Last week by Alan Catlin

Last week

I heard two
guys I know
from rehab died

too many pills
and liquor

You’d think they
would have learned
you have to stick to
one or the other

Two Poems by Lara Konesky

the shit i pray about with my pants around my ankles

My dad told me that
anyone who chooses to go out with me
after reading my poetry
is a pervert
He said that it could only mean one or many things
that
everyone who reads my poetry
must have a record
and probably has to register as a sex offender
and probably has one or three dead bodies buried
one to three miles from their home
and
probably reads books for fun
and probably
can’t find reasonable employment
and watches porn more than
the news
And
after cumming for the third time
in
your lap
I was kind of
praying
he was right

______________________

pussy cult

we were all a little too tan
with too much makeup
and we had this rule
“you show your tits OR your ass. Not both”

Hookers show both
and that’s how you can tell a whore from a slut

and we huddled together
making secret plays

it was a cult
for maybe pussy
but in the end,
no one got much out of it, right?
In the end, your dirty little girl
ended up being not much more than a little girl
and when
she got down on her knees like you asked,
and looked up at you like you like,
it all just seemed
a little
sad.

Charles Plymell on Charles Plymell (part 1)

CURRICULA VITA

I liked readin’ writin’ n’ arithmetic, but I never liked school and its silly rules. I never wanted to be around shitty-assed, snot nosed, dirty finks and bullies all day. I was never a joiner nor a team player. I was spared “kindergarten” invented by some German guy to make teachers the gardeners of the state and give their parents more time for industry. I was a loner, forever suspect to society and industry.

We were living in Yucaipa, California and luckily kindergarten was not the law yet, so I spent that year in “Paradise.” In the late 30’s up to WWII, Southern California was indeed a paradise, ruined only by population. Earthquakes and forest fires were negligible by comparison. I’d spend all day in my aunt’s orange groves with the smell of orange blossoms and huge navels  ripening  (Photo by Gerad Malanga ) until they fell from the trees. My education was developing in a brook in back of the house where pure sparkling water bubbled down the hill over beautifully colored pebbles, creating a vibrant reality, impressionistic like a mescal high. There was no smog from the basin then, only a gentle breeze of the cool mountain air that invaded the pores of the body. I explored the brook, watched the insects, frogs and snakes all day. The sun made everything glisten in suspense. My sisters, all in school, set up a “Yucaipa Valley Basement” school at which they taught me ABC’s, and tried to scare me by saying there were bodies in the bags hanging in the basement next door they made me to peek into. We argued over kid-things like whether it was Bob Crosby, Bing’s brother, who stopped along the road in a Buick convertible. We used illogical deductive reasoning that it couldn’t have been because he had on the wrong socks. My mother sang and played traditional  songs like “We’ll Never Grow Old” when she wasn’t driving the load of oranges in the field in a truck with no doors that I could watch the shiny blacktop roll by and drag a stick along the pavement to annoy her.

Live from the Tenderlion–Jam Hands aka Abby Young

For those in SF who missed the hoopla in the Tenderlion–here’s a clip of my baby girl’s song: Vegan Boys are the Worst and what they had to say.

Click on the picture to view video.

Confessions Of An american Outlaw #20 by Michael Grover

Everything is calm
Mad jazz flutters around me
I write these words
Calm in chaos
This is the way
I have always been

There was a girl in Philly
Who would “accidentally” bump into me
At the coffee shop I hung out at every day
It was a noisy coffee shop
I would be writing when she got there
She would sit quietly & watch
When I was done she’d shake her head
How can you write in such chaos
& she was right
& she still is
These days I’m lonely
& could use her company

She would “accidentally”
Get so caught up in talking to me
She would miss her train home
& have to sleep with me
One winter night as we walked down Walnut Street
We watched a couple fuck in an ATM booth
Steaming up the windows
She asked Why can’t I have passion like that
I didn’t answer
It was a loaded question
Besides within a half an hour
We would be steaming up the windows
Of my apartment

Once she was over
She read a Poem by Roger Bonaire Augard
And asked Why can’t I have a man that writes with this passion
& there I was standing right in front of her
I was tired of these games
So I threw her out
Went to McGlinchie’s pub & had a beer
& she stopped coming around the coffee shop

I am a man who is direct
& likes directness
All I get is games in return
I’ve watched mermaids die
Chased off the carrion
Coming to collect her
Watched azure eyes open again
With a kiss
Like a fairy tale
Like she was Snow White
& I the handsome prince
But no one was getting saved

Maybe I’m better off without women
My friend tells me prostitutes are great
It’s such a clean break
The only time I’ve been with one
I was eighteen years old
She was sucking my dick in a
Dirty West Palm Beach alley
I freaked out & ran
Leaving her with the money

New Book Release by Rick Smith from Lummox Press

NOT MEMORIES by Robert King

What does he think, my father,
looking out his new tame window,
his life gently narrowed to a room

along a hall of rooms? Not memories.
“The things you remember,” shaking
his head,  as if I’d invented my youth

but he couldn’t say for sure.
I’ve stopped asking for pieces
of information to straighten out

some little part of family history,
and have become his accomplice
as we sit and look out his window

past the bird-feeder without seed
to some general town. When I leave
I remind myself again to bring

bird-seed to fill something up here
although I’ll forget as he forgets
to notice the absences around us.

burning fast by DB Cox

— for Illinois Jacquet… jazzman

the big bus rolls
somewhere
between sundown and tupelo
the old man sleeps
sitting up—uneasy
turning old times
over in his head
like a black & white
masterpiece from yesteryear
back before the whole thing
wore thin as the ass of his pants
& he found himself alone—
displaced in time
surrounded by bloodless souls
contemporary mercenaries
who could wrap
a jazz minor scale
around the neck
of a dominant 7th chord
& strangle it into submission
non-stop bebop
note slingers
sighting down the barrels
of saxophones
trumpets & trombones
like a new-dawn
death-squad
sending a message
with too many words
to the soulful
lyrical players
of yesterday

jean baptiste illinois jacquet
groans & grips
the arms of his seat—dreaming
of a ‘49 buick roadmaster
burning fast
in the breakdown lane

________________________________

Summer by Anna Donovan

Summer comes in sticky
blasts of sax,
uneasy chord progressions
negotiations of stride
in a loose limbed shadow dance
of outstretched arms
on railroad tracks.

Sweat on a rooftop
cold drink in hand,
lights below
in pickle jars,
fading dance of fireflies.

Curl up within myself,
behind my eyes
listening to crickets sing
something of the fragile
on a frame of sunrise
with colors
no one else has seen.

And I conjure up a stillness
on which to stand
amongst shaded Monet sentinels
gurgling youth.

At the melting point
of asphalt.

Mission Street, December by William Taylor Jr.

The soft light of the winter evening
brings a heavy sadness that pushes
the heart

strange clouds gather and the air
smells of coming rain

I wander Mission Street sidewalks
in no hurry to be anywhere

still haunted by the pretty dream
of being something more than death

maintaining my belief
in common miracles

even now determined
to salvage scraps of  joy
from the rubble of  life

scattered bits of kindness
like leaves on the sidewalk
not yet trampled

remnants of abandoned beauty
line the streets like gilded
flakes of gold

I put them in my pockets
to carry home

walking quickly now
as soon the rain will fall

like my tears
like my tears
like my tears.