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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.