Issue Number 20

November 4th, 2006
 

Rob Barry

For Pedro

Poison ivy mind, I’ll bleed
best intentions in your direction
and maybe you’ll recover –
I dream that you’ll recover,
sweating illness out clogged pores,
streaked in the black ink of your deception:
I know your secrets.

Bald mind bears sweet fruits
but yours is a dense forest –
erudite and dead,
that’s how they’ll remember you.

When the watchtower bangs down from on high
and the news is tolled out across the land,
we will gather by and by
to feel the brush of your passing:
hands stroke friendship as they shimmer past,
drifting relentlessly towards that end you sought:
muttering retreats as they fade from vision,
slipping toward the gates of beyond –

And from that place I pray that you will turn,
look back upon us in some form of wonder
and laugh like you did when sitting
at those tables made of green,
sipping coffee and burning cigarettes
while your dawn was skating restlessly
towards this damp night.

 

Francis Masat

Hypocrite’s Anonymous

"My name is ______,
I am a hypocrite.
I condone fraud and larceny in my friends,
I condemn fraud and larceny in strangers,
I leave a little trash – here and there,
I ignore lying by politicians and advertisers,
I punish my children when I think they lie,
I run red lights, stop signs and right turns,
I tell my kids not too,
I throw butts on the ground.
I am a law-abiding citizen."

 

aryan kaganof

drill hall gun in mouth blues

i woke up with samuel and ezra on either side of me
yeah samuel and ezra were both at my sides
we decided to turn left into twist street
cos bree street was not going anywhere
o lord, bree street was not going anywhere

six shots were fired
six shots that resonated
across the drill hall tower
just at that moment i was ordering whiskies for my brothers samuel and ezra
i turned to the barman and asked him to make them doubles

the three of us went into the night
we went into the midst of the crowd
one of the bodies was still breathing
the other one was only bleeding

the policeman told me not to write a poem
i said there was no law against writing poems
and he snapped at me "well i don’t care sonny this is my scene"
then he wrapped the freshly dead body in duct tape
and he wrapped the still breathing body too

samuel ezra and me drove up twist street past the hillbrow tower
turned left into empire
and found our way to a bar that was playing only nine inch nails
nine inch nails the whole night long

we drank so many whiskies
even samuel began to sway
ezra got all maudlin
asked if we remembered that first night that we met
it was a night suffused in pale moonlight
the three of us had come down from silver surfing
we’d all landed on the corner of bree and sauer
where we were waiting for the man
to deliver that old familiar sting

no no no
babe but you see none of us was prepared for your reaction
how you struggled how you wept
it turned out that those seven gunshots
were all incorrectly numbered

the body lying bleeding
should have been the body still breathing
samuel had shot ezra
ezra had turned his gun on me

you drove off in the getaway vehicle
with neither loot nor cadres
you put four to the floor and hot footed it up twist street
past the hillbrow tower
and then on to zeppelins
where got yourself all distracted
again

 

Shane Allison

Betishia Johnson’s Pantoum

I knew you as the smartest girl in the eighth grade.
You use to make straight A’s.
You walked our junior high halls holding stacks of textbooks,
flashing a smile to every teacher who loved you.

You use to make straight A’s,
the Honor Roll every six weeks,
flashing a smile to all those teachers who loved you.
We shared the same homeroom.

You made the honor roll every sixth week of the month.
I thought I liked you; I thought you were pretty.
We shared the same homeroom.
I drew invisible hearts around your face during lunch

I thought I liked you; I thought you were pretty
but couldn’t help but notice Brian O’ Conner sitting behind you.
I use to draw invisible hearts around your face during lunch
with your black flaxen hair in a thick pony tail,

but I couldn’t help but notice Ben Hood
with root beer-colored hair hanging over his face,
you with your black flaxen hair in a thick pony tail.
I searched for you in the hallways of high school

when I wasn’t leaving love letters in Ben Hood’s locker,
but never found you.
I searched for you in the royal blue hallways of the Rickards Redskins.
Last I heard, you got pregnant and dropped out of school.

I never saw you again after junior high.
I was told you shot yourself over the baby’s daddy.
They said you got pregnant and dropped out of school.
I should have paid you more attention.

 

Michael Estabrook

BUT WHAT WAS I TO DO?

I called her once at midnight from the airport,
terrible weather, snow and ice, sleet,
the cabby never showed
and none would come out now.
I couldn’t get home so I called her.
I didn’t want to. I paced back and forth
before the phone trying to think of another way.
She came, of course, though it took more
than an hour. While waiting I had
a glass of red wine among the empty
bar-stools and thought how
I was always so happy to see her
after being away on business.
It was always so good to get home.
She pulled up understandably agitated, upset,
and said, as I slid in behind the wheel,
“I can’t believe you made me come out
on a night like this.”

 

James Keane

Absorbed

While your breathing
head and hair welled
on my side of the pillow,
my pants swelled on the table.

While your mossy gown
shook over and down to soak up
the glossy half of both of us
in fire thickly attended, my pants

put this all in perspective, half
dripping from the table, extended
when sudden light and wind prodded
movement with your breathing,

upended till my head and hair
and the light and the wind were
seething from the fire flicking
both of us into flames that subsided only

when my longstanding obligation
to my pants was faithfully fulfilled. And
the light and the wind quickly divided.
And I never saw that table again.

 

Roberta McQueen

PRIORITIES

Watching the waves roll
in at high tide
the older couple clasps
hands while walking
silently along the shore

In the parking lot nearby
the younger couple
argue about who it was
that had scratched
their shiny new car