THE STRETCH
I can no longer wake up and drink beer
And sleep thru the afternoon
Yoga = yes
Then jogging around Nob Hill
While the Railroad Kings laugh
Ha, ha
Poem on Broadway’s Sidewalk
“People
Are not
To be
Looked
Up to
Or
Down
Upon
They are
To be
Harmonized with”
*A found poem written with colored magic markers on masking tape;
each line was on a different strip of tape, placed on the sidewalk.
Buying Bamboo on Jackson Street
Time for some good luck with summer ending and autumn approaching
So I go to the mom and pop bamboo shop on Jackson Street,
And ask the mom for a piece of “Beautiful” bamboo, around five bucks worth
With her back to me while caring for her plants in vases by the wall,
“They are not beautiful or ugly; they are all the same”
Then turning around she appears with a nice piece of bamboo, around three feet, and
Hands it over to me, as I give her a fiver, which she takes and waves in front of my face,
Smiling, showing her teeth, eyes lit up, she waves the fiver, “This is beautiful”
all three by Jonathan Hayes
Check in the comments for additional entries!
MENTAL HEALTH CLINIC
You’ve already told her who you are
but the clerk at the county mental health clinic
blinks, taps pencil to counter, isn’t listening
to your pause as the wrong verb
switches lanes with the noun of your name
you want to see someone in charge
talk to one of them about what is fitting
complain about the graffitied elevator doors
that lock from the inside, stink of pee
and how, when the clients in the reception area
see you exposed, stepping out
which you do like a billboard, tilting
ready to crash against something hard
they all look up at you, then disappear
like so many cockroaches in sudden light.
your mouth swallows spontaneous combustion
burns itself back to its unspeakable source
you crane your neck at the impatient clerk
the way small animals do when they smell danger
“I know I’m real to you,” you whisper
in slow degrees of release, over and over again
until the words dissolve like snow on your tongue
where tiny blooms of blood burst through its fire.
by Eileen Malone
Forgotten
Dim & dusty antique shops harbor
Old boxes crammed with postcards,
Photographs, tiny bits of information
Concerning the lives of the long-dead
Strangers who stare out at us,
Seeing only a shrouded photographer.
What half-truths are contained
In their brief messages that
Sport the postage of long-dead empires?
Who is John? Mary’s husband? Brother?
Time has changed them all to dust.
What of the address – a house re-fitted
With modern plumbing once lit by gas —
Now used by a higher class of citizen,
Personal computers in place of Stereo-optician,
Compact disc in place of the pianola.
Minor mysteries will never find solution.
Obscurity locks up any revelation.
Although it is all there in the archives,
There is no need to expose
Their gentle existences.
by J.B. Frame
TOUGH ON TOUGH
Well it’s TOUGH
That’s just TOUGH TOUGH TOUGH
Folks just love the word TOUGH
TOUGH here
TOUGH there
TOUGH everywhere
TOUGH cops
TOUGH love
TOUGH teachers
TOUGH standards
TOUGH talk
TOUGH this
TOUGH that
Too TOUGH
Too much TOUGH TOUGH TOUGH!
Everyone loves TOUGHness it seems
(and no wonder!)
TOUGH is Tyrant is Terrorist is Torture
is Traumatize
Tyrannosaurus Rex
The Tyrant Lizard
Terrorized and Tortured other dinosaurs
Tyrants Terrorize the people of their fiefdoms
and expect everyone to love them for it.
TOUGH talk—intimidation and bullying of others.
TOUGH standards—tyrannizing students children
employees subordinates
TOUGH cops—Taunt and Torture and Traumatize
those not like them
the colors creeds religions sexual orientation
and more
and all expect the recipients to say thank you
and when the recipients do not say thank you
and they do not love their oppressors
their masters their superiors their bosses
and disgruntled employees striking out
suppressed students vandal graffiti drop out
Folks stoned out on pick your substance
Crime, poverty, desperation,
meanness, cynicism
the terrorized last out and uprise
with disrespect plus hatred for authority
But of course rather than check their own
culpable methods of the exalted Taskmaster
our TOUGH guys
TOUGH bosses
call for
TOUGHer regulations!
TOUGHer laws!
TOUGHer judges!
TOUGHer penalties!
TOUGHer scrutiny!
And so here we are
in a modern dinosaur age
with everyone moaning groaning
scapegoating and going with the flow
preferring figurative prisons with the
delusion of security to the risk of
democracy and freedom.
Such is a society
whose most sacred
word is
TOUGH
Sic semper TOUGH tyrannis.
by Garret Murphy
breath taking
if you,
a baby tree frog
who just lost your tail
and you really miss it,
hop
from one leaf
to
the next,
could be
your finest
moment
if you,
an out of shape shaman
with an obstreperous feather
regalia sleeping in,
soar
from one mountain
to
the next,
could be
your finest
flight
if you,
an extra-virgin poet
with a wildfire in the heart
even the kindest fireman
can’t seem to put out,
sigh
from one poem
to
the next,
could be
your finest
line
by Marvin R. Hiemstra
American Nature Poem
Come on, it’s just your opinion
the TV disagrees with—do you know how
human beings disappear? I hear
silence in the pause of a trash truck
backing up, when the hairdryer’s blown a fuse.
This program contains violent content.
Natural mango body butter–
it’s new, I just picked it up from the store.
Lean in closer, you’re my brother
so I want you to know,
statistics show that there’s not
much hope—what’s that buzzing?
The microwave radiating–
it would be nice to do something so well.
Yesterday, through the window, I saw
the most beautiful thing—balloons tied to the
neighbor’s mailbox. The yellow of thick paint,
a raw stalk of green, black like a sore
before blue. The world’s termites outweigh
the world’s humans ten to one.
Can you picture it?
by Leigh Lucas
Alphabet Soup
My mother is sixty
She plays tennis
And wears pearls
Lately, the words have started
Falling out of her head
We read Emily Dickinson
It’s my idea
I can never tell if she knows
What the words mean
The sticky letters
Fling like pearls when she
Rounds the stairs and drip
When she stands
In the kitchen
If I don’t collect them quickly
She wipes them up with a sponge
She has always been deft with a sponge
When she’s on the phone
Or is salting the pot on the stove
I try to slip a few back in
Words like carriage and scarcely
I think she would appreciate what I’m doing
But I don’t want to embarrass her
So I recite words clearly
And watch as some of them catch
And others bounce and trickle into soup
Immortality
Civility
I used to look for letters in soup
Now I look for words
She looks for the salt
The phone is ringing
by Leigh Lucas
Know
In the studio she likes your work.
You’re serious. She looks like a child.
You go out for coffee and talk.
Outside your room stars fill the sky.
She gets the house. You send the checks.
Your kid says no. You move out west.
Into the emptiness
you said “I love you.”
You know what’s coming.
There’s nothing you can do.
Long as you did the best you could.
Bred well and built, played safe, got along.
Composted forty tons of food.
Picked up some tricks like writing a poem.
A soul sees its temple turn to paste,
or a beast sits dumb in its own waste.
Count the domino days
cause there remain so few.
You know what’s coming.
There’s nothing you can do.
Once we could speak against the war,
hold a hand out to those in need,
work so our kids had something more.
Few things were good. One was not greed.
Now we shop in the company store
that owns the words worth living for.
Secure us from the terror
of what lies inside the true.
You know what’s coming.
There’s nothing you can do.
We spent sunshine saved for eons
on nine billion mouths talking at once,
took a few small steps upon the moon.
Our numbers made us little suns.
The sea is dead. The ice is gone.
Left the Stone Age. We’re going home,
cause we lived off a loan
with the balance far past due.
You know what’s coming.
There’s nothing you can do.
by Tim Van Hook
LIPS ARE NEVER NEUTRAL: end our (un)civil war
Small parcel
of flesh, paired
upper & lower
no big deal, certainly
not the vessel
of the soul,
as the eye would say.
Yet, at this precipice
you remember
your grandmother
kindly with conviction
telling you, a 5 year-old
brat, “Mind your lip, child.
A sneer is a loaded weapon.”
You listened.
The lesson
took. Why
have so many
elected
officials
forsaken
their matriarchs?
Kit Kennedy
Beneath the Big Oak Fall 1995 by Sherron Smith CR
I was waiting for my ride and noted, today, grass growing between
the bricks!
the grass, a promise, a new spring–
the muted oak leaves are piled on the rise of the past —
all askew–
how the bricks seem to be neatly stacked up next to each other,
Contiguously–
one brick, one end slightly downward
and I am wondering why and what happened to make it so different?
a few drops of rain on my face and the gray skies and cold breeze,
all reminds me of college in Idaho in the Fall–
the sounds of the chattering students,
bronzed team players with their animated
cheerleaders,
and someone at the golf course is yelling, “Fore!”
parking-lot noises, rumbling of engines, tires
squealing
all students rushing for a cozy coveted parking spot and
dash off to class– Hurry! Hurry!
Did anyone notice the grass growing between the bricks today?
tiny velvet leaves, just budding…
Did anyone see that one brick is slightly downward at one end?
When the sun begins to shine again, maybe they will find the time
to stop and look at the new tiny grass growing between the bricks–
To Women in Love.
Craig Rouskey
Little Red Hen,
the sky is falling from loosely knit ropes which bind the fabric of
hours and infinity.
Love, Red Head!
Let the heart beat like the tribal drum that burns between your
well-toned thighs.
Let the marks of beauty buried beneath endless onion skin lined
leathery layers shine with the glory your maker bestowed upon you.
by my heart I swear that you will burn with the timeless passion that
grants us prophecy, the ability to feel in the future!
Run, crimson flowing daughters!
Bleed with the uncovered spirit that courses through your veins!
Sound the siren song of pain as you crash blindly into love’s rocky shore!
Stand boldly at the precipice and scream reflectively at the jagged
blades as they cut away fleshy coats to expose the gospel according to
life!
Embrace the sun’s burn as it penetrates the deep and stirs autonomy,
heaving growing hopeful cells of endlessly replicating joy.
Drain the expectation from your mind as post-pubescent clay melts from
your eyes and war paint emerges dripping from your chin to your core.
Turn your head to hear the brilliant echo that beams from wall to wall
within your cavern,
know your sound as you pound your way to eternal glory,
sanctified and spent,
burnt and broken,
whole and happy,
you will be loved.
Through
(From the unbounded past the energy of everything and everyone
focuses through each life into everyone and everything in the unbounded future.)
The clouds can’t cling to the raindrops, and the drops can’t capture the sun,
In a lens they bend the rainbow as they plummet to the ground,
And the souls who drink in their water release them again when they cry
to the lake flowing to the ocean, who must breathe them back to the sky.
‘Cause you can see the colors of the sun, and feel the tears in rivers run,
Only as they flow through you, only passing through.
The sun penetrates the timeless temple on a singular morn
And illuminates never ending columns waiting to be born.
The babies flower and fade away. You can’t steal the scent of their sweat,
But the blossoms of generations of children entwine with you yet.
‘Cause you can whisper love to ones soon lost, and play back prisms of the past,
Only as they flow through you, only passing through.
Notes played before memory still reverberate in the song.
Syllables spoken long ago will reincarnate in the poem.
After dinner friends and the family linger long but then all go home.
Later they gather to remember every word that’s not carved in stone.
‘Cause you can laugh the language of delight, and sing lullabies to the night,
Only as they flow through you, only passing through.
by Tim Van Hook
Working Class Changes by Nancy Keane
“May the road rise up to meet you.”
Quaint Celtic cliches,
black and tan pints,
Tamony Hall died long ago.
Beneath working class archaeological
ruins, rusty union buttons, black metal
lunch pails, only plastic wrappers survive
from then to now.
Skeletal remains of men who labored
away their lives. Pride in eyes now
hallow sockets for nesting roaches.
Wall Street companies spring up,
gluttonous CEOs, sedentary computer
techs, do palates, spinning, keep in
shape.
In corners and bends of working class
neighborhoods, laborers continue to
bend re-bar, build, paint, repair,
and on St Patrick’s day in this city of
St. Francis, they hoist pints, devour
hearty plates of corned beef, cabbage,
sing along to rousing songs that image
their past, give hope to futures of work
filled days, love filled nights,
pride in a job well done.