• Fire in the Lake – hillary kaye
• Summer of Bukowski – Krista Schwimmer
• The Mountains – Jim Smith
• He’ll Eat Your Breakfast – Hal Bogotch
• My Government Won’t Let Me – Mark Lipman
• Poem After Living In Jazz Films – Lynne Bronstein
• What Safety Means to Me – erica snowlake
• Is Venice Seedy? – Mary Getlein
————-
Fire in the Lake
By hillary kaye
when I expose myself to the
elements
when I ask again and again
for love and am denied
when I couldn’t break out of myself
and blood poured out of
every orifice
when I demand the truth
and am scorned
when I am homeless
and helpless
and bereft
when wrong is made right
when evil is made
palatable
when vision is blinded
when hope is an escape
when things pile up
and can’t be dealth with
when love is lost
when friendship spills to
the street like sewage
when angels walk among
us in agony
when light is spellbinding
when when when
things are wholly
different
when things are
wholly changed
& the roof & the
floor & the walls
are split apart
and then becomes a beginning.
————-
Summer of Bukowski
By Krista Schwimmer
The summer of Bukowski
was hotter than normal
even for Venice. Determined
to swim in the ocean
i bought cobalt swim shorts
& three different tops
i never swam.
Instead, i found my way
into Bukowski’s world
through his poetry
& let the heat take me.
Soon, i discovered other Bukowski
lovers – friends i had known
for years who had kept him
a secret from me.
“When i first read him,”
Shawn disclosed, “i took armloads
of his books from the library!”
(i had already done this myself.)
There was a hidden world
of his fans as well.
As i passed out Hank’s poems
to those worthy of his wit,
another friend exclaimed
“Bukowski possesses your soul!”
True, i wanted to run to his grave
on his birthday, but again the heat
the heat just took me where
it wanted & so i remained content
to soak long hours in the tub
with just Bukowski –
to read him on the toilet –
to wake up with him
first thing in the morning.
My husband not a jealous man
at all.
Now the summer is almost gone. The heat remains
in early October.
And so does Bukowski.
————-
The Mountains
By Jim Smith
Woke up before sunrise
to the east, there were huge mountains
just where Los Angeles used to be
It’s gone. Who can say why?
Now, in the shelter of these cliffs
we are free to be a beach town
Our arts, our city, our selves
can all flourish as never before
in the absence of the megasprawl
Hooray for our beautiful mountains!
But when I looked again,
I saw that they were only clouds
————-
He’ll Eat Your Breakfast
By Hal Bogotch
Jerry Springer, bolt your chairs to the floor.
John McCain is mad. Rip your head off,
snap your neck mad. McCain is so mad,
he’s forgotten he’s against torture.
He’s got Nancy Sinatra quaking in her boots.
Larry King is chalk white with fear.
Word to the wise:
walk on eggshells
when John McCain is this pissed.
He’s got the eye of the tiger,
wrapped in the stars and stripes.
Leopard McCain’ll never change his spots.
Hey war hero, why the short fuse?
No Charles Keating trip wire booby trap
henchman end game is foiling your plans.
No vixen lobbyist head turner mother double
marriage spoiler imbroglio is blowing up
in your face like a black lace cherry bomb.
Well, then — what has gotten
John McCain’s temper
past the white-hot point?
What was served on a plane:
large curd cottage cheese.
He likes small.
————-
My Government Won’t Let Me
By Mark Lipman
I’m tired, I’m cold, I wanna go to bed,
But my government won’t let me.
I’m tired, I’m cold, I wanna go to bed,
But my government won’t let me.
The trains are on strike
And the cabs look at me funny
I can’t get a ride
Even though I have the money
I’m tired, I’m cold, I wanna go to bed,
But my government won’t let me.
I’ve heard a lot tonight
And I’ve seen even more.
I want to write it down,
But my government won’t let me.
I’m out of my district
And dressed rather strangely,
No one here likes me,
Because my hair’s kinda mangy.
There are police on the corners
And men lurking in doorways,
No matter where I turn,
There’s an obstacle before me.
I’m tired, I’m cold, I wanna go to bed,
But my government won’t let me.
I want to go home
And empty out my head.
I want to lay down
On a warm safe bed,
But my government won’t let me.
By speaking my mind,
They hate who I am.
They prefer me to be blind,
Than a liberated man.
They threaten my life
And scare me to death,
Till I cower in a corner,
Holding my breath.
They get in my head
And mess with my brain.
They want to convince me
That I am insane.
I’m tired, I’m cold, I wanna go to bed,
But my government won’t let me.
They tell me to trust no one
And I will be safe,
Just like a prisoner,
Behind the walls of a cage.
Hatred and fear,
They consume everyone.
But if we can’t love each other,
Then we have no one.
I’m shivering now,
As I write these last words,
Still looking for a cab
And feeling absurd.
But if I don’t say it,
Then that leaves no one.
The moment you are silent,
Your government has won.
I’m tired, I’m cold, I wanna go to bed,
But my government won’t let me.
I’m tired, I’m cold, I wanna go to bed,
But my government won’t let me.
I’m tired, I’m cold, I wanna go to bed,
But my government won’t let me.
I’m tired, I’m cold, I wanna go to bed,
But my government won’t let me.
————-
Poem After Living In Jazz Films
By Lynne Bronstein
Jillian dialed her trillion-sparkle cell phone
But an unfamiliar sound came out.
It was the Harmelodics of Ornette Coleman
and Company
trilling and drilling away.
“Monkeys shrieking” she thought and dialed
for operator assistance but
she got Sun Ra in hippie beads
creating the beat of ancient Egypt in modern America.
“Nothing in Nature
repeats itself” Sun told her.
Jillian, disgusted
Threw away her phone. She plugged into
her Ipod.
But her preprogrammed consultant-spooned choices
Had been usurped by the poetry
of Allen Ginsberg.
She got rid of that Howl
and ran home to turn on her radio
but Jack and Jill
had given way to
Miles Bird and Trane
all together
ganging up on the non-natural
repetitive focus group format.
When she escaped to the TV
American Idol had been taken over
by street musicians with assorted git boxes
and thousand year old blues voices
singing of hard work and rough love.
Jillian reached for her comfortable old slippers
but they had turned into Blue Suede Shoes
that grinned and shook like Elvis
and told her “Don’t Step On Us!”
And Jillian screamed
“This can’t happen here!
“This is America!”
Said the Shoes:
“It’s America. And it all happened here.
“But you’ve had your ears
plugged into oblivion.”
“Oblivion” Jillian mused.
“Is Oblivion a hit?
“Can I download it?”
(from Thirsty In The Ocean, poetry by Lynn Bronstein, 1980)
————
What Safety Means to Me
by erica snowlake
venezian plum tree
immortal free falling fruit
sharing abundance
————-
Is Venice Seedy?
By Mary Getlein
Is Venice seedy?
R U shittin’ me?
Venice has always been seedy.
People been dropping seeds here for centuries
all kinds of seeds
plants, sperms, super seedy behaviour
the guy that invented LSD just died
was that seedy behaviour?
picking up a new drug and trying it?
And him a scientist, too?
Venice is a vortex –
an idea, an ideal
a place to finger paint, get your feet wet,
jump off into new ideas
find a new way to play a guitar,
beat a drum, yell some new poetry
It doesn’t matter what year it is
It doesn’t matter what new law they’ve
just voted in –
It doesn’t matter how many times they tell
us we just can’t be that free –
WE ARE FREE
We can be ourselves –
There is room for us
There is a place for us –
This is our West Side story –
Allic Allic In Free – We’re Home –
We’re Here and we’re not going No Where!