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Mute muse
by Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal
One night
she would not
sing. She kept
her mouth shut
as I sat
alone and
waited for
her to sing
again because
she will die
if she does
not sing.
victims
by Tom Viscount
i think the best thing
about being drunk
is not being sober
and i guess
that's as good a reason
as any to drink
someone told me
alcoholism was a disease
and i thanked him
for giving me an excuse
for being a drunk
for not addressing
the real problem
that my life
had fizzled
had bombed
had died
rebel
by Tom Viscount
i
wanted to be
a rebel
i
wanted to
go against
the grain
spit where i wanted
say what i thought
but i’ve been around too long
waiting for the right fight
it’s 10pm in my life
i barely have enough time
to die
what happened to the middle
i didn’t mean to hesitate
but i guess i did
it didn’t seem to last that long
but i guess it was
i wasn’t sure
i wanted to be sure
Fear in Black and White
by Branch Isole
I met Nicole Brown Simpson today.
Not really,
but a woman
just as blonde
just as beautiful . . .
just as frightened,
You could see it in her eyes
On her lap, sat
a stunningly attractive child
Next to her stood,
a rugged Adonis like figure
leering down at her possessively
as he accepted his award
and the adulation
of an adoring, unknowing public
The air between them was palatable
A space once charged with lustful energy
now contained fear
and sparks,
just beneath the surface
of a forced smile with perfect white teeth
and a sinister sideways glance
from dark insecure eyes
What is it that makes these trophies
so endearing, so desired,
yet so dangerous a combination?
It is not black and white
It is something else
Something more base
Something more need filled
It is more.
It is, look at me
I’ve made it
I’ve arrived,
I will laugh in the face of convention
The one I long to be part of
and at the same time, beg to defy
The bruises are covered,
masked by make-up
and the finest couture
But fear, still resides there
Behind eyes that see running
and a memory that clings
to the temporary safety
of a locked bathroom door
He said,
“If you ever try to leave
I’ll kill you”
and she believes him
So she stays,
Smiling for the cameras
and fearing for her life
On Finding an Article About Carl
by Ray Succre
Carl, I have to wonder if I was a good enough enemy.
I had never been one, and so was novice at disliking you.
I should like to believe I do things properly, but
my apologies.
I pestered and thorned well enough, badmouthed you
so eagerly that even your own fiancé chimed,
but then I let you be for short durations.
You attempted our fistfight twice, even brought friends
to make sure, but I only talked you down both times
into basic treaty.
My apologies double.
Your angry arms, vised face,
words, all the venomous threats and promises...
Anger is about the inertia, a zone between two motions,
and I got you there and kept you there for so long,
yet you never managed to punch me.
Oh Carl, you never really achieved an upper hand
or last word, and those wondrous fangs never got to sink,
not even when I apologized and you screamed.
Lord, Carl, you must have despised me,
my face into crumpled burning meat in your mind.
Not enough with my toxic workings,
finally, I forgot about you as if you never were,
leaving our dilemma open without any sort of resolve.
You would have knocked me had we fought with fists;
I spat diplomacy, which is far more grievous to the nerves.
"Filthy Dirty Martini Straight Up With Three Olives,
Dropped- Not Speared"
by Stacey Leigh
There is such a thing
As a "lame" bar
And a "lame" bar doesn't carry
Baileys Irish Cream
As he taps his fingers on the bar top
And pretends he has other things to do
I play the role of indecisiveness
And cock my head and twirl my hair
I think
I know what I want, sir
You just don't have it
So I say it with my eyes
And with my voice I order
I'd like it chilled
With the sword on the side
Then I smirk and turn my head
I can be salty too
Green typewriters
by Daniel Bachleda
I want a green typewriter
to write bad poetry on.
I cannot use any other color,
or even just paper and pen,
with its long-handed, aching palm
permanence.
my poetry is too impatient for
pens and paper,
and too poor for
computerized grammar check.
I don't want a smart electronic
snicker anywhere near
my sad, weak words.
I want a green typewriter,
bulky, strong, dumb, and docile,
like a housetrained buffalo,
but spray-painted green.
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Bad night
by Kennedy Holmes
You should see my insides now:
jumbled and thrown together,
piled and cold like
careless leftovers.
You, who taught me
how to shoot myself in the foot.
And then watched me do it
your face glassy with love.
Tonight has beat me,
even though in this old bed
with dirty hair and stinking breath
my hands happily remembered
your body.
Overreaction
by Nicole Roux
I guess I'm a little sensitive these days
My emotions raw and close to the surface
The innards of a gutted fish
Rotting in the aluminum sun,
Even keeled and mildly schizophrenic
("You can take these mirrors for free"
She tells him, her fingernails digging into the flesh of his arm,
Covered only by a sparse thicket of light brown hair,
"You can have them all,
if you like.")
His disabused sexuality
Worn coarse like unshaven cheeks
("These boats do not have glass
Bottoms. And these mirrors distort."
He replies,
Shaking his arm free.)
He wears me down like a wet fist
Calls me princess and baby
As if they just occurred to him
("Every naked woman is his baby," the audience
Whispers, "Every woman he's inside is a princess.")
And the applause comes in sexy slimy fists.
I guess I'm just sensitive these days.
Letters to Carrie
by Nicole Roux
Caroline
I'm alone again
Softness descends, muggy and gray
A swing, empty, pushed by the breeze.
I sit by the window, sometimes,
Watch the ivy (you see, I think
I can see it growing if I am quiet enough)
Overtake the brick of the middle school
Across the street.
Oh, Carrie, emotions seem so silly
At times, thumbprints staining
In sepia ink.
I leave traces on everything
Makeup smudges, waterstains, lipstick
On Styrofoam cups.
The disease is taking over, tugging
At the edges, I am safest in the car,
Heavy wheels grounding me, stabilizing.
I wish I didn't know about nighttime,
When only the whiskey can help
Make nonsense of the achy, creaking house
Bone on bone, shushing the crickets
As they bounce noise like chaos
Echoing in the firefly zig-zag of light.
These days feel so old, Carrie, so old
That I sometimes have to cross the street
Late at night and wearing only my bedclothes
(the neighbors swear I am insane) to push
the silenced, empty swing back and forth
against the cadences of moonlight.
The emptiness, the ivy, the whiskey,
And god, all the stains I make,
They all make me think of you-
Quiet now- Caroline.
Jesus, Carrie, I'm alone again.
What He Begat
by Dawn A. Green
never met that
lean legged, loose lipped
man that should have been
my Daddy
that fine
candy-talking
sugar-walking
high brow, that strong in the eyebrow
man
never seen that
broad-chested, single-breasted
suit wearing man that used to be
my Daddy
that strong
gangster walking, money stalking
high reaching, woman leeching
man
never will forget though
the man I've never seen
nor met though
that Karma-eaten
worn and beaten
man that never came around
the father I never found
that old
sideways limping, arm a'gimping
suit all ragged, eyes a'bagged
man that walks on by
too broken to say hi
no we
ain't never
met.
a melancholy afternoon
by Michael Estabrook
Normally when I
walk along the tracks
and see or hear a train coming
I rush off into
the woods to watch
the monster unseen,
feel its vibrations rumbling,
smell its oily metal
and smoky wake,
while remaining quiet and still
as a bush or a tree or a rock.
But today I don’t feel much
like playing this childish game.
I’m feeling strangely older
and weary-worn of life.
I even neglected
to put the pennies on the tracks
like I always do.
For Becca
by Barb Thomas
"A life I didn’t
choose
Choose me.”
- A. Rich 1961
This marriage is flying apart all over us.
The curtains are slipping slowly off their rods,
the bananas are rotting like brown hearts in the kitchen
and Nina Simone is pleading us to wake
from our lonely bedroom at the top of the stairs.
Bird of prey
by Skip Pulley
and onward comes the esurient falcon
ever closer
in silent rhythmic motion
that seems perpetual
until it is upon you
and then all is chaos
the beginning of emptiness
in every direction
and despair, until salvation.
Religious Stanzas
by Brandon Jess Eaton
Before the dances and the drums pray for rainfall,
a Yoruba craftsman takes a saw to wood, forming
a pronghorn headdress the same way as his ancestors
before him. This Do In Remembrance of Me, reads a
table where candles melt like soft butter, Christians
genuflect for a weekly fix, and a father waxes ceremonious.
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