Caffiend Oh, when the bridle wirepulls her comb and her teethbegin their play, their tin-canmorning melodies aremocking me, so gay. “Oh,” is what I say.How is it these sirensstrike 6, and 7, and 4?No day is as before,a roller-coaster melody,looping back-and-forth. My body aches with gravity.My blood: mercury soup—poisoned, heavy metals;cold and acid blue. “Hey, […]
Read more "Quentin Staley – Caffiend"THE CONNECTION No, I’ve never come across a dead human on one of my walks in Golden Gate Park, but the other day I came upon a dead squirrel that was being ravaged by insects that no doubt heard the news and couldn’t pass up an easy meal. And as I watched the mini-spectacle I […]
Read more " Jeffrey Zable – 2 poems"Forgive My Mom For all the things you did for Marie and IWhen you would smoke cigarettes andHow you always slept in and never really hung out with us in the morningsAnd all the times you only hung out with us in the afternoonsI forgive youFor all the time’s Marie raised me when you were […]
Read more "FORGIVE MY MOM – RUBY MUNOZ"Tango Insects chirp in the yard and buzzTil Carol slides open the patio doorReleasing a tango on the Magnavox.Sipping a cocktail he approaches her,Begs a dance “with my sweetest.”“Oh, this is just like Spain,” and laughs.Carol is so lithe in his arms as she turnsAnd spins along the cement patio,keeping pace with his long strides.She […]
Read more "Will Reger – Tango"O Canada From his first two weeks in Kindergarten, Eugene was told he wasn’t college material and should work with his hands. I’d like to tell you he had a gift, aside from perseverance, but he didn’t. At 16 he bought a beat-up VW Beetle, more rust than steel, and called her Canada. He’d sing […]
Read more "Steve Deutsch – O Canada"New Year’s Poem Hardly any movement but the windshaking banana-shaped brown seedpodson the locust trees. So many seeds,so little space to burrow in, so few birdsarriving for the year’s last birdseed,though tomorrow, the year starts over,just like magic. People will pretend to be re-born,new resolutions, a new pageto turn, wanting so muchto try again, to […]
Read more "Joseph Somoza – NEW YEAR’S POEM"Cold Ashes You thought you left me behind languishing in the dust… then the air began to clear; so, I rose above the unsettled place where you once occupied a little space. The smell of smoke still lingers long after a fire has gone out… cold ashes bearing mute testimony; the truth will live longer […]
Read more "John RC Potter – Cold Ashes"Light So many postcards. So much to say. “Dear Elaine,” she writes to herself. “Almost Christmas. Can you tell? It’s the reindeer. They’re everywhere. Their antlers rising from car windows. Tiny Christmas trees. Those too. On these windows. These cars. Antlers and Christmas trees sprouting from the same window sometimes. Insane, I know. And wreaths. […]
Read more "LAURA STAMPS – LIGHT"The Let it Be Rock at Williamson River The campsite is guarded by a rim of lodgepole pine with a break through the bushes allowing a meandering path littered with sunboiled needles, and a saggy swarm of gnats, and deer flies. I escape the detritus of the campsite, strewn with cooler, coleman stove, coleman lantern, […]
Read more "Barbara A Meier – The Let it Be Rock at Williamson River"The Most MagicalThing To HappenAll Week. In the kitchen at work,a gargantuandaddy long legs landsin the bug zapperto an electricdrum solo of death –as we watchits poor bodyget cocoonedby sparks,before splittingand melting betweenthe live metal bars,as we’re promptly toldto get back tothe chopping, washing,baking and the realityof our white tiled room –whilst we sniff atthe […]
Read more "GWIL JAMES THOMAS – THE MOST MAGICAL THING TO HAPPEN ALL WEEK"
Cacti Fur 