Wandering Joe by Robert Halleck

 

Wandering Joe is at it again.
Up and down the corridors
hitting the crash bar on the doors,
setting off alarms, scaring the residents.
Joe is going to walk until he drops.
Until then the years will become
months, then days, then hours,
then nothing.

Joe didn’t always wander. He
worked hard at raising kids now
scattered to wherever. Wherever
they are they don’t come to visit,
send cards, or call. His love was
blond, pretty, funny, and smart.
Cancer cured that and left him
Alone, broke and old to
wander the corridors of
life’s last stop.

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HEARD IT ON THE SCHOOLYARD by Marc Olmsted

 

 

 

you said it really fast so the other guy said “What?’

“Did you know that queers can’t hear?”

I tried this on my dad – I was 9 or 10, heard on the schoolyard.

“Marc,” he said solemnly, “do you know what a queer IS?”

A spaz or retard I assumed.

“It’s a man who acts like a woman.”

“You mean like Elvis Presley?”

“Yes.”

____________

 

Marc Olmsted has appeared in City Lights Journal, New Directions in Prose & Poetry,  The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry and a variety of small presses.  He is the author of five collections of poetry, including What Use Am I a Hungry Ghost?, which has an introduction by Allen Ginsberg.  For more of his work, http://www.marcolmsted.com

 

 

If God Were To Say By Grant Guy

if god were say
kill Isaac for me
i’d say
screw you
do it yourself
better yet I’ll tell Isaac
& we’ll meet you in the schoolyard
after school

& if god thinks i’m insolent
look into the cosmic mirror daddio

____________

 

Grant Guy is a Canadian poet, writer and playwright. He has over one hundred poems and short stories published in internationally. He has five books published: Open Fragments, On the Bright Side of Down, Blues for a Mustang, The Life and Lies of Calamity Jane and Bus Stop Bus Stop. He was the 2004 recipient of the MAC’s 2004 Award of Distinction and the 2017 recipient of the WAC Making A Difference Award.

Bipolar by Ben Rasnic

 

Never knowing
if the day will drape
its black curtain
tight as a drum
over my mind’s eye
or if the light
from cerulean skies
will somehow seep
thru the crevices
& brighten my day.
It could go either way.

The Grand Old Party by S.A. Griffin

 

the Star Spangled Banner is playing so loudly
that nobody at the party can hear Lady Liberty’s muffled screams
coming from inside the Lincoln Bedroom

flat on her back Liberty is doing all that she can to fend off
an unsteady Trump Daddy drunk with power

he has an executive hand over her mouth
while his other fat fingers climb up her garments
desperately attempting to find their way past her port of entry
and into her sunset gates, “C’mon, Liberty baby –
lemme smack that sweet huddled ass of yours
yearning to breathe free. You know you want it!”

the Donald’s aerodynamic pomp quacks and achieves liftoff
cutting manic shadows into the bedroom walls as he
smashes his tiny Trump thing into Liberty’s weakening flesh

Uncle Sam is catching all the action standing sentry
behind home plate in front of the locked door
the old wizened white beard waving his hot dog wildly about
shouting, “Uncle Sam wants you to play ball!”

outside in the Rose Garden
Congress is making hay with the gerrymandered vote
holding hands kumbaya like for the cameras
singing Citizens United and it feels so good

Emma Lazarus rises from the grave on the shoulders of
uncountable millions upon millions of wounded women roaring
ME TOO across the crowded centuries

President Great Again deaf to their declaration
continues ripping away at Lady Liberty’s tattered gown

the ghost of Emma Lazarus
breaks down the door of the Lincoln Bedroom
shattering the supreme darkness
as the colossus of angry women comes rushing in behind her

they will not be denied

it’s the Donald’s Waterloo

not even Putin can save him

______________

9/23/18

Two Poems by Rose Mary Boehm

Pull up and go

The streets too narrow, the boys
too ugly, mother too mother.
Landscapes made from iron and stainless
steel, gasometers and loading cranes
and coal trains. There was one row
of sycamores and the forest where
acid rain ate the green.

I kissed Heinz in the fire-red light
of the glowing slag run-off or, rather,
he kissed me, and wet and slobbery
it was, and the mirror showed no change,
no maturing; my sacrifice had left
no visible mark. And he told.

I couldn’t wait to get out, re-invent
myself, go where no-one knew
that I grew up in a world of soot
and glowing steel, that I kissed
the wrong boy at the wrong time,
that I once wore woolly knickers
and had no idea what ‘virginity’ was.

And how I wish
I could go home again,
but they don’t remember me.

____________

 

White Bones

Doves dive after breadcrumbs
the old woman has seeded with
an imperial gesture,
standing on a park bench.

With milky eyes she observes the
swooping, clawing and picking,
the frantic chaos, vicious flutter
of wings, threatening clucks.

I see myself cut open in a field,
vultures picking me clean.

____________

 

A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm lives and works in Lima, Peru. Author of ‘Tangents’, a poetry collection published in the UK in 2010/2011, her work has been widely published in US poetry journals (online and print). She was three times winner of the Goodreads monthly competition, a new poetry collection (‘From the Ruhr to Somewhere Near Dresden 1939-1949 : A Child’s Journey’) has been published by Aldrich Press in May 2016, and a new collection (‘Peru Blues or Lady Gaga Won’t Be Back’) has been published (January 2018) by Kelsay Books.

Three Poems by Sarah Carleton

Stuck

Rolling down Nebraska Ave in the rain,
wiper blades and Drive-By Truckers fighting

for the beat, I drive by strip-joint
strip malls, warehouse churches, Salvation

Army-Navy surplus, minimarts, go-karts,
swim-in-place pools and kid carpoolers.

My route’s a seedy, soggy loop track
—a pink motel mushroomed five miles back

then popped up again another spot—
but the bumper stickers are all over the map:

I’m tailing a car with blue stars & stripes
while the truck zipping past flashes coexist.

____________

Invincible

The blinding-black night, the hotel drive
winding uphill, the creepy grime of the blankets—

where were we headed? No idea.
What was the year? Don’t recall.

The room had a hot tub with no water;
our little son pretended it was a bed.

The three of us lay on our backs
and looked at the mirror on the ceiling.

I do believe we were the only guests.
Our need for sleep was accidental—

the rental car, which should have been invincible,
broke down, setting us back several hours.

But our playlist made us bulletproof.
We laughed every time Ok Go sang about

the woman with lights behind her eyes,
and when the road grew squirrelly

we switched our brights on and off.

____________

 

Cat Day Afternoon

Our backyard neighbor, kitty-corner,
is caterwauling on the phone.

I recognize the tone
—though not the raspy tongue—

and cut her slack.
We are all cat-smacked in this heat.

Even the feline guard no longer
pace for prey but drape themselves

on our screened roof
like snaggletoothed tarpaulins.

____________

 

Sarah Carleton writes poetry, edits fiction, plays the banjo and raises her son in Tampa, Florida. Her poems have appeared in numerous publications, including Off the Coast, The Binnacle, Cider Press Review, Nimrod, Chattahoochee Review, Tar River Poetry, Crab Orchard Review and New Ohio Review.