Monthly Archives: October 2011

….Pretty in this Town / Satellite…. by David Christopher la Terre

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Pretty in this Town / Satellite 3-31-2011

six weeks ago, she was acting-out the drama in high style. six years ago; six generations, then six hundred years ago – the same thing – driving ’round in her (car) & (honking) at stupes that … & now, here she is, 616 years old & out of suitors; she can still taste the potato skins on the back of her teeth: hard to look pretty – hard to look like a beamster gymnast or championship pianist when every guy in the (room) thinks you’re a prude. the boy (girl?) who broke her heart; only ’cause she gave himher/it too much time, some six months prior, like a county prison sentence – bad teeth – like one of Leno’s Jaywalking victims: couldn’t even tell you where the west coast was; couldn’t tell you the body of water that floated Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica (fuckable) … to any guy in the (Old Chicago? TGIF? Applebees?) bar: fuckable … no strings … the author has quit the page. resigned. union walk-out. you can all go home! -fall off the facebook of whatever … he put his dick in yourmy/our purse & the world, sadly, has blemished. (the world being a 600-yard radius & even the author says [goodnight]). NO WOMAN NO CRY; NO WOMAN/OKRA! but back to the page. she moves to VA, inland, determined to reinvent herself: sexy librarian … tongue-twisting ambidextrous commandant … SLAVE TO NO MAN. but something went wrong. she forgot about mother. she forgot about school. & now she remembers: the boy-thingee’s Irish eyebrows; the big teeth & jaw of prolonged colt years. i quit. enough. -the west coast? i’ll find it. shit. i’m outti. fuck mom. fuck Hallmark. boys R toys. i’m doing the lounge. you’ll see. you’ll cry. six years.   pricks.

David Christopher la Terre is an old punk, advertising brat, artist, writer, hit-and-run orator, humorist, exfilmmaker, “asexual icon” and sentimental Modernist pursuing work in new formats, hybrids, language arts, Sound Poetry, decon, “post-mod,” prank-art … ‘living satire’ … he has been published in the Slate, Spleen, Lost & Found Times, Rag Mag, Roar Shock, Open Minds, Spankstra Press & Monkeybicycle.

Copyright © 2011 by David Christopher la Terre

 
 
Also check out William James’ blogger page Pen Head Press.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Illusion of Ourselves…………….. by Philip V Smith

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Illusion of Ourselves

In the palm of the buddha
a lotus!
but is it a simple palm?
or a simple lotus
it is, and it isn’t
for it is every lotus
that ever was
and it is every palm
of every buddha
that ever was
or will be for that matter
and all matter
connecting the dots
in between.
gaze at it as the air
runs in and out
molecules whirling
below skin
below flesh
into bone
into blood
slip through your
atoms gleaming
and see the dancing
into bone
into blood
slip through your
atoms gleaming
and see the dancing
strings
now spin rotating slowly
and ascended
rushing outward
past flying birds
and drifting clouds
passed the laughing moon
and the smiling sun
see the milky way whirl away
this all of this is
but the hand of the buddha
and the lotus
all of this is you
cosmic dust.

Philip V Smith has never been published (between paper pages of high-art academic journals)…He is a chunk of pizza anti-matter adrift in the Universe…. This of course is an untruth but it’s far easier than the truth..which of course is best left an unknowable mystery….

Copyright © 2011 by Philip V Smith


 
 
 
Also check out William James’ new website

“When The Bombs … ” by Bruce V Bracken

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                                                  WHEN THE BOMBS…

       Remember to wake up when the bombs tell you to, or you’ll have to find out what everybody else knows already, and didn’t you get it on the news,

       or did you sleep through it yesterday, when the bombs fell, and only find out from the flying piece of newsprint that you grabbed while standing on the sidewalk, while the mutants pitied you, so condescending?

       When bombs fall, it’s often quite a noisy event, so how could you have slept through it all, even if you were so drunk on Jäger, that if they told you that the reindeer was really a Christian, you’d believe it.

       When one is hung over, loud noises really hurt, so you must have really been conked out, when the bombs fell, and you didn’t feel the floor under your bed dissolve like sugar.

       When you wake up after bed-surfing down the street, that’s a good indicator that your house is gone. Look at you, naked and covered in cement dust! Cover up with a sheet, the mutants are laughing!

       When the bombs fell last week, you should have received a notice in the mail, telling you what to do next. Having a demolished mailbox is no excuse! Don’t go begging the mutants for instructions.

       If a bomb falls next to you, pick it up gently. Remember, it’s more afraid of you than you are of it. Whatever you do, do not show it to the mutants; they are bored with it, already.

       When the bombs fall, and a mutant finds you, do not run away. Let it eat your burnt skin away. This is how they groom each other, like monkeys, like goldfish at a fancy pedicure salon.

       When the bombs fell, we discovered our inner snakes. We mutated a coat of feathers. We glided over the burnt-out skylines, like Icarus in dress rehearsal. We are the mutants, laughing.

Bruce V. Bracken is a poet/spoken word/language artist, a three-time Seattle Poetry Slam winner, as well as an eleven-year veteran of the Seattle poetry community, who shares the record with April Ardito, of the Worcester Poetry Slam, for hosting the world’s longest poetry slam (96 hrs.) during Nationals in 2001. Bruce V. Bracken hopes to perfect dihydro-testosterone, and sell it as a topical solution to men who hate having to shave their heads. Bruce V. Bracken is politically inconvenient. Bruce V. Bracken won the pushcart prize, but lost it when QFC wanted their shopping cart back. Bruce V. Bracken has taught the youth nothing.

Copyright © 2011 Bruce V. Bracken

 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

Dear Tyler by Tera McIntosh

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Preset to Poem: Tyler Clementi was an eighteen-year-old student at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey, who jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge on September 22, 2010. His roommate Dharum Ravi had video streamed Clementi kissing another man over the Internet without Clementi’s knowledge. A victim of gay bullying–this is my too late letter to Tyler–usually performed in slam poetry style.

 

Dear Tyler,

        Nobody told you before…
but thing’s won’t always be so great
We’ve managed to abolish slavery—-
but still harvest fresh grown hate
Right here in our own backyard, it exists
I just stepped on some right around the corner
And I am hoping with these words—theeese wordddddddddds
I might Weed out some of the rest…
because these shoes—theseeee shoes…. are tired— of stepping in it.

It’s not always gonna be so great….
But don’t give up
-roll up your tolerant sleeves
And…..show your intellectual fists
flex the muscles of your mind
And beat them with proof and pride

Your stronger then the monsters of their mind
Don’t let them take you back to the underground hide yourself times
Full of pink triangles, labels, and separate lunch lines
Hang on Tyler, I promise
It gets better this time

Don’t feed societies dreams
Let who you are bust from your seams
On to others that love you just as you are
On to others that have hung picture s of you on
The walls of their hearts.

And for those others…the haterrrrs
Take their words and trap them in a jar
And make sure you tighten the lid
Because words can’t escape and sting youuuu
If you don’t let them

And if that doesn’t work

Build a damn within your voice
that blocks the flooding emotions
From your mind to your heart
That makes you want to say I give up—–
—cause enough is enough

Don’t give up —even when enough has had
Enough of enough
And you feel like the weakest— in the world of the tough
Take a breathe that starts from the heart of your heart
And remember how far you’ve come from the start
Of the start of who you really are now.

Don’t let them win
Fight hard—paper beats rock again and again.
Fight through the early cold morning why’s
And the late night solo questioning cries
And be you—let your rays shine through onto others
And soon you will be speaking
And educating kids who were just——— like—- you.

And when night falls and you feel
Lost in the abnormal herd of different kind
Remember that in the early morning wake
You will still be everything you’ve always wanted to be
And that’s enough.

Don’t let people say we’re not the same
Because the last time I loved
I still loved as hard as they do
Harder then the square root of you
Harder then goodbye for the last time
Harder then jamming out in my car to my favorite rhyme
While the person over in the next lane
Just smiles at me and drives on thru.
Because she can’t tag my differences
From her sunglasses view.

And when they say we are not just the same
Show them the holes in your socks
That have traveled the loneliest nights with you
Show them that you bleed and sneeze
You laugh and scream
And you love and dream
Dream that you’ll be treated the same
One day from the heart of their heart.

Don’t let middle school whispers echo
Into the confined,conformed,lockers of your mind
and build up hallways of fear
that separate who you are and
who others want you to be.

And those words they say about you
Stack them up in a perfect row
And climb them one by one
And soon you will be standing at the top
Stronger then everyone below—
Because tough times— make us grow—————
As strong as the writings on the legal pad
Of our mind that spells out proudly—-
WHO I AM IS FINE.

And remember
If I can stand here today, so can you.
It gets better—it did for me…
and it will for you.

 

About Tmac: Tera McIntosh born in Johnstown, Pa but currently resides in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, home of the Steel City Poetry Slam. I was born a Poet, I played “pixie sticks” with pencils but within the past year have recently starting performing locally in the art of Slam Poetry. I have performed at places in Pittsburgh such as Cannon Coffee, Club, Cafe, and the Shadow Lounge as part of the Steel City Slam Poetry League. I also have entered work for this years SLAB magazine literary contest and have performed at Antioch University Seattle’s Inclusion and Justice Diversity Conference doing this very piece about gay bullying. I am really bad at english/grammar, love coffee, fall, worn-in socks, and third places. I am co-founder of Project Coffeehouse, a nonprofit organization that opens up coffee shops in distressed communities and gives back their revenue to the community to continue building it back up. I am in my last year of doctoral studies at Antioch University for my PhD in Leadership and Change and play professional football for the Pittsburgh Passion. You can search my poetry page under Tmac, or search my grassroots believer self at Tera McIntosh.

Copyright © 2011 by Tera McIntosh

 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A Shadow Play by Dwight Peters

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He kept seeing only half of his body whenever he glimpsed a shadow of himself. And it wasn’t sliced by length or width—he would look and see a collection of scattered parts.

After he lost her, he said and said that it felt like he had lost a part of himself. This feeling of loss undermined his ability to function in the basic daily things he always did. It was more than he was ever prepared to consider and be able to figure out a way through. The experiences that had made up his world were no longer possible. His world was severed.

He asked himself what he could possibly do to put himself back together again. After a few months of trying to answer this when he barely fed himself, rarely washed and stumbled to the few places he actually did go, he found what he thought was a solution. He decided to live entirely in the dark.

Immediately, he moved to a house in a rural area and covered all the windows so no light could get in. He took out all the light bulbs. He bought sunglasses that covered his eyes and the areas around them completely, applying duct tape over the complete surface of them; wearing them always, except when he washed his face—but, as he did that, he kept his eyes shut hard. He learned to do everything without seeing and never left his house, having his groceries delivered. He tried to see himself only in the way where he still was what used to be, telling himself that his shadow needed to be removed.

 

In the past ten years, Dwight Peters has battered his body up and down the American West—living in Portland, LA, Seattle, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and several other spots along the way. Recently, he also spent a few months with an alligator in a Florida swampland less than a mile from the salty warmth of the Atlantic ocean. He is is now back in his homeland of Northern California living in a small city bordered by rolling hills of grapes.

Copyright © 2011 by Dwight Peters

 

You can read more of Dwight Peters at these exciting inter-web-places!

  • Secret Stories by Dwight peters
  • 36 Musical Colors
  • The Dwight Peters Page

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    Also check out William James’ blogger page Pen Head Press. Submit “2-Lines” or “6-Words” and he’ll write you a silly poem or strange short story!