Waggle and Jounce

Out on the lake
the whitecaps leap,
old lions shot in midair.
Not far from the water
I sit on a knoll
and open your letter.


You're in Sacramento now
singing for money.
Here in Chicago,
on hot August nights,


I lick in my dreams
at the scoops
in your shoulders.
I prefer them to ice cream.


Next week I'll fly out
and salute your nipples.
Long may your buttocks
waggle and jounce.


Donal Mahoney


From The Forest

In another moment
it will all be over.
On this winter night
her breast will slip
from her blouse
like a fawn, in spring,
from the forest.


Donal Mahoney


Nutmeat

My dear, tell me again so I know
how it would have been
had you married the man

you dream of all day, tell me again
as I lie next to you now,
your nutmeat sweet in my mouth.

Tell me again so I know
how to feel for fathering five
on you fast, five in six years,

five who will never be quiet again
in our lives, five who will leave
in the night when they are of age

while up in our room I nibble
on nutmeat, proud to have traded
an oak for these acorns

Donal Mahoney

Donal Mahoney, a native of Chicago, lives in St. Louis, Missouri. He has worked as an editor for The Chicago Sun-Times, Loyola University Press and Washington University in St. Louis. He has had poems published in or accepted by The Wisconsin Review, The Kansas Quarterly, The South Carolina Review, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Commonweal, Public Republic (Bulgaria), Revival (Ireland), The Istanbul Literary Review (Turkey), Rusty Truck, Deuce Coupe, Opium Poetry 2.0, Asphodel Madness, Calliope Nerve, Pirene's Fountain (Australia) and other publications.

Gary Snyder Receives 10th Annual Robert Creeley Award

Brian Hardie

says:
I am 25 years old and I have been writing passionately since the age of seven. I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. I now reside in southeast Portland. I have been published in over 50 small press journals/E-zines including The Pebble Lake Review(Houston, TX), Conceit Magazine(San Fransisco, CA), AMULET, Hudson View(NYC/South Africa), Decanto(UK), Ditchpoetry.com(Canada), SALiT Magazine(International), DaveJarecki.com, WordSlaw.com, CynicMagazineOnline.com, VAZ!NE, Down In The Dirt Magazine, Expressions Online Literary Journal, Theinquisitionpoetry.com(Nevada), Lone Stars Magazine, Pure Francis, BLAZE VOX, and Angel Exhaust(UK). I read annually at the 3 day Unregulated Word Poetry Festival in Kansas City alongside S.A. Griffin, and Scott Wannberg, among others. I have written a book titled "Manic Romantic" in which I plan to self publish this summer, if no one else decides to. I have also been a musician for 16 years, recorded 4 records, one noise/spoken word album, and have toured the country playing music.

I hope you enjoy the work that is presented here. My favorite color is red, I guess.

QUICKIE IN THE PHOTO BOOTH
Treasures guide the intake to the sink to vomit fuck my over intake. Directly after making a mix of songs that treasured the act of being told to listen.(THE THE THE!!!)(get it out yet?!) The rocks floating under the water spill. Proven that I moan to nothing but the moment the sensation of rain fallen onto black eyes needed a moment to be alone or stones would be thrown by the blind. And that feels all. Right center in the cirlce. The love thickens with it feeling the complacent glares of thrashing lungs around. Smoking dignified for the records that I listen to while I type out this thing of said things. They make no result for the reader to ponder. The being though here ponders fragile frustrations. That is the feeling of how I am standing in a position to lay bullets deep in my revision of no attempt. In something with the way she moves beautifully? Coating my movement to a stand still? Facebook wont relieve me anymore because I request friendship from girls I try to forget about. Enough of the relapse and sleeping pill numbing. I do not wish to be here all the time like I am. Have is to be able to become. Not sure of where my dreams and losses to bring afloat went aware of. A few lines later that I have confessed. On the street. Love. Stupid words. Stupid sentences. Stupid things to read around the fire. My fire above the crippled crotch. Photographs of the beach and with her swinging hair her fingers pushing me away off into shore. Please adapt and see where I am in the wave. Crashing. Please. I am not writing to convince to impress or to reach the land where treasures scare me of delight. I am figured between confusion from actions that have made a guilt flare into a reflection of starless skies. So scared to curse her way even though it is again. And I feel that time comes close to the reality of me crying to sleep. Fuck your need of me to give something you would relate. Maybe you could relate that I dont even know where I am coming into. An abstract journalist documenting the neuro movements of confusing questions. Me. History non-intentionaly making a flag woven without stressing the deadline to make nothing alive. Me. Live from the lightening stage. The living memory begins to fade. Entrance of the words that make no sense. I remembered my appointment when I was later than expected. Record player needing a needle. Walking thin lines dished out of the cocaine compost. Sex heard through the house and walls built so thin standing. I think he used to be recovering from something now that I think of it. Question. Random pop in the laughter of culture and lasting warmer moments. Roaming around with noises. Had my share of spills in the well. To do drugs for the sake of art and positions under the table. I cant wait for the want to have you back to return when I have forgotten. Crawling back into my arms. It being time to clean what I cannot see through. All alone we blink underestimated. Tears falling on spilling roads leading to the mall. Stores lined up in song and reason with jabbering mouths presenting to you when arrival is buried head first. Still linking together to hopefully not miss one more plane crashing. But I know its my own damn fault. I was doing drugs in your seven eleven. Dealing them while I blew the man in the back. Echos drowning the drone of memory no text book would be written to deal with the reason being... you are a stupid ass bitch. The like of a Leo purring in your weep. Memory was sparked today when I went and saw the acting doctor, sitting in his chair while he became agitated with me in knowing I was lying about everything in my language. Just trying to bring out the mexican chemist in him. I cry in lies with lies and blaming to be the one that will not forgive me for understanding too early. Without it here. In the maze. Out of the maze. Into it, I believe it. I am all love and hopped in the turn of my tense struggle to bring you back. So if you could, selfless, please come, the fuck, back.


PREDICTION
The prediction of the table cloth friend bust. Trucker look with the friends. The actioning of last night loaded down heavy onto the change of pace in the machine bloopers. Tangled freshly with the younger ladies training the jaded fist shakers. Original text of the document recording now the wrists beating gently into the vastness of the music treated. And in the face of the same setting always bringing in strangers, now the headlines are bold in the only glance displaying the interest of lips that awoke the the surfacing outcome. Experimental politic. Picture of neck warming collapse in the spikey whisker. Smoking the fish of barging salt water seasons. The boys say the water runs dry when you make the plan to play the cross country expectant. Terrible lie of the coughing new year choking the flyer hand outs. The beginning of the munchy dispair is equal to the paper bag burning with matter soiled, vegabond of the crowded room. The comments process an image erased to funnel. To the being of every call needs to get it. From where we need to start, call upon. From there of up to us make the fracture of control.


And yesterday I aproached the chophouse in reluctance of further more swapping sips with the fellows of my latitude and feet trembles. The same words produce and keep the narrator and reader in a like state of cycles vicious. Only the same point of plot is no where to bring the rememberance of mispelled aspirations. The caring of rott inna bundle imagines what vision would proclude in size. Producing a projected thought is and will never hold the responsibility of blaming the landslide. With of it everything rattling inside the mindset of cruelty with it of no present remark. Oh my god the strings to pull a cramp to light, something more poor of better days to be cumbersome, railing the lines of the downstairs fright to flight, facility rapid down fall into the bloop of the nothing surrounding all happening. Perfection in the slashes received without warning or presumptious faith failing, lips twist on the stud stump strut of the victory sector. Build the venue upon happening this week. Period. Art slash date the hot center auctioning the donated musician. Playing some time throughout the time wonderful thankful. Talking to the lot of them. Editing the roles used to be of a lot of those people. Name stated of the clown. Respected question of the odd fare walking to the morning host of assummed cornered following with a spike light. One, laugh, get, involved. No comment, I am, invested happy. Sweet underneath.


PLACE. HOMELESS STRUM.
Oh, and to the memory, willing again like a neurotic mother seeing her son as husband, saying you broke her heart. Well laughs are the headliner before sorts tonight, you fucking haven debt. Mayonaise seeps a stink into your egg shell finger tips. I am firing back alike, bitch, so fucking dig it with your fashion of time before the mistake of your popping out of a regretful cunt comes to blacken your lustful eyes. And oh yep I guess I could not get to the point of resurrecting your fucking shit and all I have to say are things with every word before them being fuck. With innnggs to ring out the entrance of the bland big yes of bland moving back and forth trying to find the forked miss happening. Hustle the naked shaking of hands. Hurry to put the world at an end. Fire set in all places bombs drop to be guilty. Made from the solid strips of tension. From out of the box I write into the air. Solemn air that clusters the fucks I am not afriad to say here because this is my page and it speaks with many losses and hurts so much to even remember that I have no fucking clue as to why I even feed this to be the cause of the reason to me fucking coming here lost again! What do I say without a notebook to scribble? My canvas this? Oh I scream to that of a god! Young and tempered I will rewind to this when I am dead. And no I will not. Fucking to your lack of end I will fucking not. Late night boredom like a dramatic faggot. I'm the technological strut of someone that actually does not know a fucking thing. I'm the heroin leeking into muscle when veins were bursting with a hunger to bruise. Yeah. Fuck. You.


Now remain very quiet. This haunt will already tempt you to speak. My jacket not a fashion to crumble. Pick up and end where it was to be started. The varying battle rewound to the spot you started at the end of the year. The wretched suprise knowing why. So dont even fucking ask you fucking idiot. Loud into the noise of god. Southern songs bringing into a picture of passion. Sing it, baby. Convinced my life is over and clearly crazy. A smirk at the last remark, for it is so to be true. The things gotten into back home. Leaving the guilt to trail to where you go collecting for gathering the game. You ran away after conquering and resided to your pride you left behind while you were with me. The academic breakdown. Nice in the way it sounds. Now fall down really hard, sucker love. In time and space something borrowed and leaving hurt behind. What I want I need protection from.


Ha to the ha said the other withered willing doctor. Late night strums of the guitar when all is said and done; homeless strums.

CONVERSATION
"can i give you a
 quarter for a cigarette?"
"now, man. no. you probably
 need it for more to drink.
 here."
"ah, oh, yes. thank you."
"this is probably the reason
 we dont talk anymore."

TODD MOORE

Today BEATNIK heard the sad news of the death of Outlaw poet Todd Moore. Details are sketchy as of yet, but I'll add more when I get it.

Right now I'll offer my view, which is that Todd was a poet with a really distinctive style and voice, another, like Dave Church, who will be in the respectable anthologies one day, when the big publishing houses realise they can't just get poetry from their own editors and expect it to be vital and interesting.

He was always gracious in my own dealings with him, too, though editors of small time poetry blogs must be as annoying as tiny summer flies.

Joe Speer

A Change of Routine

     The Investigating Magistrate asked Mr. Eugene Groat to explain the circumstances of his outbreak. Groat talked loudly, making wide circular motions with his arms. The magistrate listened, wrote in his file, and said “Start before the troika appears.”

     “Maybe if I start before the fight. It might help explain.”
     “Please do,” said the investigator, “start at the beginning.”
     “I’m not sure where to begin. I’m usually told what to do. When I was young my parents told me what to do. Teachers at school told me when to do it. In the work place the boss and company policy told me how. I never had to think for myself, you see. Without direction the only places I know to go are the public library and grocery store.
     “I had a job in a bookstore. Then one day the manager got onto me about zoning my area instead of reading from random books. My spleen turned mauve. That same day I had a dispute with a co-worker. Yeah, I raised my voice a few decibels. I was fired that day.
     I was distraught so I called a friend from work. He asked, “What happened? I heard you wigged out.”
     “Oh, my emotions are overthrown!”
     I told him I'm reading “The Brothers Karamazov“. It makes me so agitated and resentful. It really bothers me because Dmitri is sentenced to twenty years in Siberia .The patricide he is accused of he didn’t even commit. I think the father's rigor mortis is a cleansing of the community. He is a dissolute no-count money lender. Granted, we can’t have people on a busting heads spree, but the old viper used his son’s inheritance to coax his own girlfriend away from him. The old bugger had 3,000 rubles with her name on it. I’m outraged over all this injustice. The whole situation has crossed the line into my everyday life. It caused the scene in the bookstore. I asked him what I should do with myself and he said I could do whatever I wanted. I thanked him and hung up.
     This advice put my life in a new perspective. I was excited and rushed about the apartment doing whatever I wanted. I piled books all over my bed and urinated in the sink. I felt free, but knew I would have to test myself to see if it was a true feeling. I could feign in my own apartment because no one was watching. I had to go out into the street and see what would happen.
     I promised myself for the rest of the day no one would tell me what to do.
     I hadn’t gone anywhere for a long time. I became excited about just exploring different parts of the city. I left the apartment and when I got to the street corner I encountered my first test - a red stop light.
     Here, already I was being told what to do by an innate object. I thought about crossing the street, but I cowered, the cars were rapid and it looked like they would not stop for a misplaced bibliophile. I pretended to search the ground for lost change. But that was only kidding myself. Besides, it was only a red light, a stupid machine, and it didn’t count because I could smash the lights out if I wanted. It was only people I wasn’t going to listen to. The light changed green and I crossed the street.
     I tell you I was angry with the judgment against Dmitri. All the brothers knew who killed their father. I'm so sorry Ivan has brain fever. He is so brilliant, having conversations with the devil and such. After walking several blocks I saw a woman leaning against a doorway. Round, bulging breasts, thrust out onto the sidewalk, loosely fitting sack dress smiling and touching herself. She asked if I wanted a date. She put her hand on my chest, undid a couple of buttons, and began to massage my stomach. Smiling, she told me to go upstairs with her. I refused. Well, she wasn’t really telling me what to do. She just moved her hand down past my navel and led me through the doorway by my belt. A man inside said I had to pay twenty dollars for the room. I refused.
     He looked angrily at me, but the girl smiled him away. I followed her up a staircase and into a little room. There was a single bed against the wall, threadbare chenille spread lay on the mattress. She told me to take my clothes off. I refused.
     Her hand went to my zipper as I stood looking at putrid stains and yellow spots. She inserted her fingers into my back pocket and moved into me with her hips. I stood looking at a crack in the wall, my arms dangling flaccidly at my sides. She was perturbed and asked what was wrong with me.
     Suddenly two men burst in through the door. They were big with padded shoulders, sleeves rolled up, scowling beetle-browed. One of the men asked me what was I doing with his wife. I asked what was she doing with me. He got angry and told me to give him all my money. I refused.
     They started after me and the woman coaxed them away. She told them I was crazy. They let me go and I hurried down the stairs and out into the street. A couple of small boys on the sidewalk pointed and laughed at me - small, impish, laughing through missing teeth. I pulled up my zipper and walked away.
     Several blocks on down the street I entered a bar. Dark, tinny music hung in the air, smoke floated over two-toppers, sounds of glasses clicking, and ice drinks stirring, audible under music. I sat on a stool at the bar and ordered a Harvey Wallbanger.
     Two men in suits were next to me talking in low voices but I couldn’t help overhearing parts of what they said. One man said the heist was set for ten o'clock that night and the only people they had to worry about were on his payroll ... he stopped suddenly. I looked in their direction and they were staring at me. The larcenous big shot told me to move to another stool. I refused.
     He reached into his coat and the other man stayed his arm. He said I must be crazy and motioned with his head. They both walked away. I felt good, had been tested twice and found worthy, felt my brain expand, felt I could encompass the world, felt that space was not enough to contain me.
     I had a few more drinks and walked back out into the street. I cut through an alley and halfway through it I saw a gang of boys circled around someone crumpled on the ground. Fists were flying and blood streaming. I walked past them quickly and out through the other end of the alley.
     Back on the street I saw two men standing near a car. They looked about warily while prying at the door. I decided to circle the block so as not to pass them.. I walked in the direction of my apartment. The feeling of power was gone. I felt like I could no longer live in the world much less encompass it. The world was something inscrutable I wanted to forget. I wanted to close the door and be left alone. I was eager to get back to the quiet of my room. I had to finish the novel and see if there was a chance for Dmitri to escape. I walked on the opposite side of the street until I was about a block away from my apartment. I crossed in the middle of the block and saw the steps of my apartment and a troika appeared. A driver reined in the horses, leaned out, and asked if I thought Dmitri was guilty. He is innocent and why wouldn’t you believe the word of an ex-monk over circumstantial evidence. A hand touched my shoulder. I swung around and planted my fist in his throat. I stabbed him with my jackknife. Then I attacked another person. I struck out against the legal system’s misguided judgments. I hammered his head against a post.
     There were witnesses from my own apartment building. The police found me with a copy of “The Brothers Karamazov“. I just finished the part at the funeral where Dmitri talks about escape. It is a long shot but maybe he could be happy one day. That’s all there is to tell about my breakdown.”
     There was a noise at the cell door and the iron bars slid back. With notebook in hand the investigator walked out of the cell. The heavy door slammed closed and he said, “Just do what you are told and we won’t have any trouble.”

Dan Provost

Playing Grab-Ass With Bukowski’s Persona


Let’s face it; we all have been at some dive, preaching about morality, the surrealist, or Bush’s policy on Iraq while under the influence of alcohol. Anybody within earshot of our banter is usually either passed out, ignoring us while watching the Keno numbers appear, or relating a story about the jungles of Vietnam.

We all got it from Charles Bukowski.

Old Charlie would probably be rolling in his wine cellar grave if he saw all the poets who are trying to play grab-ass with his persona. He was the original; the one who, when you first read, caused you to jump from your Pro Keds and say “YES…this is the one who has me pegged”.

So we (and I include myself in this group) justify our hatred for the common by drinking beer or wine and staggering home to fulfill our observations on the computer or trusty old notebook-usually with awful results.

How many times have you awoken and see that the hack you wrote in your drunken stupor was superficial garbage, a Bukowski rip-off that Charles himself would say was a piece of shit.

Yes, I’ve done it-hundred of times and probably will do it a hundred times more.

Legends die hard, and in the world of underground poets—Charles was a hero, a god that looked into the eye of a damaged storm called life and said: “Fuck it, here I am and if you don’t like me too bad”.

Alas, Charles is gone and he ain’t coming back. His soul will not be visiting me or you or any of us trying to carry the mantle.



Never Seen


These things
Never seen

Want to be touched
But are whisked away

Into a wind of
emptiness—a spotless
Sense of road

Frowned upon
While great walls

House the terrible and the murky
Water flows down…so down

Things never seen behind
Old wood fences…mothers
Dresses held by clothes pins
On a warm October afternoon

Sun drifting fast but cannot be
Witnessed by those who will not understand.

These things never seen
Thought about, felt…
But never sighed and walked away with.

A slit in the early evening…

The tooth of an old man…

Dying after a lifetime of journeys.

J.D. NELSON

do gotta wuh

getcha slats inked up
like nike roaches
element'l (a)
rook socks rourke

eclipse

eating dharma leaves
with wild buddhists
at red feather lakes

tongue-hearted woman
needs a toad for a man

* * *

1,000 Hall & Oates Later

e-telling you to be awake
no mistakes with Christ fingers

(right sock on left ft)

my mask has hairs on it
sick of your news, America

were you an ant?
what're your hands fork?

convex or a high crack ILL in CT

why these same worse w--dd-zuh
worser'n what wha?

* * *

ancient seattle lime haiku

detail: hurried force of egg water
crackling void poem

bingo toads helping with salad

monster in a cave with radio brain,
noise tapes & zines

for amazing results consult your pharma.


bio/graf J. D. Nelson (b. 1971) experiments with words and sound in his subterranean laboratory. His bizarre poems and experimental texts have appeared in many small press and underground publications. Visit http://www.madverse.com/ for more information and links to hispublished work. His audio experiments (recorded under the name OWLBRAIN ATLAS) are online at http://www.owlnoise.com/. OWL NOISE 0, his album of experimental spoken word is available as a free download athttp://www.mediafire.com/owlnoise. J. D. lives in Colorado, USA.

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