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Go to the Poets’ Bios BOILED WATER AND KETCHUPOn the stairs,I eat cabbage soup,but the “stairs”and the “cabbage”are there just to makemy life soundbetter,more there for youlike matching chairsor money.In the stars,I have no faith.You find significancein the dayof my birth.I eat butter and sugar,stale cake and crow.Go to the Poets’ Bios WAILINGFrom the garage apartment, mydaughter texts:I answer:. Attempted suicides,running away, psych wards—we’re primed for tragedy, myheart races easily, she’s codedfor anxiety. More than one nightwe hear wailing. I text:The coyote runs down the alleyhowling like a woman who’s killedher children, like a woman scorned,her wails like La Llorona’s, likeFanny and Alexander’s motherkeening the night her husbanddied while her children watchedher pace and wail, spying wide-eyedand frightened, like the feral kittenswe find on the lawn, dismembered.Go to the Poets’ Bios KEEPING IT FOREVERBillie misses her bus,so we walk toward her office.A few blocks downshe takes my hand;the traffic beside us fades awaywith its horns, its engines,its smoke, its heat.“Wait a minute,” Billie says,stopping in mid-stride.“There’s something in my shoe.”She leans on me to crookher left leg and pull her pumpoff by its heel. A rockthe size and shape of a dried beanfalls out on the concrete.I pick up the smooth stone, put itin the palm of her hand.Looking into her eyes, I laugh,“The princess and the pebble.”Billie puts her arm in mineand pulls me to the corner café.“Just for that, you can buyyour princess a coffee.”Sitting outside, she pushes the stonearound the table as she sipsfrom her paper cup.“It’s our baby,” she says at last,“and I’m keeping it forever.”HOLDING ON TIGHTOn Saturday Billie gets uphalf an hour after I do;she finds me at the stoveheating a cast iron skillet.“What’s cookin’ good lookin’?”she says, wearing my boxer shortswith the blue and green stripesand my red-checked flannel shirt,threadbare, loose and soft.“Welcome to brunch,” I say,“fried baloney and a sliceof cheese on toast.”She yawns, rubbing her eyes;“There better be coffee.”I point to the machine drippinghot water on the grounds,steaming out the charred warmthof musky earth, the smellof primal life, fresh and strong.From the cupboard, Billie takestwo mugs, adding sugarand a bit of milk to each.The baloney sizzles upin glossy mounds;I flip the slicesto brown their other sides.She stands behind me,resting her head on my backand holding on tight.Go to the Poets’ Bios TUESDAYS IN NEW JERSEYHalloween, and I watch my son, intrepid Superman,trip over his cape, walking around Union City with his classof four-year-olds. They hang tightly to a long white rope.I am a fearful man as it is lately, no hero, afraidof black cats and masked men, over-worriedabout cars suddenly careening out of control,of Kryptonite falling from the black heavens.This park, a patchy place of green and cement,provides cold comfort: it is deserted.I need a cigar. Across the streetfrom Martin’s school, a funeral home. Today,people will bury Jose Hernandez, aged twelve,ailments, desires, and ending unknown to me. His motherwears brown, carried aloft by a throng of familyand do-gooders. Our eyes meet, and she is ashamedof her grief. I want to help carry the casketto the hearse, but it is small, grey, shinyin the unusual searing sun and heat.The casket is not five feet long. This cigartastes like burning black tires afterskidding over a vast sandy stretch.Inside for lunch I help serve pizzasand Oreos. My son will probably turn out gay—he likes show tunes and wipes the crumbsoff the dirty mouthsof other boys. This is all fine with me.I am in a state of shock anyways, no longerbound by laws of narration or newspapers. In the corner,a timid Dominican breastfeeds her four-month son.They are more beautiful than Abraham’s wrists.I stare, unafraid to show my concern. Her brown breastappears full. I fall to my knees and reachfor that woman’s daughter,my son’s classmate, and clasp herto my heaving chest, whispering into her frightened ear,there is enough today, for once, to go around.IN AKRON, OHIO WHERE TRAGEDIES HAPPEN TWICE A DAYShe said all there is is tuna saladand I said nothing after fucking tastes goodand this damned door doesn’t close correctlyinto the battered oak of this falling frameon Kling Street in Akron. I go outsideunprepared for the first snow, a twitchy rainthat sucks up the light before moving eastwith head speed to other nervous onlookers,Erie, Buffalo, Boston, and then disappearinginto the cracked-in-half Atlantic. My sock printsare soon covered over.Go to the Poets’ Bios SITTING ALONE PERFECTwhy dothey not talkabout me?sitting alone perfectheart out ripped look redfirst feet met made kickeddown take spent fist fitmidnighton waysitting alone perfectin mypassingin the HallSpiritswith all I knowGo to the Poets’ Bios ALTARBOYShe madeimages flashin my headthe girlfrom eighth gradewho whisperedin my earpromised mea home runjust lay backshe saidand let me doall the workI’d heard that beforeit sounded like whatthe parish priest saidbefore he drowned meand when shetouched melike he didI struck outINCIDENT ON OLD MILL RD.Ian stumblesto the door,knocks.1:30AM.Jamie answerswhat the fuckare you doing herethen noticeshe’s seeing Ian througha haze of bloodcar broke down manJamie pulls him inyou drunkyeahwhat the fuckyou driving for you dumbshit you coulda killedsomeoneIan shakes his headblood droplets stainthe throwrugand whispersholy shitwhat, what’s wrongthe chickin my car, man, I thinkshe’s deadso they go out to the carshe’s dead all rightface sunk into the dashboardlike an angelfalling from heaveninto a marshmallowJamie stares at herI don’t recognizeher hair manwho is sheI dunnoI just picked her upin a bar somewhereJamie gets an idea, sayscome onwe got work to doand by morningthe car is a pileof scrapand the girlhas disappearedinto the Alleghenyseven and a half milesfrom Jamie’s houseand they are at Jamie’s housethey drink beerand Jamie bandages Ian’s woundsand no onewill everfind outthe girl’s parentswill filea missing persons claimbut tell no one they believeshe eloped to Tijuanawith the high priestof a drug cultJamie and Iango out and getanother ’72 Torinojust like Ian’s old onesplit a sixpackon the way homeRIVER, NOVEMBER 5, 1992Curled upon your sofa, you sippeppermint teawait for the kissI hope you’ll allow me.You’re almost small enoughto curl up in my lapmy arms around youwith one hand on a thighwhile the other strokes your arm.You rub your cheekagainst the flannel of my shirta playful nip on my armand a wicked smile.Quick, my lipson the back of your neckand we stretched out, clutchedone another, chests together, legsentwined. Nuzzled,laughed, gasped,wondered how both of uswere lucky enoughto get hereas we kiss, deepforget there’s a worldbeyond the doorGo to the Poets’ Bios SEISMIC INTIMACYMonica lives in a deserted tower block,in her kitchen there’s a clock with no handsand although she cares about climate changeshe thinks that deductive reasoning is moribund.I find this to be an abhorrent position.We have always been honest with each otherso I suggested she deduce the reasonI cannot continue to see her.Go to the Poets’ Bios GRAVITY GRATEFULLooking down from high places don’t bother me at all but when I have to look up at things like buildings it makes me nervous cause it feels like some kind of force like a magnet or something is going to pull me up and lift me off the ground which is a lot worse than falling ‘cause if you’re falling down you know you’re falling and that’s that but if you get pulled off the ground and lifted into the air you’re not falling but you could fall at any moment and there’s no end because if you fall you have to land but if you’re lifted up it could go on forever and I hate that.Go to the Poets’ Bios ALICIA STONEHART (video) She wanted a little room for thinking,another for sleeping with strangersshe’d meet in out-of-the-way bars.A space for counting the slightsshe endured during her time at workdelivering proposals to bored boardroomcolleagues waiting to escape to ski slopes.She needed a room for stitching desireinto slinky black dresses, anotherfor dinner meals taken alone in dim light.A cage for her anger, a den for self-pity,and a large cavern to hold the echoes of her dreams.ANCIENT APPAREL (video) she sold antique clothesfor exorbitant amountsbut not oftenin a neighborhood side streetstore front that she got fora really great ratecause Andy owns the buildingand he’s not much of a negotiatorwhen he’s nakedwhich he was and she justhappened to have herbankers glasses on.THE TROUBLE WITH SWANS (video) Swans are mean ..meaner than geeseand mallards and mangy dogs,cats or little girls chasingbutterflies with a net ..Just plain meanand stubborn and sometimesdumber than postsand when they’re noisyrun away quickly ’causethey bite and spit when they’re yelling ..Like men ..Go to the Poets’ Bios I MISS HERThe possible and the actual spin a toy propeller.My life’s a model airplane, every day a flightof fable. Thus, we flew the globe together.Now, she’s . . . I don’t know . . .a rubber ball.She’ll bounce like ballsdo, I think, but backshe shoots stoleby an elastic string I can’t see.The paddle, what’s the paddlein this battle of wrack and whack?It’s her fear and it’s mein the wrong game.The ball’s her trap.She’s inside,ensphered.A rubber snap,and back she goesAnd I miss her.Go to the Poets’ Bios THE INHERITANCEI met a PEZ dispenser collectioncomplete with fungal-eyed Donald DuckSanta Claus of black moldand a brown sticky stained JFKbut never met my grandfather’s brothernever knew the man who owned the housewith the power permanently shut offI knew his boxes of toolsand lawn mower partsphotos shoved in suitcasesspilling war memorabilia hula dollshis blankets and towelshis drawer of stained underwearI knew his jar full of doorknobsa box full of dog collarswith tags still attachedshopping bags of congealedbananas in the closetnext to his rifles and shotgunsI knew the woods of his backyardDouglas Firs and SpruceBig Leaf Maples and Aldersshooting through Stinging Nettlesand Salmon Berry bushesthe lumpy rooted groundand layers of pine needlesturned into dirtwe took box after crateand crate after boxof burnable and unburnable shitand threw it on a burn pilewhich teetered and twistedwith each new additionlike a beaten MechaGodzillawe dismantled his double-wide labyrinththe twelve of us grandkidsonly illuminated by chinks of lightcracked in the panes of plasticgangly shadelingsgreen skinned and yellow smiledour hoodies and jeans reeked of smokewe found reel after reelof porno filmsand read the little preview bookletsholding our breathsmemorizing each pretzelof orange-ish flesh and shadowand name tamed each little fetishwe found magazinesunder his bed that dissolvedinto mucus in our rubber gloveswe found license platesfrom all the statesperched in an a-frameon coffee tins full of matchbooksfrom cities we’d only heard aboutsome monsters love a mazelove to loiter lostin stacks of old telephone booksor reams of graph papersoaked through with coffeesome monsters burnat the centerlike sparklers duct taped and spittingwe found a bookshelffull but not with the same bulgingas the kitchen cabinetsnot with the same melancholyof the partially dismantledmotorcycle engineleft on the guest bedthere’s a comfortin seeing shelvesstuffed with bookslike watching one’s parentskiss open-mouthedso in spite of the dampboxes bound with electrical tapeand the smell of rotten pot-piesunder the watchful eyesof John Wayne Dean Martin and velvet Jesusthere was a melted butter part of methat wanted a moment to thumb the coversto grab a hardbackand glance at the synopsispretend to read ittrace the spinemurmur in the secretunderstanding of the over-readthe books lit up blueflames licked the ink from coversand cradled burlap-bound bindingsin trembling arms of gold and greenmy grandfather shoved the gunsand a few Charlie Pride recordsinto his truck bed and bounced awayI never knew whythey never spokesince my grandfather’dcome back from the warI’d heard it might’ve beenmy grandmotheror their mother’s deathor not paying a mortgagewith the money being sent homebut my grandfather enlisted at seventeenand what kind of assholeexpects a fifteen year oldto pay a mortgageand holds it against themeven as they go into hospiceprobably the same kind of assholewho’d leave twelve teenagersin charge of an epic burn pilewith two gallons of gasand only one fire extinguisherI can’t remember who decidedthat the warrant to just burn everythingincluded parts of the houselike the wooden panels from the wallsand the garbage disposalbut I was the one who decidedto put the fridge throughthe living room windowand it was me who threw in the fire alarmswhen they started screamingas the smoke started billowing inwe ripped out the bathroom vanityand the kitchen cabinetswe tore out the carpetand yanked up the floorboardstill we found a dead cat in the joistshead cradled in its stiff armswe all stopped and watchedmy sister gently wrapped itin a Seahawks blanketand set it on firewe left the floor alone after thatand started tossing in shingles from the roofwe went out into the woodsand snagged snakes and slugsfrom under fallen logscovered in lichenfrom the insides of fernsthick with sporeand whirled them inwhere they popped and hissedthen we threw in the fernspulling them out by the rootsand they sang for uswe were disappointedwhen we threw in a wholeunopened fireworks boxnothing happenedbut a ripped open bag of flourcaught our clothes on firein an unexpected whoosh of lightwe made torches of dripping plasticand shoved them into anthillsand into the sidingstill on the housenecessitating extinguishernecessitating a potassium bicarbonategame of freeze tagwe went up the roaddug up the mailboxand heaved it inwith the cement still attachedthat day’s coupons spilled outlike corneas of ashwe threw in our boombox as it warbleda punk cover of Favorite Thingsfrom Sound of Musicskinny bare-chestedwe breathed in the smokeand screamed new screamsfor the dead things inside uswe spoke in tonguesall the languages of the worldthe language of the angelsascendant and fallenwho gathered in our nameas we convulsed on the groundfilled with the holy spiritwe skanked till we pukedand slid around in the holy mudof our own blessed vomitwe puked out all-you-can-eat pizza chunksenough to open a Dominoeswe puked out Ritalin and Vicodincreating a yellow brick roadand skipped down it arm in armwe puked black tumors the size of our fistslike a genetic splicingof cockroach and rutabagathat pulled themselves aroundon stubbed appendages through our sickwe puked the waters of the Puget Soundbitter as drowningand filled the smoke with ghoststhe memory corpulent crustaceansthe memory of seaweed locked in icethe memory of saponified women in the darkfor God was with usour lips burned and cracked with firewe lifted our charred talons skywardwet with gasoline and garbageand God was fireand we were God’s ovenswe roamed the earthinviting people inand grilling them cleanclean enough to eatA CALL TO MUMMERYIf you wish to be warm,better start seven fires.One, with folded laundry and books,one, with sawdust packed motivational posters,one, with ballets in a booth,one, with the money from a till,one, with bras in a mall,one, with Molotov cocktails,but all their flames won’t be enough:you yourself must be the seventh.If you don’t wish to be alone,better win seven friends.One, who fights like a copperhead,one, who karaokes like a boss,one, who cusses every time he speaks,one, who loans out Grand Theft Auto VI,one, who plays the body like a rainstick,one, who whispers all through the night.Two are loyal and four are fierce;you yourself must be the seventh.If you wish to trespass into joy,collude with seven criminals.One, who always gambles on red,one, who shakes a rattle-bag,one, who lies through a wooden nose,one, who sniffs glue and then sticks around taking apart toasters,one, who makes a big breakfast and sleeps all day,one, who shortcuts through San Pedro Sula for smokes,each of these will lift the fence,but you yourself must be the seventh.If you want what the body wants,swallow seven fruits whole.One, with the texture of crocodile skin,one, sweet as sin and stewed in knowing,one, bright with the light of an eclipse,one, dusted with stolen Funyuns,one, empty as an unsucked straw,one, filled with visions of oyster shell heaven.Take half orally, the others as suppositories,and you yourself must be the seventh.If you need another drink like a racer needs a roll-cagebetter binge on seven juices.One, of fresh squeezed fossils left by Satan,one, of fermented juniper and myrrh,one, of colostrum sweetened with after birth,one, of seven kinds of apple,one, of a white bronco fleeing down the highway,one, of formaldehyde-mix pumped through a parent,Three may blind you, all will hold you, none will wreck you,you yourself must be the seventh.When all your brain walls fall apart like frozen peasAnd all the cannibal corpses stumble in,better pray at seven temples.One, that serves the ace of spades,one, that preaches reverse cowgirl incarnation,one, with a potluck after Sunday service,one, a redhead with a confident tap dance,one, an ancient ruin covered in graffiti,one, a seesaw train of candles lit and melting.When everything’s been gnawed awayand all the whisper words get said,there will be one last psalm for sing songing,one last gasp for gripe groping,so you yourself must open up and be the seventh.If you wish to see the face of God,better wear seven masks.One, of a cat full of bees and honeycomb,one, of a starling without holes,one, of River Phoenix grown old,one, of a chess match almost won,one, of a cockroach throwing a stone,one, of a televangelist just out of prison,all of these together will not dim the light:you yourself must be the seventh.Go to the Poets’ Bios WIDOWINGMy old friend,recently widowed,texts about going for wings,but not at a bar,which is where he met Lauren,and I say, okay, then where?A fire hall, maybe,though we are not men who hunt or fish,or know how to harvest and sow.We know how to drink,and punish our bodies with excess,a penitent impulse for one thing or another,and don’t believe, really, in fraternal orders.But he says the Veterans Postwhere he had his first kissand we had our first smokeand I laugh,because we are not men who fightor go to warbut I agreein the spirit of friendshipand remembering how good the cold airfelt on my cheeks after dances,and the shared thoughtof the moonon wide streetsand the sound of our voicesfor dead-quiet blocks.Go to the Poets’ Bios THE CASE FOR INTELLIGENT SPACE ALIENSFancy begins to sound realwhen earthlings come up with wordslike ultra-cool red dwarffor a common star and name it Trappist -1after a robot telescope in the Chilean desertand when Trappist-1 is pinpointeda mere 40 light years away, right therein the Aquarius constellationwith seven Earth-sized exoplanets.Only 4,150 degrees Fahrenheiton the surface, half as hot as the Sun,so the exoplanets might be cool enoughfor rocks and water or better yetpond scum for intelligent aliensto get their slow evolutionary start.A few billion years from now,says the learned astronomer,when the Sun has burned out,our solar system done for,the ultra-cool red Trappist-1will be a thriving infantwith gas to go another 10 trillion.If you’re a betting man, he says,you could argue there is time.UNREMARKABLELike when the sun comes up again,vague in fog, a fuzzy far-off ballslowly burning up, mid-sizeamong the Milky Way’s 100 billion stars.Except it’s ours and who am Ito call it unremarkable — big belittling wordwith a backwards knack for reminding youwhat isn’t there or might have beenremarked on? My father’s testicleswere unremarkable, on the last pageof the autopsy. (Dear Coroner:You don’t owe your life to them.)The Las Vegas gambler on the 32nd floorwho opened fire on country music fanswas unremarkable, the sheriff said.In the history of days, todayis unremarkable, yet somewherelightning goes to ground. A wayward lookacross the table changes everything.In a room without windows the jury deadlocks.Luck after all these years is timeto sip another mug of coffee, room for cream,and call a new day unremarkable,meaning praise.Go to the Poets’ Bios FASHIONImagine a smiley onion –that’s her,cocooned in so many layersshe must wish she was born with fur.In fact, she has a furry capthat’s always welded tight,becoming a puppy version of herselfeven her friends don’t recognise.“I could do with a few more tops,” she says,though her wardrobe groans with the weightof a great, messy torsofilled with fabric entrails.Foreplay is afterplay(it takes hours to unrobe),and her smile is widest in what she calls“bangery” clothes.She even wraps upon a first date(but not so much on the second),and she’s keen to speculate on temperature,her voice a thermometerrising higher with heat.Her back is always the coldest part,as though a stream runs there.All year, to her, is an Arctic season,so you’ll find her roasting her feet in the oven,and cold weather drags on her cheekslike cliffs about to avalanche.Be careful where you lay your clothes –she’ll snatch them like a fabric-Fagintill burdened with so many threadsshe’ll struggle to move even a toe.Go to the Poets’ Bios YOUTHA wheat field articulate with summer light and breeze;another of poppies, skirts lifted over their heads —part flirtation of the wind, part cancan, part innocence;grass down which to roll as far as I like;a boat, though empty, still swerves beyond my ken;her silhouette framed by the town, nocturne, sand,the startled look of her surrendered love;caravansary of music with all my friends;life without restraint, the content and precinctof a dream in which the world was kind—Go to the Poets’ Bios NOSTALGIA IS NOTas good as it once waswhen streets were narrowcars like works of artbig, busty, fat hippedstatuesque visions of our lustfor rides so deluxewe didn’t carethey guzzled gasas we eased down quiet roads.as it once waswhen skies were bluerthe air ice-water freshour lunches in metal boxesa sandwich wrapped in clotha thermos of sweet milkand home-baked cookiesthe sun splashing uswith uncancerous warmth.as when we had everythingon our sagging sofasthe TV selling uswork hardbuy stuff, settle downand be like the restof your kindly neighbors.as it once waswhen masculinity reigned,a man tookwhat he wantedno apologies, no tearsmen were men and womenhome cooking, cleaningand babies warm in our arms.as once upon a past timewe were happynot knowinghow wrong we wereabout everythingabout the futureabout how it’s supposed to beand how miserable we will feel.Go to the Poets’ Bios YOU PUT YOURSELF IN THEIR CARE AND THENTeenage surgeon introduces himself,assures me, unasked, not to worryonly one chance in 3000 this procedurewill puncture the wallof my colon.Nurse, adult in the room,rolls her eyes and taps my inner armto divert me exclaimingI don’t,just work as a carpenter,but thanks.Inserts needle, glances to make surewe’re alone, whispersTHOSE DREADFUL OLD HIPPIESNear midnighttwo drippingnaked neighbor womenpuddles at their feetknock at my kitchen doorflesh yellow under the bug-lightto invite me toa hot tub.Wrinkly like me, saggy,baggy, oh so gigglythey spark meone more timeto fall in lovewith humankind.They are beautiful.You are beautiful.This life we live is beautiful.Why can’t we always be naked?Go to the Poets’ Bios CALL ME MARTYShe says I look like a young Scorsese.Is it my nose? Busted where his goes bulbous.Is it my hair? I parted my hair today.Is it the glasses? They’re heavy.They sit on the bump on my busted nose.They nestle there and leave an angry purple expletive.It’s the swear word I wear, right?That’s my goddamned Scorsese scar?Martin Scorsese is handsome right?Say I’m handsome.It must be the eyes.How they look, hidden under the brow and brows.Tell me I look how Scorsese looks.Looks at 12 point Courier font,Looks at his fingersSmashing out pathos in moveable type.How he looks for absolutionThrough a heterodox lens.Tell me I look heterodox like him.Tell me I’m prodigal, honey.Tell me I have guilt.Tell me I’m an angry, broken motherfucker.Please, call me Italian.Let me be Sicilian for a night.Look at my penitent eyes.Let me build you a cathedral, sweetheart.A cathedral of light and vice.I’ll frame you at the altar, baby.Let me peer at you through the confession booth of a cameraIn black and white sin and forgiveness.Let me go 15 rounds with you.Let’s dance under the sheetsIn an unmarried, unsanctioned, repentantOne night fuck stand with you, my Magdalene,In a 35 mm Bronx apartmentWhile Ave Maria sings through your orgasmAnd you call me Marty.Call me Marty.Go to the Poets’ Bios TO LIE WITH FIREFLIESAND MAKE LIGHT OF THE WORLDIt was one of those cool, summernights in the backyardlooking up at the stars. The dogwas chasing fireflies through the night sky,and you, grandpa, were answeringevery question I asked about life, love andwhy sometimes people cry.I can’t recall every wordyou said, but I recall the words youmay have said best:“Don’t worry so much about the whys. Justlove every single moment of life. EspeciallyGrandma’s apple pies. ‘Cause you live a little andthen it happens: one day you just –”The dog caughta firefly out of the night sky.We rolled in the grassand laughed. Laughed the waythat all children are supposed to laugh.Go to the Poets’ Bios SONGI need to go out and kneel in the dirtand get my jeans soggy,wedge my hand under a tough weedand smile when the taprootslips from its straight, damp passage.

I love the way worms twist.

I’m sick of human jargon.



Life would make so much more sense

if I could work out why those paired crows

glaring from the roof ridge

keep kvetching with such vigor.



Please, teach me all the crow swear words.



I want to get down on my knees every morning

and wrestle with plain, wet facts I can smell.









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Stephanie Yue Duhem





NEIGHBOR’S BOY



When the earth is humming heat

and melting rust to dust,

and children lounge in silence

on peeling paint porches,



I feel the calluses on my feet,

thighs kissing stubbornly

pale slip of a lawn chair, not a real looker—



the neighbor’s boy plays just two yards away.



Today’s color scheme: complementary,

his brilliant red face among the hedges,

an apple bobbing in a sea of deepest green.



Just pucker up and pick it up, I say

(my proposal to peeling paint).



I rub the callus on my finger

where the pencil so likes to hug,

the closest yet to intimacy I’ve come;

only,

our pink flesh is meshed

when I chew the eraser that’s easy.



The lawn chair whines plastically.

Eyes clamped, I hum a carol,



banishing heat,

blurring red and green—



only,

that’s the neighbor’s boy I recall,

and he’s two yards away.





THE GRIFFIN



carved from oblivion i mean obsidian,

the black griffin guards my neighbor’s house.



i am afraid of it, a little bit.



not afraid that it will bark

or bite,



but afraid that it might

blink or

maybe



shift a smidgeon in the light.



making it known beyond a doubt that

while i was looking at it,



it was looking at me.









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Milton P. Ehrlich





AT THE END OF HIS EIGHTH DECADE



What does he want to do with the rest of his life?

Since he outlived his peers by eight standard deviations,

he’s inclined to reach for the brass ring of infinite life.

He rouses the sleepy Weimaraner between his legs

for a last round of carnal pleasure before returning

to the sea—singing a favorite chant from his army platoon:

Every night before retreat, Sgt McGillicutty beats his meat,

sound off—one two, three four.

He writes more poems, eats heaping portions of succulent seafood,

hoards a vast collection of amaryllis bulbs—

to watch them burst into a meadow of lovers kissing the sunshine,

and returns to the sea, swimming in a school of fish with best friends

alongside a smiling mermaid who used to be his loving wife.









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Frederick Foote





SIGNS OF THE TIMES



He was born under a bad sign

She was born with a losing hand



They were born in

treacherous times

to a declining race

in a disintegrating place



Birth awarded her a cleft palate

and a heroin addiction



She collected STDs

and casual acts of cruelty



He was issued a club foot and cross eyes

was fluent in the language of random violence

and cursed with a direct line to God



He said, you got three lips, most people only got two



She said, you paired up with a twisted foot

to match your opposite eyes and delusional mind



God told him it was a good point

for some random violence



He told God, another day another time

God say, you better do it my way



She said, if you talkin’ to yourself

you got a conversation with a fool



He said, I’m talking to God



She said, a conversation

between two fools



He said, amen to that



God said, she ugly

and you repulsive

both a disgrace

to my face



He said, there ain’t no shame

in looking like The Master



She said, I’m passing out

the disease of the day

if you want to go down my way



He said, going down to get down but

we need to do the deed in Bethlehem



She said, I do like the smell and

smoke of a steel town



Their progeny

was born

one handed

in that

ghost town

in a manger

under a

decrepit

abandoned

MAGA

billboard





RESCUE



She had artwork fingernails on 9 fingers

in blinding colors and dazzling designs

her left natural thumbnail

was coated in clear nail polish.



Her teeth were a bone white,

small and monotonous multitude.



Dirty brown eyes as hard

as Oak knotholes

guarded a dagger of a nose

topped by a cap of rowdy brown curls

streaked with gray and gold

matching her gray jacket

and glowing gold dress that accented

her small but attentive breasts she

stretched her long neck, parted her slivers of lips.



Asked me to dance, grabbed my hand,

pulled me onto the dance floor.



Whispered, “You are densely black and palpably lonely.”

I growled, “What does one thing have to do with the other?”

She ignored my question. “I can rescue you. “

“How? How can you rescue me?”

“Worship your blackness. Lick you shiny clean from head to toe.”

“I’m not dirty.”

“Not dirt. Despair, self-loathing, spite. Lick you born again clean.”

“You’re fuckin crazy. Why’re you saying this?”

“Because you need it existentially.”

“Now, you’re my savior? “

“When you take communion between my pale thighs and leave your lies there.”

“You’re sick. A very sick, confused, fucked up bitch.”

She sighed, flicked her tongue in my ear, ground her hips against mine.

She pulled away, pushed me back, “You can stay here and die a bit every day or come with me and be free – or at least a little freer.”



She walked out. She never looked back.



A few minutes later I ran out looking for her.

In vain.









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Gerald Friedman





SWEARING



When he said, “I’ll always love you, I promise,”

all the parts of his mind fell in,

outfitted for one mission—

an understandable illusion,

that an instant’s unanimity means

they won’t be goldbricking and scuffling tomorrow.



When she said, “Bullshit!”

part of her mind fired a gun—

blanks, but she could smell powder

as a whole poem smells of one word.

Her partisans of Believe him! Own him! Worship him!

trembled in caves, suspecting thunder.









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Daniel Galef





THE TORRENTS OF SAINT LAWRENCE

-or-

THE WEE HOURS



I stood on the street at midnight,

As the clocks were striking the hour,

And I was filling the gutter,

For the last beer I had was sour.

—from “The Medico’s Lament” (anonymous), 1899



When the smallest hours adorn the clocks,

men get a strange urge (whence

too many whiskeys on the rocks)

to spend a couple pence,

and stumble off a couple blocks

to piss against a fence.

(Chorus: “To piss against a fence!”)



Should at this odd time the Muse

strike the swelled mosquito,

he has in hand the tool to use,

and, in no state to veto,

our poet may proceed to ooze

a ureic graffito.

(Chor.: “A ureic,” &c)



In this position (and who would

in conscience want to be in it),

it isn’t clearly understood

the value that they see in it,

but sympathetic (not to say good)

that they should choose to wee in it.

(Chor.: &c.)



One notices these walking by,

down on some puke-specked street:

in summer they may water li-

-lacs and hydrangeas sweet,

and in the winter kindly try

and help to melt the sleet.

(Chor.: &c.)



If you pass, a moment spend

and wonder who I am:

Who was this pissed and pissing friend,

a hymnist or a ham,

the sprinkled-pants-legged sage who penned

this cryptic epigram?

(Chor.: &c.)



Ye’d understand if ye can ken

it’s just biology,

the product of a phallic pen

and good mixology,

which you could crack with crack foren-

-sics and graphology.

(Chor.: “You’re-in your-ology!”)









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Mac Gay





GREEN TUNE



Biology’s all up front

with its acorns and offspring

slanted toward the next spring.

But I lean to the past

toward all those I loved

now under the grass.

I try to stay in this instant

where things at least float

till they sink. Should I drop

the sweet sad eaches

and live in the species

like Keats’ nightingales

that continue their song

from bird to bird to bird?

Music is forever if nature

replaces the singers.

The world seems a garden

on top of a grave.

But the green tune plays on.





AT WOODLAWN



What a crowd turns up here,

supine beneath this jungle of turf,

shining from these clean stones.

Still, I’m feeling somehow they see

the same blinding blue as me

where heaven once was. All this reputed

repose should comfort, I suppose,

but looking down I’m stopped dead

by dirt. Yet I’ll bet when they turn

and sneak a peek down death’s abyss

it’s like when I survey the top of this pine,

then refocus higher to circling crows,

and again further up to the silver jet.

For surely there’s subverted sky in death,

inverted, with deeper niches for profounder

rank; And the hooks of the dead, too,

spectrumed from shallow to deep, wishing

that something, as promised, would bite.

Surely that’s what all this silent, still

waiting’s about. Some type of fishing.









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Kathy Gee





PIERCING



My dog, mine, for I can’t blame

the world for this affliction,

barks like a Great White Shark

would bite.



There’s a swooping start,

teeth raised in readiness. Then,

agonizing in its accuracy,

needle sharp and unexpected,

shark and dog rip silence,

slicing time until my ears

are screaming trails of blood.



A punch between the eyes

is said to stop a Great White Shark.

It wouldn’t stop my bloody dog.





TALKING TO MYSELF ON DARTMOOR — A drabble



The closest I can get is parking in this layby, window open, suitcase packed, a bacon sandwich in my lap. I’ve driven far and fast to find my younger self and here she is. ‘Come, sit beside me’. She would come here craving distance, trek past Dartmoor ponies, cross the peat where footprints leave no trace.



Our friends have died. New neighbours sing at funerals and she and I are strangers after thirty years apart. We’re not the same. She has to stay, and I must go. I turn my car towards the north and leave her, welly-deep in bog.









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Julia Gerhardt





HE IS NOT MY BOY (A Haibun)



Boys draped in soiled bed sheet togas slipping from their chests; girls on leather couches, white fabric riding up their thighs, giggling & gazing at their gods. The room is an exhale, an eternal pause of whiskey covered questions and wine stained mispronunciations. I’m dancing so close with a boy whom I do not know. He whispers beside my cheek, “Damn girl, I love you.” I laugh when I do not feel like laughing & pull my face away when I want to be close to something. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I do this loosely, lackadaisically, lovingly. I rub my thumbs at the base. “No, you don’t.” I know who loves me.

We are so far a—

part, yet I know his eyes blink

sleeping in blue light.





I ASSUME

for Collin



I assume there was a wind,

a kind of gust that pushed him back

away from the edge.



It was a gesture of protection

Don’t do this, man, we need you here,

he stumbled.



Instead, he took it as a move, an advancement,

a breeze that taunted and teased,

he had to prove it wrong.



I assume there was a wind,

a kind that would dry, angry eyes

to the point of tears.



It was to tell him he could cry,

You can sob, man, we’ll cry too,

he wiped them away.



He blinked and stepped closer,

one foot over the opaque ledge,

the other pointed on the ground.



I assume there was a wind because something had to be with him,

for there was no person and no God,

or anything in between the two.









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Matt Graham





IF YOU DON’T LIKE THIS POEM, GO TO HELL



If you don’t like this poem, go to hell,

and while you’re there say, “Hi,” to me. (I died,

and so I write another villanelle,



my penance for the many ways I fell:

I cheated, lusted, coveted and lied.)

If you don’t like this poem, go to hell.



I’m lying. It’s the one thing I do well–

(Lay poetry and lying dead aside.)

–and so! I write another villanelle



because I am in limbo for a spell,

surrounded by you critics who deride.

If you don’t like this poem, go to hell.



Ten poems in, I beg God and Divelle

to let me leave, but both bid me, “Abide.”

and so I write another villanelle.



“The readers are the jury; hell’s the jail,

so then the poet will,” The Satan cried,

“If you don’t like this poem, go to hell!”

And so?





DRIVING TO YOUR HOUSE



I’m driving over to your house to break

things off as kindly and directly as

I can. I’ll say, “It wasn’t a mistake

for us to get so serious so fast.

When people meet and feel such chemistry,

it only fits to see if it’s a fit.”

And fit we do, so now the mystery

of my relationships is why I quit

romantically believing history’s

accounts of everlasting love (the shit

consumed through countless movies, books and songs).

I’m wrong. Perhaps if we just kiss more we

will find the pilot light, add gas to it,

and burn. The light on your front porch is on.





THE AMAZING FLYING MACHINES OF CHINESE FARMERS

[Inspired by the BBC article of the same name]



The birds inspire and antagonize,

lifting off casually and soaring wherever they please–

over fields, over landlocked destitution–then

hovering along the ridges of Jianglang Mountain.



Each Spring, Yuan Xiangqiu sows wheat.

Through each Summer, Yuan Xiangqiu grows wheat.

Every Fall, Yuan Xiangqiu harvests wheat.

Every Winter, Yuan Xiangqiu builds an airplane,

and crashes it,

surviving and selling the plane as scrap metal

before he sows wheat again.



Cao Zhengshu flies only in his dreams,

hovering along the ridges of Jianglang Mountain.

On a bed in his shed, the weary watchman sleeps

beside his aircraft, so no one steals her to sell her

for scrap metal.



Does she slip out of the shed each night

to steal a few moments in sky? Does she

quietly succeed when no one is looking?

Does she hover along the ridges of Jianglang Mountain then

tiptoe back into the shed before her father

wakes up and tries one more time

to get her to fly for him?



Some dreamers will never fly.

Some dreamers will never fly again.

And some dreamers will never wake.

Some dreamers will fly over fields and sheds.

Some dreamers will stop,



hover along the ridges of Jianglang Mountain,

then turn

and return home

to Earth

to work the earth again.









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Shannon Frost Greenstein





RADICAL ACCEPTANCE, IN THE LINEHANIAN SENSE…

OR, HOW MY DBT GROUP IS GOING



What is radical acceptance? Radical means all the way, complete and total; it’s when you stop fighting reality. – Dr. Marsha Linehan



Radical acceptance is the alleles in my brain, conspiring to catalyze chaos

that makes me cut my flesh and fuck too many men.



Radical acceptance is the family member who molested me, planting the sinuous vine that grows within and throughout my self itself, poisoning me from my very foundation.



Radical acceptance is the only way out of Hell. – Dr. Marsha Linehan



Radical acceptance is my scars, the result of decades of self-hatred and scissors, serrated blades, knives of varying scales and painful memories of varying intensity.



Rejecting reality does not change reality. – Dr. Marsha Linehan



Radical acceptance is the history of bad decisions which define my existence, always inferior, always a silver medal, always a consolation prize and never actually a being of value.



Pain can’t be avoided; it is nature’s way of signaling that something is wrong. – Dr. Marsha Linehan



Radical acceptance feels wrong. Radical acceptance is fucking work. Radical acceptance is nails on a chalkboard and a cat pet the wrong way and the flat note in an otherwise perfect octave. Radical acceptance is bullshit, in the moment, when all you want to do is self-destruct, when you are erupting with feelings that always simmer right below the surface with no reprieve, when you cannot stand the chorus of voices in your amygdala informing you of your worthlessness; radical acceptance is accepting all of that, while you radically accept the rest.



The path out of hell is through misery. By refusing to accept the misery that is part of climbing out of hell, you fall back into hell. – Dr. Marsha Linehan



Radical acceptance is not apathy, or giving up, or lying down; radical acceptance requires more strength than enduring the shit that put you in a position where radical acceptance was necessary in the first place; radical acceptance is going to fucking hurt.



Practice accepting with the whole self; allow disappointment, sadness, or grief to arise within you. – Dr. Marsha Linehan



Radical acceptance requires accepting reality to change reality, and I’m terrified my reality cannot change; I’m terrified this is who I am, damaged, doomed, broken from the start.









Go to the Poets’ Bios





John Grey





PREDICTABLE



It’s the honk that grabs my attention.

I know that v formation of geese

is crossing the sky but still I look up.

Maybe I’m thinking this is the time,

that the birds just scatter, that they

don’t follow the leader but the one

farthest behind.

The sound and the vision… I’ve been

linking them so long that it’s about time

one of them took leave of the other…

honk for the abstract, for the individual,

for the sheer joy of the unexpected.

But no it’s the same old honk, same old

cock of my head, same old arrangement,

as the geese flying south for winter.

Now winter, that’s different, sometimes it

snows, sometimes it’s twenty below,

and sometimes, there’s Gale, head on

my shoulder, arm around my waist,

pressing the love and warm into me.

But Winter doesn’t honk.

So, those times, I do.





THE KILLER KISS



From a part in the dark shore grasses,

the giant lizard’s red-tipped tongue vacillated.

A cloud of fleas or my blood-splattered arm –

its hunger pendulum-swung.



On a bed sweating beneath frayed mosquito net,

a fever blazed in cheek and eye.

Those helicopter insects buzzed above

my swampy flesh, my kettle-whistle breath.



Prone on the ground, I trembled to my nerves’ report

of big cat in the tree above, teeth like white scabbards,

muscles taut and paws set to the exact moment of striking.

I struggled to drag my poisoned leg to safety.



Lost in darkening old world forest, I was battered

from tree to tree, choked by branches, hacked down by roots.

I could hear the creak of coffins opening,

the howl from the cusp of wolf and man.



I am always powerless. I am forever under threat.

In exotic landscapes, my life cowers, shudders.

Monsters loom. Beasts stalk. Creatures gravitate.

You lean over to kiss me. My lips cannot move, you devil.









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Evan Gurney





THE HOE



I can see him as a young man lift the tool

from its shop hook, hold up the shaft to eye

its true, and measure the length while sliding

his hands along the walnut grain, giving

the riveted iron a brief twist to check its virtue.

Meticulous. He didn’t plan to buy another.



As if there were more at stake than his wife’s bed

of nasturtiums. As if he might swing the tapered

shank with his athlete’s grace and unearth

from a century of loam the dignity that was lost

to men like him, back from the war and selling

life insurance in pressed slacks and wingtips.



What he needed when things needed doing.

Striking thistle and spreading mulch,

he wore the wood smooth in his rough hands,

buffed it to a sleek finish with linseed and sweat.

Fifty years later I grip the hoe in my hands.

Even now there’s no warp to it, no rust, no cracks



in its grooves, the square edge still sharp

enough to bite a shin if you aren’t mindful.

I slice the roots beneath a patch of clover.

He is too sick now to weed the garden,

so he is watching from his rocking chair,

back straight, eyes fixed on the blade’s horizon,



still keen, still true, still looking for work.





HAIL MARY



The old patriarch on the phone,

his slurred screech a switch to the ear:

did you see the bastard, did you

see him catch it, can you believe

it, holy shit I can’t believe it!



His team had won, it seems,

and miraculously so,

but I swear that he is sobbing.



In my mind’s eye I see him

on his knees in the living room,

bathed in afternoon autumnal light,

arms outstretched, clutching

the phone in one hand and remote

in the other, overcome with desire

to tell the good news, to speak

of how his prayer was answered.



Suddenly I understand my inheritance

is a leather ball that has dropped

out of the infinite blue sky

into the arms of a skinny grandson

who has tracked its spinning descent,

waiting in the shadows, not sure

why he is running and what he is

father to, but who catches it anyway,

catches it in his hands and nestles it

in his arms like a baby, catches and holds

the little bastard like it’s his own.









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Mureall Hebert





JUST ANOTHER SATURDAY: A SESTINA IN PROSE



Mom and Dad are fighting again and Lila presses her hands over the openings on her face because if the words dirt-bag, bitch, and fuck you can’t get in, they don’t exist. When her parents argue, the world ceases to exist for them. Henry, three years old, has soiled his pants again. Lila washes him, thinking, what the fuck am I doing here, kissing his chubby hands, being mother-sister-father? Mom’s crying falls against her like dirt on a coffin. Lila turns at the sound of a hand striking a face. She bolts to the door, Henry in her arms. Let’s face facts, she tells her neighbor, I exist as a speck of dirt trapped beneath my parents’ shoes. Will you watch Henry again? Just for a little while? She hands over her brother and creeps away, feeling like a fuck-up. She can’t bring him along, but she can’t leave him home, fuck no. Todd picks her up in his Camaro. Lila can’t face telling him what’s happened. He hands her a rose and she wonders how such a perfect thing can exist in this imperfect world. They sneak into the country club again, scrambling under the fence to hide in a screen of trees, dirt smearing their jeans. He kisses her and it’s like the dirt circling the pine’s roots has fallen away, suspending her over a chasm. Let’s fuck, Todd moans. First, tell me again, she pleads. He cradles her face and whispers, I can’t exist without you. She closes her eyes, feeling his hands fumble at her pants. She wants to trust him, but loving hands, once they’re closed, become fists. Cold seeps through the dirt, blazing chills along her back and she has to believe she’s meant to exist as more than a variable in someone else’s equation. Please, for fuck’s sake, let there be more to life than this. Todd’s face looms close. One day she’ll get out, Lila promises herself again. Home again. The house stands still. Mom’s sitting at the table, hands clasped, face bruised. She doesn’t talk; words are dirt-cheap. Fuck-load of shame. No way to exist.









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Robert Helweg-Larsen





VIKING SLAVE



Why did they make me swallow this mead muck?

My lord, alive, would barely let me drink.

They wouldn’t treat his wife this way, I think.

Now all I am is something they can fuck.

They say this way they’re sharing in their lord,

Behaving as he did with me, his slave.

And now they launch his boat upon the wave,

The dragon boat with him and me aboard.

Just me, his horse, his sword… the boat’s been fired;

An honour, just for me, not for his wife;

So with him I will end this stage of life

And go with him to Asgard… I’m so tired,

Couldn’t move even if I wasn’t tied.

They told his wife he loved her too. They lied.









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Mandy Henderly





VERNIX

For Lucy



The pajamas I was wearing

the night you were born

are folded and put away-

lilac with a scallop edge

around the breasts.

That night, bent over

the bed breathing, deep

breathing.

Wake up, honey, call

the babysitter. It’s

time to go.



The night your brother

was born I was wearing

a dress-

knee length with a wrap

around the waist.

That night, standing against

a wall swaying, hips

swaying.

Honey, come back home. It’s

time to go.



Both times, I discarded

what I was wearing,

balled up on the hospital floor.

Both times, I wept

when my baby was safely

placed on my chest.

Both times, my baby

covered in vernix,

I refused to let

you be bathed.

Why would I rush your

newness away?

Let it soak in,



Let it soak in.





THE KEEPER OF SLEEP



I am the keeper of sleep-

the right combination of lavender

and vetiver to help her drift off

and the boring story he likes

to listen to before closing

his eyes.



I know that we should start her

bath at 6:30 as opposed to 6:20.

I am familiar with the soft glow

of a nightlight and hum of white noise.

I’m acquainted with pajamas and

bedtime kisses and sleepy sighs.



I was once the keeper

of Whitman and Ginsburg,

of Olds and Bishop,

of Alexie and Keats.

But now, I hold the keys

to bedtimes and schedules

and Christmas lists.

I am the keeper of snacks

and birthday cards

and due library books.

I remember to order more toilet paper

and paper towels

and when the dog will need more food.

I am the keeper of packing his backpack

and drying his pajamas

and laying out her favorite sweatshirt.

And- ah, yes-

I am the keeper of sleep.









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Fredric Hildebrand





WAL-MART PARKING LOT, 2 A.M.



Decongestants, lozenges,

numbing spray. Street lights,

black pavement.



Three motorcycles, twenty-

something rider dudes.



A dented Honda Civic, door

open, dim yellow light.



Young mother faces defiant

young man. Baby in her arms,

no pajamas. She’s pleading,

crying.



Cycles roar, tires squeal.

Car door slams.



My drive home, full moon

a white beacon on the water.

Two geese swimming side by side.





NORTH COUNTRY NOTES



Eyeing the heavy clouds,

I said to the guide, I could

have picked a better day

to fish. He replied,

maybe so.



What’s our weather look

like, I ask. It might rain,

he says, then again it

might not.



What about our luck today?

Could be good, he tells me,

could be bad.



I am home. Among my people,

What happens, happens.









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Greg Hill





MARCH TO HARTFORD



cold last night

the storm

Route 9 covered in broken glass

monsters

a mile a minute

peeling

their white skins

like icy flapjacks

or like concerns

for the other beasts

prowling and shuffling

to work coffees

in cup holders

sweet and cold

aren’t we all

better than our neighbors

where we live





PORCELAIN SONNET



I’m sitting on a toilet, with a pen,

And trying to force out some clever wit.

But this is not so easy, because when

I try and force it, out comes muddy shit.

And so I scratch my head, and scratch my rear,

And like the Rodin sculpture, I wonder

What poem I might write, that, would you hear,

Would not piss you off, nor put you under.

Then, like the water swirling in the john,

Words spin inside my head ‘round some motif.

Sentences form. As I continue on,

A poem comes to life—oh sweet relief!

Now standing proudly, I begin to blush,

To have writ something I’d not rather flush!









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Mary Beth Hines





LITTLE BLACK DRESS



Mrs. X in her little black dress, martini in hand,

smokes a cigarette, eyes Mr. Y, smoothing back

his hair, loosening his collar, rising from a chair.



She sidles by, stumbles into him, ashes on his jacket,

vodka down her chin. Mrs. X gasps, a hand against

his chest, red, lacquered nails shown off to good effect.



Mr. Y, being a gentlemanly guy, murmurs

it’s no problem, and draws her outside where they slow-dance

like they did in days gone by when Mrs. X

was Mrs. Y, Coltrane flowed, and the moon hung high.





PARTY AT COLLINGWOOD



Delicious Aloysius crashed our party last night.

He slipped in and clipped a beer and Maggie swore and roared

when she realized he’d entered but brought nothing in to share

except for his good looks and charm—enough for most of us—



but Maggie, as a feminist, demanded a lot more.

So shirtless Alex bounded up and danced the table tops

while Maggie in her hot pink dress woo-hooed and sang along

till Barney grabbed her by the waist and sailed around the room.



And Maggie’s red hair flew and spun and sparked the party’s fire—

although this morning nothing’s left but pools of lost desire,

and Aloysius asleep, sprawled bare-assed across the floor,

next to Maggie, next to Barney, snoring like a wild boar.





WATER RUNNING FROM THE HOSE



He watches her from a window,

smokes his cigarette,

sees her fumble with the nozzle,

spray the garden, soak the grass.



Stealing outside through the back,

he glides across the lawn,

puts his hands around her waist,

picks her up and spins her.



She yelps. He laughs. She throws her hat.

He kisses her neck. She kisses back.

They fall to the ground. She rolls away,

leaps to her feet, hits the spray.



Cardinals, doves—their garden’s swarming,

he lays back, picks her a rose.

Seven-thirty in the morning—

water’s running from the hose.









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Colin James





TO A FRIEND WHO CAN’T STAND WITHOUT ASSISTANCE



She is willing she says.

I can place your arms

over her shoulders,

unlatch your demon dick.

You seem ready.

I am whispering to her.

We both love you,

but he loves you more.







Go to the Poets’ Bios





Chris Jansen





AFTER YOU DIE



science says your brain

lives on for a period of time,

say fifty years.

Women die, and their bodies

go on doing kitchen remodels

and Pure Passion Parties.



Men die standing up,

golf club in one hand,

beer in the other.



And you, America,

are you dead,

or is this you asleep

and dreaming?



They say the hearing is last to go,

so If you’re listening, America,

I still believe in you,

like the memory of my high

school girlfriend;

I wanted to be worthy of her too,

from the amber waves

of grain-blond hair

to her star-spangled cunt.



The light at the end of the barrel!

The circling angels!



America,

if you can hear me,

wake up

open your eyes

say something,

live.





AND THEN I UNDERSTAND TAXIDERMY



Down in the den,

above the pool table

with its ripped felt

and missing balls

and the easy chair

and Miller High Life sign,

next to the pin up girl –

I suddenly get why you would

want to see a wild thing

and remember

what it looked like

when it was alive.









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Michael Lee Johnson





DANCE OF TEARS, CHIEF NOBODY



I’m old Indian chief story

plastered on white scattered sheets,

Caucasian paper blowing in yesterday’s winds.



I feel white man’s presence

in my blindness-

cross over my ego my borders

urinates over my pride, my boundaries-

I cooperated with him until

death, my blindness.



I’m Blackfoot proud, mountain Chief.



I roam southern Alberta,

toenails stretch to Montana,

born on Old Man River−

prairie horse’s leftover

buffalo meat in my dreams.

Eighty-seven I lived in a cardboard shack.

My native dress lost, autistic babbling.

I pile up worthless treaties, paper burn white man.



Now 94, I prepare myself an ancient pilgrimage,

back to papoose, landscapes turned over.



I walk through this death baby steps,

no rush, no fire, nor wind, hair tangled−

earth possessions strapped to my back rawhide−

sun going down, moon going up,

witch hour moonlight.



I’m old man slow dying, Chief nobody.



An empty bottle of fire-water whiskey

lies on homespun rug,

cut excess from life,

partially smoked homemade cigar-

barely burning,

that dance of tears.









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Sarah Mackey Kirby





ALMOND IN THE COUCH



I found an almond in the couch.

Snug between the cushions

where we laughed sticky July evening.

Was it yours?



You ate them two at a time.

Your slow-move mouth.

In-charge red glasses

sliding down your nose

as you looked toward

the container.



Our conversation.

Grown sisters reverting

to girl whispers,

snap-drip music

background low.



An almond.

One almond

keeping you from ashes.

Squeezed into salted fabric.

With me all this time.





NEW ORLEANS



In deep nighttime NewAhLeuns

behind a rain-dripping window,

a second first time.

Somewhere conflating the smells

of bourbon and wisteria.

Talking trombone in April’s chicory wind.

Where gasps for breath under unmovable weight,

soul-wrought sobs in lonesome tone,

and unanswered prayers for stronger knees

at last floated to irrelevancy.

With you, they fell a natural, quiet fall.

The irony.



For such a place of drunken streets

and smoke-filled corners near Jackson Square.

Steeped in sin without the sorry.

To release and renew.

No haunted mirrors reflecting worthless ugly

or folded hands yielding empty.



Where different tears could form.

These, salty-sweet and welcome,

dropped from my closing eyes

as your patient fingertips pressed.

Caressed never-clotted wounds

that yearned to heal.

Garnering trust.

And squeezed pillow.

A respite found in every feel.



Where startled sighs and caring clutch

took hold.

In arms that guided, loved, and held.

Not stole.

Metered out in beat-drawn breath

that hadn’t exhaled for far too long.

In cadence I could finally own.

The texture of safety

and quelled hate of an encased-me

who stayed out of reach.



A reprieve from years of off-key cries

unharmonized, never-answered whys.

Forgiven by your confident tongue

that steered through my self-conscious shyw

and moved with understanding.

Where wrapped soft cotton

hid sheets of self-blame.

And shame. And dearth of self-worth.

Confirmed with each touch,

this man wasn’t the same.



The alleviation of fears

amid lips against forehead.

A reassuring it’s okay.

And skin-swept overcame.

Far from forever-broken Sundays

and the need to double-check doors.

Turned from cruel betrayal of Holy Grace.

Stained the stars. Guitar-strummed,

hummed out fretted sane.

Logic breaking free from languished pain.

Untangling anguished mind

through rhythmic, midnight jazz

and every tear-traced vein.

As you tenderly filled the space inside me.

And I pieced together melody

a note at a time.









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Grove Koger





THE DOOR



The door never shut tight,

was warped,

or the jamb was crooked.

Or the foundation was settling.

Who knows?



We called in our landlord,

but when he couldn’t fix it

we said,

Never mind.



We were young and impatient.



But did that door

let in everything that

followed?





LIT CRIT



Don’t call me, Ishmael;

I’ll call you.









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Boris Kokotov





IF ONLY SHE WERE…



I shouldn’t make love

to an assistant professor of English!

Neither pills nor condoms

prevented her from conceiving a poem,

not to mention that nothing

protected me from subsequent reading.



Crammed into the raving stanzas

her urges and exquisite sensations

were promptly published

in a small-circulation periodical

run by postgraduate students

of some arts-and-literature college.



I’m amazed at her eloquence,

her capacity to express feelings

which, I suspect, she didn’t really have.

Damn it! If only she were

as shameless and unbridled in bed

as in print! Then… Oh, then



I would make love to her again —

this time without contraceptives —

fathering as many poems as she wants.

I would recite them at every opportunity,

rejoicing in the smallest details,

bragging about the whole affair.





WHEN MY POEMS LEARN



The death of the poet

was kept from his poems.

W.H. Auden



When my poems learn

their author is dead

some of them will mourn,

some of them will fret.



Some of them will dance,

some of them will laugh:

left along at once!

No more cuts — enough!



Yet the rest of the band

won’t give a shit,

badly written and

grossly proud of it.









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Ajay Kumar





FIRST, THE BOY SINGS, & THEN THE GIRL SINGS



In a world of discovered breasts

& the hierarchy of rising prices-

silk, bourneville, temptation-

boys with chocolates in their pockets,



or something cute, or something

in the mood for hair gel-

skinny jeans, torn jeans, patched

jeans, gaping sleeves, no belts,



pencil bottoms, fitting ribs like

second skin. I had milk-teeth hair,

pants that could hold two for a boy

barely one, tucked in shirt, twitching



lips, nose, eyes of a plant left alone

in the same soil for some time.



Looking for the people who look

like movies, you were a pilgrim

searching for the gods of lipstick.

Familiar with following, I followed,



used to waiting, I waited. My lips

purse wherever your eyes must

have fallen, I can see all that you saw

but still not see what you saw in it.



Whatever they are made of, where

are they now when I feel like singing.





ERASMUS DARWIN, ON THE NIGHT

HE REFUSED KING GEORGE III, & ME, AGED 14



had nothing in common but a no on the lips, a denial.

It must have been a usual night, after the Lichfield sun set-



Erasmus, smelling his Georgian herb garden,

would have said- No- to himself, & Botanic Muse

would have carried it to the king.

I said no to things like toothbrush & soap.

Why does not Dr. Darwin come to London, he asked,

He shall be my physician if he comes, repeating in his usual manner.



I had no interest in the sex life of plants

because that made me cry pimp! at every passing bee.

He introduced stamen & pistil to the English language.

With increasing stamens the pistil turned

from chaste & blooming to seductive & needing protection.



The Darwin family evolved in the myth of concentric circles,

his son, Robert, said on not getting out of his house-

every road out of Shrewsbury is associated in my mind

with some painful event. His grandson Charles

played two games of backgammon with Emma between

8 & 8:30 every night, ate hawks, bitterns and armadillos

that tasted like ducks but gagged on a meal of brown owl,

that tasted like indescribable.



Maybe someone would ask me too with a knock

at my door & I would tell them why. & how

I wouldn’t slut-shame pistils in my vignettes,

see them as a tower of their own.









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Linda Lerner





ON BEING TOLD SOMEONE IS UNDER THE WEATHER



but not how far down, I head straight to that

down under country where it’s over 100 degrees

fires raging, to when the temperature here

was in the single digits, you lay beneath

piles of blankets beneath the bone-cold of rejection

to my wondering which weather you meant,

that stormy kind after he confessed

about her, tried to change the weather

saying she doesn’t mean anything to him

and making it worse, thick foggy weather

you couldn’t see past, or is it the

politically correct weather you’ve been

crawling out from, and keep getting caught

trying to choose your own survival-weather



so, tell me, how far down into what weather

must I go, to find you









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Michael Levin





I AM A BULLET



no missile wings as straight

or with such fierce velocity,

humming in tune with siblings

from our chambered hive:

steel bees, swarming blued space

until we meet what dares dispute

our flight and bounce, transformed



tumbling through livers

at compressive speed

shredding veins unseen

unless we carve an exit wound.

But don’t blame me —

unchained resentment, black-clad,

is my baptistry.





JOINTS



In socket and ball Vesalius

saw a grand design — from

intricate flexed knees

inferred a Jeweler

fretworking worlds.



Pound viewed sarcastically such

memes: beneath seen forms

perceived blind anguish

multiplying — clocks

boned by Dali.



Marvell prescribed orgasmic cures

in tangled limbs foresaw

an antidote: erotic speed

accelerating

infinitely.



Post-moderns have been heard

to state that aimlessness

has displaced fate

and purgatory’s now

a treatment course



yet there’s a vestige

from anatomy class

beyond the scope

of orthopedics



to correct:

joining is all, is all.

Only connect.





WHAT THE WISE MEN BROUGHT



Foretellings are double-faced,

mixing chance and cause

fact with belief.

Suppose they sought Herod —

the star beckons ambiguously,

they’re aliens, unused to

local customs, lacking immigrant

aid, court interpreters. Perhaps

they just stopped for a roadside



emergency, unaware

of the death decree: heralds

streamed from the palace

blaring the message in brass

and plumed helmets; the cloaked

gravid flight towards an ill-sited birth.



Perhaps that’s the meaning:

orthodox gift-wrap is tinsel.

What’s holy is kindness;

the task then and now

to show up.









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Nancy Smiler Levinson





DEAR BILLY COLLINS



You wondered how I would feel

upon finding out that you

wrote your poem instead of me.

You woke up early,

sat in the kitchen with a pen

musing on rain-soaked windows,

ivy wallpaper goldfish circling in its bowl.



I woke up perhaps later than your hour

no water drops sliding down my window pane,

Southern California seeing little rainfall.

I sipped a mug of coffee, read the New York Times,

wielding a pencil for the crossword puzzle

early-week grid only, I confess, the latter week’s

word challenges too puzzling for me.



Then your eye drifted to shakers

of salt and pepper standing side by side . . .

wondering if they’d become friends

after all these years or if they were still strangers

to one another like you and I,

poet and reader/also poet at the starting line.



Forget the raindrops and the fish.

But the salt and pepper shakers!

Friends or still strangers?

Oh, how I might possess

such observation of the ordinary,

imagination shaken such inventive verse!



Greener than the ivy on your wallpaper,

envy quivers in me like the ash tree leaves

in the breeze outside my window a timid

kindergartener sitting at a tiny table

with a fistful of magic markers

stymied at blending any semblance of magic.



Yet knowing that you alone are you

while I can only be me, I am inspired

reading your work, and I befriend you

and your pen creating in your cozy kitchen.





THIS JUST KILLS ME



Reading how researchers

have discovered that

all human brain activity

does not cease at once

the moment a body is

pronounced dead



when your heart stops pumping blood

the EEG flat-lines

your brain stem reflex arrests

but all your cerebral cortex cells

do not instantly go dark



you may briefly know

that you have died

you might even hear a voice

“Okay that’s it.”



Say you are lying on an operating table

and you didn’t make it 2:19 p.m.

precise time noted for the certificate



a cluster of your thinking cells

have not yet collapsed

ten seconds, maybe twenty

you know that you have died.



You might startle: am I really dead

or think damn I’ll miss my meeting

or my flight to Hong Kong



So what might flicker

across my dimming brain

perhaps hey I get it but I can’t

shout it out or whisper it or weep

or perhaps I’ll recall a line

of Mary Oliver poetry

or Ecclesiastes a time to be born

and a time to die

or perhaps

no words

a visualization

Eve

me as Eve

rising

in

my

lush

perfumed

garden









Go to the Poets’ Bios





James Lineberger





ANNUNCIATION WITHOUT A BULLET IN IT



Ahh Jorie!

Ever since the death of my son

I keep thinking back to your gnarly convoluted dirge

where an unknown shooter has fatally wounded the family dog

and in the tortured telling of it

you strive to somehow link the lingering death of a beloved pet

with the horrors of Auschwitz



Oh Jorie!

are you saying you couldn’t

pull the trigger

never be the shooter or the chooser

not Mengele not me?



What if you happened

to back over two

darling little kittens

at the same time one under

each of the rear wheels of your van

the left one

squashed dead at once the other

flopping around in frozen time

chasing it like that floundering chicken when Grammaw wrung

its head off

and you’re trying to say you’re sorry

oh goddamn forgive me please please

cursing the way

you used to pray crying out

be still you little shit hold still I’ll

kill you!

And that’s history too

isn’t it? No?



Okay what about the ninety-seven freight-laden cars

on the Northern

and Southern train

that hurled

my son’s 4Runner eight-tenths of a mile

down the tracks before

it could get itself stopped?

I keep asking myself

was it a suicide

and what part did I play in it

Who was at the throttle Jorie?

me?

you?

But it’s all the same

right?

Dogs and gerbils and dying children and things

that go bump on the windshield

feathers and bones

and party favors

scattered by the roadside

like grains

of rice like the left-overs from so-and-so’s picnic



Come on Jorie don’t say any more just



zip it



And your next good old doggie that gets shot

tomorrow or the next

do the digging yourself

don’t hide him in a sack either

just toss him in naked and shovel the dirt in his face

and when you hear

his ghostly dogtags clinking from room to room don’t come

crying to me take

your arms from around

me stop it Jorie Stop!

We’ve each got our own death camp to face

alone

no little girls murdered in somebody else’s book

or dying babies wrapped

in scraps of paper old men shuffling

to get tattooed

gutted

buried alive doing it for you Jorie

all for you

this clack of imaginary marionettes set loose with limbs flailing

in an awkward final solution

as you inch forward

on your belly

to snuffle the scratchy sacred photos



digging

digging like a half-mad

ravenous dog

till you’ve broken

through to

the yellow powdered

bones

of all the grief you can get your hands on crying choose

me me do me

take my picture cheese









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Donna Macomber





BONE YARD



for transparency

and those that let you

see all the way through them

bruised front to shattered back

for those coming undone

and those falling apart

hands un-holding

lips through which exit plans are hatched

for the shell bleached by unmerciful light, dangerous heat

and the leaf frozen in death. revelation of skeletal, spiny bones.

For the loss of flesh, the shock of disease. It’s spiral up

then rocketing down. For the sight of the blind. Music of

deafening silence. Swish of those tall swamp weeds.

for those stacked in mass graves

their names unknown

for those in solitary confinement

or quarantined on a ship with no welcoming port

for those in chemo lounges

wide, decided grins and hopes reconfigured

how many ways can we kiss the earth?

for worms without headlamps and the hated snake

those born not beautiful

those born desirable and at risk

prayer for the bones of me slogging through sunlight

heavy for reasons unseen, unknowable

switching off the news-feed-squawking end times

light rays through naked trees

skyline pink, skyline blue

days stretching like something unfurling after

an unnatural coiling.

by your grace

by your grace

may we veer off disaster’s path

into homecoming

into welcome

into a million distinctive harmonies

our bones a jungle, a sacred tangling

of error and redemption









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Tamara Madison





CATCHING CHILDREN



My mother sketched in quick lines overlapping.

Gradually, the subject emerged, like a Polaroid

exposed to light. Most often she drew people,

sometimes children, though they moved so fast –

like fireflies, they had to be caught. Here’s

my daughter when her hair was fair in curls

around her face, on a dinner napkin with the word

“caught” and the date. Children not her own,

even grandchildren, were a mystery to Mother,

but she could draw them, stilled like insects

on flypaper, like butterflies pinned to a board

where they would be forever quiet and obey.





BLACK CADILLAC



My mother taught me not

to hate (but never date

a Negro; if you had children,

where would they fit in?).

My brother had to work

on the farm; he

was raised by our father.



I ride to school in the cab

of Dad’s pickup, sitting

between them, books

and lunch box at my knee.



At a stop light we land

next to a Cadillac with a black

man behind the wheel.

How did that Negro

get himself a Cadillac? they snicker.



Here is the bruise

my memory has carried

for five decades:



My brother rolling down

the window to spit

on the shiny black hood;

our father chuckling.









Go to the Poets’ Bios





J. C. Mari





CHARLES BUKOWSKI AND THE SNAKES OF ZIMBABWE



i was watching a

nature show when she knocked.



a mongoose got killed by a viper and

an African otter managed to escape

a reticulated python, a

real big son of a bitch.



i felt sorry for the

mongoose and

glad for the otter,

although i understand that

pythons too have to eat.



slams the door open

and struts in

wearing her cut-offs and

what used to be

my favorite Smiths shirt.



“what’s up” very loud and artificial

meant to let me know

how happy and full of energy she is.



to show that i should be too

she tries

to shake me by the shoulders

the way you would a puppet,

a child, or someone

you don’t sleep with anymore.



she came to

pick up a few books, cd’s and

small statuettes of budhhas and

hindu deities she left behind.



her new lover’s outside

waiting,

engine still on,

music blasting.



he lifts weights and

drivers a car, i guess

that’s two advantages

he has over me,

good for him and

a good switch for her too,

no more beer-belly and lyft.



apparently he

listens to reggaeton music:

not sure that trumps

my Rachmaninov

or even my Smiths.



she dances around

while she picks up the last few things

and throws them

into a large tote bag, then

wrapping up her mini-maelstrom of flash and sound

tells me, as she nears the door,



“maybe now you can do

like your idol did, Bukowski, and

write poems about the women that leave,

hey!! maybe you’ll be famous too”



i’ve know her long enough

to tell myself the

comment’s not meant

in a mean-spirited way.



“i have no idols” my retort, and



shrugging her shoulders she

throws a kiss in duck-face

as she walks out the door

and into the waiting sunshine, new love and

blasting reggaeton.



two furry things with large snouts

run like hell a

lioness behind them through the bush.



i haven’t written a poem for her yet.









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Jeremy Nathan Marks





TRICKSTER

The wild dogs of North America are all held in ill repute

-Peter Matthiessen



Coyote is on the border between the state park and ranch:

she is pinned to the fence.

I am new to the West;

seeing her like this causes me distress.



Towheaded grasses of the high plains are blown by drones,

marking my movements.

The sky is now wide as a surveyor’s eye,

neither eagle nor aerie occludes it.



Despite her death,

I still expect Coyote to lead

on

to Canada

that land just beyond the bump stock line

its glacial peaks crossing cloud breaks

before cantering down into the tundra.



Of course, the far north is now a gas field

for permafrost’s grasp has loosened.

Coyote would sniff the many holes

winch her nose

and ask,

did you do that?



The answer is, yes.



I wish she would rise,

drawing breath away from pipelines,

strychnine, and traps

then she could drag

the grass sea out of its corral

and scold the sun to stop sucking out snow’s

very breath

until the soil has no water.



With Trickster there are corms,

hidden dens where her pups yelp at their own shit

as it teaches them how to fish for many lifetimes.









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Carolyn Martin





VARIETY IS … AND 21 OTHER PROVERBS



Variety is the spice, cleanliness is next.



Heaven helps those who don’t bite the hand that feeds them.



People who live in glass houses should hope for the best.



There’s no place like home for a free lunch.



Necessity makes the heart grow fonder.



A watched pot never spoils the broth.



One man’s trash is in the eye of the beholder.



If you can’t beat ’em, practice harder.



Honesty is the best policy until it isn’t.



You made your bed, now scratch my back.



If you want something done right, lead a horse to water.



Don’t cry, don’t count: milk and chickens are here today,

gone tomorrow



Familiarity breeds the best things in life.



The pen is mightier than a squeaky wheel.



An apple a day is worth a pound of cure.



When in Rome, keep your friends close.



You have to kiss a lot of toads to starve a fever.



Loose lips make mountains out of molehills.



There are two sides to every story: cross the bridge.



When the going gets tough, make love.



There are two theories about arguing with a woman: try putting the cat back

in the bag or––the greater part of valor–– get out of the kitchen.



When all is said and done, what comes around goes.





FOR EVERYTHING THAT RISES MUST CONVERGE.

– Teilhard de Chardin, “Omega Point”



Sunday morning and I’m about to murder

the crows congregated high up our Douglas firs.

They’re heckling sparrows pecking the suet cake

dangling from my maple tree and can’t conceive

these breakfasters will not rise anywhere

until they’re satisfied.



I’m tempted to defy gravity and surf

the wind waving through the evergreens.

From high above those nasty wings,

I’d warn them that my eye is on those sparrows

and other earth-bounded things.



With due respect, some must convene,

consort, converge before they rise:

yeast and dough, soil and bulbs, flocks of geese,

a weary soul like Virginia Woolf’s,

slipping into a river’s flow and waking –

to her surprise – on an unsuspecting star.









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Tim Mayo





FISHER’S BARN



Out of a hay dust of memory I see the big tar-brown

three story barn rise up again behind my old house

the iron and wooden sledges stacked to one side

one on top of the other those that must have carried

the maple sap down from the hill past the pasture

to the old sugarhouse gone so long ago only a trace

of rotting wood outlines the ground



and in the barn’s dim light I conjure up the wooden

milk and sap buckets I saw on the earthen and cement floor

of the milking parlor buckets broken down into iron rings

and jumbles of slats curving up as if to say the world

is a set of hoops we must all jump through or stop dead

in a clatter of things we can never again piece together



When old man Fisher put up his milk buckets

for the last time he turned away from the stainless steel

artifacts of a world he could not afford and his wife took in

washing and walked the miles it took to other people’s houses

to make ends meet cleaning the dust beneath their beds

mopping and polishing floors while her husband sat

un-budging and silent after the Ag-agents left

in their clean pressed pants having closed him down

for milking in wooden buckets



He sold the cows at auction watching their mute names

low out of existence I used to think I heard them

rattling in their stanchions when winter whipped

through the open windows and the history of mud and dirt

sap and milk suddenly whistled out its cold song

and I imagined the corn fermenting in the silo

reeking like the old farmer himself too old by then

to seed a new family his stubbornness starting to crumble

with the beams of this fallen down barn I no longer own

where houses now pasture like cows on the hill behind it

and Fisher is dead





AN INCIDENTAL LIST OF LOSS



And Time will have his fancy

Tomorrow or today. –W.H. Auden



The squall at birth, though its echo

continues throughout your whole life

becoming birdsong, the bear huffing

at the backside of the blackberry patch,

the shuffle of deer in autumn hardwoods,

wishing themselves to the deep thicket

they may never reach, the sudden gasp

of lovers in the dark, the mother you finally

met at the last minute, the watch she gave you,

stopped at a moment you weren’t looking,

the present even now in the past, the hiccup

of time lurching out of the place you will forget,

dark hands jerking across a clock’s white face––

the watch!––the watch!––in which drawer did you . . . ?









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Janet McCann





CAPGRAS SYNDROME



The man beside her is not her husband.

I see them standing, he is dark, his features

Slightly blurred, she is in sunlight, laughing.



He is told to enter into her reality,

Pretend not to be her husband, pretend

He’ll be right back. Maybe go in one door



And out another, having changed his shirt.

This works sometimes. She knows him by voice.

Sometimes I think that I am not myself,



These hands aren’t mine, the wrinkled, spotted hands

With ridged nails, my face is not my face.

No one here is anyone I’ve met.









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Caitlin McCarthy





ODE TO THE INSULTS I’VE INTERNALIZED



i have a pig nose and a dead dad.

chipmunk cheeks, too small breasts,

a shelf of an ass that could hold a cup

but isn’t worth grabbing onto.

all peaches and cream and lard,

fuckable because of the daddy issues

but not, thanks to the big tummy

that’s streaked with stretch marks.

i talk too much, laugh like an asthmatic

hyena, cry about everything apart

from what matters, like the people

that tumble like dominos around me

or the way i seem to make everyone

feel just a little bit worse about themselves

without saying so much as a word.





NURTURE VERSUS NATURE



my mom has two moms:

one who is her mom and one who isn’t.



i didn’t understand this

until just last year, when i mistakenly

addressed the one who isn’t as her mother.



all hell broke loose from her tongue.



they share blood, share the same cheeks,

but that’s all. it ends there.



her real mom, the one who took

her in and didn’t let a coin looped

on string like a necklace embed

itself into the tender skin of her chest,

she’s gone. she’s not here anymore.



the other woman, the one who gave

my mom up and went on to have two

other children with two other men

but only kept the boy, that’s not her mom.









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Mark J. Mitchell





100 YEAR HOOPTETOODLE

To honor Lawrence Ferlinghetti



How does it feel to wear

one hundred circles around the sun?

From after the war

that didn’t end war

to our right now wars

that never end?

Through your good war

and all our bad wars?

Were they slow?

Were they quick?

Spinning around the sun,

passing from big bad bop

to beat box;

from your Left Bank

to no one’s West Bank.

And all the books

you birthed and all the poets

you raised—all of them—

and your multiplied lovers.

Were your circles quick?

Were they slow?

And this city you sang—

and no one ever sang it better—

Bathing in the light

that circles around you

as you—one hundred times—

circle the sun.





CAFÉ SCENE



A naked table lit by coffee cups—

Lipstick kissed, half-empty. Lovers left

a half-hour ago. She’ll need to pick up

that naked spoon, licked by coffee. Cups

can wait, she thinks, seeing bodies erupt

in another room, wishing them joy and depth,

a night table littered with empty cups,

just kissed lipstick. Sweeps the tip lovers left.









Go to the Poets’ Bios





Sabyasachi Nag





THE DAILY FIX



There was no one at the bar but me.

One more shot, I said.

The barman looked me over,

I am out of that stuff.

Go home, he said.

He was alone and old.

He was deaf and without an eye.

He was lame and without a hand.

Just one more, I begged.

No more tonight, I am closed, he said.

There’s something wrong with the fix

I said, somehow, I don’t feel it yet.

I have stronger stuff back in the cellar.

Come back tomorrow, he said.

My hands shook, as I tried

writing a generous cheque. I staggered

and made one false step

and another, trying to lift my body,

walk my legs straight with poise, dignity.

Let me help you, he said.

Out on the porch, I tripped and fell

on my face, by the concrete planter

with blood red geraniums;

oh! they were beautiful;

black ants swarmed crumbs of sugar.

Behind, I could hear shutters drawing down;

I could see the lights shut out;

I could sense the shadow of the barman

slowly disappear into the murky night.

Just one more shot, I shouted after him.

Come tomorrow, he shouted back,

without turning.









Go to the Poets’ Bios





James B. Nicola





POSTURE



Two points define

a line

but also any man:

the point at which he cannot stop himself

and the point at which he can

not help but stop:

the latent criminal and the inner cop.



I’ve left these alter-egos on the shelf

deporting in the midst of moving men

and women like a noble citizen.

But the points, like instant seeds, I carry within,

the axis of a seeming rectitude.



The one I silence when I could be rude

and let the other laugh and imagine

the magnitude of an impending sin.



In other words, when I’m about to holler,

these two points stretch me, some, and I stand taller.









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Robert Nisbet





TADPOLES



Me and Jimmy. Out. Looking for tadpoles.

It was spring into summer, bursting time.

The woods we were trekking through turned in

to a tiny clearing and an office block.



We were gazing in, from depths of foliage,

to a secretaries’ room. They were girls

of .. seventeen? .. eighteen? .. womanhood?

We were just humble boy thirteens.



We named them the Peacock and Miss Muffet.

Pretty Peacock, the vividly-dressed,

the prominently-breasted Peacock,

while Muffet was the quiet one.



We went back and back, and gazed in joy.

The Peacock would bend to a photo-copier

and the white vision would quiver. Miss Muffet

would cross the room with files and tea.



Our banter though we saved for Muffet.

We chaffed and loved her femaleness.

The dipping of Miss Peacock’s breasts

drew almost silence, tiny gasps of awe.





CHANTICLEER



He was known in the local rugby club

as “Shagger”. The history mistress

at the grammar school, who gloried

in Sixth Form boys, described once

his “handsome arrogance”.



On his English degree at London’s King’s

he was given the name of “Chanticleer”,

Chaucer’s strutting cockerel hero.

He was a ladies’ man for sure, debater,

cock of some half a dozen walks.



Until there arrived the dowdy fresher

Agnes, not just petite but small,

docile, freckled, doting on him maybe,

maybe, but what was very sure,

loved witless by the doting Chanticleer.



I met them once in the animal park,

years later, walking up to the viewing point

to see the pride of lions. And Chanticleer

sent back to the car by clucking Agnes

to fetch the paper hankies.



And then, when Agnes was so deeply ill

and there were problems with her treatment,

Chanticleer took on the whole establishment,

was fierce, was resolute, crowed anger

in his hen’s defence, and got her through.









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Edward O’Dwyer





ALL THAT’S CHANGED



I’ve been meaning to get around to telling my wife

that I don’t quite believe in love anymore.

For ten, maybe fifteen or so years now,

I’ve been meaning to get around to it,



but something else always seems to come up,

or the moment just isn’t quite right,

or, for instance, a waiter comes over

to refill our wine and, by the time he is gone again,

I’ve forgotten what my point was going to be.



It’s astonishing how full of interruptions life is.

It isn’t that I’m keeping this information from her,

though it could, on the surface, look like reluctance,



but I just don’t suppose I’ll be allowed

to simply blurt it out and expect we’ll both shrug

and agree to talk about something more interesting.



She’ll no doubt want to know what has changed

or, more likely, just what it is she has done wrong,

though the answer, truly, is that she has only

ever done everything right, has been

the perfect wife insofar as a spouse may be perfect.



All that’s changed, really, is I’ve stopped

believing in love, but I have the impression

she’s going to feel as though that changes a lot.





INTERMEDIATE LIFE DRAWING



One of the fundamental things about an intermediate

‘Life Drawing’ class is its neither here nor there-ness.

It’s drawing class purgatory. Someone equivalent to God

has decided, in all their wisdom, you are not ready

for the advanced class, and has fashioned this new,

in-between place especially for your kind.



In my own case, I’m sure this has to do

with proportion. I’ll often draw a head too large,

or arms too long, or two shoulders that can’t agree,



fine in themselves, but anatomic mismatches

when put together. If, in the advanced class, you

did this, it would be intended, attributed

to some artistic statement, style.



The man standing in the centre of the room

has just removed all of his clothing

in front of seventeen strangers

no differently, I have to imagine, than he would

in the privacy of his own home.



Will he think about that at all as he stands there

with little else to do than look out the window

and wonder? That this is the intermediate class,

that we are deemed not ready for Heaven

because we still struggle with things such as proportion.



If I was in the advanced class, not purgatory,

I’d get his penis just right or, at least, just as intended.

Here, it could go either way. Does he care?

The money shot, Americans call this.



I’ll get to it later, when I’m ready to look directly

at it. In the advanced class, naturally,

I’d never be embarrassed about such things

as a penis dangling shamelessly there,

the Heavenly light catching it just so.





LUST



He replaces the empty wine glass

with a fresh and generous pour.

She neither utters nor gestures gratitude,

but that’s okay, she’s exactly the type

that he prefers to be a bitch.

She has finished making a nail appointment

on her mobile phone and she looks

both very pleased with herself

and very angry at the world.

Maybe she can’t make up her mind.

A simple thank you would be diminishing.

Dialogue would reduce it, taint his lust,

by tarnishing the dark secret of it.

He returns to his place inside the counter,

where the room is a cinema screen,

and she is the star, and it is his prerogative

to want her in unspeakable ways.

It is better never to have her, of course.

In the true spirit of lust, it is better

to only imagine those lurid scenes.

Too much perfectly good lust is spoiled

by having. He polishes glasses, watches,

thinks of how lust, at its best,

should always be a continuation of want,

the rapture of her kiss

inflating to unrealistic proportions,

the nirvanas of her body ever unreachable,

behind clothes, behind various doors,

behind distance. He watches and thinks

how lust should breed despondency,

send a man to actions

that are debasing, untypical of him,

beyond undignified, and the opposite

of sweet. He takes the empty glass

he has taken from her table,

holds it up to the afternoon light,

and licks the rim of it,

where she has smudged her lipstick.

Though quite aware this isn’t normal,

he feels alive, truly alive in the moment.









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G. M. Palmer





DOING BLOW WITH NATASHA LYONNE



So I was doing blow with Natasha Lyonne

I mean not that I really was doing blow

with Natasha Lyonne but I really want

to have a story that starts like that so

I was doing blow with Natasha Lyonne

and we were talking about the Sack Lunch Bunch

and But I’m a Cheerleader and about

the state of American poetry relevant

to the other arts in America and she says

Michael the whole thing is who gives a fuck

about poetry because we’ve got Netflix

and cocaine and so all the sad and happy

and embarrassing things that you could do

in a poem you can just do in your bedroom

or maybe in a bathroom stall at the KGB

which of course you can’t do if you’re

disabled when it comes to mobility but well

it’s New York City what the fuck are you

going to do right? And so anyway why

would you keep writing poetry when there’s

all these movies and all this fucking coke

and I said well Natasha because in

a movie no one would believe this happened

and she whipped up her head and looked

at me and said well there you motherfucking go.









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Heather Pease





THE THRILL



Sometimes you are

a bong rip to oblivion

imagined clothes wildly

pulled to the side in

a locked bathroom stall.



Sometimes you are

a stranger, other times –

not exactly.

You press me against

a full-length window in

a tall building, or bend

me over the couch

in my office.



Sometimes you are

a woman; everything

soft to touch, all moan

and panting. I imagine eyes, attentive

to every curve – mouth, fingers, and wide

spread hands gripping

my neck.



Sometimes you

just want to watch;

tell me

precisely where to put

my fingers; give me

permission, – if I

ask – nicely.



Sometimes I

want it rough and put

up a fight.

You are the edge

of a violence I beg for

a red imprint right

across my cheek.



Occasionally I show you

a thing or two

become seductress, all flirt and tease

your eyes peeking

from between my legs.

Call me queen.

There are walls we

fuck against, there is rarely

a bed

you are never

a mistake

you are always the thrill

of getting caught.









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Simon Perchik





TWO UNTITLED POEMS



Hiding on this tiny rock

its light is falling arm over arm

brought down as hammer blows



and mountains clinging to the sun

the way mourners will gather

and aim for your forehead



– it’s not right for you dead

to lower your eyes once they’re empty

– they have so much darkness



are still looking for tears

and all around you the Earth

splitting open a single afternoon



up close – you are touching seawater

without anything left inside

to take the salt from your mouth.





*

*





You stir this can before it opens

as the promise a frog makes

when asking for a kiss: the paint



warmer and warmer will become

an afternoon with room for mountains

and breezes close to your shoulder



though that’s not how magic works

– there’s the wave, the hand to hand

spreading out between the silence



and your fingers dressed with gloves

as if it was a burden and the brush

raising your arm the way this wall



needs a color that will dry by itself

leave a trace: a shadow not yet lovesick

no longer its blanket and cure.









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Stuart Pickford





HAUNT



Sometimes they’re hunched, watching me

as I jog along Brackenthwaite Lane

early in the morning, head in the trees.



Misty dawns, I imagine them fed up—

the blind sky’s fallen in. Like a bundle

of clothes tossed in the air, they make off.



Later, one’s near the model plane club.

Locked onto a dead shrew, it turns

the world on the axis of its stare. The wind



stirs the direction and another appears

from nowhere as I slog up a hill, not yet

carrion. It angles its red tail and is gone.



Today, they’re in my mind as I descend

a field. I drop my arms to my sides

and the breeze feels my hands for wings.





PLACES I SEE ALBERT FIGG

(i.m. 1920-2017)



Years ago on the ward. My new hip

is A-OK, smiles Albert. In capitals,

he writes on a napkin HILL112.COM,

his very own website he learned to do

about the battle for Caen. He grips



my arm. Eyes snag the distance:

advancing through a wheat field, his pal

hit by a flare, his cry still filling

the silence between shells and years;

the captain’s arm raising his pistol.



Today, on the hill that’s barely a rise,

Albert in a wheelchair. His photo faces

no Churchill tank brewing up its crew,

no hidden machine gun nests,

just corn giving shape to the wind.



Every day on his website. Albert

shakes hands with another old man

from Munich who can still taste

the gritty air. The sea’s black with ships.

Invasion. No one coming to help.









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Fred Pollack





HARLEQUIN AMONG CLOWNS



Each afternoon, bar mitzvahs, birthday parties,

the occasional interesting wedding. Two or three

kids always cry: what is this

ugly capering balloonman, face

more stylized than a doll’s, and will he eat me

feet or head first? The risk

of lawsuits, which the company

supposedly bears, lends an edge; but hipper parents

say, “That man is life, son:

uncontrolled, ambiguous, deadly, and fun!”

(Hipper kids can’t be bothered

to raise their eyes from their phones.) When the last

gig ends, they pile into minis

and smart cars, debouch on plazas

and parks, steal bras and kisses,

return them undamaged, form pyramids of awe

and longing at the feet of the powerful

(they can tell by the shoes), turn

somersaults that sweep

the failed and the sad into nearby bodies of water.

At times they talk between honks. The voices are scary.



He finds himself among them

but can never remember how: did he come

from a choice soirée, where the wit

(not only his) transcended good and evil

and the riches of this world? And where only

a pose, his famous contrapposto,

was needed to be noticed?

Had he swung, distracted, from poles,

tumbled from monkeybars to land here?

The clowns pretend neither to see nor despise him.

But his pattern is wrong: motley versus

their whites, a merely partial mask,

slippers and, worst of all – worse than the nose –

his heart, with which he communes, which inspires

arias. Those aren’t funny.

He tries to fit in, defaces

stop signs, destroys

surviving public amenities; but his heart

isn’t in it, you see, he never put on the nose.

And they bare, within red oval grins or pouts,

cruel teeth, and laugh, and inflate and belabor him

harshly with balloons.









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Ken Poyner





PERSISTENCE



Sonny always said

he was born for suicide.



Probably something not as messy as a gun

nor as painful as the noose.

Pills, perhaps, but he would have needed

to study doses, combinations, pre-death effects.

Falling left too much time

to think about the landing.

Carbon monoxide would take planning,

probably leave someone

with the remainder of an auto installment loan

payment. Cutting would require

precision. Perhaps a mix

of methods, a little of this,

a little of that, together

not so much to make a cleaning

lady’s nightmare, but enough

to get the job done. 