I Don't Even Smoke I must confess that I have lived there is proof in the soot rimmed candles I have burned my lacy delicates hung over the shower cigarettes I don't smoke left in my car well-loved loafers boasting the imprint of my small feet I have been loved, and sometimes have loved in return my long brown hairs left behind on lovers' pillowcases flowers slowly rotting in a ceramic vase tear stained sweater sleeves I have been someone's everything and then their nothing and I have taken all of my love back and walked away into the night
Author: The Beatnik Cowboy
Jack Henry
street level dark shadows loiter behind giant shiny thrones to avarice & greed, while monuments of acquisition stare down the abyss, as citizens tremble from hunger inside houses made of discarded cardboard & plywood. gangs rumble threw Shantytown, demand their pay. protection. one dollar. american, motherfucker. and cops just roll by, in their shiny metal boxes, bigger fish to fry, their own shakedowns & fake takedowns to make, pierce the inky black night w/glaring lights of blue and red. no trust for the police as they just roll by, alone in a pool of my own blood deep down Los Angeles down near the concrete river i shouldn’t be cops just roll by just a dumb white kid in the wrong place, receiving end of the dumb white kid discount, all your money to get out alive, motherfucker. and the cops just roll by, singing: hey babe! take a walk on the wild side. i said, hey honey, take a walk on the wild side.
Bruce Mundhenke
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.
The Beatnik Cowboy 