3 Poems by Jon Bennett

I Leer at Women

Love might find a way
but if it doesn’t
it will be buried or drown.
So I call in sick and go
to my first cocktail party in 4 years.
A lot of young girls are there
throwing out the word “fuck”
as if it were an anchor to adulthood
and I carry my lust for them
like a shield to protect me
from the women I miss
specifically L and A,
L has always been
my anchor to humanity
(like evil men everywhere know
there is a grace that comes
from confessing into a warm bosom)
but L is with someone else now
and A is back on coke
so I fill up on free liquor,
an ocean that leaks out later
into the SRO room sink.

Uber Alles

There's lots of spiritually liberated

people in California

they quote Indian gurus

and eat healthy

but their art

is terrible.

I'd rather be like Balzac

40 cups of coffee a day

or James Joyce, knocking into

the furniture

falling over his empty bottles

one last drip

a tear in his eye

and ideas so terrible

they had to be forgotten.

Peep Show

I was twenty when I saw my first stripper

at The Lusty Lady in San Francisco

I put twenty bucks in a slot

the curtains parted

she had smeared her vagina

with vaseline

so the labia stuck open-

more a flower than a pussy

when I saw it

I gasped

like a little girl

and left in a fever

something in me had busted and fallen

I could feel it in my socks

I still can

3 Poems by April Salzano

The Little Engine Was Right

Going uphill is a slow process,

especially dragging everyone else’s baggage.

If you think you can, you will.
As long as you say it often enough,
anything can become Cartesian law.
Once you get to the top,
fuck anyone who didn’t stop
along the way.

The Parenting App

features a platinum upgrade that allows
infants to be plugged directly into
electronic devices while skills are downloaded.
Fortunately for the mothers who wish
to medal in the Development Races this year,
a new category has been created to separate
Change of Life Parents from Twenty-Year-Old-Reproducers,
who are clearly at a technological advantage. Much like
digital photography once replaced dark room
and negatives, iPad parenting allows milestones
to be reached in shorter time. The bar
has not been raised, it has been totally reconstructed.
Old-school mothers who are still using archaic
pencil and paper teaching methods and incidental
learning opportunities will likely not suffer the effects
of the failed interface that has begun to short
circuit children. While their parents surf the web
for a solution, their kids are contracting viruses
undetectable by automatic internal scans.
Because concern has been replaced by mild
levels of annoyance, no one seems genuinely affected.

Lives Change at Red Lights

At least in the movies. Hers is

a story of love and lust that smells

like love. She wears the distinct mark

of a furrowed brow that seems to be in style

these days, but only when she is with her husband,

before he murders her lover with a snow globe to the head.

In the end, they decide to stay together, cover each other’s tracks.

If she denies knowing the guy, he can get away with murder. In the car,

the light remains red long enough for them to reach this conclusion, decide

on Mexico, seal the deal with a kiss in their dinner party clothes while their child

sleeps in the backseat. When the camera pans out, the light is finally green, the police

station a blaring beacon beside them. Credits and music roll across an empty intersection.

5 Poems by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

The Angry Crab

Sand sculpture week
at the beach.
Apparently there are judges 
but you never see 
them,
or the artists.
All you see are sad looking people 
in ill fitting shirts,
a pasty white sunblock line 
over the nose, 
trying to forget work, wives,
husbands, kids, bills, cancer...
trying really hard not to think
about how much this little holiday
is costing,
meals and accommodation
and film for the camera
and gas,         
trying with limited success to forgive the oil companies 
for colluding 
during the August long weekend (again),
choosing to marvel at the giant sand sculptures 
instead:
the castle with turrets and moat
the winding dragon
the angry crab
the Taj Mahal...
aren’t they just marvellous?,
some fat lady of swoons
just marvellous,
answers the even fatter man 
beside her.
I loath their sweaty cellulite delusions.
I look away.
Away from the ribbons and empty roped off praise
to the sandfleas biting small children
above the water line.
To state an accepted truth, is to state
nothing at all.
Though I must admit, I quite like the angry crab.
He seems to be the only one around
not trying so hard
to be happy.


Thirty Miles Outside Cleveland

The trucker 
thirty miles outside Cleveland 
put on his indicator 
and pulled onto 
the shoulder.
A young Hispanic boy -
maybe 14 or 15 -
thanked the trucker for stopping, 
slung his sack over his shoulder,
and jackknifed up into the cabin.       

You=re not a serial murderer, are you?,
asked the trucker.

Not unless you're a sexual sadist,
replied the young Hispanic 
boy.            

The two shared an uneasy laugh 
before the trucker turned up
his Townes Van Zandt 
and the young Hispanic boy 
offered to pay for 
gas.         

Then the trucker smiled
put on his left indicator
checked his mirrors
pulled off the shoulder

and began towards Cleveland.

Piss in my Mouth

We were sitting around 
after a nice dinner together
enjoying our coffees
when she said it:
Piss in my mouth.
What?
Come on, it’ll be fun, piss in my mouth.
She tied her hair back in a ponytail,
got down on her knees
between my legs
and started to unzip me.
I don’t know about this, I mean, Jesus woman, this is highly irregular,
can’t I just cream in your mouth like normal people do?
That’s no fun.
I hear it can be.
Come on, forget that.
She pulled it out and let it rest against my jeans.
It looked flaccid and sad like a deflated tire.
Don’t even think about it, pretend my mouth is a urinal, or something.
Right now, right this moment?
Of course silly, I’m ready now, come on, piss in my mouth.
She opened wide.              
I could see the strain of her jaw line
work its way up to her lightly freckled forehead.
She looked very beautiful.
Nothing like a urinal.
I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that, my dear.
Come on, I’m ready.
But I don’t have to go.
She started to get angry with me.
What can I do?, I asked,
a man only stands in front of a urinal
and goes when he has too,
the rest of the time he shops for pears
or puts on socks        
or checks the glove compartment
for maps of upper state 
New York.                 
You’re no fun.
She got back up to her feet
pulled her hair out of the ponytail
walked into the bathroom
and closed the door.
Leaving me cold, limp,
and dangling 
in the kitchen,
wondering just how many
a man                
had pissed in the urinal
I would have to kiss
goodnightlater.

Her Name was Nancy, I Believe

There is not much difference
between Man
and elephant,
it seems.

Fed up with torture
and confinement
a Female circus elephant 
in Oregon
escaped last week
and went on a parking lot 
rampage.

Crushing cars 
and people 
alike.

It was only slowed down
when other elephants 
were employed 
to corner the rebelling elephant
against a wall
until it could be shot dead
and dragged 
away.

The other elephants could have escaped.
They could have joined ranks
and rebelled as well,
but like Man
they chose to silence 
the lone dissenting voice 
and go on 
forever 
balancing balls
and being lead around 
like cattle.

Only Greek Gods should be Worshipped from Behind

candles 
and an altar 

should suffice
for the rest.

The Egyptians are into bondage 
with all those wrappings

but not all the time

and the Etruscans are centered around pleasure, 
but of a wholly different 
kind.

Only Greek gods 
should be worshipped 
from behind.

You can probably fit all the rest
into a single Sunday
of general penance.

 A collection plate of clanking Vishnus 
extolled from the gardens
of passing pocket lint
and old receipts.

One Poem by David Pointer

Leather Angel 
in Decline

This time early
onset Alzheimers
gets a jet kit jump
on his getaway as
Hog boy falls to his
trailer treasure—
from one percenter
to hundred percent
disability no longer
descended from leather
angels heinous crimes
division recalling his
juvenile record opening
up the dead, easy as
a sissy bar back pack
as his father and brother
both noble veterans do
their ungodly duty still

One Poem by Lindsey Dilks

Beer-Thirty AM

I wake up at 4 AM and can't go back to sleep,

so I finish off the beer from last night,

and head for another.

Ants have set up camp in the bathroom

and they've worked their way

in a slow, methodical dance

toward the kitchen,

highlighting the path from my room

to the fridge.

My roommate is passed out in the living room.

He has his own room,

but for some reason,

seems to prefer the couch,

with the TV blaring all night.

I use this as an excuse to slam back a beer

to go back to sleep,

but lately

it seems I'll use anything

as an excuse to have a drink.

So I chug another beer

at 4 AM,

and I hope I can go back to sleep

just long enough

to forget.

One poem by Anne Bradshaw

Lost Pools

That year

they had left it too late

to cut the trees,

so the limbs were strewn

down the track, ungainly, indecent,

and sap began

to ooze like secret blood,

creeping down the trunks,

a thin syrup that stuck

to my hands like black guilt.

The April skies held nothing like the sun

and I only saw the dead of grey reflected in

lost pools, the moment when I knew

what they had done.

2 Poems by Chris Butler

Antisocial

My face

hides from sight

and the light

of everyday.

This insipid skin

pales against

the illumination

of some serene

screensaver scenery,

stricken with

melatonin depletion

from the artificial sun

slowly seeping in.

I choke on the fog of

intoxicating smoke

and carbon dioxide,

locked in an

existence

built around my

consciousness,

with no exit,

out of touch,

disconnected.

Zombie

The living dead

walk amongst us,

brain dead consumers

marching purposelessly

up and down the endless

aisles of high priced

merchandise on shelves

just out of reach,

moaning hopelessness

for a hunger that will

never be satisfied.