dein cai dau by DB COX

America’s birthday by Jim Chandler

and I’m cowboying shots
of Kentucky blend
inside under the AC

windbags too worn
for the porch
or drowning in humidity
under God’s blue
skies

coming upon that year
of numerical percision
birth wise
that beast w/two back
inverted

the land of lore for
the nimble young
a position still pursued
by the oldster
drunk

glance at the clock
tells me it’s
don’t-give-a-fuck time
but then that’s
par for the course

it’s been so long
since I gave a fuck
I’ve forgotten what I
last gave a fuck
about

or maybe I never ever gave a fuck

to begin with

____________

(first appeared at the dead mule)

Featured Poet–Bradley Mason Hamlin

Harold Martin Silver

Wandering
round Berkeley,
California, USA
don’t get there too often
hippies give me a headache
on beer drunk,
I entered Anarchist Bookstore
hoping to find hope
or Jesus spray-painting
secret code …
lucked into a Jack Micheline
chapbook
something with Kerouac
in the title
and that little thing
that little chapter
of a life
that kooky book of words
put some new tread
on the bottom of my shoes
to get through and to
the next good thing
and sometimes
man, just sometimes
that’s more than enough.

____________

Gut Shot By Happiness

John
Lennon said,

“Whatever gets you through the night …”

All right,
but I’m concerned with the day,
the time spent
with others
outside my own tribe

hunting
and gathering paychecks
so children can eat bright round oranges
papa needs a beer
and my wife
needs a new pair of blue jeans
for the curves that kill

and maybe someday
the demons will cut me a deal
based on the amount of soul energy
I have given them during the day

but never the night

the dark hours
are for her
and for me
for movie rentals
with ice cream or red wine
for getting naked or just hanging out

maybe
we’ll even talk about
those kids tonight
and all our wild plans
for the future
because they’re
almost
too young to know
that evil

carries most of the world
in a hot bag
resting on the Devil’s shoulder

but the
laughter of the children
is a selfless sound that tortures
the shadow creatures
I see them cringing
scurrying back inside the closet
under the bed
or leaping back outside
into the bushes

gut shot by happiness
if only
you could bottle that sound.

___________

Han Solo Shot First

heal me
when all obsessing thoughts
on wickedness
keep me awake at night

when past comes calling to haunt,
torment, torture the present

when I’m stupid, blue, and foolish,
full of self and ignorance

when I’m hateful and wishing
for the destruction of reality

when the dead come today,
when evil pulls the air
and kisses the light

fall into my arms
drink with me
and I will do you
no harm.

____________

 

 Before I Mow the Summer Lawn (Wish I Were Building a Wall)

fighting
with your lover
over

where
you’re supposed
to be

or what
you’re listening
to

or
what you say
and don’t
say

and then
you visit your
neighbors

and they

piss you off
so goddamned much
with their
fucked up
personalities

you can’t
remember

why

you ever fought
with the one
you love

at all.

____________

Brown Beer & Belly Dancers

I am drinking
Brown
Beer
Right
Now
Many bottles cold
And
It’s good to
Drink
The flow
And know
It’s okay
Because
It tastes good
Good inside
And
Makes
Me feel happier
Almost
About
Being
A being
On a planet
Full of suicidal
Arabs
And far too few
Belly dancers.

 

Aesop’s Snake by Moriah LaChapell

On a cold morning
a woman went for a walk
and found
a snake immobile
in the middle
of a dirt road.

The snake said to the woman
“Please help me lady, I am stuck
in the middle of the road
and fear someone
will run me over.”

She took pity on the snake
whose scales shone like emeralds
in the cold morning sun.
She picked him up
and placed him
next to her unlaced bosom
and carried him home.
She started a fire
and sat down.
She whispered to him
reassuring
that all would be well.

He slowly slithered
out of her dress
and with a quick strike
bit her wrist.
She screamed in surprise
and knew his poison
would slowly kill her.

She asked him
“Why did you do this to me?”
He replied
“You knew I was a snake
when you picked me up
Lady.”

Somewhere Norman by Scott Owens

Somewhere Norman wonders
what happened to all the days
and nights that seemed to lie before him.

Somewhere Norman remembers
all the words he thought to say,
meant to say, never
brought himself to say.

Somewhere Norman regrets
he never let himself be wrong
enough to find the way
to make himself right.

Somewhere Norman knows
he let those who mattered
most mostly down.

Somewhere Norman feels
alone.

Somewhere Norman dreams
of things that could have been,
should have been, would have
been, if only he
had learned to be a little
less Norman, a little
more human, a little
somebody, somewhere,
but not here,
never here again.

The Other War by Arlin Buyert

I got my Navy wings in January 1968
when two wars were going on:
Viet Nam and Mississippi.

I had orders to fly F-4s over the jungle
but overnight they changed to Training Squadron Seven
at NAS Meridian.  On my way through Mississippi
I drove through Philadelphia and wondered
about the black and white blood
spilled on the dam’s red clay.

My first week in town the synagogue burned
and I saw “White Only”  at Weidmann’s Restaurant.
A month later Ensign Harding (with his white wife)
reported for pilot training holding a BS in Aeronautical Engineering
from Stanford.  No one would teach him

so the Commanding Officer calls a meeting in the Ready Room.
“Damn it men, I know this is unusual but someone has to take him.
He wants to serve our county, his country, so do I see a hand?”
He did not.

The next day, a fellow flight instructor greets me in the hall:
“So just when did you become a fucking nigger lover?”

National Guacamole Day by Susie Sweetland Garay

Its early on a Monday morning. Cold and quiet.
I coworker assembles a lab in the other room.
Your lab.
She puts the pieces together. I hear glass clinking
and it makes me miss you. How odd for her
to be touching your things. I watch her
and think to myself “you’re doing it wrong.”

Farming has made me see the world in cycles.
Clear and pronounced and complicated.
I feel torn, wanting rain for myself, but thinking – not yet.
Not just yet, the grapes aren’t ready.
Just a week more of sun. Maybe two.

Yesterday was National Guacamole Day.
A year ago on that day I told you
about the occasion, excited by my discovery.
You said, “We’d better go get some guac then.”
And we did.

the body and the blood by David LaBounty

meat

she was
meat
not
like
food
but
maybe
more
like
the
body and the blood

of the
naked
Christ

getting
me
through
the
wishbone
of my
yellow years

years
like
the
hollow
points
of
a thousand
amens

come on
next lady

come and
pray
with me
again

The Point of Hal Sirowitz

“The whole point
of a relationship,” I
said, “is to get close

to one another.” “I’d
rather do that playing
badminton,” she said.

“Plus, the game already
has rules that we have
to agree on before we

start playing. You can’t
make them up as we go along
or get on my side of the net.”