A Sense of Safety

When the queer professor spoke,
Herb's mama would not let Herb commute
to his sophomore organ lessons on campus,
but locked him in his room all day long
since she didn't know for sure
what hour would be spoiled.

In his room, Herb floated
through Mahler's "Resurrection Symphony"
remembering how Mama used to starch
his shirt and parade her "little man"
up and down the block every afternoon.

A sense of safety guided Herb
to retrieve Playgirl
from far out on the rafters of his closet.
He sprayed an odd sock with sperm.

Mama squeaked in her porch swing
imagining dry cathedral resonance
in which Little Man played
"Toccata and Fugue" to thousands
as she sparkled at the front.

The queer professor talked of Michelangelo.

By Louie Crew

Peasant Privacy in the Forbidden City

Big Nose winked in Mao's gate.
I think he took my bait
and turned around to follow
--I hope.  Maybe not.  Ten
more may squat or piss; then
he my white jade will swallow.

He smells too sweet, but's thick.
I'll, dangling, suck his dick,
or, heels thrust in the hollow

of his back, astride neck,
I'll goo his throat; peck, peck
his baldness, for a dollar.

At least the last one shared
that much.  I wait, ass bared.
Big Nose, Big Nose, follow.

By Louie Crew

Untitled

                  "Give      me
                some  head,"
                the       dude
                sternly,
                grimly said.

     I   wanted  to  hold  him in  my   arms,   to
     feel   the  weight  of him on  top  of  me.   I
     wanted  to  scratch love  marks  down  his
     back and to watch him enjoy being alive.

                But  down  I
                went      and
                gave       him
                only what he
                asked     for.
                Both lost.

By Louie Crew
(Louie Crew has edited special issues of
College English and Margins, Has written four poetry volumes
 Sunspots (Lotus Press, Detroit, 1976) 
Midnight Lessons (Samisdat, 1987),
Lutibelle's Pew (Dragon Disks, 
1990), and Queers! for Christ's Sake!
(Dragon Disks, 2003).)
                

Spotted!

Hiding behind half hearted handshakes
respirating botanicals
and wondering when this liquid
crosses the line, into confidence
convoluted
weaving words into
quarter-witted remarks
Inhaling the season's end
exhaling feelings of last year
there's the constant reminder
not to glance over one's shoulder or into the past
lest they gaze
on your vaguely familiar face
“The sky is yearning for your hands
lay the pen on the ground
the vines of clever justice
have you surrounded,
oh, poignant poetaster!”

By Zach Paulsen

Intern

microwaving ravioli has never seemed so dismal

someone muses about the weather
the cute one asks about my weekend

gazing at the framed scenery
rainforests
mountain ranges
the sea

all reminding me
that teamwork is important
and to get those numbers up

Bobby tell's me I'm the man
my soul gasps for air

By Zach Paulsen

There is no More Y

most people aren't happy

the priest said to me

no ones life is the way they want it to be

we all live in the garden

to a greater or lesser degree

some get cement, some sea

even He had Gestheme

as of late I have heard this line about

my cross and all I am to bear

just as I have begun to share

with all who will listen

or hell anyone within earshot

of my blind husband

and all the fears in me

at first the advice I received

made me contrite I could see

but didn't

apologetic

for failing to readily accept my new family accessory

and duty to constantly remind

the blind to carry his cane

I get tired afterall

near only medical device you'll get for free

a white cane no questions asked

no one really wants one of these

legislators figure

it's cheaper than a street cleaner

forgive me for

relying on the rhyme of E

on the eye chart it's nearly all he can

see

and E represents to me

the sum of the two I(s) / eye(s)

we once had

and between them is Y

but Y has lost its meaning

a satellite

sometimes consonant

a question, an answer

lost now in the periphery

till even the E

of ego

goes and

leaves me

the only I

By Laurel K. Graham

Joan and Jerome

i saw Joan everywhere
she was dressed in drag
(as a man)
her hair clipped
her tiny bones chipped
skin flayed
mounted on a disk
her bosom bound
heard her voice
like she Catherine, Margaret and Michael
saw her name
in spidery script
took the wax seal to mean
this little bit was real
in front of her i cried
symbolic womanhood
at her pire i offered
my feeble attempts
at avoiding sin
a series of mortal near misses
and a broken heart
but actually she wasn't there
off somewhere with Jerome
what i saw was actually
John
no one has seen Joan in along time
except for me

By Laurel K. Graham

Hedonistic Obscurantist

if i have a belief
it's in the make believe
and the practical magic
obscurantists preach
Hogwarts like seminaries
and plastic beads
thrown at worry
like Mardi Gras
Fat Tuesday
every day

i am on the verge of
piety
will redeem sanctity when
i turn in x number of envelopes
to my parish

indulgences are all mine
in my head
in my mind
especially when it rains
champagne
i mean Holy Water
rain
salty tears

well, it's wet and
it keeps coming
i thought you were only baptized
once
but maybe i was never

maybe it's that
veil of tears
real after all
and life after all is a process of dying
to ourselves
and in the end just a matter of where
we Fall

By Laurel k. Graham

My Morals

I smiled to myself
b/c I thought that I was a good person
for driving all that way to the ocean
to deliver those starfish back to their watery world.
I think that at least one other person
would have agreed with me.
But to the lady
and her
three dogs,
two children
and one stroller
parading down the middle of the road
I was a horrible person for driving
over 25 mph
on their road.
She corralled the dogs to the side of the road
Clutched her children close
and threw up her arms.
But I had no time to slow down and apologize
Only enough to put my window down
and give them all the finger.
I was saving lives,
couldn't they understand?

By Kristofer Koerber

Celestial Cathedrals

Celestial cathedrals,

Roofless above whose light glimmers endlessly:

A brothel for weary dreams

Dazed by the beauty that tickles the soul

And sends shivers down the spines of sailors

In the midnight sea,

Who lounge on the decks of their creaking boat

As it lazily covers the way to candle lit ports,

Where lovers and wine wait patiently for the return.

By Kristofer Koerber

Sunday Night

The wine never got drunk,
the girl who whispered in my ear
about hair pulls and purrs
never showed up,
The music never got turned up
and
that book never got opened
But
My loneliness decided to stay
to keep me company,
And this madness is here staring at me
from under my coffee table
as
these words continue to waltz lazily
Across my paper.

By Kristofer Koerber

Your Leg

Women who want to be men.

Men who want to be women.

Women who want women.

Men who want men.

God, so what if my Chihuahua

humps your leg.

By Raud Kennedy

Cowboy

The parking valets in Portland

are dressed as vaqueros.

Black shirts, vests and sombreros.

They hit their hat brims

sliding behind the wheels

of the cars they park.

In the rain, they sag

and drip tears of black dye.

In the rare sun,

they make them sweat

and break out.

It’s tough

being a cowboy

in Portland.

By Raud Kennedy

“And Your Mission Is…

James Bond is always on the go.

I can’t picture him going to the toilet

or trimming his toenails, doing what the rest of us do.

He doesn’t sit in cafes, bored and irritable,

like other imaginary characters that fill our evening hours,

naval gazing about his sex life.

His life is pared down to his mission.

Just his mission, and our lives depend on it.

I wish I had a mission that cut

all the drudgery and dullness from my life.

And a cool theme song, of course.

By Raud Kennedy

( Raud Kennedy is a novelist as well as a poet. View his titles at www.raudkennedy.com.

A link has been provided in the Spitoon section of the blog, way down below)

a shot at haiku/ by Kelly Pardekooper/ A pseudo poet

blue-haired lane drifters

slowly speeding into sleep
beware the Buick!

hold me through the night
push me into the corner
my arm loves the numb

the heart is heavy
and the days turn into years
she’s not coming back

guitar strings corrode

as the sweat dulls the chorus

a faux authentic

By Kelly Pardekooper ( Iowa City native Kelly Pardekooper is a singer/songwriter currently based in Madison, Wisconsin. He has toured all over the United States and Europe. )

To David

“How you gonna cross-stitch those faces
Into your dream-catchers, face catchers,
Tender cottonwood branch mandalas?”
Says the mighty derelict,
The immaculate scumbag,
The simple bum, me,
To the artist of the awful,
Artist of the ugly,
Who crafts eight-eyed beasts
And gnarled toads
And Frankensteinian dead-eyed worms
In his waking-mare,
That sleepy-frowned
David Gonzalez of Pittsburgh.

Crooked Apache shoulder shrug.

He will with slight-of-hand,
Slight of foot,
Cross-stitch the awful beatific
Of all mysteries onto tiny
Canvasses and finger-built feathers
From here all the way to Pittsburgh’s
Hot Metal Street.

By Tony Burfield

Untitled

A man with a fierce black beard walks up to the drunk and pushes him

into the gutter.
"You're not drunk!" shouts the man with the fierce black beard.
"But my stomach hurts," whimpers the drunk.
"Well don't come bleeding on me!" shouts the man with the fierce black

beard.
"Have you any hot milk?" asks the drunk.
"Hot milk?" yells the man with fierce black beard. "What's wrong with

good
brandy? Or for that matter black rum?"
"I have decided to become sober." explains the drunk.
"Out of my way fool!" shouts the man with the fierce black beard.
"A drunk cannot decide to become sober, he must decide to become

drunk, or how else will we know where we stand?"

By Billy Childish

Con-versing with mineself whilst someother sits across the room

I need to talk to you
Can you stay
Awile wit me?

Listen:

my hart sings in disdain

My soul breathes in the sad songs
The drunken bums sing aloud
all night long on Bowery street
Just outside the Mission's
soup kitchen.Listen

I stand shoulder to shoulder with
All saints and madmen.

Denouncers of Fate
Thee Ungodly scum
Who breathe new life into this world.

I am my own hero,
My own future to look forward two.

And you, Florence,you should listen.
Youre always speaking in spanish
And I hate that about you but dont
Mind it so much cause I know
youre beautiful and trying so hard
to keep in touch with me my sweet

Truth is
I've distanced myself from you,
and though youre sitting just across the room
from me right now
As I write this
ragged shoddy shit pome
you may as well be siting somewhere
Haffway across the wurld.ah well,

Go on then
leave

It's the end of the discushion
And we should be lost by now.

By Pablo Pastor ( Yonkers, New York)

The Empty Box

I wanted him to come inside,
take his socks off
and stay a while.

My box had been empty for
quite some time,
the crimson striped ribbon
frayed
from jagged fingernails
clawing for fresh testosterone.

But he couldn't quite locate
the sliding door
to my personal space.

Bumping into invisible walls
I never got around to painting.

By Sandy Sue Benitez

Sunshine

If I could
I would lick sunshine
from your arms
feed the guinea pig your yellow
heart torn into tiny pieces
like the petals of a daisy

I can't smile the way you do
can't pretend that I smell
frangipani
while drinking a glass of sun
with artificial sweetener
swirls inside mixing my emotions

How can you walk in dry sandals
when the earth rotates its tears
I falter with every other step
forget how to tie my shoelaces
but you skip over the details
head straight to hopscotch
drawing hearts with sidewalk chalk

Your eyes reflect the sky blue
with tints of golden light
smiles that water glide on
belief, love, faith, hope, serenity
that stick to you
clinging as vines do

while I am covered in thorns
each cut bleeding me
one step closer to illumination

By Sandy Sue Benitez

Ruins Of A City

April
Thirteenth
Two-thousand and six,
What the old man said to me
Amid the
Black ruins of a city:


"This house is dying.
These stones will soon decay.
Ill weather will wash away the names
and dates of our living and dying.
Only our bones will remain.

Our memories will grow gray.
We'll grow old like cowards,
dragging our burdensome lives behind us. "

By Mr.Topo

The American Vital

I do things -
when no one's around.

I pick my nose.

I talk to myself -
and answer back.

I kiss my pillow -
to remind myself -
I still know how
to kiss.

I fantasize -
I'm on a game-show.

I fantasize -
about screwing
the American Idol contestants,
all of them.

I fantasize -
I'm on The View,
being interviewed
by Barbara Walters
herself
for doing something -
note-worthy.

I am jealous -
of the makers of "Head-On."

I illegally
download sad songs
so I can remain,
unhappy.

I think -
about getting high.
Sometimes, I do.

I put things -
inside me.

I pee -
in the sink.

I sign in
to the poetry message boards,
and I wonder -
just how long it's
going to take,
before people realize -
I'm a literary genius?

Every other poet
has millions
of comments
placed lovingly
on their poems.

Mine -
aren't even viewed.

I'm glad
I do all those other
fucked up things.

I get my immediate needs
met
regardless.

Who the hell
wants
constructive criticism
anyway?

Famous?
For doing fucked up
things
when I'm alone
and pissing off editors?

Hey, we all
gotta shine
somehow.

Don't we?

By Bryon D. Howell

Not Even The Candy-Man Can

It's come
to that point
where your depression
now supersedes everything
including us.

We don't talk
sometimes
for days.

When we do,
you sound more
and more
like a saturated mop,
being dragged
from one end
of a cold, flooded room
to the other.

Those are the very words
you used
to describe how
you've been feeling.

I only added the word,
cold.

I tried to make
you smile.

There once was a time
our mindless
chatter
and my dry wit
used to get
a real rise out of you.

I tried to help you
turn things
around
and I guess in a way,
I did.

We both said goodbye
and hung up
the phone.

You
rolled over.

By Bryon D. Howell

The Quick In The Red

We had had
a volatile argument,
full of gunpowder
both of us
cat fishing
for one quick
match
of words, to strike.

Luckily for the two of us
our better judgments
moistened that wick.

You say I'm sensitive -
trigger happy.

I'm getting too old for this.

Some cowboys,
much younger and more fortunate
than I
can drink their whiskey
straight up
while sitting on
all kinds
of broken barroom glass.

I can barely draw,
my hand shake more
than the town drunk's,
and my teeth
are just as sensitive
as I am.

I look at them in
the mirror
as if I'm inspecting the inside
of a covered wagon
and discovering all kinds
of hidden secrets -
like you.

And like you,
I can just about
see
right through them.

You'd made
a pot-full of homemade
chicken soup.
Good choice.
Good for the soul -
hot as hell.

Needless to say,
my payback was a bitch.

I took one swift
spoonful and my mouth
exploded.

It would be awhile before
I uttered
another word -
kind or otherwise.

Now all I can do
is keep my mouth
shut
and wait for the rest
of the million some-odd feathers
to settle -
like fighting dust.

And although you
may have struck
fool's gold,
I'm taking out
a $1,000,000 bounty
on your head for just
one southern accent of
truth -

in your East Coast lies.

By Bryon D. Howell
...a poet currently residing in New Haven, Connecticut.
He has been writing poetry for a great number of years. Recently, his poetry
has appeared in poeticdiversity, Red River Review, The Quirk, The Cerebral
Catalyst, and The Lost Beat. Bryon is also the Editor-in-Chief of two online
poetry 'zines: The Persistent Mirage and Bringing Sonnets Back.

No Time For Sleep

Through roses and anemones
my soul is wandering free.
No time for sleep
No time for love
The night grows blue
And the sad moons weep
Far away in the distance.

By Florent Thibault