THE GREAT BARBECUE

by Barbara Lightner


The beaten path goes funny bone.
Deep pain’s in the clutch of self-help.
The self-appointed guru and monger.
Curses to the broken and bottled anoint.

Baby carriages careen bomb-cratered streets.
Fires in the night materialize ghosts.
The scree of the banshee shrills through the air.
Never mind it’s all in the wealth of our nation

we toast over pig at the great barbecue,
the uninvited, arrested; the starved, skinned and boned;
the bloat-hearts assuaged; the rest admonished to laugh
midst tales of self-help.

And the sun in its daily rounds goes on.
And the moon looks on us all, all alike.


Barbara Lightner is a 70-year old shameless agitator, retired. After a career of community organizing and teaching at university, she turned her hand to poetry. As a bookshop owner, she sponsored poetry readings, and published chapbooks of local poets in Milwaukee, WI. Her poetry has appeared in the Table Rock Review and Poesia; as well as in Letters to the World, an anthology of women’s poetry.
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VISIONS OF SUGARPLUMS

by Lori D’Angelo


The glass slipper doesn’t fit.
The red sweater doesn’t match
the green pants and the visions of sugarplums
that danced in my head aren’t real.
On paper is the only place that matters
and my resume is a just trail of breadcrumbs
that lead to an empty bank account.
Johnny Cash was not the first to ask:
What have I become, my empire of dirt?
I wish I had an empire. I wish I had a million dollars,
George Bailey, it’s really not such a wonderful life
after all. The broken banister might drive me
to the river too or to the big house.
There are days when I want to slam into cars
like I’m at Kennywood again, like it’s just a ride.
I wish I could pay my rent with monopoly money.
I wish I could go outside and have somebody say:
OhmyGod, you’re--, but when I pass by, no one stops.
No one knows the dreams I’ve built. In the light
of incandescent bulbs, they just fade into a stream
of vapor. How many mornings have you been caught
in a mist, felt you were in a fairy world and then
when you turned a corner, the mist was gone--there was
was only a Wal-Mart and a debit account with a $5 balance.
Even gas I have to ration, feel like I wear the same damn
thing ever other day. Chicken Little, the sky is falling
just beyond the reach of my grasp. Still, I close my eyes
reach for rainbows, build a palace out of gingerbread.


Lori D’Angelo is an MFA student at West Virginia University. Her work has appeared in Pequin, Red Ink Journal, Hamilton Stone Review and Stirring. She lives in West Virginia and Ohio with her husband and two dogs.
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SENRYU

by ayaz daryl nielsen


among the homeless
all those
service medals

homeless veterans
gathering around
a bottle


ayaz daryl nielsen's poetry has found many homes, including Lilliput Review, HazMat, and Magnapoets, and he is editor/custodian of bear creek haiku (since 1991)/a poet/editor/father/veteran/hospice nurse/etc.

THE HAND OUT

by Karen Garrison


touch me
i’m not beautiful
i’m not smooth
i’m not open

touch me
i am stiff
i ache
i am bent

touch me
i have an attitude
i have adipose
i have been abused

touch me
i am deathly gray
i’m unshaven
i am afraid

touch me
i am so uncertain
i need a fix
i lost my dreams

touch me
my hands are rough
my bones protrude
my skin sags

touch me
i cannot pay
i have no gratitude
i have been betrayed

touch me
don’t look
past me
today


Karen Garrison is a writer, certified massage therapist, and former clinical social worke. She lives in Colorado and goes hiking as often as possible. She worked with homeless people on and off through her career as a social worker.
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SIX COURSE APOCALYPSE

by Catherine McGuire


The trailer in Revelations, as all trailers do,
pulled out the hot bits, the big scenes -
and we were fooled into thinking
it would be one big Bang finale.

But no. You’d think we’d realize
how theater works.
This is a made-for-tv-drama series
drawn out over a lifetime or two;
this is a full-course dinner
of crow and old hats.

The four Ninja Horsemen sneak
through dark with masks and blackened tools;
dismount and do more damage on foot.

In normal garb, Famine swathes the usual
villages and towns, but covers its tracks
with news reports of CARE packages dropped
like manna. It goes upscale as anorexia
becomes the ultimate fashion goal,
it dopplegangs as empty calories
slowly infiltrating potbellied kids
who play World of War
until only their thumbs have muscles.

War calls itself “unrest” and harvests
scores in villages, thousands in town
then bolts before it can be Formally Declared.

Death of course is hard to disguise -
but data is an awesome camoflage: statistics
like swarms of flies on carrion fog the air
smudge the actual count, the real cull.

And Disease…well… hold on to your snouts,
my little piggies -- here we go…


An award-winning poet, Catherine McGuire has been published online, in many wide- and small-circulation print magazines, and overseas in the past two decades. More than 100 poems have appeared in publications including MReview, Portland Lights Anthology, HazMat Review, Tapjoe and Adagio. She has published a chapbook, Joy Into Stillness: Seasons of Lake Quinault and is newsletter editor of Oregon State Poetry Association.
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401 OK - OCTOBER 22, 2008

by Tyrone Nagai


Whether insurrection or the other,
I bought bonds before 9/11’s crash,
six days before stocks started to sputter,
for I was reacting to market math.
The Dow was teetering below ten thou,
and I wanted to lock in my profits.
So fast a bull becomes a "holy cow,"
yet I was shielded from heavy losses.

But that was nothing compared to this month.
Seven years of growth evaporated
by risky subprime loans and credit crunch.
My stock broker looked exasperated;
asked what I want if not to retire.
A living wage for all workers hired.


Tyrone Nagai is pursuing his MFA at San Diego State University. He is also associate editor of Fiction International.
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PICKING LETTUCE REMEMBERING GAZA

by Buff Whitman-Bradley


A cold gust of wind whips the baby greens
Out of my basket
Tender leaves scatter and swirl
Crazily along the ground
Like little children running out the doors
Of a school that is being bombed


Buff Whitman-Bradley is a peace and social justice activist in Northern California. In addition to writing, he produces documentary videos and audios. With his wife Cynthia, he is co-producer/director of the award winning video Outside In, about people who visit prisoners on San Quentin's death row.
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The CHENI@D:Volume Nine

by Bill Costley

Click here for Books I-XII.

Click here for Books XIII-XXIV.
Click here for Books XXV-XXXVI.

Click here for Books XXXVII-XLVIII.
Click here for Books XLIX-LX.
Click here for Books LXI-LXXII.
Click here for Books LXXIII-LXXXIV.

Click here for Books LXXXV-XCVI

Book XCVII: Just CHENEY

Long ago, CHENEY prepared
for the long haul, by playing
his own best defender. Think:
Who knows better Who he is?
Who knows Where all the bodies
were really buried? Just CHENEY.


Book XCVIII: Our Stalin, CHENEY

Our Stalin, CHENEY
preaches loyalty to anyone
loyal to him, proving steel's
stainless despite defeat, if
VPOTUS is engraved on it.


Book XCIX: CHENEY shuffles

CHENEY shuffles his worn,
marked deck of face-cards
of himself, thinking aloud:
My next administration
will be totally trustworthy,
like Scooter, loyal to me
& me alone; first, I’ll issue
a $100 stamp with my face
on it & then a $100,000-bill,
with my face on it, & then
an invisible CHENEY tank.


Book C: Finally, CHENEY

Look upon him, ye who would-be
mighty & revisit the District’s suites
where he was once walled & re-vered.
Finally, CHENEY we’ve had enuf of;
haven't we seen B&W TV's McCarthy
spinning filamentary power from lies
rewoven with pretension, unravelling
week after week after week? Only his
pre-convinced re-enjoy his re-arguing
unvarnished semi-truths, his wooden
image semi-cybernetic, quasi-alive
among us, automatically speaking
his message, grimly us hectoring...


Book CI: Wh@t Coloss@l B@lls

Wh@t coloss@l b@lls
CHENEY must have 2
announce he’s all for
gay-marriage as a matter
of states'-rights; can't
you see him smirking,
just waiting for Rush
2 denounce him as
as a closet liber@l?


Book CII: Mary Matalin’s Booking

Mary Matalin’s booking
CHENEY Family memoirs
for Scribners’ new rightwing
Threshold imprint she runs:

Dick CHENEY’s nightstand
awaits his hand-written
cheniad he's sure everyone
wants & needs to read

for rightwing perspective
& inspiration during today's
Republican party decline...
so Mary Matalin imagines

moved far below the Beltway,
down to N’O’leans w/hubby
Ragin' Cajun James [D] Carville.


Book CIII: CHENEY Stingz Dubya

Vexed by his having flexed for Dubya
while VPOTUS, CHENEY’s memoirs
sting Dubya as ‘an ordinary politician’
for having ignored CHENEY’S advice.
Blind-sided by a late-changing Dubya,
CHENEY, freed now to speak on then,
stingz Dubya as unworthy of CHENEY’S
piercing perceptionz, steel-jacketed in-
iativez, steely rezolve, absolute goalz.


Book CIV: CHENEY Can't Recall 72X

Interestingly, CHENEY
can't recall (72X) to the FBI
what he & Libby said;
but Libby can recall what
CHENEY can't. Plame/Wilson
fogs VPOTAL memory.


Book CV: VPOTUS CHENEY'S untitled

VPOTUS CHENEY’s untitled
memoirs (due out in 2011)
of his fed.gov years under
POTUSes Ford & Bush2
contain “a lot of interesting
stories that ought to be told;

I want my grandkids,
20 or 30 years from now
to be able to read it &
understand what I did,
& why I did it.” [QED]


Book CVI: CHENEY reveals

CHENEY reveals a dispute
within the White House
over combatants being tried
in civilian vs military courts.

What came of it? Nothing.
What will ever come of it?
What does it matter while
those disputants walk-free?


Book CVII: CHENEY at the PACS

CHENEY smiles Chenily
at the CPAC convention,
visibly glad to be seen by
everybody, still assuming
they’re all still Cheneyist.

At AIPAC they are,
reports Wonkette.


Book CVIII: CHENEY's heart attacks

CHENEY’s heart attacks him
at the CPAC convention
putting him into a DC hospital
where he’s as happy as hell,
delighted when he hears
the CPAC straw-poll results:

Ron Paul 31%, Mitt Romney 22%
Palin & Pawlenty, 7% ea.
Gingrich & Huckabee, 4% ea.
6% undecided, 5% Other.

Gingrich bobbles minimally.


Click here for Book CIX.


Bill Costley serves on the Steering Committee of the San Francisco Bay area chapter of the National Writers Union.
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LAST WEEK

by Andrew Hilbert


all week i fretted over my taxes
and turned on the news to see an angry mob
dressed like the original tea partiers
and holding signs saying "big brotha"
"obama's a fascist"
"obama's a communist"
i even saw pictures of kids with signs
saying that they pay taxes
and work
and have kids to feed

???
shit must have really hit the fan economically
if these poor little kids were paying their taxes
instead of feeding their stuffed animals at imaginary tea parties

i had to turn off my tv
but i couldn't escape it.
it seemed like disliking taxes
was just a way to disguise hate.
when we were under the Bushman
we were called unpatriotic
but i do not recall anyone on my team
advocating secession.

i had to plan a route out of my house on tax day.
i didn't want to see my ultra-conservative neighbor.
i didn't want to explain away the reason why i was
committing the ultimate act of treason:
doing my fuckin' taxes.


Andrew Hilbert has a degree in History at Cal State Long Beach and lives in Orange County, California.
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WALL STREET-WASHINGTON

by David S. Pointer


The superiority complex
housing sustainable
economic exploitation
has energy escaping
like a scavenger gas
as Wall Street appoints
Timothy Geithner for
bank to bank resuscitation
and nobody clears
poverty's airway
just the pockets
of the global poor


David S. Pointer is a sociologist. Recent poems have appeared in Illya's Honey, Skidrow Penthouse, and elsewhere.

TO MY THERAPIST

by Matthew Quinn


I think it goes back
to the evening news
saying scientists have determined
global warming is now unstoppable.

I just want to kiss
my children on the forehead
and stare out the window
until the tar in the street
is engulfed in flames.

We are such an instant gratification society.
I want my worldwide devastation
and I want it now,
but no. We have to wait like frogs
in a pan
for the slow build up of heat
to catch us unawares.

But rising temperatures might send
Greenland’s glacial sheet
sliding into the sea,
a giant ice cube
blocking warm Caribbean waters
for a mini Ice Age
before the fiery end.
Mixed messages and further delay.

I wrote for posterity
until Katie Couric.
Now I eat popcorn,
watch Missouri Avenue
and wait.


Matthew Quinn is a freelance writer, editor and researcher. He resides in St. Louis, Missouri, with his muse and a menagerie of disembodied voices.
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PEACEKEEPING MISSION

by Howie Good


No more declarations,
no more petitions for redress of grievances,
no more looking back over my shoulder,
but only simple tasks,
putting in ten dollars’ worth of gas,
enough to get to Lake Chodikee,
then lifting the kayak off the roof
and out onto flat water,
startling the doe come down to drink
as I glide around the bend
and the leaves shed their shadows on me.


Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of eight poetry chapbooks, including Tomorrowland (2008) from Achilles Chapbooks and Love Is a UFO (2009) from Pudding House. His full-length book of poetry, Lovesick, is due out from Press Americana this summer.
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STEPPING GENTLY

by David Chorlton


A guest on the radio news show
claims to have found a poem
capable of saving the Earth. He reads
some lines by William Stafford
about watching swallows
before ending with a modest reflection
on stepping with care
through the world. Every April
a small group assembles
close to the stream
where a cottonwood casts
a dark green shadow on the water
that flows like hope
from year to year,
and each of us reflects on how we see
the signs around us. This passing
back and forth of words
is our ceremony, an annual
blossoming of thoughts held inside
ourselves all winter. We’ve been counting
sparrows and listening
to a glacier drip
into oblivion. We often rise early
to hear the mockingbirds
after staying up late reading
Edward Abbey who liked to speculate
on taking out the dams
built to power industry. Even that
meant stepping gently
through the world; it just
entailed clearing the way
before putting on an appropriate
pair of shoes.


David Chorlton lives in Phoenix where he writes and keeps watch for the birds in his urban setting. He likes to celebrate the desert in his work, but sometimes a cautionary tone intrudes as is the case in his chapbook The Lost River, published last year by Rain Mountain Press.
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THE AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT OF 2009

by Del Doughty


When her black AMEX card had to be snipped
in half, she sat cowering in a corner
with cut lips and blood streaming from her nose
and the next thing bam! Katie's aiming a vase
at me and screaming "You jerk! You loser!
You fool!" Then the vase disintegrates
like our property portfolio in the financial crash.
This year I'm going to study physics--
nothing fancy, just the NASCAR brand--
because I need to learn how to absorb
more energy on impact, how to measure
how much damage an object in motion
can cause to a human body, and
how such a body maintains velocity.


Del Doughty has published two award-winning books of haiku, The Sound of Breathing (Saki Press, 2000) and Flow (Red Moon Press, 2004). He teaches English at Huntington University.
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