Issue 13

February 2, 2008

Mary L. Mazzocco

GRIEF

How cold their crypt.

Their stilled uncaring veins hold no
radiance of day nor lunar form,
sense no pulse of rain, nor brief rest
of dew or frost, nor loss
of autumn leaves. Snow's mantle
comes to soothe the earth,
its melt recalls the spring.
Trees renew their birth.
The daffodil and crocus rise.

The crypt, their crypt, remains

----------------------------------------

Donora Hillard

Thirty Seconds of Applause

Thirty Seconds of Applause
Your hands in the mail today.
Yes yes. All of it.
Your veins covering the page.
Apologies darling, I'm falling in love with you.
Your voice like water on my skirt.

----------------------------------------

Steve De France

Pecos Texas: 1961

A cacophony of thunder, bass throated
& mournful---rumbles over Pecos, Texas.
Wind whips & snaps my jacket around me,
Silver rain pushes down State Highway 66.
I had gone to find Amerika---15 years old.
arrested for hitchhiking & vagrancy.

I had been on the road for a year, sleeping in
flops, boxcars, and sometimes in the streets.
Fought bulls in Mexico, swam waters alive with shark,
watched a man die in a street fight, so, I felt
I could do short jail time because I needed rest.

Indians & blacks & whites tried to act dangerous.
I sat apart and waited for the cabbage lunch.
After lights out, moonlight would shine through the
skylights and scatters itself in shimmering crystal
pools across the cellblock.

Prisoners smoke---talk in hushed voices,
about a man in the isolation cell.
He is to be moved to Huntsville in
the morning for electrocution.

In my cell-bunk I thought about Hermosa
Beach & the Starlight Bowling Alley.
And of the people jailed in their own
lives. Dead People. Lives being lived by
genetic reflex, or by the dictates of a
dream already empty.
As I thought of people in other
kinds of prisons, night gathers the
cold stars and flings them sparkling and
distant above the skylights, and I knew
somehow I was happy. Then, down
the corridors men start calling to the one
waiting to die. "Hey man,
you're goin' to feel old smokey.
You're gonna burn. They' gonna fry you.
gonna burn you like bacon---"

These voices sang us into the dawn
their malevolent cadence,
like a jailhouse lullaby.
It soothed & tormented
me & the one waiting to die---as
slowly we drifted into uneasy sleep
where we were locked into dreams
of electrocution & death.
And gradually,
we move into a collision course
with the coming morning.

----------------------------------------

Matthew Peart

Wouldn't that be easier?

Imagine a world where
we were all naked

and bald: as natural as a
new-born, devoid

of make-up, aftershave and
jewellery. A world where

all that mattered was
opinion and feeling,

and how we treated each other.

----------------------------------------

Nathan Tyree

Tragic Engine

us
toward the end that we
always saw coming
knew we would face
Tragic Engine

The cogs that drive me
ragged gears, broken teeth
pulling me- pulling

----------------------------------------

Joseph Berg

Earth

Across the world-
Little kids grab their parent's stash.
Old men decide their better off dead.
Wives cheat on husbands.
Boys cheat on exams.
Girls, starve themselves,
Cops spit on faces.
Politicians are all wrong.
Across the world
People fail to see reality-
We trade in our humanity for the quick fix.
We'd rather be happy now,
And read about it in the paper later.

----------------------------------------

Sigrid Astrup

You will never make it from there to here.

Look at me
breath only when my chest sinks
Adore me
when my eyes are on everyone but you
Listen closely
when my mouth opens
understand every nuance of my thinking
Be quiet
Concentrate on the pressure of my speech
Be happy
when you realize that I feel joy
Do not share it
just notice it
from the distance
that I have put you in

From here I will whisper things in your ear
I will whisper
marry me
I will not mean it
you will never forget it

----------------------------------------

Walter Durk

No place

The cold night drizzled.
I ran five blocks uphill
to stall twenty-one.
Felt pressure in my chest
as a Greyhound backed out.
Waved to the driver.
Too late.

Great! Now I'm screwed.
Seven P.M.
Tired, hungry, lonely.
Eight bucks in my wallet.
No place to stay.

Went to the old Y.
Took my eight bucks, put me
on a sparse second floor,
dark industrial floor.
Locked the door.
Hit the bed
blacked-out.

A knock on the door.
Loud rhythm in my heart.
Burrowed beneath blankets.
Waited.

Silence.
More silence.
Sleep.