“Back From The Dead” by Harry Calhoun

I keep a picture on my desk

from 23 years ago

a photo of myself at the typewriter

sitting at an old metal desk

in an attic apartment with plaster patches

on the sloping walls

 

I look 15 and geeky at 31

and I wonder if I was happy

and as I remember I wasn’t

all those years I wasted depressed

and now, older and living in comfort

 

I’m happy, but the comfort has little

to do with it. My wife and my dog

have a lot to do with it. And a while back

I Googled my name to find

there are a lot of my old poems out there

in little magazines on rare book sites

 

but I lost some poems to flooding

and a hard drive gone bad

and I got discouraged

and I started thinking my writing at work

was enough

 

but something about that photo

and stumbling on bukowski.net

and surprised to find that people knew my name

I realize that

I’m not Whitman

I’m not Frost

and I’m certainly no Bukowski

 

but unlike an NFL running back

whose average career is four and a half years

I have as long as I live to catch up

I’m not Bukowski

but I’m writing again

and what I am is

 

back

 

(Harry Calhoun has been published all over the place but you’d probably only recognize a few of them — Writer’s Digest and the National Enquirer, for instance. He has found frequent editorial favor as a poet in small-press magazines since 1980, edited a poetry magazine, and had a lot of freelance articles and literary essays published in the 80s and 90s.)

 

 

“Hunter’s Haiku on the Election Cycle” by Christopher Dean

Pricks and vain bastards
scream about preachers and phones
damn glad I’m dead now

(Chris Dean’s family founded the remote city of Beaver, Utah, but fortunately he grew up further West–spending time in rivers, lakes, and even the ocean.  He calls Santa Barbara his current home, but his spiritual home is Portland, Oregon)

“Ghost Writing Distance in Vowels” by Mr. Zach

the first full moon
of spring
called for me
i answered
abandoning
literatures curse
forgotten words
that missed
the page
and the keyboard
that kept on typing.

“i. walks to sit where
the daisies grow
around the thoughts
of u. and melts
like ice cream
on july sidewalks.”

the first full moon
of spring
licks my face
in chrome
the keyboard
knows
i wait
and
strain
to hear
something
other than
crickets.

(Mr. Zach describes himself thus: Zachari James Popour is just like you, )

him, her, them; both the best and

the worst person in the world.

“The Grave of William Wordsworth” by Eric D. Lehman

His stone stands stoic, crowded and gray,
Shoved into a sleepy cemetery,
Squashed, as in life, between sister and wife.

The yew trees he planted prosper nearby.
They hold memory more truly, as do
The dew-drenched hamlets, the foggy farmwalls,
The hedges and long lakes, the bogs and ghylls,
The moss-green mountains and the cloudstill sky.

I marvel how his thick poetic thought
Has soaked the grass of the entire earth,
Strong drink for hearts in need of health and growth.
Am I a leaf on this rich highland field?
I will write, and walk, and plant trees, and hope.

(Eric D. Lehman is a professor of English at the University of Bridgeport, CT, and has published poetry, fiction, essays, and travel stories in dozens of journals, including The New Formalist, Moria, Mastodon Dentist, Canopic Jar, Switchback, Entelechy, Identity Theory, Hackwriters, and Nexus: The International Henry Miller Journal.)

“A Writing Life” by Rodger Jacobs

High school
newspaper
Half-assed attempts
at
spec screenplays
Research assistant
for
hot-shot movie star
(One of the good ones, actually
Until busted for possession of
coke
At Heathrow Airport
But that didn’t make him a
bad guy)
Hack screenwriter
for
low-budget movies
Movies destined to never be
produced
Living in L.A. too long will do that
to
a
writer

Screenplay
analyst
Scripts destined to
never be
produced
I saw to that
More half-assed attempts
at
spec screenplays
A few came close
to being
produced

Ducking down into
the
porno ghetto
By categories:
Screenplays
Advertising copy
Movie reviews
Porn star interviews
You should try interviewing
a porn star
There
is
nothing
there
Nothing
Three AVN awards for time served
in the
porno ghetto

Scores of
documentaries
written
There is no money to be made
in
documentaries

So

Freelance cultural critic
for
Magazines
(Buck a word,
not bad)
Underground newspapers
(Zero per word,
still not bad
More respectable than
porno)

The World Trade Center
buckles and falls
Dot com boom
goes bust
Freelance magazine gigs
All go south

So

Back to
Good God, no
The porno ghetto
Didn’t stay very long, though
The business had
changed
No one wanted
stories
not anymore
Just 19-year-old
girls
Who look like
twelve-year-old
girls
Cum dripping down
their faces

So

I didn’t linger very long at that
fair
Because
I
had
books
to
write

“My Protagonist” by David La Bounty

you need to

make your

protagonist

more likable

someone said

of my latest

attempt at

novel writing

immortality.

 

because if

you don’t,

no one will

want to finish

the book even

though it’s

brilliant in

parts, and

 

I said,

thanks for

reading

and told

him he was

a stupid

fuck albeit

under my

breath and

 

I thought about his advice.

 

I thought about

 

bookstores and libraries,

rows and rows of

boring books

I’ve made

myself read

over the years

so I could

see how it was

done, and most

of those books

are written by

professors of English

or creative writing,

 

I thought about

all of their likable

protagonists, upper

mostly, full of

conflict and suburban

angst, so unlike

my most recent

protagonist,

vain, selfish, lazy

and conflicted 

 

and that’s the

character I’m

rolling with

maybe because I’m

 

vain, selfish, lazy

and conflicted

with absolutely

no hope for

 

resolution.

(David LaBounty lives in suburban Detroit with his wife and two sons. His poetry has been published in several online and print journals. His most recent novel is The Trinity)

“The Decline of Verse” by Gary Beck

Emotional eunuchs guard
the portals of poetry
and arbitrarily judge
who is allowed to enter.
Armed with the weapons of style,
they have forgotten substance.
In the safety of college
they are immune to the struggle
that consumes mankind daily,
and prefer a metaphor
to an unadorned statement.
They never seem to wonder
why people no longer feel
a thrill reading poetry.

(Gary Beck’s poetry has appeared in dozens of literary magazines. His recent fiction has been published in numerous lit mags as well. His chapbook, The Conquest of Somalia, by Cervena Barva Press. His plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocoles have been produced off-Broadway. He lives in New York)

“Poetess” by Heather Haley

Gin limber, she lies on her tummy
contorting sentences under the lava
lamp. No room in the final note
for a litany. No space
for a nervous breakdown.
Corner-painted. Mother bashed.
Apron-strung. Quirks cosseted,
she conspires like a murderess
to pull a Plath, to stick her head
into the oven, not another bun.

Not another word. Let the loud
print dress do all the talking.

(Heather is a Canadian poetess, writer, and performance artist. Previously at Hemingway’s Shotgun, Heather has contributed Three Blocks West of Wonderland.)

“Shame” by Josh Olsen

Owen’s parents sat by the fire smoking joints and lighting ladyfingers.
Heath’s mother passed out with the TV on.
Mike’s grandparents drank lite beer and played euchre.
                                     *
The cliché is …experimentation should be reserved for the college years,
but it was old news by the time I was eight.
My sexual revolution peaked in the first grade.
                                     *
Owen gave me my first blowjob.
Heath pinched my nipples and called me Kylie.
Mike told me to buttfuck him.
                                     *
I wrote a poem about a neighbor boy who asked me to piss in his mouth –
it quickly became my most popular piece, inciting loud and drunken requests
at Open Mics. The infinitesimal celebrity felt good.
In my first workshop I was told I use humor to mask my shame.

(Josh Olsen is a father of two and a writing instructor at the University of Michigan and Wayne State University)

“On Poetry” by Daniel S. Irwin

I never planned on writing poetry.
Never thought of poetry as
anything other than weird crap
strung together with a plan
or slapped together
with no plan at all
written by strange men
and garden club women.
Merry rhyme at best and
bull crap form at worst.
Strange stuff you were
forced to read in school.
Then somewhere, somehow
I found ‘underground’.
Poetry that said more than
sweet nothings or just
sang of pretty butterflies.
Poetry that spoke of life.
Poetry that spoke of
real things good and bad.
Poetry that spoke of
the human condition with
all the failings of the world
both assailed and embraced 
portraying desperation and hope
on the same level as kismet.
And thoughts come at random
unannounced from well hidden
depths of emotion and logic
and I write them down as
unplanned poetry by a
now poet.

(Daniel S. Irwin is an Illinois-based “artist/writer (both a matter of opinion) and works with the criminally insane.” His work can be found at My Coffee, Zygote, Spin, and Yellow Mama)