NEW
Self-Portrait as Dennis Hopper’s Frank Booth from Blue Velvet
Jose Padua
After turning on the television one sleepless early
summer night, I realized that many of the sounds
I make, as a re...
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MacArthur Park
Jose Padua
When I was a kid I thought
that the greatest record ever made
was the 1968 mod orchestral rendering of
of Jimmy Webb’s lost love opus, MacArthur Park.
For me, MacArthur Park was a flash of wisdom, an epiphany a...
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Davy Jones' Locker
Jonathan Shaw
Journal Entry, Buenos Aires.
The innocence of the lambs, the shattered glass in voices, the screams of anger and dizzy despair behind the words. Dragons and demons behind the terror and joy, the hot dog goes down, spirit...
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A Portrait of America in Trash
Jose Padua
I give to you a portrait of America in trash.
I give it to you with love and respect, America:
mountains of beer cans crumpled, plastic figures
with fallen action, black velvet portraits of Elvis
with...
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NEW
THE RAPTURE: JUST ANOTHER PR HYPE FOR CHRISTIAN GUILT? Or, God’s away on business.
Bonny Finberg
6:30 PM THE END OF THE WORLD -- late by 1/2 hour. God either overslept or isn’t really interested. A pint of cold beer on a rooftop terrace overlooking the canal, uninterrupted. Animated, bare-chested men sit in the s...
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Casino in Joliet; or, getting old in the usa
Emily XYZ
This is a piece that first came to me in probably 2003, when I was living in Evanston IL, not too far from Joliet. I heard someone say , "we're going to a casino in Joliet," and it just lit up something in my mind. This is...
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Democracy in America
Jose Padua
If Connie is short for Constance is Bon-
nie then short for Bonstance? Was the proper
name, then, of the bank robbing team of the
3...
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Paved With Good Intentions
Ron Kolm
We’ve just left
Your best friend’s house
And so far
It’s been a pretty good day.
“Hey, I think your buddy
Has the hots for me,” I joke.
Out of the corner of my eye
I see you pop open
The glove compartme...
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NEW
The Autobiography of My Memory
Jose Padua
The earliest memories I have are a morning
when I was four or five in 1962 or
1963, putting on my shoes in our old
apartment on “S” Street before going out to play,
standing on the cobblestones in Williamsbur...
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IMHO, best poem i ever wrote
Emily XYZ
Emily XYZ here w/ my first post to Sensitive Skin blog. Great to be here.
I moved back to the east coast Sunday night after 10 years in the midwest. Had just got cats & clothes in from car and was settling in for the ...
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Ruby, My Dear
Jose Padua
I could write a poem about Thelonius Monk by saying how he bent
notes, or how Uri Geller bent spoons, how his jagged rhythms took
you by surprise, how it’s hard to believe these phrases, or by tryin...
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Poem
Rear Window 1, 2 & 3
steve dalachinsky
rear window 1
she’s in her underwear
she’s fixing the curtain
she just took a shower
she’s vacuuming the house
she’s talking on the phone
finally that stool is occupied
she smokes with her left hand
while d...
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Poem
Rose and other poems
Lyn Lifshin
ROSE
when it’s behind my knees
you’d have to fall to the
floor, lower your whole
body like horses in a field
to smell it. White Rose,
Bulgarian rose. I think of
sheets I’ve left my scent in
as if to stake a c...
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Poem
when the lights go out in Mojácar
Wanda Phipps
someone said “everyone who has power is smiling”
or was it “everyone who has electricity is smiling
or “everyone smiling has electricity”
definitely not “everyone smiling has powerful electricity”
or “eve...
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NEW
MAYDAY, MAYDAY
Rebecca Weiner Tompkins
The white rain of petals that fell for a week is done.
What catches now in my hair
are the dried blossoms of the Callery Pear,
startling and crackly, as they float and scatter,
rattling through the trees to the street l...
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