Loud Guitar

The seeming grown woman

goes for a thirty nine year old

guitar playing bad boy. It’s how

he plays—not who he is. He doesn’t

know that yet. And the woman

gives out jobs that’s what she does

she has always given out jobs

This Madame of Music

treating whores as artists

artists as whores.

Where are the drugs? The booze? The yelling

in the speakeasy, the flash of the knife?

They are lost in stories, but

the Madame of the Music

gives out jobs

despite the fact she knows that

lovers go to other rooms

and whisper their secrets

over other wooden tables

with initials carved into the surfaces

with butter knives.

— Elizabeth Swados 

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I walked through the cavern

of the mall in Abu Dhabi.

I was as layered as if I was

a scientist in the Antarctic

in winter.

Pants under a dress.

A long sleeved shirt over the

top of the dress.

A scarf around my neck. Everything but elbow length gloves.

Respect for Muhammad’s culture.

Two men in their dresses and head

scarves

slid next to me and

purposely bumped into my side

as if we were doing a sixties dance.

They didn’t laugh. They simply walked on.

I wanted to dash after them and

scream “Why am I dressed like a

toddler in her first snow storm if you

treat me like a whore anyway?”

But I turned and stepped out the

glass door into

the flat inexpressive heat.

respect for Muhammad’s culture.

— Elizabeth Swados 

Poor Hudson Boy

Poor Hudson Boy

No one I know

ever sank with a ship,

but I heard of a boy with a guitar

who smoking pot

laced with powders

misunderstood the

words of the current

and tipped on the rocks

while, with lifeless arms,

was taken under like minnows

sucked into a riptide.

And, no more to sing,

reappeared as empty

a floating red and black flannel shirt

the guitar a shattered bow

all the finish rubbed off

raw wood

like a cross in a bombed out

wooden church.

— Elizabeth Swados 

Time change

My stomach is in New York
My mouth in Abu Dhabi
My sneakers walk unsteadily on
Sidewalks that shift like sand
My ears ring.
The distance between myself and
Those to whom I speak
Has grown
And there’s that hum again.
Only chocolate bridges the gap.
To get out of bed in the morning is to
Feel disappointment and confusion like
Blankets that are too heavy and hot.

My stomach is in New York
My mouth in Abu Dhabi
My sneakers walk unsteadily on
Sidewalks that shift like sand
My ears ring.
The distance between myself and
Those to whom I speak
Has grown
And there’s that hum again.
Only chocolate bridges the gap.
To get out of bed in the morning is to
Feel disappointment and confusion like
Blankets that are too heavy and hot.

— Elizabeth Swados

Romance

 doesn’t really seem

 that bad to me

 adam & eve

 expelled from eden

 they had each other

 if god really had it in

 he would have expelled one

 made the other stay

 but then

 forever apart

 there would have been no kids

 end of story

 what would god do

 for entertainment?

By Peter Jones 

Making Love with Solitude

I lie alone,
                 but not quite.

 
a touch,
a sound’
a glimpse…

 
It is dark,
               But not quite.

 
I feel my heart
struggling to beat
through your fingers
scrunched up in a fist
of your hand.

 
my heart in your fist.
your fist in my gut,
my gut in my throat.
my throat…is dry.
…so dry…
              from the screams it couldn’t scream,
                         the words it  wouldn’t speak,
                         the songs it didn’t sing.
              and the laughter…silenced.  

 
My bed is empty.
My heart is cold.
My body is trembling,
against your hold.

 
Your hold tightens.
an embrace..? 

 
I am wrapped in you.
You seep into me,
        course through me,
        running inside me,
        bombarding against me,
you settle, within me.

 
I am sleeping with you, 
                         within you.
You are growing inside me.
growing, breeding. breeding, growing.

 
I roll over,
pull my blanket to my chin
and open my eyes.

 
I am lying beside you,
in the darkness…
            alone!
 
— Saheli Khastagir

A Romeo's Comeuppance

Coming toward young Tony now

it’s the husband and his wife,

the older woman from last night,

the one he danced with New Year’s Eve 

while downing Heinekens and shots of Jack,

the one he didn’t know was married.

She told him he was tall for just 16

and that he danced like Fred Astaire. 

But now it’s noon on New Year’s Day 

and thumping off young Tony’s face, 

the husband’s fist strikes a note  

truer than the band last night.

Falling backward like a slab, 

Tony sees the golden halo of the sun 

swirl until it disappears.

Later on the gurney, Tony never hears

the doctor give the nurse his diagnosis, 

“a Romeo’s comeuppance, not to worry.”

— Donal Mahoney

Untitled

Wake me

in paroxysms of twilight

Its soft voice

under the trees

Spent beams

quivering in a dim arc

above faded stone

Guide me

along moss-bejewelled

thoroughfares 

heraldic frescoes

of silver and blue

Let me kneel at the river’s edge

rake my fingers

through incandescent loam

Wake me

where threadbare pennons

from gothic bowers dangle

Lift me

with mornings untamed requiem

Wake me

among the dead lamps reclusive bleeding

Wake me in the twilight.

—  Jason Alan Wilkinson

To A Circadian Rhythm

The sky is ever deliquescent

moulting ephemeral

sanguine pins

a juggernaut dancing gloveless

in the architecture

beyond torpid hostelries

words unravel characters

fall and blackened men

construct gauzy daydreams 

neath a long, silent carapace

:spawning dark agents

Meadows basque

purblind and bliss-weary

travellers on the damp leaves

restored by Summer’s fawning bouquet

sprawl among those unabbreviated pastures

to catch the whim of its lingering breath

Along the floss windows blush

their scarlet panes like burnished flowers

Eyes maladjusted to Dawn

her pale torch crowning the heavens

flutter before a cascade of sharpening light

Where druids gleaned laconic wisdom

through a dusky flame

and the now derelict

moss-covered spires

with footsteps rang

Where voices trapped amid fluted yarn

spun hircine dreams

a cobbled web now

reaches to the sea..

—  Jason Alan Wilkinson

Death Of The Sitcom: An Abjuration

Never shall I argue with hinges

forgetting the lurid anatomy of Daybreak

under flannel

nor gather silhouettes at eventide

sewn among tempestuous, vernal plaits

Where fields of dross are beaten

I cast no searching eye

no shadows in the blackening paddock

no airs to vaunt my weightless claim

Beneath lambent waters

my rhythm is coiled

unguided by this cryptic trance of Living

I dance upon the wet stones

To beg the wind its insuperable mercies

baiting starlit peaks

with rubicund idylls 

hermitic sang froid

to raze their hoary-crested diadems

Alas, where faint beams rattle

The proscenium waves tantrically

Sped on to delirium

by the click of a silvern hasp

a bare foot

through tall-flowered esplanades

paler than gravity.

—  Jason Alan Wilkinson

The Friars Of St. Joseph

Used to walk around in leather

earthen crewel powdering flagstones

diseased traffic

exchanging whispers

They had a rectory garden

shaped like the olde cross

with helices emanating 

from its prismatic centre

Unpainted benches

intimate a frangible diadem

-lolled neath spires of auburn and jade

The church bell’s terse, metered prose

beyond rumpled wainscoting 

deciduous flora

mouthed in a turbulence of chimes

held the ear as if by fetters

Darning Time round their lone orbit

hemming the quilted grass

advancing in pairs

robed men trace

gullies of iron

From blithe hollows

whom eulogize the Earth

with tremulous ablutions

unspoken murals

invoke ebullient hermitage

They pass among sophic boughs

mantic spines of luminosity

They graze demurely

chiding the lascivious heat

guided by song.

— Jason Alan Wilkinson

hu mbug

hu
mbug
 
we  run
past neighbors
chasing wayfaring cats
relieving displays of light
overturning trash receptacles
deflating Santa and his reindeer
alone at the table
mom rips open envelope
after envelope demanding
immediate payment for health
coveragelatefeesoverdraftscellphones
will there be no presents for loved ones
dad’s RC planes skim
oil prospects with the potential
 to cover bills and pollute ground water
perhaps it would be better to remain unemployed
yet without fuel how will children return home for the holidays
in  the  end
we all wind
up in cages
 
but oh!
 
a friends turns
to join us on the path

— Barbara Steinhauser

At Stepford Jewelers

If it snows on Christmas

I’ll get it all for free

Every glittery gem

Gold bangle

Teardrop earring

I’ve maxed out everything I own

On the line for nature’s miracle

Of snow as white

As the pearls I’m holding

If it snows on Christmas 

I won’t be that 99 percent

I’ll be occupied

Never wanting for another thing

Finally worth my weight in gold

— Frieda Babbley 

Ebenezer’s Christmas Card

So what the dickens! Calling me a scrooge
for thrift and working like an honest man?
Do I employ a shameless subterfuge
to outsource Cratchit’s job so that I can
secure myself obscene amounts of wealth?
The money that I have is what I earned
by honest enterprise and not by stealth.
In fact, it’s from your ethics that I learned
that no one gives you anything in life.
Isn’t that what industry’s about?
I ceded pleasure and potential wife
to earn not near the money that you flout
conspicuously with transparent pride,
while most in your constituency bide 
 
privations that would make this miser blush
from shame. You like to fabricate straw dogs
to pummel while you unctuously gush
out festive carols by your yuletide logs!
Yet all the time you’re feathering your nest 
and leave it to the poorer of your peers
to borrow funds from their retirement chest 
in order to partake of Christmas cheer.
And so what if I loathe commercialized
indulgences that lure us into stores 
so credit unions can be subsidized 
with interest rates that annually soar?
It’s true I didn’t have to be a scrooge.
But, being so, prevented a deluge  

 
of bailouts jeopardizing all you banked 
upon to comfort you in future years.
That caring sprit you deem sacrosanct,
and Dickens touts when Marley’s ghost appears?
I didn’t see too much of it when I 
was left alone to scramble for myself,
beset with longings most folk satisfy.
Nor did my stocking on a mantelshelf 
solicit Christmas cheer and merriment
that you could ill afford. For you denied
me love who, even now with smug content,
berate me for my bitterness and snide 
behavior. You ignored a sad youth’s plight 
that would have cost you nothing to set right 
 
beyond that Christian charity you boast 
about when reading my creator’s book. 
What’s more, no grouch can entertain a ghost
unless he has the empathy to look
inside himself. For ghosts just haunt a heart 
receptive to the warmth that lay within.
And after all I played my paltry part 
in emulating Him who’s free from sin.
But I still get a table in the rear
when I set out at night to eat my meal. 
Alone, I add! For it’s just once a year
that relatives emotionally feel 
some kinship with a grump set in his ways.
This notwithstanding, Happy Holidays!

 
— Frank De Canio

- HUFF AN' PUFF (AN' HUM YOUR BUG DOWN) -

Say, ever spy a

dragon-fly off stick-‘em die

paper or lull a

cry’s baby deep to sleep when

thirst begs like a gadget sans

AA’s includ’d

the Yurman’s a Swarovski

knocked-off a shelf @

JC Twenty’s, ornaments

look like pretty credit cards…?

is this the snow what’s

befallen you Nick!? It’s the

Twelve Days afore, yep

Christmas an’ the ‘X’ marks your

bottom line’s musijoy ‘til…

{Oh come let us

 (deplore? abhor? pejor? ignore? adore?)

IT, Wharmart the lord}

next February

whence again, Wenceslaus, the

hamster wheel’s chocolate

pellets hardly heart hearty

for your XX marked betrothed

{Oh come let us

(deplore? abhor? pejor? ignore? adore?)

IT, Wharmart the lord}

                       H.e.m.-H’H.

                       12.12.MMxi.

                        ST

I better not pout

All I want

to wrap before Christmas

are my thoughts around

the present

and how it does not 

have to be adorned

with lights and

mistletoe is not

needed for me

to want to kiss you

in the cold white darkness

of that winter’s night 

when Santa

runs himself ragged

fulfilling his 

FedEx-like magic 

trying to please

the precious little ones

who believe in him

enough to leave

him cookies 

of innocence

before the 

crackling fire

of truth

burns

their letters 

to the North Pole

to embers

— Ivan Jenson 

quicksilver people

      there’s this group from Brooklyn

                   gangster guys

                         with 30’s music

           and spike jones washboard

     squeeze horns   rapid fire notes

                    razzle dazzle

                          and he tips his hat

                                    plays his body

          like the bevy of instruments he juggles

                 no wasted motion

                            and

                              keaton

                                    chaplin

                                          this guy

                            skin and bone and muscle       

       they make their own music

                like water over Niagara

                      they glisten

                            dance

                                and never ever can stop

— Carol Hamilton 

Lamentations

His mission was to grieve.
He came into the world with wailing
at the ready, never shed it.
The reasons were a laundry list
in those days, ones every housewife
could claim, but didn’t.
He fingered his beads, slid them
back and forth on the abacus
with a practiced speed.
True loss came at last,
and now the hunched back grows,
the weight multiplies,
and the dolorous leaves of lost color
drift down, clumped in the pond
with its still surface. When I saw him
last, still handsome, the laugh lines
had not deepened, and the intervals
between his fasts grow shorter
each day.

— Carol Hamilton 

Shape Shifting

                   Prism.  Starlight.

                   Bumptious morning.

                   A poem.  A song.

                   Our words together

                   one to one.  We build

                   with this mortar.

                   Earth’s plates rub, grind.

                   We pass, put on garments all new.

— Carol Hamilton 

A Quiet Life

          The simple elegance of it.

          Does Robert Hass live it?

          I think not but could be wrong.

          His black and white eyes

          on the back of the book

          reflect twin Chinese junks

          drifting into golden ripples

          at sunset.  I was to have met

          him once but didn’t.  Instead

          I stayed in the old monastery

          where he would have stayed,

          perhaps in the very room.

          The grotesque Purépechan masks

          glared from the white of patio walls.

          Esperanza had silver moon steps,

          flat despair on her stitched-together

          face, a soft voice to tell

          of the accident, deft hands.

          She could not read the note I left her.

          Her fresh spinach soup was

          of the world’s greenest green.

          Today the brittle interlace

          of the old elm’s branches

          barely stirs against cloudless blue.

          The refrigerator is old, too, and hums.

— Carol Hamilton