Strange Tequila At the border crossing from Mexico to the US, I stood with my filthy backpack in front of a customs guard. He scrutinized my face without expression, and said, “Will you please take that off and place it on the table in front of me?” Instead of terror, I felt a Yoda-like calm, though I knew my two tequila bottles filled with psilocybin honey would soon emerge into the harsh desert light, clutched inside the guard’s imperious grasp. He extracted the first bottle from the damp underbelly of my dirty underwear and squinted at the grainy bits of mushroom heads and stems floating in viscous soup. “This is strange tequila,” he said. “Yes,” I agreed. “It was a gift.” Technically, that was true. A man had given me the bottles at a Palenque campground, because he liked my energy. I left before I had the chance to prove him wrong. My energy was like a two-year-old child’s crayon drawing. Yet now, stoic and self-assured. The border guard shoved the bottle back inside my pack and pulled out my cannabis pipe. “I suppose this is also a gift,” he said, but his voice was gentle, inquisitive. “I hope you haven’t used it.” “Of course not,” I said. “I just like the way it looks.” He nodded, thrust the pipe back into my pack and smiled. “You can go now.” I hoisted the load across my shoulders, gave him a jovial wave, and strolled back into the country of my birth. A pockmarked sign above read, “Welcome to Texas.” So many miles to go until Wisconsin. Good thing I still had my strange tequila.
Todd Mercer
This is Your Fork in the Road Cain said “Hey, Bro. What’s that noise?” Abel looked outside and didn’t see his end coming. How many murders since then? We’re surprised every repetition. If Cain could take it back, would he? He’s the first villain, the O.G.s’ O.G. Flawed man.
Bruce Mundhenke
Those Days In those days, Everything was new, The smell of fresh green grass, And spearmint... We sat outside, Listening to AM radio, Transistors, playing top 10 hits, Or baseball games. At night, we watched the stars With wonder, wondering... Death was far away, And love was just The way we lived. Laughter all the time, Embracing what was seen, Never fearing what was not. Anything could happen any day, And in those days, Something always did. In those days, We were living the dream.
S.F. Wright
PARENT-TEACHER NIGHT Leave early, Beat traffic. Sit at your desk, Grade. 6:00: A few parents in the hallways; None come to your room. 6:15, 6:30, 6:45. Much grading. 7:00: a woman enters, Along with a girl— One of your students. The mother asks How she’s doing; Fine, fantastic (she has an 81); Love having her in class (she barely talks). 7:15, 7:30, 7:45— Over the P.A.: Parent-Teacher night will soon end; We hope you had A productive evening. 7:59: stand by the door, 8:00: lock it. Driving home, Remind yourself To tell Melissa That it was nice Meeting her mother.
Howie Good
Insectopia It’s a country one only hears about when there’s a military coup or a 7.2 magnitude earthquake, or when the bird flu crosses the species barrier to humans, but it’s where, after the clock wound down, I ate a picnic lunch beside the grave of the patron saint of outcasts and rebels, and later, wearing a knockoff of Kafka’s barbed-wire halo, I climbed the steps carved into a hill to visit a holy spot once reserved for virgin sacrifice and now a gathering place for toothless old women in babushkas who believe it’s bad luck to ever kill a ladybug.
Jeff Weddle
Ragged Angels Young ones in small rooms chasing the poem chasing the story going crazy starving for something they cannot name. Drunk at noon and midnight and four a.m. Young angels wandering hard streets with desperate eyes angry and in love lost on the edge of nowhere. Beware them. They are vast and magic as the moon soothes nothing as the sun burns their eyes as the sidewalks lie hard cracked and unforgiving beneath their holy feet. They are explosives meant to shatter you and keep daggers hidden in worn notebooks which you will someday plunge willingly into your own heart. They need nothing you could ever give. Heaven means only the right words spilling from their hands. This is their salvation all they ever desire. I know them. Beware. I was once among their host. How It Goes The girls in their pretty dresses protected by desks and distance from the dumb, eager boys and the old letches with their books and chalk and dandy dreams, heroes of past seduction and then the hallways packed with no one wanting to be there and the girls in their pretty dresses and first-try makeup lipstick bright and shining sometimes sad often laughing these queens of every imagined romance objects of hard desire and all the old men in the teachers’ lounge heading home to old women or empty rooms while the bright, clear day becomes dark and soon is years past and years more gone and the girls in their pretty dresses try to remember the good times of their glory and maybe laugh at the awkward boys who wanted them way back in the day with no thought of the old teachers who watched them come and go and come and go until they finally died as the girls will someday die and be taken to the last place in pretty dresses with one or two left to think about nothing but home and a late lunch a cat to feed and what they might do tomorrow who might be around to do it with and maybe something about the day after that
Judge Santiago Burdon
Wheelman This run is my swan song after tonight this smugglings gonna stop every headlight in my rearview mirror looks like it's a cop all these kilos in back they're weighing heavy on my mind I can't get busted Lord knows I'm too old to do anymore time. I sleep with one eye open I keep the other on my gun I'm the only friend I've got and I'm not sure he's one I can trust you think it's easy cash But it cost far more than it's worth profit from broken lives The money blood stained and cursed. I run on stolen luck and unanswered prayers no guarantees in this business my only insurance is some criminal’s word I’ve used so many aliases my real name I’ve forgot lost a wife and family and too many friends to count Don’t judge this life of mine don’t blame me I'm just the wheelman Supplying you, you and you with what you need.
Rob Plath
no, just, no somebody told me once “god never closes a door w/ out opening another” & i thought, what shit if anything that bastard bricks you the hell up into a tight little shit house where you pound & claw until the walls are smeared w/ almost everything that moved thru yr goddamn vessels & you wait for death to swing its dark sledgehammer cracking a crazy hole the size of yr cadaver talking to the dead i walk outside 91 degrees late august & i sit & braille six beach stones i collected after my mother died it was her birthday two weeks ago then i decide to examine the backs of my hands protruding vessels just like my mother’s hands we’ve always had them even young these blue rivers gathering at our wrists i imagine rivers smoothing rough stones into glass & the knuckles like five little adam’s apples jumping whenever our hands performed something i remember my mother always chopping basil & slicing green bell peppers as a child i thought her hands seemed separate from the rest of her body the adam’s apples jumping her hands breathing fed by a web of blue rivers i can’t talk to the dead but i’m lucky to have the same backs of the hands these breathing hands i open & close them beneath the hot august sun ride the starlight i tried to be a recluse in the womb but i was trapped inside the hell of another human & surrounded by others so i kicked the walls of the blood cocoon & they thought i wanted to be born but i just wanted to ride the starlight back to my true home my old home never had shit on my heart while chilling in the stars now i have an ever-growing heap so i go out into the night gaze up at my old residence & my dark heart-strike mimics the tapestry of silver winks
Thomas Elson
The Bears Bear it alone. Bear up. Bear your grief. Bear your pain. Bear your fruit. Bear a child. Bear the cost. Bear a grudge. Bear your soul. Bear your weight. Bear arms. Bear witness. Bear in mind. Bear any burden. Bear any cost. Bear any scrutiny. Bear right. Bear left. Bear with me. Bear my grief. Bear my pain. Bear my weight. Bear my fruit. Bear my child. Bear my cost. Bear my burden. Bear my grief. Bear down. Bear it alone.
Daniel S. Irwin
Spieling a Good Line It would seem I’m spieling a Good line to this woman at the bar. She’s set on comin’ home with me. I see the two fresh heady drafts The barkeep just set before us. So I say, “Let’s quaff” She says, “Oh, wow. Is that anal?” Then, it’s, “Can I bring a friend?” Whoa, holy moly, a threesome. “I’ll just call my husband and he’ll Come over with the goat and whips.” There are times when one excuses Oneself and just slips out the back.
The Beatnik Cowboy 