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  bitterness was dripping

  into a pool of discontent

  drowning future experiences

  before

  their first breath

  i studied her

  from across the bar,

  swelling the room with smoke,

  taking part in filling the ashtray

  between me & a slurring,

  alcoholic-eyed pappy,

  wondering why,

  it was so hard for her,

  because even those

  born blind,

  never even seeing

  one ounce

  of this world’s beauty,

  know

  how to smile

  Lost Petition For An Endangered Species

  Applauding Clarissa Pinkola Estés

  where are you my wild women on

  the brink of brutish but upholding

  a close upkeep of grace & beauty,

  growing taller than those old bones,

  swelling & singing deeper than you

  ever thought possible, does that

  dark man visit your dreams, breathe

  down your neck, sayin’ hey lady you'd

  better pay attention, i told him last

  night that i crossed that sacred,

  shallow river seven times, he said

  woman, do it slower next time, you

  gotta be silent to hear the crackle

  of the fire, i said that i've seen too

  many fingers go quick to lips, that my

  flames burn on the inside & they're not

  hard to miss, that our submissiveness

  has been the cement holding together

  our mother’s mismanagement & it's

  his mess that bloats all our hearts,

  popping red balloons too heavy to

  float, we have held in our tender

  hands the same hopes & worries

  of our mothers & their mothers &...

  our minds have caged the same bird

  too many times over, so i will not go

  gentle into this night & when i open

  my eyes your ghost will not guide

  me to my death because i run with

  a pack of wolves, we meet our men

  halfway speaking the same language,

  we roll around in our rusty double

  beds, mama & papas of god shouting

  thunder, spitting lightning, so don't

  you tell me that silence is golden,

  our hands have been in our pockets

  cupping loose change & lost buttons

  for far too many years now, so this

  is my call, my plea, my appeal, where

  are you my wild-wild women, let’s

  meet our men in the middle & show

  the world what it means to be

  free

  Insurgency

  i know our love

  is as small as a

  single note played

  on a dusty piano key

  by a passerby

  on their way

  to the kitchen

  to brew their

  sunday morning coffee

  in the grand

  scheme of things but

  just think

  of how that

  lonely note yearns

  to be part

  of a symphony

  Bob Pajich

  Missing You

 

  Cracked my left wisdom tooth

  the one on the bottom

  and all I can think of is cocaine

  how it numbs your teeth

  and how much I wish I had some

  on this Monday night in October

  this last Monday of October in Las Vegas

  and I bet I could find a bag of cocaine

  to dip into and rub on

  the back of my mouth

  a cabbie could lead me to

  some cocaine for the ache

  that’s running from the bottom of the jaw

  all the way into my eye bone

  and I’ve done nothing wrong recently

  to deserve it, I haven’t scaled

  any levels of deceit

  so I know the pain is not

  a payback by a guilty mind;

  it’s real. It’s dark and I’m tired

  and hurting for cocaine, once again,

  cocaine, always, always cocaine.

  Beer Without Sugar

  My weakness for bad songs

  is costing me friends.

  They don’t understand that

  “I’m still living with your ghost”

  says more to me than any line

  from “Hey Jude,” and

  the three chord riff

  in that college death anthem

  “Santa Monica” makes the hair

  on my arms stand up

  and headbang. “Lonely and

  dreaming of the west coast”

  simply rocks, especially

  if I’m heading to a bar

  to sit in a black vinyl booth,

  drink beer without sugar

  and argue about Bill fucking Collins.

  It’s a song about love drowning.

  Collins should be lucky enough

  to have written: “I don’t want

  to do your sleep-walk-dance

  anymore.” And the chorus,

  optimistic, somber, as eager

  as a Big Mac, a naked picture,

  it goddamn moves me: “We can

  live beside the ocean,

  leave the fire behind,

  swim out past the breakers,

  watch the world die.”

  I’m there. Elevate me.

  Some days, I play it

  over and over and I don’t care:

  “Watch the world die”

  (chicka-chicka) bum bum

  bum bum bum bum

  (chicka-chicka)

  bum bum bum bum bum bum

  “Yeah, watch the world die.”

  Magnolia

  Have you ever walked into a roomful of music

  and scurried for the corner of silence,

  away from the sweating bodies all trying

  to solve their equations for happiness

  that cling to the dark walls of their mouths?

  In New Orleans, it took me two days

  to find Magnolia. For her, I would have let

  everything I value tumble off the shelves

  inside my body and crash into a million pieces

  in my feet. Me and Bobby took turns

  wiggling under her lisp, saying “Christ”

  to each other as if we were marching in a funeral.

  She sang all the words to the J. Cash I called up

  on the jukebox, knew he turned 70 last month,

  which cemented my heart into a smiling gargoyle

  perched over a stone box in the cemetery near

  Louis Armstrong Park. She wouldn’t let us get near

  the black velvet curtains she said

  hung in her bedroom to beat back

  the sunlight during her afternoon naps.

  The next day had her driving to Baton Rouge

  to play a digital keyboard and sing at a T.G.I. Friday’s.

  This is how I know she was real: Dreams do not

  drive 150 miles to perform in a chain restaurant

  that charges $9 for a cheeseburger.

 

  Right before dawn lifted her head over the Mississippi,

  Magnolia pretended to read my thick palm

  while I worked on a giant steak at an all-night dinner.

  She said I would see things, go places, be happy, sad, find ruin,

  guilt, prosperity, sexual gratification, a house

  with many children, a lover, a lover. “Oh.

  And you have a long life-line,” she said,

  “Which means you won’t die until

  Yo
u’ve fallen in and out of love 16 times. Even

  by my standards, that’s a lot.” I didn’t tell her

  not really. She held my hand.

  On Hearing Of The Bankruptcy Of Converse Shoes

 

  The skin inside the skin

  wants to expand and destroy as a teen

  and these shoes helped me do it. And then there was

  the gym teacher, Mr. Davis, at least

  four years past mandatory retirement

  who lobbed hook-shots over

  our uncomfortable and pimpled heads

  with uncanny accuracy. He once drew blood

  from my nose by faking a shot

  before rifling me a pass, wide open

  and staring at the hoop, braced for the rebound.

  He wore Converse All-Stars

  because he wore Converse All-Stars.

  The canvas supported his varicose-veined ankles

  just enough to school us all. I wore

  All-Stars because I hated my father,

  my mother, my sister, my body,

  my face with white blood cells

  bubbling out of my pores, my smile

  too easy and quick around girls.

  But as the shoe wore on, my face cleared,

  I fought my father in the front yard, I began to

  understand my mother’s death in her living,

  my sister became her own self and

  a quiet girl blew me in her basement

  with full-throttled desire. I chopped

  those blue Chuck Taylors into low tops,

  took a pair of scissors, sliced

  right through the red star, wore them

  all summer and most of the fall

  until the gray sole flapped open

  like a panting tongue

  at the top of each step.

  Kathleen Paul-Flanagan

  The Megaphone Man

  He stands on the corner

  of Midway Road

  and US Route One,

  a megaphone in one hand

  and a Bible missing the cover

  in the other.

  His clothes seem muted,

  it took me a few minutes

  to realize it was dirt

  covering him and

  making him colorless.

  He spouts chapter and verse

  and damnation and hellfire,

  pointing at drivers

  and passengers,

  as he twitches with faith.

  Once he sang Amazing Grace

  in a raspy quivering voice

  and I almost cried.

  People sometimes yell

  back at him

  or give him the finger.

  I just watch and

  open my window

  and listen to him.

 

  Everybody knows him

  or thinks they do.

  Someone told me

  he's homeless.

  Someone else said

  he lives in the trailer park

  right near that corner.

  All agree he's crazy.

  I'm not sure.

  Whoever he is,

  with his dirty clothes

  and his mystery self,

  I see a dancing light

  in his blue eyes.

  And I have to love him

  and respect him.

  I'm almost jealous

  because he believes

  and it shows.

  And I don't know

  what I believe

  anymore.

  I'm No Soccer Mom

  I've never had any trouble

  envisioning myself

  as a freaky little flapper

  beaded blue dress swaying

  and tinkling with each step

  holding out a hand for a cup

  of strong bathtub gin

  maybe doing the Charleston

  with a suited slick-haired

  male counterpart

  I can see myself

  as a depression-era

  farm wife

  thin cotton dress

  the breeze cutting through

  as I stand in the front doorway

  rubbing my chapped hands together

  sighing as my overall-ed husband

  comes up the front walk all

  dirty and dignified

  I know I would have made

  an excellent Rosie the Riveter

  dancing alone

  across the braided rag rug

  in the living room

  to Glenn Miller or Tommy Dorsey

  in loafers and a peasant dress

  tears streaming down my face

  waiting for my Soldier

  to finally come home

  from overseas

  I can see

  a clear picture of me

  as a June Cleaver carbon copy

  pearls, apron and

  a holier-than-thou attitude

  baking bread for

  a huge Sunday dinner

  served on Wednesday

  listening politely

  to my Ward

  talk about the office

  So I wonder why I cannot see myself

  as a part of my own generation

  Inevitable

  When I stand next to you,

  I feel the same way

  I did the first time

  I saw an Arizona desert sky-

  Small and insignificant.

  I kept trying then, as I do now

  to make myself taller,

  more meaningful.

  It didn't work in the desert-

  And it isn't working now.

  I eventually had to leave the heat

  and dust because I just didn't fit.

  A person can only be tiny

  and invisible for so long.

  Michael Phillips

  I Don't Understand Birds

  the birds land on the new feeder

  and fight for prime spots

  the smaller, skittish birds

  remain on the ground

  picking through the spillage and waste

  probably laughing to themselves:

  "look at those idiots scrapping up there -

  the more they fight, the more we eat!"

  well, birds aren't so smart

  nothing like people

  though there are people

  who survive on leftovers

  waiting hopefully

  for something, anything

  to fall from the sky

  or roll up at their feet

  I admit that there have been times

  that I have waited for manna to appear

  times when I did little more than

  check the mailbox daily

  for the million dollar check

  though usually

  I'll do what I have to

  to get by

  I don't understand birds that spend their lives

  fighting for dominance

  any more than I understand

  those that follow them around picking up scraps

  I suspect the real trick is just to eat, sleep

  and survive

  no matter how

  you manage to do it

  The Benefit Of Distance

  in the course of a night

  the moon moves across the sky

  and one hundred people

  write one hundred poems

  about what a beautiful sight it is

  I don't see the beauty

  which may or may not

  be a deeply-rooted problem

  all I think about when I see the moon

  is mechanics

  and how some crazy bastards

  got the idea to aim rockets at it

  and how some other, even crazier bastards

  raised their hands and said

  "strap me to that bomb, baby!"
/>
  anyway, I'll never step on the moon

  though from up there

  I might be able to write a poem

  about how wondrously beautiful

  this city is

  Crawling

  staring out the window

  broke, behind on everything

  watching the Friday afternoon traffic

  Southbound on the 405

  grinding along

  at ten miles an hour

  no money I'm used to

  like you get used to a new wrinkle

  or an upstart thatch of grey

  insulting the youthful brown locks

  no money I can accept as inevitable

  but without enough

  for even a cheap six pack

  I begin to consider joining the crawl

  and I see myself on that Friday freeway

  pocketful of payday

  plotting the stop for an expensive six pack

  or three

  and a bottle of single malt scotch

  for the weekend

  which Monday looms over menacingly

  it's then that I consider

  giving up drinking

  for my health .

  The Only Man For The Job

  one day a week the shelter disposes of

  about 50 dogs and cats

  it has to be done

  though it isn't my job anymore

  Sammy Benedict does it now

  back there with the big metal chamber

  that creates a vacuum in about six seconds

  but it takes Sammy a long time

  you have to work quickly

  to get through 50 in a day

  there are procedures that must be followed

  for proper disposal

  Sammy always ends up

  working late into the night

  that one day a week

  sometimes until almost midnight

  I was curious why it took so long

  so once I offered to help him

  he declined, claiming

  he was the only man for the job

  I asked him why he spent so much time on it

  and he said, "The animals are scared.

  They know what's happening in there,

  and it freaks them out.

  So I hold each of them for a few minutes

  before I put them in the chamber.

  It calms them down, and it makes me feel

  like what I'm doing isn't so bad."

  all I could do was nod

  step aside and let him walk away

  Sammy was the only man for the job

  and I didn't want to stand in his way

  Sam Pierstorff

  The Grammys Were On

  He’s already learned it’s a blonde world

  full of blue-eyed oceans and white sandy beaches.

  In a house of brunettes and olive skin, he's suddenly

  decided "pretty" was on television, one of the Dixie Chicks—

  Natalie, if you must know.

  His sister is too young to care, half-asleep on Mother's chest.