AMERICAN REALITY SHOW

by David Radavich


                We need to visit
                pain and poverty a while.

                To answer
                who we truly are.

                To go into
                depth
                more deeply.

                The inevitable
                result of our past feasting
                beyond the forest

                of recoil
                and ultimate return,

                having slaughtered down
                our sustenance.

                Not to worry:
                That ferocious beast
                we face

                is only
                ourselves

                in ghastly mad
                make-up,

                last frantic
                dash until dawn.


David Radavich's poetry publications include Slain Species (Court Poetry Press, London), By the Way (Buttonwood Press, 1998),  Greatest Hits (Pudding House Press, 2000), and America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (Plain View Press, 2007)as well as individual poems in anthologies and magazines. His plays have been performed across the U.S. and abroad, including five Off-Off-Broadway productions. He also enjoys writing essays on poetry, drama, and contemporary issues. His latest book is Canonicals: Love’s Hours (Finishing Line, 2009).
___________________________________________

BLUE LINE

by Erle Kelly

Census finds record gap between rich and poor. --AP

A brown rail cuts behind byways and backdoors.                           
The Blue Line travels through the grit of South L.A.                      
Manufacturing gone, waste and a rust belt left for the poor.           

Junk yards, iron works, machine shops dot its core.                        
Small green belts sandwiched in where children play.                     
A brown rail cuts behind driveways and front doors.                       

Houses, yards wrapped in iron hear the light rails roar.                     
Young toughs with drugs abound, keep their community at bay.      
Manufacturing gone, waste and a rust belt left for the poor.              

“Willow,” “Compton,” “Vernon”: stops to explore?                          
Locals trapped in minimum wage can’t get away.                              
A brown rail cuts behind alleys, ditches and side doors.                    

Fast food haven, dotted with 7-11s but no big box grocery stores.    
Meals of sugar and fat: overweight and disease the price to pay.
Manufacturing gone, waste and a rust belt left for the poor.               

End of line: steel glass towers cast shadows on financial whores.
While Mexican families enjoy Olvera Street’s dance and sway.          
Manufacturing gone, waste and a rust belt left for the poor.                 
A brown rail cuts behind alleys, byways and back doors.                     


Erle Kelly is a resident of Long Beach, California and graduated from California State University Long Beach.  He belongs to a poetry workshop conducted by Donna Hilbert.
_____________________________________________________

COLONEL KURTZ

Poem and Image by Terry Wright

Kill Eliot rubbing
your head and reciting his poem. You're neither.
Your navy patrol boat watched a snail crawl
up a similar river. Join Facebook
to kill Mistah Kurtz. Apocalypse no
accident. Back in Saigon Brando reflects
on the Edwardian era. You have
no right to call me a metaphor when your shirts
are designed by machetes. Are my dark hearts
unsound? Unfriend them. Pig
after pig like
Admiral Cane. My son
might not understand this poet-
warrior thing or terminating my command
with errand boys of extreme horror and a pile
of little arms in the form of gardenias.


Author's Note: “Colonel Kurtz” is from a series called “Google Poems.”  The art images are made first, and the poems are collaged from Google search strings of the poems' titles.
_____________________________________________________
Terry Wright teaches creative writing at the University of Central Arkansas and serves as Associate Editor of the Exquisite Corpse Annual.  Terry believes his sunrise can beat up yours.
_____________________________________________________

WASH - DC

by Kim Doyle

River of thought,
river of rhyme,
river of time and emotion.

River of sound.
river that bounds and binds,
river at flood stage.

Take a page from a book
and float it down, it shines
like sunlight on water.

Too bright to look,
send the ashes,
that's all it took.

River in a hurry,
flowing, without worry,
rushing to the sea.

River rolling past me
and the Capital of idiocy.


Kim Doyle sits on the banks of the Potomac River in a small town just far enough away from any blast zones.
_____________________________________________________

ISLAND CREEK, PIKE COUNTY

by Margaret Ricketts

Eric  has  been  devoutly  trying  to  break  his
neck  all  day,  as  if  one  more  photo  from
atop  the  frozen  waterfall  might  redeem
a  single  hickory  or  oak, flung
aside  on  the  stripped  mountain.
Dross.   Dredge.    

The  three  of  us  are  driving  back to  the  part  of
Kentucky not  scarped  barren  as  toast.
Eric  and  I   almost  let
ourselves   snarl  at  each other  over  the  CD’s. The  jokes,
the  terrible  jokes,   the  deathbed  jokes.  
David  is  bombarding  us  with  his  relentless
supply  of  fart  jokes,  the   mirth  in a  burning  
room.  I  want  alcohol,   plenty  of  it,  
bring  it  on.  We are a  knot  of
grief  and  guilt  and  rage  and  there  will
be  no  undrugged  sleep for  us tonight.


Author’s Note: On  Sept  25-  27  APPALACHIA RISING  is  coming  to  Washington  to  bring  a  small  problem  to  public  attention.  Five  hundred  of  the  Appalachian  mountains  have  been  blasted  away  for  coal.    If  you're  in  DC Monday,  you'll  never  think  of  hillbillies  the  same  way  again.
_____________________________________________________
Margaret    Ricketts  has  gotten  grants  from  the  Kentucky   Arts  Council  and  the  Kentucky  Foundation  for  Women.
_____________________________________________________

HOMAGE TO WM. FAULKNER, ESQ.

(BORN SEPTEMBER 25, 1897)

by Earl J. Wilcox

I ain’t gonna talk about the South
Cause if I do do that, yawl would
Have my hide for telling what
I know about the critters we done
Got from the shack down there
And done brung them back here
To the house. Momma say yawl
Got to take baths after spending
The night with Aunt Reba in her
Cabin for the critters just all over
The place back there. We probly
Took them to Miz Reba’s place in
The first place.  Momma say they
so small they get in your hair like
lice do but these ain’t lice. She call
them the same name we say at night
whens we pray about sleeping tight
and not let ‘em bite. Don’t know
Where they bite, for pityssake.
Come on in and get in the bathtub
with me, Caddy, we got to get shed
of them critters before we goes to sleep.
It’s my birthday today, ain’t it?


Earl J. Wilcox writes about aging, baseball, literary icons, politics, and southern culture. His work appears in more than two dozen journals; he is a regular contributor to The New Verse News. More of Earl's poetry appears at his blog, Writing by Earl.
_____________________________________________________

THE POPPY

by Ed Shacklee


The poppy's a dream for the reaping
as it nods in Afghanistan's fields
and is fed by the bones and the weeping
a graveyard of empires yields.

For the Afghan has always been known
for his fierce but hospitable way --
he loves anyone who will leave him alone,
and he hates anyone who would stay,

and the poppy, whose blooms are like fires,
will grow as it feeds on our dreams
in a graveyard of pipe dream empires,
including our country’s, it seems,

 
Ed Shacklee is a public defender who represents children in the District of Columbia.
_____________________________________________________

A BUMP IN THE ROAD

by Jon Wesick


I ran over a child, today.
Watched the sad, little pile of flesh
recede in the mirror. Couldn’t stop.
I was late for an 8:00 AM meeting.
So many piles along the road –
pelicans, polar bears,
an entire 8th-grade class in Arab clothing.
Those good-for-nothing state workers
better get off their butts
and keep the streets clear!

Complain all you want about SUVs
but their bumpers are great! Hardly a dent
and it’s my third collision this week.
Blood will be tough to clean
after baking all day in the sun. Why
can’t they build a carwash at work?
Hell, Amy’s white Lamborghini
is splattered with crimson
and Jim’s always plucking tiny fingers
from his pickup truck’s grill.

I’m not one of those guys
who mounts trophies on his hood
or stencils little stick figures on his door
but the naysayers don’t appreciate
the music of a V-8 engine, its drumbeat
of pistons and melody of alternator,
the harmony of its fuel injection


Jon Wesick has a Ph.D. in physics, has practiced Buddhism for over twenty years, and has published over a hundred poems in small press journals such as American Tanka, Anthology Magazine, The Blind Man’s Rainbow, Edgz, The Kaleidoscope Review, Limestone Circle, The Magee Park Anthology, The Publication, Pudding, Sacred Journey, San Diego Writer’s Monthly, Slipstream, Tidepools, Vortex of the Macabre, Zillah, and others. His chapbooks have won honorable mentions twice in the San Diego Book Awards.
_____________________________________________________

OBAMA EATS AN APPLE

by Rob Spiegel


A gala apple tastes the same when you’re
President – a crisp crunch. Pasta isn’t
the same. The ego has gone sideways –

the bravado of free-world leadership straining
against attacks claiming incompetence, the air
filled with prayers for failure, a rough rain on the

thin membrane of personality. And letters
from the parents of dead child soldiers. Not
a way to turn that doesn’t hurt, while living

in a house designed to end all pain. Obama
would like to slip out for Thai food – pot
stickers with sweet and spicy peanut sauce.

Bite down on a gala is all that’s left of
home, of the man we knew who knew himself.


Rob Spiegel is a freelance journalist living in New Mexico. When he's not writing about politics, Supergirl and factory automation, he's making calls for New Mexico gubernatorial candidate Diane Denish (Democrat).
_____________________________________________________

AL'S DINER: CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE

by Earl J. Wilcox


In a quiet back
corner alcove
of the diner
four friends
swap news and views,
smile knowingly
about family foibles,
faces lit with fervor
in exchanging
political wit worth
a pound of gold
in today’s market.

Nearby, two ladies
pantomime prattle
from time to time,
eyes arch eagerly
at each tidy
crumb their ears
pick up about
their tea party
pals out and about
stirring the pot,
feeding on
fear frenzy.


Earl J. Wilcox writes about aging, baseball, literary icons, politics, and southern culture. His work appears in more than two dozen journals; he is a regular contributor to The New Verse News. More of Earl's poetry appears at his blog, Writing by Earl.
_____________________________________________________

LETTER TO WAYNE DYER

by David Chorlton


Dear Dr. Dyer, Each time fund raising season comes
to our public TV station, you are there offering assurance
that changing the way we look at things changes the things we see
but as often as I’ve heard you say this
I’m still troubled. I’ve been staring for years at the wall
at the end of our street; the one Mapquest
doesn’t know about. Drivers are told to drive
straight through the wall. I listened to you and tried
to believe that, like any obstacle, the wall
isn’t really there so I tried to run through it three times this week
and it hurt. There isn’t a disaster
you don’t turn into a miracle. There isn’t a problem
you can’t wrap up in a catchy phrase
and mail to oblivion. Watching those attentive people
leaning forward in their seats
to listen to you, I don’t see anybody who looks
homeless and therefore in real need of changing the way
they look at things. Life appears different from behind
a shopping cart. Then you list the reasons
people claim get in the way of doing
what they really want and insist they can all be overcome
as if a man who keeps his worldly goods in plastic bags
and begs for a quarter could ever return
to what you call Source when he can’t even think
beyond fishing the fast food leftovers
somebody threw away out of a trash bin. Still, you’ve built
an impressive mix of references from Lao Tsu
to Jesus and the Buddha, all calculated for broad appeal
except in the case of somebody like me who’d like
perhaps some Machiavelli thrown in.
Do you sell many books in Afghanistan? Myanmar?
Haiti? Does everybody in a country have to change
before its government will? If losing a job
is only God’s way of offering a new opportunity
is an earthquake his way of creating the chance to rebuild?
Would you tell a rainforest that’s been cut down
this is its chance to be a field?
Perhaps I’m not ready for the steps you illustrate with that wooden stairway
you have with you onstage. Excuses, you say,
must be banished. When you insist that
not being able to afford to do something is no obstacle,
I wonder which currency you’re thinking in. It must be
the dollar, not the peso, because if you ever took
a tour group to Juarez, you’d have to ask them
to think of the gunshots as fireworks.


David Chorlton has lived in Arizona for more than thirty years and loves the landscape, but laments that the state legislature has more thorns than the cactus.
_____________________________________________________

IS AMERICA

by Ian Demsky

Ian Demsky, a longtime investigative newspaper journalist, often draws from public records to help make visible what J.G. Ballard called the "invisible literatures" of our society.  He is enrolled in the MFA program at the University of Idaho.
_____________________________________________________

I SAY TO MYSELF

by Carolyn Stoloff
                             

just keep on talking---fast
and as loud as you can
over the newscasters

with your hooked finger
in a cup’s ear

        councils consider taking steps---
    
        a cease-fire         
        like freeze on a puddle
        broken by a heel

       handshake-bridges split

        most wrung hands,
        pegged up to dry, hang
        limp,                                                                                     
      
        but some flap gaily
        in spite   like flags
     
        orphans usurp
        each other’s blankets
        and ragged bears

        by the red glare    
        you would see (were you there)
        limbs pop off   in air

        fall  

        collected in buckets
        for the next of kin

       there’s blood on the ground
       how can you tell?
     
       the form in the middle

       roads explode    
       open graves

       what’s left?     sand;
       heat    fishbone trees       
some can  (can we?)
store raw-flesh war
in a secret drawer

with tsunamis
and the earthquake
  
 
Carolyn Stoloff makes collages and poems in New York City.  She loves animals, trees and some people. Her books may be found on Amazon,  if you are interested.
_____________________________________________________

CORPORATE GRAPH

by Terry Wright


Debt is like the death of someone you don’t miss.  You feel an absence without the clutter of remorse.  CEOs ask rhetorical not ethical questions.  Just good management sense to cut up workers like a chain pizza.  Hold boardroom discourse on pushing burgers in Red Square.  Cry over dropping the bomb on paper homes.  Slap tariffs on even more expensive imports     then downsize everyone and get mad at ads extolling the impact of falling prices.  But life almost goes on.  Vodka consumption skyrockets.  You move your lips with treaty sincerity while singing karaoke.  Missiles are cheap and common as pencils     and you are easily erasable.  Fire in the hole barks a dog-soldier human-shield before smothering a ticking remote.  Take in a change of scene after one decisive click.  Reboot     until another perfect business major daydreams of tax cuts during a sociology class.  The future looks sculpted and atomic-flash bright.  The shameless New Right invites lobbyists to scribble pet projects.  This practice is called “seeking expert advice.”  The Constitution unravels like a bag lady’s sweater. Your vote is a flashlight in fog.  You have no skybox.  You own no Acura.  You see no evil as the Enola Gay shadow passes over you like an oil slick.  Someone you don’t miss might rehire you to clean up their mess.


Author’s Note: “Corporate Graph” is from a prose poem series entitled “Graphs.”  I once described the series as follows: “In the physical or digital world, graphs display data using a pictorial device.  In mathematics, graphs abstractly represent a set of objects, some of which are linked and shown with abstractions called vertices, while the links that tie pairs of vertices are known as edges.  Graphs often take the form of diagrams that show a relationship, sometimes functional, between two sets.  Generally, these sets take the form of points or numbers, but, here, in these diagrams, other relationships are displayed as the vertices become abstract forms of the heart and mind, and the edges tie together context, whether social, political, cultural, or personal.”
_____________________________________________________
Author’s Glosses: clutter of remorse: The YourFuneralGuy blog, 8-10-09, claims: “The National Funeral Directors Association has declared the average cost of a funeral to be $7,622.00 per year…This figure does not include cemetery costs but does include a casket and a vault. Most Industry experts put the average cost of a funeral in the United States at $10,000 in 2009.”  CEOs ask rhetorical: The Center for American Progress in “Supersize This” reports that “in 2004, the average CEO received 240 times more than the compensation earned by the average worker.  In 2002, the ratio was 145 to 1.” like a chain pizza: I’m thinking of Tom Monaghan, Domino’s Pizza founder and right-wing philanthropist, to whom pizza was a sacrament.  From Mariah Blake’s “Pie in the Sky,” 10-09, in Washington Monthly: “The key to Domino’s growth was a tightly controlled franchise system. When a new store opened, headquarters would send a truck stocked with everything from pizza ovens to forks and aprons. Store managers worked from a thick operations manual, known as ‘the Bible,’ which dictated every aspect of operations, down to the smallest detail.” burgers in Red Square: Ann Blackman, writing in Time, 2-5-90: “Because Soviets are unaccustomed to eating finger food, many of those invited to a preview disassembled the Big Mak and ate it layer by layer.”  bomb on paper homes: John Hershey, dead March 24, 1993, in Hiroshima, writes: “Many people who did not die right away came down with nausea, headache, diarrhea, malaise, and fever, which lasted several days. Doctors could not be certain whether some of these symptoms were the result of radiation or nervous shock.” get mad at ads: From the Mr. Brooks Knocked Up Nancy Drew blog, 5-14-908: “Anyone sitting near me might suffer collateral damage when I throw stuff at TV and yell things that'll ensure my place in hell.” life almost goes on: At least until Azreal shows up. Vodka consumption:  According to a Reuters’ report seen on npr.org, 8-12-09, Russian president  Dmitry Medvedev said he “was shocked by official data showing the average Russian drank 18 litres (38 pints) of pure alcohol each year. ‘When you convert that into vodka bottles, it is simply mind-boggling,’ Medvedev said.” treaty sincerity: Red Cloud, Ogala Sioux chief: “I am poor and naked, but I am the chief of a nation. We do not want riches, but we do want to train our children right. Riches would do us no good. We could not take them with us to the other world. We do not want riches. We want peace and love.” easily erasable: From yokwe.net on the 50th anniversary of the “Bravo” atomic test in the Marshall Islands: “Bruno Lat was 13 and his dad was working with the Navy as a laborer on Kwajalein. For days after the blast, ‘all kinds of beautiful colors,’ filled the sky.  Bruno also saw the refugees from downwind of the blast at Bikini Atoll, miserable and burned and belatedly evacuated to Kwajalein.  He recalled that the skin on their heads ‘you could peel it like fried chicken skin.’” Fire in the hole: A real-life interviewee in Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air says: “On the stress level, I've heard that losing your job is like a death in the family, but personally I feel more like the people I worked with were my family, and I died."  ticking remote: A finger-on-the-trigger deal -- or a chore for St. Bernards.  Donald Melonson, writes on Engadget, 2-4-05, about an electronic whistle tag device that “helps you find your lost remote simply by whistling.” daydreams of tax cuts: Just a refresher.  According to the Urban Institute, 1-15-08, “making the 2001 and 2003 [Bush] tax cuts permanent would add $3.5 trillion to the national debt over 10 years.  By 2017, the annual revenue loss would be almost $500 billion.” atomic-flash bright: Georgia Green, blind, 18, was on her way to a music lesson in Albuquerque and fifty miles from the Trinity test when she allegedly saw the light from the blast.  Snopes.com is skeptical: “The atomic bomb may still have mysteries to it, but producing the kind of light even the blind can see isn’t one of them.” lobbyists to scribble: Anne C. Mulkern in the Denver Post, 5-23-04, writes: “President Bush has installed more than 100 top officials who were once lobbyists, attorneys or spokespeople for the industries they oversee.”  The Constitution: Like cell phones, this document sometimes has a limited coverage area.  own no Acura: Or do you drive an SUV -- or, as they are known in the United Kingdom, a “Chelsea Tractor,” an offroad vehicle that never goes offroad?  Enola Gay shadow: The B-29 Superfortress bomber that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945.  According to ghost writers at Wikipedia, the aircraft, currently on display in Texas, is “shielded by various means to prevent a repetition of the vandalism which was attempted against it when it was first placed on display, which was the throwing of a jar of red paint onto the Enola Gay's wing.”
_____________________________________________________
Terry Wright teaches creative writing at the University of Central Arkansas and serves as Associate Editor of the Exquisite Corpse Annual.  Terry believes his sunrise can beat up yours.
_____________________________________________________