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My attention, like skis, slaloms down the pages of a novel,

  but he is a wet tongue and the television is a metal pole.

  It's his first crush, his first realization of beauty beyond

  the cookies and fire trucks that usually spark his interest.

  This is different. I can hear the dogs of wonder start to bark.

  The flame in his throat growls. Butterflies begin to flutter

  toward the light in his heart. He's now singing what he can,

  Not ready to make nice, and I look up from my book,

  watch a bouncing 4-year-old boy strum air guitar.

  His bare chest is a fret board, his crotch, a humbucker

  that he strums with the speed of hummingbird wings.

  At least I hope he's playing air guitar.

  The Perks Of Being An Editor

  —For Ed Galing

  I can really

  only think of one.

  His name is Ed.

  He's 90 and he writes

  long letters to me

  with lines sloping

  heavenward,

  and the pyramid walls

  of each "A" are jagged

  as saw blades.

  His wife of 60 years

  recently died.

  He tells me this

  in every letter,

  but I haven't forgotten

  either.

  It’s what I think of most

  when my own wife

  of only 6 years

  shuffles

  into the living room,

  wondering

  if I'd like some

  black tea.

  Ed's in an old folks' home now,

  playing harmonica

  and tickling the keyboard

  until it laughs

  or cries.

  But I get the feeling

  in every letter

  that Ed's always writing

  to a dear friend.

  And that's the way

  it should be

  with poetry,

  too.

  The Changing Station

  In a world of opposites, I tell my wife,

  she'd be stuffing our baby's ass with poop

  instead of wiping it from his scrotum.

  We'd have to gag him every two hours

  and funnel milk back into his mother's breasts.

  We would strip him naked before venturing to Safeway,

  his uncircumcised penis swelling in the frozen food section.

  And in the cool breeze of Modesto's summer,

  we would cloak him in blankets and wool coats.

  Soon he would shrink back to his newborn size,

  then smaller still until the doctor could usher him

  without rubber gloves back into his mother's belly.

  Think of the benefits, I tell my wife as we would begin

  to videotape her deflating tummy, month after month,

  until she's a hundred and fifteen pounds again

  and we're having dinner at the Macaroni Grill,

  toasting the blue plus sign as I pray for a little boy

  with almond eyes just like his mother's.

  Coming Home

  Hear the father’s old truck rumble and stop,

  its steel doors thud shut, his clumsy set of keys

  jangling like too much silverware in a drawer.

  And now his heavy steps—hear them plod

  along the cracked and smeared driveway,

  oil splattered like broken eggs.

  Watch the overgrown jasmine scrape his head

  as he kneels to pull a dandelion, remembering

  wishes he made as a child, the rocket-fast bicycle

  that never came, an impossible trip to the moon.

  And now, dandelion beneath his sole, sun

  pounding the burgundy door, his key slips

  inside the deadbolt, a quick turn, and then

  the rush of little feet against tile like spilled marbles.

  She's halfway to two, still rustling topless

  in a diaper. But she knows who's home, and she

  has just learned to hug and say Hi, Da-da.

  C. Allen Rearick

  Death Comes For Us All

  I am alone

  the wind has died

  the trees fallen silent

 

  death comes for us all

 

  I see it in the headlights

  of a burning car

  on a rainy day

  in the city

 

  I hear it

  in the cricket's voice

  behind the red barn

 

  I feel it

  as the wind whispers

  past garbage cans

  littered by the dying

 

  they do not understand

  they do not mourn

 

  I wish them

  to teach me

  what it is like

 

  to not

 

  feel.

  The Terror

  My grandfather

  used to be

  an alcoholic

  his nick-name was

  the terror

 

  he would

  come home

  from the bar

  drunk every night

  and beat

  his four children

  and wife

 

  now he is

  a sad old man

  with nothing

  to show for it

  but colon cancer

 

  and when

  the devil comes

  to escort

  him home

  I’m almost certain

  he will put up

  one hell

  of a fight

  handing out

  a good beating

  for once

  in his

  life.

  Poem For The Dying

 

  These words

  are fake

  I’ve martyred

  my

  heart

  on paper

  this pen

  bleeds

  concrete

  clichés

 

  the world doesn’t need

  more poetry

 

  it craves

  violence

  hatred

  self-destruction

  a

  broken

  window

  carved

  with misunderstanding

 

  poet stand

  down

 

  your words

  are lifeless

  in the arms

  of ignorance

 

  go home

  you’re

  no longer

 

  welcome.

  These Tired Hands Can Hold No More

  There are sacred days it seems

  when you find yourself alone,

  standing lost in a Pennsylvania cemetery,

  on a late June day, while looking

  for qualities and concrete reflections

  in large stone tablets, carved heavily

  with the names of your ancestors

  by time’s immortal touch, as to who

  or what you really are in this life.

  And so you begin to feel something,

  the wind maybe, pressing into your chest

  an innate rapture, like a hot tarred roof

  arresting you where you stand.

  Or a rush of birds, scattering without cause –


  wings beating fiercely, cutting through stillness

  like the dust of dried bones,

  waiting within the earth’s memory

  cradled beneath your feet,

  to be carried home by the hands of God.

 

  And so you reach down

  to feel the grass’s trimmed warmth

  your thoughts, grazing a distant past,

  try to find something to hold on to –

  a face, a hand’s grasp, a soul’s timid words,

  anything to still the drumming of your heart.

 

  But there is nothing, and instead

  you find your eyes drawing blank,

  struggling to see beyond

  the horizon’s gray border. The distance,

  recoiling like nightmares

  murdered by the sun’s hot pulse, awakens

  within you an image of who

  and what you really are.

 

  And you think, what a strange comfort

  to find oneself alone, completely

  engulfed in darkness, silence –

  the dead’s voiceless words holding thickly

  to the backs of teeth

  as you feel, finally, what it is to be

 

  human.

  Charles P. Ries

  Birch Street

  Sitting on the porch outside my walk up with Elaine

  watching the Friday night action on Birch Street.

  Southside's so humid the air weeps.

  Me and Elaine are weeping too.

  Silent tears of solidarity.

  She's so full of Prozac she can't sleep and

  I'm so drunk I can't think straight.

  Her depression and my beer free our tears

  from the jail we carry in our hearts.

  Neighbors and strangers pass by in the water vapor.

  Walking in twos and fours. Driving by in souped-up

  cars and wrecks. Skinny, greased-up gangbangers

  with pants so big they sweep the street and girlfriends

  in dresses so tight they burn my eyes.

  I can smell Miguel's Taco Stand. Hear the cool

  Mexican music he plays. Sometimes I wish Elaine

  were Mexican. Hot, sweet and the ruler of my passion,

  but she's from North Dakota, a silent state where

  you drink to feel and dance and cry.

  Sailing, drifting down Birch Street. Misty boats,

  street shufflers and señoritas. Off to their somewhere.

  I contemplate how empty my can of beer is and

  how long can I live with a woman who cries all day.

  Mondays are better. I sober up and lay lines for the

  Gas Company. Good clean work. Work that gives me

  time to think about moving to that little town in central

  Mexico I visited twenty years ago before Birch Street,

  Elaine and three kids nailed my ass to this porch.

  I Love

  Your grilled cheese sandwiches under

  the full March moon, as Jupiter draws

  near and we witness its unblinking eye

  hovering above the horizon at early dusk.

  The way your lip is slightly twisted upward

  at one corner making your mouth look like

  an irregular right triangle.

  Your explanation for washing your bed

  sheets three times a week, "dust mites."

  Your mantric complaint about how hard it is

  to dress well at 20 below zero in the midst of

  a blizzard. Yet refusing to compromise for

  the sake of warmth instead sludging, steadfast,

  like an Armani foot soldier through road salt,

  snow drifts and sleet. Saying, "some things

  will not be compromised!"

  Your method of slowly moving, methodically

  passing through the house...dusting, resetting

  souvenirs, just so. You, the feng shui master

  of knickknacks and fashion magazines, creating

  a perfect order in the universe of our life.

  Big Woo

  Academic hack turned carpenter,

  blistering nails instead of prose.

  Loved the barber shop and menthols,

  Ape man - angel hearted.

  Bell rang, third grade poured onto hot asphalt.

  Master of the play ground,

  recess never ending.

  Woo’s wonderland - king of kick ball.

  Junkie monkey man

  Heroin, methadone, ho hum.

  River rat playing at the sugar shack.

  Dead eyes turned toward heaven.

  Go quietly into the night Big Bad Woo.

  Communion

  The tavern has closed

  Two lovers pause

  Outside the Catholic Church

  Half moon smiles down.

  Ignited like youth

  They find each other.

  Pressing her against the cool stone wall

  He wants communion,

  But waits in begrudged respect for her,

  For this place.

  “Why here?” he moans

  “Why not a bed or a field!?”

  Here is where God choose to light their fire,

  So here it is they will burn.

  Ross Runfola

  Suburban Killing Fields

  I grew up on the tough side of town.

  I thought it was violent there with all the

  fights, drugs and hustlers.

  but then my parents moved to the suburbs and I met:

  lawyers who pad their bills

  real estate agents who

  don't tell young couples about leaking roofs.

  arrogant professors who

  use the King's English with immigrant parents.

  doctors who perform unnecessary surgery

  so they can put an addition on their house.

  executives from the gas company who turn off

  poor people's heat in the winter.

 

  this suburban shit is so frightening,

  I move back to the city as soon as I can.

  at least the city's danger is more visible

  than the killing fields of the suburbs

  filled as they are with:

  heart attacks

  shopping malls

  soccer moms

  subdivisions

  ulcers

  boredom

  and

  creeping crab grass.

  Nothing To Lose

 

  for no reason other than the closeness of my barstool

  the stranger with a vacant look and deep facial scars

  stares at me as if we were competing gladiators.

  he asks a question that only men who read

  too much Hemingway or do not read at all ask,

  "Do you want to take it outside?"

 

  the stranger with the vacant look and deep facial scars

  has someone's fresh blood

  splashed like small rivers

  on his shirt.

  red paint on the dismal canvas that is his life.

  the fates have not been kind to the stranger

  with a vacant look and deep facial scars.

  the snake eyes that keep coming up

  each morning when he wakes up to no future

  are passed on at night to unsuspecting strangers.

 

  I want to tell him that my life, like his, is filled

  with stale truths, bad fortune and

  hoped-for sunlight come the morning

  but why waste words?

  "when you've got nothing," Bob Dylan sings,

  "you've got nothing to lose."

 

  there have been bigger men who challenged me in bars

  but their eyes were not cold and empty


  like the stranger with a vacant look

  and deep facial scars.

  they had pretty-boy faces, expensive suits,

  or families or jobs waiting for them.

  something to lose--which made them vulnerable.

 

  the stranger’s face with a vacant look

  and deep facial scars

  tells me that all that makes him a loser in life

  will make him a winner if we step outside.

  the stranger's daily fight for survival

  and don't give a shit attitude

  makes him invincible tonight.

  Irish Featherweight Champion Barry McGuigan

  explained why he was a ferocious fighter

  who always answered the bell,

  "I can't be a poet. I can't tell stories, " said McGuigan,

  "so I carve up others."

 

  I don't want to be the protagonist

  in a story without words the stranger wants to tell tonight,

  or give satisfaction to the crowd at the bar

  whose keen anticipation of a fight

  turns their faces primitive, grotesque, brutish

  like the painting "Fight Club" by George Bellows.

 

  after the holocaust, the world appears a vacant place

  with deep scars that can never be removed.

  "In your personal struggles with the world,"

  says Kafka, "bet on the world."

 

  "Ladies and Gentlemen, on this barstool

  with a bloody shirt and a don't give a shit attitude,

  representing the world, is the stranger

  with a vacant look and deep facial scars.

  and on this barstool wearing a confused look

  representing poets with a don't give a shit attitude ,

  is a man struggling to find the meaning of life.

 

  I nurse my drink until the stranger is distracted

  by the barmaid with jeans so tight her fleshy stomach

  oozes out like meat pouring out of a sausage casing.

  with what some would call incredible ring savvy

  I beat a hasty retreat from a world

  I no longer understand.

  Orange Juice And Death

  their love turns bitter like a cigarette-stained tongue.

  both husband and wife want freedom

  but are afraid to break the chains of marriage.

  like corpses, they become secure only in daily rituals

  like having orange juice and toast every morning.

  it may be untrue that the wife died of a heart attack

  since she stopped living years ago.

  the night after the wife's funeral,

  the husband takes the money she hid

  in her underwear in the top dresser drawer

  buys drinks for everyone at a topless bar

  and almost has the courage to ask the blonde

  at the juke box if she wants to dance to Sinatra.