Boa

She was a projector. Mirror was her screen
Fluffy scarf of feathers around her neck,
A boom box to her left, costumes to her right
Dancing, caressing the boa that she had on

She had an imaginary audience, a good ovation
Fatigued throat & legs from performance of a lifetime,
Soaring in the illusion of fame and Grammy nights,
The relief of warm acceptance we all yearn for

Every step in the choreography was a diva moment,
So picture perfect, we all want to freeze and frame,
The room was an arena of dreams, of fabulosity
Neighbors must have been irritated by the songs,

The melodies that fueled a visionary’s passion
As she spun on her feet, and boa floated on air
Perhaps her siblings thought that the best way
Not to lose her was to let her pursue stardom

She matched it with different hats, various characters;
And I have, since then, associated it with glamour
Sang, flirted, sashayed, and when she got exhausted,
I would hang her boa in the cabinet for a reality check

Contentment Haiku (verse 1)

Who needs shine of gold
When eternity of stars
Lights up the heavens?

Why did J_______ Kill Herself?

Didn’t she have any hope?, you ask
Well
Did her father have any?
Answering a question with a question
Is not valid
Argumentwise
But it does get
Right to the
Point

Why Vampires Make Better Intimates

At some near point
Someone of import
In my narcissistic Life
Will die
Someone else will tell me they died
And
If I don’t run and pop some corn and
Make them go into detail,
I know I’ll just blank,
Then sit ‘n mull it awhile
And, a few months later
I’ll want to call the dead person
But, then, I’ll clue real quick
And be pissed
Because I felt like calling them
And they ruined it

three minutes for three dollars

Janet Kuypers
03/02/10

when the economy is down
and women are expected
to get ahead on their own

the men go off to war
and women are suddenly alone
trying to make ends meet

in Honolulu, durig World War II
the women saw fleets of men
sailing in and out of their ports

the police would condone it
it’s good for the military’s morale
so

prostitution became legal
and suddently all the women
were finally needed for something

but when the ladies of Hotel Street
saw literally hundreds of men
standing in line around the block

well, they had to come up with a system
this was a business, you see
put your morality on the line

offer three minutes for three dollars

this is a business, you see
call it a bull ring or a bull pen
but have three rooms in a circle

one for the men to undress and wait in
one for the three monutes
and one to get dressed in before leaving

over a hundred a day is no problem
when you check your morals at the door
but you have to keep up the pace:

you only have time off for menstration
and they’ll ship you back to the mainland
if you don’t follow the police rules

don’t live outside the brothel
don’t shop in the well-known stores
or frequent well-to-do restaurants

don’t date anyone, don’t buy property
and don’t mind the disrespect,
don’t mind the vulgarity or abuse

and don’t mind the broken heart
or broken body
because even though this is a busy time

for women these days,
someone will come along to take your place
if you ever even think of complaining

no one will

everything about you now is a poem

i think of how you’d make a face at the camera
before we’d put on our little show
for no one

i think back to all the music we made

(you were the first, you know)

everything about you now is poetic

we’d sit on the phone
coming up with ideas
you’d tell me ridiculous stories
and i’d listen, laugh

i treasure these memories now
they’re permanently etched in my mind
and i swear, i won’t let them go

i want the world to know of you and me
but they won’t understand
they won’t get what we had

no one will

the end

    no love no soul in a hole filed with drugs and sex i’m placing a hex on myself use me up then put me on a shelf after i’m creamated serated knives doin my autopsy see into your soul it’s a black hole so fill it with heroin and join me on the other side where i reside it’s called hell the bodys smell but the rent is cheap and we can creep to the surface and pull’em down we feel love as they suffocate they never even make it to the gate they’re v.i.p. they get to see how it feels to die slow they’re people you know preachers who spread lies cops so full of shit they attract flies protect and serve i would’nt swerve if one was standing on the freeway i did it my way now i lay in a shallow grave feedin on their souls makin new holes with my teeth from beneath i can’t breathe so i’m seathin with rage life’s a stage so take a bow and face your maker i’m a taker i’ll eat you alive dive into your grave or i’ll pull you in

BACKSPACE & DELETE

Look up “dumb human” on the computer
and a documented account of my
chumpness downloads for free.
Select “images” to view
degrading pictures of me
digging through wet trash
for a cracked Magic Mountain
keychain photo of her
smiling away on my lap.
Should you prefer to observe
my pain in real time,
check out YouTube for a clip
of me bawling in my car
through forty-five minute
bumper-to-bumper 405 traffic
smearing my tie for tissue.
                 #
But, whatever you do,
don’t read my mental blog
of memories that recounts
simple things about her
such as her hair
shiny and black
black as a record.
How my fingers loved cruising
her scalp like turntable needles
sampling each track
of her total composition:
the up-tempo R&B cut
the quiet slow jam
the heartbreak banger.
                 #
And if you violate the terms
of use as she had, a map of
my common sense will lead
you in endless circles,
a vortex of failed endeavors
to purge her from my life,
my existence.
So, I beg your fingers to
do to me as she’s already done:
backspace and delete me forever

confetti bombs

Those clouds don’t look too hot
and I was just told that they will be here
all weekend.
Talk of storms and floods over smoke.
But the air conditioning still works;
as do my thoughts
and my car.
My stomach is turning over and over.
I can’t tell if my sickness stems from
the orange juice,
the jukebox selections,
the amount of beer I drank last night
or the fact that I cannot talk.

There’s a little girl in a green paper hat
getting ready to eat lunch.
Cigarettes are losing their appeal,
and I really don’t want to tend bar tonight.
I am so broke.
This bender needs to end.
I wonder how much longer
my front tires will last?
Maybe I should break down and
pay to get some new ones,
but that would show signs of responsibility.

Fuck my stomach.
I know it’s not the swine flu.
I’m dishing out elbows instead of handshakes.
Tomorrow, while I run in circles,
someone will walk across a stage,
and I am not allowed to be there.
My left leg is asleep,
and my work shoes look ridiculous.

Why don’t my parents smell
the filth that I drag home with me?
I wonder how much confetti bombs cost.
I wonder if I’ll ever make it to Indy,
or Australia,
or tour.

I know how to play things cool,
but it’s a lot harder than it looks.
My metabolism is a piece of shit.
I need to do laundry.

Grilled cheese:
That’s what the girl in the green paper hat
ordered for lunch.
She’s four or five years old.
Kindergarten logic of course.
Am I proud to be an American?
Am I really an artist?
Sometimes and sometimes.
I’ve been on a sweet tea kick lately.
That’s not a bad thing.

My server smokes the same brand as the graduate.
I hate the couch that I sleep on.
How many years does it take to discover yourself?
I quit all of my good habits and
cannot find the drive to pick them up again;
Like reading and writing.
Saving money.
Working out.
But my stomach is feeling better now.

I think the Bulls can do it this year.
I really do.
Sometimes I wish I was an athlete.
Sometimes I wish I was someone else.
Lately, I just wish the scholar would come around.

I found home a month ago,
but the door was locked.
So I’m still just sitting here on the porch steps,
hungry,
watching the same car drive by.

I’ll have my dentist bills paid off next week.
In a month, I’ll take one step forward
and then two steps backward
because that seems to be what I do best.
Hell, I’ve been doing it for years now.

I love the sound of eggs breaking.

About Casey Cole

    Casey Cole maintains average grades during the day while spreading his time amongst bars and casinos in the evening. He has a poor metabolism, decent eyesight and an impeccable financial irresponsibility that has been years in the making. The nature of his character is light-hearted and loving, though his physical appearance might deter strangers from seeing such beautiful qualities. His knowledge of automobiles is minimal. He can often be found watching Operation Repo. His love for Bill Cosby is insurmountable. He attempts to play the accordion, auto-harp, clarinet and banjo.

puss

heel;

i sit. with

my asshole
on the ice-cold

sidewalk,
like a good doggie.

she ignores me—
except that she has let me out
on an adequate length of leash.

this is the essence of obedience.

School Trip to the Vegas Strip

Carlos no longer preferred D.C. once their history teacher had been able
to comp a suite. Their education had begun when the vans rolled up

to Excalibur dumpsters, where headless stone knights guarded the parking
lot due to the renovation, the endless territorial expansion, a feudal lesson

for the kids like how the baccarat deck represented the long odds of serfs
playing dodgeball. He flashed on a scene of endless paste-eating fat kids

hoeing broccoli and shuddered. Spazzy Tommy Nguyen started singing “Lights,
Camera, Action!” in time with the flickering neon. Soon they all were chanting,

until Mr. Malocchio said to put a cork in it. (Then they Q-U-I-E-T-L-Y made
popping sounds, an ocean of opened Martinelli’s.) The math teacher stirred

a frenzy when he had them count all 8,000 fish at the Mermaid Lounge:
electric blue fish with lemon-drop fins and jellyfish crackling in narcotized

circlets, sticky fingers on glass, noses running like the Coca-Cola addicts
that they were. They bet each other during the kitchen tour, zillions of dollars,

who would dare to climb inside the industrial dishwasher for a complete ride.
All of the kids got into the act: Dead-Eye Jackson shot marbles on a spinning

wheel and pale Marie Ann didn’t let asthma stop her from blowing on bones
on felt or Doug “The Slug,” last picked for all schoolyard games, even got

to be a marker while the guidance counselor prayed that bullets over snowmen
would hold on the last river draw. It was while God laughed at him – we don’t

know why – that the impromptu hide-and-seek tag safari began, as a dozen
or more precious cherubs made eye contact, hit the deck and crawled

between the legs of game tables and grownups, suburban panther cubs
on the mutual prowl. Some snuck back to the buffet, where Miguel reinvented

fusion cuisine, scrambling his variation onarroz con pollo out of chicken
tenders, pork fried rice and ketchup. Johnny B. froze his lips in a suckling

pose when he placed them around the spout of the soft-serve ice-cream machine.
Rose tucked in her shirt and beamed when she decided the blackjack dealer

was her mother, breaker of hearts and occasional moon joy, found again with
diamonds in the fake sky over Caesar’s beckoning her to adulthood, to home.

John Buckley and Martin Ott Bio:

    Raised in Michigan but now living in Southern California, John F. Buckley and Martin Ott began their ongoing games of poetic volleyball in 2009. Poetry from their collaboration Poets’ Guide to America has been accepted by Apocryphaltext, The Binnacle, the Bryant Literary Review, Center: A Journal of the Literary Arts, Compass Rose, Conceit Magazine, Confrontation Magazine, Connecticut River Review, Eleven Eleven, the Evergreen Review, poemeleon, Splash of Red, Untamed Ink, and ZYZZYVA.

The Poet’s Monkey Ears

The ears grow longer and broader listening
with all their might, in the cheap-rent room a rubble
of revisions and old versions, a veritable junkyard
of verbal pipes, busted images n idioms
squashed into paper fists with no bodies, yet still clutching
their clichés for dear life, subtracting some things
to less than zero and then some, and the T’s crossing
themselves like monks, not thresholds, the whole blessed
alphabet giving up the ghost from time to time
on the old oaken floor. Then “I rise in flames
like the Phoenix,” cries the Muse and the ears perk up
and the tongue is filled with Pentecostal fire
n crackles away like Chinese New Year’s in a daisy
chain of sparkling, snapping fuses for God’s sake
and the sake of other ears that may not care for sounds at all.
Then the host of this celebration of noise leaves
the studio of the mind as quickly as the Muse came,
saying, “Th-th-that’s all Folks; exit stage left.”
Fade out; wipe it away; wap-wap-wap, the end of the most real reel.

Nuts

it might be time
to sort things out
or put dying off for another day

crazy with fear
death is near
and shit I feel like I finally
just kind of figured things out
with my Ketamine & needle

I sew my mind up
with multiple daily big dose injections
almost hourly
inter-muscular
the way it should be

dying in the bathtub.

Appearances

They form a procession,
All those gone,
So many now across the years.
Once you begin to believe
They have vanished entirely,
They appear again.

They startle us
On a walk in the woods.
Wait for us in clearings
Where light gives life
To old and brittle leaves.