BTK

by Charles Harvey


Had the Mother lived through your ordeal
of orgiastic bloodlust of worshipping
unpantied women of seeing the last
quiver of heart, lung, and kidney—
as butcher’s do—would her sons
be different men now?

Would their hair be cut, would
Phd, MD, Esq. or just calm clarity
follow their surnames?

Would their speech be as superb as yours
you white suited devil?

                     Who did you call to bring you that garment?
                     Who loves you enough to go through the trouble?
                     If angels do, what fools they are.

You stand before God all white as God
and those poor boys still boys twenty five years later
mouth full of mush crying, mama! mama! mama!
come down from that cross!


Charles Harvey is a writer living in Houston Texas.

WE'LL HAVE PARIS

by Wendy Taylor Carlisle


a nation of oceans slumbers, night contracts
like a black lung
leaves only space enough for this particular dream

Here in the night, there’s you
In the daytime, too

We don’t sleep well. There’s always something
out there beyond the sand dunes
across the oceans. In the dark,

a screen flickers and
we begin the Beguine again,
or Oscar Levant hunches over the piano

in an old movie about Paris
in a time before the insistence of the blues
before Zanax for depression,

Ambien for insomnia,
before this time of bodies come back
at night, disappeared

into the ground, folded
flags put away
quietly, we dream of Oscar Levant

and Gene Kelly alive
again, waving his arms,
tapping

through Paris


Wendy Taylor Carlisle lives in Texarkana, Texas. Her most recent publications: Windhover, Cider Press Review, 2River, and Ghoti Magazine. Her book, Reading Berryman to the Dog was published by Jacaranda Press (2000).

NeoApoc@lypse

by Nostradamnus


The bottom falls out.
The middle crumbles.
The top just floats.
He@ven triumphs.

The dead look good.
The living look dead,
The living dead live,
The dying just die.

The Biblic@l exult:
Their number’s fixed.
The religious pray.
Their numbers swell.

Numer@ti wonder:
"Is our number up?"
Numer@ti wonder:
"Can we count on it?"


Bill Costley writes a "Letter from Santa Clara" for the San Francisco CALL.

ODE TO BARRY McGUIRE

by Jim Abraham


Just before something happens
and right before nothing,
the process of destroying begins.
It’s something that should frighten
white shirts, wing tips, and white men
who pass legislation.
Their process is this:
Tighten the Windsor,
shine-up the wing tips
then stare into the camera
and describe the hate to anyone
who still believe their rhetoric.

Take a look around
the truth speaks,
there is no respect for destruction.
When my life ends
perhaps I’ll be lying on white sand
or in a lush tropical rainforest
near the equator,
avoiding the constriction of a large boa
watching as it digests prey.
Perhaps I’ll visit the Grand Canyon,
Niagara Falls or the Great Lakes.
Maybe I’ll be in the desert
near Iraq
attempting a Chinese finger puzzle
with someone’s wife, son or father.
Perhaps I’ll survive
when bricks crumble
glass shatters
and wood burns.
People die
when bombs explode.

Perhaps I’ll quote Walt Whitman,
Robert Frost or Emily Dickinson
then remind my fellow man
that you cannot simultaneously prevent
and prepare for war.


Jim Abraham, born in 1955, has been writing poetry since tenth grade. Currently enrolled in The University of Pittsburgh's writing program, he worked for two years as editor of The Pendulum, a literary magazine published at Pitt's Greensburg campus.

"IT IS FOR THE JUDGES OF THE SUPREME COURT"

CLASSIC VERSE NEWS
by Walt Whitman

from "Song of Myself"
for the Fourth of July

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess
the origin of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun...
there are many millions of suns left,
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand...
nor look through the eyes of the dead,
nor feed on the spectres in books.
You shall not look through my eyes either,
nor take things from me.
You shall listen to all sides and filter them for yourself.

I have heard what the talkers were talking.
The talk of the beginning and the end.
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.
There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now;
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.
Out of the dimness opposite equals advance...
Always substance and increase,
Always a knit of identity... always distinction...
always a breed of life.

Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,
I and this mystery here we stand.

Clear and sweet is my soul...
and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.
Lack one lacks both...
And the unseen is proved by the seen
Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.
Showing the best and dividing it from the worst,
age vexes age,
Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things,
while they discuss I am silent,
and go and bathe and admire myself.

Welcome is every organ and attribute of me,
and of any man hearty and clean.
Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile,
and none shall be less familiar than the rest.

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating,
idle, unitary,
Looks down, is erect, bends an arm
on an impalpable certain rest,
Looks with its own sidecurved head curious
what will come next,
Both in and out of the game,
And watching and wondering at it.

Backward I see in my own days
where I sweated through fog with linguists
and contenders.
I have no mockings or arguments. I witness and wait.

I believe in you my soul.
The other I am must not abase itself to you.
And you must not be abased to the other.

Loafe with me on the grass.
Loose the stop from your throat.
Not words, not music or rhyme I want.
Not custom or lecture, not even the best.
Only the lull I like. The hum of your valved voice.

I recall how we lay in June,
such a transparent summer morning.
You settled your head athwart my hips
and gently turned over upon me,
And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone,
and plunged your tongue to my barestript heart,
And reached till you felt my beard,
and reached till you held my feet.
Swiftly arose and spread around me
the peace and joy and knowledge that
pass all the art and argument
of the earth;
And I know that the hand of God
is the elderhand of my own,
And I know that the spirit of God
is the eldest brother of my own,
And that all the men ever born are also my brothers,
And the women my sisters and lovers,
And that a product of the creation is love;
And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,
And brown ants in little wells beneath them.

Fetching it to me with full hands, a child said, What is the grass?
How can I answer? I do not know what it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition,
out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners,
that we may see and remark and say Whose?

And now it seems to me
the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

I wish I could translate these hints
about the dead young men and women.
and the hints about old men and mothers,
and the offspring soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of them?

They are alive and well somewhere.
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death.

All goes outward, and nothing collapses.
And to die is different from what any one supposed,
and luckier.

Has anyone supposed it is lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die,
and I know it.

I pass death with the dying, and birth
with the new-washed babe
... and am not contained between my hat and boots.
I peruse manifold objects, no two alike,
and every one good.
The earth good, the stars good,
and all their adjuncts good.

But I am not an earth nor and adjunct of an earth.
I am the mate and companion of people,
all just as immortal and fathomless as myself.
They do not know how immortal, but I know.

The press of my foot to the earth
springs a hundred affections.
They scorn the best I can do to relate them.

These are the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands.
They are not original with me.
If they are not yours as much as mine
they are nothing or next to nothing.
If they do not enclose everything they are next to nothing.
If they are not the riddle and the undying of the riddle
they are nothing.
If they are not just as close as they are distant
they are nothing.

This is the grass that grows
wherever the land is and the water is.
This is the common air that bathes the globe.

This is the breath of laws and songs and behavior.
This is the tasteless water of souls.
This is the true sustenance.
It is for the illiterate.
It is for the judges of the supreme court.
It is for the federal capitol and state capitols.
It is for the admirable communities of literary men
and composers and singers and lecturers
and engineers and savans.
It is for the endless races of working people
and farmers and seamen.

This is the trill of a thousand clear cornets and cream of the octave flute and strike of triangles.

I play not a march for victors only.
I play great marches for conquered and slain persons.
Have your heard it was good to gain the day?
I also say it is good to fall.
Battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.

I sound triumphal drums for the dead.
Vivas for those who have failed, whose war vessels
and selves sank in the sea.
To all generals who lost engagements,
and all who overcome heroes.
Every kind for itself and its own...
for mine male and female,
For all that have been boys that love women,
For me the man that is proud and feels
how it stings to be slighted.
For me the sweetheart and the old maid...
for me the mothers and the mothers of mothers
For me the lips that have smiled,
eyes that have shed tears,
For me the children and the begetters of children.

Who need be afraid of the merge?
Undrape...
you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded.
I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,
I can never be shaken away.

This is the press of a bashful hand...
this is the float and odor of hair,
This is the touch of my lips to yours...
this is the murmur of yearning.
This is the far-off depth and height reflecting
in my own face,
This is the thoughtful merge of myself
and the outlet again.


Today is the 150th anniversary of the first publication of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.

FLEAS

by Tamara Kaye Sellman

One of these days this bristly bitch

is gonna shake us off like so much dirty

bathwater. It’ll be a bigger howl than

Earth Day, that day--we’ll be driving

and shitting, eating and fighting

and mating, wasting every useful thing,

when suddenly, bang! – there we’ll be,

sharing a collective view from space,

loosened from her shaggy mantle.

O! Bright Dog Star! How obedient she’ll be,

watching as we dodge ourselves, millions

of lousy particles salting the lifeless firmament,

her tongue wagging. Just another day for a dog.

And afterward, it will be our turn to watch

her stretch blue hide across the void and chew

a bone, take a nap, dig her paws deep

to bury our bones where she'll never find them.

Why wait? Witness the fetch of her infinity

while you still can: how she pants, rolls over,

plays dead, rises again behind that easy smile

to chase rabbits into dusk. Nits or no nits.


Tamara Kaye Sellman is editor/publisher of MARGIN: Exploring Modern Magical Realism and the editor behind the free speech and media literacy blog:archive, Candleflame. Her work (poetry, fiction, essays) has appeared internationally and typically addresses issues of (in)tolerance, environmentalism, women's rights, censorship and other sociopolitical concerns. Her most recent work, "Peppercorns" (Gargoyle, June 2005) reflects upon mistaken cultural identity and the growing ubiquity of the skinhead youth in western Washington state.

DEATH A HARD SELL

by Eve Rifkah

Would be volunteers
hold up hands in sign of cross
back away            as the numbers
roll in          across TV screens
in tiny print inside pages    daily rag

Powers-that-be are concerned
seeking bodies to hold the line
have foothold in shifting sands.
History born in     bloodspill
Cain to today
did god look away
jiggling dice in hand?
Are the suits bemused
the not-quite on the up and up
elected officials?

Would be volunteers
out of work          classified
columns shrink each day
thinking most any employment better
than this scrabbling for temp and odd jobs
now turn away from jobs to die for

Eve Rifkah is the co-founder and artistic director of Poetry Oasis, Inc., a 501 (c) (3) non-profit poetry organization and editor of Diner: a journal of poetry. Poems and/or essays have appeared in The MacGuffin, 5 AM, Chaffin Journal, Porcupine Press, The Worcester Review, California Quarterly, ReDactions, Jabberwock Review, Southern New Hampshire Literary Journal and translated into Braille. Her chapbook At the Leprosarium won the 2003 Revelever chapbook contest. She received her MFA in Writing from Vermont College and lives with her husband, poet Michael Milligan.

REMEMBER THE PLEDGE?

Ten Years After
The Million Man March

by Alicia Benjamin-Samuels


Hush and
raise your right hand.
“I (say your name) pledge to …”
love and never abuse and never
misuse the children for sexual pleasure.

Have you
told the pimps your
promise?
The little girls are
twitching and shaking from the
touch of satanic dogs who
like to lick the wild
sweet dreams of our
angels.


Alicia Benjamin-Samuels is a poet and performer who lives in Nashville, Tennessee with her family. Her poems have been published in London's X Magazine, Black Arts Quarterly, WarpLand, Philadelphia's Open City: A Journal of Community Arts and Culture, Yale University's Black Ivy, and Web zines: The Eintouist and SeeingBlack.com. Her poem “The Way of a Lover” was featured in Londonart.co.uk's 2005 Art of Love exhibit.

LIBERAL HAIKU RANTING

by Michael Shaler


Political prose
arguments grow old and worn
yet new outrage comes

The solution is
liberal haiku ranting
still gotta speak out

George W. Bush
for sure lost in 2000
Supreme Court railroad

then 9/11
first the terrorists, then us
good-bye civil rights

war half-world away
new twist pre-emptive striking
for God death to them

outsource your career
health care too expensive
hope, Bush drops in polls

meanwhile way out west
moderate steroid hero
join gropenator

they say no actors
except Arnie and Ronnie
cyborg and bonzo

Kerry wins debates
too smart, can see both sides
Jesusland and Rove

W, again
now take off velvet gloves
nuke-lar strikes for all

Condi Rice at state
lack of WMD can't stop
many thousands dead

give tests & close schools
but save Florida brain dead
no cash for students

can't afford doctors
maybe see your pharmacist
if viagra, yes

in California
Arnold's found the enemy
teachers, nurses, us

invite minutemen
free style ranger on the border
no questions, just shoot

gasoline way high
death, Iraqi oil, three bucks
drive, buy, spend, party

Deep Throat hero told
some critical even now
truth telling not vogue

deny marriage rights
we must only procreate
can't really say why

desperate housewife
indeed, here we are all this
it's a free country


A former bilingual teacher in California public schools, Michael Shaler earned an MFA at San Francisco State. Currently at work on a novel, his fiction is forthcoming in The MacGuffin, and his nonfiction is forthcoming or has appeared in Elysian Fields Quarterly and The Dusty Shelf.

THIS WILL BE A WAR POEM:

IN MEMORIAM, THE FLAGS NOT WAVING
by Britton Carducci


My family has let go
Of most of our traditions now.
But each Memorial Day,
We all still gather in my father's
Office, on Main Street , to watch the parade
Through the gold and maroon lettering
That says in arcs:

seciffo wal
nelyom & iccudrac

our place of prominence
in this small town.

Each year, there are fewer
Old men marching
With paper poppied lapels.
My town boasts one
WWI vet, riding in the back of
Cherry red 1958 Chevy Impala.
Which is funny to me,
Because he was bayoneted
40 years before the car was even born.
And this year, there are the lucky ones
Walking, waving, smiling
In worn-in boots and desert fatigues.

It's also funny to me that we,
My family, have chosen
This particular ritual
To keep alive.
We, the former Patriots,
Repulsed by our country and
Now suspicious, frightened almost;
Careful what we say--
We swallow our bile-flavored words,
From the yellow bumper-stickered masses
Who can't see past Fox News and
Michael Jackson anyway.

But inside the office
There is no talk of the administration today.
No talk of politics.

Today, we avoid
The war that
This day, this country, is saturated in.
We are all smiles.
We are careful to only steal
Glimpses of Nicolle's face
When taps is played--
And we note that her four-year old son
Is more interested in catching candy
Than ogling the tanks that barrel by.

This year, the mini-American flag
On a rough wooden stick
Hangs limp in the fist
Of her seven-year old daughter.
This year, no one is dressed
In red or white or blue.

And Brooke, the seven year old,
Is handing me the flag;
She is emptying her fist
So she can take my hand

And tell me that her Daddy
Would have liked
To see that old man
And the Impala.


Britton Carducci is a recent graduate of Rutgers University. She is an aspiring poet and fiction writer who is eternally rubbing balm into the rope burn on her palms. She is the winner of The Crucible's National Flash Fiction Contest and has been published in Objet D'art, the literary magazine of Rutgers College.

BY ANY OTHER NAME

by Truth Thomas

Latest Military Fatality Date: May 26, 2005
Total Fatalities since May 1, 2003: 1583
--Iraqi Coalition Casualty Count

Beware of
                   
                   parlor

generals
                   
                   who call

cheesewhiz
                   
                   brie

crackers
                   
                   hors d’oeuvres

war
                   
                   theater.


Truth Thomas is an emerging musician and poet from Washington, DC. Musically, Thomas incorporates a wide range of musical expression from the African Diaspora and beyond to form his own personal artistic expression. In his poetry, he strives to marry crafts of both "page and stage" in an introspective style that is lyrical, spiritual and political.

THE FAN

by Charles Harvey

A majority of Emmett Till's family members said Thursday that they object to plans by the Justice Department to exhume his body in order to find clues to solve his brutal murder 50 years ago. . . . Till was 14-years-old when he left his home on Chicago's South Side to visit relatives in Mississippi on Aug. 21, 1955. His mother advised him about how to behave when interacting with white people because race relations there were a lot different than in Chicago. On August 24, Till and his cousin, Curtis Jones, went into the small town of Money, and stopped at Bryant's Grocery store to buy some candy. Some local boys dared Till to speak to Carolyn Bryant, the white store clerk. He allegedly whistled at the woman when he left the store. Four days later, Till's body was discovered in the Tallahatchie River, weighted down by a cotton gin fan tied around Till's neck with barbed wire. Two men, storeowner Roy Bryant and his half-brother, J. W. Milam, were charged and acquitted of the murder. They bragged about the crime three months later in a Look magazine article.

-- Karen E. Pride, Chicago Defender May 6, 2005.

What y’all aim to find by
digging up his old bones?
Old old bones, old and innocent bones
Why y’all want to disturb him?
He ain’t with his bones.
He down here in the muck with me
and ain’t nobody trying to dig my rusty ass up.
His Mama, bless her heart, she got the bones
and that head that looked like a bad cabbage.
Thousands seen it in Chicago . Millions through Jet.
Where was my picture? I suffered.
I used to gleam prissy and howl
now mud bugs nest in my teeth.

I kept the good stuff off that boy—his spirit, his soul, his spleen
caressed it out of his naked body
The real Emmett sometimes he runs up the road to Money
gooses that white gal between her legs—boy still gots
that spunk in him.
Then he runs back to me for shelter.
Carolyn wakes up, rubs her thigh
goes back to sleep. 1955 was a long time ago
She wants to rest. I want to rest, and even Emmett.
You got the pictures. You won’t forget
Every now and agin some black boy still gets
drugged behind a car, still gets strung up in a tree
or the roof rafters of a county jail
They still make fans like me
heavy enough to drown boyish devilment.


Charles Harvey is a writer living in Houston Texas. "The Fan" is part of a collection of Poems he is working on tentatively titled The Toaster Speaks.

PLIGHT OF THE LOST WORLDS

by Damien Blair


Turn up the funky music
those neighbours’ screams
are really annoying


Damien Blair lives and writes in Canada’s capital. He has been published here and there and is in control of Sorrowland Press www.kdme.ca.

SHELL SHOCK

by Scott Malby


In Eastern Oregon are there concentration camps?
I've never been there--in a concentration camp, I mean.
Where you're alive only as long as you think you are
and your mind prowls around its own razor wire.
Lately, I've dreamed of living in a small town
of mocking laughter where it rains ashes and I'm afraid.
Afraid of what I might do or become.


Scott Malby is a frequent contributor to journals worldwide.