Outside Your Darkened Window by Bradley Mason Hamlin

I’ve
never cared
much
for guys
that are overly
sensitive

yet
here I am
writing
a poem

men
like Bukowski
& Hemingway

felt
the same
conflict

masking
their fragile
feelings

with
the absurd
masculinity
of the sport
of animal abuse

the bizarre
bullfight
the tragically
tired horse race

ugly
excuses

that
cannot possibly
have cured
the curse

and
don’t even
let me get started
about drowning
the senses
in alcohol
and self
medication

so
let me see
the teardrop cascade
gently
from your soft
cheek

as the rain
falls rhythmically
outside your darkened
window

let me hear you
cry
just
one more time

let me
take your hand
and lie down
with you
naked
raw
fuckin’
nude, baby

let’s listen
to a Billie Holiday
record

and hold each other
until
all
the demons
in the room
gently
close
their eyes.

Thirteen Variations / Slight Returns on Dr. William’s Red Wheelbarrow (or, How the Hell Does a Japanese Fighting Kite Wind Up in The Middle of Missouri?) apologies to W.C.W. by Jason Ryberg

 

So much depends upon
a red tricycle left crying in the rain
beside four grinning
garden gnomes.

So much depends upon
a red Radio Flyer wagon overflowing
with tulip bulbs and garden tools,
to which a bull-mastiff pup
has been chained all day.

So much depends upon
a red windmill, doing nothing
but lazily churning
the bright blue wind.

So much depends upon
a red, rusted-out pick-up truck stuck in the weeds
(bees in its belly, mice in the muffler,
a thick forest of sunflowers in its bed).

So much depends upon
an old, red barn, barely holding up its own weight
beneath the ever-shifting weight of the seasons.

So much depends upon
a red dirt road winding its way
through the hills and valleys of Oklahoma,
beneath a storm-grey sky.

So much depends upon
a pair of faded red Chuck Taylors
hanging from a power line,
(with a bird’s nest in the left).

So much depends upon
a red tail-light, barely visible on the road ahead
at five in the morning (don’t ask why)
on the way to Atchison, KS.

So much depends upon
a red-gold koi, circling
the stem-like leg of a Great Blue Heron
in the middle of a stream.

So much depends upon
the foot-tall, day-glo red liberty spikes
on top of the tiny punk rock girl
with the baby blue Doc Martins.

So much depends upon
childhood memories
of the giant, red tomatoes
your neighbor grew every summer
in soil sown with iron filings
from his machine shop.

So much depends upon
a Red Tailed Hawk floating
on a current of wind
in a sky the color of a sky blue workshirt
that’s been washed a hundred times.

So much depends upon
a red Japanese fighting kite,
wrecked and ruined in the rib-cage
of a lone Willow tree on a hill
in the middle of Missouri,

and no one, not a single soul around
to answer one simple
fucking
question …

Poem for Brittany by John Dorsey

have seen you on the streets of new orleans
taking photos with well meaning tourists
for half finished beers on bourbon st
crossing venice blvd wearing blue socks
in a shroud of rain
chasing moloch
in a famous blue raincoat
shouting moloch
praying to moloch
that when morning comes
your shadow will recognize your smile
& that my heavy heart
full of forgotten cities
will be able
to carry the weight
of your love.
on its shoulders.

At 3 a.m. by Sarah Russell

after one more day

without words, Paris

takes you in like a whore,

not surprised you’re back

for another fuck in the dark.

November.  Brittle rain

scrapes the bone.

You walk the sheen of cobbles

to the Seine, where bodies,

freshly guillotined, once floated,

heads left behind in baskets,

past the great cathedral, gargoyled,

buttressed, to the boîte

on St. Louis where absinthe

and jazz make love, and a girl

comes to rub against you

like she knows your name.

nada mas maybe something more by SPLAKE

 

death often comes fast
life ending quickly
collapsing on treadmill
running to eagle river
body pitching in tall grass
rocky wilderness path
climbing in the clifffs
face down
kitchen table ending
unfinished poem
left in mid-sentence
final act without
meaning or conclusion
poet’s reputation
rapidly disappearing
collection of writings
gathering dust
in university archives
remote possibility
zoschke’s literary remarks
“city lights” bibliography
will make others note
another henry darger
writings and paintings
finally recognized
after quiet driven life
sad artistic despair
after years of working alone
starving artist solitude
everything suddenly lost
creative works forgotten
but something might exist
between reality and nothing
in different dimension
poet discovering
richard brautigan real
living with pauline
gentle life together
piney woods wilderness
working on new book
writing in little shack
north of ideath
learning much wisdom
from grand old trout
living upstream
near statue of mirrors
enjoing black watermelon days
delicious soundless feasts
often exploring forgotten works
finding special things
apple pie coffee breakfasts
sweet bluebell flowers
warmly embracing pauline
trout hatchery dances
watermelon sugar happiness

Sent from my iPhoneI Talk To My Hebrew God by Neeli Cherkovski

         For Alan Kaufman

I talk to my Hebrew God
Everyday now,
I tell him how sick it is
To see anti Semitism
On the rise in Europe

He says I must write
My poems
About butterflies and
Tulips, he tells me
I do good with pine trees
And my dog
On a
Leash at the beach –
He asks me to
Forge it, so a few
People are killed

He says he has
A universe to run
And it’s not easy
You never know
When a galaxy is
In trouble

I felt bad, I still feel
Bad, the world
Never learns its
Lesson, bad ass people
Step out of the
Shadows an murder
Thousands of work-a-day
People,  all ages, all sizes

One woman in France
Was 85, Holocaust
Survivor, slain to pay
For the sins of the Jews
2018 a civilized year
She is called me? No
She is many, she is endless

Damn.

veteran in Flint by David LaBounty

 

it was a do good
kind of day
those of us
doing good
because
our kids
had to
good
for the
service
hours
at
school

and there we were

a collection of
honor students
and
parents
on hand
to help
out a middle
aged
veteran
with a
disabled
adult son
and a recently
disabled
wife

and we were in that part of Flint

north side,
just past
Hurley Hospital

a collection of
vacant lots
and
liquor
stores
and
clapboard
houses
like a salad
of ignored
gardens
just
tossed together
in it and

fluoride, he said

makes your
brain soft
and they
put fluoride
in the
water
to make the
population
just more
than passive

and he told
me all this
and his
teeth
were yellow
and there
were gray
and black
hairs coming
out of the
nighttime
of his
nose

and he
asked me
about my
coat, about
the
Columbia
label
on my
chest

what’s Columbia? he asked

and me,
I was
embarrassed
for a moment,
embarrassed
that my
body was
saying
something
my heart
didn’t
feel

oh
Columbia,
I said
that… that’s just
a thing

oh, he said
I remember Columbia,
it was a college in the sixties
a lot of the
protesters
back then
went to
Columbia

and the day
passed that
way and
later in
the afternoon
I headed
out of the
city

dropped
my son
off back
to his
mother’s
suburban home
and I headed
back to my own
suburban home

but I had to
stop at Kroger first

I needed
something
for dinner

they have those
pre-prepared meals
at Kroger now
all of the
ingredients
right in the box

I was torn
between the
pan-seared salmon
or the
lemon-glazed flat iron steak

I couldn’t pick either one
so I listened to my heart
and
my heart said
it wanted a
Tombstone pizza

so I got that instead

I took it home
and heated it up

I ate while flicking
through the
200 channels
of my cable tv

and no one
said anything
on the tv
that night

200 channels

and
no one
said
anything
at all