Jazz

The piano keys of luxury

take us to sweet magnetic industry

glowing with black magic

music shining off the instruments

and into the moment of grace notes

music sheets swaying with every key

that unlocks all the rhythm's harmony

all the peace we love to see

in our day of carefree.

JoyAnne O'Donnell

GUILLOTINE

 

As the metal descends

you anticipate its cold waterfall hitting your nape

The consensual sport of becoming THE ascending cascade

 

The doting worms who inhabit the wood block

you placed your head on

wriggle into the arena of your ear

Impersonate your idol Suzette

the fire-breathing track star

 

CHOP!!

 

Like a thrashing salmon

you’re free

 

Your athlete’s body is sold

in a thrift shop for freaks

They wear your glory not as idolatry

but as irony

 

The devil is a talentless DJ

who spins your gilded head on a shoddy turntable.

 

James Mirarchi

GUMS

 

Bad taste turns Baby Chi

into fake gold shrine

Standup comedian with no comedy

but sugary sermon of gibberish

 

Baby Chi humors his adult pets

eating kudos from high chair

bobbing his diapered bum

like Rockette kicking up heels

His politics of WAAAAAAA’S

is song and dance for parents

Fred Astaire-suckling doesn’t tap feet

but STOMPS with cutesy athleticism

His guardians cheer and fist-pump

 

Baby Chi introduces his betrothed babe

(and resulting cartoon kin)

to parents’ unwavering approval

 

Popular punch line arrives when he dumps them all

nibbling off umbilical cords with toothless gums

leaving them nonplussed and flailing for shelter.

 

James Mirarchi

Gadfly

he gathered in the public courts

spreading his ideas, sharing

his notions, tacking them onto fledging

wings and watching them take off,

some falling to the earth, some rising

to the clouds, some resulting

in his imminent demise, the price

of having original thoughts.

The Strange Story

the picture demonstrates a bony

man floating over a room of observers -

what story is this, featuring a naked

phantom, wizened geriatric figure,

dancing across the foreheads

of a group of distinguished guests,

the secret tawdry Dickens sequel,

featuring a streaking Marley?

Father's Boots

he listened to the whistle

of trains until he could hear

no more

he crawled on his back

under trains, across the expanse

of stony earth

so do not complain to me

about air-conditioned, pill-counting

fluorescent jobs

when I remember the weight

of his rubber boots.

 Cosmetic

she is a purple neon madness

countenance, blinking peacock

of a person, eyes closed,

while I prefer the bare skin

of truth, the honesty

of the epidermis, not bathed

in thick chemical, free, weightless

and living flesh.

Discount Store

daughter, do not put yourself

on the discount shelf so easily,

hanging the tag from your side,

putting yourself in the cardboard

bargain bin on the sidewalk,

instead see yourself as queen,

regal figure of the universe,

gracing us with your presence.

 

 JD DeHart

bruises

i have bruises on my arms, she says

what can i say? i tell her, i’m a passionate man

i have them on my wrists and ankles too

have you checked your inner thighs?

she goes into the bathroom

jesus christ, she says, a moment later

what in the hell were we doing?

what comes naturally, i say

there’s one on your ass as well

wow, she says through the door

people are going to think i beat you, i say

it looks like you did, she says

coming out of the bathroom

but i’m a lover not a fighter

you have some on your arms as well, she says

you brute, i say

she blushes

how about i put a hickey on your neck

to clarify, i tell her

don’t you dare, she says

how about one on your ass?

no

then she goes back into the bathroom

to look her body over again

and i wonder if she’ll find the small bruise

that’s on her left breast. 

just stop

to the 24/7 media cycle

the one who keeps reporting

on each and every mass shooting in america

we the people have a message for you

just stop

stop reporting on them

stop mentioning them

stop taking a moment of silence

during your broadcasts

to show us the faces of the victims in happier times

and stop showing up with your cameras

at each and every ubiquitous candlelight vigil

to film all of the tears and wasted wax

just stop already

because we concerned citizens have had enough

we’re tired of these special news reports

interrupting another politically biased crossfire talk show

on the falsity of climate change

interrupting our sports and market reports

we’re tired of sitting through

five dead and thirteen wounded on a college campus

or twelve dead in a movie theater

or a dozen kids blown away in connecticut

when we just want video of our favorite celebrity couple

fighting in an elevator

or another exclusive on those cute pop stars

getting married at the vatican

just stop

stop bringing us down

with your statistics on how violent america is

can’t you see that we don’t care?

i mean if we did

don’t you think we vote out the politicians

getting kickbacks from the NRA?

the ones who come on tv and tell us

that we need more guns not less?

we’re not idiots, you know?

we do rank thirty-first in the world in math

twenty-fourth in science and twenty-first in reading

so take that you media oligarchs!

just stop okay?

can’t you play something nice during your broadcasts?

a human interest story or more health and cooking tips?

a little piece on a dog and cat living together in harmony?

we like news stories like that

not stories about ten people gunned down in a mall

or seven soldiers murdered (again) on a base in texas

or even some junior high girl who hung herself

after being gang-raped at a weekend party

who wants to hear about that stuff

after working another eight hours?

if you want to report about all of that sad-sack stuff

why not give us the lowdown

on which of our favorite television characters

will be dying this season

instead of pre-empting the damned show

over another employee who lost it in the office

killed himself and took four others with him

so please just stop

for all of us

do it for america

get back with the program guys

come on and get happy in this land of the free

home of the brave

otherwise we’ll stop tuning in

and those advertising dollars that you crave so much

well, they’ll be going somewhere else

along with millions of viewers

because we know you already know

there ain’t nothing more powerful in america

than the almighty dollar

or when a ton of us get together

to support a common cause

like that time we stopped that sitcom from being cancelled

and that time we stopped that one kid

from beating that other kid

on one of those awesome talent shows.

fleet week

the three of them

were sitting at the end of the bar

in their starched white uniforms

like returning heroes

like princes of new york

christ, they all looked like sunburnt popeyes

drunk and liberated from their duty

waiting to go back aboard their ship

to shower with each other again

we were drinking nearby

drunk and liberated from our jobs

waiting to back to our apartment

to shower with each other again

when one of the little soldier boys asked me

is that you’re wife?

well, not yet, i said

which i thought was good enough conversation

but the jerky little g.i. joe

kept staring at me

kept staring at my woman

like he needed to get something out

the other two in their starched whites

just kept looking around

waiting for another drunk patriot to buy them

a congratulatory drink

or for someone to pat them on the back

and say, hell of a job, soldier

when he said to me, they must be fun

what do you mean? i asked

well, he started laughing

then he put his hands toward his breasts

like he was holding two balloons

i’m not too quick

especially when i’m drinking

but i think i understood what he was talking about

you know what i mean? he said

you know?  you know?

finally i leaned over and said to the other two swabs

you better watch him in here

this is a communist bar

when they saw what he was doing

they tried putting his hands down

but then he fell off of his stool anyway

another brave soldier gone down

we’re sorry, one of the sailors said to me

but i wasn’t buying it

we’d been watching clowns like these

harass women all week in the city

like conquering titans

like golden gods

so i finished my beer

then my fiancé and i got up to leave

i felt drunk and liberated

by never becoming just another

misogynistic, volunteer asshole with a gun

it’s all right, i told them

maybe we’ll all get lucky in the end

and he’ll get his balls shot off

when you boys sail back to iraq

blomfield

blomfield always comes in

when there’s five minutes left in the day

when i think i’m just about done

with the pain and the agony

of public servitude

there comes blomfield right through my doors

he’s always dressed the same

no matter the weather

black skull cap

diarrhea green army field jacket

baggy jeans that look like he crapped himself

sparkling white sneakers

yes, i’ve examined blomfield from head to toe

because some hatreds must be

engrained in the memory to truly blossom

he always wants something from me

a newspaper that’s a week old

a phone number to be looked up

keys to use the bathroom until the very last minute

to peruse the magazine racks

or just to walk around the building for the final five

i used to think they were up to something

that the big wigs sent blomfield down here

like some sort of secret shopper

now i just think he’s deranged

the rest of my co-workers are scared of him

it’s understandable when blomfield is wearing

his heavy army jacket in eighty-degree heat

we’ve been trained in america

to hate what we don’t know

what he can’t understand

but i don’t hate blomfield for his coat

or his skull cap or his jeans or his sneakers

for the fact that he never seems to labor or sweat

i hate him simply because he’s the last impediment

in the way of me getting back to my life

he’s the train or bus that i’ll miss

he’s the drink that i’ll have five minutes later or the couch

he’s the meal that i’ll burn thinking about how bad i hate him

the restless sleep that i’ll have

blomfield

standing there reading fliers

for kid’s magic shows and free math tutoring

at one minute til the hour

checking his watch until the very last second

that he knows we’re open

before he exits the doors

to stand outside looking both ways

scanning the street for a block party

or a community board meeting

wondering whom in the hell to torture

next.

some alien force

i’m on the bus

when i see them come around the corner

hand in hand

these two immaculate, well-coiffed bores

my wife has made me drink with them

break bread with them on a few occasions

it is always the same dull ritual

monotonous stories about her job

pointless tales about his video gamming

and when he’s not around she bitches about him

and when she’s not around he just looks relieved

and when we get home

i always tell my wife, never again

dear, never the fuck again

but there they are on the corner

looking beautiful and fresh and damned

like mormons going door to door

and it feels as though some alien life force

has taken possession of my faculties

i start pounding on the bus window to get their attention

waving and smiling at them like i’m their oldest friend

when they see me they get excited too

he starts waving and she screams, we’re going to the bar!

like it’s an invitation or something

suddenly i wake up

i’m sweating and i feel sick

but i can’t stop waving

so i mouth, good, go and fuck yourselves too

through a huge smile

as the buses passes and rounds the corner

and they’re finally out of my life again

at least for now.  

John Grochalski

Body Talk

Parse directly

with moon to light us,

this story our bodies construct.

Squabble

wordlessly.

In the language of muscle

and skin and scent,

sound is sweat,

gender is only

consequence.

Toss your spangled hat to the floor.

My hand in yours is a long letter,

a chronicle.  I teach with silence,

lingua viscera,

poem.

The Shaman

He has walked through the classroom door one thousand times.

You replay the details: pouch of dung, horn bowl, ashes,

sun-bleached hair woven with feathers and bones,

dried animal blood, healing shells.  

His mask is two wounds: blindness and sight. 

The force of an archetype

can knock us to the ground, shatter us.

He looks just like Jesus. 

That shattering.

Great un-doings, grand falls, will not piece together, say why.

Spirits visit us.  There is water.  Man walks into a room.  

He is not you, not yours.  His are not your wounds. 

Keep him close, without desire or need  –

but tell the truth about it – you

pursued him.  You sent his staff arching over the ravine.

You won’t ditch him, even though he is not, nor can be,

the lover you thought

you had saved. 

Iridotymous

Born suspect.  Born exiled  

on Adam’s street.  My name.

Marker of my mother and her mother,

her father before, his forty-acre tract

of Carolina outland – invisible –  

poverty of black on black.  Word for it

litany of my childhood,

first word I remember, first word

meant for me, my skin

the story, Everyman’s story,

speck upon

seeing

who I am not.

Albrecht Speaks

Tragedy is a woman who reads portents, watches for rains

that never come.  One evening during the Wanderjahre

as we stand drinking in a tavern,

I show her my drawings, trials in wood and in bronze,

scraps of paper lined up on a bench.

She finishes stories in the spaces

between them, says, as her face dents into planes,

as she bends low over the crumbs under the table,

as if she might like to scoop them up,

“When you are here, you are so much here,

and when gone, all gone.” I take her by the arm and lead her with me

into the dusk of the square, point to cloud towers edged in rose,

church spires, my own feet in their felt boots – all species of miracle,

all ways of knowing how pain sharpens love –

recall for her my underworlds, rocks sprouting from lichen,

a triptych with its face of Jesus, my face,

dancers on riverbanks, men and women marketing in haggles,

scribes overturning words and finding bricks,

husbands at twilight counting sacks of wool into coin,

and children reckoning reeds or hacking at one another with stars,

crying, “Ha. You’re dead.”

Spoiled son, haunted soldier, oaf queen,

paper tigers incline from general to specific

and return hissing meditatively, unperturbed.

A hare cowers where I follow it into the sedge,

its terror, my terror,

its little life, my life, and this woman tonight, geometries,

ovals and squares of particulars, trace of foam on her cheek.

The waters of heaven and earth are all the same waters, I tell her

silently.  Time is all time.

“But I am alone,” she says.

Golden Orb

dream catcher, yellow bloom,

coral legs so straight and horned they tempt

teeth, spits this sparkling mourning crown

for us to blunder into, first word already torn,

already provisional, a thread

we wipe our mouths on: no wonder

she eats silk, vanishes around the corner

of the house like fourth of July,

like Christmas.

COLLEEN M PAYTON