Artwork by Bruce New

Charlie Parker's Garden (poetry) by Puma Perl

Red Mama (artwork/poetry) by Moctezuma Johnson

The Mob (poetry) by Doug Draime

Willie Lepers (music video) by Norman Ball

1 out of 6 by by Rob Plath

The Recipe by Emme Hor

Sometimes Suicidal by Aimee DeLong

Last Night at Southport by Justin Hyde

microwave popcorn haiku by Pete Lee

 

Book Reviews:

Dancing on Thin Ice by George Anderson ( review by Ralph-Michael Chiaia)

92 Rapple by Lyn Lifshin
(review by Helen Peterson)

10 Poems & Ampersands
by Ralph-Michael Chiaia
(review by David McLean)

 

Lawrence

Will there be some normalcy again?
Will we go to the smoothie store
The flavor conundrum?
Will we sit on porches and talk about things
That make the world seem bigger than where we’re at?
Will you kiss me like I’m a princess without blood stains?

Will we haunt the night with our revelations and
Stoned epiphanies?
The reeds of grass dance in the dark
After a hard and satisfying week

Will we hold hands without concern of over-attachment?
Will we buy Iced Moroccans
And drink them in the deflating warm baked bread sun
Sucking all the foam off the top with a plastic straw
When we weren’t so concerned where plastic came from?

Let’s go get a beer
An oat stout
Let’s smoke those natural cigarettes
Let’s, “do it” 
Back when we didn’t say fucking so much
When things didn’t need to be risqué to feel good,

I love all the love that I had
I hate all the hate that hadn’t raped me yet
Waiting in a dark corner,
Probably where the barbecue sauce always sweltered in the heat
In the back
In our alley,
Between our screened in kitchen window and the Bottleneck.
Some shows we didn’t have money for
But heard the music trample in like boiled pasta water
Strained and cooled

I used to go to bed thinking there was more
Now I go to bed knowing there’s more that
I wish I didn’t know was there,
The ashtray is a one of kind ceramic creation
Look at those swirls.
I remember buying it in a smoke shop downtown.
I still snuff it all out in there.

Drudgery Among The Stars

I am a thing apart from myself,
Like an elephant that lives fifty years,
The mass of it’s own body unrealized,
The purity of its ivory tusks,
Nothing more than
Those things that stick out from my mouth
Drudgery among the stars

My sadness lives a life I don’t understand,
There is no magic when I brush my hair
It was never glory
Like they said
It was hair,
Sometimes dusty

Every food I eat could be
Rice in a bowl
It doesn’t matter.
Words, spoken, are as dry as
Salt on the concrete in the hideous sun

But if you;
Let’s make an appointment for you to
Remind me that everything can still be wonderful
I’ll believe
I just can’t tell myself,
All the sentiments that escape my lips have lost all meaning
But if you say it
I will believe.

Focus

Dressed in hot pink
And High heels
Lying on a table
Bound
With his dick flopped up
With his dick, a little bigger than average

His head is beady and bald
His face, like a giant rat’s eye
Sneery and jubilant like
A kid you just know will turn into a serial killer,
Whose pulse will never rise
He wants a shower

“I got you a pretty girl!”
Focus
“Look at you!  You have a pretty girl about to piss on you and your cock isn’t even hard.”
Focus
It’s very warm
Down my legs

---

Biography

Aimee DeLong lives in New York. Her work has appeared in such places as Hotel St. George Press, Cherry Bleeds, Lit Chaos, Yellow Mama and 3:AM. She is also the winner of the 2008 Famas Poetry Prize. Check out her website at www.aimeedelong.com. It's a total party.