BITTERSWEET – ANDREW HUBBARD

Bittersweet

Now I know why so few people
Go to their high school reunions:
You just don’t know what you’re going to see,
And it can be a shock.

I had a few shocks, but not too bad
And then I saw the girl
That I had loved so hard
And wanted so badly
I didn’t even dare to sit near her,
And when we were paired up
In a biology lab
I never lifted my eyes
From my sacrificial frog.

Tonight our eyes met and she smiled.
I couldn’t move, but out of the realm
Of sheer impossibility she walked—
She floated—over to me,
Took my hand and didn’t let go.

We talked a little while,
I can’t remember any of the words
But her voice was just the same.

We got drinks and sat down.
She smiled again (my heart twisted)
And said, “Remember Doctor Cohen’s biology?
How he always smelled like formaldehyde?”

I added, “And how his shirt would pull out
When he reached up to write on the board.”

She tipped her head back and laughed,
Then looked at me seriously,
“I wanted to go out with you,” she said,
“But I was real shy back then,
I didn’t know how to get your attention.”

“You got my attention,” I said grimly
And my lips were numb.

“I wish we had dated,” she said.

“Is it too late?” I said.
I was trying for lightness
But it came out more like panting.

She laughed again, and said,
“Oh much too late.
I’m a grandmother.
And my husband had an accident:
He’s in a wheelchair
And needs me full time.
It took me a week
To get an LPN for tonight.”

Then our class president gave a speech,
There were some awards,
A benediction, and it was over.

“Can I walk you to your car?” I said.
“No,” she replied. “I still live here.
Small town.” One more smile,
(Was it wistful?) and she was gone.

For sure, I know why so few people
Go to their high school reunions.

JUNE 2019

3 DAYS – HOLLY DAY

3 Days

I have the sudden desire

To eat paint chips, drink turpentine, root around in the garden

For toadstools and mushrooms

Fight a bear. The phone sits in its cradle, refusing to liberate me

From all of the good choices in life that brought me to this point

The conscious good-food choices and intermittent exercise

The firm shake of my head when offered dangerous substances

To ingest, to smoke, to shove up my ass.

There are things I did that could have led me to this point

But it doesn’t seem like there were enough.

THE EXPERIMENT – John Kaniecki

The Experiment

Follow all rules
Exit through the entrance
No hesitation
Killing is natural according to evolution
Soul sucking bloody Social Darwinism
Killing is a sin
Speaks the great I Am
We are not going in circles
Observe the three dimensional spiral
DNA helix
What have you gone Felix?
G.I. Joe
Ivanhoe
A bullet is a door
Goodbye
Bury me in my wife’s garden
A final pardon
Fertilizer
Rhymes with it
Snare drum raps
Bugler taps
Don’t remember me by this lament
It’s an experiment
Electrocuting rats
Wearing schizophrenic hats
An everlasting buy
Try not to cry
Says I
Now repeat the entire process

“PUTTING YOU THROUGH NOW, CALLER.” – Christopher Barnes

“Putting You Through Now, Caller.” (13)

“What’s the checklist?

How soon before guts on the freeway?

The hood’ll be spattered.

We’ll be on overdrive six months.”

“By then deadwood’ll be birdless,

Whirlblast sparring Central Park.”

CALLING ALL POETS BORN IN NEW MEXICO

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Grandma Moses Press will be publishing a poetry anthology containing only poets born in New Mexico. Lots of writers call New Mexico home, but for this project, we’re only interested in poets who were born here.

If you were born in New Mexico (you don’t have to show us your papers), and you would like a shot at being included in this unique chapbook, please send up to 5 poems to: grandmamosespress@gmail.com

Your poems don’t have to be related to New Mexico, but if they are it will help your poem’s chances of being included in this anthology.

Of course we can’t offer you any money for your poems. If you want money for your poems please contact Penguin Publishing and take it up with them. They can be reached at 1-800-733-3000 between the hours of 8:30 AM and 6:30 PM Eastern.

2 POEMS – RICKY WINTERS

“#24”
A single mind
Over crowded with different colored emotions
Divided by the even and odds of the feeling
For bravery can’t be without fear and sadness without happiness
But the fear and sadness have switched themselves into a pair
A pair that’s making you push that EMERGENCY EXIT

“Dysphoria”

mother, forgive me for i have sinned i am the monster who will slaughter your daughter and parade her corpse around

I will mutilate her skin, form her a new friend

i will poison her blood, with poisonous T

i will eliminate these lumps, flat chested dreams will someday come true

So open your mind before your mouth

It’s my time to shine, my imprisoning time has been done

I am your son.

Ryin and the Toaster – R.H.

Ooooeeeeeeooooooooo the cops are coming, you better hide everything you’re ashamed of, and also yourself if you’re Mexican or black, god knows what cops will do to you then.

Ryin and the Toaster

Ryin Goose was out in Canada on a wild goose chase after his mother and wife left him and took the kids. He was left alone all sad and depressed, trying to get custody over them because he actually wasn’t a bad parent. They just filed him for rape and pedophilia because they hated him and wanted to ruin his life like the sadistic people they are.
“Oh why must life be this way!” He cried in anguish as he clutched close the only thing that mattered to him. His family heritage. The centuries old toaster his family lineage had been passing down for ages. This time around though, it looked like it was going nowhere.
Ryin would cry soulful tears, all of them falling on the ancient toaster. Suddenly, it came alive.
“Stop crying you damn sissy,” it said, surprising Ryin goose so he threw the now sentient toaster, immediately apologizing afterwards like the Canadian he is.
“Oh wow you can talk!?” Ryin spoke with amazement. This was like that one Pokemon movie, but different. Gotta avoid copyright, am I right?
“No thanks to you, you baboon. Now stop crying, I know how to fix your life,” said the toaster.
Ryin would nod and say, “Okay,” with the most pathetic voice you could imagine. Because he was very pathetic in this very moment.
“Okay, so, fake your own death and set up a new identity in another country. Badda Bing badda boom, you’re good as new. No more rape and pedophilia charges,” the toaster said.
Wow, this toaster was an absolute genius! He figured it out so quickly! Ryin goose was certainly saved from the charges his wife and mother threw at him! He wouldn’t get the kids, but he could just make more of those so it was okay.
“How do we start?” Ryin goose asks.
“Well, kill yourself,” says the toaster.
Harsh, but okay.
Ryin goose climbed the highest building and jumped off of it, literally killing himself. What a baboon, he fooled the plans.
“Oh my fUCK ing gOD Ryin gOOSE you PATHETIC LOOSER!! You straight up killed yourself and probably on purpose too!! I FUCKING HATE YOU!” The toaster fUMED. He had now set his life goal from toasting the best toasties, into toasting Ryin goose’s entire family.
With his super high IQ, the toaster made himself better, the best he’s ever been. Better than when he was first born.
Now equipped with flame throwers and guns comparable to having a chain gun fused with anti aircraft, the toaster was ready to toast the rest of the goose family to a crisp. He set out, using ancestry.com and his extensive toaster memory as guides.
The toaster would arrive at Ryin goose’s wife and mothers house. Without even ringing the doorbell, the toaster fired. Without even going through a round of ammunition, the house was obliterated and everyone inside was instantly dead.
He continued onto his father, and his mother’s siblings, and his father’s siblings, and the siblings children, and their children, and on and on until the goose bloodline was obsolete.
“I can go back to toasting toasties,” the toaster said, now content with what he did. “God, if you can give me to a great family, I’ll give up my sentience.”
“Aight, cool,” God said and Thanos snapped his fingers.
The toaster poofed into the hands of a bigger, better, stronger family than the goose’s, and he served them as the best regular toaster he could be, toasting the best toasties.

ANCIENT HISTORY – Gonzalinho da Costa

ANCIENT HISTORY

The Egyptians invented toothpaste, consisting of ashes, burnt eggshells, and ground ox hoofs. At the time the most popular brand was Toothankhamun.

The Sumerians originated the cuneiform system of writing. When asked why they didn’t use sheepskin or papyrus, or chisel hieroglyphs into limestone or sandstone, they said that pressing a stylus was the best way to make a point.

The Book of Exodus tells us that Moses was so enraged when he beheld the golden idol of the Israelites that he burned it in fire, ground it into powder, mixed it with water, and forced the people to drink it, which caused asthma attacks all around. This incident is remembered today by Jews as “The Golden Cough.”

The Assyrians are notable in history for building a great empire, but if you look closely at their images in bas-relief, their real legacy to humanity are their hair curlers.

According to archaeologists, the legendary Tower of Babel is located in the city of Babylon. In the legend the people who built the Tower of Babel couldn’t understand each other, and no, the Babylonians didn’t invent politics.

The Persians loved honesty, and they loved wine because drinking it made the drinker tell the truth, but it didn’t work if they were snoring.

The Chinese invented chopsticks when they discovered it was easier to pick up pork spare ribs with two sticks than to stab it with one.

Confucius is considered the greatest sage of traditional China. When he purportedly said, “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop,” he was not talking about breakfast.

Hinduism, the oldest religion in the world, developed in India. Hindus believe that all religions that cultivate a virtuous life lead to the Ultimate Reality or what some call God, so Hindus have no beef with most other religions.

Buddha discovered that suffering is caused not by desire but rather by sitting down for long periods of time under a Bodhi tree, in his case for nearly two months. Once he decided to stop sitting around and do something constructive, he came to be known as the Enlightened One.

Greek physicians would diagnose their patients by tasting their ear wax. Needless to say, medical school enrollments jumped after this practice was discontinued.

Reportedly, Plato believed in reincarnation. He recollected that in his past life he had been a dog, and when asked what it was like, he said, “Rough, rough.”

Aristotle said that the purpose of watching a Greek tragedy is katharsis or purgation of emotions, resulting in cleansing and renewal. Reason the audience suffered emotional distress was because they had to endure hard stone seats and popcorn was never served.

The Romans who used public toilets to relieve themselves would clean up by passing around a shared sponge mounted on a stick and rinsed with salt water. Tourists, learning of this practice, didn’t as the Romans do.

Paul the Apostle was not very successful evangelizing the Persians. They read his letters and said, “It sounds like Greek to me.”

IN THE DARK – SPIKE CARR

IN THE DARK

In a moment there’s the buzzing of my phone.
The screen lights up. I can see my tear-spotted cheeks and grass-high eyes lit up against the wall.
His name is glowing on the screen.
Not a thought runs through my rattled mind before I grab the device.
“What does he want?”
I snarl to no one. My hands are shaking. My head suddenly hurts. My eyes are tired.
It’s like my heart drops when what he says becomes clear through the tears.
‘I miss you.’
I could feel my heart snap.
My body trembles and a sob I can’t control echoes from my larynx.
The tears now burn.
Barely anything conscious forms when I start typing.
It’s all gibberish.
So many times I go back and retype the message.
‘Get lost.’
‘Go away.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘That’s your own fault.’
Go away, go away, go away.
I want him to leave, so this pain will stop.
So these tears will stop.
So everything falls back to normal.
I so badly want him back.
But my hands are moving on their own now.
‘You shouldn’t have left if you miss me. I don’t miss you.’

COLEMAN HAWKINS – JOHN DOYLE

Coleman Hawkins

1:33 a.m. Tuesday night;

playing on my cable T.V.

it’s like we were destined to be entwined,

Coleman and me,

so basically, nothing ever happened in-between –

no J.F.K. boning half of Jersey

to get his mind off Bays with Pigs in them,

no Flock of Seagulls or gas shortages

for Austin Powers to mull upon,

just Coleman Hawkins finding his way to me –

commercial break,

first fade to black,

1:38am.

I’ve grabbed my spacesuit and enthusiastically attach it,

there is much for Coleman and I to catch up on when he returns

Cacti Fur

a poetry high ground

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