On The Train After World War II*

by Doug Draime

The returning soldiers
pinned their medals
on my striped jersey t-shirt.
It was in 1946
when I was three,
on the
train ride
from Indiana
to Pennsylvania
after my mother died,
according to my aunt.
She said I ran
up and down the aisles
like the smiling kid on the
Cracker Jack box,
doing a little dance for them.
They even bought
me a hot dog,
a Pepsi, and a bag
of peanuts. I often wonder
what happened
to all those medals.
Though, I know if I’d kept
them into adulthood,
I would’ve had to
have hocked them
years ago.


*from Doug's chap "Knox County" from Kendra Steiner Editions

for Bo Diddley*

by Doug Draime

a pint of
blackberry
brandy
a pack of
luckies
& a stolen
zippo.
i sat sipping
from
the
bottle &
smoking
one after
the other
LISTENING
soaking
it all
in
& everything
moving
inside &
outside of me
as i
propped
myself
up
against
the back of
an
outhouse.
your
pounding
rhythm
of life &
rebellion
blasting
from
the
open door
of
the
“colored”
roadhouse
across the gravel
highway.
me at
14
already a
renegade
already an
enemy
of the
state.
i owe
you
this
one
I owe
you
these
words
this
memory
of
pure
revolution.


*from Doug's chap "Knox County" from Kendra Steiner Editions

I’ll see if we’ve got one in stock

by Jack Ohms

We drove over to the outskirts
trying to get the battery to charge in Maarit’s car
and stopped at a parts dealer
for a new one and other stuff that needed fixing;
indicators not working,
some fuses gone.

When we walked in there
two guys stood behind the desk
expressionless in the company colours,
as always; bright blue, yellow, white;
other guys leant over the counter, hips out, comfortable,
waiting for the print-out
in dust blue-coloured overalls covered in swarf,
tanned drivers' faces.

I looked around and felt strangely out of place again;
noticing the white wire racks full of replacement parts,
hanging there; bulbs, shock-absorbers, brake pads, wheel-trims,
racing car magazines
on a strangely unwelcoming table and four cheap chairs
in one corner, a coffee machine whirring and
a hundred different shades of spray paints
all good men stuff.

And I thought of all the millions and millions of cars and vans
and trucks and coaches and buses
using all these parts, turning, buzzing, whizzing, whirring
collecting grease and road dirt
up and down a million different roads
endlessly on and on, parts, parts, parts,
wearing out, spark-plugs firing a trillion trillion trillion
cylinders every millisecond
and I reeled and began to sweat.

Then other guys turned up - speeding up the short driveway
in flashy, shiny models, like the ones you see on telly
driving through rugged landscapes, alone -
enquiring after stereo’s, more wheel-trims,
accesories, additions, up-grades;
with the wife in tow looking uninterested;
people totally engaged in society.

Then I catch my open sores from the beating I got
the night before on the edge
of a cardboard cut-out man
in company overalls;
blue, yellow, white,
holding up an exhaust pipe and smiling
about something - I don't understand,
so I go outside
to get some air into my clogged up filter
while Maarit pays with her card
and waits an interminable time
for the damn print-out.

double six

by Jack Ohms

there aren’t any
‘drop-dead gorgeous’ ones in here,
mate, he said,

except of course for the staff
but they’re all sporto types
health freaks, professionals

then, there wouldn’t be
would there?

the beauties are off making the world
carving a niche
finding their place

while the ‘fat’ ones
and the ‘ugly’ ones
huddle together in the smoking room

knowing there was
only ever
one throw of the dice.
he put his cigarette out
and went back to his room
on the ward.

NIGHT

by Mike Meraz

purple
red
scar

lying
on a
bed

head
on a
pillow

dreaming
of
love.

the weekend

by nila northSun

for ‘shooter’

drove back to the rez
with just enough gas
to get there and back
my lover lent me money
so my checks would stop bouncing
and we painted in rose and cream
the freshly mudded sheetrock
of the bedroom my daughter
accidentally burnt down
the only radio station being 80’s rock
i haven’t heard those songs
since college
all the while ‘his’ name
kept popping into my head
freshly suicided the day before
and i wonder why
and how life gets so bad
that a seemingly passionate about life
person loads the shotgun
and grand funk railroad plays
and cream from disraeli gears
led zeppelin you know the ilk
the sun pours through the windows
i add a little rum to the coke
clean the brushes and trays
drive back to the city
his name keeps popping in
the gas gauge is almost empty
and his name keeps popping in.


*a chap by nila northSun: love at gunpoint

On A Poetic Roll

by A.g. Synclair

I tell myself
enjoy this while it lasts
because it never does.

I write a poem a day
I publish a poem a day
for fourteen consecutive days.

My publishing credits
are getting impressive
my journal is loaded

with prose, hand written
in #2 pencil
and the chicks dig it.

But fourteen
letters of acceptance
from fourteen

different rags
can give a guy
a big head.

So the next rejection letter
will surely come
from a

brainless fuck
who doesn't get me
the way

fourteen
brilliant editors
did before.

A FLORIDA EVENING IN MID MISSOURI

by Michael H. Brownstein

After a black widow afternoon.
After heat thick enough to outline shade.
After dry wind and water laden breath.
After a weight of weather glues clothes and hair to skin.
After all of that
Evening brings the sweet taste of ocean salt,
Surf and sand, lotion and healthy skin, a volleyball
Floating away and the child watching.

Evening,
A primrose with moon light petals,
The coolness that comes only after day makes its peace,
And the old growth along the Missouri floats in the night air,
A coherent relief from the blisters of late afternoon.
The old married couple holds hands on the veranda,
Fresh lemonade between them,
Ice and memories as refreshing as Florida winding in.

i hate my father

by J.J. Campbell

father's day passed
this year without a
i hate my father
poem

and i don't know
if it's i'm maturing

or time has healed
old wounds

or perhaps it's i
have finally got it
through my thick
skull that none of
this fucking
matters

here's life

it sucks

move on


*J.J.'s homepage:
http://sites.google.com/site/losersincsite/

*J.J.'s chapbook:
NEVER TRUST A MAN WEARING PURPLE SHOES

she had eyes that could melt a hardened soul

by J.J. Campbell

i never thought of heartbreak
fondly until i looked into
your eyes after 15 years

nostalgia doesn't do it
justice nor will these words

but if a subtle glance could
be placed upon your lips
i would surely get lost
in a lovely embrace
that would consume
what little is left of me

and as a soft violin fades
into the hustle and bustle of
some tomorrow somewhere
i can't help but think of
what could have been

but i don't let that fester
for long for i know what
i just had

be safe and stay
beautiful

and hopefully our next
moment comes sooner
than the sun sets on the
other side of the world


*J.J.'s homepage: http://sites.google.com/site/losersincsite/

QUIT HOLDING IT IN

by Stephen Jarrell Williams

I finally told
myself to quit
holding it
in...

Sitting in my chair
I stood,
walked to the window,
pressed my face to the glass.

Darkness below in the street.
A lone streetlight with moths fluttering
between droplets of rain.

A young woman walking my way,
absorbed in a frown,
not seeing me.

I kissed the glass
sending vibes down to her.

She came closer,
soon to turn the corner.

I told myself again
to quit
holding it in...

I stuck my tongue out
as she looked up to my window,
my smashed face and tongue
gooey on the glass.

She laughed,
disappeared around the corner,
gave me the finger.

I waited all night,
for several nights.

I got arrested a week later,
breaking glass.

THE SLAP LAP

by Stephen Jarrell Williams

Moved my bed against the window.

My new girlfriend's request,
making love to me,
her mouth open, head tilted back,
sitting on top bouncing,
only her blonde hair and
bare shoulders showing
down on the street.

Anyone passing by
getting quite a tease,
except the guy on the opposite roof,
spying a full picture,
in his long coat,
binoculars, and grin
peeping down into our bedroom.

I'm wondering if my girlfriend knows.

Maybe I should tell her,
see if she flies.

THE MAD GIRL DREAMS OF NEW MEXICO, WAKES UP SHAKING

by Lyn Lifshin

Joshua Tree Motel
her thighs a
pomegranate splitting,
staining sheets under
his hair as stars
glued mesquite to the
blue dust of her
belly and the
rattlesnake of his
words slithered over
tequila lips he’d
chewed, felt the
sting of later


*Lyn's website:
http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

Hemingway’s Way

by Chris Butler

Hemingway’s way
is on an inland island,
where unlovely loners skip
stones over evaporating oceans,
yearning to be kissed by glass lips
protruding from a brown paper dress,
discharging alcoholic spit soaking into
spongy brain cells to vomit one coherent
thought, before performing oral pleasure on
a loaded double barreled twelve gauge shotgun,
just for fun.

FROM UNDER THE RENTED UMBRELLA, NINE DOLLARS PER HOUR

by Joseph Goosey

It is ninety seven degrees here and I cannot feed the homeless.
A rail of a coworker says to me "Your legs
are pale. You need to go out
and get some sun
on your legs."
I enjoy shaking sun off like skin- leaving it for the bushes
and the squirrels to cloak
and consume-
meaning I'm hardly "into it."
Thirteen years ago my father knocked the peanut butter
ice-cream from my hand, tossed me
into a one-ton Toyota and sent my action figures,
business class, to Florida.
I never proposed a formal request for the sun.
She could flog herself into assassination
and I would not attend
the memorial.

THURSDAY WITH THE WINDOWS BOARDED

by Joseph Goosey

Four blonds enter the cafe.
Their intrusive tits seem to be screaming.
They sport pink shirts
that are all too small and read
ASK ME
in pink, stunted letters.
The barista with the fake prescription
who poured my Venti
shouts in their direction
ASK YOU ABOUT WHAT?
None of the four blonds answer.
They walk out the same door
they came in.
The barista was deemed
inappropriate.
She doesn't look at me.
I don't look at her.
I look at my coffee,
spill it.
There exist no funds
for a replacement.

Russian Strippers

by John Rocco

“Mayakovsky!” The Russian
stripper yells at me before
the $25 lap dance.
“Yes!” I yell back
over the music.
“His heart was
a church
with the fucking choir
on fire.”
“Yes!” she yells back.
“He did things
to Russian words.
I can’t explain it.
He changed them
into something else.”
“Mayakovsky!” I yell.
“Shot himself at 37
leaving a suicide note poem
saying he was done with life
like it was a meal.”

Then I took her and her friend
into the back
for a double lap dance
Russian stripper tits and ass
all over me
rubbing out
the choir on fire
for now.


*John Rocco at MySpace:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=292819823

The Engagement

by George Anderson

We left late & tossed in the back
a case of VB,
together with an intense desire
to get hammered, to get wasted
during the night, which was not
altogether unreasonable
considering it would compress time,
& help us forget the wild horse of a week
which sped uncontrollably beyond any
notion of reconciliation. This much I

Know. I certainly wanted to come.
I wanted to meet the girl’s parents.
I was looking forward to sailing with Pete
the next day up to Ulladulla. Dragging a
line a metre from the sea floor in search of
Flathead. Suffice to say the beers sank

Fast & I was my expectant self: cheeky.
Quarrelsome. Bent on self destruction.
Never make it to 40 mode. I recall like
a thick fog arguing with the bride’s mother.
She reminded me of a witch. I asked her if
I tied a large stone to her chest if she would
float. The blood curdled in her. She screeched at me.
Her dark eyes splitting from her skull. Her boyfriend
laughing in the kitchen with his arms folded.

The following morning I wake on the lounge. Pete
reckons it was a top night. Asks how I’m feeling.
Fleshes out a story, how about 3 or 4 in the morning
I was crashed out, laughing hysterically on the ground.

Laughing uncontrollably. Laughing at everything and
at nothing. He tried to heave me up. Too heavy.
He said I was content to remain on the ground &
laugh. ‘Tell Stacey her mom is not a witch’, I say.

Is that an apology? Bob asks.

‘No, I don’t believe in witches.
How’d Dave & Stacey fare anyway?’

They’re still sleeping. Stuffed.
They aren’t getting up any time soon.

‘Good. Where’s those fishing lines?’

tight red shorts

by Steve Calamars

it’s
odd
to
see
a
camel
toe
without
an
actual
camel
in
front
of
you
and
in
the
middle
of
an
american
city
instead
of
a
desert
in
the
middle
east
somewhere.

it
is
odd
and
by
odd
i
mean
good


*Steve Calamars lives in San Antonio, TX. He has a B.A. in Philosophy and works in a grocery store.

FORSYTHIA

by Lyn Lifshin

all night wind blew
branches into the house

loud as horses in
blackness. A

dark dream of
death. Or worse,

something without
a name, your breath and

the cat's warmth
couldn’t warm me.

Sound of trees, the
clock. Season

of cruelty. In the
morning the black

hangs on like a
lover who leaves

traces. Only the
forsythia exploding

into sun seems
like something new


*Lyn's website:
http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

A Prayer For Bosses And War Mongers

by Doug Draime

When they are holding
the razor blade to
their own wrists, or cancer
is eating them away
like a ravenous
beast, crushing
their bones for
the marrow.
And no amount of
money or lies or
power
can save them,
from the blade
in their own hand or
the beast of cancer
finally reducing them to ash.
I pray they remember,
seconds before they die,
all the people they have
destroyed
and oppressed and
condemned.
And I pray that that thought
is their last one.

A Flashy Beer Bar In Cincinnati

by Doug Draime

chips of refined
azure stones
imbedded
in the
mahogany
bar rail.
it was the last
and only
thing i
remember
before I
hit the floor.
and then the taste
of sawdust,
a terrible pain
in my head,
and lights
fading to a
dull sudden
blackness.
the woman the
fight
started over
was long gone,
and the
cops were
unreasonable
assholes.

Literary Expert

by Doug Draime

The guy was an "expert"
on poetry.
He was a famous poet &
the magazine quotes
him saying that a poem "can’t be
totally honest, or it’s
not a poem."
He said good poetry is partly
honest and party bullshit
(I’m paraphrasing). He has taught
at a college somewhere in Iowa for
30 years & has
20 or so books out,
& he doesn’t have a brain in his fucking head. But he
doesn’t offend
anyone & I’m certain
people nod knowingly when he reads
those little gems.
Chances are he has never written anything close to
honest poetry & therefore, never had to risk anything,
except maybe in the "literary" sense
(whatever the hell that is).
Everyone has a right to their own opinion about
what poetry is suppose to be,
even if they’re lying to themselves, because
of course, that’s what good poetry
is all about

THE MAD GIRL FEELS CUT OFF, SEPARATE, ISOLATED

a flying thing
in amber others
think they can
hold up to the
light or show
off or use as
a paperweight.
One love’s like
fluorescent light,
pointing up things
she didn’t want
to, a glaze, not
a glow for another.
She is a lily wrapped
in ice in the dark
curled into it
self in a dream
of someone to
force her to flower
out of season,
tea roses in
sheets of snow

by Lyn Lifshin


*Lyn's website:
http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

Honduras, 2009

by Ross Vassilev

drifting like the ghost
of Trotsky
in the white dawn
the white sky above me
is the same over
the skyline of Tegucigalpa
where the U.S. just
overthrew democracy
again.
all the generals were
trained at
The School of The Americas
in the state of Georgia
the school where
they instruct
pro-American terrorists
in the dirty work
of empire to protect
“our hemisphere”
as the North Americans
call it. the coup took place
a week ago.
we’ll see what happens next.

Just thought you should know

by Melanie Browne

There’s a lot
of talk in poetry
circles about
the poetic voice

Your poetic voice
is kind of an asshole!

Just thought you should know
but really,
you're more interesting
than the others
with all their
metered mumbo-jumbo
and when I lie down
at night,
my poetic voice and
your poetic voice
get freaky

THE MAD GIRL IS NOT AS UNHOOKED AS SHE SEEMS

by Lyn Lifshin

gets his “your
note, it made my
day, be in touch”
message on her
machine, feels
as if something
put a string of
lights under her
skin. She plays
it 4 times, does
n’t know why his
drawl, half Boston,
a little south,
some Indiana pulls
her so she’s ice
on the Cohuahuilla
Desert at noon, no
thing on her as it
was since she
swallowed whatever
he had


*Lyn's website:
http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

LIVING IN DARKNESS

by Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal

I cannot grasp life sometimes.
There is a shadow that follows me.
It blinds my view when I need
to see. The shadow is not mine.
I try to stand upright in
my own quiet way. However,
the shadow knocks me down without
making contact. I feel a deep
emptiness in my soul. I live in
utter obscurity. Each ounce of
my being is living in darkness.

STUPID THINGS

by Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal

I will not answer
your questions.
If you want to know
my name, it’s
John Doe, fool.

I know I do some
stupid things
sometimes, but that is
my business.
I feel good.

I want to go home soon.
My mother
needs to pick me up,
she has to,
I’m her son.

I do not need to
take meds. I’m
all right. You could give
that shit to
someone else.

You cannot make me
stay in here.
My rights are being
trampled on.
I’ll sue you.

I will own this place.
The first thing
I’m going to do
is to fire
the doctor.

WAITING FOR MY PLANE

by Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal

I am waiting for my plane
to pick me up and take me
out of here. If anyone
should be in a psych unit,
it is my husband, not me.
I am tired of him trying
to control me. He should mind
his own business. The first thing
I am going to do when
I go home is take all my
things and file for divorce. I
will get on a plane and go
to Florida or Egypt.
I will go anywhere my
husband cannot find me. I
had my share of breakdowns when
I lived with him. I need to
be alone for a change. I
want to end my marriage.