Poetry O' Plenty
Spirit As Landscape by Tommy Wright, Jr.
Emotional Champagne by Anthony Simeone
to ezra pund on his 112th Birthday by Andrea Chrisman
Untitled by Bruce Kramer
Beauty Is Skin Deep With Me by Bruce Kramer

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Prose Pieces Pour Poo-Poo
Prose works by Bertram Redgrave and Matthew Weatherbee

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Untitled
by swalker@pop.tiac.net

A clam sings in Brooklyn
A clam sings alone
A clam sings in Brooklyn
Someone calls him on the phone
A frog reads in Tulsa
A frog reads alone
A frog reads in Tulsa
Then calls a clam up on the phone

your isolationist diatribe sent
poor Mister J. Alfred Prufrock
(the boy nobody loved)
madly singing
cowering among empty trashcan tides
wishing he had mingled more
with Kirk's sea-green girls
in the ocean spray.

the rising waves cover reminders of you
with salt sticky nostalgia.
it is time for funerals:
a freshly planted grave awaits;
roots are boring through coffin-calculated images
of the elite.

you should commend me:
i trudge clumsily through your ogre tracks
in a world teaching economy of spirit.
i walk barefoot into the galleries
tracking mud-slung theories on my soles
singing quietly in the shadows
while grumbling under cheap wine breath
"make it new."

come, we shall walk together-
the babbling fool and the pseudo-intellectual.
plodding through poetry,
we can sing of worlds gone perfect
and shatter them with a waiver of the pen.

She's a dog!

Damn that Bogart, he said she was a real looker, long blond hair, deep brown eyes and a great sense of humor, but for christ sakes she's a dog. No getting around it and he's stuck. She has a great personality Bogart had said, damn why didn't he listen to his own gut, never date someone with a great personality, It's the warning signal every time.

Bogart said she was a neighbor he knew who was lonely, her steady had been killed by a car some months before and she was slowly putting her life back together. Real trouble he had thought, but Bogart had been so insistent, please, I like her, Bogart said, she needs someone new, and you know me I've got more females on my hands than I can handle now... yeah, Bogart the big seducer, so he had said ok, why not, maybe this one time would be different so Bogart had arranged their date, she will be waiting on the corner of 2nd and Morgan, and, oh yes, she would be wearing a choker, like the one Pat Boone wore to the music awards...wow, how could you resist that...just a look see...what's to lose...

Well he was no coward and by damn he had said he would meet her so ... waiting for a gap in the light afternoon traffic he crossed the street toward her.

She must have had a good description of him from Bogart for as soon as he reached the corner she spotted him. Damn, no way to duck out now.

She is playing it coy though, making him come up and introduce himself.

She is so nonchalant. Well, here goes...

"Meeeooooowwww!"

Ten minutes later and two blocks away he sat on the lowest limb of the old Sycamore tree in the school yard. Casually he lifted his paw to lick his fur. Below him her paws braced on the trunk of the tree Brenda let go with another crescendo of barking. Damn he thought, Bogart was right, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Ahhhh, the paradise of suburbia, that community of strangers striving for utopia! All the stupid people of this equally stupid world want a piece of the American pie. Things are so dreamy here, basking in the tattered shade of the good old stars and stripes (or should I say "scars and gripes"?). Yeah, everybody and their friggin' family doctor wants to to wake up in a white picket prison in a quiet (i.e. boring) little town. Who wouldn't want to get chained into their own genuine American daily routine? Shit, they last for your entire life! Now that's the high life, baby! To have your dreams slowly strangled as the years pass (there's a lot to be said for the positive benefits of a painful and lingering death as you waste away to nothing). You get to wake up early every morning for 30 or 40 years to go to work for a boss that hates your guts. You kiss the old spouse goodbye before leaving the house you'll be paying for for the next three decades. (Note to Women: notice I said "spouse"...all that hard work at getting equal rights has paid off! Now you get to go join in all the fun that used to only be for men. The stress and subequent heart attacks you've all been missing out on can now be yours too! How glamorous!). And don't forget the car with about 25 more payments on it and a failing engine. Then you sit behind an itty-bitty desk in an even smaller office during the proverbial nine to five shift. The boss might even learn your name someday, Mr. or Mrs. Employee, but only if you are industrious (and more importantly, lucky). After all, someone has to keep the country alive and running smoothly. Wouldn't want our system of government or economy to seem unappealing, because no one would buy it anymore. Yes, the twins of democracy and capitalism skip hand-in-hand merrily over the backs of the happy tax payers! That's the American Way, isn't it? But let's not forget all the happiness on the homefront! Imagine the joy of watching you're 2.35 kids as they grow, the small town ennui draining them of imagination and creativity. Yep, eventually they'll all have a bunch of illegitimate kids and become gas station attendants. My fellow Suburbians, how great it is to be an American dreamer (because in our country, the only sure way to see yourself content is while you are asleep or under the influence of some drug, legal or otherwise). Yes, nothing compares to the indescribable bliss of the paycheck. You clutch the piece of paper that magically turns into cash when you go to one of those money temples. How conveinient! All you have to do is give it to one of those wizards behind the glass windows and ALAKAZAM! You've got a small pile of green that MIGHT feed and clothe and shelter you and yours for another week. Then it's off to the beautiful doldrums and dead silence of suburbia. There is not one sound there to disturb you. No children playing or neighbors chatting under the setting sun to make one noise. Just nice, empty streets and lawns (and you thought people only locked themselves in their homes at night during the Dark Ages!). At times like this (meaning every night) you think about the future! Ah, the future... a time when you can finally die...er...rest and leave your children their inheritance: all of the debts, impossible to pay back in one lifetime, that you cherished during your life! What a wonder ful heirloom. There is no better way to say a posthumous "I Love You"! With that thought you walk into that peaceful home. And everyone will wonder for a while why you rocked your wife and kids and yourself to sleep that night with a shotgun...what, weren't you happy?!