mise en poem

2012-02-02T13:05:00.000-08:00

Rina Rose

UNDER THE CORONA

midday
Lady Sol's corona glows
through marine layers a jet flies south, banks west
Is it going to the airport?

Inside a lighting distributor's
wrought iron fence a well-dressed woman
talks with a ragged homeless man They rest on a bench after walking

I check my wallet which I know contains
only two dollars
handing them to the man
he needs the two dollars
more than I do

I am impatient for the bus to arrive
so I scroll through my iPod menu
picking one of my favorite songs
singing with it
walking to the next bus stop
where I will catch a bus to the bank

Rent is due today

On the bus I wonder how much difference exists between this man and me
He has no home on the other hand, I will give all
except thirty-five dollars
from the deposit to my landlord so I have a roof over my head

Yeah, we're both kind of broke

2011-10-30T21:48:00.000-07:00

Lalo Kikiriki

The Cecil B. DeMille Memorial Cloud Formation of September 2010

The clouds spelled out "GOD"
over Laughlin Park tonight.
I thought some preacher had hired
a sky-writing plane
for a moment,
as the slow-dissolving letters
drifted behind the observatory domes.
But no, this phenomenon
over DeMille Drive
was as natural
and unexpected
as the cloudburst that hit Eagle Rock at noon
or the famous
double rainbow yesterday –
rare enough to make the evening news
in Hollywood.
Could it be the "greater powers"
are trying to make a point?
"GOOD JOB!" or
"WAKE UP"
or maybe just,
"Take your eyes off the paper
for a minute –
remember?
the sky?"

2011-06-10T16:51:00.001-07:00

Tim Tipton

RADIO LAND

It was a slow and quiet Saturday night
I listened to the radio for a time
When I climbed into bed
I realized I left it on
I was too tired, in need of sleep
So I closed my eyes
Night swallowed me whole
the house sailed west on a wave of dreams
When I woke up
I felt a kinship to the voices
After that night, I slept with the
Radio, talked to the radio,
Disagreed with the radio
I believed in a far-a-way
Radio land that I would never
Find, doomed to only prowl the
Air waves forever, ever seeking
Some magic channel
For now I would have to settle
For just listening.

2011-02-21T08:48:00.000-08:00

Rosalee Thompson

AVA GARDNER IN AFRIKA

There she was
beautiful, not perspiring
secretly pregnant
in the middle of Afrika
Riding the rapids with tribesmen and hippos
shooting rhinos
to impress her man

There she was
another time
beautiful, not perspiring
telling her confession to the visiting priest
Bless me father
I'm a party girl
well, you couldn't hear her sins
but she was bad
till she fell in love
with the big game hunter

There she was
never perspiring
surrounded by beasts and big eyed Afrikans
propped up
always pretty
not really even a gardener
not even an academy awarded actress
just a different kind of slave

2011-01-04T09:56:00.000-08:00

Mark Dixon

DEPARTMENT STORE DAYS

Cool
quiet
spacious
spotless carpet
soft fluorescents
a chime
repeated softly
from the ceiling
bong
bong

Mannequins
styled for 1962
smartly fashioned
always white

Elegant background
of soothing Mancini
gleaming escalators
fake travertine marble
and lots of cold
hard
cash

2010-10-28T14:28:00.000-07:00

E. R. Sanchez

VU'S VOYAGE

A small, tired, packed, rickety,
wooden boat creaks,
people of all ages,
legs cramp,
shoulders bump,
forced to stand the Pacific.

They see the sun rise and dip
on a limitless pale blue canvas.
Their eyes eager to see a coastline
not armed by Viet-Cong.
Each glances into each other's pupil
connected by a bridge that cracks under the current,
every night closes like it is the last.

Blinded and deaf to their crying,
some realize the weak are useless,
so they must walk with shaved head shame.
The air, overrun by salt,
floods their tongues with want.
The feast, stains the diners black-red,
ruining their conscience with suicidal guilt.
Surviving skulls must be shaved,
hair falling on their full stomachs.
The boat is close to empty.

An exhausted, crude, makeshift, wooden boat, creaks,
everybody cries as they near the shore,
most cling to the blood-stained wood,
all walk with shaved head shame.

Foreign eyes are curious,
but no one asks.
Peace soldiers shoo them into assimilation camps.

The boat people must grow out their hair,
though they protest through tears,
wishing everybody was here,
to cry
together.

2010-09-01T09:11:00.000-07:00

Poet-broker (AKA Ed Rosenthal)

24 HOUR SHINE

Developers are tinkering with a tinsel town toolkit,
chiseling clues from foundations of urban places.
They've tightened up synergy in boulevard spaces
and smoothed diverse urban energies into grooves.
The past is honored in Egyptian and Pantages restorations.
The future is grounded on the rails of three transit stations.
At night workers race to bars over walk of fame pavement,
then throw off their shoes in lofts above rail tubes.

The barely lit sun shines on reborn deco buildings
where youth rests before stumbling past steamy cafes,
up to loft offices or down Hollywood and Vine escalators
to catch red neon Metro to Downtown or San Fernando gigs.
Looking back above them at see thru towers, where elevators
mix women in nurses whites with sisters in St. Johns knits.

2010-07-16T19:34:00.000-07:00

Eric Lawson

NOW WITH MORE EWOKS

My childhood has been repackaged
I thought while shopping for
birthday gifts for my relatives
Everything that was cool when
I was a kid is back in style
All the toys
All the lunchboxes
All the tee-shirts
All the catch-phrases

and yet

The movie remakes pale
The toys are made cheaper
The tee shirts are retro
rip-offs, and utterly unoriginal
New glossy covers encase
classic works of literature
New rose-colored glasses
are handed out at the malls
Is money the new messiah?
I want to scream in revulsion
at the absurdity of it all

but then

I saw it The Ewok Village Play Set
"Now with more Ewoks"
proclaims the neon sticker
I pull my hat down lower
I swipe my trusty credit card
and race home to relive
my childhood again and again
Because now I can afford it
I can afford to stave off
the onrushing train of future
while spending my present
glorifying my past with joy

2010-07-03T11:19:00.000-07:00

Don Kingfisher Campbell

FILM

eyes open
slide out of bed
shuffle to the bathroom
like The Mummy
can barely see

shower, dress
throw on a jacket
hop in car
like Robert Mitchum
flying to his Angel Face

a woman
Out Of The Past
looking as lovely
as ever as if
Jane Greer still lives

ride together
to the beach, stroll
stop to gaze at littered shore
like Charlton Heston and his mate
on The Planet Of The Apes

2010-05-30T07:44:00.000-07:00

Mikel Weisser

AFTER MAGNOLIA

After 14 days I took out my garbage
I sprang up
After Magnolia
I saw reality was real once more
I saw the stink I’d cringed under
Could just be carried away

In a bathrobe and boxers
I walked out into midnight
Came back and cried
Wrote to my son and cried
Wrote to a friend and I cried

I slid open the backdoor
Propped open my front
Stepped out of the robe
Let the vertical blinds clatter
Clatter to a roar
Roar like a frog storm
I stood and I shuddered and I cried

Fresh air filled my house
I breathed
And breathed again
I shut the doors and the lights
I sat and I wrote this
And readied for bed
Eager to start my new day

Then
An hour later
I struggle up from covers
And flinch from the lamplight
And still cling and can’t let go
Tomorrow my daylight will shine on disorder
And every missing piece won’t somehow make sense

Like a former stupid genius
I’ll flounder in mundane
And know fact beyond all meaning
And fail to communicate my pain

After Magnolia
Even hours after
I’m still dwarfed beneath its immensity
But at least all my garbage is gone

2010-05-03T21:17:00.001-07:00

Helen Graziano

THE DUST OF MEXICO

Campesinos all -- love the dust of Mexico
I’m a Cuernevaca, Guanajuato kid

There’s magic in the dust of Mexico
A cantina open in a rainstorm
Saying welcome bienvenidos
Mas tequila por favor--
Mariachis sing about wondrous Madrid
the Man descends into the bullring
Ole! Ole! The women rant then faint
When bull is gored
The corrida-- at 4 in the afternoon.

“Non se puede vivir sin amar”
One cannot live without love
Love in the time of Cholera, unrequited
Torrid tempestuous Don Juan
Ultima seductions--696
But when the body is unable? What then?

There’s magic in the dust of Mexico
Tramping into Santo Tomas winery
Sampling mescal and chardonnay
Hoofing to La Bufadora the water spouting
like old faithful, spuming, gushing
a towering column, between the rocks
wet spray on tourists

Pueblo blankets and horses run on the beach
Michelin tires stacked in roadside dust
La dia de los muertes, The day of the dead
The devil comes out of hiding
and the skulls dance

Where is salvation?
Beggars with turquoise rings, abalone shells for earrings
There’s Jose and Jaime and Pablo, campesinos all.
Aye Aye O rancho grande
Sangria flows from bota bags
Ole! I shout! My spirit is willing

2010-02-18T06:07:00.000-08:00

Ed Houston

BUFFALO SOLDIER

The cowpoke has been in the saddle for a long time
Bi-passing a lot of towns, staying in the hills living off the land
But he had grown weary of coyotes, and sidewinders for mediation
Maybe this town would be different he earned the right, he shed his blood

The drifter pushed open the saloon doors
Just one drink to cut the dust out of his throat
One drink and he'd head back to the hills
He earned at least one drink

He saddled on up to the bar
The hall had grown quiet before he made it half way
One shot of your best whiskey, and a glass of cold beer he said to the bar keep
As he flipped a gold coin on the bar

The bar keep eyed the drifter, the way his gun hung low on his hip
The coat on his back, the way he carried his rifle, the look in his eye
The barkeep looked at the man for a minute, and then the gold coin on the counter
Then he said, " One shot of the best whiskey and a cold beer coming right up."

The barkeep placed the drinks in front of the man
The drifter picked up the shot glass of whiskey, but before he could raise it to his lips
A voice from behind him said we don't serve your kind in here
You best leave those drinks on the bar and get the Hell out of here before you find yourself on a tree

The man turned around to see who was telling him he didn't have a right, but he knew what he looked like before he even turned around-He had been seeing them all his life, and they all looked the same-He looked the man in the eye as he threw back the buffalo coat covering his Colt 45.-He thought about the last Indian he had killed with his knife as they fought in hand-to hand combat, " Why do you fight for the `Blue Eyes when you know they hate you more than me?"

The drifter thought about that as he threw back the hot whiskey down his throat-never taking his eyes off the man or the room, as he grabbed his beer and finished it in two huge gulps. He told the Indian as he lay dying as he pulled out his knife, I fight because I'm an American-As he walked passed the man who told him he couldn't be served he said to him, I can drink here because I'm an American, I've fought for my country, I've killed for my country, and if you're ready to die for your country, you try to put me on a tree, because I've earned the right to walk through the front door.

2010-01-31T13:54:00.000-08:00

Khadija Anderson

FATA MORGANA/MIRAGE
~after Werner Herzog

Werner, Werner, Werner

1969 filming planes

in they come

in they come

in they come

in they come

in they come

never touching the

hazy red desert

dead cattle and unhappy lounge acts

mix easily with potted plants

lizards and metal

metal metal

in that desert a waterfall

dirty children now 60 something do they

still live in burned out car hulls

huts caves square mud

something far away is tacking

back and forth

back and forth

across the flat

mirage

2009-12-30T08:52:00.000-08:00

Daniel Yaryan

ABANDONED PIANO IN THE NEW WEST

An empty revolver’s smoke
Lay upon the ghost town of seasonal cheer
All the bullets are shot
No one left to kill…

Even with shopping carts in aisles
Ramming ankles of civilians
Seeking half-off calendars
When the spirit is going, going, gone…

Spellbound by slashed prices
Until the trance is broken
Money-shot galleries of frivolity
Leave whores wandering – stranded in empty rows

Shadows of the new west
Flee in modern stagecoach stature sleds
Across boxy plains
Streams of faded memories dance

Sounds rattle
From invisible fingers
On rickety keys
Upon the abandoned saloon piano of our consciousness

2009-12-14T20:15:00.000-08:00

Alice Pero

LIVING FOREVER

Living forever is difficult
when you are a blond housewife wearing pearls
pushing a vacuum cleaner
The dust could blow up accidentally
and cloud your vision
Your perfume might wear off
even when imagined by the children watching you
on a thin screen 25 years from now

Living forever is difficult
when you are a cute kid
posing for a diaper ad
Although you are sure this has happened before
they are applying powder and paint
annoying your eyes with light
and attacking your ears with cooing noises
Being cute could affect your judgement

Living forever is difficult
when you are a beautiful actress
with a perfect figure
and exquisite white teeth
playing a model part
on a syndicated sit com
Although your glow will last in Technicolor
Your wisdom might be limited by shades of lipstick

Living forever is difficult
when you have an obsession with bodily slenderness
and you weigh your existence on bathroom scales
You'll prove yourself dead in your clothes closet
Measure your life with a tape measure
Breathlessness moving your pictures
into a certain set pattern preserved
only as long as the film

2009-11-29T13:58:00.001-08:00

Brenda Petrakos

THE MORNING

The little boys giggle as they brush their teeth
the new fruit flavored tooth paste
tastes "like poop" the 8 year old declares!
his brother can't stop laughing
Their auntie tells them the tooth paste is "healthy"
then the two boys declare in unison "Healthy Poop!"
which sends
the two kids on a morning
tangent of giggles
a 10 year old boy and his 8 year old brother
find a blissful moment of laughter
"It's good luck - to giggle in the morning"
they tell their old auntie
She makes their eggs and giggles herself.

2009-11-13T20:19:00.001-08:00

Ellaraine Lockie

BLESSINGS

All of them at Starbucks on Thanksgiving morning
Solo men whose women don't exist
Or are home cooking in concert with a country
of women and a hick town of men

Surrounding families speaking German and Japanese
who will later eat turkey and cranberries
at someone else's house
Secretly wondering why the ballyhoo
The British couple trying not to think too hard
about pilgrims and revolutions
A man wearing an embroidered kufi

Yet why not an international day of gratitude
A day away from differences, right here now
Push tables together, carve up a pumpkin cake
Dress the morning in coffees from other countries
and celebration of the one we're in
Hold hands in a blessing that bars
bloodshed, politics and religion
Cheerio, ohayo, salam, dankbar

2009-09-23T23:38:00.000-07:00

Heather Haley

http://www.heatherhaley.com/vidPages/purple_low-res.html

or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxAD6tE4bG8&feature=player_embedded

(Copy either address and paste in your browser window to view videopoem.)

2009-08-19T10:37:00.001-07:00

Jeffry Jensen

THE AGE OF AUGMENTATION

As I slice sacrificial limes under
a barbecue tree, balls of tar ride
angry waves onto the beach.

A dilapidated beard carries out its tribal
duties under a full moon with empty
hands running up the rearview mirror.

As I slam a stone into a garbled circle
three bumps from a bridge, Sunday
motorbikes surround a forest going deaf.

A disappearing chin counts the number of
clueless tree trunks splashing images in
the bottom of a turbulent conscience.

As I slide down the dark side of a dirty
morning scratching post with cat attached,
thunder puts the paranoid back in best-sellers.

A defeated spine goes Baroque on the back of
a beast that had scrubbed up real big in
the hands of a theologian on augmentation day.

2009-07-06T21:36:00.000-07:00

Sharmagne Leland-St.John

TICONDEROGA WIND

Quietly she listened,
With a subtle Mona Lisa smile;
As he ever so softly whispered,
"I finally figured out your style."
"Oh what is it?" she ventured
Her voice now growing thin...
The lacy curtains barely stirred
And the smile became a Cheshire grin
In the passive Ticonderoga wind.
Then with the lightest of eagle feathers
You could have knocked her dead.
"You use a lot of adjectives,"
He matter-of-factly said,
As he lay there, Pasha-like
Upon her pillowed bed.
Is that good or bad she wondered,
Her soul and body bared,
As she anxiously and deeply pondered
The information that he shared.
And as she leaned back to listen to the raucous blue-jays sing
She was eminently aware of one extremely important thing –
Without a myriad of adjectives and verbs
She'd never reach the required one hundred and fifty words!
Then she provocatively turned towards him with gentle nips
And licked the words right off his tender, smiling lips

2009-06-17T09:57:00.000-07:00

Eric Lawson

LAUNDRY LIST

1 blood-stained, sliced up clown costume

3 pairs of rainbow-striped socks

1 pair of neon-yellow parachute pants (“It’s Hammer time!”)

1 pair of knee-high “fuck me” boots

1 over-sized, multi-colored sweater. A Cosby sweater!

1 pair fingerless gloves I stole from a bum

2 shredded cop uniforms (don’t ask!)

1 zebra striped sleeping bag

4 pairs of boxers, complete with skid marks

6 pack of Heineken

2 napkins with smeared phone numbers from drunken girls I bought drinks for at some local bar last night

1 blood-stained bed sheet. Gotta wrap that dead clown in something, right?

1 pair of matching tee shirts with the giant, bold letters FBF (Fuck Buddies Forever) written in glitter across the chest

1 Gin and pasta stained Twister mat

17 blood-stained rags (dying clowns just keep on bleeding!)

Your mom (MILF!)

1 formerly felony-free record

HALLMARK MOMENT

It is a clear, crisp autumn night
The curtains are tightly closed
The living room lights are turned low
My favorite late-night TV show
Makes me laugh and smile
I am alert and resting comfortably
In my favorite recliner
A fan oscillates a welcomed breeze
I lift an ice-cold Heineken from the
Coffee table to my mouth
The soothing brew eases my mind
And my thoughts drift idly
My girlfriend, ever the trooper,
Hands me a slice of pumpkin
Pie with a side of ice cream
She gives me a gentle kiss before
Settling into her book
I take another drink and ask myself
Why there aren’t greeting
Cards that cover occasions
Such as this
My girlfriend mumbles something
Rhetorical about a weekend
Getaway with friends
The wind picks up and dies down
My mind wanders randomly
I recall childhood adventures and
Silently wished that I owned
Some mementos as keepsakes
I vow to create my own greeting
Card to commemorate this
Perfect moment, here, tonight
A log turns in the fireplace and
Crackles as the glow intensifies
And just when I thought it couldn’t
Get any better, my girlfriend
Drops to her knees in front of
Me, unzips my fly, and smiles
From ear to adorable ear

DANCING BEARS ON CRACK

In retrospect,
Mixing crack-cocaine
Into the dancing bears’
Pre-show meal
Was not wise

NO!

F A R
From wise

It was a
Poor business decision,
Morally bankrupt,
&
Mentally uNsOuNd

The silver lining
Is that the

a - c - r - o

b - a - t - s

Have somehow learned
To do their
Death-defying routine
Without
Any
Arms

2009-06-06T06:25:00.000-07:00

Lauren L. Kimmel

WHAT THE MOON SAW YOU DO, I CAN BUT COMMENT UPON

I am glad that I didn’t have to see
what she saw. Last night. The way

you love yourself, child, you’ve no need
for enemies. Lord knows the boy hurt you.

Must you finish the job? Mamas don’t
let your babies grow up. All they do

is find clever ways to cut the cord,
and send blood spattering like a silent

movie firehose, out of control. Unstoppable.
And hilarious.

Isn’t it hilarious? I could scream it, I
could clench my eyes shut and swallow

the rubbery pink ball of pain and anger and
sadness and more. I could scream red

spittle on the surface of your smooth round face
and I’d have better luck spitting at the moon.

2009-06-02T10:13:00.001-07:00

Jeffry Jensen

TIJUANA ON THE HALF-SHELL

The girls stick to a bald guy like Elmer’s glue.
Burgers buried in grease sizzle on a side street.
20 arms stretched out behind a plastic curtain
donate blood for some sex money.
While a laid-off bus driver downs his first drink,
the bald guy leans on a sticky handrail and fingers
pesos like they are being devalued on the spot.
The girls bust out laughing as they each
grab for the arm of a pressed white sailor
who has testosterone calling the shots.
Slices of yellow cheese bubble over the
horizon as the laid-off driver stumbles into
one last strip club for the night.

2009-05-02T19:26:00.000-07:00

Brandon Cesmat

MY EYES, MY BROTHER'S MOVIE

Of old the world on dreaming fed;
gray truth is now her painted toy.
--W.B. Yeats

After Ted Turner laid-off my little brother who
color-keyed black & white films,
I consoled him by buying the beers while
silently and with ecstatic guilt I rejoiced for the classics,
flashes in the dark for new generations.

As soon as my brother stopped lamenting, I planned to preach that
Turner’s dream of Charles Foster Kane in Christmas red & green
cost a fortune in imagination, more than any tycoon could truly afford.

The psychological fact that most dreams play in black & white with
no source of light haunts my brother: the gray
sparkles off steel and glass and all those shadows.

He, however, tied a rainbow around my eyes,
insisting Bedford Falls is more wonderful with
Mary and George Bailey jitterbugging into a pool of blue
and Zuzu's petals, pink in extreme close-up.
These colors awoke me not to Pottersville’s squalor but
to Pleasantville’s nightmare of technological firepower and
the smug pigmented engineering of contemporary enlightenment,
present-tense delusion being more dangerous than any nostalgia.

“Black is not the only evil color,” my brother said with a wink.
In The Maltese Falcon, I made Brigid O’Shaughnessy’s eyes
the same green as yours for all those pranks you pulled on me.”

I didn’t speak but poured us more amber glasses to see through:
on the bar TV, a general’s khakis had the same tint as my $20 bill.
I closed my evil green eyes while listening to more horrifying tales of
the Frankenstein creature tortured with real orange flame
and taking Dorothy home forever to a Kansas
with fields of emerald in spring but still
no escape for Toto when he finally faces Mrs. Gulch and the Sheriff.
Let’s assume the little dog’s blood is red.

2009-04-05T03:42:00.000-07:00

Michelle Angelini

STIRRING THE STARS: GALACTIC PLAYGROUND

The stars are so close over your head you could reach up to them and stir them around.
--paraphrase of a Clark Gable quote from It Happened One Night

Hands don’t reach quite as far
as imagination leaping
into an unclouded night sky
blooming with constellations

I dream of a place
an island where
crystalline waters
reveal secrets
I never believed
had veracity to exist
and white sand beaches
meet star-crowded skies
so that my hands can reach up
to this galactic playground

I can
shake hands with Orion
pet the ruff of the Cat’s Eye
unchain Andromeda
make a request of Cassiopeia
ride Pegasus to Crux the Southern Cross
to say a prayer for renewed prosperity

Each star sends me on my way
diminutive bits of star shine
cling to each hand
and illuminate a heart where darkness
sometimes crowds radiance
They let me discern at the end
of shadowy tunnels
stars watch from a sky
where someone greater
created them

2009-03-28T19:43:00.001-07:00

Radomir Luza

CINEMA SINISTER

cinema is not film
cinema has no actors braying like rabbits for background work

all those performers looking for vouchers and membership in the
screen actors guild so many mouths at the trough

the tender red blanket of black daisies suicidal steps and cold knuckles

the cinema i know is more
cinema you haughty toidy toy you live in the transparent galaxy
film noir paintings bridget bardot sliced wrists and at times a great contradiction

heroine reversed the sky and hand grenaded wedding rings and picasso paintings

please saint film do not come to me with dying agitators using to use to
get a point across or a movement or a silly silly catholic kaballah vegetable soup

or actors studio or est or no money down or even scientology buying time on screen
to hype everything but film

saliva on sale

and engagements rings cut like steak on a gurney below hell

cinema lets the autumn leaves take care of themselves
film turns them into wet pillows with no halos

film turns thanksgiving day piles into nasty memories of studios and electric shock of garland taylor and monroe and how they slowly faded into 20 foot faces and one inch hearts into the morning rain

2009-03-22T08:17:00.000-07:00

Enrique Souffle

THE KILLING

It was shot in black and white,
but it would have looked the same in color –
the gray, fleabag motel
chosen by the young film maker
for his desperate robber.
A night on the lam before skipping town.
Perfect!

He had a suitcase of money,
a gun, dark sunglasses,
was trying to break out,
and you could clearly see across the street –
the Triumph motorcycle shop
basking in the California sun.

On Washington Boulevard
I found that bike shop
and looked across the slick black street –
empty lot,
motel gone,
the mud in living color.
I had a suitcase of ticket stubs,
the Ray-Bans, was trying to break in.

Damn! Where was I going to sleep?

2009-03-22T08:16:00.000-07:00

Joanne Merriam

EVOLUTION

If God did anything,
He invented comedy, so
you could take her hand, maybe make love,
maybe make smaller versions of yourselves,
watch the breeze flip the hem of her dress
and then she goes off with a man with a mustache.
You're on your fire escape in an undershirt crying
and it's the end of the world, I know.

If God did anything,
He threw away the plans.
We had to figure it out for ourselves:
plants using their bright stamens as tuning forks,
mammals using their thighs as spark plugs.
You can't help but imitate Him,
but whatever you throw away of yourself
you're still left with yourself,
everywhere, stumbling beauty, interconnected.

If God did anything,
He went away.
You take a walk by the old river,
ignore the whores and pawn shops
in favor of the soft fog making the bridge's arches
look like a world war two postcard of Europe.
You're just tired. You pretend you're in a movie,
an old movie, tipping your hat in the rain.

2009-02-22T10:17:00.001-08:00

Jeffry Jensen

VERSIONS OF HENRY AND JUNE

If it is the Paris Henry remembers, it
is not the one that June claims to inhabit.
He followed all the skinny legs across the
melting snow until he had rope burns at the knee.
Henry recuperated in a trapdoor apartment with
a photograph on the bed of June as
a burglar with her legs living in a penthouse.
It was the Paris Henry could not know in
his corrosive days inflicting bruises on a typewriter.

2009-02-22T10:15:00.000-08:00

Mani Suri

FILM

Stay the projector,
Freeze that frame,
Let shine that single still,
The solitary, celluloid cell,
Stained with the colors of life,
On the argentum screen:
A landscape,
A portrait,
A still life.

Stop the flow of life,
See life's image still
The bee in mid-buzz,
The hover now a vision
Of suspension
In mid-air,
Mid-flight,
The fluttering petals
Of its intended blossom
Suddenly quiet,
Expectant, the brimming nectar
Stopped in mid-brim.

Hold a glass to this moment,
Not so singular
And yet particular;
Examine the squint in her eyes,
Know the sun, too bright,
Hides her lover's approach,
His intentions cloaked in the curl of his smile.
Note the shadows of her cheeks and chin and nose,
Their interplay with the dappling light.
They would not be, were it not for their shadows.

The director saw this frame
But only vaguely
In the kinema of his mind,
Shrouded in veils of imagination,
Unsure of the author's intentions
For this scene.
Now, it was a real image,
Yet an imitation
Of reality:
The reality of a moment
In a fictional saga.

2009-02-22T10:14:00.000-08:00

Sharmagne Leland-St.John

EVERY SONG

Every song I ever wrote for my father
had the word twilight in it.
And I wept with every word
every phrase
every conjugation
of every single verb.

Every song I ever wrote for my father
had the word twilight in it.
And I wept as each and every memory
swept over me.

Memories
of a father at twilight
that first year I came to live with him.
During those hot
thirsty Tarzana summers.
Memories of him teaching me
to always plant three seeds
at a time, into each and every hole
we had dug, scratched out, and weeded
row upon row
with his own father's hoe.
He said it gave each plant
two extra chances to grow.

I was his tomboy
his youngest child.
The son my mother couldn't
or wouldn't give him.
Running wild
living high up
in the fruit laden branches
of a sprawling old fig tree
in our back garden.
Shaded from the sun
and prying eyes
by giant leaves.
Spending entire days there
reading and dreaming
until he called me down
at twilight
to set the table for supper
in a home devoid of
a mother's love
a home devoid of
the feminine touch
but full to bursting
with the two children
she had loved so very much.

Every song I ever wrote for my father
had the word twilight in it.
I remember him during those lazy summer days
teaching me how to swim
in the fast, icy, clear waters of the Kern River
and at twilight, catching fireflies
in a dusty mason jar with a rusty screw top lid,
looking for arrowheads along the banks
and showing me, where the water moccasins hid.

I remember a father
who could not live with the woman
he had once loved to touch.
The woman who gave him
his two black-eyed daughters
but not the son he craved so much.
I remember all the tears she wept
the secrets she kept hidden
deep inside her Lakota heart.

I remember how all the men I loved
in my early years
were the same age he was
when I first came to live with him,
on that cold, slate-grey, February day
in nineteen-hundred and fifty-eight.

Every song I ever wrote for my father
had the word twilight in it.
And I remember him taking us to the drive-in
in his ancient, battered, blue Ford pick up truck.
A mattress and soft pillows
thrown in the back
for all us kids,
friends, and cousins
to cuddle up
under the warmth of
an antique patchwork quilt.
I remember Jujubees and Dr. Pepper
Popcorn, Milk Duds, and Cracker Jacks.
At twilight
giggling and waiting
for some scary movie to begin.

I remember him in the August twilight
when the chickens had flown
up into the cottonwoods to roost
pushing me on the sturdy rope swing
way out over the swirling, singing river
as he called me his "little black-eyed papoose"
or sitting quietly on the banks next to him
in the twilight, leaning against his strong, brown back
and together watching the hatch, and the rainbow trout
leaping out of the fast, icy, clear water to catch
a mayfly on the wing.

I remember him smiling and laughing
in the twilight, in his sweet and gentle way.
He died at the turn of the last century,
in the year two thousand
in an emergency room on New Year's Day and
in the twilight of my life
I remember all the things he was to me
poignantly
with each passing
fading, fleeting
memory.

2009-02-03T09:02:00.001-08:00

Michelle Angelini

DESIRING HUMANITY

An angel and a human fly
His wings hide
She has no visible feathers
and soars on a trapeze

While human beings
wish for heaven's immortality
it's not so much
the other way around
Love knocks down barriers
as the desire to experience it
makes even the discomfort
of being human again
a minor ache
against the heart's hunger

It's a terrible beauty
for immortals with no afflictions
It's an intricate decision
to leave perfection
and cross back to a physical plane
It's a journey of more than miles
which divides this distance
between death and life

The desire to love
to be loved is strong
—stronger than the wildest
natural occurrences—
because if adoration leads
a heart from death back to living
than those who love and
become separated by demise
can still be connected through such power

2009-01-26T18:41:00.000-08:00

Jeffry Jensen

SOUTH OF NOIR, NORTH OF NUANCE

Dennis could not live with Anne in
Mexico for more than a month without
going bonkers to the enth degree.
It was not that he didn’t love her to
death as he had all the other women who
had come down the pike, but Anne had
a way of getting under his skin like
no other sexy woman could.
She had made herself more than famous with
her caustic tongue and disdainful thighs.
On one fine Friday, Dennis came up for
air at daybreak like a drowning dog and
hightailed it back across the border
before Anne could turn over in
bed and go hunting for Dennis’s heart.

2009-01-26T18:37:00.000-08:00

Laura K. Deal

MOM'S CHORE

Rarely, yearly, by some magic
she would open the oven
beyond its usual limit
laying the door down flat
against the cupboards below.

Seated on her swivel stool,
hands encased in yellow
Playtex gloves, armed
with brush and Easy Off
she painted.
Not portraits, or landscapes
but long steady rows
of caustic paste that
abraded my nose unlike
any other smell ever
to dwell in the oven.

Her patience, uncomplaining,
astonishes me now,
though then it was only
one of the odd rituals
of adulthood, another reason
not to grow up.

After an hour,
the smell permeating the house,
the baked-on black
of daily dinner splatters
turned to goo, to be
dragged away on a paper
towel, brown sludge on white,
on yellow gloves
on my memory.

Inside the oven,
clean speckled gray walls,
smooth tracks for shelves,
all evidence of past
unpleasantness wiped clean.

2009-01-14T03:27:00.000-08:00

Aaron Blair

UNTITLED

It's the lack of reason
that keeps us awake at night,
glued to the blankets with nervous sweat,
a gleaming in the dark.
And still, it all means nothing:
a universe full of stars we'll never touch.

An ocean away, a butterfly spreads its wings,
a bullet lodges in the flesh of a citizen of another world,
one so distant it wouldn't matter,
if it didn't somehow have the same name.

Always, the explanation eludes us.
It either doesn't exist, or
it only speaks in words we haven't heard.
We haven't listened.

When we wake up,
we're still the same people we ever were,
doomed to the mobius strip approach to mistakes,
our tails firmly clasped between our teeth.
And we will never sleep peacefully.
When we die,
you'll have to weigh down our eyelids to keep them shut.

2009-01-12T19:52:00.000-08:00

Sharmagne Leland-St.John

NO FIREFLY SUMMERS

No firefly summers for my child
No mountain air clean and mild
Barrio born and bred
Unlike her milk fed
Country cousins
She's paid dearly
For our earthly
Sins
No skinny dips
In crystal clear,
Glacier chilled,
Spring filled
Swirling creeks
No rosy cheeks
No weekends by the sea
Ollie, Ollie, Oxen free
Never passed my child's lips
No daisy-chains or sweetgrass whips
Blind man's bluff, hide and seek
Were games she never played
For this round eyed, streetwise waif
I nightly knelt and prayed
Oh, Jungle Gods you have my soul to take
Just keep her safe
In every way
For one more god damned blessed day
No summers in a cabin on Moon Lake
For my latchkey child
No cool ocean breezes sweet and wild
Life in South Central was cruel and tough
And violence never seemed enough
This quiet witness, silent mourner
Faced a thousand deaths each day on every corner
One can't ignore the crackheads, pimps, and whores
That lined the streets in droves and scores
No matter how she tried
She could not overcome my fears
She watched while winos died
Drowning out their tears
In their own vomit and filth in the churling gutters
She has seen the squealer as he stutters
Out his litany
And the skinhead dealers dealing tragedy
The gangs that travel wolf like in their packs
The hollow eyed junkies
With the monkeys
On their bleeding backs
With morbid curiosity
She views this horrid scenery
Uzi's, AK 47s
Bloody glinting blades
No idyllic glens
Or faery glades
This my child your legacy
Este mi niña su herencia
Mea Culpa
Me hija
Mea Culpa
Maxima

2009-01-10T08:25:00.000-08:00

Mary Torregrossa

UNTITLED

Selling candy outside
the Washington Mutual
is not working out,
the boy tells me, hunched
in layers of clothes like
he's waiting for the school
bus on a cold morning,
shoulders like a wire
coat hanger, face tanned
by the winter sun.

He lies about the soccer team
to customers lined up at the ATM
who clutch their money
in the holiday rush home
to bunuelos and tamales.
He plies Raisinets in a box - two bucks.

Candy labels look like crayons
stacked inside the cardboard carton.
I take whatever he hands me.
I give him three bills - two ones and a five.

See if you can't use it for bus fare, I say.

He bends and slips the five into his sneaker.

2009-01-08T12:53:00.000-08:00

Katherine Norland

AIR DRAGON
(from a druid creative card)

They tied me to a pile, petrified, my chest is heaving;
Told me I'm a sacrifice for a dragon, fire-breathing.
I would be bar-b-qued, no chance for survival;
Counting down the seconds to Air Dragon's arrival.

The villagers chanted, cut themselves and danced;
The king came off this throne, the harem pranced.
I, a stranger to this city, somehow felt to blame;
Unanimously decided I was the reason for no rain.

I was on a hill above the crowd, more or less a mound;
Can't differentiate between the drum or my heart's pound.
Then I saw him from a far, the Dragon of the Air;
Cried out to God and wailed in my despair.

He, a stately creature, swooped down and with one breath
Of fire from his nostrils sent all the villagers to death.
Then turned and looked at me, like I was set apart ration;
Smoke left his nose and his eyes full of compassion;

He carefully used his sharp tail to break me free;
Then on his back carried me softly to my destiny.
Oh Dragon of the Air, composed of fire and zeal;
I don't even know today if that experience was real.