# 5

Sneakers -- Megan Murphy

--"You have to be immensely daring,
very skilled and imaginative and willing
to tell everything on yourself."
Raymond Carver--

http://www.rimbaud.org.uk/bookofhope.html

Huff-Puff

(after reading Hymns VI by Geoffrey Hill)

I'd hatched Regina from splinter armour

Idylling the chocolate-box fireside.

"Oker Poker dominoker"

Chanted the herringbone-wax figure.

From thrills, through thumb-twiddling

To sob-stuff, she had a badger's mush

This doll with sixpenny eyes.

Unsuitable is the balcony

Of scabby salmon-berry branches,

Mistletoe as follows carols.

That day I fought for her

In the language lab,

Snot-serum, tears.

Teawards I ran, such a miff

Clutching my armless Queen.

Christopher Barnes

artists

i sit alone at the tracks

bells dinging in my ears

the crossing gates down

red lights flashing

the ground shuddering

under the wheels of the train

im watching the art roll by

like a traveling cristo canvas

and im thinking of gaugin

toulouse-lautrec degas

theyre all here with me

behind me in the backseat

slapping me on the shoulder

pointing at the boxcars

clapping their painted hands

excited little boys again

backseat art fanatics critics

insistently cussing all at once

son-of-a-bitch they say

gasping with delight or envy

im not sure which but

im guessing theyre jealous

J.A. Spahr-Summers

(previously published in Blinkzine Arts Magazine and Voices Israel Anthology 2007)

railroad tracks -- zzbaggins

# 4

Fruit's adventure in space 14 -- Anna Maly

"Every science begins as philosophy
and ends as art."
Will Durant--

the Fool poem -- Birgitta Jonsdottir and Maruizio di Bona

an apache

bursts through the door
her eyes wild cactus flowers
she breezes through the room
turning hearts our heads we watch
her paint her flawless face
she smells of fresh yellow roses
she takes us for granted somehow
she takes us by surprise her
wind ripping through us/out of us
we re about to give up
we re about to give in
we re about to drink a toast to geronimo
or to jesus
or to the pope
but by then she is gone

J.A. Spahr-Summers

a black hole arrives to swallow the earth -- zzbaggins

# 3

keeper of all -- Amy Kohut

--"Here come old flat top
He come grooving up slowly
He got joo joo eyeball
He one holy roller
He got hair down to his knees."

John Lennon--

River Runs On

I have
searched too long
for someone like you to
send me a love song, luscious lips
pressing my open mouth,
the taste bud of
spring love.
But the green valley
has turned to drifts of snow.
You've not removed my garden clothes.
Every path led to
the flower bed,
but now
the desert lays,
snoring on the couch.
I was desperate for you to
be fanatical for me,
but all the clocks
whir, chime
and ring out wrong,
it has become too late.
You have already left;
clocks ceased chiming;
river runs on.

Chaim Rosenblum

Thief

I go to capture some spirits
In a box I filled with cellulite
Mirrors of shadow and light
Stealing private essence of
Images sky tree flower dog
And keep them frozen here

J.A. Spahr-Summers

top of the heap -- zzbaggins

# 2

Fly with me 1 -- Anna Maly

--"The people who are crazy enough to think

they can change the world, are the ones who do."

Candy Tothill--

OF THE PEOPLE

for Elihu Burritt, the Learned Blacksmith

Never indolent - no, you're suffering
from headache again. It used to be,
Your antidote for too-long studying
the state of the world
would be extra hours hammering thought
into metal, forging the pain
from synapse into ligament.

But now you're committed to a Message
whose demands dig deeper than any
chisel. Not ambition, exactly;
the heart's desire to see Right done.
Call it Conscience. It's a nag,
it's your way of life, now.

You keep to your bed on bad days,
when the Cause seems hopeless;
waiting out the headache till it's time
to walk to the halls of Powers
and talk Humanity so some politician
anointed by public vote,
chosen by the same plain people
of heart and hard-worked
sinews - the one you've always
trusted to find the just
path, no matter how many decades
of elections it might take.

Taylor Graham




sylvias mother

listens outside sylvias door
what is that girl doing why
wont she come out
for dinner why
wont she talk to anyone she
doesnt understand
how does one stop a
runaway train anyway why
is it...some fires burn
out and others just smolder
on and on and on

J.A. Spahr-Summers

new digs -- zzbaggins

# 1

tailgate -- zzbaggins

--"What do I want?
To free the earth, to free mankind"
Leonid Andreyev--

Metamorphosis

And then the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud
was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.-- Anais Nin

Bland individuals lead
flat lives; the world
is round and vibrant.

Like a small boat
afloat on milky glass,
I stretch through

the canvass, unravel
from the reel.
Less colourful minds

think art is pleasant
but sails of burgundy
and blood cling

to quiet knowing parts.
Dotted skies blink
around angles

that once were sharp
and nails that pressed
convincingly soften

as the globe outside
expands to fit a dream.
Bones click and meet

at zero point on da Vinci's
skull, and God claims
to remember me.

Candy Tothill




angst before sunrise
(title poem...
of the soon to be released e-book)

my bed becomes a battlefield
of smoke and dust and
terror in my head
running through the onion fields
where i must take a stand
fighting back and forth
my boots squishing across
the bloody red sheets
slicing and yielding
ducking cutting and stabbing
what business do i have
with such business as this?

J.A. Spahr-Summers