chaitea XD

the cables and wires

are steadfast in my

skin and bones

the tugging won't

tear them free

they feed me 1's and 0's

and whisper in my ear holes

till it all seems make believe

you didn't introduce me to your man

when our legs were touching

but my lips are sealed

so i'll wait for the lonely night

when the snowball hits my window

and you will be my pillow

lindy is in town
to celebrate we brought all the cushions in my room
into the walk in closet. and smoked a giant nugget blunt
jon said he was almost as high as the time
he thought the road was just a hologram projection from the headlights
gabe said he must have been really, really high
i said it must have been pretty dark while you were driving
he said he must have been reading poetry

Complimentary

The beauty of melancholy can never be seen by anyone but the host of the melancholy. Melancholy is such that it is held inside us, only to sparkle in the true beauty of its essence in pure isolation. No one will ever see or feel the moments I spend while pasta is boiling, smoking cigarettes, drinking red wine, reading the greats and listening to the classics. This perfection in beauty can only crystallize in the utmost isolation, the most perfect moments of loneliness. When I feel most beautiful is when I feel most alone. Sorting photographs and counting the colored leaves, I feel as though the world was designed as a habitat for my longing, for my unwillingness to comply.

twilight of the years

The last girl I made love to
Is still missing at sea
Her father never blamed me
As I begged on my knees
She had a swagger to her
Like linens hung out to dry
She moved with the wind gusts
And winced when the wolves howled
We'd play out by the gallows
And she'd mock all the traitors
Right before they were to die
I heard her curse the almighty once
With her hair all up
And her skirt beginning to un-hem
Her boots had no scuffs
But you wouldn't believe me
If you saw the way
She used to kick the rocks

_virgil cross

I am no horseman.

the murky
stagnate water surrounded him
on his descent to the lake bed
the rush of aquatic envelopment
exhilarating
and nearly washed the shame
moss and dirt
from the rapidly sinking rock
who knew that life on the surface
was no longer possible
after seeing the clapping arms
smug smirks
and contemptuous snarls
of scissors
as he explained why paper always wins
________________________________________

there is a playground
where no kids laugh
no moms smile
and no dads come back
and I embrace the silence like
my faceless future wife
and let my aching feet
carry me
through the birds and the bees
who’re swarming and
stinging and clawing
with needles
and talons so darling
darling
darling
darling don’t turn around
don’t look behind you!
darling don’t turn around
or god’s glare will find you!

It's been a while

8 hours with no window to wish through
smoking secret cigarettes
sinking reasons not to kiss you

in the river that bore us
and gave us our names
silly silly devices

keeps me complacent
playing their games
and tightening vices

_________________

The moon and stars aren’t interested
The tide still rolls in
The birds build their nests
And warm their eggs
The faces on the subway
Don’t flinch at your condition
The trains arrive on time

Across town the waiting room is packed
A nurse rushes in

Across town a door is kicked in
A woman screams

Across town a bullet ruins a cashmere sweater
And the business man sporting it
A baby is born


The pavement
The soil
The lilacs
The spider in your kitchen
And the moths
making love to the porch lamp
hide their faces from your tears

__________________________

the stilts we wear aren’t made
of forest remains
or smelted metals

the common strangers
won’t know what to think
of our parade

they’ll throw dollar bills at our feet
or fists at out faces
but we’ll scoff
on our soap boxes
and high horses

and open a page of Berman


_Jackson Grind

Let's be honest

I asked who i was
and it landed me on this barstool
i requested romance
and now i'm stuck
swimming in this bottle
shrunk down to the size of a moth
and behaving quite the same

the most i can ask for
at this point
is the ironic satisfaction
i get when i drink
from the tit
of a baby's bottle

Jackson's Qualms

i want to explode
kick and scream
in a flash of light
i want to be a firework
the glorious ascent
and a simple exit
that inspires
oo's and aah's
or the covering of ears
an impact nonetheless
i want the nurse to walk in
i want to let everyone know
but it must be kept a secret
for darkness
and closets
and best friends who understand
understand so well
there's no point in talking about it
kept a secret
for girls with sympathetic lips
and smiling eyebrows
or for mockingbirds
so i'll finally
be able to relate to something

instead i
scribble furiously
scribble myself onto paper
scribble a portrait of aches
and confusion
a portrait that no one can paint
ill scribble until the pen breaks
until my heart sinks
until the paper is shredded
and i'm left in tears
sorting scraps
and pounding the table
that has disappointed me again

Late Night Haiku

there is something romantic
about wine bottles
after i have emptied them




warmly romantic
comforting
lonely at my desk

The Funny Thing is...

skeletons are made of math
phospholipid fingertips
hearts are stopwatches

lips ooze with honey
throats swallow gold coins
and regurgitate ashes
which bend the sun
and tarnish feathers

homes are made of melting ice
pyrite smiles
sympathies are pins and needles

yet, i still don't know how i feel
about this outfit

these women keeping
me up all night

and your insightful assumption
that everything is falling apart

_jackson grind

She

She lingers alongside
a stubborn cloud of smoke
amongst cigarette butts
and rose petals
cradling hope for the morning
when her name will be painted
in the sky
and she won't be afraid to follow

blanketed in delusion
the bottom branches of the oak
laugh, as they did when she was young.
skyscraper penthouses
kiss the clouds more audaciously
and wink in her direction.

It may be she's lost an inch or two
or maybe, at her specific
latitude and longitude
the ground sinks
until her fingertips
glance off the apple

yet still, she taunts the sea
dodging the waves
and shooting seductive looks
upwards, toward the moon
making him blush
and the tide roll in

_jackson grind

It's a Trap!

hey sugar,
would you like to escape?
to my well decorated appartment

we can get stoned
ill turn on music
light a candle

leave the unbuttoning to me
if you can wait

shadows of last night
have yet to be licked from the mirror

which you look very pretty in

let me count your freckles
and the ridges of your lips

baby,

ive got you surrounded

_Jackson Grind

_________________________

estrogen

Glitter

I spied one moth white
flying against a stormy november night
and she was me
destined for disaster
but rare and alive nonetheless
perhaps one distant day
nameless we'll be pressed
in a yellowing page
fragments of an age
once moonlit and warm
mistaking any given ray of light
for the morn
Francesca Calabrese
________________________

Savior

Make me forget the past.
This is all I ask.Take my hand and lead,
And bring me back.
Back to who I am
Back to who I've always been
And yet to be, I am,
Yours, eternally.
Flow like a river,
Rushing through my soul
Until you are my insides,
And make me whole.
Take the clouds and part them
Walk across the sea
Pray to God for wisdom
And let us be, love.
Let us be.

_Copyright ©2007 Francesca Rebecca Calabrese

Dog's Life


He's lying with his chin on his forepaws,
my dog, and looking at me, his eyes turned
upward because I'm on the bed and he's
on the floor. Where a dog belongs, even
if the ground's merely floor. He'd rather be
outside. Where a dog belongs. But I can't
leave the house today--I'm sick as a dog,
you could say, although I don't eat my own puke.
When I try to throw up, however, I
pretend to. That usually does the trick.
Then I stagger back to bed, where he waits
--lying where I've lain because it's warm, I guess
Because he likes my odor, I guess. Or
because he's trying to fool me. He can't
--I'm too smart for that. Get down, you fleabag,
I say. He does and I pet him. Then I
fall where I've been and where he's been and
I'm a different animal altogether,
smelling somewhat like him, and taking on
any hair he's shed there. What does he take
from me? He's back on the floor, in the same
old posture, looking bored and lonely. Can't
go out today, I remind him, as I
close my eyes and see green grass and trees and
blue sky and red and yellow flowers. And
I throw him a stick and he fetches it.
Well, almost. This time he brings it halfway
back. I open my eyes and say, Good dream.
That's when he lifts his head and begins to
move his tail. Settle down, boy, I say. Can't
go out now, I say again. He lowers
his head once more and sighs a deep sigh, out
of boredom and loneliness and a bit
of sympathy--he knows I'm sick. At least
I like to think so. I fall asleep--when
I wake up again he's on the bed, head
on my chest, dog-breath panting on my face.
I reach to put my hand around his neck
and he intercepts it with his teeth, but
gently. Leggo, boy, I say. He does. Then
I scratch him behind the ears and his eyes
shut and I just know he's dreaming of me,
he's dreaming of me and it's a good dream,
of being fed or caressed or freed from
the leash. Of digging a hole to bury
a bone or dig it up again. And of
bringing it to me as if to say, This
is what we are, what we came from, what holds
us together, what we're returning to.
That's pretty smart for a dog. Pretty smart
for a person, too. And way, way wiser
because he doesn't have to work or speak, just
bark or whine or growl, and he doesn't need
thumbs or money or school or girls or God.
And as long as I'm sick, neither do I.


--Gale Acuff

Intern

microwaving ravioli has never seemed so dismal

someone muses about the weather
the cute one asks about my weekend

gazing at the framed scenery
rainforests
mountain ranges
the sea

all reminding me
that teamwork is important
and to get those numbers up

Bobby tell's me I'm the man
my soul gasps for air

i even put on cologne...

WE'RE GLIDING SEAMLESSLY
ONE WITH THE NIGHT SKY
A LESS MENNACING BLACK THAN THE HIGHWAY
EVICERATED BY YELLOW LINES
FOREVER RUNNING THE GAUNTLET
OF ORANGE BARRELS
KEEPING US ALLIGNED
AND BLIND

METALIC MESSANGERS INFORM US
THAT SPEEDING FINES ARE DOUBLED
ADDICTION IS INESCAPABLE
AND THE TOLL BOOTH AHEAD
ONLY ACCEPTS CASH
AND NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS

THE BOOTH MAN GRINS
A MORE LIVELY AND
GENUINE GRIN THAN USUAL
AND TELLS ME
THAT I REMIND HIM OF MY MOTHER
WHO PASSED THROUGH HERE YEARS AGO

_Jackson grind

________________________________________________

I wake up. I wish it was dawn, but it’s late in the afternoon. A nurse is wiping sweat from her brow from last night’s full-moon bombardment. I’m sitting up, my eyes still not ready for what sunlight still remains. Sometimes I wish there were cactus outside my window instead of pine or spruce. The intangible Midwest haunting my travelers mind. I earn my existence by blending in. I’m often reassured of this when I think about someone writing a book about my life; a mountain of menial tasks followed by an uncanny amount of walking. It’d be an easy read though, the kind you could float through like the dotted lines of a composer’s wand, gracefully swaggering like a cowboy whose spurs never got caught in bramble or tore a young home-makers mini-skirt. Lets not forget the sea though, whose waves go unnoticed in every setting sun. And when the tide finally recedes I hope I’m sipping a cold beer somewhere with my back turned.

_Virgil Cross

no smoking alarms

to some

self actualization comes
in two colors
silver and black

desperation comes
with two lovers
who never call back

the auspicious hem
of that auburn skirt
comes with ovulation
and the territory

_jackson grind

what's beef

i woke up with the sun

and the east filed for divorce

defiled by the courts
she returned to me

war torn

forlorn

and wondered what it took

to give angels bed head

_jackson grind

I guess

Spotted!
By Jackson Grind


Hiding behind half hearted handshakes
resperating botanicals
and wondering when this liquid
crosses the line, into confidence
convoluted
weaving words into
quarter-witted remarks
Inhaling the season's end
exhaling feelings of last year
there's the constant reminder
not glance over one's shoulder
or into the past
lest they gaze
on your vaguely familiar face
“The sky is yearning for your hands
lay the pen on the ground
the vines of clever justice
have you surrounded,
oh, poignant poetaster!”

wilting

I'm blindly tapping my way
in and out of the forest
of essence of self
and vanilla extract
scented humanity

color coded confusion
callous
contrived
commercialize me
install a cornerstone
or support beams

there is someting i'd like to say
an emotion i'd like to feel
but the mornings around here
are so, so foggy

let me watch

Ring the Buzzer
by Jackson Grind

i always arrive with an entourage
of wise men
who converse only of compromised morals
and sexual undertones
and ask "what else is there to speak of?"

women who accessorize
with neon bags
and empty glasses frames
swallow my pride
and indulge the vanity
which i choke down for every meal
and chase with something stiff
on the rocks

i exit through a trap door
to suit my idiom
and the angel on my shoulder
hasn't paid rent in years

we think so

stuck inside instability,
marching a broken path.
accept theres no way out
and it won't help to ask.
you've got to learn this on your own
but when you finally come to comprehend,
please understand,
the rules of the game grow more complicated.

break down the heartache.
build your own tragedy.

so do the numbers, build yourself a home.
find a wife and leave her all alone.
she'll make you dinner and wash your clothes.
and drown her sister with sobs over the telephone.
trap her with lost looks and dresses.
let her build herself these broken ledges
to stand upon all afternoon
neglect sinched tight like a noose.
all it takes is one slight of foot.
will she jump or will you push?
regardless, a real man would follow.

break down the heartache.
build your own tragedy.

_william j toburn

kekekeke

Three Poems by Virgil Cross

I watch you
From an outcrop
Of desert stone
I wait for you
Warm bedrock
Against my bones
Servile to this rock
And to your desert rules
I watch you
From an outcrop
Of city stone
I wait for you
Cold concrete
Against my bones
Servile to this block
And to your city rules
Every time I touch you
It's my withering flesh
Against your weathered bones


________________________________


Last night I saw myself
In the future
Felt real confident
About how things were
Jell-O shots with Jesus when he's down


________________________________


Kids think
They're entitled
To everyone's lawn
Know this girl
From Winter Park Florida
Says the neighbors
Ride their bikes in her grass
All day long
Grownups think
They're entitled
To just their own lawn
They guard it
Like a fort in the sun
All day long
And the stars
Oh the stars
They get all this fame
But don't you think
The spaces in-between
Need some photos
In a book about
The spaces in-between?

Jackson Grind. And His Latest Thoughts.

"All About the Visuals"
By Jackson Grind


this connection
of both infinitely small
and infinitely large
this connection
of homeless stabbings
and empty cigarette packs
this connection
of exaggerated skylines
and coco butter smooth skin
this connection
can be shared with you
and only you
<3

______________


someone once asked me if i was a messy person
based on my bathroom etiquette
i thought on the matter and replied,
"i never leave a mess
but i make a mess wherever i go."

Haiku.

Here are some shitty haikus
i'd like some good ones
contact is available

I rearranged the circuits
Blue plugged into green
Black is all colors

Your hair smelled alright
Under me
I was jacking off

The floor became a window
Could see forever
Would have made a better door

I can admit your eyes shine
I’m guilty of love
I also don’t give a fuck

AWP.MAIN

Air Waves

My grey eyes reflect a grey desert
void of life, inspiration, form, hope, etc…
(my desk)
I hold on to the memories of sobriety
ideals
and skinned elbows.

A human interest story on the radio
made me cry this morning
(Alzheimer’s and shrapnel wounds)
it’s casual Friday, in a casual world

Doug is cackling wildly again
(the laugh of sinister satisfaction)
at something marginally clever
he graced the department with

women will smile, or scorn
(orgasm withdrawal symptoms)
or consider crash dieting
fidelity, and Medicare plans

and being a child
I want to ask them
under a microscope of honesty
and free of baggage
(charades):
how cruel will life become?

AWI.MAIN

pistil

one can’t help but sympathize
with the fate of dandelions:
that which rests in a child’s breath
a nostalgic death by puckered lips

and you look at me now
with a frightful understanding
of synchronized swing sets
and the superstitions of childhood chants

you blow cool air across
the ridges of my lips
a warm whisper enters my ear
downcast, I face the reaper

Virgil

A poem
by Virgil Cross

Told her she was beautiful
The hesitant kind
Asked me what I expected?
Told her I’m a cowboy
And if cowboys
Loved anything more
Than their horses
What’d be the point?
He’s a widow maker
Who’s never seen the sun
Or the time during the day
Said he knew a man
Who claimed he divorced the sea

*__^ graci.

A poem by William J Toburn

the U.K. wakes up and stretches; its feathers unfurl.
calls immediate attention to the tips of its coils.
they explode and they crawl into so many pools.
the chromosones spread, and leak across the whole world.
("she will die with her dues, to this world, 'an unjust.'"

a ghost pirouettes, dives and it digs,
through all of these servile connections,
just so helpless..
his flawless conscience is lost in search of the 'golden id.'
an accordian design, seemingly by
a catalyst through which he still recalls...
a dream we both once had,
to shatter it all
(until there were only roses).

all lust, all hope, all self-respect.
she wants to make real, those gods i rejected. (in the form of old dreams...)
and i'm sad now to be upon these broken knees (...so disrespected.)
where every nerve-ending will refuse to scream
of some blissful end in eternity.
and the silence stood too bold to scream.
within a dismantled insanity,
the silence stands too bold to scream,
"does not this black-hole grant me any mercy?"

the sunrise showed face and we awoke
inside some late-morning sunday.
by now, i've picked them up, tried them on,
the garments of this martyred evening.
i was looking deeply in the mirror.
but it was done by sun's setting.
of course, i was first to blink
and it's time now that i accept it.

you disappear passed door inside door
(or at least some figment within my head).

we ignore the truth. commence pursuit,
i'm stumbling somewhere far behind.
you escape all loss, evading the law.
i'm here just in time to rewind,
the plotting of, my most epic fall,
into the black; towards the sweetest bed.
to somewhere unattached where misery cannot call.
but it's all belonging to some blissful end.

in a room she disguised and left forgotten in the hall,
these planes disintegrate, frame by frame, lost.
and this game always seems to get in the way
of something more meaningless.
but today, it all dissolves.

we are, dying roses become a funeral's confetti.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Probably Not
by Richy Maine

If tranquility Smells like rain,
the ocean feels
like ecstasy,
hot tea tastes like
my mother's kitchen,
and bells resonate
longing for life;

then award, in shame or celebration,
what lurks above my
shoulders,
because it is his miscalculation
and his paradoxical grin
that has delivered me
to you.

And, if tranquility
smells like rain,
then extinguishing candles
aromatizes home , and
the silhouette is cursing my name

so I’m hunched over love poems
drowning the specifics in alliteration
reminding myself of generalizations
weaving webs and writing fairy tales
for the future of
my daughter’s son.

A. Wright

Addresses

I.

No one's sure whether
the cigarette butts in my mother's
rose garden are mine or hers,

or how the petals swallow
each instant of edible light

these mornings leave waste
in this yard

where we've rubbed shoulders
with both the living
and their dead.

There is a sun that blooms toward me
from the void of sleep in her pupil,
hurrying me to take the scents
of each her gentle suicides
rising between breezes
and let them kiss my chest,
thick as
smoke.

II.

I'd swear the numbers on this house
count the childhoods I spent out back
in the yard,

memorizing the kind of silences
that makes August happen,

tracing old footprints around
in the shade of

another long sun
receding into a living
room painting.






III.

The garden in my belly:

I let my carnations
combust into small
diamond epiphanies
(spontaneous transfusions
of blood & sunlight)
and cough them into the sky
where they will remain
until the sun explodes
to make me whole.

An oak sighs
into her own dust, inhales
the ultraviolet of clouds
passing overhead into her
future.

and enjoy!

2 Poems by Jackson Grind

The razor sharp,

paper thin,

dangling string

of a line.

The silhouetted,

matchbook laden,

plastic headed,

little, limping

line

between love,

hate,

birds and bees,

knees and eyelashes.

The line in front

of each foot

and behind each

great man

waiting be crossed

and accredited

for every step,

heartbreak,

slept off tear,

and empty bottle

of beer in

this

house.

___________

We sat quietly

evading each other’s eyes

studying shoelaces

and dust mites

wondering when we took

the first step

into the sea

I recalled the crunchy

brown leaves

and the muddy tennis shoes

the beach and the

bottom of a well

I was wrong of course

and you so eloquently

reminded me

of the birds and the bees

with stingers

and talons

venom

and razor beaks

you told me there was no use

they had already spotted me

and running now

would only

make them sting

and claw

a little bit

harder

Virgil

2 poems by Virgil Cross

i slip into my jive
while youre asking opinions
and i straddle an old saddle
looking at the wall
pretending you're someone else
i'm not interested
but you remind me of home
like some old horse
wishing he still had a canter
and the hula hoop girls
they're all grown up
dying of cancer
asking about florida
and their options
suddenly i pull my head up
and away from the wall
and you're still tapping
saying something about
haircuts in china
and i curse you
and the horse you rode in on

________________________


from the secret depressions
of a man lacking tinnacles
i stared medusa in the eyes
and felt self concious
when i wasn't turned into stone

and the wolves in the yard
look at me through glass windows
saying things like
why don't you come out and play

we'll bite gently
in the folds
of your skin
that lack nerve endings
we'll bite gently
to prove we've really raised
a few of you

suddenly i noticed
i was missing that part of me
that goes and mingles with a pack
of empty bellied wolves who are hungry

then i turned to go
to walk to the door
that leads to my car port

the wolves in the yard
behind glass windows
got upset and turned on my
favorite pet rock
to sharpen their teeth

then they elevated their split level eyes
and lipped
we double dog dare ya

cuteZ!

yooz pang

Screaming at
The top of my lungs
But the top of my lungs
Aren’t listening
They’re fixed
On what’s
Glistening off the
Water’s edge
There lies
My reflection
You may see
Something unexpected
if you glance from
a different perspective

you’ll see my dinner
spoiled rotten
with gifts and
sweet nothings
humming about
the price
of a sweater
or something

you’ll see my nose
running away with his lover
he still loves her
to this day, but
wont speak ,
not even a mutter,
to me or
his mother

and finally
you’ll see my heart
beating at his brawny breast
celebrating his victory
won from my chest
unless love
(or lovelessness)
Can cause him
To flinch
He will stay hard
And in charge
Of me
‘till the end

Futon Dreams

by chai

our pulse is set
to the bass-line
on repeat
in each if our minds
our temples pound
louder
as the sound
falls
into the caverns of the brain

with the energy
to write everything down,
we've been dancing;
afloat on the third,
redundant, regurgitation
of revolving stone
and soil.

all the while,
every door handle
smiles at night
every high way laughs
and every wool blanket
locks a bedroom door

Hocking County

Something about this place

Makes me tired early

But the silence

Prohibits sleep

There is a loneliness

That can’t be heard in the city

It’s muffled by the busses,

Domestic disputes,

Train tracks,

And tragedy

The trees smirk

Waiting for me to

Finally figure it all out

The birds chirp

Their subtle hints

And I chop wood

Listening for anything

And yearn for the pain

Confusion

And intoxication

Of home