2009 • AM 0
You must fight
Fight fight,
Against those
Who would kill your soul gladly,
Who find delight
In the death of your self
Those whose soul is a void-
They are a walking shell of a body
They need to kill your soul
So they are not the only dead ones,
But you are full of life (you must remember)
& YOU ARE MEANT FOR LIFE
sur ton pierre tombale: vous êtes signifié pendant la vie
Stand tall
Remember yourself,
The divine soul
That you are.
Filed under: Erica Onda, Issue 2
2009 • AM 0
Someone asks me why I cannot breathe,
they say my face is red,
usted mira todos rojos
and I tell them that
it all started to feel like a coffin
sometime last February
Cannot shake it, no?
I say no, no I cannot.
I do not mean to sound
rude, no, but
I have skeletons at my back
who are begging to finally sleep.
My mother weeps and
cleans the house with
my tears.
Filed under: Issue 2, Lisa Marie Basile
2009 • AM 0
The shoreline is the most honest edge,
its messages written innocently by children and lovers,
cruelly washed away by the incessant insistence
of the calming, coming wave.
The calming, coming wave,
running feet from feet away, trickling down and calming
as it comes closer to us, to we–the naive–ignorantly caressing
those massaged messages of ours smoothly away.
And as we walk into wading,
waiting to die with rocks in our pockets,
we think of only “why?” and so end the poem one expected line short.
Filed under: Issue 2, Richard Anthony Phelps
2009 • AM 2
2 a.m., 2-below, bivouacked downstairs
under the south window, adrift
in the dunes with Port and Kit.
We’re bouncing in the back of the truck
from El Ga’a to Sbâ , sirocco blown grains
of snow, typhoid fever death chill gale –
only one of us will return.
Down, down the deep well of night
paralyzed by the thought that
the sky hides the night behind it,
shelters the person beneath
from the horror that lies above.
Consulting Madame La Hiff’s Gypsy Dream Dictionary
waiting for a sign in the indolent heat.
Later – has it been minutes or weeks?
– the full moon breaks through the ground blizzard
like a midday Sahara sun. I wish I were
on the terrace of the Café d’Eckmühl-Noiseux
under the awning a-flap in the soft evening breeze
reading the maps, or on the surface of the immaculate moon
aloft in the center of the sheltering sky.
2009 • AM 0
Granny never liked Rosalita.
She did not like the jet-black,
Shining hair or
Those beautiful flowing tresses
Covering the entire back of
Her pastel quincenera dresses.
“Vulgar little girl,” she’d seethe.
So imagine how she loathed the day
When I’d learned enough
Spanish to say,
“That girl”
was mi chica especial …mi carina.
And how she frowned when I said
Rosalita was like the water for my
Chocolate.
Que lastima!
To Granny, brown sugar was coarse stuff…
Unrefined. And “Mexican”
Sounded like something dirty
In her mouth.
So imagine my surprise when
I heard from Auntie Dee that she had spent some
Summers in her younger years
“Down South,” and that the
Dallas Ladies Club had
Once chastised her for
Being too friendly with
Juan…
Her gardener.
Lo percaron en las tunas,
Con las manas coloradas.*
(* They caught her in the prickly pear patch with her hands all red.)
Filed under: Issue 2, Kenneth Karrer
2009 • AM 0
Your wetness dripped down
my chin
like
bee dulce
honeyed, warmed
from my favorite
sopapilla.
Dusted
by baby powdered
sugar.
You let me
In,
mi sancha.
I just love to
move up
to your table.
Filed under: Issue 2, Kenneth Karrer
2009 • AM 1
Toni is in Mexico
Selin in Turkey
Neal is leaving for Buenos Aires
things didn’t work out in L.A.
Lands of Destination
Homes once forgotten
New York is less than a vacation
a thumbed over arts publication
prints left behind for all to see
what you saw
when you could still see me
Lovely is the hair,
curls around your ear
in the humidity
Thin was the light
when late you would hold me
the loft of your gaze
shot by the cries
of busying life,
of songs
and lines
repeated
so
many
times.
Filed under: Issue 2, Mariette Papic
