More Poets

recommended poets...continued

Donald Lev

WAITING

for what?
for the other shoe to drop?
for the tide to rise or fall?

for the image of the void
to reproduce itself beneath my breast bone?

I have waited for happiness,

for surfeit of pleasure,

for surcease of sorrow,

I have waited for robins. I have waited for snow.

I wait for you now
so I won't have to wait alone.

GENE FOWLER (The Flowering Cacti)

Chin tucked into collar

Red and white eyes rolled up

into steel blue sockets.

Scruffy rooster cackling in my throat.
Unhired, Unhinged
Derelict with a few poems in print.
Arms folded back bent,

trying to keep my belly warm.

Squeking doors in that belly.
Too suubborn to admit

all the poets are dead,
I keep croaking, "Some of us

are only dying."

PAUL FERICANO

Dark in Winters On Road 88

this is noel's road
it is ten at night
and even though he has
consumed beer and rhine wine
we have no reason
to doubt him
Al has taken a valium to
get even with the
california arts counceil
and I seem to be stoned on
ice water crickets and visions of
nude women waiting in
corn fields
we walk like the three stooges
expecting at any minute
to be run over by some
cattle truck driving without
its lights on
noel takes a deep breath
smell that air he says
and rubs his chest
smells like sheep dip Al laughs
and where the hell
are we going he wants to know
but it doesn't matter
(I would like to explore a
corn field but nobody is
listrening)
our own forms cross
and we seem out of place but
unable to explain why
the night is rubbing off on us
feeling for one another with
every step as the
conversation turns to
alfalfa sprouts
the di prima invasion of
floating island
six foot women
alexander pope and future schemes of
living in costa rica or
silicy or duluth without
being noticed
road 88 slipos away from us
we find something in our art
enough to walk it back to
noels house
and keep going

Aleksey Dayen

FIRST MARRIAGE BLUES

I was down to zero
again
shivering and trembling
inside and out.
Took out from the drawer
the wedding band–
symbol of my first marriage.
Sold it to a Puerto Rican jeweler
for 50 bucks.

With that money,
I went to a grocer
and bought
bread and butter,
meat and cheese,
and four packs of cigs.
Stopped by a liquor store
bought 1.75 liters
of some Southern bourbon.

Went home
down to zero again.
Emptied what was
left of my marriage
on the table.
Not much–
I said to myself–
but good
enough for me.

I poured a drink
and went out
onto the fire escape
to watch the children play
in the middle
of West 106 Street–
Duke Ellington Boulevard.

S.A. GRIFFIN

Genius

a dangerous word

full of guilt and promise

often misunderstood

much less if ever

defined or fulfilled

there is genius in ignorance

more than one could ever design

into the hysterical awe and wonder

of the greatest bomb yet to be

or the mayhem of microscopic conclusion

franchised by the architects of fear

genius wears black

believes in the rubric crucible of death after death

rides the feral roller coaster of depression

arms raised high

and negotiates the ether of falling dreams

one foot in front of the other

with verse

calls history liar

and weeps openly over the most casual cliche

breathes art

bleeds light

befriends trees

and everything yet to know

wears the untrained hair of a nervous garden

and is learning to play Gershwin’s Rhapsody

on Picasso’s blue guitar

when walking into a room

most experience eggs, water, salt, sugar & flour

others taste cake