asleep as i go

little friday had the answers
of joy, unpretentious stay,
very less the upper west,
mail rebates, no refunds

i'm asleep over the keyboard
no escape from boss
the loser's brown bag meeting
a stare deep inside the bright brave world

of my monitor

days die and you die with them
a week away from ghosts and parties
this living box of mold, black stain,
fungus having a day trip into my stomach

blocked youtube
an unpaid bill
call girls for the real gfe
a step aside, slumber

more like an etherized zombie

on the wake of yet another weekend


jacob little (Southampton, NJ, 1979)

difficult dogs

belts and leather carry nest
over shoulders, back scrape,
feather ton, neck rub,
lacan wins,
let loose and wonder,
wander around the house,
rub the neck, wicked spread

i got difficult dogs

i say so

hurry, pelt, feast and rest
difficult dogs are not pets
a mind can bend a horizon
spare a plead, turn into a boil,
let the lizard do the work for you,
chunks of plaster, i go blaster
in a timely fashion

i got difficulties

i say so

find lodge at the ymca
find you until i haven't slept
talk to Johanna on the phone
page Liz, call Joe, wander around the house
looking for something to snack on,
the endless barking drone,
it could be Sunday, stop the blame

i mend on purity

have it my way


andrew flaherty (Essex Junction, VT, 1986)

that's a new shopping mall they're buildingright across the street

my friends make fun of me
you are balding they say
nothing like it, you punks:
scalp rash, it's a treatable condition

then i find out fighting hair loss ain't cheap
i ask for samples, get none, you wouldn't believe
how much a full set of capsules is so yeah,
punks, i have to live with this balding patch

caterpillar construction machines outside
dig from early in the morning, i can't sleep
the landlord is balding as well and tells me with a sigh
that's a new shopping mall they're building right across the street

i wouldn't feel so bad if i hadn't seen that picture of you on facebook
well, i just don't care it will bring eons of bad luck
but i'm breaking the bathroom mirror for good
and god help me please

gerd philips (Saint Paul, MN, 1975)

frondose wondrous

go take a pee I'll hold your backpack
and the film was so awful
dreadful as the cheap popcorn
humid already not even halfway through the movie
it's so difficult to go past I liked it/I didn't like it
preemptive suicide seems so befitting these days (to me, anyway)

* * *

days like this make me think about you
the cross-eyed plump girl whose profile so much
resembles your profile, the same nose
(of course you were not cross-eyed)
i am desperate but i lend myself to memory
your blank stare was fixed somewhere
on the other side of the bus window
and you were sitting silent, hermetic
I came to love that look of yours
especially in days like this
when I see your face in other girls
and you can't see outside of the bus window
because it's raining and foggy

* * *

I moved on, I feel happy, I write about Stanley Kubrick
I make plans, I feel empowered, I make my first attempt at a script
I spot a white hair, another one here and one more there
I love my new girlfriend and still can mouth the bitterness
of a recent failed relationship
keen on failure, a hipster abashed,
a walk-out; yet this was not the tone

* * *

the tone was a soggy window pane
the plump girl in cowboy boots
eyes crossed and her same, exact profile
the late arriving
striving for words
a hook of a title
light breakfast
shower with a shower cap
just like mom did when in a rush
three holes in my stomach
dizzy, fussing over the lack of money
about how it's become so difficult to have a decent conversation
to go past yeah, that's so cool
but not uttering a word about the lousy weather
getting wet under the rain
easy on, easy out
missing my bed, her same exact profile
the eyes-crossed, but she wasn't,
arriving late and still guessing
why didn't I try to get back what I wanted the most


phil mcrae (Lafayette, IN, 1978)

a day in the life of ALF

I will never be a Tanner.
Even the cat's got a better chance at surnames around here.
But, no matter what Willie says,
I won't ever be a part of that particular tribe.

Somebody sings, "I've got my books and my poetry to protect me."
I've just got this orange fur, which is probably made of felt.
I miss Melmac.
Its verdurous skies overhead like a dense canopy of overgrown foliage,
Summers out on the blue grass
Playing bouillabaisseball under a sun of wild vermilion,
Or just buccaneering ad libitum around its lower east side in my youth.

Somebody calls out
Gordon,
And I remember,
Without remembering,
The name Shumway and its lost significance here
Where I abide in exile;
In this land of disembodied laughter
That comes on quick like a sneeze
And then is gone;
This place ruled by skyscraping creatures whose pet cats you can't eat.
Jody gropes at me with her icy hands,
And I am left unseen and misunderstood.
A former highly esteemed member of the Melmac Orbital Guard,
Now I hide in the kitchen most of the time
Waiting for Lucky to stride by unaware—
As my eight stomachs all growl in a chorus of dissent
Like the rumblings of bad pipes in the walls, or a garbage disposal running on empty.

I am lonely and lost in this strange place
Where they build bombs to blow themselves up.
Same as we did back home
Before I followed that damn radio signal and crashed into the garage here—
Before I was an outsider,
A Diaspora of one.
I am secluded and shut-in like a leper,
kept a prisoner in order to have the freedom to still exist;
Trying to stamp an intaglio of my presence on the face of formless things;
Trying to make my own little order out of so much dust and air.
This good-for-nothing spaceship lying out all wrecked and ruined,
Never to be flown again.
There is no escape for me here now.
Just these endless days that keep coming and going,
That push me from the laundry room to the attic
Like some spectral drifter:
A nomad with bad hygiene whom you’d better hide from the neighbors.
I will never be one of you.
I am out here on my own,
At the ends of the known world,
Waiting for somebody else’s God to show up and right all the wrongs
That I keep forgetting were ever right in the first place.


davy carren (San Francisco, CA, 1977)