Monday, February 21, 2011

8 Birds on the Wire -James Babbs

 
eight birds on the wire
out behind my house
I see them
when I’m drinking my coffee
watching bird number six
move away from seven
and scoot closer to number five
then number five flies away
and bird number six waits
then moves back over to seven
they stay that way
for a little while
then both seven and eight
fly off together
I freshen up
my cup of coffee
the morning full of
fog and rain

Sunday, February 20, 2011

The Rear End of Truth- Peter Magliocco

 
 
To think it all boils down
to how big your hindquarters are
cutting down fatty tissue
from girth of butt-bulbous cheek
she winks, scalping away pretense
in fashion flaky hot pants
embroidered with a MTV logo
 
to reveal her corrupt flesh-
essence of pimpled red scratches
extensively grid-locked
by a rife effusion
of strangely abstruse tattoos.
The food vendor nearby smirks
at me for using my camera phone
to capture Loretta mooning us
from the street corner where she
impersonates a crack-addled vixen
during her elongated promenading.
She declines taking food for sex,
thus grossly insulting the vendor
who debates calling the police
& reporting her for indecent X-posing,
but refrains -- he's had a good eyeful;
black dudes nod appreciatively too,
from the downtown Vegas motels
Loretta claims to be fortuneteller at.
 
"To think it all boils down to baring booty,"
the vendor sighs. I immediately send
Loretta's picture to a hungry sex fiend I know.
Dumb ass cookies feed you shit, I caption it.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Cutlass - Ed Makowski


In the classifieds.
too good to be true
but was:

1969 Oldsmobile Cutlass
2 door. 69,000 miles.
Bought new by my
mother-in-law. 350 Rocket.
Runs good. No rust.
$1,200 obo

Called my uncle-
the kind of guy
who used to
wrench his own
cars and motorcycles,
but now had a TV
next to the Keg-o-Rater
in his garage.

I'd been learning
on our Ford mini-van
and had 2 grand saved
from dishwashing.


During the test-drive
my uncle uncle bemoaned
Oldsmobile's 1969 Cutlass.

The brakes, the gas mileage,
the tires, rear wheel drive,
rear wheel drive in winter,
poor oil filter placement, his
Oldsmobile Bravada, American cars,
modern cars, cars as a whole,
buses, the bus that cut him off,
the Blacks taking buses out
to the country by his house, Yeah-
This car and

everything isn't worth it!

A week later I told him
that Cutlass we test-drove
was no longer parked
with a FOR SALE sign
on highway Q.
What Cutlass? he asked

At 15 I didn't realize
when test-driving
he'd been drunk
and depressed
about
the Green Bay Packers
losing the noon game.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

the connection -jeff shepard

                  the wife and i
                  don't fuck anymore,

                  we masturbate.

                  she to her romance novels,
                  me to my internet porn.

                  sex is different than love.

                  we still hug.

Friday, January 21, 2011

I Haven't Started Drinking Yet -James Babbs

what the hell do I know about love
I’ve been wearing the same pair of socks
for the past three days and
I haven’t bothered to shave
for over a week now
but it doesn’t matter
because
I never go anywhere
I just stay at home
shuffling from room to room
it’s after five o’clock and
I haven’t started drinking yet
maybe
I should open a bottle of wine
or mix myself a tall glass
full of whiskey and Coke
I realize
the world’s filled with
beautiful women and
I don’t know
what any of them want

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

SIDNEY BECHET MEETS JERRY LEE LEWIS IN NEW ORLEANS -Russell Streur


Pretty boys from Texas
Wearing brand new tees
Are dancing up a storm
With the Sidon girls
At the Opera House tonight
And Sidney’s on the corner
Rue Toulouse and Bourbon Street
Eyes alight
Clarinet to his lips
Preaching to the choir
With spodee odee on his breath
Right before the solo
First comes flood
Good Book says
Page 33
Then comes fire
When the Killer drives up
On the road to Tyre
Towing a piano
From a big fin Cadillac
Wine Wine Wine
Elderberry
Wine Wine Wine
Blackberry
And New Orleans is a woman
So they say
Moonlight, tide and mystery
That Creole girl in cool Monet
The one that got away
And you won’t find her
In the Quarter anymore
She’s in Houston now or Jersey
And she is never coming back
Fact is, all in blue:
Hey Jerry Lee
Pass that bottle to me.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Garbage Pail Gail -Chris Butler

 
was the whorish whore
for the aborted treasures
of others,
 
who threw her last baby away,
 
yet she kept her precious
collected keepsakes safe
inside herself.
 
She had become cluster
fucked by the overwhelming
clutter of depression- era
newspapers molding in the
fruit cellar, covering the
taxidermy statues of feral
felines, plastic artifacts
classified as knick-knacks,
and her vacuum sealed
soul, littered and archived
across the condemned
flea market.
 
When the frayed
leftover copper wire
twist-tied to faulty
electrical sockets
sparked over the
desiccated stacks
of trash,
combusting a world’s
worth of stuff into
possessive flames,
 
she attempted to
prolong her belongings,
 
but she could not be saved.