Two Poems by Suzy Devere

WIT HUMOR CUNNING

like a serrated knife

when you're under it

twisting

black handle like a mountain

crowding out the sun

but next to

or on top of

it glistens and shines.

it's a beautiful

modern day woman's

blessing and disguise.

still, underneath?

well, it's bloody down here.

WORDSMITHS ARE WAIT STAFF

the forever inarticulate

try desperately to use

demanding words with

syllables they can

hardly

control

the forever inarticulate

imagine themselves to be

beyond the rest of us

in word and deed

to them

we appear to scrape

their crumbs

if only they were learned

enough to realize

we are picking up

in earnest

meaning nearly

lost

through their misuse

meaning that

without

Wordsmiths

slides away

scatters

disappears

so we wait

for their

every

disastrous

next

turn

of

base

phrase

we are

waiters

indeed.

Three Poems by William Keckler

YOU LOOK NICE

You look like the sort of person

who gets fucked

in a pink motel

with a miniature golf course

in front

and swimming pool

out back

covered

by a scary tarp

since they found

the dead guy

floating in it

with a knife in his back.

And the water

has a pink tinge

all these weeks later,

oddly sweet

because it matches

the motel's pink,

your lipstick

and almost pretty bag.

VERY SHORT POEM

FILLED WITH HUGELY

HELPFUL PRACTICAL ADVICE

Never trust

a pink motel.

FUCK

This strange outline

of an animal's body.

Or just part of a body.

Why does it last forever?

It feels like my soul.

It looks like an animal.

Fossil fucks.

Eighty year olds

probably

hunt for them in dreams.

Archeologists.

We're all archeologists

of our own fucking.

all apologies by Ross Vassilev

well, bad things would happen

and I’d take it out on others

and there’s no righting past wrongs

and it’s no good saying I’m sorry

but I am

and there’s nothing I can do about it

but as Bukowski once said

someday, we’ll all go home together.

bob kaufman by Steve Calamars

wooden hearts

crawling with

termites

and wet cement

brains drying with

the footprints

left by a

jazz poet

who clogged

our ear-canals

with his poems

like pipe-bombs

and left our

souls smoking

in an implosion of

paper wasps and

piano keys—

Two Poems by Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal

PLEASED TO MEET ME

Are you pleased to meet me?

I certainly don't feel the same.

You come here with questions

I already answered again and

again. You don't bring me a

cup of coffee or a roll. You

don't offer me a cigarette or

bring me the morning paper.

I don't want to talk to you.

You could go on your way.

If you come over next time,

bring me a pack of cigarettes,

some hot coffee with cream,

no sugar, and a jelly roll.

THE SILENCE OF STARS

I marveled at the silence of

stars in the moist night air.

I counted all the stars in

the sky until I was sick and

tired. I heard crickets chirp.

I smiled and applauded. All

the stars in the sky winked

at me when I rubbed my eyes.

Two Poems by Jonathan Butcher

Time Is Money

I awake to hear radio news of yet more

empty pockets being emptied further, whilst

shop counter tills overflow with increases.

I rise and make tea with the last tea bag

in the packet, hold my breath full of morning

frost, and out stretch my fingers that creak

like kicked in doors.

And from the window I see failed faces that

linger in shop doorways, that seem to lean

closer than before, their breath as hot as lava

in couds of lie filled mist.

Their slavering drunken yells fail to evoke fear,

only annoyance, as they crawl through gutters,

as natural as scratching an itch, as breathing

congested air.

And the tiny patch of grass in the concrete yard

soaks up any tranquility left, absorbs it in the

hardened ground, converts it into steam.

Easy Shadow

Once again his head drops and offers that

mental shelter, and he prays at least today

will pass him by.

He has learnt to keep his mouth shut, his

tongue now redundant, a slab of dried meat,

that learnt it's lesson long ago.

And he sees them approaching, the grins

and gleaming eyes, ready to project their

package of misery (and they never seem

to take a day off).

And his voice and clothes and walk and

hair and eyes and teeth and nose are all

to blame now, a collective hindrance, that

only serve to fuel the ever glowing embers.

And to touch that green horizon, with fingers

that roam free from this shell, hardly seems

worth the bother.

Two Poems by Mike Meraz

Enough Cigarettes To Last A Week

the uselessness of the pen.

enough cigarettes to last a week.

the ability to go to the cafe

anytime I please.

I am a man of simple means.

I do not expect much.

I do not ask for much.

I find a universe of wonder

in the simple things,

like this blank piece of paper,

filling up,

giving meaning

to my life

and yours.

Workin’ For The Oldies

the oldies sit in the

highbrow restaurant

talking about

marvelous things.

I walk by in

old shorts,

Wal-Mart shoes

and uncut hair.

I am a writer

hoping one day

to be the subject

of their conversation.

Getting Old by Stephen Jarrell Williams

He thought

he would wear holey jeans and T-shirts

through the forever of his days,

walk barefoot

smoking cigarettes cockeyed,

charm women under a pastry of stars,

never getting tired and never going to die.

Now

staggering down the hall to his greasy apartment,

opening the unlocked door burping,

two neighbor gals

taking a steamy bath in his tub,

their best years down the drain...

He pees into the tub between them,

laughing, the party of the old continues...

The three of them in bed with lights off,

each remembering years ago,

drip of tears on soggy pillows.

Magnificent Decay (For David Lerner) by Kevin M. Hibshman

Kamikaze air and the ghost of Rimbaud haunted and hunted you down

in sweltering, diseased-ridden San Francisco during the last gasp

of many angels.

I'd be pleasantly relieved to know the two of you had finally met.

Your lumberjack spirit, clumsy as ever, rushes in, knocking shit over.

Delighted to witness something else being dashed to bits.

It's that kind of life followed by the same kind of death. (anonymous?)

No one can hope to survive holding more than their breath.

Sweating it out under the heat lamp of "progress" until those last,

sweetly agonizing

moments collapse.

Face down again, pal.

I must confess I never knew you as flesh yet I was instantly

transfixed by the impossible

love your poems attest to.

The bright darkness, limitless depths.

Poetry became a hole you would never crawl out of but I thank you as

the muse demanded your death,

I feel blessed by your burden.

september evening by Steve Calamars

raging bull muted on

the television set and

dostoyevsky screaming

in my brain

as i leave a tiny room

on the second floor of

an old apartment building

and run 6 miles

thru rich streets

with poor social skills and

worn sneakers

the miles fall beneath

my feet and i climb the

flight of stairs back to my room

my mind still racing and my

thoughts sprinting

across the page

malicious as

missiles and

molotov cocktails—

Necklace by Karime Limon

I'm in my bed

my chin pressed into my pillow,

my heart pounds against the mattress

and the glow of this window

lights up my hands and face.

I think about him out there,

I wonder where he is,

I pretend

he's on his way

to meet me

and I grow nervous

and scared.

I even plan my outfit

and hair

to look perfect for him,

like his doll.

I feel that pain inside,

of missing his presence,

how lonely it is without him,

and not knowing

if I'll hear from him tomorrow.

the tears flood and blur my vision,

dropping out like little pearls,

formed and compressed

between the heart and the soul

I'll collect these pearls,

and make a necklace

to wear

when he arrives

Table of Discontents #5 by Russell Streur

Systemic flaws

Landscape barren

Outlet mall

Fast forward

Fault lines

Mass starvation

Other targets

Cloaked in secrecy

Learning in the dark

“Seeking truth,”

the incendiary said,

“is completely futile.”

Not enough water

New laws.