Eric Chaet

FIGHT FOR YOUR SELF


Whether you live among patriarchal nomads
or in an urban monarchy or oligarchy of wealth
drenched in propaganda & hypocrisy
you have to fight for your self
or those who can
will keep or take everything you need from you—
but what is your self?
what do you need?
do you win the fight if you become one of the tyrants?
or the pet of some group of unbalanced neurotics?
if some referee proclaims you Champion?
if you sacrifice what you care most about
in order to survive without having to
protect the seed of it, cultivate it
in its most vulnerable, blind, invertebrate stages
&, so, thrive, prevail, stand out
among those who die along the way
& those who whine their way toward death
& those who are featured in the magazines
& interviewed on television & radio
& who command great fortunes & military forces
wreaking mayhem generation after generation
while making dignified proclamations to reporters—
did you fight for your self—
or did you surrender it without a fight?

Amit Parmessur: Three Poems

Naked Soldiers

The soldiers return

pride too large for their faces

the dust gyrates around their firm calves

They have imprisoned the sun in their guns

like the wheels of bicycles

flying flying flying down a smooth slope

They have released fire onto doomed enemies

the sunless sky becoming quite green

the battlefield is a battered field now

The soldiers return

livid inhaling and calm exhaling

muscles are sparkling, eyes rippling in victory

The soldiers return,

the triumphant bells ringing between their legs

Silly citizens dancing, marveled

Can the blind ask about missing clothes?

No one knows they have fought worms

the soldiers know the sun is in David’s tiny world

The Sleeping Peacock

I discovered a majestic peacock

lying comatose in my littered backyard,

with wet fingerish twigs on its neck.

I took it home and colors spilled

onto my hands and poured into

my eyes as I wiped at teardrops.

I placed the peacock on my bed,

talking it in back to life, stroking

its sleeping rainbows, its inert fan

of moist quills.

A few perfect circles were drawn

on the bedsheet as the bird tried

to stir and open its eyes. The night

was black when it died.

Every day I now dream of huge

peacocks pecking at my heart,

the weight of the birds pushing

me into the colorful abyss opening

in my bed; my cries killed by bloody

fingers creeping around my parched throat.

  

Melodious Globetrotting

I’ve been to Padua.

I’ve stood puckishly in front of the pianoforte,

punched it strongly and devoured its cute keys,

as if they were delicious, wondrous wafers.

I’ve been to Germany

I’ve grabbed the gorgeous gittare

and banged it against the wall and green carpet

I’ve been to Divje Babe.

I’ve taken my fine fingers and closed

the holes in the femur-like flute

until it choked and died.

I’ve been to Bermudas

I’ve shaped the gleaming triangle into

a bizarre square, and composed

a peppy John Deacon album

I’ve been to Cuba.

I’ve hanged the boisterous bongo drum

from the Cuban ceiling and

learned world-class boxing.

I’ve been the most brilliant musical criminal

For now, I’ll play the music

found in my inner self,

in my own paradise,

and you’ll find me dead in my bed, listening

to I’m Alive on repeat mode,

With a toothless Mona Lisa smile.

BIOGRAPHY: Aged 28, Amit Parmessur has been writing for the past 9 years. He has been accepted and appeared in several magazines including The Literary Burlesque, Yes Poetry, vox poetica, Leaf Garden Press, Ann Arbor Review, Burnt Bridge, Calliope Nerve, Catapult to Mars, Censored Poets, Clockwise Cat, Clutching at Straws, Damazine, Gloom Cupboard, Heavy Hands Ink, LITSNACK, Mad Swirl, Orchard Press Mysteries, Puffin Circus, Shalla Magazine, Shot Glass Journal, The Camel Saloon, The Houston Literary Review, The Scrambler and Word Slaw among others. Someone who has a deep respect for India, the land of his ancestors, he hails from the lovely Mauritius.

Eric Chaet

PALM SUNDAY

If Jesus hadn't gone to enemy territory
Jerusalem
where the 2 parties
Pharisees & Saduccees
had a near total monopoly on the discourse
like the conservatives & liberals do here, now
in cahoots with the Romans
with whom they were complicit
as the conservatives & liberals
are in cahoots with the financiers
who finance their campaigns, programs, & publications
to the exclusion of anyone
who might pose a real threat to them
& with the officer corps
& purveyors of weaponry
& covert operations, spy hard- & software, & propaganda---
he would never have made himself known
to everybody since
& he wouldn't have been killed---
but if he hadn't been killed
he would never have made himself known
to everybody since---
to the psychotics who imagine they are Jesus
or the so-called Christians who claim to follow Jesus
but who refuse to do as he proclaimed we all must
& to those of us who behave differently
because of the astounding words attributed to him
& the example of his totally audacious career
who refuse to associate ourselves with the Christians
of any sect
who refuse to be mere followers even of Jesus
who use what he said & did with great respect & gratitude
& who also use what others have said & done
& who try to fill in the rest for ourselves as best we can---
we hardly know how even to survive
within such terrible circumstances---
Jesus was as powerful
as the entire history of the Roman Empire
tho no more the Son of the Lord than you or I
& tho he didn't save us---
we have to save ourselves, that's what he said---
it seems to me that having to save ourselves never ends
until we die & can't save ourselves any longer---
if he hadn't gone to Jerusalem & been killed
we'd never have heard of him
he'd have been just another guy with an opinion
& someone else
probably from some other place
probably with a different set of ideas
would have filled the vacuum
& the entire history of the world would be different
there'd be no Christianity
no sincere Christians, no hypocritical Christians
there'd be sincere & hypocritical Something-Elsians
everything we do would be somewhat different
& the terms of the entire debate
among humanity
about the rich taking everything from the poor
which they call prudent economics & good management
& the poor being driven
desperately to behaving like dogs eating dogs
which they call common sense
& providing for their families & for retirement
saints would act & appear otherwise
also terrible tyrants
whether great political figures
or just guys who lose all patience & start killing people
would do what they do & appear otherwise---
if Jesus had not gone to Jerusalem
to proclaim who he considered he was & what he was doing
& if those who were complicit with the local Roman authorities
& the Roman authorities who were complicit with them
hadn't murdered Jesus of Nazareth.

Kenneth P. Gurney: Three Poems

 

Pisum sativum

If people stopped speaking over lunch

and, instead, spoke under lunch,

we would quickly spot

all the nefarious women

giving blow jobs 

for unspecified reasons

(ranging from sexual titillation

to some twisted submissive

domination passion play)

and we might be surprised

how many men copy that action

when their job is on the line,

at least, metaphorically, 

or watch their noses turn brown

(which is Braun in German)

over a conversation we might

mistake for sports talk

due to all the athletic figures of speech

and, if we looked out of the corners

of our eyes, we might see, as well,

all the shades of dogs who wish 

to be in this restaurant 

scarfing up (or down) tidbits

that fall from tables to the carpet—

like those three peas

that fell from your salad fork

on the way to your mouth.

 

Climate Change

We decided to plant oxygen 

on our farm next spring.

Even though dad argued 

in favor of hydrogen

believing hydrogen fuel cell cars

will be all the rage in a year.

So we worked out a little compromise

and planted the south field

with hydrogen, but there

was so much pollen drift 

caused by the west wind 

that about one half 

of the east field

harvested a flood.

 

She kept thistle seeds in her pocket

Unexpectedly, 

one hundred thousand

nude Barbie dolls

washed up on the shore

just down the beach

from the pier

where the beauty pageant

for eight year old girls

reached its 

crowning climax

and, incredibly,

the solitary sunbather

with the purple topped hair

absorbed by 

the Girl Who Kicked

the Hornets’ Nest

vanished just as

a wild horse galloped 

down the beach

scattering blond heads.

bio:  Kenneth P. Gurney lives in Albuquerque, NM, USA.  He edits the New Mexico poetry anthology Adobe Walls.  To view a full biography, publishing credits and available books visit http://www.kpgurney.me/Poet/Welcome.html

Stephen Jarrell Williams: Two Poems

GET ME TO THE RIOT

Get me to the riot
before they block the streets

I've got to see
what it's all come down to

night glowing in the distance
end of how it was

taxi stops to let me out
this is as far as he goes

roar behind the tall buildings
popping shots and screams

down the street rolling smoke
a man limping from the haze

his eyes swollen and lip bleeding
carrying a smoldering rag of a flag

I jump out of the cab
walk past him into the wave of smoke

coughing back to when the world was born
in a wink of fire.




THE BURN

My hat on fire

night sky watching my sputtering
in the tired crowd leaving the scene

smoke stains in our nostrils
hair heavy with soot and bloody knots

many arrested and dragged away in cuffs

heroes of the city
depleting the underground

another march tomorrow
until no more

rain washing the gutters clean

going to sleep in my cell
flames spreading from my pillow

igniting newborns.


Stephen Jarrell Williams loves to stay up all night and write with lightning bolts until they fizzle down behind the dark horizon.

Felino Soriano: Three Poems

Sought

Identified palm (lined fractions of whole emotion)

enwrapping tips of fully healed fingers

            touch of prior absence

condescends organic skeletal remaining focus

organizing reclaiming origins

                                                whose

desolate compartments fill with

isolated fondness.

Pages

        identify compliments with

recitation of body’s fragmented fictions.  Woven

reenactments

                        fractured thoughts of wandering realities

                                    cumbersome intuition the

reader designates fabricated hearsay. 

The Musician

Deliberate function, imagination

flowered compositions

rearranged regarding apathy’s

fundamental apprehension, aggregate.  Hands

isolate occupational gathering

strum of plucking guides

enabling vibratory faith

into a silent disappearance

walking into halls of a home’s

designated setting.

Felino A. Soriano (b. 1974) is a case manager and advocate for adults with developmental and physical disabilities. In 2010, he was chosen for the Gertrude Stein "rose" prize for creativity in poetry from Wilderness House Literary Review.  Philosophical studies collocated with his connection to various idioms of jazz explains motivation for poetic occurrences.  For information, including his 41 print and electronic collections of poetry, over 2,500 published poems, interviews, and editorships, please visit his website: www.felinoasoriano.info.

A.J. Huffman: Three Poems

If I Had Been Born In The Thirties

I could have been a Bukowski.

A Kerouac.

I could have traveled

cross-country.

Lived alone.

Worked odd jobs.

And slept in the dirt.

I could have had the balls.

I could have had the stamina.

If I had been born in the thirties.

If I had been born in the thirties

my writing could have been filled

with strange places.

Strange faces.

A groupie here.

A fan there.

And a few whores

(if you can label a man a whore --

I believe I can)

in between.

I could have smoked.

And drank.

And raised hell

with the best of them.

I could have.

I would have.

If I had been born in the thirties.

But.

If I had been born in the thirties

you could never have --

you would never have --

read these words.

If I had been born in the thirties.

I could never have held this space.

The Devil’s Plaything

Somewhere

in a forgotten corner

of a room

she calls hell,

a tiny angel

huddles closer

to the fire.

She is tired.

And exposed.

But for the filthy ash

that covers the points

of her wings.

Too heavy

to carry her

to dawn.

So she waits.

Feeding her skin

with the stolen gift

of some imagined god.

For the beast

that will make her

his bride.

Without Language

“Absolutes are coercion.”

                        -- Allen Ginsberg

I do not believe in edit.

Change a word.

Change a line.

You have changed the mind.

That thought --

no --

that knew.

The shape before the silence.

Is gold.




A.J. Huffman is a poet and freelance writer in Daytona Beach, Florida.  She has previously published her work in literary journals, in the U.K. as well as America, such as Avon Literary Intelligencer, Eastern Rainbow, Medicinal Purposes Literary Review, The Intercultural Writer's Review, Icon, Writer's Gazette, and The Penwood Review.  

Lee Stern: Four

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


CLOCKS FULL OF TIME


I don’t know if the British Empire
has been doing a very good job lately.
I don’t know if it’s been concentrating on the job at hand.
Maybe between putting the King and the Queen on the Ferris Wheel,
they’ve lost track of the wider opportunities that are available to it
and that men of wisdom would take advantage of
for the greater good and glory of the realm.
And maybe
when the Ferris Wheel came to a stop when their car was at the top of its circle,
the King and the Queen looked down precipitously
and asked what was going on,
where the commoners were going to,
and what the island was doing chugging away through the clouds that were dispersed
on all sides of the even handed dominion,
looking for landings that might have coexisted with clocks full of time.



 HOME REMODELING


If you’re not doing anything right now,
I wonder if you’d help me move this wall.
I’ve tried to move it a couple of times myself
but it’s just too heavy.
And that’s the trouble with being on the receiving ends of these heavy walls.
Even after we made it very clear that we didn’t want them to ourselves,
we got them anyway.
What was even the point of outlining our preferences?
Letting them know that we wanted a lightweight wall
would have been just as futile
as saying that we wanted the door to face in another direction.
It would have been
just as futile as saying that the quicksand we were putting in our buckets
wasn’t always delivered to us possessing the same texture.
But that its ingredients when we started to observe them
brought questions straining to bring answers to our view.




I’LL TAKE THREE OF THOSE


I’ll take three of those, if you don’t mind.
And if you wouldn’t mind wrapping them up for me,
I’d really appreciate it.
When I get home and I unwrap it, I can see what I bought.
I can see if it’s what I wanted to buy.
Or if it’s something that society felt I might have needed
without asking me for my input in the matter,
my preferences or the other circumstances
that bound me to my often-unusual place.
Sometimes, if I’m wrapping something,
I think of all the people who are running out of paper.
And I want to deliver reams of it to them so they don’t have to worry.
But I see miraculously
that you have plenty of it in front of you right now.
So delivering more of it to you at this point
would just be one more redundant operation that we could do without.
Or, without doing without it,
as, when our betters taking it upon themselves to call us up to their desks,
make lasting excuses for.
To which the houses we erect can advance.



THE COUNTRY I AM GOING TO


The country I am going to
will have grass over here that is as tall as I can tell you about.
It will have lightweight clouds
so light that you’ll be embarrassed to compare them with your own.
And it will have a place for the boogyman to hide
so swept out of the way that when I reveal it to you
you’ll wonder about all of the stories you told me when I was young
that were always turning out to be true.
And yet at the same time, I have to tell you,
please note: the country that I am going to will be the country that you are going to.
It will be the country where the roads go one way and then they go the other,
where the alphabets are always tied to little balls of string,
where the sky doesn’t falter for wasting the benefits
you found drugged. 
And dragged through the chorus of my heart.