FACE OF IRAQ by Stephen Jarrell Williams

Somewhere out in the dark
spiked sand-traps waiting

fingers made of frayed metal
ready to grab under the ground
face of Iraq
chewing

wanting to tear our flesh and snap bones

our truckloads rumbling into a town of huts
impossible to glide over their bulging veins

bomb blast
jerks the underworld
into our rubber tires

careening off the dirt road
we check our boots and balls

filing out into the hollow blackness
we take position
pointing weapons at whatever moves

but nothing moves in the now stillness
not even the breath of their buried mouths

we are civilized and chew gum
into the morning glare
our sunglasses peering across the gap of worlds

we spit and create storms
choking them with our dust.

DICHOTOMY by M.L. Heath

–for S.A. Griffin

In my perfect dreamtime world
On the corner of Geary and Fillmore
I sit and listen
Contented, lucid even
As on one side
in the Boom Boom Room
Captain Beefheart makes his comeback
From paralysis
Accompanied by the ghosts
Of RL Burnside and John Lee
Where Iggy Pop restrains himself
Long enough to sit in on drums

And on the other side
On the steps of The Fillmore
Lenny and Hicks share a smoke
And the only thing
Louder than the ovation
Saying hosanna to
The Velvets leaning their guitars
up against their amps at eleven
Then skulking offstage
Is the sound
Loud enough to make you come
What Flipper does to those guitars
when they arrive onstage

But then I wake up
Take my last twenty dollars
down the corner store
For beer smokes and breakfast
Inside my building, echoes
of the all night aliens upstairs
bitching about the androids moving in down the block

And the landlord pounding on
A neighbor’s door, yelling,
“You’re violating your rent agreement!
I know you’re harboring poets in there!”

Then a stumble
past the sparechange skeletons and sleepwalkers
The carnivorous commuters in couture
Fondling their copies of today’s issue
of the Daily Hell
With the headline screeching
RUPERT MURDOCH BUYS VATICAN

Finally replenished, I listen
to doves on my window sill
and try in my way
In this way
To make some sense of it all

For, as
this carma bum from the Southlands
said to me the other day,
‘no effort in the service
of truth beauty and the Word
is ever
unnecessary’

May Day Year ‘07
S.F.

It was just another winter by Alan Catlin

It was just another winter

of Bob Dylan and death,
nineteen sixty whatever
and the kid who sat next
to me in Medieval History
had jumped off the Hotel Utica
after mid-term failing grades
had gone out and no one would
sit in that seat as if I too might
go over the edge or that the chair
was haunted by his spirit, the same
kind of spirit I saw in her eyes
dancing close to me to “Like a
Rolling Stone”, the long version,
at some beer blast just this side of
ice hell, vocals by some local loser
who couldn’t carry a tune, hold a note,
but who knew all the words which is
what I was listening for, her body so
close to mine, I thought we were almost
one, both of her arms, her hands locked
around my neck, her lips on mine,
her tongue, and then she was saying,
“Love me just like a woman.”
And I wondered who her fancyman was,
wondered where he had gone and why me?
The scent of her, the taste, this girl
from the north country like the Dylan
folk song I loved but where was I?
My head full of confusion boats,
crazy dreams and cheap beer,
incapable of love, “I can’t.” I said.
“Make believe,” she said, “and I will too.”
Then she kissed me hard and long
and deep as if she really meant it.

Snake Charmer by Ivan Brkaric

There is no charming a snake.

Designer jeans and plastic tits.
Lies and broken promises.

Its not what you can do for him,
but what he can do for you.

And its true
for those who lie with snakes,
always expect to be bitten.

Moon-Lit Ghosts by Helen Losse

I’m not afraid of those curled-brown leaves—
hanging in bunches from deciduous trees—
nor strong gusts of the season’s first cold wind
that will send the last leaves flying into darkness.

I do not avoid spots where leaves now decay
in the rain on city sidewalks and ominous shadows—
who are the virtual ghosts of their green-spring existence—
fall, when the moon’s orange light spares a Halloween beam.

Todd Moore

peckinpah took

ben johnson
aside while
filming the
battle of
bloody porch
in the wild
bunch & sd
you looked
good in
that last
shot but it
wasn’t in
tense enough
what the
hell are you
talking abt
johnson
replied i
broke my
finger wor
king that
goddam
machine
gun i don’t
give a fuck
if you broke
yr dick
make it
look like
you are
falling in
love w/that
browning
because it’s
going to
be yr angel
of death

THE POETS OF UTOPIA by Paul Corman Roberts

The poets of Utopia
Impale each other
On hurricane wire
Dividing uncharted
Strips of hwy 17
On one side
A graveyard
For the agrarian army
On the other
Wide open
Hipster haylofts
Inside
Beady, hard case
Tribal eyes
Ogle opera
Drink drama
Quaff comedy

Just like everywhere
Just like nowhere
Poets

WHISKEY CUNT & HIEROGLYPHICS by ALCOHOLMAN

flesh stick
want
red cave
to drink
loco juice
out of cunt
to scream
unknown origin
to pound
skull
against
innocent bedding
to bite cherry lips
to dig hands
into ass cheeks
wrestling
with bucking horse inside
screaming,
“Hail Satan! Hail Jesus!
God bless Billie Holiday!”
to fuck spirit
to blast sugar paste of soul
into everlasting lifetimes
to pluck feathers
of angels
to caress pretty pink vagina
like baby bunny
to cannibal eat alive
to wolf-lick face
drinking virgin-minded blood
painting your cheeks
warrior-style
making handcuffs
out of underwear
and I kiss you
tenderly
just like
in the movies.

Estranged by Lawrence Gladeview

vanessa was raised
in detroit-
a hustling scofflaw with
streetwalker hips and a
clover tattoo on her neck

last night she slept
in her tercel-
vanessa gambled her
welfare pittance and was
evicted twelve days ago

one time vanessa put a
knife to my throat-
wacked on crank confections
she thought my skin was husk
that must be peeled

tuesday marty told me
vanessa was dead-
arms tied and extended
over her head, a multitude
of stab wounds post mortem

i went to the morgue to
identify the body-
vanessa’s cold plum lips
and hollow cheeks conformed
to her clamy, narrow mug

vanessa was cremated
on tuesday-
i signed for the ashes
relationship to the deceased sir?
“stepfather”.

HISTORY TEACHES by Howie Good

Shades half-drawn
against the sun.

Rows of empty desks.

Faint shrieks floating in
from the playground.

Streaks on the blackboard
of what may be grease

or may be blood.
The classroom globe

turning in the corner.