Airplane Mode
So what if I don’t put the phone on airplane mode?
Will it mess with the cockpit and send us smashing to the ground?
And while cleaning up the crash and collecting our body bits will they find my phone
and trace the disaster to me?
I wonder about these things as I sit in my aisle seat.
I need an aisle seat because I’m claustrophobic
and just plain scared about this whole flying contraption.
Yes, yes, I know, it’s safer than driving the freeways,
or so they tell us, they.
Admittedly, I’ve never been killed in a plane.
Nor in a car, for that matter.
I’m alive and get from place to place.
But still rather frightened.
Not just about transportation.
So if I don’t switch the setting quickly on the phone
have I doomed us all, this young family across from me,
the teenagers behind, so much ahead of them all?
I’m ignorant, and forgetful, and not a seasoned flyer,
and never ever listen to what the attendants say
or read about plane crashes and their causes.
So I just don’t know.
The modern world is a mystery, so many electronics that
might fry our brains that we don’t know about
until the tumor is too big.
So far, though, so good.
I mean, I do know how to switch my phone over,
and, there, I just did, just saved everyone.
But I always speculate before we get up in the air.
Jesus, man, I’ll just take the train from now on.
Though I’ve heard that when cattle get stuck on the tracks
it can be a real mess.
Job
This job, this mind-mashing driving-me-up-the-wall job.
I get 20-minute breaks and it takes me ten to disengage,
decompress, and am still depressed.
Fifteen minutes into my shift I’m suicidal.
Hey, he asks, happy here?
Not ecstatic, no.
Why? Cause it’s my role to ask.
I need the money, get it?
Sure, I do. So quit if you don’t dig it.
The walking dead could do this in their sleep.
The walking dead, I think, don’t sleep.
Well this place would knock ’em out.
You have a great phone voice, that’s why we hired you. Ever
consider books on tape?
Huh? What the…
Just an observation. But we need to sell this stuff, and fast. Can you do it?
Thanks for nothing. I quit.
Cool. Love chatting. See you tomorrow.
After blowing his brains out while lying in bed I slept fine,
and applied to In and Out Burgers.
Goddamn I should have gone to college.
life
Philip Ash
LONGHAIR
I was an aggro teenage skinhead from NYC. Cro-Mags sounded great live at CBGB. I was used
to risking life and limb on the subway at 4 a.m. Never got mugged. People were afraid I’d mug
them! Puerto Rican kids pounded on train door glass. Cop just laughed. I used to act crazy and
curse on the subway, until it wasn’t pretend.
Relocated to too mellow San Diego in my junior year. I embraced thrash metal and grew my hair
long. (Nazi skins pissed me off.) Discovered high school football to vent anger. I shoved my left
hand under an opponent’s shoulder pads, jammed them into his neck, right fist punched the
exposed solar plexus, did the swim. . . made defensive All-League.
Smurf had a parrot. We blew pot smoke into its cage until it fell over. I drove to Santa Monica
Civic Center with some long-haired buddies at 110 mph in my huge Buick LeSabre. Saw
Megadeth and Motorhead. Later, John jumped off the La Jolla Clam with his arm cast. We heard
him yell from the water below. He ran away to Seattle and worked on a garbage truck. I threw a
half-full keg through a window. We made homemade sangria in new plastic trashcans by beach
bonfires. Pals traveled to TJ to see Masters of Reality, but the Ramones were in town. Nobody
else showed up. “Play! Play!” We got to hear their soundcheck.
And that nice, plain girl asked me to the prom. I said no and went with artsy Sophie who grew up
on a Tahitian island near Marlon Brando. She planned to commit suicide at 50. After the prom,
I got a fifth of Jack Daniels. We went to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Allegedly, I tried
to strangle my best friend. Now, years past, after heavy medication, sobriety and bits and pieces
of Eastern philosophy, I wonder if my prom date actually killed herself. She was there when I
painted an inflated brown paper lunch bag in red, white, and blue, and popped it behind the art
teacher. “Pop art!” I yelled. He gave me an A.
HEAVEN OR HELL?
Illegible black and blue scrawls fade
in your high school yearbook. If only
you’d caught the screen pass on 3rd
down. You wouldn’t have grown
that resentful rectal tumor following
years of depressive self-hatred.
Trade up relationships and get traded.
AIDS is more treatable, though sport
fucking remains unsatisfactory. Use
others like commodities. Sell high.
Middle-aged respectability gives
way to silver-haired playing the field;
widows, widowers and divorcees
swipe dating apps along with Gen-Z.
Try and remember why you tied
a string around your big toe. Clip
coupons for products you can’t
comprehend. Take a nap as ceiling
fan slices daily memory debris.
Pour a mix of experiential dregs
through time’s funnel. Inhale fumes
after you lick life’s last drops. Slide
under your grave while Betty Boop
cartoon headstones laugh and sway.
Afterlife involves watching unscripted
reality TV reruns on a sagging couch
and scarfing processed junk food.
Smart remote becomes eternally stuck
within a cushion crack. Pizza delivery
stays forever 15 minutes distant.
P.A. Jones
What I Do When Anger Wants the Wheel
Anger shows up in my truck at dusk,
door already open,
boots on the dash,
mud on the floor mat I just washed.
It smells of old arguments and sweat.
It knows the roads better than I do.
It tells me to drive faster,
tells me every light is an insult.
We pass the pawn shop with barred windows.
We pass the church with the empty lot.
We pass the house where I learned
how to turn silence into a weapon.
Anger taps the glass with one finger.
Every face outside becomes a threat.
Every memory turns into a blade.
The past climbs into the back seat.
My hands tighten on the wheel.
The engine swells with heat.
The speedometer rises toward confession.
The road narrows into a dare.
Anger tells me to say the thing
that burns bridges to ash,
to make a clean break
with a dirty mouth.
I pull into a gas station
with one light working.
The clerk doesn’t look up.
The floor carries a thousand nights
of spilled drink.
The freezer hums with buried hunger.
I shut the engine down.
Silence fills the cab with weight.
Anger curses the quiet.
I stay in the seat.
Keys in my fist.
Breath stacking slow in my chest.
The blood cools its fists.
Anger slouches in the passenger seat,
mouth full of smoke,
eyes hunting for an exit.
I don’t throw it out.
I don’t give it the wheel.
I start the truck
when my hands stop shaking.
We leave the lot
at the speed of staying human.
Unarmed
Listen.
Violence don’t start with fists.
It starts with fear.
Fear of losing ground.
Fear of being seen.
Fear that if we stop talking
the truth might speak first.
So fear puts on a clean shirt.
Signs papers.
Prays in the pew.
Calls itself necessary
and sleeps fine.
Faith gets drafted.
Not to heal,
but to steady hands,
to bless force,
to make panic sound holy.
Meekness gets laughed at.
Softness gets you killed.
Certainty grabs the mic
and nobody asks who wired the sound.
That’s the game.
Keep it loud.
Keep it moving.
Keep everybody reacting.
No time to notice
your jaw locked tight.
Because if you stop,
really stop,
the story don’t hold.
The body knows.
Chest tight.
Breath thin.
A man can shout God all day
and still feel fear chewing his ribs.
So I step into the quiet.
Not hiding.
Not holy.
Just a place where nothing works
except the truth.
No weapons here.
No slogans.
No crowd to disappear into.
Just breath.
Just fear.
Just staying put long enough
to see what’s actually driving.
And once you see it,
you don’t get to unsee it.
Violence ain’t strength.
It’s panic with permission.
Faith ain’t certainty.
It’s staying when fear
demands an answer
right now.
So I don’t strike back.
I don’t harden.
I don’t pretend I’m clean.
I refuse to let fear
finish the sentence.
A small mercy survives this way,
quiet,
stubborn,
strong enough to tell the truth
without raising its voice.
This ain’t peace.
This ain’t victory.
This is a man
standing in the noise,
choosing attention over armor,
learning, slow and honest,
how not to become
what he’s afraid of.
Eric D. Goodman
I Hear America Crying
I hear America crying, the muffled cries I hear,
the worried cries of drivers along city streets and country roads,
tension of black hands gripping steering wheels,
the flash of blue lights in the rearview mirror,
the exhausted crying of laborers with calloused hands
that scrub floors, hold mops, grip tools,
hours that grow heavy with the weight of work unending,
the moaning crying of well diggers, oil riggers, miners, blacksmiths,
knuckles worn to the bone as they unearth and create
goods they will never afford,
the grinding, rattling crying of mechanics
beneath hoods, underneath vehicles,
oil-stains lasting longer than paychecks,
the painful crying of fishermen and butchers and farmers,
massive ships and farms and warehouses full
while their families’ cupboards remain bare,
the cries of the weary,
working two jobs, three jobs,
building debt instead of wealth, uncertainty instead of security,
the crying of the mother, of the young wife, of the sweatshop girl,
supplementing paychecks of the rest of the family,
even cries from the wealthy, reaping the benefits of others’ labor
yet watching their portfolios disagree with their intentions,
falling and making them feel poor,
each crying with breath broken
beneath the weight of American dreams deferred,
crying for what they wish could be
a joyful, melodious song.
Blue Collar Orange
I wore blue all my life,
to shield, to serve—
the weight of my badge
an anchor I let dig too deep.
I’ve pinned down criminals before,
voices thinned beneath me,
beneath the law, the rule, the authority.
Sometimes they struggle,
fight the power,
resist the law, the rule, the authority.
Situations escalate, egos inflate,
sometimes theirs, sometimes ours.
It’s my duty to press harder,
to enforce the law, the rule, the authority.
Blue fades to orange,
badge traded for bars,
conviction my new shade.
Me, now raw as the men
I’ve pressed into cold streets,
another victim of the law, the rule, the authority,
locked up
but still breathing.
D.R. James
April Fool
Just because it’s linearly April the Second,
who’s the boss who says this punk-ass snow—
reduced now to an intermittent drizzle whizzing on the roof—
and this one-tone, tag-along slab of sleepy gray—
since the sun’s just up—
and this white elephant of an extra hour before barreling in to work,
and then the kids coming tonight from their mom’s
for Sorry—
or not,
as’ll happen—
who says it can’t all go perfectly
with this seasonal transition’s shy thunder
clearing its phlegmish voice
over all these leafless trees,
with this mismixed black-and-tan of mismatched Spring?
I’ve let myself grow fond of longing
for set pieces,
for still-lifes requiring
one from Column A,
another number I forget from Column B,
a soundtrack from, I’m only guessing,
Column C,
figuring it has to be this prissy mania
for the alphabetical.
Meanwhile, while the world gets away
with spinning its weighted wheel any which way
it wants, our singed hearts roulette
for whatever weather rolls in off a controlling coast.
But what of these self-tranquilized tendencies,
our domesticated blood?
Couldn’t we eat a rich lunch at ten,
decide on another at two,
boldly call it supper
and be ready for breakfast by five-fifty,
then call it a night
or, even better, a new day?
In any case, couldn’t we be more awake, more
Thoruvian, with “Rock Around the Clock”
our invocative alarum
not some old benedictive ex∙e∙unt?
(I’m beginning to sense some hostility.)
Which reminds me of the time my third good idea—
that one involving literature and the golden summer of ’77,
which we spent largely melting into a solitary beach
until our bones felt as though they’d bake along
and last forever together—
turned out to be just another in a long
but entertaining line
of nice-to-have-known-you usurpations (though by now
it’s taken the form of a couple
tortured
decades),
which was before poetry—
wide-wale cords
worn thin across her bony cheeks—
materialized from the dust, squatting
predictably over an opened road,
and smirked me into this other,
this more welcoming,
dementia.
Swimming
Apparently it has been said
that two lions guard
the door to Enlightenment. But
Paradox and Confusion, two
of the best friends a guy could hope
to leave behind,
seem more like two winos
blocking the door
to your apartment, trying
to avoid enlightenment,
though they don’t know it.
You could step over them
but you’d risk their awakening.
I wish I were an abstraction
in the form of a non-cognizant
but ferocious mammal. Not only
would I be warm-blooded
and highly respected and
sporting a non-thinning mane,
but I could save all the time
I now spend attempting
consciousness. It’s also been said
that I tend more toward
the cold-blooded (possibly
reaching luke-warm when sunshine
heats up the lagoon) and not
regularly regarded, since I’m off
swimming the world, looking
for the world in which I swim.
Which is funny if I think about it.
Which I can’t. I’m like
Prufrock in his flannel pants,
pushed around by a Symbolist,
three teeth cracked on peach pits,
love life always aground
around tea-time, sleeping
just out of earshot
so as not to drown.
Livio Farallo
abracadabra
there’s a noise
in the alchemy of
the
countryside. there’s a beaker
of saltwater flush
as an
ocean. i can’t dance
like a snake, so i slither
in olfactory
exhaustion and bite down hard.
the sun is a bright mountain
defy-
ing gravity: houdini with a smile. and
someone is
waiting in the siberian traps with a demitasse of dna,
ready to slurp: ready to
scald. and i am a clown
with my own nose
rid-
ing ponies like a surfboard.
a whine comes from a snowdrift,
adumbrates
a whisper, a snore, somnambulism that floats
like a ghost through
basement windows. it could be the wind murmuring “presto”.
it could be the giggling of a pint-sized giant
pulled from a hat.
but the only magic i’ve seen
is simply a hand
gun
fir-
ing backwards and a
cell phone that smokes.
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.
Alan Catlin
Mister Lucky
When he was in Nam
got transferred
from Danang to some
dinky dao airport down South
in east jesus on the coast
of nowhere.
He was short, but, pissed,
thinking they needed an
air ground controller there,
like Custer needed more Indians,
and he was stuck all by his
lonesome with a bunch of strange
hand jobs he didn't know from shit.
Two weeks later,
he was sucking in the smoke
of many dreams,
trying hard not to cry, or
be as paranoid as he felt,
trying hard to feel lucky,
being the only guy in his
former unit left alive after
that base at Danang got overrun,
and some serious shit hit the fan,
"Jesus, fuck, Man, shit……"
was all he could think to say since
he heard the news, and he felt as if
he'd been fucked royal up the ass
in the jungle by Sir Charles himself.
Hadn't slept in four days,
'cause every time he shut his eyes
the screams of the dying men he knew
at that base, woke him up into this
place that was so much worse than
bad dreams.
Guys who saw how he was sd.,
"He was a walking Section 8
waiting to happen. As good as dead
as far as the army was concerned."
"He was better off dead.
At least then it would all be over
and he wouldn't have to think about it
anymore.”
Unknown Soldier
He was born on the Fourth of July
beaten at student demonstrations
in Madison
Chicago
Columbia
He was shot at by national guard
troops at Kent State
arrested and confined in solitary
after Jackson State
Bitten by police dogs at civil rights
marches in Alabama
Mississippi
Georgia
He was Vietnam Veteran for Peace
at anti-war marches
well into the 70’s
Was tear gassed
billy clubbed
pepper sprayed
But he never gave up
and he came back
and you can see him marching now
He is your father,
brother
uncle
cousin
on crutches
with prosthetic limbs
riding in a wheelchair
Follow him and
shake his hand
if he has one
Flashback
"I beat the bottle but
I can't beat the war"
after an acrylic on canvas
by Ron Mann
30 years after
the fact a lawnmower
two yards over
backfires and just
like that I'm back
in-country sucking
in lawn chemicals
instead of air,
all that fertilizer
for a mind on a
perpetual edge
recalling an agent
orange dawn that
colors all the jungle
a dark unnatural
light like the hand
of death pressing down
the sharp, bladed
grass next to a
recently roto-tilled
garden plot, that
graveyard for lost
crops, plowed under
plants, dead soldiers
composted a dark, rich
loam thick with earth
worms fattened on
the rotting skins
of the dead
Reagan Shin
Kintsugi: Gilded Clay
Crash. Smash. Flash.
The shatter of poetry splinters like my life,
fragments spilling across the floor.
What I have lost,
I’ve learned to gain.
The damage within me,
liquid gold poured into my bones
to fuse the cracks
that have formed.
It is my job to rise,
repair my own damages,
to make myself beautiful,
and forget the brokenness within.
Why am I so prone to shatter?
Why must I be both the potter and the pottery?
Kintsugi repairs,
but how many times
can I be fixed,
before I am nothing but dust?
I can be repaired,
but why should I?
Is it my responsibility,
or that of my creator who destroyed me?
Although kintsugi is art,
pretty, shiny, and lovely,
the pottery will never
be fully whole again.
There is beauty in brokenness,
but at what cost?
If you wanted gold,
then why would you
sculpt me
out of clay?
The shine is pretty,
beautiful yes,
but it is unnatural,
nonetheless.
I used to believe
that if I repaired myself,
I would become
more perfect than before.
You wanted a vase made of gold,
and I could never be that.
No matter how hard I try,
there is no way to turn
clay to complete gold,
despite the fusion attempts.
Sink or Swim
The ocean is calm tonight.
It’s always the calmest before the storm.
People see the sea
and look at the ripples of water,
assuming that it must be peaceful
because calm is comfortable.
But I have learned
that water is fickle and serenity
is nothing more than a warning:
brace for impact.
Being born in a hurricane
teaches you a language
spoken only to those
tempest-tossed through waves.
Inside the hurricane
is the eye of the storm.
That peace can only mean one thing.
This isn’t over; it’s just begun.
Oceans are unforgiving,
even in its kindest calm.
It will drag you down,
and suck you in forever.
A tourist may think
that the sea is gentle,
but a sailor like myself
knows better than to trust the waves.
Sink or swim
but never drown,
in the hidden waves
or the cruel tides.
In the water is where
I have learned to survive.
Judge Santiago Burdon
It Could Be Worse It Could Be Raining
Up, out of bed 3 pm Saturday San Jose Costa Fucking Rica, I can smell the rain with a mixture of car exhaust and diesel fuel, gray skies gray world, just the Gods reminding me what a hangover looks like, the storm has already saturated the city, flooding streets and low lying areas, the smell triggers my olfactory memory machine to recall fond thoughts of Mexico City, resulting in a smile that occupies what feels like my entire face, replaced quickly with a grimace from the pain of this cancer eating away at me like alligators gnawing from the inside out.
The Gods, hilarious bastards yuckin' it up at the joke they have perpetrated, I could have contracted Lung Cancer, I've smoked everything that can catch fire, Liver Cancer, the fish drink like me. Quote from a past love Christina. I drink like a fish I once stated, "No Santi the fish drink like you", Cancer of my blood, I've shot and tried to shoot everything that would dissolve in water, even cough syrup with codeine as well, Stomach Cancer no, never been a big eater, the thing I enjoy most Sex, so I get diagnosed with Prostate Cancer.
Those of you thinking Karma, kiss my ass, you people piss me off more than christians, as though there is some cosmic cloud waiting to rain down retribution for malicious acts I may have performed during my present or past life, now I am really agitating myself, past lives what a myth, Karma was created to pacify the Egos of those who are not willing to fight back.
Bad luck the culprit maybe, luck doesn't exist good or bad, it's just the consequence to an unforeseen event, nothing more, there are those that need to believe in some mystic force, an omnipotent deity controlling their destiny, you think I'm coming off a bit self righteous do you, demonstrating my best character flaw.
I was scheduled for an IMRT treatment and Doctor's appointment this morning at 10:30. I'm now a no-show and will once again be lectured on my apathetic attitude concerning the disease. It's not that I'm indifferent or have succumbed to the consequences of the Cancer, sometimes I just don't feel like fighting an enemy I'm unable to see. Also I'm thinking quite possibly if I ignore that it exists maybe it might just go away. Another pathetic attempt to fool myself. Even though it always ends with the same disastrous results. I know better.
Andrea calls often to check up on my condition and has accompanied me on a few IMRT sessions at the hospital but didn't like seeing me in that way so she stopped coming.
Usually she calls shortly after I've injected a massive dose of morphine and I'm too high to carry on an intelligible conversation, when I do attempt to speak I drift back and forth from English to Spanish then French causing her to laugh, her voice temporarily slaps me back into cognizance, screaming:
" Español Bigotes! Porfa Espanol"
We’ve been sort of together for a couple of years. Sort of is because she enjoys her employment as a prostitute. And I don't want her to be with me if she's not ready. I once asked her to dedicate five years of her exclusive affection to me in return for a sizable inheritance, assuring her I wouldn't live that long, she declined graciously with a passionate kiss, her hands cradling my face.
" Mi amor tu sabes no hay nada que pueda matarte. "My love you know there is nothing that can kill you. I think you will outlive me.” I had just celebrated my fifty-sixth birthday, that was eleven years ago when I made my request.
She has never asked me for anything except during moments of passion. I've attempted to convince her she does love me only she just doesn't know it. Evidently falling in love with a man like me is a risk she isn't willing to take.
I'm out of coffee, cigarettes and morphine, exiting my place with no umbrella, off to the Pulperia and Farmacia, the prostitutes flash their twenty dollar smiles and Los Bichos de Calle (street insects, bugs,addicts) are out early searching for Rocka Tocka (crack), the deluge increases its intensity, the sky crackles with lightning. It could be worse, it could be raining.
The Beatnik Cowboy 