Two Poems by Aurelia Lorca

 

Not So Still Life

I

If only we pastelled as harmonious
As the etching on our abode.
These cramped quarters:
You call this a bowl?
An oversized latte cup, maybe.

Peach and her lopsided breast
loll on my head like a tumor,
yet she snits
that my fractious stem is poking
nether regions only her husband
should have access to.
Nether regions, indeed. (Where’s raspberry when I need him?)
We’re FRUIT dammit!
Rembrandt, paint this:
PPPPHHHHHTTTTTHHHHBBBBBTTTT!!

II

Naked in un-decorous lighting
under fluorescent hum,
I expose my crooked breast
and bruised marker
where my skin cuts yellow.

O me. Poor me. Poor Peach.

Paint me with summer orchards,
the balm of buzzing bees,
gingham checked linen,
wicker.
Let me burlesque for you
from baskets ripe with color
where I fan-dance
one swell
at a time,
creating the illusion
of juicy perfection.

____________

 

Pet A Kitty

 

When my friend,
the greatest poet I know,
came to San Francisco
she tried to find work-
But San Francisco being
San Francisco, and poets
being poets, it was not easy.

We decided instead that we
would prostitute my cat, Figaro,
who at eighteen years old,
deaf, and eager for affection,
had recently won a cutest pet
contest.

It was simple- We’d
advertise to the lonely
on CraigsList, and attach
a little money pouch to his collar.
We would pimp him out,
but never leave him alone
with any customers.

“I’m putting your furry butt
to work!” my friend said to Figaro,
who didn’t hear, but just purred
and purred and purred.

Unfortunately, like any good poet,
Figaro was too much of a slut
to collect money,
and my friend,
the greatest poet I know,
left San Francisco
for a city more affordable.

____________

Bio:  Aurelia Lorca can be found in the spaces between the cante jondo and the blues talking with ghosts.  

Two Poems by Milt Montague

graduates

I charge you to
go out into our world
as it now exists
replete with its
manifold injustices

we allowed to accumulate
by ignoring discrimination
which bred injustice
that has festered into
a cancer on our society

there are millions
of our citizens
poorly fed
poorly clothed
poorly educated

without health care
predestined to poverty
and hopelessness
for themselves and their
future generations

while a minuscule minority
manipulate our system
enacting special laws
to reap the benefits
of our once great society

you are our last chance
to restore this country
to the status quo ante
while there is yet time

____________

 Numbers 28 7-10

 

The Lord spake unto Moses
Regarding proper sacrifices
To be made unto Him
Both at sunrise and sunset
With great specificity

One unblemished lamb
Ritually slaughtered
Three quarts of flour
Two quarts of oil
As the meat offering

Set afire on the alter
As a burnt offering to The Lord
One liter of strong wine
Poured on the altar
As a drink offering to The Lord

This Holy ritual
Was a mandated daily routine
Save for Sabbaths and Holy days
When more elaborate offerings were
Described in consummate detail

It seems that we are all made
In the image of our creator
Who likes a stiff drink
With his meals
As we do

____________

 

bio: milt montague was born in the 1920’s in new york city, survived the depression, school, and world war 2.   fell in love, married, raised three wonderful daughters, retired and went back to school.  after twenty years at hunter college in new york city, he fell in love with poetry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two Poems by Bradley Mason Hamlin

Barbarian Summer

 

June
in Sacramento
Johnny’s singing about
the “Streets of Laredo”
and unashamedly
we drink
locally brewed beer
and wine
trying not to
blast the AC
but keeping it cool
at night
when the specters
of the wee hours
come to haunt
at 4 a.m.
and I consider
the moon
as I wait for the sun
a cup of coffee
and a
Conan the Barbarian
comic book
but
right now
in the dark
I reach for my lover
and as I pull her curves
close
sorcery fades against
real magic
and all the ghosts
may howl
let them moan
like they crave sex
or scream
in unjustified horror
it’s summer
the beer is good
the blonde is good
and outside
the palm trees
whisper my oasis
they are my friends
in this valley
and Hell can wait
with my hands upon
her breasts
I am the most powerful
man alive.

____________

 

Summertime Wine

 

the
greatest
thing

about
being
married

is

she’s
had
the
passion

to
try
and
kill
me

but
never
ever
leave me.

 

 

 

Two Poems by Sissy Buckles

Barefootin’

I first met Mike Hodges,
surfer extraordinaire,
when I moved from downtown to Mission Beach,
lucky enough to score a cheap cottage right on the bay
had the hots for his bod from the start,
we were young, who wouldn’t?
Perpetually tan and broad-shouldered
always barefoot even in winter
predictably called his dog Shaka
his dad Ralphie was a Little Rascal
from the old Hollywood movies
made enough money to buy a couple million dollar
beach front homes so Mike never had to work,
surfing was his job,
and fucking around customizing wild bikes,
had a silky-curled son one year named Blue
with lovechick Cali girl,
dabbled in meth from time to time turned annoying
so we didn’t want to see him anymore
almost burned down his own house once
left a candle in the attic like a dumbshit,
but he was always cool
when he sold little bags of mexi schwag.
I wasn’t surprised to learn he’d died
drunk crashing his cougar girlfriend’s Mercedes
coming home late at night from partying
and I still expect to see his handsome brown face,
whizzing by me with a nimbus of gold hair
barefoot on his skateboard down the sunset boardwalk
Shaka intent, keeping up behind

____________

Dishing the dirt

I know some folks were wondering
if I really did talk to God.
Truthfully the answer is yes.
In fact all the time,
strange as that may sound
and I’m not ashamed to say.
But.
He talked to me first.
I mean like He wasn’t
even on my mind
you know I was thinking
of riding my bike down the
boardwalk at the beach
buying some avocados and papaya
at Sprout’s Farmers Market for lunch
and maybe meeting the girls later
for pool playing and beer down the street
on Broadway with the rest of the
assholes at Dirk’s Horseshoe Lounge.
But if you could spare
one little unused moment
in your day to try to think
outside of the box here
suspend your disbelief,
and okay let’s do call it an
Apostolic type experience
umm and in perhaps really
just a literal manner,
“see me feel me touch me”
so to speak,
I can dig The Who
once in a while,
and what the hell
if you can’t even reach down
into your pocket and hand
a fiver to a downandout grimy guy
in a suit and tie sitting on an
overturned bucket with a sign
saying he lost his job,
I don’t care how many
fucking believers follow you
on Facebook your art
is irrelevant to me.
I think these miracles happen daily,
I really do
and a Carmelite nun
I happened to meet
in a completely random manner
prayed hard for me
and gave me a lit rainbow candle
as a last present the year
before she died unflinchingly
of melanoma cancer,
could you call that luck,
who knows? Somebody
leaned down and I felt
his hot breath reeking of
fish, honey, blood and yeast
whisper earnestly into my ear
“Remember Me”
that was enough and so
now what, I’m going to
just ignore Him?

 

 

THE NOT OK CORRAL by Rex Sexton

Drifting off, rain pounding the leaky roof
of the Crystal Palace, jukebox broke.
This sweltering night is all but over.
I’ll leave it in a stupor, stagger home
down busted backstreets, over broken glass,
cracked concrete, amidst the rotting remnants
of torched buildings some slumlord set
ablaze for insurance.
I try to remember better days. I look in the bar
mirror and shake my head. Those times when
going to work meant making a living not
just surviving.
This ain’t no palace in case you were
wondering. Never saw any crystal in here
either – no sparkling glassware or chandeliers.
This is just a Chi-town dive. It was named
by the crazy owner after some famous cowboy
bar in Wichita, Kansas. Wyatt Earp used to
drink there, I hear.
Most of us are just trying to make it through
the summer. Those of us who do will have to
face the winter. There ain’t no Miss
Kitty in here neither, nor anything like her.
What we got, instead, is why God invented
darkness.
They’ll never fix that jukebox.

 

Relics of Lust by Lynne Savitt–reviewed by Bill Gainer

Available  at amazon.com
When reading Savitt’s Relics of Lust you soon learn there is always one more secret to tell. To find it – turn the page. She has a way of not saying it, but allowing it – to touch you in those places that tremble from the inside out. She writes with a short breath, dares you to catch yours and reminds the world everyone is looking. Then there’s that thing about touch; when-where-how? Now, there, gently – but it is okay to bite. Just a little. Savitt doesn’t always have to be first, but she does want her turn. Relics of Lust is the scattering of the pieces of a life lived – loved well, just far enough from sin to almost be safe. She confesses, “… danger lurks in the potpourri of my / love I carry a 9 mm glock & sage / scented candles in my summer purse.” After reading Savitt I wanted to touch my finger to my tongue, breathe out slowly and just sit awhile. If you chose to read her, be careful. The secret she tells might be yours. I liked mine.

Bill Gainer, Lipstick and Bullet Holes

 

Afternoon Bar Haiku by Doug Draime

 

 

The drunk dragonfly fucks

on whiskey wings

shading his eyes

from the sun.

Afternoon Bar Haiku by Doug Draime

 

 

The drunk dragonfly fucks

on whiskey wings

shading his eyes

from the sun.

haiku by Pris Campbell

 

closing time
old men gulp down
their dreams

haiku by Misti Rainwater-Lites

 

is he alive? yes.
I’m certain he’s still breathing
but not in my ear.