before we could speak
Dennis Cruz
before we could speak
the specter of death
smiling,
Cleopatra
uncrossing her legs.
a small glimpse
into the infinite
then it’s over
a bad dream
lingering
like egg yolk
or menstrual blood
on your tongue
I w...
Iain Sinclair — Hard to Beat — in conversation with Chris Kelso
Chris Kelso
What is there to say about Iain Sinclair that hasn’t already been covered a million times before in a million different interviews? Well, probably not a lot actually. Lauded and derided in equal measure, as flaneur, grand ...
Timothy Leary Letter to Allen Ginsberg, from Berkeley, CA, 1969
Dr. Timothy Leary
OK, as promised here's the second Timothy Leary Letter to Allen Ginsberg. (We received three of these, anonymously, and published the first, from Mexico, 1963, last week). In this one, from 1969, sent from Berkeley, CA, we l...
Timothy Leary to Allen Ginsberg, May 8, 1963 – Letter from Mexico
Dr. Timothy Leary
Editor's Note: Well, sometimes we find the darndest things in our PO Box—we just received a package, with the return address "Dr. Tim Leary, Orange Sunshine Street, The Other Side of this Life," containing three (apparentl...
Classical Music Lover
Ron Kolm
Classical Music Lover
I was sitting behind the cash register
In Eastside Bookstore
On a warm summer afternoon
In June, 1976.
The evening junkie group nod
Hadn’t started yet,
But they would eventually
Shuffle in...
The Meaning of Existence
Phillip Giambri
The Meaning of Existence
Two grungy old winos
with damaged faces,
sitting on the window ledge
of the vitamin store
on First Ave @ 14th
sharing a bottle in a bag,
bummin’ smokes from passersby,
and discussing
...
Puzzles Partly, He Shoe
Jim Leftwich
Puzzles Partly, He Shoe
Moments falsify no aspect of talisman or tale. Nor talus as source of value, nor described by the book in uncharted enchantment, entire hand-picked shifting presents, p resents, pre sents, shriek s...
The Last Time I Met Allen Ginsberg
Tom Savage
The Last Time I Met Allen Ginsberg
I was walking through Tompkins Square Park
About two years after the brain surgery
From which I was still recovering.
I saw Allen.
He came toward me.
He touched me in the center of ...
Siren
Michael Lindgren
Siren
It calls, of course: a deep whisper
asking for the slender trickle,
to dim the corners and elevate.
To spread warmth, dissipate, cajole, enjoin.
Answer the call. Thin air, cold snow, speak
plainly about p...
Enjambment
Carl Watson
Enjambment
Gravity made this planet, sucking in rock dust
And gas, which, pressurized, went round.
Reproduction is a gravitational force, too,
Attraction packing bodies together.
Regard the highway lead...
Code
William Lessard
tonight i'm a 19 y.o. female because i have a thing for avo toast
because code is the new ontology
because the online quiz i took wants to rescue me
wants to unhook the burst shopping bag from my fingers
...
wildcat fools
Norman Douglas
wildcat fools
i send my all. so many
lessons, blessings. a season
awash with insecurity, the threat of lonely
weakness, isolation, alienation. let us
remind us that these seasons flow
into and out of inside out ups...
Remembering a Woman Who Died 30 Years Ago
Kit Kennedy
Remembering a Woman Who Died 30 Years Ago
Am I the last to find out
how she made leaves
take on a cloak of paint
masquerading fact for impression?
The simple movement
light up and down
being there no matter what
...
Shatter My Body but Let My Spirit Roam Free
Dorothy Friedman
Shatter My Body but Let My Spirit Roam Free
When all these lyrics have broken through the silences
I will be born into a more contemplative life--
to be what I have always been and more,
a thing unstuck from the womb o...
Seven Gifts
Chavisa Woods
Seven Gifts
(di Ego Godgifu, Latin: the self is the gift of god)
di Ego Godgifu
cut off these arms and take them down to the broke place of broken
trees and give them back their broke
arms
cut off this tongue and u...
