Late Night, Hotel, HBO

July 2020 | poetry

In Iran in the rich, delicious pear region,

there sits the centrifuge for the development

of atomic bombs.

I don’t want to end up like Bukowski,

a bitter career alcoholic, Writing classes?

Classes are for asses. (can’t even look

at people or talk to them), hating other poets

Writing is all about leaving behind

as much stink as possible.

Or George Carlin who went from hippie,

dippy weatherman, The forecast for tonight

is mostly dark, but getting light toward

morning, to a working rageaholic

out of rehab and in denial.

I’ve imagined how the two of them

would have gotten along during

an all-night “drinking fest,” insulting

each other to the point of fist cuffs.

I turn on Carlin’s 3a.m. HBO special,

an endless rant, dropping numerous F-bombs.

Lynn says and I agree, Turn it off.

Bukowski, a life-long pugilist of men

and women, Carlin, a pathetic skeleton

of his former self.

Both mummified

in a dangerous atom smashing,

If you have em, smoke em,

deathly moving, indifferent universe.

John Sierpinski

John Sierpinski has published poetry in many literary magazines such as California Quarterly, North Coast Review and Spectrum Literary Journal. His work is also in eight anthologies. He is a Pushcart nominee. His poetry collection, “Sucker Hole”, was published in 2018 by Cholla Needles Press.

Where Elevation Beyond One’s Station Leads

July 2020 | poetry

Once, when beasts could shed the expensive fur

of an evil spell, and pigs find the tools

to save themselves, the frog words to secure

his place beside all that beauty, the mule—

beyond his usefulness—who lugged those sacks

of music deep inside for Brementown

proved (like the mermaid’s chronic bellyaches

to know how suffering makes one heaven’s own),

led me to believe anything was possible.

Even disappointment—having first crossed

my path disguised as a newt, for whom high

ground’s shoebox palace was never fable

to one day finding water, getting lost—

disappointment on its own true wand relies.

Shelley Benaroya

Shelley Benaroya is founding director and teaching artist for the Writing Center for Creative Aging (www.writingcenterforcreativeaging.com), launched in 2008. Her poetry has appeared in all the sins, Diner, Ekphrasis, Letters Journal, The Lyric, The Road Not Taken, Thirteenth Moon, and elsewhere. In 2017, she received the Ekphrasis Prize and a Pushcart Prize nomination.

Memorial Day During Covid We Watch a Music Group Perform on TV

July 2020 | poetry

Beautiful.  These rock band boys, giddy as pups given an open field. So pumped.

Drumbeats loud as amplified hearts.  Muscled and optimistic, they can meet anything head on.

Years ago they’d have marched off to Vietnam, skinny and scared. Helmets and camouflage.

Shell shocked or blasted.  Names etched on a wall.

Some of those boys, like Jesse, made it to Montreal. Guitars in hand, they held us close

in coffee houses and open mics. The war distant over the border.

They’re  older now. Faces softened, almost female. Youth settled around their middles

like memories that won’t let go.

And of the ones drafted who came back, some sleep on sidewalks

while next door my neighbor just wants to shoot every damned poppy on the block.

Babo Kamel

Originally from Montreal, Babo Kamel now resides in Florida. Her work is published in literary reviews in the US, Australia, and Canada including the Greensboro Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Lines + Stars, and most recently in Poet Lore. She holds an MFA from Warren Wilson’s Program for Writers, is a Best of Net nominee, and a six-time Pushcart nominee. Her chapbook, After, is published with Finishing Line Press. Find her at babokamel.com She has a poem forthcoming in Best Canadian Poetry 2020

Brad G Garber

July 2020 | poetry

Viral

Floating around

like a molecular cloud

hidden in spring flowers

wings of birds

leaves of artichoke

faces    cloth

things eaten     touched           breathed

a Trojan army at the door

vortex unfelt   unseen untasted

a pair of shoes full of venom

razor blade pants

shirt of rose thorns

maybe

in your nose    mouth  heart    lungs

blood

until you are overrun by a million ants

carried into gaping

tunnels to feed the young

through winter

a thousand invisible punches

to the head

knocking you prone    atmosphere

forced into your body

like a reluctant invader           until

mystery subsides.

The Sink

When I first gazed upon the horizon

of an ocean

saw the endless

Endless freedom

Endless hope

Endless dreams

Endless art

Endless Earth

Endless life

All the places I in my mind

Until the bottles

filled with piss

Styrofoam

plastic grocery bags

six-pack rings

straws

bags

my unused medications

inorganic detritus

filling the guts

guts of fish

guts of whales

guts of humans

guts of minds

Every vista one

of disguised beauty

floating in planetary

trash.

Brad G Garber

Brad has degrees in biology, chemistry and law. He writes, paints, draws, photographs, and hunts for mushrooms and snakes in the Great Northwest. Since 1991, he has published poetry, essays and weird stuff in such publications as Edge Literary Journal, Pure Slush, Front Range Review, Tulip Tree Publishing, Sugar Mule, Third Wednesday, Barrow Street, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Barzakh Magazine, Ginosko Journal, Junto Magazine, Slab, Panoplyzine, Split Rock Review, Smoky Blue Literary Magazine, The Offbeat and other quality publications. 2011, 2013 & 2018 Pushcart Prize nominee.