The Speak Easy

How much revision goes into your work?

Todd Moore: Some, not much.

Misti Rainwater-Lites: I revise as I go along. But sometimes, not often, I revise poems years later.

A.D. Winans: Most of my poems are spontaneous and require little if any revision, but as I have grown older, I find myself going back over old poems and revising them.  It’s most dropping lines or maybe adding something, or changing line breaks, things like this.

Hosho McCreesh: I hand-write or type the first draft; I make changes on that draft; a few days later I go back to it &, if I still like it, I re-type it into the computer…making changes or cuts as I do; I look at it one last time before I start submitting it…so what goes out is a 3rd or 4th draft, I’d say. I try not to stray too far from the original thrust though–& don’t believe in heavy re-writes after long periods of time. If the poem doesn’t get accepted somewhere–I either retire it, or scrap it–saving only the strong lines I like. I’d rather try to write the same poem 5 times then work & rework the first version into spoiled milk.

John Dorsey Reads Three is Company

CRUDELY MISTAKEN FOR LIFE by Wolfgang Carstens

This will be the first review ( and maybe the last) in this zine as I figured others could do it better and I wanted to leave this space for poetry. That was before I finished Wolfgang’s first book Crudely Mistaken for Life. In this book he leads the reader on a journey of  life, death, and the beauty and pain caught in between.  The work may give a hint of more famous poets, but leaves no doubt this is new, fresh and uniquely Carstens’ poetry.

If I were to write a book of poetry I would strive for this.

And inside these 80 pages you will find some truth, maybe yourself.  I’ll trade  $15.50 for that any day.

Epic Rites publications are available through Small Press Distribution, as well as inside the Epic Rites Bookstore.

the poet by Karl Koweski

               
 
the poet
mimics the occasional
decent line
while remaining incapable
of creating
a memorable poem
 
in lieu of
voicing his own thoughts
in his own words
the poet resurrects the dead
to speak for him
with oft-quoted passages
of Bukowski cliches
and Ginsberg observations
 
the poet
pontificates on the sad state
of the small press
while envisioning
a conglomeration of houses
aligned by their dedication
in propagating
his predictably bleak verse
 
until then
it’s facebook posts
and myspace blogs
likes and kudos from the poets
possessed of lesser talents,
the devoted rocks upon which
he dreams of building his church
his verse constituting
a bible of second hand despair
 
but the grave
embraces the meek
before god ever would
and the little poets gripping
their little saddle-stapled gospels
will realize soon enough
god doesn’t favor the faithful
when the poet fails
to return their adulation,
these unanswered prayers,
the acolytes will take
their bylines elsewhere
leaving the poet with
the blank page
he failed to convert
in the beginning

the poet by Karl Koweski

               
 
the poet
mimics the occasional
decent line
while remaining incapable
of creating
a memorable poem
 
in lieu of
voicing his own thoughts
in his own words
the poet resurrects the dead
to speak for him
with oft-quoted passages
of Bukowski cliches
and Ginsberg observations
 
the poet
pontificates on the sad state
of the small press
while envisioning
a conglomeration of houses
aligned by their dedication
in propagating
his predictably bleak verse
 
until then
it’s facebook posts
and myspace blogs
likes and kudos from the poets
possessed of lesser talents,
the devoted rocks upon which
he dreams of building his church
his verse constituting
a bible of second hand despair
 
but the grave
embraces the meek
before god ever would
and the little poets gripping
their little saddle-stapled gospels
will realize soon enough
god doesn’t favor the faithful
when the poet fails
to return their adulation,
these unanswered prayers,
the acolytes will take
their bylines elsewhere
leaving the poet with
the blank page
he failed to convert
in the beginning

William Taylor Jr. Reads Down This Crooked Road

two guys speaking french at the truck stop by Justin Hyde

 
feels
like i’m at some
paris cafe
out of the
diaries of anais nin
instead of the flying j
in des moines
iowa.
 
i have
no clue
what they’re
talking about
 
but it’s got
mellifluous cadence
 
warm wax
through deep center
like the wave machine
my last girlfriend
kept in her bedroom.
 
i could easily
spend the rest of my life
slung low
in a sidewalk cafe
smoking opium laced cigarettes
 
listening to this language
 
as the sun
sank below
the arc de triomphe.
 
but the clock says
10:34pm
 
my child support payment
of 527.91
is due by
noon tomorrow
 
and my shift
locked in a pit
with the murderers
rapists
and other failed
hustlers of iowa
 
starts
in exactly
26 minutes.

Three Poems by Barry Basden

 
Orange County

In the shadow of Disneyland,
I clerked near a woman
physically and mentally desirable.

Not caring that she slept with the boss,
I watched her panty lines and
seduced her with serious conversation.

Peacocks screamed outside our motel,
trying to warn me that I would be fired,
and that she would not leave her husband.

===============

My Old Flame

After eleven years, I called her
from the LAX departure lounge
and knew her voice at once.
“Remember those peacocks?” I said,
and she did. Then, tentatively,

“I think of you often. How’s your life?”
Hers was no better than mine and
before I flew off, she agreed to meet later.
My regrets, left behind,
spun slowly on a carousel in an empty hall.

==============

No Guarantees

“The years have been good to you,”
I say when she steps from the convertible,
her hair windswept and blonde.

In a restaurant overlooking the bay,
I unload my baggage. She touches my hand and says,
“There are no guarantees.”

And so, without warranties,
we step off the dock
of the known world.

17 Cents A Pound by David S. Pointer

 
The counter attendant watches
the old rusty truck frame-windows
as shattered as the customers
recycling muddy aluminum cans.
This is Mark’s Iron and Metal, you
can grid search far off grounds
for carbon nanotube cables
or a neutronic fusion reactor,
but each time you creep-in
across the parking lot grey it’s
the last spider cracked window
on the 35 Chevy pickup seemingly
knowing the can scavenger’s way

Texas Hold ‘Em by Jane Crown

  

Ellis island unit one;
Glass partition,
A grieving box
 
I do not oppose this barbarism, you’d think I might;
Humanitarian that I purport to be.
Vengeance is familiar in the South-not swiftly but by
Yards and years on the Row.

sleep comes first
breathing  next
and the heart the last to go 

We don’t polish the bough of regret here
This is death row
There is plenty of life left here  to extinguish
 
sleep comes first
breathing  next
and the heart the last to go.

They say it is humane
To lay him down to sleep
Chalk his breath with  poison
Stalk and stop his  evil heart with buckles.

Texas hold ’em.
Flash your angry hearts
then let them go.