“This is called a window,”

she says.

“An elder-oak frame

                   that you can see through.”

She blushes, cheeks painted apologetic,

(I would later imagine)

as she probably wonders   why   she chose

to (attempt to) explain a “window”

to a boy who is blind.

But I only smile, wistful twinge tweaking

the corners    down.

She tries to explain, to help me

    see

it,    lurking beyond my shut-open eyes,

somewhere, never to be seen,

dark,   dark—

               obscured by my eyeballs  both  shot-through

with clouded glaze.

She puts my hand to the “glass,”

cold,    china-fine glass—

“There is a boy   outside,  with

a puppy? No,     wait—”

(I do.)

       “It’s just a small dog,    grown.          Fullmoon maples—

so many colors, just gorgeous—     

oh,  it’s probably a park!”

I ask for more,

straining to keep my voice

from tones too eager.

“More? Um… An old lady sits

all by herself, on a steel-frame  bench, heels

close together. She’s just sitting there.   Maybe waiting

for her husband?

There’s a little girl and her mother,     as well,

her mother is      with her,  holding      her  hand.

The girlis      strangling  a   popsicle,

     half-melted,    melting,oh!

                                                                                                       What a mess!”

I want to stir, or make some small sound,

but stand statued, instead, tight-lipped –

dark,     dark—

as I aim my head and enamel eyes

out the “window,”

beyond the blackness, at

the poured-cement parking lot and

urbaned inner-city landscape

that my mother had already told me

was outside.

Content, He Meant

       I live

in a house built of cigarettes,

                                       pencils,

                                            and pixie sticks—

it stands stunt-sized and a little quaint.

But I’m alright with that—

    There, every thing is

      as quiet

as a wayward button,

                 as secure

as the copper piebald eagle, high-perched,

                              trip-trapped in the wrought form of a finial,

                                             hitched with twine to amethyst-topped weathervane,

                        as tight-lipped

as the stilled air after the plate shattered at the wall

                        and then at the floor-boards.

I have a cricket cage, elaborated from Hermosa wood, setting shelf-side,

               but nothing’s in it. No point in spoiling something

like that with insects.

On the scarred-mural wall hangs an ample iron-cast sign disclaiming, in grave letters,

                                                                                                                                       “Here, in 1891,                                     

                                                                                                                                        nothing

                                                                                                                                        happened.”

In the bedroom there’s a small French (Regence period) commode that was passed

down by      my mother.

(No, by my aunt.)

Granted, it has nothing to do with relieving yourself.

It’s just a set of drawers with cabriole legs and script-scrolled feet,

                                          resting adjacent to the corner reserved (solely) for the amber bottles and their oxygen-barrier caps,

                             alone altar.

But I’m alright with that—

In the foyer,

(the room I call the foyer)

hangs a great-great-(great-)grandfather clock

with choke-cherry finish

and olive-ash burl.

It’s neither run nor sauntered in several years,

not since I lost the winding-key.

I’ve never enjoyed the thought of keeping (or killing) Time,

or even entertaining him, anyway.

When I was a tad of a lad, my grandmother disclosed to me

(hushed by varicose-veined claws, cupped well beyond my mother’s ears)

that I would die, at last be laid below soil,

and geriatric Satan-spawn would dig my bury-me box up

to rend my each-and-every tooth, with eager and envious force,

from my poor gleaming gums,

if I were to ever become a bad housekeeper.

But I’m alright with that—

Yes, the bed is a tumbled forever-mess of polyester

          and trace cotton,

but that ‘s only because I lack the time                                                                                                                                                          to tuck hospital-corners into my sheets.

             And the microwave might be a sore-sight, as well (or not so much), with its fixtured stains and nubs of again-again-and-again-rekindled crust,

   but damn, you should see the basement.

            I never have to clean for anyone but myself,

                              and I’m a lax landlord.

I am alive   (now)

nonethelesser for the fact.   Poor-off, perhaps,

but who among us can cast a stone at that?

But I wouldn’t want it. I would never want

that Palos Verdes dream house,

with expansive vistas of Catalina Island,

       L.A. Harbor and mountains from the kitchen.
I don’t want guard-houses and gates,

five-car garages or pools beyond infinity,

no kitchen with half a dozen ovens, not for me.

I live(oh,   how hardly)

in a house built of cigarettes,

                                       pencils,

                                            and pixie sticks—

it stands stunt-sized and quaint.

            But I was alright with that—

The Man in Plaid

The man in plaid

     tasseled hems,

    cardboard skin—

once stopped me   while I was walking,

       to tell his all-tale,

       furtive and punctuated

with stretched-up eyelids

and fingers   snatching

at ghosts in the air.

I tried to listen, to understand,

  to care, truly—  but was off-put

  by his teeth,   kernels of yellowed corn

  loose-fitted into ashy gums.

At length, his voice ran away,

     silent spasms of the lips.

          Then he turned his awning eyes

to   mine,

              brown

to

blue,

and those despaired dark depths,

honed and toned,

they screamed a siren-call

out to me,

   begging,

of all

their silent,

                         ragged

                          query.

But I had no change,  nothing

beyond the coins lining my right pocket—

So I   coughed sharply,      turned   away

and

kept

walking.

BB

by Kaeden Ihmisen

John Maurer

1

Taking Comfort 2

They agreed she was no thief,

but surely she had taken

comfort

in both sumptuous resorts of the heart

and squalid roadhouses of the mind,

according to her democratic ideology.

Vacations should be colorful fun.

She left messages promising

that her work ethic was not dead.

And she fulfilled each promise

by always offering another promise

for the future; by learning

how to reinvent her past;

by helping him burlesque his past.

So, what if she encouraged travel

to new but uncomfortable places?

She had the will to endure

and took him along: both

got the joy of remembering.

2

Taking Forever

They agreed she was no thief,

but surely she had taken:

forever.

Not the usual approximation,

softened by quotation marks,

but the actual total time

of all duration from big bang

to final, eager black hole.

Uncomfortable with and distracted

by time, he toyed with exaggeration!

In truth, he might admit to complicity.

They both made solemn promises

now disintegrating over the very same time.

And here, bereft in a desert

too large for their earth,

seasons burst out and die in an instant

and convictions swirl in paradoxical air

as diaphanous as dust devils.

3

Taking Pages from Her Private Book

They agreed he was no thief,

but surely he had taken

pages from her private book.

He published them indiscriminately

for his fame, for his sympathy,

without acknowledgement.

She thought privacy was prize enough.

His invoked but averted

literary violence of love:

like leaves bound to turn,

she did not resist.

He touched her lips.  They kissed.

She spoke of drowning.

                       In print

the lips

may one time

be grotesque,

the next, sublime.

4

Taking Root

They agreed he was no thief,

but surely he had taken

root,

branch, leaf and sap—

left only a dry log in the fire,

cedar that snapped at her

all the while rushing

downward into ash.

               At the hearth now,

she gazes  at flame, she hears

the burglar enter, she feels

her eyes, molten, pour

onto the stone.

BB

Watchtower

Winding through the woods, windows down, radio low,
he drives and I ride. We go in circles with his own kind of flattery:
I love your energy. What’s my energy? Your spirit. What’s my spirit?
Your energy. Your aura. Your vibe.
I stop asking, nod and hum. His mixing bowl of buzz words
will not help him reach nirvana. He parks by the trail and smokes.
Phone flashlights in the dark, he goes first. I call him my watchtower.
Cut the air with bare legs, white tee, and sandaled feet.
I rub the dew off the can of cold beer with my forehead. Look up at the moon,
kick up clouds of gravel, dirt under my toenails.
He holds the blanket and my arm at my elbow, the crickets sing our song.
We reach the quarry and have our midnight picnic
of cold cuts and salt n’ vinegar chips, prying open confessions and dreams,
slapping away mosquitoes.
Squinting into the pit of rock and water, he divulges his love
of man-made structures, and once again,
I can’t seem to pin him down. He stands up with that glint in his eyes
flickering like the fireflies camouflaged against the backdrop of stars.
I want to do something crazy, he says. He takes off his shirt,
his shoes, his socks, his pants, his boxers.
I’m going to jump!
A fake suicide threat. I laugh at his nakedness taking a running leap
off the cliff—the male body is strange when it's not making love.
My thoughts wander alone, wondering if his spontaneity
is blueprinted like the tallest watchtower, if his free spirit
goes as deep as the limestone abyss into which he just leapt.

Unrequited

Waiting
to take tongs to your insides, string them out
all over the floor—an answer to what? or perhaps—
who?

A plea to be my shepherd’s staff hook—bolted and cold
on blank white walls—adorning my winter coat.

I am a pair of shoes, purple shoelaces tied together, dangling
from you, the telephone pole that filters through plastic
the mouthpiece of your mind: Ecology. Self-
actualization.  Ignorance.

Love is knowledge of quirks:
I ghost-cook—heat and leave and forget
until burnt pans—just like my mom,
my dead celebrity whose article reads  Favorite color: purple. Loves:
dancing and the outdoors and Smashing Pumpkins.  Drink of choice: Busch.

I dream
of two toothbrushes in one holder on marble countertops.
Unrequited.  The word reminds me of brushing teeth
alone in a public restroom, a lingering smell
of a stranger’s shit.

Watching My Mother Die

Body tangled in lines
hooked to machines.
Gaping fish mouth, slick and gasping.
Brushstrokes of blood
on white teeth.
Pinhole windpipe grasping
for air which settles into a hot bath
of drowning lungs.
My mother’s name is DNR: DO NOT RESUSCITATE.
Hospital room DMV: Sitting in a hard chair,
I curse The Fisherman and wait.

Longing

I

would pluck
out eyelashes,
shadeless and exposed,
for one granted wish
to peel off
layers
growing and shrinking
with your
every
breath.

I
would dig
a hole to the center
of you,
just to feel
dirt
under my nails—
your traces
trapped
in my corners.

BB

The Looking Part

Parts of my body

are stacked,

piled,

one on the other.

I’ve become a structure.

Legs and wrists,

eyes warm in their place.

I see you walk by

and peer inside with hands

cupped around your eyes.

I hold my breath

because you are looking close,

because you are close to looking.

Dissection

   Today in lab we split open a frog.

The girl who wears glasses doesn’t show up

so I am left alone with the scalpel.

It’s skin split like silk, thin fingers palmed up

to me. Remember the time you lit

up in the stall, set off the alarm, how

they fired the office boy with green streaks

in his hair. He had to walk past my desk.

I’m still looking back. Dr. Kent just asked

me a question I didn’t hear. You are

always getting me in trouble, Brennan.

***

   The formaldehyde smells like Thunderbird.

We bought two from the bad part of town

and counted to three with the door locked shut.

I needed to keep this moment for us,

that terrible taste cut my throat raw,

but we wanted to see our tongues turn black.

The inside of this frog is rotting grey,

I raise my hand and Dr. Kent leans close.

I think how he can stand to do so and

he tells me your specimen was pregnant.

These are her eggs? I scoop them up, he nods.

Somehow this makes her more dead to me—

the quiet space between us on that night,

the buzz of the fan burning through us both,

your elbow sticking into my side,

but maybe you were too afraid to move.

***

   My hands are marked for the rest of the day

I’ve washed them too much, it still won’t come out.

I can’t handle what it is. The smell’s become

a stain, become something else. I miss you.

Dumpster

The glittering pit sharpened in the sun.

I smelled rot blistering, like skin, and heaved my trash

over the edge. It spilled out, shampoo bottle, paper bags

with dark holes burnt out. The crow overhead kept

close by, never close enough. Ragged pantyhose

flung across the side. An apple core.

You ate tangerines, your teeth ripped the skin

wet tongue orange, licking along parts

of your mouth.

The plane ride is sullen. It pulsates across my thighs,

cushion box stiff beneath me. I am high,

peeling this thing in my lap, awake just so.

The dull throb of the engine pulls enough from me

to smell fruit, my first blow job,

garbage I forgot to take.

BB

White Factory

There are borders to the white factory

but I don’t know where they are.

Men whistle down long corridors

in a strain of music understood only

by others whistling down long corridors.

Heavy tools ring like dry bones

inside caverns as they are struck

on the cold walls. Echoes

ricochet from the outer edges,

returning to whisper, escape.

I wait in a small corner, a dark space

that light cannot crawl into.

I wait for the man who says

he knows the way out.

The one to show me details

of a map he drew on the back

of his hand after a dream he had.

But he hasn’t come. He told me

if he didn’t, I should understand,

they had found him, and to move.

From my corner in the darkness

I will have to dream the map

on the back of my hand.

Five fingers point to borders.

The shape of the factory is white.

There is whistling along the corridors.

I remain silent here. In coded intervals,

tools clang against the walls.

I listen for the whispers.

Family Poet Picnic

At a family gathering of sorts, a distant relative, in-law,

or common ancestor in one way or another, tells me,

there’s someone here you should meet you might find

intriguing, he writes poetry like you, and wears a funny hat.

She tries to point him out, but he’s too high in the big oak

out in front of the abandoned county school house

to get a good gander at, though he does appear to be headed

down, so I high-tail it to the far side of the food table.

There I scribble, or pretend to scribble, in a little notebook

with tattered corners and passionate wine stains,

about the turbulent beauty of sweet-slaw and the foxfire

curdlings of potato salad when the mayonnaise goes bad.

I spy him now, down from the limbs, not too far off center

of the baked bean dish that still steams from the heat

of an uncompromised oven, and it appears he may be

drooling into the macaroni and cheese, but I can’t be sure.

Poets can be deceiving in the proximity of foodstuffs,

or the glorious bouquets of wilted flower scurf and bone.

He cocks his head toward me, possibly in an illegal salute

to the arts and senses, as if he senses another poet on the scene.

I try to ignore him, crouching bare-foot near the punchbowl.

He attempts to snag my attention, opening an umbrella of language

over plates of sensuously plumped cookies and leaking raisin pies.

It’s another poetic-hunger stand-off down at the family shindig.

Prescribed Poem with Warnings and Precautions

This poem may be condemned or at least quarantined

as it’s higher in bad cholesterol than the average poem.

This poem should not be plugged into an electrical outlet

when hands are wet, or while standing in water, either stagnant

or gloriously flowing in a cascade of color-coordinated words.

This poem should not be used for political purposes,

religious digressions, or paralytic hemorrhoid relief.

This poem should not be taken lightly, or when obesity

is an issue as an adjective to describe this poem.

This poem is protected, copyrighted, but still unpublished

in academic journals of ill repute, or healthy repute,

or any respectable review of the current state of the art.

 

This poem should not be taken with dairy products,

nor read to cows after sundown.

This poem should be used only as prescribed by registered

physicians or unregistered bovine-poets not into regurgitation.

This poem has a shelf-life comparable to an average

rodent’s life expectancy, and may be able to produce

up to three litters of tiny poems annually.

This poem should not be used for nausea, pest control,

or as a cleaning product around contaminated reading areas.

This poem could be contaminated. Or could be deemed

an uncontrolled pest if not reined in and eradicated.

This poem should not be used if you have a history

of muscle pain or weakness, if you are pregnant, or think

you may be pregnant, or are planning to become pregnant,

or if you’re simply having a continuous series of filthy thoughts

which you think to be wonderfully poetic. Like this poem.

BB

Speaking Up

I dreamed you the emu at the zoo.

The sign said you bit, but you blinked

so sadly. You had

no hands. You looked

flabbergasted to be there.

Speechless for the first time in your life.

You could only cock your head in that birdlike way

and bite the wire mesh with your beak, but I knew

the word you were trying to say

was mistake.

Your favorite word

in the whole world.

But there was no mistake.

After all, this was my dream.

I was having it

and I wasn’t having any of your biting

supercilious

inventory-taking editorial

in my dream, I said

in my dream. Then I moved on

with my fistful of corn

to the fallow deer

who are always more timid

than hungry.

Song

Sex is weird, don’t you

think? I mean take my nose

in your handkerchief. I mean

who doesn’t want to rub up against

beauty? Get a little of it on your

eyelids, in your nose, get inside its

sweet, dark, monogrammed folds

for a good sneeze? It’s a little

weird, a little gross, but I would

kiss you where you pee if you would

let me. Bless me, don’t you think it’s

fate? I mean you and me in beauty’s

corner? I mean me rooting for beauty

in your lap? And don’t you think

Whoever thought this up was

Weird? I mean what was She

thinking? Love is life’s licking itself

prolific. I think it’s all just one big

Tongue. And I don’t think it means

anything. And I think about it all the

time. I mean all the time. Don’t you?

Arse Poetica

Once in elementary school

I brought in my alimentary canal

for show and tell,

sat with it in the back row

of Mrs. Dysher’s 3rd grade class, dying

for a turn,

stood up in front of the whole class

empty-handed,

nothing up my sleeve but a long

sleeve which I opened at one end

as wide as it would go,

panned my astonished classmates with the pink

circle of its entrance

ringed by a good number of deciduous teeth,

turned

and dropped my pants

and would have indicated the other

end with my index finger but

Mrs. Dysher jumped up and threw

her arms around me,

threw herself over me like a rug

and contained that little fire of an idea

without quite putting it out

(censorship as hug)

so that it blazes up on its own, again and again

still now,

consuming me and I disappear.

Failures of the Imagination

She was only attracted to blind men,

but only congenitally blind men

whose idea of an attractive woman

was only an idea.

An attractive woman, you’d see her

guiding her latest beau down Main Street,

his head tilted upward and slightly to the side

like an erection at her elbow.

Of course there were misconceptions

especially among the eligible

sighted men of the town.

Some said her predilection

had something to do with braille

and bringing a woman to climax

by dotting her nipples.

Others said it was Oedipal

which sounded like edible

which led them all to imagine

masticating blind men trembling

on top of orgasmic women.

But there was one among them who

imagined what she saw in blind men

was what they saw when they imagined her.

He had a very good imagination

but still he couldn’t imagine what that was.

He could only see that she was beautiful.

He could only close his eyes and still see it.

BB

POETRY SCROLL TWO

by Paul Hostovsky

Desmond Maurer

Things Fall Apart

He lived with the ants.

He got ant jissom into his system,

and he became more and more like the ants,

the ones susceptible to mold spores

that lodge in the brain and can drive an ant insane

in no time at all.

Such a mold quickly grows from a small growth on his frontal lobe

into something resembling staghorn coral,

which is growing out of his ears and nose.

It was at this time that he solved the Argentine/Argentinian problem

that had been plaguing him for months alone in the rain forest.

He figured using one less syllable would really add up in a lifetime.

While a spider spun a web on his fungal antlers,

he worried about the weight of the spider and her web,

and he worried about the gibberish coming out of his mouth

as if he had merged with the infinite and were speaking in tongues.

He knew he would now have time to do a few things one more time:

lose weight and keep it off;

practice calligraphy blindfolded;

get that one bugger;

fuck the next animal he catches;

scratch behind his ear until he drew blood;

write a good poem.

Because a sound in the bush made him turn his head too fast,

a fungal strip that hung from his nostril

swung into his mouth,

which instinctively clamped down.

He thought of an engine functioning better

on the same gas and oil.

He thought of humans functioning better

on a diet of the same foods all the time.

He decided to live on the fungi that were growing out of him.

And as the fungus spread over more of his brain,

he thought of paring his thoughts down to one,

thinking such sameness will strengthen his mind

and fend off the madness that crept ever closer to taking over.

He chose a couple’s reality defined by the innocence of their only child,

but, as there are so many realities to choose from,

he changed his mind as his mind was changing

and moved to images of day and night, light and dark,

staying up late, getting up early, fathers and sons,

and, in the end, came an image of a turd trying to climb back up into his bowels.

All they found were his clothes wrapped around a large fungus

that had attached itself to a tree.

A notebook indicated he had been studying ants,

but there were none around.

A Lousy Day

There is so much to be learned from a louse.

Science cannot replicate its cement

that holds the egg fast to the hair shaft

close to the scalp, which warms it like a hen.

Sometimes, a lazy louse, or cocky one,

confident in his speed, won’t flee in time,

gets snared with its nit, wriggling nowhere fast

and like a tethered brute can only graze

the bland circumference of his gluey chain.

Science cannot come up with any substance

that can penetrate the egg, poisoning

the baby, no bigger than a pinhead.

The egg must be removed by human hand

and smartly crushed between the fingertips.

Our only other defense is blood

and the dumb luck of the louse

who, hanging at the end of a hair,

perhaps out for air on a split end,

now sees a divergence in his blond abode,

and sorry he cannot travel both and be one louse,

stands long, looks at both, and seeing no difference

takes the wrong path,

the one that brushes against another’s strand,

and rushing to the surface of his new home,

gorges himself at the expense of his new host,

whose blood is no match for his regimen,

and he explodes into the hair

of the woman on her back in bed,

panting after another orgasm.

17th Century Bummer

Led by his crotch to butter one too many a bun

and by his ego to plug his plug,

the duke spilled his wanton do

into the ear of one whose spate

poured forth into the waxy canals

of a cross-biting fool

bent on reaching heaven by riding a kite.

Zounds! declared the queer duke

as the crowd looked for crosses,

found them, and carried them

as if they were cows to the town square

where they would mock the stockings off the duke,

who had split his beard one too many a time.

If he had only gone for a blow,

but he would have his blow and eat it too,

for the duke’s Johnny was raw

because the duke was not.

In the end, he was sentenced

to farm cesspools from dawn

until the clock gonged

the dinner hour

when beggars beg for buns.

BB

by Jeff Morgan

Desmond Maurer

by Stephen R. Roberts

John Maurer

by Bryanna Licciardi

John Maurer

by Chantel Mikiska

John Maurer

by Keith Moul

John Maurer

The Last Days of Summer

To be mid-70s and mild

Where Chinooks blow, a final drop of Big K Cola

Splashed a browning blade of grass, Black Hills

Bleak Hills, Andrei pointed south with the wind

With eyes not closed just yet

When you wrote ‘struck gold

For the first time in two years’

What did you mean?

Was it a turn of phrase?

A perfect dream?

Lawn chair lonesome in the

Middle of a field (thunderheads, etc)

Australian dog shakes and the air

Fills with the dust, the dust of a heat wave

Sunflowers hang their heads

What kind of a party

Will accompany our reunion?

And (must I ask?) are you afraid

That someday the muse will tire of you

And leave you with only your hands and feet

But now is not a time for hesitation

The cold will come, in this world

And the next. No matter what

Darkness lurks in the lunch hour

We do our work, and in doing, it’s done

Looking for an Old Friend

Last time, at the cannery, he clocked out and was gone

Never came back, though we drove all the way to Yellowknife

In pursuit, and years later heard he was somewhere on Turk Street

Sure enough, they knew him there, his style on and off the court

But he had already moved on, Seoul some said, and others, Wyoming

Cigarette butts on the sidewalk, cocaine cheaper than energy drinks

In autumn, sighted again in his old home town, a chief’s hat

A beard, the old Taurus with world map seat covers, for shame

My shoes crossed street several times, but the leads were thin

A hotel, in California, no forwarding address, he was always happy

To fix a screen door, or wait until you got off work

Still there is a photograph on the wall, the green eyes standing

Alone by the railroad tracks, Easton was his name, his mother

A painter and his father, once, built furniture, worked at the

Smoke shop where they never checked anyone’s identification

There were rumors about a knife fight, a child, but nobody knows

Didn’t he want to be an engineer, didn’t he say great uncle was Zane Grey

The days so long when he was sitting there, catching flies in his fist

Matthew on Friday

The painter has been constructing a dream world

Late at night he lays face up in the color fields

His glasses gigantic at the burrito joint uptown

A year before Katrina, sleeping on the floor

In Alaska, jerking ice cream with long blonde hair

Then, hanging insurrection on the wall, lines and drips

A house near the library with a giant window facing

The empty street, copies of Art in America on glass

Tables, flat-brimmed hats, the department of motor vehicles

Full of foreigners wishing to receive license to drive

Without proper identification, trucks screeching as they

Turn off the highway, tires too big for the wheel wells

A question of style, such acceleration is not efficient

Economically, all the new square buildings in the midday

Sun, clean windows, red headed clerks photographing the stacks

Overdue fees and the trash blowing in the wind

Consumers struggling to keep it all clean, the plans

For interstellar colonization, the forest service

After parties, covered in mineral spirits, nicking

His thigh with a chainsaw, cage fighting or else

The image of a butcher decapitating a cow

Selecting this form through a rustle of dry pages

Long nights with the Oscar Peterson Trio and the canvas

Is the Pentateuch, archetypal narratives in gesso

A day job, a scene, a landscape so serene

BB

by Joshua Willey

John Maurer