|
Last Poems
I browse through the latest issue
of the pretentious poetry journal
and
find the vast majority of poems
particularly incomprehensible
so I move on
and glance at photos
of the featured
poets
and think,
"My God, I've been mistaken.
This must be a magazine printing
the last poems of dying patients.
Their
faces express such despair
and a kind of insane rage.
I must pray for them."
But returning to the cover
I see
it is indeed the latest issue
of the condescending poetry journal
and then of course
comes the realization
that
the academic elite
are fooling no one but themselves
and that their misery
is a wonderful punishment
for their
god awful musings
as they remain single-handedly
responsible for the nation
refusing to read poetry anymore.
David Rushing
Arcadia,
CA
jimmy
dark used
to
deliver
punchboards
to
taverns
along
w/my
father
it
was
the low
level
shit
my
father
did
for the
mob
&
when
they
went
around
to
collect
jimmy
liked
to
say
sometimes
i
lose a
little
cash
off
the top
you
won't
tell
now
will
you
the
guy who
whacked
jimmy
told
my
dad
the
sweetest
part's
the
last
part
where
you
get
to live
Todd
Moore
Albuquerque,
NM
|
 |
This Is Not Poetry
The poet’s desk was a kind of
time capsule,
a thing frozen, like an open wardrobe
at the foot of Vesuvius.
It seemed that he had stepped out to
make some copies,
and in leaning over the flash of the
Xerox machine,
decided that he could never return
to
Cowley
Building,
Room 652. Maybe he thought, in that moment, lit up
by the bulbs beneath the glass surface,
of the bottles of aspirin,
Excedrin, Tylenol, half empty, tossed
in various drawers,
or the jagged half of his American
Express card,
buried beneath the dozens of pens,
caps all marred with incisor dents.
Maybe it wasn’t a Xerox flash
at all.
Maybe it was a long time coming.
Maybe he was tired of the rusty Colgate
can and plastic
razors piling up beneath decades of
syllabi,
the dirty forks from home smudging
student poems,
the fluorescent lighting, the endless
Department memos
announcing the new Attendance Policy,
the Add/Drop deadline.
And what if it was ennui? What if it was finding himself staring
at a wind-up Toy airplane, or mini
Chinese firecracker
and thinking to himself, This is not poetry.
Kathryn Formosa
Long Beach,
CA
Suicide
Letter of Johnny Appleseed
dear
mr. b
i
had to write you because i can’t find the sun!
gone!
no where to be found, the dawn left last
week
to get some steak & eggs at little gus café &
never
came back. i lost the sun b! i lost the sun.
Armageddon
is here & it’s my fault & no more
seed
b & no more drunken cider binges b & no
more
politics b & no more sex b & no more green
wigs
& blue collar sweat & noontime rides & no
more
b b. no more me b! what am i going to do b?
gotta
kill myself b. hope you understand, tell
adam.
the serpent can have that bitch. i can’t live
w/out
the sun b. good-bye forever. sorry.
johnny appleseed
J.
D. Mitchell
Las Vegas,
NV
|
|
|
Because
because of the way my body rises
to meet you, I’d take you back
because of the places my pride has
been
I’d take you back
because of the strength I never had
I’d welcome you open
because of the skin I don’t own
anymore
I’d tender you again
because of the weather, the wind, and
the air
Cathy Barber
San Mateo,
CA
Pocket Park
broken benches
crumbling
brick
all but abandoned
save for flowering
graffiti. radio wafts,
settling like cinders
on the street below.
from
some high open window
hip-hop, maybe
Mozart, only rooftop
pigeons know for sure.
a stunted bush, exhausted
flowers,
defeated swatch
of threadbare grass.
in the corner, a poor excuse
for a tree -waxed, wan-
as if carried out
from
the basement
exposed to sun
for the very first time.
an old man tries
to soak up what's left
of the shade,
clothes,
skin,
the color of earth,
communing alone
with his brown paper bag.
Richard Luftig
Oxford,
OH
|
|
|
|
|
|
|