against forgetting

by paul harrison

i read their verse and weep
the ones who loved and fought
and struggled on
the ones who were disappeared
often, forever
who suffocated
in the cattle train corners
licking parchment tears
from splintered planks
who wrote poems
in their own blood and feces
on torture cell walls
or if they were lucky
tobacco leaves
smuggled out to dawn
who wrote completed works
in the libraries of their soul
to recite in camps and gulags
for blackest dread and ghosts
who even wrote for future's hope
on paper scraps
hidden in the pocket of a corpse
unearthed on judgement day
from massive graves of insane death
who wrote against forgetting
and the dying of the light
who wrote for life
as napalm and ordinance
scorched and shook the screaming earth
who declaimed behind the barricades
the check points and walls
who were arrested at gunpoint
in monstrous swoops
interned, beaten senseless
then dangled by their heels
from colonial roofs
words falling like pennies
from their silent screams
who still sang their poems
of home and freedom
in the desert camps
lips stitched and torn and mute
who witnessed then resisted
with all their words and soul
who were expelled and exiled
for expressing conscience
and critical faculty in the blinding light
who wrote by candlelight
in the ghettos and cellars
of Palestine and Poland, emaciated
the barrios, the townships and slums
who sang from the rooftops
the tunnels and trails
of death by Capital and fascist lies-
indomitable poets all
of life, revolt and love
uncensored and unrepentant
and not forgotten now.

“Kingless Days”

by A. A. Veitch


There are no true kings among men in this time.
No empathetic rulers with authentic hearts that aren’t
on cards to play with in the political field.
Greatness seems to have died in the older age.
No justice to be dealt to the bureaucrats for
knowable transgressions against their own.

No fears instilled in the rich of the poorest
class rioting for their entitlements.
And the downtrodden, laying down to keep where
the higher ranks dictate a poor person to reside.
There is an immense lack of reverence for the
working class in this foible-sword-blade society.

Humility has long since decayed on a wire.
You’ll find none of it in the hollow White House.
None of it in any political house of any color.
Emotions and ethics have expired in the era
where anything is acceptable, tolerable.
These are the days the government takes money

to make something pliable and legal.
This is a farce parodying as democracy; don’t
mistake what your eyes are witnessing.
You will never see these contemporary dictators
fighting the battles they began and standing
on the front lines with their own

wrists outstretched alongside their men.
We are standing on the face of the sun, yet others
will lie and tell you it doesn’t burn.
Where is the dream of One to inspire a nation
where nobody has to die for its birthed
and wed realization?

Dracula

by Kenneth Radu

Last night, sleek with surfeit,
I read a disquisition
about sex and death.

The scholar, whose ancestors
burned witches and locked
their loins against

stray desires, footnotes
my perversions, annotates
the unconscious drives,

writes elegantly about
the bite in the neck
and transfiguration.

The fun’s in the piercing,
it seems, alluding to Sebastian
of the ambiguous arrows,

or the way men and women
spread their legs when
the moon announces dinner.

But before, between courses,
intercourse is the last desire
on my mind when I whet my teeth.

Poisoned by denial, only Calvinists
concoct theories of kinky sex
out of dead bodies and folklore.

My purpose is the poetry
of resurrection, the power
of living longer than God.

Living with Jesus

by Lyn Lifshin

Living with Jesus

A Typical Weekend in the Country with Jesus
Jesus and the Lilies and Apples
My Mother Always Wondered Why Jesus Wouldn’t Get a Job
Jesus and the Rich
In Jesus’ House
Jesus and the Food Stamps
Though Wild to be Known as a Healer, A Lover, for His Madonna Poems, Jesus (see Question #2)
Jesus was a Charmer
Jesus in the House with Only Lemons and Blueberries
Jesus Loved the Poor

Jesus in the Modern World

Jesus Wonders About Going Into Partnership with the Mayflower Madam
Jesus Meets the Mayflower Madam
Jesus Does the Motel 9 Advertisement
Jesus and Barbie
Jesus Sends an S.O.S. to Elvis
Marilyn and Jesus/Jesus and Marilyn (see Question #3)
Jesus Goes Out Shopping in the Mall and the Feed Store (see Question #4)
Jesus Does D.C. Night Spots
Jesus Goes to the Poetry Slam (see Question #5)
Jesus Hears the Flat Tax Will Come When Jesus Christ Comes Again
Taking the Red Line with Jesus
Jesus Tries to Get Into the Movies
Been There, Done That, Got the Shirt
Jesus Gets to the States in the Middle of a Snow Storm

Non-Sex

Jesus Walks Out Among the Flowers
Jesus Meets Leda

Sex with Jesus

He Could Get Rid of a Fever, He Could Make a Woman Come
Jesus and the Garden
Jesus and the Ring (see Questions #6 & #9): this version starts with “When I gave myself…”
Jesus and the Pitcher
Some Say Jesus Had a Foot Fetish (see Question #7)
That First Weekend With Jesus
When Jesus Did His Miracles
Jesus Wanted Me Down on My Knees (see Question #8)

Jesus as Savior (author as other’s wife)

Walking in the Wheat Fields With Jesus (see Question #9)
Out in the Country With J.C.
It’s True, I Clung to Jesus Like a Lost Sheep That has Found Its Shepherd
Jesus and the Ring (see Question #10): this version starts with “I never expected…”
Jesus Came to Me at Starbucks on Valentine’s Day

Jesus and the Beasts

Jesus and the Beasts (see Question #12)
Out in the Country with J.C.
Though We Met in the Spring Before, I Got Together—It Was What You’d Call a Union with Jesus (see Questions #13 & #14)
Jesus Goes to Feed the Geese the Night It Is 60 Degrees Below 0

Outside Perceptions

In Those Loose Robes, Some Say Jesus Was a Flasher, An Exhibitionist, I Suppose
Jesus and Madonna

Wanting More

Jesus’ Communion Wafer (see Question #15)
I Was Caught in Jesus’ Web (see Question #16)

Doubt

Kind of Living With Jesus (see Question #17)
Doing New York City With Jesus
Getting Close to Jesus Was Like Having an Affair With a Shrink

Jesus of the Bible

First It Seemed a Trip Having Jesus as a Lover, Exotic (see Question #18)
Jesus, The Shrink and the Man Who Was Leaving (see Question #19)



Questions:

1) Are titles intended to be in all CAPS?
2) In the poem “Though Wild to be Known as a Healer, A Lover, for His Madonna Poems, Jesus” should there be an ellipsis at the end?
3) Re. the poems “Jesus and Marilyn” and “Marilyn and Jesus”: are these two completely separate poems?
4) Re. the poem “Jesus Goes Out Shopping in the Mall and the Feed Store”: should we delete the word “Out”?
5) Re. the poem: “Jesus Goes to the Poetry Slam”: should the title use “a” instead of “the”?
6) Re. the poem “Jesus and the Ring”: I have two different versions (one has 7 stanzas): which one is correct?
7) Re. the poem “Some Say Jesus Had a Foot Fetish”: I have two different versions (one has 6 stanzas): which one is correct?
8) Re. the poem “Jesus Wanted Me Down on My Knees”: I have two different versions (one has 7 stanzas): which one is correct?
9) Re. the poem “Walking in the Wheat Fields With Jesus”: I have two different versions (one has 7 stanzas): which one is correct?
10) Re. the poem “Jesus and the Ring”: this title is used for two poems, for a poem in the “Sex with Jesus” section and a poem in the ”Jesus as Savior” section.
11) Re. the poem “Jesus and the Ring”: I have two different versions (one has 14 stanzas): which one is correct?
12) Re. the poem “Jesus and the Beasts”: I have two different versions (one has 7 stanzas): which one is correct?
13) Re. the poem “Though We Met in the Spring Before”: I have two different versions (one has 7 stanzas): which one is correct?
14) This poem could also be placed in the “Jesus of the Bible” section.
15) Re. the poem “Jesus’ Communion Wafer”: I have two different versions (one has 7 stanzas): which one is correct?
16) Re. the poem “I Was Caught in Jesus’ Web”: I have two different versions (one has 6 stanzas): which one is correct?
17) Re. the poem “Kind of Living With Jesus”: there are handwritten notes on it and a couple of typos within.
18) Re. the poem “First It Seemed a Trip Having Jesus as a Lover, Exotic”: I have two different versions (one has 11 stanzas): which one is correct?
19) Re. the poem “Jesus, The Shrink and the Man Who Was Leaving”: I have two different versions (one has 12 stanzas): which one is correct?


*Lyn's website: http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

Unrequited Dreams

by Paul Hellweg

The dead see what we don’t.
The empty sockets of their skulls
hold the answers and
the knowledge we all seek
while magnolias whip in the wind
fueled by last breaths and
the flapping away of
all those dreams
the dying leave behind
like flattened beer cans
along Interstate 5.

The Game

by Paul Hellweg

I’m 64 going on 15,
all I fantasize about
are women
with Catalina butts and raspberry nipples,
and I understand
most of you
think I should dream
more age appropriate,
to which I just gotta say
if I or you
or any of us
aspire only to what is expected,
then please tell me
why the fuck we entered this game
only for a loss
or a tie,
no hope of
anything better?

HEAVING

by Stephen Jarrell Williams

You always had a way of squeezing
the sanity out of me

all of those you held
to your heaving breasts

then bashing your lovely dolls
against the bed frame and ceiling

waking in the morning on the tile floor
grinning like a fiend

I had you and you had me

could it last?

your answer swift
over a waterfall

splashing all over my room
flooding with floating photos of you

taking yourself to the limit with so many

until one too many formed a line
you couldn't stop

all those leathery guns

their bullets finally leaking
out of your orifice.

NYMPHO

by Stephen Jarrell Williams

Surprising you

jerking
the towel off your body

you squeal
then smile displaying

in front of the steamy mirror
the wet of your flesh

shower dripping
hot

I'm waiting in the dark
your latest boyfriend

playing the deviant
you crave to drive mad

pushing me back
falling on the bed

spinning your tits
like propellers laughing

the cops coming
here again tonight

flashlights searching
for the drug in your eyes

finding nothing after a thorough search

you give them a wink
leaving the door half open

down the hall all the neighbors
peeking out with one eye

hard they bleed
on their lonely matresses

while I have you
for a whimper of remorse.

LOCKED IN A FILE, LIKE A MOTHER SAVING BABY TEETH

maybe, mementos that
left a hole. Saved from
boxes and boxes, only
a few, a letter from one
or two, as strange to
another as whether the
moon has a smell. These
words with their own
taste. Letters from the
man I’d marry and
couldn’t stay with. The
California one, ghost of
another who said Albany
like Aeeelbaenie,
another looker but most
lost, the letter, the one
a friend of the one who
mattered too much
wrote: you know Lyn,
as I was miles away in
Virginia taking ballet
before grass became his
quilt at Arlington
cemetery. The one I
banged my knuckles to
blood on, couldn’t
imagine without in my
life, slammed into my
T bird to stalk night at
WGY, begging for a
slice of him. "I’ve never
done this before or since.
And then his "it's not
you Lyn, it’s me" and
so that letter, lost now too,
from his friend saying
it was me, in his last
months over and over,
the one, the only
　
by Lyn Lifshin


*Lyn's website: http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

The Tour

by Michael Grover

It was a cold gray day,
The warehouse stood in front of us
Like a monster
Waiting to consume us.

Before entering we stopped.
The beautiful red haired woman
Told us there was not a lot of money,
And the union would take some of that.
We all stayed so we entered.
Passed through the security.

At the door a worker stood.
Once the guides were out of range
He told us to turn back while we still can.
My financial state
Would not allow me to debate this,
So I walked on.

Inside there were boxes
Flying everywhere
Going different places.
We listened as they explained
What was happening
And pretended to be interested.

At the end of the tour
They called us each individually.
The red head called me last.
She asked why I wanted to work here.
I told her I was a writer that needed an income.
She asked me if I had done physical labor.
I said I had dug ditches on a pipe crew
In the Florida heat,
And I was an electrician's apprentice.
She handed me a card
Told me to think about it.
Then call for a final interview.

I passed back through security.
Was spat back out of the beast.
Back into the streets.
I bought a tomato to make a salad.
Thought about the cardIf I should call.
I passed the mission on the way home.
Desperate men sittin’ on the curb out front.
People in the lobby trying to get in for the night
Out of the cold.
I saw my future there.
Said to myself,
“Yes, I should call.”