Anthropocentric Bastard
She wasn’t saying
you’re a pompous elitist,
only that your anthropocentrism
appeared on your sleeve when she said
she was eating dog food, then had to explain
she meant people food she prepares for the dog.
It was only after she felt the need to translate
love is love in culinary terms to mean
food is food that you became an
Anthropocentric bastard.
Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal
Here I Stand
Here I stand
Less than two years from sixty
Snowflakes in my hair and beard
I should sit things out
I should be exhausted from the search
I should accept defeat without shame
Like a leafless tree I have become
In this station in life
Death Is the conductor
My spirit should be ready for flight
Oblivion street calls out my name
The road is an easy one
I have little strength left
The journey is winding down
The blue skies darken
The doubt comes from the shadows
I cannot find the path
There is not enough light
Tell me, am I am just a fool?
Obscurity is so profound
I sing for you
Sometimes I think you can hear me
As my voice dies down
The blue skies darken
In my dreams I fly toward the sun
As an infant
The wind tosses me around
I deserve more than solitude
Tomorrow I might feel different
Zhu Xiao Di
When Not in the Mood
When not in the mood
Writing a poem
May soon change
And bring back childhood
When not in the mood
Try to write a poem
It’ll make things right
Whatever weighs you down
When not in the mood
Begin a poem
At any age
It’ll help you stay young
Bob Humphrey
Terms of My Surrender
I am not ready to leave this world yet,
but just in case, I need to get my terms agreed.
First, I’m a little claustrophobic,
so no tight spaces please.
And just in case there is a hell,
I don’t want to be on that list.
I always tried to be nice to people
and that should count for something.
And if I make it to the pearly gates,
I don’t want to be pulled out of the line on a technicality.
And if there is a do over of my current life, some kind of Buddhist thing,
that’s okay as long as I can remember the mistakes I made in this one.
Maybe I stay at home next time and marry my high school girl friend
instead of going to Woodstock and taking LSD.
And I wonder, can I stay in touch with some of the people in hell?
Most of my best friends will probably be there.
These are my terms,
hope I am not asking for too much.
Like Crazy Horse, I will surrender peacefully,
but please don’t fuck with me.
Joseph Farley
Look What I Found
Those eyes in distant cities
Still scan my screen from afar.
It is so easy nowadays
To be robbed from anywhere
In the country, in the world.
I hear other fingertips
Tapping on keyboards
While I type this on my own.
Hopefully they will like this.
They can steal this poem.
Errors In The System
We could not get it right,
Those signals from the stars.
Our vocabulary of the infinite
Could not articulate the knowledge.
Communication here on Earth
Rarely does much better,
A never ending guessing game
With the truth a moving target.
We must fudge the results
At a galactic level,
As well as for the local
And the very personal.
We seem to get by often
With an approximation.
That's only when we're lucky.
Error is what we are,
For we are terminally human,
Even if that's wrong.
Another Tuesday
It is Tuesday and I am unimportant.
Which is fine.
Why should Tuesday be any different
Than the other days in the week?
If I squash some bugs under my feet,
Or trample flowers planted
In areas for public viewing,
Maybe my stature will grow.
But only inside my head.
Outside my skull I’ll remain
A little man on a tiny planet
That thinks it’s a lot bigger.
Nicholas Viglietti
Shot Glass Night’s that Pass
Live open
As fast as you can.
Leave ash,
And less cares
For your demands.
For the Adam’s of the Slap-dicks
You ain’t ever gonna win.
I eat to drink,
So, these hips can fuck –
I’m the spice
And You crave my season.
Live all the pumps
That propel your heart,
And release your conscience
For idiotic Adam,
And his stupid fuckin’ sin.
Gabriel Bates
The Doldrums
I went to see
my therapist today.
Nothing new
to report.
But there are still things
I keep from him.
Like the recurring nightmares
or constant anxiety.
Outside the office,
a cold rain falls steadily
on the dead leaves.
Nothing ever seems
to change at all.
Alan Catlin
Ray
"Did you ever kill
anyone over there?"
the waitress asked.
"It was a
war, sweet lips.
Sure, I killed
people.
Slant eyes
were made
for killin'
I grabbed
this gook
mother
by the neck,
told him
in Viet Nam Ese
you have
20 seconds
to live,
motherfucker,
better start
runnin'
He hauled
ass all right
but I ain't
never seen
a gook yet
could outrun
a round.
He was no
exception.
Wish I had
my 'Yards
with me.
Those bastards
woulda cut off
his ears
and eyes
and nuts,
Man.
Sure, I killed
lots of people,
what of it?"
Replacements
No one wants
to know names
of the new guys
It’s not practical
as half of them
will be dead
inside of a week
Besides they
replaced old
friends who were
blown away
Who wants to be
reminded of that?
Peter Mladinic
Collaboration
I woke this morning in the dark with a face
in mind: a senior citizen wanted to reach out
and, I suspect, apologize for a wrong done
some sixty-five years ago. Sorry, no thanks.
I too have been tempted to reach out, even
atone. “Let sleeping dogs lie, let the dead
bury …” I think there’s an animal buried
in my back yard. There’s grass and then
an area, a sandy rise, like a pitcher’s mound,
and, here and there, patches of black plastic,
like those thick trash bags, little triangles of
black plastic sticking up. Part of me wants
to start digging, but I might have to call
the city health department or animal control.
What if it’s a person, a human corpse?
I doubt that. I woke with that boyish face
and a thought of buried things. Some people
have gardens. My friend Bob’s sister scattered
his ashes in her garden. Some people have
watch collections, others coin collections.
My DVD collection I got rid of. I replaced it
with, I’m proud to say, being somewhat tech-
challenged, digital movies! This morning
I thought Ray, I should go to Amazon for Ray.
The click of a button. Taylor Hackford’s film
starring Jamie Fox as the great Ray Charles.
In one scene Ray’s sitting at the piano and
the guy who plays the great Ahmet Ertegun
comes up to him. “Hey, Ray, I got this song …”
Ahmet sits at the piano, in a little whiny voice
sings “You can talk about the pit, barbecue.”
Suddenly Ray’s banging away at the piano,
singing, screeching, shouting, the camera’s
whirling, the moviegoers in the theater, ones
not dead from the neck down, at the edge
of musical greatness, are out of their chairs
at “Now this band’s going to play from nine
to one.” The camera’s whirling, “the house
is rocking.” Jamie Fox nails “Mess Around.”
When The Buffalo Springfield sang, “Hello,
Mr. Soul, I stopped by to think up a reason”
they were singing about the great Ahmet
Ertegun, the son of a Turkish ambassador.
I love that part in Ray, where, at the piano
he kind of mumbles, then Ray takes it, letting
us know it’s great to be alive, not ignoring
the buried things. Keep them in perspective.
Richard LeDue
“The First Drink”
Remembering empty glasses
staring at me
like eyes all cried out
after another night
of whisky and laughter,
I’m reminded of the hangovers
filling me up
with a fresh sort of pain,
that helped me forget
the reason for my first drink.
The Beatnik Cowboy 