Ma, Ma. . . I want some milk. —R.L. Burnside I just found me some blues glued & jimmied into a milk bottle’s neck, big thing in a small space like the busty chick fronting that swart ship: four foot leeward from flipping the script. Four latitude & four long from the back-step on the […]
Poetry 78
Adrian Matejka: from Domo Arigato, Mr. Mulatto (Dub Style) Sample Three
I am. . .I izam. . . the modern ma-ma-ma-hn, who hides behind a ma-weeee-ask. . . Don’t blame the Halloween masks, scuba masks, eye & mouth joints used to rob the corner market. My mask has teeth & tear marks like bison meat. Open sockets like somebody took the bulbs out. It fits easily […]
Mary Paulson: Dinner
over pepper steak I must admit I don’t like you much but try to pull apart my ribs on the way home for us I wear a light perfume this evening something floral I can smell with my tongue up in your room I’m darkly lit, heavily guarded, held in abeyance the way you hold […]
Terry Ann Thaxton: Big Pine Key, Summer 1974
Five rinky-dink bodies, white sand, trance-like clouds, the beach empty except me and my four brothers–sand fleas that I can’t shake off my feet. I wish for ten sisters to help me whip my brothers into pine trees, big Australian pines that spread across the beach, where fools, my brothers, walk on Pirates’ bones– boys […]
Richard Hoffman: Founders’ Gallery
This old man, he play one, he play walk like I walk, son. With a six-pack, heart attack, leave me all alone, this old man come rolling home. This old man, he play two, he play listen I know you. With a back-slap, wisecrack, cut me to the bone, this old man drove me from […]
Richard Hoffman: Gift
My father gave me a small globe, “This is the world,” he said, and showed me where to put the money. “Good boy,” he said. “Good-bye! Good luck!” A lot of good that did me. Or him. I lift and shake it: empty. It doesn’t spin; it never did, and the countries are different.