Above Santa Barbara
© Brooks Roddan
Large stone in prayer
wait for me
I come to surrender not to break through
Wait for me beside the small creek and dusty oaks
Keep falling where you’ve fallen
__________________________
Coming Undone
© Lorene V. Garrett
Begin by unraveling your public persona
as if unfolding a tin foil wrapper
to reveal fresh ideas.
Cradle each one
like a ripe potato.
Finally,
when you are ready.
Serve naked
ungarnished
whole.
_____
Microwave Love Songs
© Joan Jobe Smith
Microwave, 1984. No room in the kitchen for that
new fangled invention, ugly rectangular thug, noisy
arriviste invading space of a bread box and my red
heirloom cookie jar. I hated its blasted electrical rot-
zaps, the cause perhaps of melanoma, tsunamis and
my tennis elbow. I missed wooden spoons to stir my
simmer stuff over low flame till done, didn’t trust one
minute this thing from outer space, though for decades
I rearranged molecules of two million suppers and one
grandson’s oatmeal. On my 44th birthday, Cole Porter
gave me that microwave. Not his real name. I call him
Cole Porter for the tapes he gave me of Frank Sinatra’s
Night and Day, you are the one deep in the heart of me
and I got you under my skin I’d sing along in my car on
my way to his West L.A. place too tiny for a microwave
so we ate to-go Chinatown dim sum, Olvera Street tacos
until I wed a poet and he married a blonde and all the
world’s surreal-mad machines zapped on and on until
last week when my old microwave caught fire. Only
Krakatoa crackled louder as firefighters rushed to the
scene, lugged the charred thing to the alley dumpster
and told me: “Old things are dangerous.” Meaning me?
Age 44 no more? Two fingers were burned in the fire,
ache whenever I yank open the shiny door of this new
microwave and turn the knob, watch the suppers spin,
cheese melt, meat loaf and spaghetti steam as I listen
to the molecules rearrange, thrum and rot-zap proteins
and worry me just like the old microwave did for 24
years. Except this time there are no more love songs.
____________________________________________
Teatime at the O.K. Corral
© Fred Voss
Frank
is lying back in bed with a beer and Jane after another hard day’s work
as A PLACE IN THE SUN
comes on television
and he thinks how he never gets to see the end of the movie
the best part
the trial
with Raymond Burr beating an imaginary Shelley Winters to death with a paddle
and a sweaty Montgomery Cliff going to the electric chair
because Jane can’t take bad movie endings
she even feels sorry for Frankenstein’s monster
and always has Frank turn those movies off before the end
and Frank can’t help thinking
even as his fingers lovingly stroke Jane’s beautiful hair
that if she dies before him
he will be able to finally once again see the ending
to A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE
ON THE WATERFRONT
PATHS OF GLORY
PSYCHO
and he smiles
until the smile drops off his face as the realization sinks in
that after Jane
is gone
and he is totally devastated
his consolation
will be to settle back in a lonely bed with a cold beer and see
Vivien Leigh raped and hauled off to a mental hospital
Marlon Brando
beaten to a bloody pulp on a dirty New Jersey dock
Ralph Meeker and those other 2 soldiers
tied to stakes and executed by order of a corrupt bloodthirsty WW1 general
Janet Leigh’s
blood swirl down the shower drain after she is stabbed to death by a man
dressed in his mother’s clothes.
Suddenly Frank’s lifelong fear of getting cancer and dying young
doesn’t look
so bad.
______
Sticky
© Suzanne Allen
Waiting for his call, I thin
my nail polish. Prince George’s
Passion has thickened
since last winter. Instead, I put
Cosmopolitan on my toes—
chocolate with an opalescent flash.
While it dries, I unscrew the other
brushes—one shaped
like a cone atop a glass scoop
of Mauve Ice—wipe the threads
of the tiny jars with remover,
drop the spent cotton into the clean,
white bowl where it floats,
then sinks—Raisin Rage
looking strange as first blood. Find
the bold red of an old friend—I’m Not
Really a Waitress—in the bottom
of a bathroom drawer. I drip
thinner into the vials,
screw on the tops, then shake.
The silver balls click and stir
memories from that summer—
my same Native Berry, quick-dry
on Grandma’s abandoned vanity.
Pistol Packin’ Pink shimmers—
cotton candy in first-date moonlight—
recalls an aunt’s gesticulating hands.
Lavender Lace Sheer—pearly white,
the shade my mother wore while waiting
for his call—all the rage in 1978.
__________________________
The Laughter of the Damned
for M. F.
© Bill Mohr
Ha, houf, huh, ha, hough, who
would’ve ever guessed – decorum
in hell is still in style: the damned
are very particular about how long
it’s polite to let their laughter
carom like a complaint
about any self-inflicted fate.
Porn stars, for instance, admiring
each other’s baby pictures,
giggle at the poses they chose
as if anything more than a soft laugh,
a sigh, a twirling pang,
would mock their subjugation
at three, or four, or five months,
squatting on a pink blanket,
a little drool on the chin.
and how even at eighteen months,
glancing over their shoulders,
they knew the ludicrous taunts
puckering in their direction.
Odd how equally far
away each sliver of travesty
seems: One remembers stripping
on a small stage near Robertson
and Venice Boulevard. Men
from the spaghetti factory
nearby didn’t expect a live
show between the films
of blow-jobs, but bubbled
as she threw a towel
at them, and leaned back
like a gymnast in a hoop
that thrust her unshaved crotch
into what she called the great
circle; one man aimed
the towel from the third row
and missed, and she stood
and threw it back again
and again, blowing a kiss
at the man who came the closest.
*
The one I knew best
gashed and smeared
the front end of her car
into the rear of another,
and she spent the last
of her credit limit
on a breast job
that only got her
an audition in which
she fucked a producer
for five minutes to
show she didn’t care
about any man’s
insolence. Marina,
you sent a photo
of your apartment
the month before
you shot yourself:
you’d emptied it of
furniture, and only
a banner with your
name hung on
the marquee of your wall.
At some point in a
soft, adjoining world,
my dear, your soul,
in the middle of
many others talking,
will quietly excuse
itself, though no one’s
noticed how long
it’s been since
you said anything.
I sit down where
you were listening
to the faked orgasms
of nostalgic gossip;
as I laugh to keep
them company, ha, huh,
huhn, whah, ha, houf,
they see the movie
in my mind: in an
old car devouring
a quart of oil a week,
I drive you to work
on Sunset Blvd.
just east of Book Soup,
where patrons read
Deleuze and Guttari.
For the next six hours,
you perform in
front of a camera
that will swoop
the image of your hand
fingering yourself onto
distant cinemas of
obliterating lust.
My cell-phone rings:
I hear your laugh,
triumphant, urging
me to come dance at
this place you found near
Pico and Sepulveda, but
you must be aligned
with it five centuries
from now, and how you
escaped the interim of
debasement you’re not
allowed to say. You promised,
and it’s impossible to betray
the cruel prophet of bliss.
_____________________
Rosie
for Elizabeth Bishop
© Stephen Ira
It's nothing. Even your thighs
are stoned, Rosie. Your stolen sketchbook
has been branded by fearful and permanent
pens. Your legs with a rave lying
on them. Your legs of French horn,
your legs of strep throat, your
legs of exhaustion. My forehead on the clear
b flat before your shorts. Your
stolen sketchbook. Do you plan
to throw it back onto the pottery wheel?
I am not like your bulimic teacher's
assistant. I am not like the three
hour drive to Silverlake. The bunks smell
of your pipe and your brownies, Rosie
Rosie. I said I wouldn't leave him
with his pirate ukelele, with his
ukelele of closets, with his ukelele
of psoriasis, with no mother, and how could I
go, at the edge of your thigh, with my
throat full of newsprint?
___________________
iguana kelley’s
© Andrew Hilbert
he sat at the bar
smiling and winking
at the beautiful bartender
with her sex red lipstick
and an ear to ear smile
she had powdered white skin
& black hair kept up
by a blue bandana
& her breasts were
propped up for bigger
tips
he schmoozed her
& all i could think
as i watched this
charade from the other
side of the bar was
“great. here’s another guy
who’s better than me
at everything.”
but when she brought
his drinks,
when she turned around
to serve someone else,
he took his tip
& all the tips around his
& put them in his pocket.
he looked around to make
sure no one saw him but
his worried eyes
stumbled onto
mine.
he knew he’d
been caught
as i mouthed
“motherfucker”
to him
he dug back into his pocket
& laid everything he stole
back onto the table
as if he was some generous
banker
(giving to her as a gift
what was already her’s)
she saw the huge tip
& thanked him graciously
his suave had suddenly
returned.
_______
They Might Let You Go but They Cannot Clean the Madness out of You
© Lisa Manning
This fierce, booming, romping,
shipping wind has knocked clouds
and fog way out to sea where everything goes,
suitcases packed or not, straight into the water
which defines wildness, if you were looking for it
or not, if definitions were values,
if only we could come to some conclusions
like here we are cloudless, visionless
for lack of obscurity, mystery
receding in the stark momentum of clarity --
sitting in the booth of that red-seated diner,
eating my eggs, potatoes and toast,
we drank coffee and smoked cigarettes
breathless, not quite wordless across from each other,
saw desire reflected in each other’s eyes,
squirmed and secreted and wished for a place to go,
but weeks later when we did find someplace
it still wasn’t the right place, not being birds
we couldn’t perch on the edge of each other’s lives
and make a love affair that we could bring our whole selves into.
It’s the talk last night has brought me here,
the film of dialogues, the morning rings with the voices
but I don’t hear the words, the sentences sink right in
through my skin and run into that layer of memory
where she and I sit in that diner
older and younger woman, trying to draw each other out
into the world and failing.
_____________________
Toward the Obsolescence of Kissing Booths
© Jeffrey C. Alfier
Where a bird circles the café windows,
unable to break into our paltry
haven of insular likes and dislikes,
scones come stale and overdone.
The woman sitting next to me actually
has the audacity to write a letter
to someone named John. I read over her
shoulder, only the crossed-out lines.
Another woman I long assumed to love women
leaves with a man she kisses in a car.
She has gold rings on every finger
but the wrong one. I twist mine in empathy.
No bigger than stones we kick home,
that starling, or sparrow, can’t find its way,
doesn’t know its flight can’t turn homeward.
Neither can any sinner here.
At last it arcs steeply, attacks its own
reflection in the window. A man
on an opposite street takes out
a handkerchief. His body aches
in those small places where few women’s
hands have traveled, and he touches himself
secretly while considering the bird’s
broken wing and his 30-year marriage.
I sit at my table, think of how I once touched
a woman who alleged a name that wasn’t hers.
I fish for a credit card, just to earn air miles
to nowhere. I’d rather give them to the bird,
no open wings, no speech to even try.
Its compass – like all humans have but
clearly dismiss – pointed toward redemption,
to dispatch the days like an angry signature.
____________________________________
Everything Good about Paris
© Tobi Cogswell
Go get a bread and bring
the ends of it back, don’t feed
the fish this morning, those ends are mine.
The grace of traffic, perfumed skin,
maids jingling their locker doors,
an orchestra to accompany a perfect day.
Light from the street blinds – reflections
of stained glass make even the most
modest room a church. Grab an orange
for later, maybe something with almonds.
You pass the florist on your way
back to me, it is closed. Globes
of giant lilies in mesmerizing glass bowls
guide you back up the hill
past the store with lovely papers.
You don’t know this but I wrote
a beautiful letter at that store,
delivery to come when we are home.
You had the quilt up to your chin
in the daylight last Tuesday.
You were dreaming about butter
and sugar, my cheek
in the V of your elbow
and the smooth heat of half-clothed
body parts…I unbuttoned one more button
because I know you so well.
I slipped away for a moment -
to write, have a drink, remember
what it was like when I smoked
and then I came back to you, and now
I feel that you are almost at the gate.
Read the plaque at the writer’s house,
I swear someday the French will make
perfect sense. Look up at the Pantheon,
bless the red and the blue and walk faster,
you know those stripes turn our bed alive.
I will have chocolate rather than coffee
this morning. And apricot jam. A bit later.
And you, my love? What is your pleasure
in this solemn hush? A breath held forever.
___________________________________