GPP Reader

by Ed Kauffman

Our rock spiraling rapidly

  around the Sun

  chasing tomorrow.

  Mike Kriesel

  The Great American Novel

  Grows up in a trailer park

  in a small Nebraska town.

  Bored as corn, he rides a bike

  on gravel roads where flecks

  of mica flash with sunlight.

  Thinks about joining the navy.

  Writes in spiral notebooks.

  Sometimes holds a page up

  to his face like a mirror.

  Never knew his father.

  Lying on a picnic table.

  A meteor blinks past like one

  of God’s fallen eyelashes.

  He sees the zodiac of possibility

  hovering above the world

  like a Ferris wheel.

  Feels weightless for a second.

  Things pivot, then settle again.

  Nothing stands between him

  and the stars’ roulette wheel.

  Country Garage

  Working on a Chevy

  with my cousin

  underneath the buzz of

  old fluorescent lights

  corn outside the

  cloudy windows

  scratching at

  the muggy night

  swearing at ourselves

  we hammer at neglect

  along with any bolts

  that rusted tight

  repeating shit we did

  back in the service

  lies to grace our lives

  like fireflies tonight

  September’s Almost Gone

  Reading a zine on the steps our poems connect

  on the steps the pages lift sometimes like leaves

  a thousand people brief as leaves spreading watercolors

  see these poems singing to themselves in the trees

  Watching Boxing

  When dad After dad If there’s

  and I died I boxing

  watch boxing quit on TV

  on TV watching I leave

  the action’s boxing it on

  usually though and go

  too fast I kept do something

  for me his easy in the

  to follow chair other room

  Ellaraine Lockie

  Man About Town

 

  His stride was a study in meter

  And any female looking his way

  from the Leaf and Bean

  as he crossed the street

  would become an immediate student

 

  Black leather blazer

  Body cigar-straight in blue jeans

  tucked into boots

  Dark hair growing out of his halfway

  unbuttoned tan shirt

  Two-day stubble and longhair look

  of a GQ model

  Five sips of coffee later I look up

  And he's ransacking

  the four trash cans out front

  Toasting other people's excess

  with paper cups

  In moves as fluid as the lattes

  chai and chocolate milks

  that slide down his throat

 

  He's become a fine wine connoisseur

  Who couldn't be bothered to replace

  hiking boots with soles wallet-thin

  Whose domestic help forgot to hem

  the lining that hangs below black leather

  Or wash the once-white shirt

  that wears the foods he's scavenging

 

  Now he's the city sanitation engineer

  conducting a field study

  Who sets aside samples of pizza

  submarine sandwiches and chicken wing bones

  Scoops it all with bureaucratic certainty

  into a threadbare backpack

  And not one of us watching

  wishes to humble him

  with the truth of a hand-out

  Censured At Starbucks

 

  The book bumps my

  Swiss chocolate bar square

  off the tiny table

  To the freshly wiped wooden floor

  Where the carefully rationed quota

  of daily decadence

  Winks cocoa bean brown eyes

  in clandestine persuasion

  I'd pick it up

  and plop it in my mouth

  (Suspecting the life expectancy

  of most germs outside a medium

  is less than sixty seconds)

  If it weren't for the three-year old boy

  watching like a dog-in-waiting

  to see what my next move might be

  Role model mindful

  And with maybe meagerly concern

  for castigation from customers

  old enough to consume coffee

  I proceed with the picking up part

  and place the chocolate by my thesaurus

 

  The implied trip

  to the trash can in the corner

  is obscured behind a need to write longer

  than a three-year old's attention span

  and a clientele's turnover

  When I can carefreely complete

  my consummation of the culinary act

  Edge Of Night

  Black with blue swollen veins

  He sits in stained denim

  on the train station bench

  Elbows on spread-eagled knees

  Sparrow hands on head hung low

  A plastic produce bag for a hat

  pulled over his ears

  Preserving the rising heat

  The fragile lobes from frostbite

  As winter eats its way

  into the San Francisco Bay

  with butcher knife teeth

  If You Go To Budapest

  You'd better pack

  hair dye and dark glasses

  Because the mafia breathes heavy at night

  Its halitosis imbuing bars

  that submit $600 bills for three drinks

  And police turn up their paid-off noses

  at the whiff of tourist protection

  So you're required to remit

  Or run in hopes that

  you're smarter and faster

  than the two steroid-fed flunkies

  standing at the front door

 

  You'd better pack

  a wig and make-believe beard

  if you go to Budapest

  Because when you're walking

  down Vaci Street after dark

  An oncoming woman wearing store-clerk clothes

  could say you owe her for a hand job in an alley

 

  And the authorities would trust the ten witnesses

  who blink red light retinas and fist folded forints

  And swear her swollen eye

  resulted from your sadistic satisfaction

 

  If you don't race to your hotel

  In hopes that the city will be reconciled

  by swindling the next dupe

  who dares go to Budapest

  Adrian Manning

  For Tomorrow

  maybe there’s nourishment

  still left in the bones

  of yesterday

  don’t discard them thoughtlessly

  pick the choicest ones

  wrap them in rags of the mind

  for tomorrow

  may bring fuel for the fire

  feed us well

  but tomorrow may be lean

  and empty and those bones

  may make all the difference

  Your Anger

 
; let me paint your anger

  if it be your wish.

  watercolours, oils

  no matter which.

  vermillion, permanent

  red, ivory black

  I’ll paint it thick and brooding

  something to spit at

  it will be ugly and terrible

  a vehicle for exorcism

  then when it is finished

  I’ll make an incision

  I’ll pick out some yellow

  or a little orange

  we’ll touch it in

  I believe

  it needs

  to breathe

  There Must Be A Way

  There must be a way

  of seeing things

  in dream light

  a way of

  opening tomorrow

  without cracking

  its shell

  there must be more

  to the illusion

  a trick

  a slight of hand

  there must be a way

  that rattles like bones

  shrouded in loose skin

  forming the shape

  of things

  Black Days

  when it makes frantic

  obvious sense

  to leap to the liquor store,

  treading on the pavement cracks

  like I did when I was a kid

  shouting "I WANT to marry a rat!"

  raping the flowers

  and hatefully beheading them,

  punishing them for an eternity

  of beauty,

  hammering on a strangers door

  asking them "WHAT DO YOU WANT?"

  stamping on their toes,

  singing protest songs to nobody,

  chasing butterflies on fire,

  entering the bearcage

  telling him "you don't frighten me

  you ol' bag o' bones"

  grabbing old ladies by the hand

  and kissing their wrinkly foreheads,

  Scaring young children with

  a natural ugliness

  before hopping and skipping

  back home with wine in the bottle

  to end up lying on the living room floor

  waiting to wake when it is over

  to be totally sane and dull

  again

  Hosho McCreesh

  Call It A Battle Cry, Call It Guttural,

  Call It A Harbinger, A Prophecy, A Vision,

  Call It Begging, Pleading, Call It Last Ditch,

  Call It The Knelling Of The Rusted Bells Of Damnation,

  Call It Whatever The Hell You Need To Call It

  To Get Them

  To

  Listen...

  I grow tired, hoarse—

  all this screaming

  & still

  nothing.

  They march

  onwards,

  insisting on misery,

  denigrated by choice,

  a careful architecture

  to all their

  frustrated sadness,

  it hangs around,

  low & bright like

  children,

  & they continue living lives

  that make you

  flinch,

  make you want to

  turn away,

  they sit behind TVs & locked doors,

  sit atop their pyre,

  waiting,

  curled up & shivering like

  shaving planed from wood,

  a hot wind enough to

  scatter them.

  Thus far, the bulk of it has been

  wasted,

  an earth-sized pile of meat

  so useless it has never even

  flavored our

  greens.

  Tear open their mouths,

  pour molten metal down their throats,

  & it would return a cast

  without edge, without definition,

  return a crumpled, unusable foil.

  I have less & less time

  for gaping yaps,

  for hollow maws,

  there’s hardly room enough

  for the forgotten &

  the unavenged…

  I say: Out with you

  if you sense

  nothing

  miraculous

  in your very

  marrow,

  nothing

  volcanic

  in your center,

  we have centuries & eons & ages of

  ruse & trickery to unknot,

  centuries & eons & ages

  where it has all been

  swindled from us…

  What I want

  is

  this:

  for all of us

  to do more

  with it,

  to do more

  with

  whatever

  it is

  we’ve

  got

  left.

  Die

  trying.

  Dank, Dark, Ignored Spaces,

  Forgotten, & Unkempt Corners Within

  Buried Somewhere Under My Shoulder Blades,

  & It Feels Like The More I Say,

  The Less It Matters...

  …& the world

  simply is

  what it

  is

  & I cannot

  change

  that,

  so I suppose the best

  I can do

  is write, paint—

  because that’s what feels right,

  because that’s what makes sense inside,

  & then I can leave it all in there,

  in the writing, the painting,

  leave it all behind,

  all the

  struggle

  failure

  dreams

  arrogance

  insolence

  heartache

  madness

  insecurity

  victory

  ideals

  treachery

  worry

  mistakes

  lies

  & the damning, cackling truth

  so, maybe, someone else

  isn’t consumed by their own demons,

  so, maybe, someone else

  doesn’t feel they have to

  go it

  alone.

  Yeah,

  I like the

  sound of

  that.

  In Every Place The Sun Drags It’s Light,

  & In Every Shadow That Aches For It,

  In Every Single Place That Exists,

  & In Every Single Place We Can Imagine...

  …the irrefutable, undeniable

  truth

  is that

  despite maybe

  wanting to,

  we

  cannot

  do it all

  alone,

  our humanity

  prevents

  it—

  for the

  better

  I think.

  Brian McGettrick

  Alright ?

  “everything will be alright.”

  he nearly spat on me

  forcing this lie out.

  and I crack the

  seal on another

  bottle,

  the sound it makes

  is like a thousand

  bones breaking.

  then I sit back

  and take a

  good, long drink,

  unwilling to believe

  in a clear,

  doubtless existence.

 

  From The Shore Out

  the aching

  heart

  betrays

  what is

  here and

  shouldn’t

  be and

  what should

  be here and

  can’t be

  my smile breaks

  like colour torn
r />   from woven cloth

  flee

  give

  every

  thing

  eliminate

  return.

  Tanning The White Band

  her balled up pink underwear

  plugs a small leak in the shower stall

  meanwhile

  I slide down her lash

  and look her in the eye.

  that hot summers still happen

  and quiet mysteries are created by the young

  is no surprise

  and she is so young

  a contradictory cynic

  with more love than her heart can hold.

  I used to have a sense of belonging

  in the place where mistakes are made

  but now my lies rest up against her easily

  and there’s little left to defeat.

 

  This Drawn Out Thing We Do

  I used to know a guy

  who would keep his alarm clock set

  through the weekend

  for the time he got up for work.

  it was so that he could reach over

  turn it off

  and go back to sleep.

  hey,

  take your victories

  where you can get them,

  create

  them

  even.

  Amanda Oaks

  Sirens & Lullabies

  wide awake

  at three

  in the am &

  my skin

  is lit

  there are only

  a few things

  within reason

  that i

  can do

  quietly

  & by candlelight

  so that i

  won't wake you

  even though a-

  rousing you

  is the only thing

  i really

  want

  to do

 

  Gravity: Iron Hearts You Can’t Save Or Kick Start

  you see, she sat there

  & didn’t say a fuckin’ word

  worth hearing all night,

  sipping on her light beer,

  she was some kind of sadist alright,

  with a silver grin & wine-red nails,

  inhaling & exhaling

  every solitary soul in the place

  dead-center at the bar,

  she stole glances of herself in the mirror

  behind liquor bottles half full,

  behind the bartender’s petite tits,

  viper tongued & slick lipped

  she easily got lost

  in the process

  of rolling cigarettes,

  she was devoted to the labor of hating,

  laborious, one might say,

  but oh no, she wasn’t foolin’ me

  or anyone in the place

  because under that hardy masquerade,

  that she paraded around

  every fading day,