RAVEN WINTERS – “PURPLE”

“Purple”

I’m 6 years old
I got a Barbie for Christmas
I guess pink’s a pretty color
My babysitter tried drowning me
What? Why?
I want a red mustang!
Mom and Dad beat me for spilling milk
I’m 8
My parents divorced
Mom beats all the time
A cop gave me a teddy bear
I burnt it
My doctor says I have severe depression and anxiety
What’s that? Is it bad?
She gave me meds
I’m 10
I was just told Savannah kissed Sam
What’s a kiss? I wonder
All I wanna do is play soccer
Dad keeps hitting me with his belt
I like blue but they say that’s for boys only
I’m 11
The teacher’s talking about sex
What’s a period? We have babies inside us?!
What?
The bruises arent fading
I’m 13
I got raped at a party
Why me?
I’m never drinking fruit punch again
I’ve started to cut myself
I’m 15
I got heartbroken by a soccer player
I stopped taking my meds
My mom beat me until i passed out
I’m 16
I’m Bisexual
I don’t want to see my parents anymore
I want to go far far way
Anywhere but here really
I’m not religious
Water still scares me
And no
I will not turn the other cheek
No I will not bend the knee
No I will not make myself miserable for your society’s pleasure
I will rise

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

ROBERT BEVERIDGE – LOVE OR SOME OTHER IMPLEMENT OF EXFOLIATION

Love or Some Other Implement of Exfoliation[1]
“Things have to keep breaking until they’re whole.” –Constance Plumley, “La Nuit”

The thing about the bombing of Dresden
was all the china. An entire industry
reduced to dust in the space
of a few hours.
When you showed
me your heart, Constance, I saw
a street, filled with rubble, blue-
flecked pieces scattered between,
and I asked you if you’d let me be
the jeweler with pots of glue
and molten gold. Days spent
with loupe attached to glasses,
a harvest of shards deposited
in a burlap sack,
then nights spent
at the jigsaw table, piece after piece
rotated, rearranged, until one demitasse
cup approached completion.
You clutched
my arm and begged “don’t leave me”
again and again; I told you
our work had just begun. An entire
profession remains to be reassembled.

This is the work we do, and from it
we shall emerge, not new, not pristine,
but stronger, a semblance of what we
were before. Imperfect but together.

1The title is a line from Tim Staley’s “Duet”.

ROBERT BEVERIDGE – BRUTAL TRUTHS & LYING LIGHT

Brutal Truths and Lying Light

You can peel off your scars
like so many old and dirty
band-aids. Pain makes a great
affectation, don’t you think?
The writers want you to reveal
your third nipple in the season
finale. Give them an expensive thrill.
Make no mistake, this is a game
of ratings and dogs’ breath.
Take another swig of condensed
Windex, another bite
of urinal cake. Breath is freshest
when it’s blue. Nice to see you.

DAVID SPICER – DADDY DEAREST

DADDY DEAREST

Ivanka, you love your nasty daddy,
you never dispute him or contradict
any of his gross tweets or lame edicts,
and you might even serve as his caddy.
But are you tempted to call him Fatty
when he eats too many Eggs Benedict,
not leaving the yellow-white plates unlicked,
or berate him for appearing too natty?
No, you say, I love my daddy dearest,
he’s my hero, my knight in dull armor,
and gives me what I want in the tower.
Besides, he’s the biggest, the fiercest
father of this cruel world, but can he purr
when he wants my love, before he glowers!

Jeffrey Zable – WHAT’S BEST

WHAT’S BEST

Hard to believe that all these people were fucked into the world,
but here they are and there isn’t much that can be done about it.
They need to be fed, clothed, roofed, and mostly entertained
so that they don’t get mad and do something punitive like
putting arsenic in the water or polluting the air with swear words
so loud that the rest of us go deaf and no longer can listen
to old Stones, Beach Boys, and Beatle’s songs.
Yes it’s best to be civil with all these people and try to make
friends with a few of them in case you get locked out of your
house without your cell phone so that if you need to call your
spouse to come open the door, they will open theirs and say,
“Of course, use mine!” and maybe give you a cup of tea
or a glass of juice while you wait.
It’s best to think of oneself as a world citizen and trust
everyone until there is cause to believe that someone
is trying to manipulate you into giving them your money
or using you as an listening board for all their problems. . .

Cacti Fur

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