home by christmas by DB COX

hey you—
writer of shadow work
& simple rhymes
living in a shabby motel
on a blue highway
chain smoking
stroking stitch marks
in old wrist scars—
has solitaire
turned your character
to stone
are your sanity markers
scattered
like vandalized headstones
in an abandoned cemetery
are you down
to scribbling
mama—love—god
on restroom walls
no longer
a part of the picture
do you count
ceiling cracks
while you track
the number of times
you lied
about sliding back

well—
maybe your parts
are just in backward
light—where dark should be
dark—where light should be
we have everything
you could ever want
right here
you can cry here
or die here
after all has been
said & unsaid
done & undone
forgiven & unforgiven
we can help you
beautify
your personal landscape
have you
in a custom picked place
before the sun goes down
detoxed & flown
back home
by christmas
just sign here —
on the dotted line
for your one hour
sunday night
prime-time intervention

Indian Summer by William Taylor Jr.

Polk Street,
San Francisco.

A sky all California blue.

It’s October again

and I sit at a sidewalk table
with a glass of wine,

dreaming of nothing

other than the women
walking up and down
the avenue,

all of them so lovely in their
green and yellow dresses,

an argument death
will never win.

The Eight of Cups by Ally Malinenko

I always thought I should have been a Pisces, a water sign
but I am horribly earthbound.
Behind me, I can hear the static hum of last year
and tonight, I search through my little archives
trying to grasp all the symbols,
because I only have so much time
before I’m back at the original question.
This is winter so the ocean is getting restless.

Back when Erika told my fortune
it was spring, nearly summer and
we were just stupid kids
I got the Eight of Cups
upright
which she told me meant that I was wishing things
would have been different
and I wondered,
who wasn’t? How could anyone put any stock in that nonsense?

Ten years later, I am sitting
on the floor with my journals thrown about
trying to find some kind of meaning in the choices I didn’t make.
Some repetition in the pattern, some kind of icon that makes sense.
Wondering, in fact why things hadn’t been different.
Each tattered book, is opened, the scrawled ink leering at me, offering stoic silence
and in my hand I have found the only letter of yours that I kept.
Over the years, no matter what paper I pick up,
eventually it turns into your letter
almost, naturally

Like the tea growing cold at my side,
the purring cats,
the wine bottles that have been emptied,
the things that come about naturally
unlike your death
which was so horribly unnatural.
At first, your body was so dense, all that thick black hair
until you started to dry out,
evaporate and shred apart, paper-thin.

Your ghost, oh Christ,
it won’t stop showing up
no matter how many tattoos I get
no matter how many poems I write over the years
no matter how many nights I piece together the
broken necklace. The one you gave me
a thousand Christmas’ ago, with a wink
like you knew how it was going to end.

It’s that time I’m trying to get back to now,
Sleepwalking down to the water, to hear the waves,
with a letter
and a tarot card
and a coiled snake of silver,
buried in my pocket.
I’m trapped inside this wheel
the moments soaking together, blurring the ink.
Nothing has changed, and blindly, I’m still wishing things were different.
This time, like all the others, I don’t have any answers,
I just want to say I’m sorry.

Two Poems by Paul Harrison

mutter

william wantling wrote
how if only
the muttering would stop
he’d carry a lunchbox
like everyone else
and of course
i believe him
as the odds stack up
as hooded men kneel
and die in lonely dreams
as alarm bells ring
when even last nights’
call register
scares me shitless
packing my lunch box
remembering silence
_____________________

all at sea

2am the fly agaric dreams
fire up again
residuals of a towering Babel
and Marx has gone to dust
Mary still immaculate
Ishtar lost at dusk
a huge silicon tit
to nurse our every angst
and yet
that little severed head
still haunts
her disembodied fate
a question screamed
frozen
silent
all things
and even in sleep
God makes us look again
as another little child
hugs me tight and asks
- daddy, are there sharks out there
and i, suddenly afraid, say
- yes
but far, far away
hoping that somehow
someday
we might all return
to you
no more words
or thoughts
or bombs
or fear,
the sharks
that little orphaned head
the golden arch
the Capitalist breast
the living dead
the little boys and girls
even me and you
no longer drowning
or afraid
and of course
a rose is a rose
impossible
to overlook
or fathom
like an infinite ocean
or that little girl’s
face
planted
in the rubbled dust
forever

where empires go to die by Ross Vassilev

waiting for progress in the human race
waiting for the Empire to fall while
Ho Chi Minh laughs from his mausoleum
Uncle Ho was one tough little shit
with a goatee
he told the Yanks
“We’ll fight one day longer than you will”
and goddam, he was right
what’s more
it seems the spirit of Westmoreland
has possessed the minds
of the American generals in Afghanistan
they keep repeating the same
old bullshit–
“Just a few thousand more troops
and we’ll win this thing.”

First Waitress by Donal Mahoney

Outside, the still
of crickets.
Inside, petals
of a cold sore
foliate,
a boutonniere
for full lips.
Looking up, I tell her
two eggs, basted,
hash browns,
coffee now.
Later on,
she says
the birthmark
I found
south of her navel
she’s had
all her life.

TAXI DRIVER FROM TUCSON by F.N. Wright

I returned from Nam
& my wife divorced me
so I bought a “hog”
& somehow ended upside
down in Tucson
living with a Mexican girl
who was trying to teach
me Spanish while I drove
a taxi in Tucson

the girl & I smoked
Bull Durham & cheap
Mexican weed, drank
mucho tequila &
fornicated every chance
we got in the back
of my cab

I never did learn Spanish
& though I had 3 poems published
in English in 1968 I didn’t claim
to be a poet

I was just a Nam vet
driving a taxi in Tucson
while living with a Mexican
girl who was trying to teach
me Spanish

then I heard some illiterate
editors were going to publish
a book of my poetry
& I still didn’t claim
to be a poet

the Mexican girl got pregnant
& against my wishes (I wanted
to be a part of bringing life
into the world after taking
it away in Nam)
insisted on going down
to Nogales for an abortion

So once again I mounted
my “hog” & headed north
until I reached Frisco
where I continued
to write & publish poetry
but I still don’t claim
to be a poet

& I never will until I discover
where all these words come from.

Hermes by Doug Draime

he stole
his brother’s
cattle

killed and
butchered them

sold the
meat
to the
nearest
BBQ joint
down the
road

where the
poor paid
exorbitant
prices
for a BBQ
sandwich

so much
for the
ethics of the
messenger
of
the
gods

POEM WRITTEN ON A DARK SUNDAY AFTERNOON by A.D. Winans

So it has come to this
73 years, days and nights
Of aches and pain
Soon to turn seventy-four
lady death a lurking whore
harder still to write
73 years and I still haven’t
got it down right
wandering in sightless sight
And I do not fear death
I will fight her with every breath
Aches and pains aside
I treasure my daily walk
a morning cup of coffee
An evening glass of wine
gossip with a friend
and yet I am but a guest
In this body as my father was in his

The silence of winter approaches
a telescope that scopes my mind
I walk inside my head
an unexplored canyon where
gulag monsters lurk
Serving minute portions of filet mignon
To the chosen elite
God and Jesus competing for my attention
One plays with thunder one with lightning
Satan answers with a tornado
Man left with nothing but genocide
And mass terror

The months multiply into years
the saxophone my holy father
the drummer my sacrament
Poetry my substance
what better pallbearers to scatter
my ashes into the wind

The Best Christmas he ever had by Melanie Browne

We were both sitting there
facing each other. I hadn’t seen
him in what must have been years
but it almost seemed longer. Like centuries,
like a millennium. He was telling me
about the best Christmas he ever had.
He had just started needing to shave,
And he was proud of it. he really was.
He said he had this dream. it was vivid.
One of those dreams where you can’t tell if it’s
real or not. It was like that.
he dreamed he was alone in his house,
His mother and father had gone to town and he
Just knew he smelled gingerbread
And when he got to the kitchen there they were,
Two gingerbread men, but one was a man
And the other looked like a woman,
but the one that looked like a woman
she had breasts, I mean they were big,
And frosted and he thought
That gingerbread cookie was too good to be true
And when he looked up he saw Jane Russell,
Just standing there in his kitchen all dolled up
And lookin right at him and she said she made
Them cookies for her favorite outlaw and she blew
Him a kiss and he said Christmastime never was
The same after the that, it never was the same
Because he knew it would never be much better
Than that, and Santa couldn’t bring him what he wanted.