they seem delusional

first there was the cutest baby cardinal, big head
hopping in grass cut to his bib

then the warning came out take cover now
went for a walk, fed the dog

south side windows were sunny
in the north clouds were sucking

it's unstable, yet the babies play
we agreed to don masks

but also adding mimicry of foreign accents
and false mustaches

mayor sez bein a K shouldn't be a life sentence
though some think it one

but they've made it so they can put you in a
cage made of human tissue and bones

and you live there letting others love your
life, can't hear your cries

if we could step out of the chicken suit
and just go on a date

but the context baby is previously owned
they might seem delusional

but this is our home, in their sleep. wait
a bit longer till they're gone.



by Peg
(Petty Entry-level Geriatric)

Seeing Red, Except It's Blue

flower child's child's child's child
please don't look backwards
to see the flowers

pricks can create an itch that
you might not even mention
for the pain

even smiling, beware the
words that only sound good
singing




by Reptily
"In retrospect."

apenas, juan

apenas, juan
que olvidara
your sister's name

apenas, y nunca
podria dejarte in
Spain.

por si caso leas
tu esta nota de
botella

no me digas
que no me quieras
mas que ella



por Santorabo

This is the proper way to pronounce your name in my language

We manipulated a web learning object
that had been set up to spell your name
using negative adjectives about people.

each adjective came with a story card
that created a comic strip about you
based on the spelling of your name.

but then we quickly realized we couldn't
play drums and breathe at the same time
for example. We also began to hear spirit

pipes of the ancestors, and when the
spells came, i recognized that i was in
fact dictatorial obtuse nerd nerd awkward.



by Donna

gross roach jar

hypnotic mix of cool and blue-grey weather
i reject each and every part of my life and yours

there's a psychological test to gauge which
board of directors will take charge of your

then you are released, like a product, out onto
the wavy game board. they get a win from you.

everyone with a 401k, a pension, is on your side
those who'd terminate the sick aren't economists

any more than the cure makers are. Who's to
say what creates the widest wellness overall?

a glass jar gets heat from a micro compost heap
the stinking contents swell from months half

baked. every item in the supply chain is reas-
sessed and slated for such a contingency plan

your bottles, your breads and cake, pork fat
render your freedom moot in many scenarios

as i sit here denying your existence i feel peace
the stillness of utter failure and condemnation

but the heart ticks on not for perfection but
rather revenge, karmic verdict, i sit here in

prayer for your punished agency girlish plans
selfishness turned sour every visible feature

of the material word with a sign on it saying
you piece of shit you fucked up fuck you for-

ever. and then, peace. for me. peace in some
relish a hammock of amorality a non-necessity

even to breath to allow the bichos the fauna to
crawl as did the Buddha beneath a dripping tree





Dr. Donna Thong
Temporary Emergency Credential Pending

todays dog walk

my cedar infested with orange-jelly
gall blossom tentacles

change of shades in spring-mown
lawn grass

back at control center swivel chair
coffee-mug warmer

Invisible circuitry, multi-purpose
sprays, death game

The Extended Real Job Experience

• Lil' Baby
• Prop son
• Church singer
• Preacher's organ monkey
• extra
• Gifted schoolboy
• news deliverer
• dreamy root-beer hop
• Rebellious hot-pants wearing meadow runner
• Theater jock
• Woods freak
• People's free meat grocery cashier
• Fur vault hunchback
• Partier
• Precocious beatnik throwback
• Club dancer
• Ho
• Brash critic
• Xerox operator
• club poet
• sideshow
• tutor
• Penitent teacher of children
• Sober beach guy
• Demigod, gym
• Security Guard, parking lot
• Estampificador of deeds
• Daily sub: East LA
• Counselor, the bad boys
• Weekend staff, group home
• Long-term sub, single
• Private teacher, Major European Country, Confidential
• Small groups, companies, individuals, conversation, native, pleasant affect, expensive
• Adjunct, Ancient European University, Confidential
• Internet rodeo rider, supervising
• Universal contender
• Downsizer, deflector of the exploited
• Local community college superstar
• Rhetorical Cage Fighter
• Monster (pariah)
• New Guy is an Old Guy (Meh)
• Turner of It Up a Notch or Two Too Much Higher
• No
• My Bed (that I had made) Recliner
• shiksa
• Sadhu, wandering
• Useful American Pet Uncle for spawn of oil kingdom
• Consumer zealot
• Dealer in Overpriced Antiquities

labor issue

it writhed in the stainless steel basin
that and deep aquamarine rubber
were the first colors ever seen

its core was a vertical windmill
that spun with the vagaries of
gaze regard media touch action

like any wheel, finally redundant
yet carrying on because of physics
yet in control of the money presses

Today's dog walk

I went to an emergency website for dough that doesn't rise
There were a number of interventions
but no admonishment for panic

Apparently there's a sinkhole in the bottom of the gut
n' when it's raw from taking want and glut
it starts to pump its own philosophy

Today's dog walk

A crow fought perhaps with himself
One set of wings and needles of the bough
Bouncing and of course squawking

He looks like the dog who lives there.
Well, he isn't.
He's handsome! Or she is.

Cold sun, a parkway middle of the tulip
stand had exploded sawdust added
perhaps explaining the power outage.

Today's dog walk

Whiter snow than has ever been seen before
brushed on grass that's already deep green, not mowed

Looking up, vultures still enjoying their advantage
above whose house circling, we get closer faster

than just our own click; it's that they too are edging
toward us. Contrast the anxious red swelling waxy

buds on the grey branches against the pale sky
and fifteen or so carnivorous brothers and sisters

Today's dog walk

Was it a crouching child...
then a mini stegosaurus
turned toward a neighbor's
back tree and proceeded
straight up the trunk at pace

Another neighbor's tree
is home to vultures who
seem to feel relevant now
and ignore threats from
us our pets vehicles they

circle and repopulate
beam in on all that's weak
gently bobbing sleep
from the strongest pine
can see who's in pain

Today's dog walk

today's dog walk yielded
neighbors voices set up
chords and sounded edgy
overall, but the words
under my radar, perhaps
not M'Lady's, those are
utterances at focused
determined desperation
within rooms self-talk
moderate to low volume.

and yes sure lower levels
of hostility and or spleen
which one's grateful for
not sustainable and only
the views of hundreds of
millions of elastic tape
cinch it and now you can
every home a vector not
goat tied to a stump for
and they'll keep winning.

Flack

These are real hours of the day
They're not stolen hours
Except that they're stolen from myself

Staying up late as if no one can see
Or imagine my non-participation as
they sleep

I've stolen these hours for safety and
reflection, a safe space for flights of
fancy and abandon

Not like the halogen lamp towering
dark above the settee, alien in a
mid-century nostalgia motif

I can wander the home like Nixon or
Ray Miland, experiencing life as
it is

While you rise early and clean yet
clean again, and tip-toe across the
dark like it's some foreign enemy

It only takes me minutes to say what
I have to say to the day
and a minute tomorrow, sure, for the flack



Jackie Lush

Beautiful thing

It was a beautiful thing to get to know black men, black-as-black men who took me in.
But did I get the reputation, among them, that I was a type of white-and-into-them men.

How can you not love black men when you are standing in their den and they're alright
and relaxed with you there, showing their delight that you're a special theirs-with-them

I receive the red rice and beans, up until the sleeping part of the crib, where there are
coal-red blankets twisted, instead of a proper bed, silky bare mattress, authority, agency

There never was a more generous give-and-take relationship as there in those rooms,
above a business, removed from patrimony between the government cheese shipments



Ja-taym, pour Hoolie

Dragged behind me from 1980

rage
foul moth
fossilized dance communication
two chords
self-regard as
sick, damned and therefore
exempt as the dead
terror of nuclear
Montgomery Ward striped jersey
photos
standing next to a wrecked car
brave young
poseur
counter-whatever
smash
anything in the dark
beacon invert
letters and cards
black
disdain
comfort
cash
hungry trail
chain of gossamer
some of the men
relics of others



by Santorabo

Trapped in that everyone knows where I am

The accoutrements are still.
If every chirp or high whining or hum were a voice
we'd be at wedding level
oops sensitive word

the furnace sucks and pushes
as if the dog is on a ventilator
yet I must remind myself to breath?
I have to stand vigil at the windows

Being saved from myself, my
driving, alter ego of hope-to-die
stock car racer; saved
from every awkward or otherwise face to face

medium grey sky, shadowless
indoors and out, fading not
falling, what if the sun were a
moving motion sensor

and if it could see your fingers type
it would snap back up to twelve again?
I want to suspend all movement to
sit and let the star sink in the dark



Para ti, Eduardo
Santorabo

Peenbo M'Shang

Googa day
getch wuntz
aney cumatcha
awtam wiyut
bushma buntz
talam-laka boa
peenbona
peenbo m'shang



by Reptily

0

i was sleeping a lot
but a couple nights with one eye open
but i was also dreaming my ass off

uhm one guy he was a gentleman
his other half, also a waiter, wore
white while he wore black

and the same people sitting around
as i spin the wheel
their influence is an ocular trick

mostly it's not about trying to become
but what to do once
you are one

the unique smells and light of madrid
mixed with vinyas and this
house, here in the cobbs



por Santorobo

singed bridge

singed bridge singed bridge
I don't care about it
singed bridge

no longer does what doesn't
kill you make you stronger,
no longer

what doesn't kill you also
kills you but it
just takes longer

stronger was just another
click on the dial
the bright face of times past

stronger, now more,
has gone to the next
man's flower