ISSUE #1 TEN POETS, TEN POEMS

How Could I Feel Alone With So Many Imaginary Friends?

Today
I walked through the Eastside Neighborhood park
on my way to grab a free cup of coffee from the grocery store.
I hadn’t been there for a couple years.
The big cottonwood tree still keeps watch
over the ghosts of children past
that are now doctors nurses teachers
garbage men bartenders and bag boys.
The tether ball chain still pings against the pole.
I was thinking about how bad things are right now
and how hungry alone and blind I am.|
If life is what you make it
I’ve created a monster
and I use too many cliches
because they are proven to work.
I sat under the gazebo and remembered
when I had no place to go
I’d shoot cocaine here
under the stars
finding my vein by the light of the moon
my ears ringing
chewing my tongue
talking to people that weren’t actually there
about how I would be somebody
and they agreed with me
but first I needed
one more hit.
Oh how invisible I really was.
I grabbed my coffee and walked away.
I didn’t say a word.
The stars were coming out
it was a good time to go home.

Jason “Juice” Hardung

Blowjob

at sixteen i walked down Sunset Blvd. knowing i owned the world
but not caring for anything of substance

and

found a crack-whore who sucked my cock for five bucks
her broken teeth tucked back behind peeling lips
her frayed tongue working my piss slit, veins, and balls

and

cumming in her throat without a thought or worry, or passing
fascination with her next destination

that night i walked into my girlfriends house, my soul on fire

and

her lips worked the same cock in the same way but when
i left five dollars on her sofa i noted…

nothing really changed

Jack Henry

Wristwatch

wouldn’t it
be funny
as hell
if we
as adults
returned
to our
childhood
wardrobe

imagine
yr 39 year old
shape
strutting
down 5th avenue
in yr canary yellow,
“HERE
COMES
TROUBLE”
t-shirt
or shopping
for groceries
in yr blue & gray
camoflauge
“I
DON’T
TAKE
ORDERS
I
GIVE
THEM,”
hoodie

it’s totally funny
& totally untrue
b/c the person
that wore
those clothes
no longer exists
that boy
or girl
has been broken
into submission
by parents,
teachers,
cops,
judges,
lawyers,
nay-sayers,
etc

today’s t- shirt
would read,
“NOT
LOOKING
FOR
TROUBLE,”
and the hoodie
would proclaim,
“YES
SIR.
SORRY
SIR.
RIGHT
AWAY
SIR.”

every
shred
of anarchy
you possessed
as a child
has been
chipped away
replaced
by
a
time-bomb
strapped
to
your
wrist

and
it’s
ticking

Wolfgang Carstens

I Would Never Let You Down

I would never let you down

he was singing those words

in the morning

opening the door into

the dark rooms

I would never let you down

he was singing

as he reached

into his dirty pockets

pulled out 2 bags of dope

a bag of coke

he was holding his Budweiser

he was singing
I would never you down

Puma Perl

Ending Our Relationship

All these roads I want
to cover with dirt, travel

by horse, Eastwood scowl

in the middle of eighteen

chimpanzees riding ponies

and grinding cigars

with yellow teeth

red eyes glaring like mars

amongst all that black fur

my chest open to the sun

before I find her

and do the snake thing

coil

coil

share the bottle with my clan

then let the eighteen have their way

with her all at once

gang ape rape while I stand

outside, back to the window

moon grinning retarded down on me

screams beating my drums, stroking

my black horse; a tear trickles

into the corner of my mouth

and I swallow it like vodka, cringe

mount and ride off with the eighteen

daffy monkeys jumping with the footfalls of their ponies.

See you around

lady.

Mathias Nelson

My Father, Kafka

Here’s an old photo of my father
eerily alone on a city street,
he’s as slim as a novella
and dark as a gypsy prince,
he looks like Kafka,
thick, black hair slicked back
and comet-bright eyes,
the wariness of someone
suddenly summoned to appear
at such and such a time
at such and such a place,
the Workers’ Accident Insurance Institute
for the Kingdom of Bohemia,
and he’s on his way there now,
hands thrust deep in his pockets
as if to hide certain injuries,
but, of course, this is not K,
and that is not Prague behind him,
and I am not born.

Howie Good

Two For The Show

Hey punk
let’s forget these idiots
and run away to Holland and get fat
and drink red wine and smoke hash
and middle eastern cigarettes
we can find a hip little college town
i can teach drama and you can teach history
and the kids will nickname us after famous indians
i’ll be Geronimo and you’ll be Cochise
and we’ll invite them over to drink coffee and talk about art
and we’ll have this really kick ass house designed by a local genius
right before he was committed to an asylum
and an architecture magazine will come take pictures
and a famous french pornographer
will pay us to shoot in the garden
and an old hippy woman, with really long grey hair,
will keep track of our appointments
and cook on the weekends
and her Japanese husband will tend the grounds
and drive us around in our shitty 1974 Mercedes
with the black diesel smoke coming out the back
and the paint faded by the sun
and the locals will wonder why we have a chauffeur
for such a shitty car
but the kids will think it’s cool.

Doug Baldwin

Small Black Hearts

we wear small black hearts pinned to our chests
like medals, we borrowed them from children
we were and other corpses we knew,
and mothers taught us to preserve them

in self-righteousness and pretense,
religiosity and death, stony little nipples
we pin to our breasts for devils to suckle,
food for dead ghouls like us;

fools permanently out of fucking luck

David McLean

Another Man’s Wife

blond and stunning
i am breathless of course

i am silent

which is something i

sometimes do

awkward

the moment will end

never to be repeated

a song on the radio

snow on the

television screen

small explosions wherever

skin touches skin

jon sweet