Poem
Twenty-Four Islands
Marguerite Van Cook
Island No 1
This island is inhabited by turtles,
Flowering shrubs linger past the drift stalks
Seashells flock the debris
This is the island where I forgot my sweater
That summer my breasts began to grow
The beach even...
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Poem
How They Fucked (In Three Parts)
John S. Hall
I
Well, yes, they fucked like bunnies, and yes, they fucked as if it was their last night on earth (when in fact it was early afternoon), but more than that, they fucked like so many, different other things completely.
The...
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Library of Sean
Sean Flaherty
"We have to distrust each other. It's our only defense against betrayal." - Tennessee Williams
I don’t loan books:
as a rule it removes the awkward event
of returning the book.
You begged to borrow it,
charmed me
with yo...
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Trans-Canada Highway
Mark McCawley
for Angelina
Let’s turn off the ignition
lock the doors and coast this curved
highway until we stop
watch snow which splatters
sperm-like across the car windshield
The air is chilled with crisp echoes
announcing jazz and...
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Vacation
Sean Flaherty
Vacation
It was a hot, long, necessary three days:
my wife was eight months pregnant
and the pressure was on at work
but I had to leave that behind –
more than a year had gone by
and I hadn’t visited my mother
...
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Subway Pome #56: Marcy
Sean Flaherty
On Marcy Avenue,
beneath
the above-ground
subway platform
for
the Jay, eM, Zee
a
teenage girl
bounces her
very large
breasts
in
barely a bra
beneath
an
orange T-shirt
a size
too small,
at Havemeyer,
she stops
and bounces on...
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NEW
Lean on Me
Jose Padua
Back then sausage, eggs, hash browns, and toast cost
under three dollars for br...
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NEW
For The Saints And Angels, Miles Davis, And You
Jose Padua
Miles Davis was a skinny motherfucker, a bitter and often mean man.
I have always been a little on the stocky side and while o...
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145 South 4th Street
Sean Flaherty
In the span
of three months:
my friend's wife died
in a car accident,
his infant son
was diagnosed with
brain cancer
and the company where he worked for twenty years went
belly up.
Considering the
fragility implied by this,...
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NEW
Crack
Jose Padua
I can’t tell whether the flowers are falling or
floating in this painting just as I can’t tell wh...
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Weeks After the Tsnumai
Lyn Lifshin
LETTER DAYS AFTER THE TSUNAMI
the last few days
everything was in
chaos. When I close
my eyes, I see dead
bodies. When I open
my eyes I see dead
bodies. Each of us
must work 20 hours
a day. I wish there
were 48 hours in the...
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NEW
Virginia
Jose Padua
Let happiness lie like a dog on your lap,
Virginia, state of green, state of mountain
roads, and tackler of new centuries, but
don’t get upset if we leave you. Virginia,
let your vagina set you free or get out ...
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NEW
Eve To The Serpent
Bonny Finberg
Smoking star,
listen to me.
Call the stain
to your hand.
Go-I’m ready
to burn.
Has caffeine
a tiger’s kiss?
Be wild,
shove the
sequestered
kiss with force
and school me
in your pause.
Is this
blood
clean as
the sea?
Make...
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NEW
P-Funk Reshapes the Landscape of the Redneck Town I Live In and Other Acts of Reformation and Reconstruction
Jose Padua
Behind the wheel listening to P-Funk in my new neighborhood
the blank stare of the shirtless Larry the Cable Guy lookalike sharpens
to crystal clarity as his lazy slouch straightens up into a confident
strut and the words ...
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NEW
On These Days Driving
Jose Padua
Perfection is all those horrible old love affairs
they tell their latest lover about in bed as they smoke
ci...
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