from the smokes of long dead railroaders
sure her cat puked on the desk
my grandpa rescued from the train depot after the big fire in ‘36
sure she sold my rusted out MGB/GT
the one with the wire knock-off wheels
to an Okie while I was in rehab
and sure she spent the proceeds from that little swindle
on plane fare to Chicago to visit her mother
and sure I couldn’t get enough
of eyeballing that German/Mexican jalapeno ass
or the tamales she cooked in the big pot on my old Kenmore stove
but I wasn’t all that sorry
when she came to me on a snowy blustery evening
with big tears in her eyes and said
I’m going back to Billy
he got out of jail and he wants to have a baby
and you don’t want to have a baby
and you’re so drunk you can’t get it up most of the time
and I like you but I really want to have a baby
so I’m going back to Billy are you mad at me?
sure I wasn’t mad at her
sure I was relieved that I wouldn’t be cleaning any more cat puke
off the big slab of oak that I prized for its history and its connection
to my grandpa who began railroading
on the Kansas Southern in nineteen twenty-two
and who swallowed mustard gas in the war to end all war
and who kept a flask of “pain killer” out in his garage
along with his pea green 1950 Studebaker Champion
but I might have been a little bit mad about those tamales
because I’d never eaten homemade tamales
and unless you’ve eaten homemade tamales
stuffed with pork and homemade masa
wrapped in fresh corn husks and steamed in their own juices
or sat at a big desk that’s scarred by burns from the smokes of long dead railroaders
and waited for another poem to show up
you can’t possibly understand what this poem means
love
Adam J. Galanski-De León
COME SIT BY THE FIRESIDE
Rosehill Cemetery gates across the street
barroom, front patio, back patio, dining room
one bar back. Career alcoholics,
a sea of pony and half barrel kegs
lining the floors of the basement
change the sanke, wrench the nozzle, Co2 tanks
hissing beer pouring from brass taps
pint glasses sweating in the heat
bouncing, Latin Kings smashing bar stools
on my back, people stomping on heads
on the sidewalk
shot glasses thrown in my face, pint glasses
coworkers fucking each other in the bathroom
biker lady wielding a Billy club at my head
ex-girlfriend crashes my van out front
CPD extorts me for four hundred dollars
run to the 24-hour Jewel to grab cash from the ATM
homicide detectives next to drug dealers next to
Pakistani cab drivers and service industry regulars
and sex workers, cockroaches crawling out of our food
they are in my clothes, fall of the ceiling into my hair
I ladle one out of the ranch dressing, one crawls out of my salad
Juan fucks up and is attacked by a woman clicking a taser
Tommy scales the wall to break in and cooks himself breakfast
and is knocked out with a punch to the face
then scales the wall and does it again
my Tai boss takes me from my shift in the middle of the night
to bring me to her Lady Boy Show in a closed off
Tai restaurant in an empty neighborhood
people are slipping twenties into thongs while the
Lady boys dance seductively and sing karaoke
7 AM, we are shotgunning Strongbow in the parking lot while
cyclists go by to start their day
boxes fall over int the beer cooler, our glug wine container
is filled with trash, spit, and germs, and we microwave
it and serve it to customers
a terrible man asks me to phone him a cab to Rogers Park
I send him to 95th and Halsted, his wife is in the hospital dying
and he is here hitting on 21-year-old girls. Leaving,
a coyote follows me down the street by the train tracks
the street is covered in mist, unseen birds singing.
I walk a mile home
in silence.
Danielle Hubbard
To you who stole my bicycle
We used to tackle Knox Mountain together, me
and Knoxy, the trails criss-crossed like scattered
spokes, Lake Okanagan flaring
around each hairpin, each blind turn, blinking
between the scrub-trees, bright
as titanium rims. My Knoxy
was a humble Trek Marlin, but fine
fine fine to me. I stabled her in my living
room and never went to bed without patting
her handlebars goodnight. She carried me
sweating and elated to the library, swimming
pool, the scrabble-trails of Rose Valley
before they burned. Knoxy was marigold
red, the color of the Okanagan
on fire. She bounded sure-wheeled
over boulders, bracken, down inclines
steep as stairs. But here’s the thing – it wasn’t
the fires that got her. It was you.
An August Sunday, I glided
downhill to the pool, locked
my Knoxy safe to the bike racks, snug
among the Schwinns and Huffys, all
wagging their fenders, catching
each other up on the gossip.
I remember the smoke that day, thick
as rubber mesh. Across the lake,
Rose Valley candled in the wind.
The crown of Knox Mountain dissolved.
At the end of my swim, only a Knoxy-shaped
gap remained at the racks.
My helmet quivered on the asphalt
like a severed skull, or an eggshell kicked
from the nest. The other bikes cowered
as I gathered the remains, the lock
clean-severed like a vertebrae
when you land a jump dead-wrong.
What can I say to you – you
who stole my Knoxy? I want
to tell you to clean her chain, lick
each link until your tongue
gums black. I want her gears
to crush your knuckles if you ever
– I mean ever –
frame her as a getaway
accomplice on your next
dumb heist. You better
ride her heroically or bring
her home, you fuck.
Why I covet the color magenta
Because fireweed is a voyeur,
flocking to the site of a blaze.
Magellan’s armada was the first to claw
its way around the globe – magnificent!
Magenta is an extra-spectral color,
not derived from visible light.
Extra-special, extra-terrestrial.
Magellanic Clouds turned out to be galaxies,
gyroscoping out of grasp.
Magellan’s crew died of scurvy
and hallucinations – spectres, spooks,
tug-of-war with tortoises.
Ladies of the night wield magenta parasols,
garters, all those trappings of want.
I covet the color magenta
because of arterial maps, oddly faded.
Because of charts and magnetism,
chalk drawings, compasses,
the all-encompassing gravity of space.
Placentas, placebos, and magic.
Magenta is the patron saint of escapism,
the magenta sky orchid a symbol of wealth
and admiration. Magenta neckties
stand out in a crowd. Magenta lipstick
is only for special occasions – a trip
to the planetarium or a certain rendezvous.
I crave Crayola markers, cartoon dragons,
flying saucers. All the conspiracies of childhood.
Magellan himself was speared to death
half-way home. The Jovian gas giant Gliese 504b
shows up as magenta in the radio images.
I want to bounce it like a rubber ball.
If I could choose a color for my breath,
I’d choose magenta.
If the Magellanic Clouds could rain,
we’d all go up in star-fire – marvelous!
William Longman
Birds
the poem
in that literary magazine
such pretty words
it’s an exquisitely feathered
brilliantly colored
miniature songbird
admiring itself
between nervous head flicks
in the small plastic mirror
hanging in its cage
the poem
I just wrote
a large black raven
twitching carrion
in its indigo beak
death and eternity
in its cold eye
crow-hopping
unsteadily away
after having slammed
mid-flight
into the window glass
Death Row
we’re all on death row
the end of each day
another temporary stay of execution
but what will you do tomorrow?
will you sit in your death row cell
consumed with dread fixation on
the ticking clock?
will your death be quick
the snap of a light switch
then darkness?
or will it be a gradual dimming
a slow tearing away
of everything you are
as you spin on a spit
over the fire of dementia?
will you try to drown out
this inevitable cadence
in a room littered
with empty bottles
needles
a bent spoon
scattered pill bottles
all illuminated by a flickering tv screen?
will your fleeting solace
be shattered by the harsh early morning light
of awareness
that you’ve actually moved the clock hands
ahead not backwards?
or is death your intimate friend
the certainty of extinction
a context
the compulsion
the focus
the electrical current
to do what needs to be done?
in the short light
of this winter’s day
do you push for
the extreme life
the ever-present ticking down of the clock
taken as a beat
for dancing wildly
ecstatically?
do you burn with a ferocity
that illuminates
and warms
those around you?
we’re all on death row
the end of each day
another temporary stay of execution
but what will you do tomorrow?
Transmogrification
a gentle flickering of fluorescent lights
subtly animates
the hospital crash cart
a pulsing dance
of crumpled bloody wipes
and expended tubes
the only movement
in the vacated room
the accompaniment of steady beeps
and strident alarms
now silent
a bed sheet drawn up
to cover her face
yet
she still sees
briefly regards all this
in confusion
then is seized
by a great ripping apart
forcefully
and irresistibly
yanked upward
and outward
into a painfully bright
new daylight
wings suddenly stabilize
newfound flight
through strange new skies
amidst a frantically wheeling
flock
Pawel Markiewicz
The mysteries of four seasons
the dreamed winter
the storks sitting meekly in Africa
the butterfly frozen in the marvelous pond
mice write a gorgeous myth
a rural boy longs for the moonglow
witch apollonianly bewitched
a stunning world
in a moony way
I am full of druidic wizardries
You are like a dragonfly
We are singing
the dream-like spring
the storks are coming home so tenderly
the butterfly awoken in glory but sitting
mice write ovidian songs
a rural girl yearns for afterglow
in addition hex enchanted
a dazzling world
in a starlit way
I am shrouded in this cool mystery
You are such a firefly
We are trilling
the dreamy summer
the storks are nesting mayhap peacefully
the butterfly flying over becharmed garden
mice write Dionysian ode
an auntie is bent upon blue hours
the enchantress is conjured
amusing world
in a starry way
I wrapped in plethora of sorcery
You are Dionysian spider
We are chanting
the dreamful autumn
the storks are going to fly off musing
the butterfly dreaming just before coming death
mice write Apollo’s hymn
an uncle muses about cool star
the sorceress enraptured
such a cute world
in a moonlit way
I stay under a spell of tenderness
You are like a charmful bee
We carolling
The Beatnik Cowboy 