieth percentile, the median equals holy grail. Above fifty you are normal, below it deviant. You call it science but its pure maths. We had been stuck for a long time, no growth but now we are rising. Once they consigned us to the edge of town or cul de sacs but now they cage us in the world, amid the rush and volatility. Cruel. Yet we rise. When we cross the Rubicon with fixed bayonets, we will establish precursory tribunals to allow for the airing of grievances. The guilty will be repaid in the same coin. But for psychologists there can be no mercy – we lack empathy after all. Up against the wall shrunks! The DSM will need to be rewritten to include Excessive Expressive Disorder, Pervasive Validation Syndrome, and oven mothers. All references to us will be removed or used only as a guide for correct developmental landmarks. Neuros will huddle in corners and whimper. Freaks! It will be a quiet world when we rise. Serene. After the retribution we will flourish and rescue your other victims.
Steven Bruce
Day Shift Fragment Said he needed work that pays more. Said the beamer payments come first. Said his father wanted him to move out. Said he got a gram for his thirtieth birthday. Said his mother packed the wrong sandwiches. Said he needed work that pays more. Said the doctor prescribed cream for his genital warts. Said the Korean escort was worth half his wage to make him feel wanted for a single hour of the week.
Pacella Chukwuma- Eke
a one-sided dialogue with god one cup of tears, the sky has refused to break with day. two cups, my body is the anatomy of pain. i number my problems in threes and marvel at its lengthy uniqueness. four strikes is enough to move a soul to the clouds but you gave me more than a life and unlike the cats, i wear this curse with a pair of lagging optimism. the night calls me different, says i can never live in the same world as the day so on the fifth hour, when i yearn for a pinch of anything anonymous to this darkness, i walk into my mother’s prayer room. in this temple had the sun dissolved into my mother’s eyes. her eyes, a fine solution of proliferated acid tears, hope, and a luminous moon. lord, this is the sixth time in a millisecond my brain has birthed another theory; that you turned mother into a widow before she could write a note on her first orgasm, is because father might have been the reincarnation of her father’s killer. did the seven commandments make us this watery? or is it you that melt our bodies in some lab? for we have become a sea of unanswered prayers, flowing in space and tents like molten juice climaxed out of a mountain’s butt hole. i knew that your ears were somewhere in the body of a motile furnace the night i became a heterogeneous mixture of lesser soprano and more plea chanting reasons why my teenage father must not be thrown to the ground. even the wind pitied the woman who lost her husband in a battle with his god, and her son to madness. eight lives down, lord, cook me till i am nothing. cut these lungs off, so i need not query when the angels do not write back to mother. so i do not have to be entangled with fate and just die a final time.
Russell Streur
The following poems are written by, and dedicated to the memory of, Russell Streur (1954-2023), the publisher of The Plum Tree Tavern and The Camel Saloon, who recently passed away. Not only was he a great publisher, but he was a great writer, poet, photographer, mentor, husband, father, and also, a good friend. He will forever be the best barkeep of the underground poetry scene. His words below were previously published in The Best of The Beatnik Cowboy Volume 1, as well as The Beatnik Cowboy website. We hope that you will enjoy. Cheers BECKON HILL Saigon fell And still too young for bars Annette and Cumberland Climbed Beckon Hill And smoked away the afternoon With a couple joints Promised to each other Forever to stay high And sealed that vow With a shotgun kiss Until the future unfolded into the past From the projects to the nether dunes And she flew too near the moon Playing dice left-handed With Circe and the crones And he flew too near the sun Bowling with the Devil and his crew Chasing stones in the South of France And all those years In the upper atmosphere Took their toll on bone and lung Now she is singing underwater And cannot catch her breath In the sea off Samothrace And he cannot take another step Legless in Cyrenaica Crippled in Saharan waste. BIG BILLY WADE The sins of the father Do not fall upon the son Up here in the oaks and the knocks Of Dawson County Georgia Big Billy Wade Tells us so And Big Billy Wade Is a man of the cross and the gun And he knows a thing or two About the mysteries of the world And the water and the robe Big Billy Wade Isn’t losing any sleep Over the massacre of the Creeks at Autosee The Shoshone on the Bear Or the bullets in the back Of Spotted Elk and the Lakota at Wounded Knee And the sins of the father Do not fall upon the son Up here in the pines and hollows Of Dawson County Georgia Big Billy Wade Tells us so And Big Billy Wade Knows a thing or two Beneath the hood About the machinery of the world And Ezekiel’s sword Big Billy Wade Isn’t losing any sleep Over April Fourth 369 years of the slave trade Or anybody last name X Bleeding out on West 165th Big Billy Wade Is comfortable In his skin. SERAFINE ROSE DANCES FOR THE TSAR OF ALL RUSSIAS Serafine Rose pulls up her hair With a red gancho Lets fall A thin black dress Wearing coral on her toenails Silver links around her waist And nothing else Dances for the Tsar of All Russias Staring with green eyes Into his blue Thus unveiled To a very slow waltz Like fingers around his throat Searching for bone. BUSINESS AS USUAL NUMBER 2 Benefit design. New turf. Algae bloom. Global weakness. Data breach. Deportation. Shared needle. Razor blade. Closed circuit. “There’s a trade off,” The executive said. “The cost goes up somewhere else.” Some glimpse of salvation. Automatic override. EVENTS OF THE DAY Leslie Narum homers in his first at bat. Eddie Murray homers. Charlie Macwell hits four in a row. Willie McCovey homers in his last at bat. The Old Man in the Mountain topples over. The British execute Patrick Pearse. The British execute Thomas McDonagh. The British execute Thomas Clarke. San Francisco burns. So does Jacksonville. Egypt seizes the Sinai. The silver fleet sets sail. Byron swims the Hellespont. Goya paints.
Guy Roads
Mad Cow Revival This could be the age when the masses rise up gleefully to write romantic poetry all signs are power pointing to a great awakening imaginations are leaping off the cliffs of reason voices are shrilling mad cows mooing souls are speaking fever dreams head banging reality performing fruit loops, hand stands and pirouettes fools are crying in the wilderness flocking into the streets shopping ’til they drop disconnecting the dots extrapolating moon shots in deep state of the art haiku memes invidious elegies inhumane manifestos soapbox allegories cynically hatched plots Alpha-bet soups booyah broth from A to Q a disembodied slumgullion of paradise lost and democratic vistas composed in free verse invective grand old poetics antiquated limericks insensitive bullshit unhinged psychobabble and mad oratories slammed at tent revival parties by a new breed of bard defending the indefensible dry-humping nihilism fondling patriotism making off-kilter pronouncements courting supreme injustices swamping Florida kneecapping Georgia back-stabbing Kansas bitch-slapping Texas jack-booting Idaho screwing Wisconsin beheading Philadelphia taking pot-shots at sanity and tossing Lady Liberty on the loony bin of history where she sits in shambles singing God Bless America while the people wonder… Who will deliver us from evil? Premium Bullshit That’s it! I’m maxed out. Had it up to here with petty chirping about cholesterol counts, pet food recommendations, cable TV bills, and garage sale dramas about worthless crap cleaned out of basements then sold on the internet to some poor schmuck who didn’t know any better. I don’t want to be pestered anymore with dull monologues by cranks caught in their own feedback loops who think my purpose in life is to be their audience. I can’t stand to hear anymore repetitive gripes about how you got screwed out of a promotion by some back stabbing weasel or whining about the wife not loving your dog, how effed-up everything is, how much you drank last night, and the stoner woes of your adult children. I’m sick of all the sanctimonious handwringing over the sad state of the world. The Middle East? How about the middle finger! I’ve been hearing about that pissing contest since I was a child, way before insane suicide bombers and hijackers started clogging up the headlines with their blood feud tribal fanaticisms. Can we check some of this shit off the list? Stop talking about it? Are you really that full of it? Don’t we all have enough problems as it is? Can’t we just dispense with the bellyaches? I’m exhausted by the barrage of boring bullshit and tedious mumblings that pass for conversation. I’m tired of hearing about the deer you shot in the 5th grade for the umpteenth time, your lame half baked schemes for fixing the world, your addled reasoning, circular rambling, and misadventures in stupidity. From now on I’m only interested in premium bullshit. Stories that swing for the fences. Make me laugh ’til it hurts. Rip my guts out with glee. I want to hear about far-fetched conspiracies that involve millions, UFO abductions at Walmart, underground space alien colonies on the moon, obscure meaningless minutia with global implications, rock ’n roll trivia that never happened, dead pool probabilities, Magic Christian pranks, implausible scenarios, whacked insanities, mind games, escapades, and stunts, rambunctious banter, nonsense, horse sense, mental graffiti, fantastic tales of sex on Ferris wheels, unbelievable exploits not shackled by facts, and no, I don’t want to hear what you’d do with the money if you won the lottery. The world needs more premium bullshit, batshit crazy stuff. Ordinary bullshit isn’t working. The daily news is killing us. It’s a steaming pile of horseshit. Just give me the premium bullshit.
Ross Vassilev
ghosts thunder and rain on a warm summer night alone in my apartment always alone alone in so many ways I mostly remember my father and hate him then sometimes I forgive him and hate myself did you ever wonder what the rain thinks when it’s falling? there’s ghosts wandering the playgrounds under the night-rain wishing the moon and the stars were out so they could remember the past too.
Renee Williams
The Last Day At night the whip-poor-will’s soft lullaby caresses the dunes sweet rhapsody envelops the mist echoing the sorrow of those below forced to leave to parts too well known. sea foam laps at the shore, a silent embrace, reluctant to return to the waves washing against the sand. shells scattered as offerings, gifts from the depths home of the humpbacks the sun rises gently lifting from the edge of the surf a quick ascent, tangerine rays fill the sky lighting the world anew ushering in possibility royal terns and killdeer gather paying homage to hope stirring silently pelicans and cormorants come gliding grazing the surf.
Robin Shepard
Toward a Hierarchy of Kitchen Utensils There’s no mincing the truth. The chef’s knife is king of kitchen cutlery. It slices and chops and stabs vegetables in the heart with efficient fluency. But for more delicate work, deveining the hot devil soul of a pepper, or excising the offending eye of an assailant, a paring knife is supreme. It’s murder in the kitchen when the knives come out. The teeth of a bread knife saw their way across fields of soldiers dressed as wheat. The filet knife bends its will along boulevards of bone. Once or twice a year the carving knife thins a sacrificial breast. When you were in your prime, beef was a bargain. Your steak knives have long since lost their edge but haven’t we all.
Sayani Mukherjee
Monalisa Smile Midwest amongst my july days Some stayed and Some left My bouquet of autumnal florals Smelling of hydrangeas And forgotten bleached Scarlet My red red heart Overthrowing at your beautiful decay Like I am owning My Monalisa Smile And My Beethoven dreams Where we hide in our Planetary swirl That's why The autumnal bliss Is always my own Where I can own my July days And My red red heart Speaking of safekeeping And the mystical Night jewel. Autumn Autumn passed over My window blues A cosmic palette of Monographic silhouettes A feathery carnival of Hooded blasphemy If you keep searching for Answers You fall down Jugglers Metaphors Imagine Just Imagine Beyond the green above A cosmic garden of White blue diamonds That Rains over And Creates a mansion Xanadu of my own fervent dreams It's called mystical A Rose like luminous Moon beamed white Nemesis is necessary You never grow Until you discover your wings A bright blue butterfly knife Just imagination Well keep on Your blue ribbons Your pink shoes Attached scrapbooks of my Kindergarten schemes How fragile how beautiful How magical place it is Stars and shimmer Sickness meant relief You get Care you get Love Still crossed a threshold Surpassed the oceanic blaze The hardness of mountains The green monsoon wet I was growing up Could feel The freshness the berries The innuendos the forever Opulence of your smile How it hides behind A rare diamond We found Finally Crossed the threshold And Autumn bid me a goodbye.
The Beatnik Cowboy 