Wishing Marko Woods

by Ron Androla

 

There are always trains
Scratching the bell of Sunday
Morning with iron fingernails
Sliding down the
Grip.
The sway, Q., the sway.
Ropes slip triple-time
As soon as our eyes open
With an initial tide foam mind.
Skull as clapper
Against
The encirclement of
Time.
Dawn light arrives
As a beautiful, gray
Feather, brother,
Which is a weeping
Girl, which is a
Cup of
Tea.
It’s 1965
& you’re
It for kick
The can.
Shadows are
Trees & things of
Now.
Atoms rainbow across
Mars.
Irreversible damage
Says you.
I am certain you do not remember
Sending me 2 colored drawings,
& I don’t remember when,
But they are on the wall in front
Of me so I know demons
Yearn for laughter & the vast
Celebration of peace.
Poetry is courage.

***

Ron Androla at Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Androla

cleansing the demons from my veins

by Rob Plath

once when i was a boy

the old washing machine

broke & my father

refused to fix it or buy

a new one

 

he also refused to give

my mother money

to go to the laundrymat

 

so she & i hand washed everything

& hung it out on thin twine tied

to a tree & a fence post

 

i remember it was summer

& it was hot enough for

the clothes to dry under the sun

 

the wringing out of the clothes

was tough on my hands which were

already dry & cracked from

being immersed in the tub

full of water & detergent

 

twisting the water from all

the clothing caused blisters & callouses

& my forearms to tighten & burn

 

all summer the rough clothes

that baked in the summer sun

rode my body

& turned my skin tougher

 

& although my skin thickened early

i eventually opened myself up

 

that summer was training

for my arms & hands to jab the alphabet

day after day & night after night

 

for my calloused fingertips to

ceaselessly poke the wearing keys

 

for my knotted forearms to not tire

when hovering over the poetry machine

while i cleanse demons from my veins

Bull-Snake

by Josh Olsen

 

I offered to weed – an excuse to look for snakes. Always looking for snakes. The pet I wanted but never got.

 

The Bassett hound caught heart worm, hamsters and fish died – I wanted something I could feed those other animals to.

 

Something that could turn on me without warning – bite or strangulate without conscience.

 

*

At five, I experienced my first recurring nightmare – falling from an examining table, cracking my head on the linoleum, a thin black snake slid out from the open wound.

 

Ever since, I’ve been trying to put it back in there.

 

*

I tired of pulling dandelions and thistles and my mind began to wander. I remembered things forgotten …

 

my step-cousin squeezing toothpaste into his sister’s vagina, my mother screaming as she caught him, about a week later, my first wet dream …

 

I accidentally grabbed the tail of a bull-snake and squealed – she was so fucking beautiful!

I want to go somewhere

by nila northSun

 

3 days off

I don’t want to sit at home

I would only end up

picking weeds

& watching old movies

in the heat of the day

 

I want to fill up the gas tank

damn the cost

And go somewhere

To greenness

And water

Preferably with a tent

But I know most

Campgrounds

Are filled

 

I don’t care about the

Fireworks

I care that I have time

And health

And choices

 

my friends all seem to be

staying at home

working on projects

& others are camping in

the desert

I’d rather pick weeds

& watch old movies at home

than camp in 100 degree heat

 

But having

Somebody to do things with

Would be nice

I have a full tank

A lead foot

& an empty passenger seat

 

any takers?

 

***

nila northSun at Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nila_northSun

Fear & Venom

by George Anderson

His head full of poems

he dared not write

he hated how they gurgled up

from some aberrant tributary of the brain

he hated how they spate venom. After

twenty-two years of teaching

the same questions

the same answers

on King Lear

Kubla Khan

The Doll’s House.

 

Why the sober, passionless dance of literature?

And what of Montreal?

And Auckland? Sydney? Bangkok?

 

Each stories within stories.

 

Now as before

the same recalcitrance

the same procrastination:

You can’t write about that yet

And what will they think

What about the fear?

There will be plenty of time later

Maybe when you’ve retired-

 

When the sap has congealed

The venom on the wind.

***

In July 2008 Erbacce Press published a chapbook of George Anderson’s poems, ‘Dancing On Thin Ice.’ Available at Erbacce Press. 

 

an ordinary poem

by David LaBounty

red hair just

about shoulder

length along with

 

a loose blue

t-shirt and

dull blue

 

jeans hugging

curves just

starting to

descend and

she walked

on a cloud

of stale booze

and sweat

mingled with

cigarette smoke

and perfume and

the face was

 

almost pretty

and the wrinkles

around the green

eyes seemed to

twinkle with

warm memories

of broken

dreams and

screaming orgasms

and it all became

 

so unremarkable

when she told

me her husband

sent her in

to buy some tires.

Disconnection Notice #44

by John Rocco

Maybe there’s life

in failure

I think

with the envelope in my hand

pushing the bar door open

and seeing them there

packed

drinking

dead

self-inflicted

in a million dumb sad ways.

There’s beefy-faced Hem

boxing a 300-pound tuna

and hard-gut Mishima

fingering the steak knives.

There’s bridge humping Hart

falling past Spalding

jumping off the ferry.

There’s Hunter stealing the elk horns

and Virginia going swimming.

There’s Sylvia cooking.

There’s the Infinite Jest guy

not joking.

There are more lucky unlucky ones

worn down by a crushing

sequence of catastrophes

or nothing

like them all.

I order a gorgeous

martini

giant green hollow olives floating

and rip open the envelope.

It’s another disconnection notice

from Con Edison
my favorite writer

who always is there for me

telling me things like

they regret it but they are

turning the power off again

soon

unless I pay them

which seems unfair

until I leave the bar

without paying.

Igor!

by John Rocco

 

I’m sorry my soul bro, Bartleby

now shoveling it in

stuffed with

Heaven’s thick stew

with kings and councilors and Poe’s girl

but Igor makes me want to believe in

humanity.  I know it sounds like bullshit

but really, I swear.  His story

makes me want to live, to actually

accept the fact that human beings have

SOULS.  And shit on their shoes.

Did you read the paper today

oh dear dead boy

in neverneveraliveland?

It was pretty clear in its story:

He’s the greatest bicycle thief in history.

That Italian movie had only one bike stolen.

He, Igor Kenk, stole 2,865 bikes.

Igor holds the world’s record for most bicycle thefts.

And he is the most hated man in Toronto.

Igor stole so many bikes

that when the police came to his

used bike shop

the fire department wouldn’t

let them in

because it was too dangerous with all the bikes.

They actually don’t know what he would have

done with all the bikes:

melt them down for scrap?

But the cops are thinking money

but I know Igor was thinking art

because along with the 2,865 stolen bikes

the cops also found cocaine,

crack cocaine,

15 pounds of pot,

and a stolen bronze

sculpture of a centaur fighting a giant snake.

 

He was obviously working on something.

 

Igor!

You are my hero!

Steal their bikes!

They should be happy to be in a work of art

like a painting, or drunkenness, or her,

and the stolen sculpture says it all.

You are the centaur

half tortured man, half muscle horse

fighting the giant killer snake

and it’s Apollo

God in a thick horny reptile

using prophecy and hot pussy

to strangle your

business.

 

Oh Igor!

I am with you in prison!

I am with you in Toronto!

I am with you in stealing bikes!

I am with you in the breaking of their chains and riding them away!

I am with you in fighting the slimy

giant ugly killer snake telling us

everything is impossible

and everything can’t be ours.

The 60’s Have Been Over for a While

by Dan Provost

It’s not going to be peace and love this time, because those traits come at a hefty price.

You must be willing to emotionally express yourself…to the millions, to the non-believers…to yourself;

Yourself mostly.

So peace and love are great ideals…idolized in song and words…

But it’s not going to be the solution…

If you don’t believe me; look out the window—anytime, any day…

See neighbors hating neighbors…city walkers never acknowledging each other.

Everybody is so fragmented today, so Peace and Love…no…not any more.

It’s the battle for number one now,

two and three are gone.

Buried in another time

Headstones overwrought with long grass and never visited.

grovel pig

by Karl Koweski

the small press attention whore
sends constant emails
hi, how are you
equates to
acknowledge me, I exist
three a day
to a grocer’s list
of thirty wannabe writers

each message
each existential crisis
each spat with her lover overseas
or her subsidiary lovers
closer to home
every suggestive photograph
every depressive note
appended with the notation
this is just for you
just for you
just for you
and you
and you
you too
but not you over there
I heard about you
and that other
small press skank

she’s the queen of the underground

thirty beams of light
erases shadow
thirty mirrors reflect
the literary image
she desperately cleaves to

a secret divided thirty ways
isn’t much of a secret at all

but of course
that’s the idea, isn’t it?

Honorary Uncle

by David Bates

when he grows up

he wants to be a UFO pilot

he tugs my sleeve

and his father reminds him

to be careful

not to spill people’s beer

 

go inside

his father says

this is grown up time

 

can I play your

Playstation dad?

 

No. Leave my shit alone.

 

I imagine my friend

on his beerstink couch

with a video-game pad

plugged into the base of his boy’s skull

thumbing him around the room

like a remote controlled

vacuum cleaner

 

the kid looks at me

and I shrug

 

earlier

he’d asked me

if I was born with

tattoos

 

and his father said

don’t be stupid

before I could tell him

 

yes

as a matter of fact

I was

***

David Bates currently resides in Austin, TX. He is the co-founder and editor of My Favorite Bullet (www.myfavoritebullet.com) and Interior Noise Press. His work has appeared in FriGG Magazine, Underground Voices, Whiskey Island, Thunder Sandwich, and Zygote In My Coffee. He hosts the Ruta Maya Poetry Open Mic every Tuesday (www.rmpoetryaustin.com) and will buy a beer for any traveling poet who cares to read.