poetry

poems

MICHAEL DWAYNE SMITH – THE SANITY PSALMS

The Sanity Psalms

Drunkenness should be supported more in public life.

I was just sitting around downing bottles of

Samuel L. Jackson’s Shithouse Porter

(with the occasional Fish House Stout),

and I was listening to Mickey & The Wifebeaters’ latest album,

Top Ten Suicidal Truck Driver Songs, when I realized

neither Jesus nor Pterodactyls are in the Constitution.

I heard a heavenly voice say,

“You have made drunkenness respectable, sir,” except no, no,

that voice was my drunk uncle, known to all his nieces as

Drunkula (for creeping around rooms at night in search of a kiss

and asking, “Mind if I pee in your hamper?”),

but this time instead of creeping my drunk uncle taught me

the fool-proof, guaranteed 100%, Three Step Formula for Success

passed down for generations in our clan. Step one, set a goal.

Step two, forget about it. Step three, do something else.

He had the evidence to back it up; he declared,

“I got a paycheck last week, I don’t know about you.”

This was late night stoner TV, without the pictures.

The guy became pretty annoyed and started rambling about his

brain being ripped apart by angels. That one I knew because

at school they taught us the Hall of Fame is in Franch, everybody’s

drunk uncle stumbling around the neighborhood. So, yeah,

if wrong were a country, he’d be the capitol.

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Karen Mandell – YARD SALE

Yard Sale

Useless, I could tell instantly.

Baby toys in plastic orange and red, grimy fry pans,

bent hollowware burning in the sun.

I walk in past the woman and the baby sitting on the concrete stoop.

I’m on my way out before I see the books piled on the grass,

their pages soft with age, the damp dried out of them.

The Sun Also Rises, the striped Scribner edition.

Do I have this one at home?

I crouch down and turn limp pages, not reading, brushing off dust,

unwinding a tendril of cobwebs from my finger.

The odor of paper stored in boxes too long.

This one’s not worth it, broken spine, even for a quarter.

I put fusty Hemingway down.

The baby cries, his voice quavering and scratchy.

The woman picks him up and says it’s time for a nap,

you’re ready aren’t you, you’ll lie down for a little while.

I stand up, the sun hot on my hair.

I want to lie down, a baby, in a darkened room with only a thin cover.

An opened window with a fan going somewhere.

I’d close my eyes even if I didn’t really want to

because there’s not much fight left in me right now.

The baby whimpers.

I forget what city I’m in,

whether it’s Minneapolis or Boston before that or

Chicago back even further.

I’m a burnished nub, everything rubbed out of me,

clarified. Even so, I have to get back to the car,

do the things that make it go,

add on to myself the crumbled pieces

that fell off and lie there, in the grass.

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Robert Allen Beckvall – MAYBE IT’S FREEDOM

Maybe It’s Freedom

 

Maybe we got souls that crave

The dream of the wild west

With saddlebags and campfires

Teepees and wigwams

Some say we are living a national nightmare

Maybe, just maybe the crazies and druggies and alkies,

Tent dwellers and unbathed, unloved, unlucky,

And the squeezed by technology/big brother/international conglomerates

Want to have fights in saloons

Want a girl from a brothel

Want to ride the plains after the Great White Buffalo

Maybe they want pistol packin’

Vest wearin’, neckerchief tyin’ sheriffs and outlaws

Maybe they want to tan hides and touch their enemies

Or, make love under the stars

While the spirits of the ancestors circle the night sky

Maybe that gal diggin’ bottles and cans from a trash can

Wants to ride with Wild Bill like Calamity Jane

Maybe the guy with oozing diabetes legs

Wants to catch and tame a wild mustang

Maybe they like to dream

That their stolen Safeway cart is a covered wagon

And you’re either driven’ it or attackin’ it

On the wide open plains

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Darren C. Demaree – 3 Poems

POEM FOR KATIE, QUEEN OF OHIO #37

I don’t know
what

your shoulders
crave,

what
your coral

flesh will
curl around,

but know
early spoon

you will lift
all of us.

~

POEM FOR KATIE, QUEEN OF OHIO #38

This population
is seconds.

You are one
whole second

to me. Hinge
the sign so

that the rest
of the shadow

can see you
as well.

The curtain
is yours.

~

POEM FOR KATIE, QUEEN OF OHIO #39

Lullaby, so broken
& full of the pieces

that could not be
lost, I am desperate

to have you here
amidst the mixture

as it presses
against the mixture.

The heat is coming.
You are the heat.

You could end
these small endings.

~

Find Darren C. Demaree  online.

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NATE ELIAS – LEVEL THREE EMERGENCY

Level Three Emergency

We’re snowed in
at a Motel 6
and I’ve still got it,
the gold chain we stole
from your mother
that rainy Easter.

Tell me to turn up the radio
and dance like we’ll die here,
frozen and hungry, naked.
There is no resisting fire.

I could last forever, a jewel
thief for you, searching
for enough amber
to fossilize our love.

Tell me to wear this gold
chain around my neck, a collar
or dog tag to show the new world
what you mean to me.

We’re snowed in;
I could last until the sun
thaws us from the past
and frees us from this room.

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Rajnish Mishra – Sunday Evening

Sunday evening

Sunday evening is worse than Monday morning,

The fear of death, says Sir Francis, is worse than death.

A sickly feeling rises and churns in my stomach,

even now, after I’ve lived through such seven hundred

and seventy non-workingSundays. It’s the same every time.

It starts rising from Saturday. In the morning

a panic reminder rings, a tightening in intestines.

Saturday evening warns me that the next

will be the last before death comes again.

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Abigail George – Exodus or the spark of life is electricity

Exodus or the spark of life is electricity
(for my mother and father)

He remembers hearing the words
we are not couples that fight all
the time. He looks at his wife who
is not speaking to him. ‘We are
who we are’. And thinks to himself
that the sea is tired. Perhaps
as forlorn as he is. He’s a man in the garden. He imagines the sun

covering the dark water. Cold to the
touch. He wonders what the right
language of love is for winter guests.
How to make peace with his wife.
He wants to embrace her. Take her in his arms

as if she was a girl
again. Brush her hair out of her
face with his granadilla hands.

Forget that he is in the autumn
of his years. He wants to forget
that he used to do this for a living.
He wants to know if his unhappy
marriage is on the verge of cracking up. He wants to know
if she’s finally going to leave him.

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Allasandra Raceen Buckner – YOU

You

So I’ve heard all these people
rappin’ ’bout relationships
But I’ve just lost one
myself
‘Bout 6’2 with some attitude
But I just wanted him
All to
myself
But I wasn’t the only one
The man up there
was calling him, too.
Dad, now that you’re gone,
I just don’t know what
to do.
You were loving, caring,
and intelligent.
You were always there
for me.
I will miss laughing with you
because, that’s what we would
always do.
I remember when
I was only 9 you taught me
the basics of
you.
You were a
businessman,
never taught by anyone
but you.
All I want to do now is
take my life
but I can’t do a recap
of you.
That’s an unforgivable sin
and something I don’t
wanna do.
So now all I gotta do
is stay close and
remember
the things I did
with you.
I never wanted you
to leave but
that’s what you had
to do.
You
were a man that
would do anything to
achieve his dreams;
would spoil us
and make us feel
like queens.
That’s what made you happy
and us too,
After grandma was gone,
you were, too.
You
let the bad stuff take
care of you.
We told you
everything would be okay,
and that’s what she told
you, too.
All we wanted was for you
to get help but
that wasn’t somethin’
you wanted
to do.
You
went through thick and thin
for us,
and that’s what we had to do
for you.
You asked why He did this
to you,
but he has plans for everyone,
including you!
He saw that you were hurting,
but He knew what He had
to do.
He knew it was going to hurt
a lot of pople
including you;
But it was the best
for us- even you.
Dad, I miss you a lot
and you know
that, too;
But now I know
to not let the bad stuff get
to you.
You’re happy now and that’s
all that matters to me-
that you are you!

Daddy, I love you.

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