some poems written while working in a dining hall..

i like a job where i don/t have to
speak too often and can stare into
faces like the faces stare into a
television set.
I see reality TV in its most naked
sense and it/s cold like dead lips
and steel in the shade.
forced smiles that could snap in
half like a frozen leaf...
conversation as dry as a passionless
pussy....
eyes that haven/t seen the world
as poets see the world,
yet they speak of experience and
tales of drunken escapades with
the fire and life of Homer telling
the tales of Ulysses.
sometimes I use the asses as mirrors
and see the marrow within my bones..
a dichotomy of arrogance and self-
loathing.
-------------------------
I can/t stop thinking about death
and it/s a shame because you can
think about death during life but
not life during death...
(or so i/ve been told by the scientists)
death seems so final like falling
asleep on the train (awakened by short
chicanos with jail-house tattoos sweeping
the museum of grime under seats.)
but sometimes i stop, and think
and realize who could have imagined
this world while they were breathing
through gills in the womb, so how
can we imagine what awaits us when our
lips turn blue and our kidneys get donated?
maybe birth was a day dream and this
dying, coughing planet is the true womb;
while we wait like seeds beneath the earth
to get a taste of reality.
-------------------------
I never thought I could be a poet
until I picked up a Bukowski book
and than a pen right afterwards..
perhaps the pre-poet world was simpler,
art can chew you from the inside out
like a cancer.
inspiration begs to be released like
sperm.
and i can/t seem to stare at the sun
without calling it the kidney stone
of the sky and i can/t look at a
naked page without wanting to stain
it with words; stain it like a diaper
dirty with carefully placed shit.
i see right through people; their
individuality and worth is as
insignificant as second grade fantasies
and as invisible as truth in suburbia.
you sell your soul for personal enlightenment
and loose the innocence of hope.
you do, however, find a whole lot of beauty
in awkard exchanges of eyes between
soon to be lovers and the sunsets
drunken tango with the promiscuous
horizon.
---------------------------------
fear those who kiss in the shadows
of shadows with loves in the day.
fear the spiders you swallow at night
while covers brush your chin like a beard.
fear those who lie, but even more the
few who speak the truth.
fear the potential tomorrow can bring
(althought it probably won't be that
much different from today)
fear the repetition...
fear the sunlight for ignorance
truly is bliss and the black coffee
cloak of the evening hours help
you forget, like a luke warm
shot of Jack Daniels or a good massage,
the horror that is the ordinary.
fear time for it is the antithesis
of chaos
and chaos
is as free as a negro crow
perched slightly above the
hangover that is the 21st century.
free as a crumbled Hustler page
in the whispering breeze of spring.
-------------------------
my afternoon was lost like virginity
but for some reason I didn/t really
mind.
the solitude was a much needed
acquitance with myself.
everybody else sat in large groups,
like locusts descending, too ashamed
to stitch together their thoughts
and knit a genuine idea.
instead they exchanged stale
conversation like secret santas
and put on smiles like mascara, hid
boners under the table.
i try to stare out the window as
often as possible for i fear an
awkard tango between our eyes could
result in a contact high of ignorance.
i sure can be an outcast, but at least
its a decision on my part..
and when hope dissipates like morning
dew on green lawns trimmed to a stubble,
i write a poem such as this..
a poem about nothing and a poem about
everything.

submitted by: Ryan Uellendahl (Blog adminstrator)

Harvey Keitel Movie

the landscape for her flesh
asphalt broken sidewalk
sagging pock-marked face
--------------------------

The Origami Promise

Unfold, unfold, re-fold, straighten.
Leda and the Swan—amazing.

--------------------------
Sweet Absurd

wasp nest
tail pipe
third wife

washing off with gasoline
when the wheelbarrow
ignited

I made a coat from a tarp,
wrapped my head in a sandwich bag,
Momma swore off smoking

we found a record player
got it to work
patty-cake, patty-cake

in the witch’s oven
I needed a new skin
home from the doctor

a temple of mud
the neighbors visited
our ruin

in forbidding earth
I said, “I’m sorry”—
the end
---------------------
Wizard

the light in the forest
a quick look back

my beard, the newspaper
and yesterday, I was clean

sat by the fountain
young girls splashing

purses tight as an itch
fish a coin

a wizard tends to
light in the forest

Submitted by: Jeff Crouch

Vagabond's Vision

Vagabond's Vision #50



Near where miracles stand straight up,
uplifting loudly in their lyrical
calligraphy, colors dance
in congregated tribunal distribution,
tribute non-deceived
nor mirage,
yes collage
mainly visual attributes
articulating
stepping
stones
landing across streams
where cross-eyed fish walk
undefined
by revolutionary devotion
to subconscious evolution.


Vagabond's Vision #51



A specified error
in climatic change
under
water damages stilled by settled sun's
reaching hands
which hold with high tech,
highest pitch to
humanly possible
heard. The shortest sitting down
squatting
ride brazen seahorses'
leaping fungi,
with plenty left in a repertoire
regarding fancy letters
leftover atop spinning sand grains,
standing salt,
bloated, sumo wrestling orange fish.
A never before envisioned
forecasts as this specifically
dominating
the underworld
aquatic aspects in an allegorical
progression of captivating
change.


Vagabond's Vision #52



The gold of an unzipped arrival,
unblemished syntax
need not translate into forbidden,
foreseeable now,
such a psychic of last night's
lightning, whose coughing
broadcasting foretold a false
instant,
remained within a closet collapsing
underneath cedar dust and particles
of particular danger. Loudness
landed thundering between the gaunt-
let's
guilt and bloody blade,
a cry for more, a cry because
disguise was unveiled after all echoes
had arrived.

Submitted by: Felino Soriano

A sincere apology

I’m sorry for saying all that shit to you,
I didn’t mean it, I was just trying
To let you know that you really
Fucked up this time, and that it really
Was your fault that the car door ripped
Right off the old Celica, but no, I
Shouldn’t have yelled at you like that,
I am so stupid, I swear, but my
Family has a history of manic-depressive
Temperaments like myself (and I was abused
As a child, too, you know) and I
Hope you’ll forgive me for my very existence,
Because God knows you have a problem
With people who have real problems, like myself—but
It’s okay, you’re sheltered,
So I forgive you.

Submitted by: J. D. Roa

Amsterdam, Ohio

She walks down the sidewalks,

they haunt empty.
Rain bounces off gray-crumble
of old pavement
making rainbow-spins with
the black-spill of old cars

in her splash puddles

Sunshine rains,
in her green-hill horizon
she pictures forgot-about back roads
winding ways through trees
older than the almost ghost town
they shelter.

Ohio valley twilight, fog-swirl
dense-thick as clouds
drapes lazy over everything,
indiscriminating symmetry
of gray-blue haze
cleaner-fresher than
familiar steel-mill smog.

She whistles at the W,
his concrete, weathered white-wash
standing stoic by the tracks.
They're both remembering a train
that never comes.

Submitted by: Cindy Kelly

illionois trains

Trains, love them, hate them

the way they play sound; songs they sing.

Transformers switch, vibrate the power

into poetry, shake notes out of the sky.

Short stretch, street to street, long stretches,

Chicago, Elgin, Rockford, though prairie towns of Illinois-

running the same rails over, attached to many places.

Shrill sound of horns dig deep in bowel of urban earth

like backhoes; developers changing passing landscapes

with faint, greed filled faces.

As the trains pass to history, train sounds

fall silent, a minor key.

Submitted by: Michael Lee Johnson

In December

In December Miami sun

stands out on the southern

tip of Florida like a full-

blossomed orange,

wind torn sunshine eats away

at those Florida skies.

Spanish accents echo through

Caribbean Boulevard loud

like an old town crier

misplaced in a metro suburb.

Off the east coast 90 miles,

westward winds carry inward

the foreign sounds lifting off

Castro’s larynx,

and the faint smell of an

old musty Cuban cigar

touches the sand and the shoreline.

Submitted by: Michael Lee Johnson

face on a bus

face on a bus,
passing by,
nameless,
stares out the framed window,
frozen like skeleton bone-

boredom nibbling away at his time.

submitted by: Michael Lee Johnson

Chinaski

The turntable was spinning
I was being chased
by a monster called “Ick”
I tried to run but was standing
on a sheet of ice –

Whenever the turntable made
a revolution “Ick” grew
bigger and stronger and my legs
would move faster and faster

Petrified, I ran into a bar
Evil clowns were bar keeps
and it was penny drink night
for elves and dwarfs

I heard a bum say:
“Another drink for all my friends”
I looked over at Chinaski still beaten from
the night before, and the night before that

Only this night he had money from selling
a short story to the Black Sparrow Press

Submitted: Ron Cervero

bukowski

submitted: steve

ruth "e"

submitted: steve

hand

submitted: steve

Green

Submitted: steve

salvador dali

dalis america cannot be mine
for my mind is fixed. (a creaky,
wooden vessel bobbing above a
swelteringly green sea
of the past; bound to docks dripping
with fish-gut facials)
i refer to a lovers cheeks as a rose
before i pluck the petals (whiter
and die before they kiss the earth)
I am told therefore I believe.
I once thought i was free as a sky
stained bluejay nestled in cocaine
clouds bitter sweet embrace but
I am in fact dying slowly like them
and have been so since I descended
as nigger angels from the womb.
ah: that distant cloud recedding
over the hills; triumphantly tip
toeing with the fire and ice of a
orchestral pitzacatto from my tired
voyeur eyes.
dalis dreams cannot be mine
for my dreams mimick this world,
not the worlds slightly obscured
by all the talk of time, and space
appearance and reality.
it takes chaos; budding red orchirds
of anarchy to release the asshole tight
shackles binding us to a plastic reality.
We see the mirror and believe we see us;
we see the entity we believe to know so
well (the one afraid of the dark and dying
alone in a white sheet/walls painted white
hospital).
but we are wrong; we have never seen ourself.
(the mirror is glass/the photographs are paper/
the shadows an obediant dog following you
to an eventual grave.)
I speak as if i know.
maybe i do that well.
While the words are seemingly as strong
as an Uncle's handshake and unique as
a randomly selected snowflake, they are
nothing but previously uttered patches
carefully woven (beautifully I
hope) quilt of what-ifs?
Sometimes: I feel as if dying makes sense
and i get this feeling that god is real
and those thoughts disperse as keen deer
swimming in a firey autumn brush as the
hunters footsteps croon as a chiped, out
of tune harp...
I realize god is just an unflinching, un
relenting, serial killer and i am nothing.
I am on my knees, wimpering helplessly..
"please, please.. don't kill me... please..
I have a family! PLEASE!!" I'll do anything.. just let me LIVE!

his smile is that of a hyena as he pulls the
trigger. brains explode out the back in an
apple orchid red cloud.
fireworks fill the room with a burst of morning.
beautiful as the first sun-set (Adam and Eve
sat side by side...naked...watching..)

-Ryan

why the grass is always greener

WHY THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER

My home
sweet home
rests
on a hill.

There are many
different
types of trees
which grow nearby.

There are apple trees,
pear trees,
and grapes which grow
on vines
luring my property
like a blanket
of gayness.

I am reminded
of how much
I love to get drunk
on wine
and refer to everyone I
dislike
as a faggot.

I have recently noticed
evergreens
peaking over
the wall
from the neighbor's yard ...
like a constant
reminder
of all the charges I made
on my credit cards
to buy Christmas presents
for all the wrong
kinds of friends.

My garden of envy -
is always green.

My thumb and head?
Up my ass.

Posted: Bryon

wild man

You're usually pretty good
when it comes to letting me
know
in no uncertain terms
approximately what time
you will be arriving home
and calling me.

It never fails.

It doesn't matter what time
of the day or night
you say you're going to call.
That's around the time
all of the other calls
start coming in ...
My Grandmother,
My Public Defender,
the probation officer,
the bill collectors,
more bill collectors,
and then ...
even more bill collectors.
Sometimes ten to twelve calls
come in
right around the time your call is
supposedly coming.
I am always concerned
you are trying to get through
but can't.

It's amazing how much
shit
a man has to go through
just to earn the right

to fuck off.

And where the
fuck
were you?

submitted by: bryon

THE EXORCISM OF A GAY METH ADDICT

The room was cold.

I could see my breath
playing hide and seek
like the veil of a bride being
ravaged
by the best man
and a few of his
boys ...
all just a few minutes
before the ceremony
was to take place.

I saw bugs
crawling up the walls.

They looked -

like roaches.

Some were big,
some were small,
some had hair.

I was afraid of saying
anything
out of fear
they would hear me
and take whatever I
mumbled
as an invitation to
join me in
bed.

I threw up awhile ago
but instead of pea soup,
tomato -
the same color
I've been
pissing
for the last three days.

The bed was shaking
and I finally realized
what Linda Blair supposedly
felt
when I shoved the
metal crucifix
up my asshole ...

How could that scene
scare anyone?

It was fucking amazing!

Shit!

All that was missing
was the handful of older men
dressed in black
holding me down
just long enough
that I could contemplate
how many different ways in which -

I disappointed God ...

this weekend.

Submitted by: Bryon

old man

Painted by: Shirley Beans

the undies

Painted by: Shirley Beans

the cunt of mary

hey you over there with your cracked pavement
stare and comet shadow dark rings around those
eyes. do you have the time i don/t think this
fucking subway is going to get me there on time!
get you where on the time? well, right to the tiger
jaw of hell. right into the beating, grandfather tick
of the machine! right into gods sandstorm raw throat
from screaming to his god! right into the cunt of mary!

the subway came after all was said and done and the graffiti
and rats and tape-less posters squinted from the raping
light of the car; wheels screeched like blackboards; asshole
eyed teachers laughing a laugh of enternal bleeding, "sorry
kids, I know you guys all hate that noise!!"
bloody run-over rats like modern art in the stinking, summer
sleep-less subway.

The subway rattled and swayed from side to side
like a mining car wisping through similar tunnels
of dirt and the subway sort of glowed and radiated
despite the everest mountains of filth and sin and
small bags of powder that are pretty fun i guess but
would be better if you could make snowballs and snowmen
out of them. but anyhow no one was in the right state of mind
anyway so he figured he'd try to ruffle up a revolution of some
sort but no one was quite in the mood to overthrow the United
States government so he closed his eyes tight as a clam and
pretended he was in the titantic. thought of the water icy
as a snow angels blowjob and just sort of got that falling feeling
in his stomach. With closed eyes there was no world but a mind.
and what a glorious world that is.

the sun revolves around the earth there.
you could fall off the edge if you
rode your ship to the tight pink hugging
purple horizon.
everyone fell in love and won an oscar for
their outstanding performance.
applause rises like bethoveens 8th and he can
hear it. He can hear everything. Hes talking and
laughing as he gets chills from giving chills; contagious
like AIDS, contagious like love bugs and hiccups.
with eyes closed one can't die. Nothing can't harm you
in a dream. Mom used to always whisper that when the nightmares
lined up like rotting, dead fish along the rotting, dead shores.

He missed his stop with a smile on his face.
When he finally opened his eyes, it burned like
stepping out of a drawn-out movie into the kicking,
screaming, rabid mid-day sun.
The world and all its fleas are nothing but
a ball of clay rolling between a quickly dying
mans fingers.
the buffet of faces sat across from him, next to him,
and he couldn't find it within himself to believe that none
of them had ever seen a ghost.