American Dust
by Geordie de Boer
Then there were the wars, dragging on
like a trek across a bomb-blasted landscape
with no water at hand. You think you see an end,
but hope recedes as you approach just as if
you were pursuing the mirage of contentment.
On the news tonight were pictures
of burned out tanks, autos, assorted armaments.
The rubble of bombed buildings
created a Braqueist background for people
picking through the twisted tin and blackened bricks.
You called, mad as hell over my giving out
your phone number. I’m trekking a desert of my own
and having trouble making judgments.
I may have been wrong,
I have no way of knowing.
Families dissipate like mirages,
dancing away in a whirl of mad colors
as if borne on a breeze. There is no wind,
just the rapid breathing of anticipation,
or dread, like the final gasps of the dying.
I’ve become unafraid of dust stirred up
by war or the shattering of assumed bonds.
I become alarmed instead
when there is no dust, no tangible way
to make a return.
She left me
by Harry Calhoun
The baby wren lies broken-winged
by the roadside. You want to cry,
not just for the certain death coming
but because you are helpless
to do anything about it. You wait
a minute, kicking at the curb, trying
to think of something to do. Then
you slowly amble on, clinging
to that hopeless desperate hope
that if you just leave well enough
alone, things will get better.
But is this well enough?
Looking back at the bird
dying, you realize that it certainly
is alone.
The Underbelly
by Valentina Cano
Underneath that smile lies a sewer system.
An intricate course
of hollow lines and watery tunnels,
dark and smelling of decayed metal.
I see it open before me,
casting its shadow of dust
all around me,
sinking the chair, the table,
the vase sitting there.
Sinking them into that mire
of teeth and shiny lips.
I clutch at the walls with shuddering fingers
but I feel my stomach drop
like a plate a second away from smashing.
My eyes roll upwards like coin slots,
and I fall, I’m falling
splashing and tearing into that
soup of dirt and chunks of hair.
Into that smile covered with gloss.
dead center
by Joseph Farley
the cross is blank space,
the intersection
of two roads
traveling at right angle.
we stand there
in the center
but we are not alone
the whole world is with us
waiting to see
what comes by
Snapshot Vulture
by Richard Fein
Late March snow and the snowbound sparrow
is hunched tight in a nook between sidewalk and stone wall
with ruffled feathers bedraggled in the frigid breeze
as I pace around and around like a circling vulture.
Then my shivering fingers press the camera hard against my bended knees
to keep it steady as I’m primed for that absolute moment
when the dying sparrow’s unblinking eyes truly turn unblinkingly dead.
Then its right wing, tight against its torso,
is finally released and turns stiffly upward,
like a middle finger defiant against treacherous March.
My patience is rewarded, the whole process captured in pixels,
my prey’s death ingested digital frame by digital frame.
And later perched on my computer chair,
finger eager on the mouse, eyes rapt on the monitor,
I’m sated by the slideshow sequence of a sparrow dying.
I’m like the vulture with talons gripped on a leafless branch,
it’s gut filled, piece by piece, with that carrion bird.
Normal
by Ashley Fisher
i am back in Dane Garth for help
because i am Not Well
and me mam doesn’t want to know
and she says that i am A Disgrace
and i am An Embarrassment
and i am Not Normal
and how can she be expected to cope with
such a wretched freak after all she’s Been Through.
i hope that we can get Back Together
but i know you might not want to
so can you please come to See Me sometime.
i would come to See You
but i can’t because i’m on a 28 Day Section
and they won’t let me out even to the shop,
even if i promise not to be too long
and rush all the way there and
all the way back.
They have given me tablets for my depression
and tablets for The Voices
and tablets for the side effects
of the tablets for The Voices
and they have taken the bandages off my wrists
and the doctor said that it was Sad
that they were scarred.
But The Voices say that she is lying
and that i am Pathetic
and i am Stupid
because if i wasn’t Stupid
i could be Dead
and i wouldn’t need voices to tell me what to do.
i haven’t tried to Burn Myself for three days
because i’m being Good and i am trying to be Normal
so i am hoping the doctor will let me back
into the Day Room because i am Not Dangerous anymore
i am only Poorly
and i should be allowed to have a lighter
because now i have to Ask A Nurse
if i can have a light for a cigarette
and be allowed to talk to other Poorly People
and not have someone watching me
when i eat or when i piss or when i just want to be Left Alone.
Please come and See Me sometime
because i Love You and i want to See You
and they will let you See Me
if i have been Good and Normal
and i am trying
and Claire and me mam won’t come See Me
and all i want to do is come home
and be Normal.
This Angel and That
by Ricky Garni
This angel doesn’t have breasts, and
that angel doesn’t have chest hair.
I bet you didn’t know that all angels
weren’t girls. It’s true. Some are.
I bet you didn’t know that all angels
are fully grown. Fully grown yes
until they die. Although…
Suddenly on Earth a man named
Tim sneezes.
And an angel has chest hair. Tim
wipes his nose. It’s Sunday…
Alison has an orgasm of some sort,
it’s a good one, actually, she feels nice,
and an angel somewhere
grows breasts. It’s like abracadabra,
only without a tuxedo and top hat white…
gloves or mustache and knowing that it isn’t a trick
at all, it’s a craft, like whittling tiny boats but lasts forever
like angels do but that’s not true. Did you know
that most angels die before they are born? No
Of course not. I didn’t, either. They don’t. Why should they?
When I see them there looking out for me and they look
worried, I always change the conversation but isn’t that hard…
It’s easy: we are already out of breath anyway.
The coachman is yelling FASTER FASTER all the time.
He’s got whips and things. How he beats. He says terrible things
and we believe him. We are scared because he is so big and fat.
The Shepherd Has No Staff
by Kevin Heaton
A miscreant presence defiles
the blush of vestal virginity,
submitting her virtue to abuse,
and deceit. A white robe
without spot or wrinkle, rent,
and torn, her shame supine,
and splayed upon perfumed
sheets; stained scarlet by an ancient
profession. Remnants of Eucharist,
received on blasphemous lips,
digest inside green bowels of self-
proclamation. Quilled, founding
fingers; dipped in communion wine;
lopped from hands placed on holy
leather; sworn to uphold
appointments of higher calling.
The children of freedom abandoned;
banished to wander the wilderness,
led by a shepherd with no staff.
KO
by Eric G. Müller
Across the track
in the trailer park
lot 58
a voice-plagued pugilist
forgets his losses
slumped in the corner
of the stained settee
reeking of urine
near the TV
where he gropes with his fists
for one last bout
with the bottle
round eleven
sobbing when the sitcom
takes a sentimental turn
and the laughing tracks
fly into a roar
roping him in
His killer left
silences the crowd
with one deft jab
of the remote
and still he parries through the channels
till he lets down his guard
to satisfy an unzipped itch
during a commercial break
leaving him shuddering
on the floor
as the night train
rings its warning bell
and sounds its
long-long-short-long whistle
thirty seconds
from the intersection
where tomorrow he’ll wait
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