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Margaret Wagner – A GIRL ON HER BOARD
A GIRL ON HER BOARD
She rolled on the sidewalk at dusk,
the wheels of her skateboard whirring.
She bent without effort,
feet tucked under knees
in a pose I’d never seen.
Gray leggings popped out of pink high-tops. Maroon lips,
aubergine nail polish, metal hoops dangled from her ears.
Her chin rested on her long arm. One bare shoulder
slipped out of her oversized black cardigan. She flew
past cherry blossoms, absorbing cracks in equal measure.
Gliding in her own momentum,
never intending to forget her flow,
she followed her beat wherever it led her.
Was this the starting gate of her velocity
or the peak of it?
Read more "Margaret Wagner – A GIRL ON HER BOARD"John Dorroh – “It’s Probably More Than Colitis”
“It’s Probably More Than Colitis”
I like a woman with a clean colon,
the way she starts telling stories
at the end
and works back toward the beginning,
expecting me to connect all the dots.
She takes her temperature every hour,
tells me the results, wants for me
to tie a knot with my swollen tongue
in her cherry
stem. The french kiss should have been
the second best clue
that we wouldn’t click, at least not like that.
I can cuddle like a fish with the best of them,
but sometimes we have to be satisfied
with a flag at half mast. You can always
use tulips to brighten the
room. We fidget in the clinic for an hour
before they call her name.
She refuses my hand, gives me an orange-lipped
piranha smile, and disappears into the
blue-white light.
Read more "John Dorroh – “It’s Probably More Than Colitis”"JOHN GREY – 2 POEMS
THE TRUNK
I nudge aside some old poems
to get at the real poetry:
love letters from a former flame.
I’ve no idea why I’ve kept them
only that I’m a hoarder,
even of affection.
There’s something of nostalgia
to them,
like the Marvel comics
in very good condition,
or the copy of Sports Illustrated
with Larry Bird on the cover,
celebrating a championship.
The writing is neat,
the passion likewise,
nothing, I’m sure,
like the long-trashed missives
I sent in response.
Reading between lines is called for.
But, to be honest,
I find more neatness,
only it’s invisible.
From memory,
there was no great passion
between the two of us.
It’s what comes of listening to Yes together.
And decking ourselves out
in bell-bottoms.
But they’re part of history.
And, to my mind,
must be preserved.
But I throw in a few
more useless items,
bury those letters deeper
going forward.
It’s enough to know they’re there.
No place else would have them.
~
THE CIGARETTE LONG AFTER
A double downer:
I feel dirty as soot,
sheets smell like dumpster fires.
And here,
on a motel side table,
one cigarette burns a long, neglected ash.
No need to smoke it.
This room’s like a cigarette
with me cocooned inside it.
You and I shared this roadside hideaway.
Years ago.
Before there were flat-screen TV’s.
Before there was flat anything.
Now I lie on a lumpy mattress.
staring up at the nicotine-stained ceiling.
My teeth grind the grit
of what was once desire.
Read more "JOHN GREY – 2 POEMS"ELAINE WEBSTER – BORDERLINE
Borderline
Quiet along the border,
Stars and moon reflect on water,
Who would have guessed the effect Power had,
On woman, man, and beast?
Six hundred fifty miles,
Not long enough to stop the mix,
Of peoples, of places, of life.
Must build stronger and longer,
Wider and higher until the heavens can’t see,
The love of a boy and girl,
Divided at the Borderline.
Katrina learned early to be silent,
When asked about family.
She joked about her father wolf,
Uncle coyote and mother earth.
Shy smiles and giggles hid the fears,
That invaded her nighttime dreams.
Dash worked cattle and lived to ranch.
He’d seen them take the water,
From here and put it there.
The Power knew nothing
Of natural flows and the thirst,
The thirst of creation.
“Buenos Dias,” she said one morning,
To a pickup and a cowboy hat.
Kat knew better than to smile big,
The way he did, with such swag.
“Good morning,” he boasted,
Chest out and head high.
“Dash and Kat have a good ring,
Don’t you know?”
They met at sunset in a cabin,
In the shade of the Borderline.
The morning brought a sense of place.
Kat spied a wolf couple and two pups,
Through the pane-less window.
“Dash, that will be us,” she whispered.
“Kat, then let it be,” he answered.
Bingo came under a full moon,
His eyes filled with shooting stars.
No wonder he grew so tall,
So fast; to see beyond the Borderline.
The night the ICE-men came for Kat,
Dash and Bingo had no choice.
They stood back as the van took their own,
And howled in despair.
Soon many joined the pack,
Peering through the wall of fences.
At the Borderline both sides ran the gamut,
Back and forth in emotional and physical despair.
The wall extended further,
By the decree of Power.
Families divided—couldn’t get through.
Except to touch snouts or fingers,
Before the Borderline militia threatened,
With freedom denied or death.
“There have been walls like this,
Built to deny and control,” said Dash.
“Yes, I know and they did not last,” Bingo pondered,
With the strategy bouncing in his head.
“We will bring Kat and Los Lobos home,
On the next full moon.”
The Power ordered a cover-up,
Of how a Dreamer could be deported.
Kat faced the Press from her refuge,
In the church near the Borderline.
She could see the wall of fences,
From the pain-filled window of her soul.
Dash and Bingo gambled all they had,
To spread the word of wrongs to be righted.
Their travels took them places,
Where anyone would listen to the pleas of families divided.
No one knows how it happened,
How a Wolf Pack and a Mujer came to Power.
The Press swarmed the White House lawn,
To report the confrontation between Ruler and Ruled.
Bingo led the Mass of People—
Until they filled the World with new understanding.
He stood tall and saw Beyond the Borderline.
~
John C. Krieg – The Bells of the Mission Santa Ysabel
The Bells of the Mission Santa Ysabel
The bells of
The Mission Santa Ysabel
Ring no more
To most parishioners still living
They never have rang in their lifetimes
Being stolen in 1925
The whereabouts of the bells are unknown
Yet it’s expected
That this was an inside job
And that the bells are holed up
Not very far away
Forgotten about in some old shed or barn
The parishioners pray
That this is true
That God will work a mid-level miracle
And see to the safe return of the bells
In 1700 Peter the Great
Of Russia
Melted down all of his homelands’
Church bells
To make cannons for warfare
They fired church bell cannon balls
Which killed people
Did they suffer a holy death
That granted them immediate entrance
Into the kingdom of Heaven
Was this the fate of the bells
Of the Mission Santa Ysabel
The bells
Of the Mission Santa Ysabel
Have remained silent
As to their whereabouts
And to what they may be mixed-up in
The hostage syndrome
They identify with their captors
And don’t try to escape
Who would steal church bells
What kind of a low-life would do such a thing
You would think that they would feel guilty
Every time they heard a church bell ring
Wracked with inconsolable guilt
And with every ding-dong
That ever reached their ears
For the rest of their lives
Cringing on Sundays
At the noon day
At quitting time
The bells
Of the Mission Santa Ysabel
Ring no more
For us
But for their captors
They ring all the time
Clanging out “Thief, thief, thief!”
It must be tough to hold up
Under that kind of condemnation
God must have a hand in this
He keeps the thieves names on His black list
Nothing good could ever come of this
Those bells are surely missed
There’s only one way to escape eternal damnation
Bring back the bells
Of the Mission Santa Ysabel
Buy your way out of hell
God’s not buying what you have to sell
And one can never tell
When things will no longer go so well
Someday the bells
Of the Mission Santa Ysabel
Will chime in joyous rapture
Across the Santa Ysabel Valley
Summoning parishioners to appear
And perhaps shed some tears
Over the long-awaited return of the bells
God being in his Heaven
And all being right with the world
The bells
Of the Mission Santa Ysabel
Don’t ring currently
But even a blind man can see
That God will put an end to this travesty
He will solve the mystery
The bells of the Mission Santa Ysabel
Will once again clang loudly
Ding, dong
No longer gone
The bells of the Mission Santa Ysabel
Will clang loudly
Over the Santa Ysabel Valley
God being in His Heaven
And all being right with the world
Ding
Dong
Ding
Dong
Read more "John C. Krieg – The Bells of the Mission Santa Ysabel"R.T. CASTLEBERRY – 2 POEMS
IMPRESSIONS OF THE SICK HOUSE
I watch in the world,
amused by massacre and gin,
homeland walls, holiday wars.
Viewed from the barred gate
darkened surveillance cars prowl,
aimless under winter afternoon skies.
Cold weather tramps straggle past
construction generators, pavement gaps,
work order water leaks.
I take into consideration
the symbolic and the sin.
I deny memories useless to me—
week-long binges, wives I’ve cheated with.
Unsettled by panic attack, I leave
a dark bedroom for couch and cable tv.
Lessons located in news video,
detention gangs scour migrant dives,
mercados, work warehouse.
I look away, watch the ceiling fan
swirl shadow circles on the blinds.
In jeans, a Steely Dan tour tee shirt,
almost ready for silence,
I allow days clear of music.
~
LANCE GAMBRELL – THERE IS STILL TIME
There Is Still Time
There is still time, to park at Marc and Vic’s.
I don’t care what they say, I love summer best, in Las Cruces. Better yet, stop the time machine at Tim and Suzanne‘s, in the summer of dub.
Half of my friends, work for a shitty local pizza chain. The others work for the dream machine called academia. Arguing about another Pablo Neruda poem. And the value of locally sourced Pabst Blue Ribbon.
I wake up due to declining levels of ABV.
Lucas is about to go to work because we’re done poking his Suzuki 50cc belly. But, I’ll be back, for dollar lunch, and my first class at 11:30, still AM.
Read more "LANCE GAMBRELL – THERE IS STILL TIME"LISA DAY – 6 POEMS
▪️
calmly i look down and see myself low as you could go slow as
light seeping under
a door
i bow to sleep and color
shapes enigmas frogsong
they scoop me into their center and together we live
not selfishly or excludingly
in the pagan arroyo
behind the house under the waxing mormon
tea bush
there was a time i wanted to be you
the lizards and jackrabbits keep this to themselves.
▪️
EVERY COIN WASHES CLEAN AT THE BOTTOM OF THE WELL
july twenty eight
you shattered all illusions
you jerked them off my face in a dry
riverbed tossed my rosy glasses
i kissed my minced
heartflesh twice
ground the
lenses
into fine desert sand
where i buried you
later i dug everything up
renamed it and stirred it
into my hot morning
tea
with honey
can you feel the passion of your indian summer staining every step?
i had my daughter take a picture of me that day
so i could feed the swollen-eyed ghosts
whenever i felt their hot current
struggling
beneath my breath.
▪️
this just surfaced in my heart a foreigner and recluse
so i vowed to write it down in my native
tongue
my last lover short-lived as he was
was neither short nor tall and left
when i had my hardest time
he rearranged his
priorities until
i wasn’t
this is how i understand love
after sixty star-pale mother flesh
years you
teach your eyes
to bless all they see
exchange water for air fire
for earth and never sit until time
tricks you into your own deep embrace
late seasons and all-surrounding grace coordinate as birdwings
i never meant to be alone forever i don’t know what i meant
thinking too much as a child alone in a cactus
garden
that belonged to someone else
about the lives of royalty
faraway places
ugly unfeathered things falling from the sky settling
on pitiless sidewalks
a tiny finger placed softly
upon each heart until
it stopped
when i heard the cry
of doves i knew
i was alone in a desert
nothing is more fully served
the impetuous heart
and nothing has changed
at all
▪️
i trace the rivers
because i am right
handed most of my tributaries
are on the left
hand dug
a brown recluse ran fangs through my middle finger 48 hours ago and i’m waiting for it to fall off
manual labor
true labor of love
the trail of water is white
upon my pale skin
this is what happens when you’re two
four
and sixty
my eyes won’t shut
i’ve known men who can hear the stories
but none who can live with the consequences
because there are some
one is i don’t know if i can still live
here
but it’s home
my body is
home to
me
the falling apart house though
the see through blinds
old cholla laid out
sexy on a bed
of sand to
rot
a forgotten neighborhood built
by elders now crumpled
under kmart quilts
in rest homes
jesus
my finger is throbbing and i cannot watch
another
telenovela tonight
▪️
rolled my window down
hollered is there still a cat under my car
the woman across the street just
stared as she pulled
a lighter from under
her belly and lit a cigarette
i never saw her lips move except to take a drag
as she said
just left
▪️
everything is nothing and god
is alone this way you hold more and feed
the magnetic parsing of the dialectic soul under
a triple eclipse’s simple moon mantra. cloud-water
obscures but it is also helpful. look deeply into it and you will
see no one is ahead nor are they behind. the myth is we all dream naked when everything silent begins
to whisper. the truth is we have
forgotten to listen.
JAMES P. ROBERTS – 3 POEMS
FLOW POETRY IN HUE, VIETNAM
for Adam
You speak to your ancestors
lying in shallow graves
mulched over by jungle.
You speak to alligators
and elephants, creatures
life spans longer than yours.
You speak to huddled mothers,
black-eyed babies who utter
never a word or cry.
You speak to bamboo winds,
hollow temples, dynasties fallen
and long forgotten.
You speak to fog-shrouded mountains,
roiling muddy Mekong River,
a black market dog tag.
You speak to rows of mildewed books
in a dozen languages, histories
yearning to be heard.
The raucous birds speak to you:
Go back home or we will use your dreads
to feather our lonely nests.
AND IF PAIN BECOMES A POEM . . .
I am full of poetry.
Poetry screams from every pore of my body.
My right ankle cracks poems so loudly
a microphone twenty feet away picks up the sound.
My left elbow tightens hard enough
I cannot bend it to write a poem without a rough
shake. Electric pings course through my chest,
irregular rhythms, like free verse, thrum inside a fat breast.
(man tits . . . the worst kind of poetic pain!)
Clumsy fingers struggle to write a refrain.
Dimming eyes spill tears, these inky words,
bright flashes of images vanish, go unheard.
Yes, I could continue this medical literary litany
and if pain becomes a true poem, I will die saintly.
COWARDS
I see them on the news.
The scary people.
The scared people.
The people who think of nothing
but themselves.
Who watch as the chaos mounts.
The people who have built
their survival tombs,
stocked with enough food and ammunition
to last as long as necessary . . . until
the last not-one-of-us has fallen
and they can come out again.
These are the cowards.
The true cowards,
for they have the means to change
the situation,
to take charge
and avert the damnation.
But they won’t.
Because they are hollow.
They are too selfish.
They are too scared.
It is their own fear
that will doom them.
They will become nothing
but shadows
wandering
a destroyed land.