by Rich Balling
Even though we sleep together we’re alone
And I find it hard to get out of bed
And we operate but
I still feel alone
And I can’t complain
Cause she’s so beautiful
Yes we all have made mistakes
GABE SAPORTA
Midtown
Everyday the same joke
I never think it’s funny
Nothing’s ever what it seems
The truth becomes a dream
And we reach for what we’re missing in ourselves
I fought away this desperation
I made attempts to quell temptation
I swear to god I tried, but we could never compromise
You could never change me
And we reach for what we’re missing in—
We don’t know how to let love in
Don’t you cry
For me
Because I’m already dead.
BOBBY DARLING
Gatsby’s American Dream
Industry, the Age of Dinosaurs, and the End of Civilization
they call this the badlands baby
but it used to be bayou
the shore of an inland sea
and i can still hear you coming
what foul beast stalks this way
the night is dim
but i catch the scent of your arrogance
as you rear your head i can see your eyes gleaming
catching light from the moon
like a pair of knives
to cut me down
yeah there is a hole in the world
and the light is leaking out
spilling like water
and i can still hear you coming
what new devilry is this?
i saw you rise
and creep across the sky
and all night as i fled
you came behind
eating all the stars
we dig to find
why the light left
skulls and bone
rock and stone
whisper stories
tales of glory
and a tragic fall from grace
we’re still falling
just like the dinosaurs
what makes you think we’ll end up any different
JOSEPH KARAM
The Locust
Wet Dream War Machine
Stop talking politics
Rephrase, Rephrase
Hibernating phantom friend
Witness, Witness
There’s a hotbed of isms around here.
All hail the chopper,
the blitzkrieg,
the tank.
Never mind the ethics involved.
Stop talking politics.
Calculate, Eliminate
Witness, This mess
Who’s got their nightmare glasses?
It’s time to go diving.
Prime time is
crime time is
nuclear might.
All hail the chopper,
the blitzkrieg,
the tank.
Never mind the ethics involved.
SHANE TOLD
Silverstein
Bleeds No More
My heart bleeds no more; now, it’s been turned to stone. Your stomach feels sick for someone else. I’ve broken both my legs falling for you. Drag me on the ground. Powerless I stand, tarnished blade, cutting through, pushed into my vein. Blood still stains my hands. Sharpening my sense of pain outside, my heart bleeds no more. Killing everything off inside. Make sense of everything you tried to hide from me. My heart bleeds no more; now, it’s been turned to stone. My stomach feels sore from cutting up. I ruined all my sanctity for you. Smash me on the ground. I wanted to convince myself there’s nothing else to do. I wanted to provide you with proof of what you put me through. I wanted to pretend that I was you.
MIKE BURKETT
NOFX
Re-Gaining Unconsciousness
First they put away the dealers, keep our kids safe and off the
street
Then they put away the prostitutes, keep married men
cloistered at home
Then they shooed away the bums, then they beat and bashed
the queers
Turned away asylum seekers, fed us suspicions and fears
We didn’t raise our voice, we didn’t make a fuss
It’s funny there was no one left to notice when they came for
us
Looks like witches are in season, you better fly your flag and
be aware
Of anyone who might fit the description, diversity is now our
biggest fear
Now with our conversations tapped and our differences
exposed
How ya supposed to love your neighbor, without minds and
curtains closed
We used to worry about big brother, now we got a big father
and an even bigger mother
And you still believe, this aristocracy gives a fuck about you
They put the mock, in demockracy and you swallowed every
hook
The sad truth is you would rather follow the school into the
net
Cuz swimming alone at sea is not the kind of freedom you
actually want
So go back to your crib and suck on a tit and go bask in the
warmth of your diaper
You’re sitting in shit and piss while sucking a huge pacifier a
country of adult infants
A legion of mental midgets a country of adult infants a
country of adult infants
All re-gaining their unconsciousness
MIKE BURKETT
NOFX
Idiots Are Taking Over
It’s not the right time to be sober now the idiots are taking
over
Spreading like a social cancer is there an answer
Mensa membership conceding, tell me why (And how) are all
the stupid people breeding
Watson, it’s really elementary, the industrial revolution has
flipped a bitch on evolution
The benevolent and wise are being thwarted, ostracized, what
a bummer
The world keeps getting dumber insensitivity is standard, and
faith is being fancied over reason
Darwin’s rolling over in his coffin, cuz the fittest are
surviving much less often
Now everything seems to be reversing, and it’s worsening
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool
Now angry mob mentality is no longer the exception, it’s the
rule
And I’m starting to feel a lot like Charlton Heston, stranded
on a primate planet
Apes and orangutans that ran it to the ground, were generals
and the armies who obeyed them
Followers following fables, philosophies that enable them to
rule without regard
It sounds all too familiar
There’s no point for democracy when ignorance is celebrated
Political scientists get the same one vote as some Arkansas
inbred
Majority rule don’t work in the mental institutions
Sometimes the smallest, softest voice carries the grand
biggest solutions
So what are we left with? a nation of god fearing pregnant
nationalists
Who feel it’s their duty to populate their homeland
Pass on traditions, how to get ahead religions and prosperity
via simpleton culture
The idiots are taking over.
VINCENT REYES
Friends In The Mountains
St. Anthony
I’m sure the mist of an invisible spring
must have invaded the young Ascetic’s mind.
FORNICATION,
The last temptation carrying secret baskets
filled with the miniature gardens of Persian kings.
How was it that the painter Hieronymous Bosch
kept his hands still to paint that Dutch mistress
hiding half of her flesh behind a corroded tree trunk.
This royal lady of unchastity,
promising nurture and sweetness
to all of her loyal subjects.
I’ve crowned her queen fornication of North Africa.
The woman who roams the World putting plastic
Lilies behind the ears of lonely men.
Saint Anthony must have heard her soft seductive sound
in the desert.
Fornication’s silk mantle blowing in the dry wind.
That savoring sound of pleasure
Then the voice:
“Do not deny what is good for you, stupid Egyptian.
Do not deny what is natural.”
I imagine the young Saint closing his eyes and trying
to transform his racing heart of blood and body
into an illumined Lily that would fill his entire
being with a living scent.
VINCENT REYES
Friends In The Mountains
Watching Traffic from the Navel of a Golden Lotus
“If one speaks or acts with wicked mind, because of that, pain pursues him, even as a wheel follows the hoof of the draught ox.“
—The Dhammapada
A lady crying in traffic gave the day the eternity it was looking for.
The steering wheel,
rusted under her tears,
became the sun.
A miracle or alchemy?
An armillary sphere
Like the Buddhist wheel of truth I had seen
in some museum’s private collection,
placed behind glass and an alarm system.
I remember the back of her head,
Mother of this family whose eyes are always
Moving,
Left,
Right,
but mainly towards the direction of light.
RUSS RANKIN
Good Riddance
Only Crime
Blank Pages
When I stop living
When I am dead
When I no longer walk, talk,
Or breathe
When my insides stop working
Will I leave anything substantial?
Will anything I’ve done, said,
Or erected
During my brief tour here
Empower, enlighten,
Or endure
When I happen to pause
In the course of an average day
And think these thoughts
It’s as if Time itself hits me
On it’s way to wherever
It is going
In such a hurry
Why am I?
There are no answers for me
In this life
Only these long days
And blank pages to fill
RUSS RANKIN
Good Riddance
Only Crime
The Final Act
He balls up both fists
With a single, fluid movement
He knocks himself out
Forever
The pain and bitterness
Like a rabid dog at his heels
All these years
Are gone in an instant
Now the real peace
The final act
In a ballet of despair
No longer will he be forced
To interact with his fellow
Useless husks of skin
Their trite, mundane little dramas
The soap opera that never ends
Until now
No more vain attempts
To attract a woman
Leaving him humiliated
The butt of a cruel,
Biological hoax
The uneasiness lifted
The infirmities of his species
A distant memory
To rot away with the worms
To finally escape
He closes his eyes and,
For the first time in years,
He smiles
RUSS RANKIN
Good Riddance
Only Crime
Busy?
The barricade is up
And the light techs are busy with the lights
And the sound men
Are working on the sound
And yet I’m still here
On a weathered concrete bench
Inside a musty disco basement
In a crowded Italian city
And the smell is effusive
And the day simply refuses to end
RUSS RANKIN
Good Riddance
Only Crime
Bad Graffiti
Two young girls in winter coats
Squatting head to head
Near a crumbling cinder wall
Held together by layers of bad graffiti
With bright blue plastic shovels
They till the fecund soil
And discuss things of worldly import
To a German girl of five
They dig and talk
Talk and dig
On an otherwise barren,
Windswept street
RUSS RANKIN
Good Riddance
Only Crime
There Are the Dogs
The rare northern sun
Sends a scattered shadow
Across the dew specked grass floor
Of the open air venue
Squatters huddle and smoke
Listening to Discharge
Yes, there are the dogs
The ever present familiars
Of the dedicated anti-socialites
With their pink dreads
And Conflict shirts
Tonight strains of empowerment
Will ring off the graffiti-caked walls
Of this ex-slaughterhouse
While outside you can buy
French fries and cigarettes
AARON BARRETT
Reel Big Fish
Untitled Wave
Tree tops spin
Like elbow water dog balloons
Full figured fandango
I spit into the future and
a cherry flavored dump truck
sits at the opening to the
cave of my misery
What do I see?
The third letter of The
Alphabet
EVAN JEWETT
Maida
Earnest Psychotics/Parasitic Idiotics
it is high time for the cutting of ropes
in backwards movies I saw my mistakes
but my heart does not agree with the logically sound
sycophantic ploys to gain entry
into my complicated machinery
while I was caught up in chivalry
you were becoming my circuitry
EVAN JEWETT
Maida
Be Kind
it’s always a careless new skirt
and I’m always second best to your visits with sand
a dime for each burden and i’d buy you the answers
fall asleep with your bad habit
breathe it in and hold it
you will never be cold again
i’ve kept my eyes down
and I’ve kept my heart shut
but I never forgot
to forget
eject and escape
rewind and erase
eject and escape
rewind and erase
I am choking on your dust
DEREK KIESGEN
Bear vs. Shark
To the credit of the remake
that was a good Dracula
cruel oiled hair
dangerous teeth
fine diction
his strut like rooster
his minion bitches dark sexy
grand two hours
to be the time to leave
to walk down the avenue
with Harker in mind
jealous coward
great gang bowie knife conclusion
retame her
dry up the wet moisture from the lap of the monster luster
fail to see beyond your union and the possibility of a brighter
Harker loose in the pants got his fun
laying tight with the vampire vixens
boobies and inner thigh bites
good job
I hope the marriage to your property lasts forever.
DEREK KIESGEN
Bear vs. Shark
I lust Watched XXX and It Was Awesome
he jumped barns
he jumped avalanches
he jumped jumps
I kept throwing up and crying because it was so awesome
too awesome
I feel empty now
I feel like dying
I can’t ride dirtbikes like him
I can’t do that cool sideways thing over a gully
he is an asshole
I am an asshole
there is no reason here
only illusions
DEREK KIESGEN
Bear vs. Shark
They have no tear ducts
just light weight durable alloys
and mysterious gray skin
I would like to four wheel with them someday
trade stories
DEREK KIESGEN
Bear vs. Shark
Benedict Arnold Middle School
Mr. Gregorian