King Of Beers

Curled

up & tinted red

On

the sidewalk under the

On

again off again spell

Of

an ancient neon curse

Flashing

in the dusty window

At

Big Al's Celebrity Lounge

A

faceless mass of matted hair

Blacked

out in the moonlight.

By Ed Markowski

Short-Pants Potentate

Inferno of a summer day

Mother’s dozing

Tommy, tiny, three,

paring knife in hand

tiptoes out, flops

short-pants potentate

upon the sidewalk sunny,

operates on ants

By Donal Mahoney

Illegal Chickens

Against city ordinances, a woman

keeps five chicks in her basement

until they grow large enough

to live in her backyard. No months

of red tape, no permits. The woman’s

protest against rising prices and urban

sprawl turns into omelets, an egg-hatching

science project for second graders, a pound

cake, a neighborhood reminder to catch

the sunrise. Eventually noodle soup

for the neighbor’s cold if she can

catch the darting old hen. Both beak

and chin stretch forward to gain speed.

By Jari Thymian

How the Red River Got Its Name

Dank basement, axes, missing limbs.

The floor creaks above, slow ka-thunks,

something dragged. Sleeping bags,

dim flashlights, a flood of blood in Crookston.

Something burble-burbles in the rusty

plumbing pipes. Young cousins wait

for the story lines: Give me back my liver!

Give me back my liver! The river –

much, much too close to Grandma’s house –

waits for its name.

By Jari Thymian

Never Used Angel

for sale, two dollars, plus shipping, on Craigslist.

Soul guardian, trumpet blower, summoner of heralds.

In excelsis deo, in electric neon, in a new box.

Lit up wings and wire, blinking bulbs, white

cord for snow camouflage, flightless wings,

holiday yard, hallowed art? Hollow art?

Shopping cart? Plus spiritual tax.

By Jari Thymian

Centennial Farm

This field is the one field

on the whole place we’ve never

plowed and planted.

We walk around it,

pacing it off together.

By Jillena Rose

Best Painting I Imagine

two pianos sit in the rain
laughing, in a white dress
you must be,
soaked, shivering, smiling —
as the rain still falls
you dance with eyes alight
your voice ringing
beautifully

By John Reay

Lemon Orchard

All afternoon, the scent of lemons,

as the sun crawls along their backs.

Why bother with mystery when this nostril-light

cracks the rind and routs from hideouts of sweetness

the ghost-scent?

I smashed a lemon,

and billions of distinct particles

left in a haughty squirt.

By Cork Kyle

Tooth Fairy

When I was five,
the tooth fairy got high,
and knocked out a pair
of my baby teeth.
I didn’t dare put them
under my pillow.

By Dennis J. Bernstein

Musician Wife

on long drives

my neck tendons
become guitar strings

my wife
reaches over

places her
velvet palm

on the back
of my head

and strums
me


a love song

By Terry Miller

Cliché

We were talking about cliché

the perfesser with the beard and glasses,

tweed jacket with the leather

patches,

and twelve men in blue and orange

jump suits, most with shaved heads,

wearing knit caps,

and tattoos on their arms and necks,

when there was a commotion

at the back, and we all got up

to look out the window

beyond the cinder block,

chain link and razor wire:

deer at the dark edge of the woods.

By Eric Gadzinski

Thoughts That Strike Me When I Least Expect Them

Took the long way back out on Long Island, stopping
to see the Indian Chief. He took my fingers, all of them.
I could feel his poor circulation, his cold feet and hands.
Smelling of corn, of snow asleep. I believed he had a disease.
I just wanted him to think I was smart.

By Christine Reilly

Pine

Say it’s the wind, if it makes you feel better.
As for me, the trees shiver
As if they remember a needless cruelty done to an old lover.
As if they feel again the wound of the dull blade
Gouging the outline of a stylized heart,
Then tremble anew at the slash that was the blunt arrow piercing it.
Inside it, I carved your initials, bold and angular,
Through the bark and the cambium,
All the way through to the tough fibers of the heartwood.
But when I was done, there was no room left for my own.
So I gashed them beneath the heart,
In the spot where the rot began.

by Ron Yazinski

Canon Fire

Our poets land in the same soft valley,

brush themselves off and get back into line.

We strain to hear their words like whispers

that will not sustain them in air.

By Anthony Nannetti

Sucker Punch

When the armored tank was hit, your buddy

went from slamming banging wolfwhistles

to take my pulse, take my breath

something fuzzy going on hey hey in your head

the desert lit up like a concession stand for Christmas

in the dust storm. Your sergeant talks

like a caveman’s professor, hell, everyone’s on pills,

waiting to soap up in Tehran, everyone’s safety-pinned

to the promise of home, maraschino cherries in Omaha,

snow, a twenty for every beggar in New York City:

baby, I’m sorry if I don’t write back but I lost the dog.

I just opened the car door and he ran into the night.

By B.J. Buhrow

The Flu

Thermometer. Trash bucket

beside the bed. Coke syrup.

Dr. appointment. Plenty of

fluids. Tylenol. Chicken noodle

soup. Saltine crackers. Sodas.

Homework sent. Days go by.

Dew on the grass. Sun in

the window. Crystal clear starry

night. Army book satchel. Written

note. Friends. A yellow bus.

By Danny P. Barbare

Autumn Wind

The sinking sunshine curled on the ball of a stern eye.
See how quickly the widow walks home.
Bleak, their favorite kissing place under an early moon.
And she trembles beneath the black-holed Milky Way.

By Robert C. J. Graves

Painters' Exhalations 370

—after Lois Graham’s Yellow Triangle XII

Fingerprint curl,
U-turn deviation
fully clothed magnification
unveiling language of textured
grooves, talking toward access of
lyrical wonderment. Blur-tones,
a whitewash extract barely visible
vanish, northern lift upon wind’s
guiding kite string, maneuvering
monarch butterfly across tangled
dangles of yarn length light.

By Felino Soriano

Azaleas

Fat azaleas red pink purple

azaleas shaking in morning sun

as children call children to play.

Oozing from thick bushes delicately

perfumed azaleas fat azaleas

bees spinning spinning spinning.

Children singing out names while

chameleons crawl in shining grass

lustrous azaleas bright satin.

Azaleas fat azaleas starlings slip

from branch to branch gliding to

bushes stretching red pink purple.

By Joan McNerney

War Fever

on shaved skull, red
measles scrawl faces
in infected Arabic

the blood-blinded bird
in periphery hooks
eyes, swallows dry tongues

bloated carnivals of meat
blasted metal, sand-basted 
desert birds, carnivorous spiders 

feast on the dead and the living
and the street so quiet now
that its echoes explode in our ears

By Robert C.J. Graves

Rain

does rain make a sound, 
or is that just the sound when
the rain hits the earth?

By Max Reif

Weekend

on your mark, set, go: 
racetocatchupfromtheweek!
now start the next one

By Max Reif

Crab Apples

Pity the crab apples.

They cannot

 

fall from

the crab apple tree

 

without

their cheeks

 

burning from

embarrassment.

By Joel Solonche

Rumors

Where in the world would we be

without someone spreading rumors?

Like leaflets from the sky,

leaving something like a choice

for what we wear in our windows,

or where the answers come to lodge.

By Richard Spuler

Over

was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

was it over when Custer slaughtered the Japanese?

meet me at the hot tub with your bottles of beer

and we’ll toast the farces that make up 

our mutually falsified history

meet me where Gengis Kahn plundered the Hoover Dam

let’s make love where Alexander the Great tortured the Incas

but missed Macchu Picchu

By Dan Ames

When I Press a Stone

               

it un-relents and un-relents--
stone understudying stone
for so long now, it knows
the slightest gesture—breath—
has the perfect pitch and intonation
curled up like a fist in its hand.

By Jenn Blair

SKIRTS

I go into the city, I don’t

go into the city and when I get back

from not going, I don’t know I went.

Such is the nature of the urban landscape.

 

I drive through the countryside,

I walk through the countryside

and when I eventually stop both,

I enjoy my flat tire.

By Charles Springer

FEMA GALLERY

what’s left

of the houses is

 

in children’s

crayon drawings

 

on brittle construction

paper still

 

buttoned down

by magnets

 

to unhinged refriger-

ator doors   

By Charles Springer

 

The Walls

They can’t help

but creak at night

as if a silverfish

just scurried across

and they shivered.

By Michael Keshigian

Flood barks.

The delicate terrain

shifts to the

desert.

By Oritsegbemi Emmanuel Jakpa

Metaphors for Life

We live in cracked houses

Paint peeling, floors squeaking

Ceilings leaking in the kitchen or the closet.

It's a metaphor, she said

For these bodies we live in -

Like how I hate my thighs or how she hates her hair.

And I never asked them over

Because the dishes are dirty

And the peeling tiles in the bathroom

Make me feel sick when I shower.

Which is why, she says, I will

Never ask you inside of me

Because my paint is peeling and

My floors squeak when you get close.

By Meredith Hilton

Anthology

Rather, a withered

exocorpses collection,

a more practical tool,

no urge for needles

and pins to hold them

quiet and still.

By Cristiano Montanari

Pillowcase

Its refuge was

removed

thrown away

and picked up by

a stranger

who then hung it on a wall.

By Kimberley Ruth

CARNIVAL

Ferris wheel revolves

velocity and glow,

a kaleidoscopic adventure

and screams of glee

heard 'round the grounds

duets with the singing carousel

which spins to horse's gallop

toward the house of mirrors

reflecting shadowy silhouettes

of our clandestine embrace.

Dozens of you touching me

hundreds of times.

By Michael Keshigian

The New Sonnet

I felt the hair of God brush lightly against my riot teeth

and I spit it out.

Nobody likes hair in their mouth.

Just think of the feeling.

By Austin Givens

Clock

Face is the wrong word.

   You are the round white ass

      of time, mooning me from the desk.

By Joel Solonche

Mid Despair a Poem

In the junkyard -

a proser's bribed essay inane,

a preacher's barbed broadcast asides.

among the jilted tires,

rusted weeds,

distilled diapers and accidental destiny -

a clutch of lilies surprises.

By Jamie Cavanagh

One of the Ha-Ha's from Staball Hill

    

Ballyheigue

County Kerry

Ireland

That man over there with his head

in the well, each thumb

in a fob, and his arse in the air

like a zeppelin at moor, if he

can write poems the Ha-Ha's will read,

all of the Ha-Ha's, no matter the breed,

even the Ha-Ha's from Old Staball Hill, if he

can write poems, then poems he will.

By Donal Mahoney

Forgiven

Tiny toes peeking out of oily plumage

tip-tap joyfully,

cautiously,

on sad silver fence poles.

Big beaks clamping closed in this cold,

waiting for hot, wet drips on the cement.

I've seen where your feathers fall.

By Lindsay Haslem

Arianna (V)

Arianna, what did it mean to you when she called you a "hardened criminal?"

Dreams are soft, Cameron      my uncle's

knuckles are vapor in dreams      my throat

doesn't burn when I scream

even a falcon's talons can't hurt me        but reality

is abrasive concrete pebble-izes knee skin

         when we fall

in love it feels good or it hurts so I guess

  she meant        I don't dream enough?

by Cameron Conaway

Dream After Falling Out

You took all 

the yellow pills:

destroyed the place.

I took the 

lift to escape:

found myself

on the old flat roof

with a How To book

and a man

with a colossal tongue.

by Kathleen Kenny

Core

I GOT!

Limbs!.  Teased back by

three chains of mercury.

Speeding on the surface of grey matter

in a bowl turned upside down.

A pit to be connected

by a column of bone.

Visualize that!

In your rough ways.

by F.S. Hillard

The First Rain of the Season

The first rain

Of the fall

Crept in stealth

Just at dawn

In a tap

On the glass

What I felt

On my bones

Was a flow

Anapest

Of wet life.

by Santiago del Dardano Turann

High Road

Empathy sits on cinder blocks;

imagination lacks transmission.

Reliable greed starts its ingrates,

while a bench seat cradles

a rusted fly wheel.

In the rear view mirror,

compassion idled in jeans.

by Rich Murphy

Brief Refreshment

Life is but a sip

of a sparkling beverage,

youth its froth

shining atop the glass.

by Michael Keshigian

My cousin refuses to cross over

He keeps showing up at holiday gatherings

Not everyone realizes that he's dead

    and that's why he steers clear of me

by David McCoy

I Will Drive

Tonight I will drive

to Sarasota to Sacramento

to places of forward movement and

backwards

thinking.

This is what I will write

but actually I will go down

the street for a two dollar something

and 

a sandwich.

by Joseph Goosey

The Chinese poet Lin Pu never married--

     never sought an official career

With his wife--the plum--he taught

     their children--the cranes--how to dance

by David McCoy

The Daughters of Man

I'm high up on a ladder that's noisily being circled

by ravens and crows. Somewhere below, my daughters

have exchanged names. I call to the younger one,

but the older one answers. I should've known this is

what happens when you marry late. They laugh

at my confusion and then head off though the trees.

It isn't that they don't love me; it's just that

they love other things more. I begin to climb down.

I'm halfway to the ground before I ever notice

the man in the skeleton mask pacing at the bottom.

by Howard Good

Morning Lake

trout breaks stillness

starts the ripple pattern to

end on polished rocks.

by Scot Young

All-Around Cowboy

after the rodeo

at cottonwood falls

we drank beer

out of my Stetson

danced on brick streets

to Bob Wills

the Texas swing

leaving my hat on

after too many longnecks

we made love

beside that old truck

like I was the last

cowboy on earth.

by Scot Young

Velzy

 Venice surf rumbles

thinking of pig boards

 as the hawk lies still.

by Bradley Mason Hamlin