the problem with becoming widely aware of us just before sleep…by amanda oaks

i hunt for things you do not know
like what your eyelashes look like
when you close your eyes, a secret
i haven’t confessed up until now, saved
like the baby teeth brittling in a box pushed
to the back of a drawer in our tallest bureau,
your breaths end like autumn, abrupt, blunt,
like the continents i could plant between us
some nights, the ocean of our bed sheets
reflecting our freckles, connect-the-dot
constellations always there to pull us
back together

do you remember discovering your heartbeat
for the first time as a child?

Two Poems by Father Luke

The darkness ate my poems

When I lay down for the night
I don’t want to be bothered
with the tugs from
the words
which
slip
in

***

it will never be my turn

once again i’m facing the end of the month without
a job and without rent money.
i’m listening to music in my hotel room.
i feel a cool, coastal breeze,
and i taste the salt in the air.
i’m almost 50 years old,
and i’m beginning to
understand:
it will never be my turn.

____________________
My name is Father Luke.
I wait with the woman I love for a perfect world.

My website is here: http://FatherLuke.com

Sammy’s idea of…by Alan Catlin

a down home get
together at the bar
surprised everyone.
Not that a guy
who did twelve
different kinds
of pills, from
laughers, to downers
to in betweeners
with his beer
and red wine
wasn’t known for
spectacular surprises.
First he placed
the box on the bar,
ordered a pint
for himself and
a half for his
mother who never
really was much
of a drinker, “Right,
Mom?” he said
to the box.
Everyone just sat
there quietly finishing
the sentence he had
left incomplete,
“When she was still
alive” but no one
said anything out loud.
In fact, it was so
uncommonly quiet in
that bar you could
almost hear the head
bubbles evaporating
on her beer.

willie fell…by todd moore

willie fell

out of the
pickup
next to
a dead
dog & just
sat there
a second
before
throwing
up chili
nachos
& beer
then star
ted pick
ing out
chunks of
gravel
that got
stuck in
his face

Nobody’s Fool…by Pris Campbell

Melanie Griffith is flashing Paul Newman.
He’s over seventy but still hotter than George Clooney.
She flubs the scene to get in a few retakes.
She’s flustered, besides.
It’s not every day a gal gets to flash Paul Newman,
draw pay for it, and not get on JoAnne’s bad side.
Paul’s had the chance to fondle a lot of breasts
but he’s no Brad Pitt, dumping Jennifer for Angelina
over a few steamy scenes on the set.
Hollywood’s version of Spin the Bottle.

JoAnne’s seventy, too.
He’s in love with an old woman,
but her laugh is still magic.
He loves the way she sighs when he kisses her.
Paul’s nobody’s fool.
If Washington can maintain a flame
for the unknown soldier over all these years,
he can easily do it with JoAnne.
She listens to his stories, holds him after a bad dream,
and always reminds him to wear his sunglasses in public
so fans can’t sneak photos of those famous blue eyes.

Halloween Costumes…by Rebecca Schumejda

Steve tells me you’re slipping again
as he banks the seven in the side;
this is another reason why I hate

Halloween, the way you scoop the past
out like pumpkin guts and carve
your fears on your face. Even when

we were children, Steve and I calculated
time via the transitions of your emotions:
autumn’s always shrouded in self-

pity and regrets. Wet leaves waiting
on asphalt like unexpeted accidents;
the hue of the leaves steal our eyes

from the road; I thought you were getting
better; but I am busy, always busy,
rushing away from myself before the sun

casts shadows like people’s judgments.
My father’s brother, who visits least, offers the most
advice. So stinking drunk himself,

he tells Steve that he can knock him out;
maybe twenty years ago, before gout and
the wear and tear of disillusionment.

I envy the grip of the last leaves: holding on
despite fate and time, they are the uncle
swinging at air, you topping off your glass,

the brother’s words versus the uncle’s fists,
me playing busy and away, afraid
of inheriting our father’s weak heart.

I remember all the costumes you sewed by hand:
my favorite, a nurse’s uniform I saved,
hangs, like all our mistakes, in my dusty closet.

(from her new book Falling Forward awailable at sunnyoutside press)

DANCING WITH WORDS…by A.D. Winans

There are poets who like
To dance with words
But dancing for an audience
Isn’t like moving to the
Music on your own
Stirring the notes of the soul

Fame kills
Billie Holiday’s ghost attests
To this
Money pigeonholes
Power corrupts
The spiritual truth
The scriptures tell us this

The true poet knows this
Stands tall above the
Dancing with word poets
Who are little more than
Instruments of a poem greater
Than themselves

Be like Li Po and sail your poems
On streams and puddles written on leaves
Be like the anonymous poets of Poland
During the height of martial law
Dropping their poems into the public square
For the people to read
Giving them hope courage and peace
Risk your life  your literary life
Especially for the people who need
Something to cling to in desperate times

Telling the people how cruel
Their tormentors are won’t inspire them
To go on living and to overcome oppression
Loving them  becoming one with them
Standing fearless in their midst
This is the mark of the true poet

Walt Whitman was the John Wayne of poetry
Standing tall and fearless against the enemy
Which is never really man but the
Poison in his soul, pride envy and lust
How can those afflicted with the disease of egomania
Jealousy and desire for fame and fortune
Write about and from the heart?
Gone is the fire of Keats  Shelley  Byron
Whitman and Baudelaire
One column of media praise is of less value
Than a single tear drop on a poem
From a waitress in a greasy spoon diner
These people know nothing of genius
How can cockroaches evaluate eagles?
The true poet’s topic is people
Not the poet

Shoot…by MK Chavez

the pink tongue of my desire
transpires to make new words
to describe our lips, which

together make conceptual art
a fever dream that utters
non-sense, builds heat
in the small of my back
the sleek tips of muscles touch
create flesh psychedelia
makes my heart beam day-glo
red pulsing heliotrope
in my throat

this secret that’s between
your mouth and mine, a revolver
a brazen fervor, a blind boomerang
the collision of our breath
makes the universe fall
when your hands touch my face
everything opens, leaves
me a convoluted mess
you give me this:

comprehension beyond flesh
a tiny piece of bliss