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Group Session
by Judith Wilkinson
Death was in my veins all night,
like a mad bull, with no holds barred.
Today everyone smiles benevolently.
The light room bodes comfort.
From some corner of calm
I can read the good intentions
floundering about me.
I don't have the words
for my own session last night,
when madness punched holes in me
I could not fill.
If I befriend anyone today,
it will have to be that
darkness in my veins,
stampeding senselessly.
The Libertine Sage
by Will Johnson
I wish
I could
write about you
ego to the side
but the crass ass act
or is it an act?
compels me to
stay true
to character
and write
of eating
mofongo
from your pussy
Your chin ring
does it wipe the enamel
off of your teeth?
Do you need air conditioning
on an early August night?
Were we about to play an adult game
of "Spin the Bottle"
before I appeared too eager
and creeped everyone out?
Did I repulse you and your friends?
Am I the antithesis
of "Grown and Sexy" -
"Young and Lame"?
You have the confidence to be a Christian
My strength comes through Satan
Am I Edgar Allan Poe
or a confused teen
playing the romantic role?
You're a very beautiful girl
You look like Edgar Allan's "Ligeia"
I want to go back to your house
with a bottle of absinthe
a taciturn man in black
rolling cigarettes
with 20 girls
notched on my belt
discussing Heidegger
and being the cool smart guy
a sage who fits in
and gets pussy
Be my mirror
or my woman
or both
Inquiry
by Matthew Deschaine
Yesterday I dreamt of a dying bird
Today I found it in the street
I said to it...
Why does suffering always bridge the gap
Why must Transcendence be a bird with a broken back
Repast
by Gale Acuff
My wife and daughters drove off a bridge
three months ago. I still haven't learned to
swim. I stopped eating fish. I drink milk, not
water, and I take showers now, not baths.
They're not coming back, except in my mind,
what's left of it. I'm on the computer
--how do I delete the whales screen-saver?
I don't go out in the rain, much less sweat
it in a car. It poured at the funeral.
I tossed mud in on the coffins, then had
a word or two with the Management. How
the hell could you not have saved some dry dirt?
I was crying--also water. Please, Sir,
he says. We're sorry, and you're quite upset.
I spit at him and miss. I've forgotten
my umbrella--I want to spear him good.
It was a tractor-trailer forced them off
through the guard-rail. They had a few minutes,
I suspect, before they suffocated.
They didn't even drown in water--can't
death do anything right? I wake at night,
gasping for air. I open the window
(it's December now), unless it's raining,
and breathe for four. It helps I've quit smoking.
They were going to the grocery for
enchilada sauce. That's my favorite dish,
enchiladas. Lots of sauce and cheese and
I like my meat ground, not shredded, and
cooked all the way through. What's funny is I
still eat them--try to make them myself and
they're not half-bad. In fact, they're better than
what my wife and daughters made. I love them.
The Written Apology
by Thomas Van Stockum
I hope to succeed
in conveying this thought
before the next stop,
Astor, where I get off.
I left the note,
the apology,
on his bed,
and I’d like to point out
that the written word
is more faithful
to what I want to say,
more faithful than what I say,
for often I find
I can’t say what I should -
so my signature authenticates
my projection of regret
but do not ask me to
discuss
that which I have written
because although it is close to my heart
it is far from my mind,
and this I cannot help.
Psychobabble
By Maggie Benedict
Want want want
her beating heart
and her fluttering eye;
her twisting hips
and her thirsty smile.
She walks the floor longing
for someone to believe in,
doesn’t she?
She misses the days
when compliments came free,
doesn’t she?
Love love love
and his touch
tempting, tearing
and her breath
burning, breaking
and their mouths
meeting, moaning
He rolls right off
without a word spoken,
doesn’t he?
He looks the other way,
yanking at his pants,
doesn’t he?
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Autobiography
by Lauren Amber
my father's parents were poverty and deception.
my mother's father and mother were beauty and religion.
together they spawned two daughters.
i am beast with no voice
i have always lived in the house of pain.
my sibling is beauty, voice and brain
but of course she does not know this.
for we lived in the land of betrayal and truth,
denial and pain.
i have always wed power and control.
they arrived at my door in various disguises
whatever the mask I still married the same.
Smoking Cigarettes
by John D. Kevari
Remember the days when everyone smoked,
I mean everyone.
Those were the days of fins on the cars,
Black and white television.
Days gone by,
A time and place no more.
We wore suits even at the ballgames and every man also wore a hat-------
a fedora, of course.
Sinatra was on top and the King was still driving a truck in Memphis.
Smoking cigarettes was just something that everyone did.
I mean everyone had those big ashtrays.
JFK had his head blown off in Dallas and by the time the Beatles swept
the land the days
of smoking cigarettes were no more.
Non-smoking restaurants and internet cafes.
Who would have thunk?
Only the images in photographs remain.
When everyone smoked cigarettes.
I mean everyone.
Oscars for Shadows
by Michael Levy
Staid lives pass-by, mostly unnoticed,
occasionally, there may be a soiree
on the terrace of ambitions,
friends and family
applaud and cheer, feed the ego,
for a few irresistible moments,
on the whole,
life sails past, furbished in hush,
few notice its golden interior,
illuminated in elegant, ingenious creativity,
time expires in modest silence,
some vivid shadows may
be vocalized, as a body
reclines in lament.
Revelations
by Richard A. Becker
It’s like this at the beginning, and it’s
like this at
the end. Weird.
So I got back late from the AM/PM
With my Slim Jim and Coke
And the damn ants had changed things in their ant farm
They had traveled to the little plastic sun hanging
over the barn
Even as they built the colony up something fierce
But that wasn’t the worst of it
The fucking things had figured out calculus,
engineering and electronics
Not to mention arts, history, psychology and language
So they were no longer content to worship my snapshot
through the plastic
Instead they had formulated complex theories of
cosmology
That indicated whole other worlds outside their own
And all this after I had got them a Super Giant Deluxe
Ant Farm, too
Their scientists and engineers had shown them the way
While their politicians and magnates had paid for it
with whatever they used for money
So the ants were about to put their theories to the
test and explore the world
I’m really not sure why it made me so angry
I suppose when you buy something or build it you want
it to stay the way you planned it
The same way we’d like each other to always be the
person we liked when we met them
I saw the ants’ daring explorers getting ready
to step
through the tunnel in the plastic
Into my world and away from the world I had made for
them so lovingly
During the commercial breaks on Lost, when I felt like
it
And I just lost it, I guess, I can’t give a better
explanation for it than that
I suppose sometimes I just work in mysterious ways
I picked up their ant farm and I shook it hard
SHOOK it very hard and watched their cities crumble
to
nothing
Saw them die in their thousands buried under the earth
Watched all that they had achieved tumble into
undifferentiation and non-being
There were survivors, of course
Out of these, surely some would remember seeing my
face and hearing my voice
Saying YOU WILL NOT, YOU WILL NOT, YOU WILL NOT
Maybe their next civilization would do as they were
told, show respect
For respect is love, and love is respect
Meanwhile, how about that Slim Jim and Coke?
It’s like this at the beginning, and it’s
like this at
the end. Weird.
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