13.
The Myna Girl As Queen
of Hearts
I’ve earned those black
hearts on my headdress—
men gifted me
theirs fair and square
along with a
hundred rare Tropical diseases
So many carnival nights,
so few lovers left now,
so little blood reaching
my own thirsty heart
Listen, this life is all
there is
I must have more
man-hearts,
because they are
delicious
 |
| The red queen (MISH) |
*
12.
Linebacker
we walked in the woods
a moon-lit night
a grove of trees
leaves crunching
underfoot;
a bunch of us
guys
one girl
and Starsky, a
curly-haired runt
his face upturned
worm lips moving
"go get her"
he said
and gave me a shove--
she had long blonde
hair
silver in the light
and walked by herself
upright
like the trees;
"get her!"
Starsky said,
"you're a
linebacker!"
She walked closer
then past
without even seeming
to see us,
Starsky poked me again
the little prick
he died that summer
in a car
that crashed and
flipped
onto railroad tracks,
I was in the pool room
the morning after
when Fat Molloy came
in
and announced
almost gleefully
"Starsky's
dead!"
~Wayne F. Burke~
*
11.
Rock Island
Okay everyone wants to
Know about Trump’s
America it’s 2017
I was born and still
Live in rural
Ass Illinois
Don’t tell me
You support working
Families
Until you see
Every city
Within a two hour
Radius
Full of nothing
But male doms
On FetLife
You’re always getting
Messages
In character
With demands
Of respect and
Honorifics and
Submission
In a first message
And there is never
Anyone else
To fuck
~Thursday
Simpson~
*
10.
Cephas, The Great Roman
Philosopher
I
shall paraphrase,
“Peter,
Satan wanted
You
for his
Own.”
I
don’t know the
Latin.
We
could always
Use
another
Great
Stoic.
James
Joyce
Would
have
Been
a
Waste
as a
Jesuit.
When
I lived in Iowa
City
The
bishop from
Davenport
Singled
me
Out,
Told
me
I
was the one
He
wanted
To
apply.
Humility
is not
An
issue
Since
I’ve
always
Been
Goddess Satan’s
Bitch.
It
took a retired
Priest
to
Convince
Me
it
Was
okay
To
want
To
fuck.
But
what he
Didn’t
plan
For,
Fucking
Feels
good
In
ways
Magic
bread
Does
not.
I
am a romantic
But
Teresa of Avila
Was
ill,
Therese
of Lisieux was
Ill,
Faustina
Kowalska
Was
constantly sick
And
died
Alone.
Mystics
are
Tragedies,
People
we’ve
Failed.
Once
I went
Eight
years
Without
Kissing
Anyone.
I’m
the only person
This
hurt.
Sometimes
I wish
Catholics
would walk
In
And
see the
Bulletproof
Glass
protecting
The
staff
At
the clinic,
Knowing
they’re the reason
That
glass
Is
there.
I
wish they had
To
sit back
In
a room and watch
A
meter
Rising
As
it measures
Their
blood.
The
boys who raped
Me
have never
Called
their
Mothers,
Crying
Because
they’re HIV
Negative.
My
mother’s first boyfriend
Died
a few years
After
he tested positive.
I
do hate her,
For
still practicing
Her
pathetic Roman
Religion,
But
I love her
Because
she paid
The
clinic
To
test me
And
was happy
To
do so.
~Thursday
Simpson~
*
9.
9.
You and I Are Destined To Do This Forever
Whether in the Black Lodge,
Screaming outside
Of somewhere that is
Not your
House,
Looking out
Laura
Standing
In your
Hotel
Door.
Seeing Jeffrey
And Sandy
All grown up
In a Washington
Police
Station,
One chance out
Between two
Worlds
Does not
Change
All that
Much.
You and I are
Destined
To Do
This Forever
Whether your
Name is Samir
Or the Generic
Luchador.
This is not
A friendship,
I want to believe
That things can
Be different
Even if they never
Seem like
They are.
You can hum
The words to
Oh Donna,
You can tell a friend
To say hello
If they see
Her somewhere
Else.
You can say Elsa
And Sheryl
Lee’s screams
Are created
By the fetishized
Male gaze
Or by the electricity
Of something
Else.
Men like James
And Harold
Seem so soft
And kind,
Nothing is scarier
Than when
The strong
Survive.
~Thursday
Simpson~
*
8.
*
8.
Accident
And Harmony
A church-choir breathing quiet descends on the city
bus on a winter’s night when there’s been an accident on the road ahead and all
you can see are the lights
I stand at the front end, staring out the square
window as if I were on the prow of a ship peering out to sea
Red and blue, emergency teams and their shadows
moving back and forth across the quarantine
One considers the luminous presence of a fever as
only obvious after it has happened, like a description of ball lightning
sweeping and lashing and turning across the desert, pantomime of a heatwave:
breathless wind of dust and waning moons while the bus driver taps his foot
impatiently but gentle on the gas pedal but doesn’t break the silence ‘til it’s
surely over
~Nate
Maxson~
*
*
7.
Four
Expanding Couplets, For Emily
We sneaked into a room with a piano at the
university
And you played Fur
Elise while I leaned my head enraptured against the ebony legs of the
instrument
A man with tattoos of stars and moons on his face
asked me in voice like a child if I had a lighter
I said that I don’t smoke and he jaywalked across
the briefly empty road in the cold spring rain at a leisurely pace, I put my
hands in my pockets and watched him continue to disappear
I picked up a coin from the dirt, considered
flipping it into the air for a chance,
And finally imagined it landing ~plunk~ in a wishing well or on the eyes
of the deceased being carried away down some tunnel of lights and ivory
I awoke with my hand on your stomach and you
whispered something in Polish to me from a dream:
All these unknown languages circle like a storm of
birds expanding their song, an atmosphere against the sky/ mid motion/
midflight/ they are circling/ The Moonlight Sonata in orbit
~Nate
Maxson~
*
*
6.
Sunbeam
Don't forget to
celebrate this doom anniversary
Invite the hurricane
in
Pour it drinks, easy
confluence, leaky memos
Under adrenaline’s
influence
If you hadn't held
your arms out
Like airplane wings
you might've
Been sucked right back
into the engine of corruption
Right into the
hurricane’s lens
Scratched by dozens of
critical marks
Disguised as a circle
of friends
Your throat dry, you
fly
Dipping, uplifting,
avoiding
Contact w/ other forms
of revelry
You celebrate angrily
Alone in your own
vivid amphitheater of emotions
As you were that day,
alone w/ explosions you saw
Coming but buried in
the night’s static
No interference
from
Chirpy, twittery birds
of war
This took some months
to process
Through
automatic
Brushes with death
—
Spurge of bird in
engine’s nest
Your whole crew of
characters
Parachutes to your
doormat
A mudlark's bootprint
& long atonal call to prayer
A little more haunting
than
Jesus Wants Me for A
Sunbeam
~Vin Whitman~
*
*
5.
Rhapsody
I keep my self
Compact & sated
I barely need
food Or company
Only my fingers &
ears Interact w/ the universe
My face is a bug light
in winter
My squalid cranial
neighborhood lit by
A single pituitary
fuse
Rusty lava in the
arteries not the lamp
I could watch dry
paint for years (And I did)
My mistake was opening
my eyes
As the glitter was
tossed
Their idea of
gentrification
Their egos wish to be
stroked like kittens
They occupy the clam
belly of my brain
Their phantom alarms
vie
For my precious time
My internal rhapsody
Is no one else's
responsibility
~Vin
Whitman~
*
*
4.
SNOW GLOBE
SNOW GLOBE
I
really did believe
those
were tiny people
encased
in that orb.
All
year long,
they
sang silent carols
in
the winter chill.
I
loved nothing more
than
to torture the trio
by
tipping the globe upside down
then
right way up again
and
treating them
to
another snow shower,
I
could see the pain
in
their faces,
the
glare of anger
at
this boy of twelve,
the
frustration of living
an
eternity trapped
in
a chilly ball of crystal.
My
parents worried about me.
They
said the figures were not real.
I
dreamed of one day
turning
the world upside down,
so
that the earth toppled on
all
who doubted me
or,
better yet, those fools
fell
into the sky.
Strange
how it all turned out,
me
in this tiny solitary room,
doctors,
guards, peeking
in
at me from time to time.
But
they can’t tilt my quarters worth a damn.
I
have them there.
~John Grey~
*
~John Grey~
*
3.
THE GREAT ESCAPE
Did
the windows really blow open
that
night in Jeremiah’s bedroom?
There
was no wind and, besides,
they
flung outward,
and
the lad’s breath
was
far too impoverished for that.
It
was as if something was escaping,
not
entering, but what?
The
nurse can’t be relied upon.
She
often falls asleep bedside.
At
first, the pastor thought it
was
his soul, bound for heaven,
but
Jeremiah’s pulse still beat.
Spirits
aren’t usually that overeager.
Some
hoped it was the demon
that
they believed occupied that
skinny
ailing body.
But
the exorcist had not yet arrived.
And,
besides, the boy’s head
hadn’t
spun around,
he’d
not spat green bile,
nor
cussed the Lord our Savior
for
a month or more.
The
past few days,
he’s
just been like any sick boy,
texting
his friends,
playing
his video games,
watching
super hero movies on his laptop.
Maybe
he got up,
opened
the window himself,
breathed
in the fresh air,
immersed
himself in the stars, the full moon.
He’d
often do that in his younger days.
His
sister reckons it’s all an act
to
get out of going to school.
The
windows blew open there as well.
In
every house. In every building in the town.
Jeremiah
smiled when he heard the news.
Whatever
it was, it was everywhere now,
shared
around, not just personal.
~John Grey~
*
*
2.
The Glade
The Glade
Only
buzzards fly in these stale skies,
only
thin shapeless clouds pass over the iron sun.
The
moon seems little different, perhaps made from tin,
and
those clouds don't much care whose light they sop up.
Trees
once tenderly shielded their daisy cousins,
but
no leaves stay on the spider-leg branches
and
bark has become brittle eyesore, hard as whale teeth.
Water
is wasted on what was once wood.
Small
things move about in the mustard grass
searching
out smaller things to eat.
The
gray dirt beneath affords some a home,
most
a killing field, and a few a place to hide.
The
needs of all but gentle things are in this glade.
A
buzzard needs little more than a perch, a bit of carrion,
eyes
to see and a thermal wind to lift it.
The
carrion needs nothing but a place to be.
~Michael A.
Griffith~
*
*
1.
 |
| Keys #3 (MISH) |
