herein lies the difference by Rob Plath

i lean my forearms on the rickety card-table
the table which upon i write for long hours
& gaze long & hard at my own limbs
i inherited the forearms of my father
hairy leg-breaking forearms of a german gangster
but strangely they taper into thin wrists
unlike my father's thick handcuff-rough wrists
& screwed on to the ends are soft palmed hands w/long fingers
unlike my father's big meaty pistol whipping hands
i swivel them, wiggling the thin digits
how they were made for the keys, the abc's, for creation
unlike my father's made for the trigger, breaking things, unmaking things

Waiting for Poems by Donal Mahoney

Sometimes you sit for days
sucking yourself in
praying the right words
will fall in your ear
toboggan over the whorls
pierce the canal
and settle in your brain,
an embryonic delight.
Sometimes you sit for days
and finally the words come
and they're always a surprise
like the first tulip in April
or a sudden
orgasm for your wife.

FAME by Mike Meraz

this guy in New Orleans
who chopped up his girlfriend
is now on the cover of the Gambit Weekly.
killing is a way to fame
and so is being killed
but before you are killed
you have to have some talent
or die in a totally gruesome way
there is no room for beginners here.

Reading Proust by Paul Hellweg

Proust commented on
the anesthetic effect of habit
almost one hundred years
before I read his words.
I understand the wisdom
of which he speaks,
but his words are meant for other people,
ones whose lives are ordinary and staid,
not for poets, not for anyone
in touch with the great absence.

DANGLING by Stephanie Smith

When I look at people
I see only their genitals
dangling like gold earrings
on sagging lobes
Ears they cannot hear from
because their egos are too large
it smothers their senses

When I look at people
I see only the sexes
split in two
in such a disgusting display
of division
and derision
it makes me want to puke

Two Poems by Ross Vassilev

angels of mercy, angels of light

I remember
the dust of 9/11
in the blue Indian sky
over Manhattan
where hippies
and Yippies are still
putting flowers
in the guns of
American soldiers
where Diana Oughton
is still making bombs
in her top-floor
Greenwich flat and
suicide bombers
still wait in vain
for their 72 virgins
I used to live in
that place
full of the homeless
and the insane
a place that chews up
your soul
and spits it out
for dogs to
crap on
so did I cry on 9/11
like everyone
else?
the answer to that
is no.



the eagle has landed

death of the spirit as
a dove falls from the sky;
think of death
as a killer clown like
John Wayne Gacy
or Ronald Reagan;
Ronnie, I jerked off to
your daughter Patti
when I saw her
on the cover of Playboy
with some black guy
grabbing her tits
from behind; it didn't
take away from all
the carnage of
your dirty wars in
Central America but
it was something;
Ronnie, you were
Maggie Thatcher minus
the mustache; and when
I think of death
I think of you and
your big phony grin
like a Nazi death-head
with moussed hair.

Lost Garden by Jonathan Butcher

Under the garden porch light, we speak in
hushed tones of it’s eventual arrival, as we pass the
bottle back and forth under the radio’s white hiss.

Overlooking the outstretched lawn, dotted with soiled
tables the garage on our left, drenched in mothering ivy
a green veined pandemic, crawling towards the midnight
clouds.

The dogs demand feeding, like lost children, much to
our annoyance, the peace disrupted by this brief responsibility
whose shadow we hope to evade a little while longer.

Even in this dark it finds it’s way, hurtling towards us, through
what we consider the remaining years, and still remains
green and light through all seasons.

Walking Down Prospect St by Diana Rose

Walking down Prospect St
Lifting my cheeks to flowing raindrops
The deep melodic tone beating off of railroad tracks
I breathe deep, soaked to skin
So happy to be alive.

Mexican couple carrying
plastic bags of groceries
enough for tonights dinner
laugh as they pass
the wife balances a flat of eggs in one hand
smacks her husbands ass with the other.
Simplicity is the root of all happiness.

Lillac trees sway
to the breeze of speeding cars
Puddles splash up on
my soaked shoes as they squish squish squish
like a Kerouac haiku.
Funny the crazy looks you get
walking through afternoon rain.

Like the smile I got from you