Turtle Parable

This torn day
I came upon a turtle upside down
swimming the breeze.
We talked for a while.

He told me about the hill.
"Unnegotiable," he said.
I nodded. "I, too
work for a living."
I told him about the city.

"Give it up," he said
and we turned each other over.

-- Ron Pronk


Dear Jon,

This is not one of those Dear Jon Letters,"
is how she always begins,
but by the end of the second page
where she says love and goodbye
it's always for good.
Late at night,
the only lights that pass
are ambulances,
with crazed drivers on LSD,
lost on the roadways,
searching for me.

-- Jon Longhi


Eve of All Saints

I boned in the dark with a bark
sent rings of noise towards the stars.
Here, take this fricative buzz from my lips,
heavenly objects.

I'm tapping my toes,
singing some Sandinista folk songs.
A bullet was lying on my doorstep yesterday.
It wasn't silver.

Rounded, blunt-nosed, brimming with chit
chat and rickety-rack
it's loud brass jacket colored my tongue.

"Here is my hunger," it said
"give it a good home."

-- Steven Jacobsen


The Night #34655

The night was like a thing,
it dark, it dark.
The night was like a birdie,
it lark, it lark.
The night was not like day,
it too dark for that.
The night was like big girls,
they fat, they fat.
The night turns into dust,
sweep it up, honey, would ya?
The night turns back around,
diddly diddly doo.
The night is night and nothing more.
All the other lines are lies.

-- Rodney Alling


The Anarchy of Melodies

Of all the ravaged choruses I've heard,
conspiring tunefully as a child's inner chanting
I prefer those which annihilate
my excess time

-- Brian McGlynn


A Galluping Reality

Live and let live 55%
Hang on meathooks until they die writhing and screaming, blood foaming out the sons-of-bitchs' mouths 42%

-- David Reid Dillon