Years of Reminiscence by Luke Ritta

My lucid memories shoot through my mind like a freight train at full speed.

Drinking red wine in Sicily, talking about writers in a London pub
Scratching my arm, watching the sun sink in New Mexico,
Hanging around backpackers in a hostel, sleeping, walking,
Watching foreign films, reading, eating creamy risotto,
Standing at a bus stop, looking at my watch,
Kissing exotic women, looking at people,
Road trips, boat trips, cold beer, brandy,
Talking about politics, watching T.V.
Stroking a skinny street cat in India,
Looking out of a plane window,
Washing my hair, eating duck,
Amazing nights, drinking tea,
The smell of garlic frying and
Waiting for life to
Begin.

My lucid memories shoot through my mind like a freight train at full speed.

Poems by Kurt K. Shinian

Monkey on His Back

There is a man in Minneapolis, Minnesota who walks through the metropolitan area with a live monkey on his back. Local legend has it that he started doing this after his young son passed away.

Maybe tonight I will see you sleeping
in your bed, blanket drawn to your chin,
a red moon coming through your drawn
shades. It’s been two years, John
but you’re never in your bed.

I stand here by your dresser
and remember our last days together,
how the monarch took a ride
on your shoulder for half a block.

It moved its wings like birth.

Every time I smell cinnamon I see you
with a waffle dripping syrup
all over your shirt front.

I’m sorry I yelled at you.

You never did like sleeping in the dark.
It scared you.
I can’t help but wonder
what light you see now,
if any at all.

There’s something about standing
here in your room. I think about
the days you’d take my hand
when we went for ice cream,
how you’d eat it on our stoop.
Do you remember how we’d stand
on the landing and race up five flights?
I’d always rest on the third
and let you pass me.

I miss the way you’d look back at me.

We lost each other, John.
I lost you.

Once we waited for the bus to come
while the snow fell on Christmas Eve.
You were so young,
tired, asleep on my back.
Your breath kept my neck warm.

I kissed you on the forehead
and called you my little monkey.

Plushophilia

I saw about thirty of them
in a parking lot by the edge
of the woods
all dressed up
in animal costumes –
roosters, rabbits,
horses, bulls.
From what I’ve been told,
they enter the wilderness
for the night
and fuck each other.

It’s a dog’s day to skin a rabbit,
pull its pelt right off,
to be a frog tongue-whacking
a fly from the center
of a rose’s sweet spot,
a bat caught in too much light,
a pony taking the prize,
a little piggy going to market.

The cat can’t help
but slosh the milk
on his whiskers;
the oyster can’t help
but spit into its wound.
There’s something about
turning a bug upside
down until those legs reach
for a wanting sky,
something about
spraying a porcupine
in the face.

It’s a stupid question to ask,
but why not –
How much wood could
a woodchuck chuck
if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
After all, it can’t
toss a boomerang
right into the roo’s pouch,
it can’t pitch wood
quite like a beaver.

The mouse ate the cheese.
The mouse is in the cat.
The dog swallowed the cat.
The dog is in the horse.
The horse is in the cow.

Somebody must have
swallowed the fly.

Phantom NYC Public Library Pooper

I suppose I’d understand it better
if there was blood in his stool,
a kind of last will and testament,
but he squats real quick,
undetected –
it doesn’t ever matter,
he’ll drop a deuce
just about anywhere in the place.

Maybe he feels so alive afterward.

It must be a little
like speaking
God’s language –
the riddle of tongues.

He’s a Houdini who doesn’t
even need to hold his breath.
It’s some didactic statement,
a coalescing decree.

I hear that he coiled
one in a copy
of Pride and Prejudice,
coiled it like a question mark.

Twice now he’s pooped
in the large print copy
of Joyce’s Ulysses.
He hasn’t bothered
with the paperbacks.

Maybe it’s a demonstration
of sincere thankfulness.
Maybe it’s cathartic,
a perfect syllogism,
some words of woo.

Sometimes the most important
messages are delivered with heat,
with a frustrated grunt or two.

Nobody knows why he does it.
It’s like asking the sky
why it sometimes claps.
It’s a little like trying
to read lips in a noisy room.

I have no idea what
he’s saying.

The Man with Over 100 Keys

I can see him there,
a small boy in a big
Victorian house,
a house full of drawers,
a key to open everything.

I can see him there
finding the right one
to open the tall oak bureau,
the one holding
all of grandma’s handkerchiefs,
the ones that smell of her rouge
and taste of dust.

I can see him there
opening the attic door,
him stepping into
light and color.
There’s no need anymore
to peak through mail-slots,
no need to press
an ear to the walls.

But now he tries to open
the front door of the bread shop
just to get an early morning whiff
of something rising.
The back door to the sacristy
is locked too.
He can hear the choir
practicing a higher scale.

The keys, they seem to open nothing.

The street gutter drains
are what really confounds him.
I don’t know what he expects
to find there.
From what I see,
there isn’t even an eye
to be opened.
He kneels on bent knees
and says softly to himself –
“You won’t fit, will you?”
And his expression -
locked lines of good grief.
Sometimes he’ll try two
keys at once, but nothing
ever budges.

Maybe he’s expecting to find
the paper moon
he once cut out for his mother,
a love letter
written in some girl’s
curly cursive,
all the years in between.
Maybe he sees the wrapped
lollipop some kid dropped,
four fallen leaves
with twelve different angles,
Jesus’s thirty-two lashings,
his father’s frown.

You’ll often see him
outside the YMCA,
too many unlocked
bikes at the rack.
He’ll run his finger
over each serial code
and read
the numbers aloud.
The locks with
rolling numbers,
he doesn’t even
bother with them.

I remember the kids
would ask him
for the time.
With a coconut cream
dry mouth,
he’d run every key
through his fingers,
and after
he’d done it three
or four times,
he’d lean real close
and quiet
and say

“It’s locked.”

Donkey Show

I got really drunk one night
on Tequila and Jell-O shots
and found myself crossing
the border into Mexico –
five Mexicans in my minivan –
just some guys
I got chummy with at the bar.
We headed down a dirt road
behind my high beams,
headed toward a titty bar
all lit up with Christmas
lights and globe glow.

I saw some tits,
even some ‘70s bush too,
but what really caught
my attention was this stout
chick crouched like a wrestler
beneath a donkey.
She had cheeks like a blowfish
stretched out like a 30 gallon
drawstring garbage bag
stuffed with junk –
her mouth made a noise
like steps in squishy
riverbank clay.

I could see she was working
him real hard -
a thick film
on his purple
and pink
nerve endings.

She was pulling the bark
from his trunk,
the ash and the soot.

This is so messed up,
I know,
but we were all holding
our breath
to see
if she’d swallow.

She held tight
the cataract tip
between her teeth.
She didn’t even bother
to spit on her palms -
a real champ she was –
you could tell that
she could crush a beer
can with one hand.

What I enjoyed most
was watching the Jesus
freaks holding their
final judgment
with half erections
and wet panties.

The donkey nibbled
a carrot when he came,
then he took a piss that
seemed to last an eternity.

I wore an uncomfortable smile
that reminded me of the smile
I wore as a young camper
seeing the youngest boy’s
nuts tacked to the bunk bed post –
the time I heard the story
of the Dewey girl,
how she cleaned Mr. Potter’s
wooden leg with the back
of her throat,
how he asked her to lick
his grizzled stubble.

I don’t even know
why I’m telling you this.
None of it
really matters
but as we walked
back to the van,
all we could say was

Mi Jésus dulce
Mi Jésus dulce

two poems by Cynthia Ruth Lewis

I’d Rather Have My Teeth Pulled

I don’t hate you—
that would mean I still care

maybe I hate myself
for being completely unaware of your ways;
your black-hearted, psychotic manner
which you cleverly hid behind lies
and that shit eating smile of yours

it was almost as though I’d spent
the last few years of my life smashing mirrors
and walking under ladders
to end up with such a fucking disaster
as you

you crossed my path
like a rabid black cat
and I was foolish enough to stroke your fur

you drew me in with your bravado and bullshit,
made me think you were something other
than what you really were—

fuck you for that
fuck me for believing it,
but that’s how silky smooth you were,
you went down like brandy
and burned like vodka

but I don’t waste my time plotting revenge;
ultimately, your darling personality
will be its own reward—
you can’t spend all that time and energy
dishing up a shit sandwich
without eventually eating it yourself,
and when at last you’re where you’re meant to be
with the devil’s pitchfork straight up your ass
I want to say I’d like to be there to see that
but I’ve already been
and I sure as fuck don’t ever want to go back
 
Happy Ever After
 
I never thought I’d admit it
but I want it
I want the goddamn fucking fairy tale
that everyone moons and raves about
but always seems to be just out of my reach—
I want love; big, crashing, heart-stopping
end-of-the-world love, the kind that makes
you stupid and keeps you up all night with
the wonder of it all, the sort that solves all
problems and cures all ills and makes you
feel immortal, but all I have to keep me
going is my integrity, self-induced orgasms,
and angst-ridden, gut-driven, bloody heart
on a fucking sleeve poems, but it’s okay—

at least I can dance to that

Art by Eleanor Leonne Bennett

pressed between a leaf

sho t down

Inflation by Gale Acuff

In church today when the collection plate
was handed around and at last came to
me it was all I could do to let fall
my quarter, my parents’ quarter really,
they don’t go to church themselves but send me
for the morals, they say, and sleep late, still
in their robes when I get home for lunch, which
is a breakfast really, scrambled eggs and
Tang. And coffee and cigarettes, which I
can’t have but just wait until I’m older
and then watch my smoke. I hold onto it

’til the last little tick of a second,
the quarter I mean, since it signifies
two comic books at twelve cents apiece plus
the leftover penny for Georgia tax,
or five candy bars or a hamburger
and fries at the Dairy Dip or maybe
twenty-four pieces of bubble gum and
twenty-five if I don’t buy them all at once
and then lose a piece to the government.
Thou shalt not steal, that comes from the Bible
and Miss Hooker, my Sunday School teacher,
who was talking about it and the other
Commandments. Ten there are, as I recall,
but I can’t remember the rest, something

about adultery, though I’m not sure
what that is, and don’t covet thy neighbor’s
wife, which sounds dirty but I don’t know why
and I was halfway into a yawn when
Miss Hooker gave the definition so
I missed that, what covet means, I mean. I
know that covey mean some quail and Willie
McCovey hits a lot of homers for
the Giants. Oh, yeah: Honor thy father
and thy mother. I try. They send me here
to the church, and if I wanted to be

a pissant about it I could say that
they’re trying to bribe God for not coming
themselves. Still, a quarter is a quarter
though not what it used to be, sighs Father.
No, it sure isn’t, Mother agrees. I
don’t know, I’m only 10 and they grew up
during the Great Depression but they need
to get modern, it’s 1966
for Christ’s sake. When I’m their age I hope I’m
dead so I don’t bother my own kids with
stories about my pain in the past. If
the plate came back around anyway I might
pinch my quarter back, or at least take some
change for it, a dime and a nickel, say.
That would still be a sin but less of one.

I take that back–it would still be a sin
and even though God is two-bits richer
I’ll still go to Hell for being greedy
even when I swapped out greed for silver.
If Miss Hooker’s right and one day Jesus
is coming back it can’t be too soon for
a wicked little sinner like myself.
Still, last month’s Batman was the first part of
a two-parter but it looks like I’ll miss
out on what happens although I think he’ll live
but I want to know how he’ll live, how he
escapes, how he does it–that’s real living.
But that’s why they call it sacrifice and
I guess that’s why God had Jesus dangle

on the Cross until He gave up the ghost,
Jesus I mean, not God–or is it both?
–so that I don’t miss anything in life
or at least I don’t notice or if I
do I won’t care. I wish Reverend Horlock
would shut the Hell up and just cue the choir
for one last song so we can all go home.
At least I’m sitting behind Miss Hooker.
She’s got freckles on her neck, too, and her
red hair just above her collar looks as
soft as the fur on a mouse’s belly
or the down on a chick or the fuzz on
a peach. I’m so hungry I could eat her.

Screw Cupid by F.N. Wright

It was just C.B.’s fucking luck. He had been living the life of a nomad since his return from Nam several years earlier. He was born and raised in an orphanage in Mississippi and became a loner then and remained one while in the employee of dear old Uncle Sam.

During his time helping out his kindly old uncle he had served three tours in Nam, the last two as a sniper. He would have probably made a career of the military but had tired of a war that made no sense to him and there wasn’t much need for snipers stateside.

On top of that, he wasn’t much good at the spit and polish you had to deal with after all that time in the Mekong Delta and triple canopy jungle so he got out after serving for eight years.

For you curious bastards C.B. wasn’t his name but the handle they’d laid on his loner ass while he was in Nam killing people from long distance. It stood for cold-blooded killer and it suited him just fine for the life he had chosen after his discharge. He figured no one would get close enough to him to need to know his real name.

As soon as he was out of Uncle Sam’s clutches he bought a Panhead and hit the road, never stopping in one place until he started running low on money. He’d find a shitty job, a woman to fuck and be back on the road again as soon as he’d fattened his bankroll or the ol’ lady he was fucking got on his nerves.

It was an unusually wet winter and a good time to hunker down, find a shitty job, do some work on his bike and find a fine-ass woman to fuck when he rolled into Martinez, California when his luck went bad.

He’d landed a job at the Shell Oil Refinery and met a real fine woman when one of Cupid’s arrows came flying out of nowhere and nailed him in his unsuspecting heart. Before he knew it he was in love and engaged to be married. He’d even bought a fucking engagement ring for chrissakes.

He had lost control of his life and was flat fucking in love with a woman who had no love for the road and saw a future for them that included a house with a white picket fence and making babies together and him selling his bike and settling down.

He was renting a small place with a garage when he got laid off at the refinery and the closest job he could find was up in Santa Rosa. C.B. probably could have found a job closer but deep down inside him he probably planning his escape. Problem was, that fucking arrow was about as deep into his heart as it could get.

He found a place in Guerneville and Suzy, who had been living with her parents when they met continued managing the liquor store her dad owned in Martinez and rented an apartment there with one of her cousins.

The rain continued to come down heavy daily yet he rode down on his Panhead almost nightly to be with her, wondering what in the fuck he was doing living in Guerneville.

Fact was, he was lost in her deep, dark brown eyes that little devils danced in but there were nights he’d stay at his place to keep from drowning in them.

For the first time in his life he endured Thanksgiving and Christmas in a family environment and though Suzy’s family wasn’t used to seeing their youngest daughter with a long-haired biker they liked seeing the “apple of daddy’s eye” happier than they’d ever seen her.

As a consequence C.B. was a part of the family and the ones he’d met so far, especially her parents, older sister, younger brother and her cousin adored him. Needless to say, he was not comfortable and could’ve wrung Cupid’s neck if the little bastard had actually existed.

C.B. had managed to survive Thanksgiving without hyperventilating too much but Christmas and the present giving and receiving almost drove him away but those deep, dark brown eyes and that barbed arrow from Cupid’s bow that kept him pinned for what looked like forever.

Suzy’s oldest brother was a navy “lifer” and had just returned from Nam and was stationed in nearby Vallejo and was not exactly happy to see who his little sister was in love with. In fact he was so fucking rude as the presents were being exchanged that C.B. was ready to take him out right there in front of the family and their Christmas tree.

Instead, after all the presents had been opened he excused himself, grabbed a Schlitz from the fridge and went out on the back porch for a smoke to get away from the discomfort the holiday family shit and her asshole brother were bringing him.

He was silently cursing out Cupid and those deep, dark brown eyes when Bill, the older brother came out and asked if he could join him. “Be my fucking guest,” C.B. muttered.

“I’ll get right to the point,” Bill said, “I don’t like you and you better not break my sister’s heart.”

“I don’t like you,” C.B. said calmly, “So I guess we are even there. Now why don’t you leave me the fuck alone. I’ll worry about Suzy.”

“One more thing,” the black shoe navy puke growled, “Are you one of them anti-war protestors? If you say yes I’m liable to kick your ass and end this shit between you and my sister now.”

C.B. took a deep breath then replied in a voice that would’ve chilled Satan to the bone, “I served three tours in Nam, puke. I was a sniper and I killed a lot of people. You say one thing to Suzy or your family and you are dead meat. I’m only telling you to make a point. Forget this conversation or you might disappear. Now, get us a beer and let’s end this conversation real friendly like.”

C.B. didn’t have to return to work for a couple of days so he spent that night and those days at Suzy’s apartment. She couldn’t get over how much Bill had warmed up to him after being rude for most of the day and was surprised since he hated “longhairs.”

Now the whole fucking family liked his ass and all he wanted to do was hit the open road but that fucking Cupid’s arrow and those deep, dark brown eyes were in his way. Though Suzy finally said he could keep his hog, confident his wandering days were behind him.

That following Valentine’s Day night C.B. rode down from Guerneville to Martinez, a ride he could make in his sleep by now. Suzy was just coming out of the shower when he walked into her bedroom. They ended up fucking up a sweat and had to shower together before jumping on his hog and riding down to Alamo to a high-class steakhouse which Suzy had introduced him to when they first met.

It wasn’t the friendliest place but after their first time there everyone had the sense to be civil to them. That first visit C.B. signed the book since they didn’t have reservations and they went into the bar for a beer until a table was open.

The place was filled with fucking polyester jumpsuit, white patent leather shoes wearing fat cats, their blue-hair wives and spoiled rich kids evading the draft and their prima donna girlfriends.

The two of them were seated at a small table for two when a blue-hair seated at the table closest them with her polyester fat cat husband kept making snide remarks about Suzy and him.

She crossed the line when she said, “I can’t believe they allowed a heathen biker and his slut in here. I knew we should have went to the Country Club for dinner tonight.”

C.B. tapped the old fuck on the shoulder and very softly said, “If you don’t shut that fat ass cunt you are with up I’m going to be bringing some serious hurt down on you. In fact, I suggest you get your asses to the Country Club now.”

As he was on his third beer and Suzy her second he realized people who had arrived after them were being paged to tables to eat. He got up, went to the hostess and said, “You best have a table for me real quick or things could get real ugly in here. You wouldn’t want this to become a biker hangout would you?”

Suzy and him were quickly seated at a small table hastily placed near the doors to the kitchen. Not exactly the best seats in the house. It didn’t take much for C.B. to get them a better table.

There was several reasons he took Suzy their on a regular basis after that first night: the food was excellent and whenever C.B. called for reservations, which he made it a point to do, they were seated at what they had declared “their table.” It also delighted him that whenever they ate there they seemed to be the only ones who were comfortable and having a good time.

That night, after a meal of steak and lobster C.B. reached into the inside pocket of his leather jacket draped over the back of his seat and handed Suzy her Valentine’s present. She did the same then said, “Don’t peek until I get back from the women’s room” She then leaned over, kissed him passionately and said, God, you will never know how much I have loved you.”

He waited for her to return for what seemed like an eternity when the waiter placed the bill on the table. Tucked inside the folder was a note that read: Dinner is on me. I’m sorry to do it this way but I no longer love you. Please don’t phone or come by the apartment.

C.B. was stunned. He’d basically received a “Dear John” letter and it was cold-blooded as hell. Just like that, with no warning, she had yanked Cupid’s barbed arrow from his chest, ripping his heart out in the process.

He picked up the two gifts but left her leather motorcycle jacket draped over the back of her chair. It was just beginning to rain when he left the restaurant so he pulled his chaps out of the saddlebags, tossing hers to the pavement of the parking lot.

As he rode back to Guerneville the skies opened up and God and Cupid began pissing on his parade in torrents as he rode hard and fast until he reached his destination, the B & E bowling alley on the river side of the road from his rented cabin

He went straight into the bowling alley bar where a skinny kid that could have been the ghost of Hank Williams sang to the small audience of bar regulars who disliked bowling and ignored him.

The sound of the bowlers and their balls and the clatter of pins virtually drowned out the sounds of the singer’s voice and guitar coming from his small tube amp as the barflies wondered among themselves how high and hard the Russian river was running and if it would flood before this year’s rainy season ended.

C.B. sat at the end of the bar and listened to the singer’s sad songs as he opened Suzy’s gift to him. They had discussed having the singer perform at their wedding reception behind her oldest sister and husband’s barn on their thousand acre ranch just outside Martinez, a day that would never materialize.

He wasn’t surprised to see her gift to him was her engagement ring, wondering why he hadn’t noticed she wasn’t wearing it that night before she left him high and lonesome at the steakhouse.

After he was Goddamn good and drunk C.B. walked down to the river which was running high and hard and tossed the ring and the matching diamond necklace he had bought her for Valentine’s Day into the river, wondering how long they would take to reach Jenner-By-The-Sea where the river emptied into the Pacific ocean.

He gave his boss two weeks notice and began preparing for the open road again though it would be with a heavy heart, or so he thought. A few days later he was taking a piss when an excruciating pain that felt like razors following his urine as it flowed from his cock almost put him to his knees.

The love of his life had not only left C.B. sitting like the court jester at the steakhouse Valentine’s day night but had also left him with a heavy dose of the clap. More than thirty years have passed since then and C.B. has went through a lot of women and a few hogs but he has remained and will die a nomad.

country music singer Hank Williams compares President Obama to Hitler

Hustled Again by Brad Hamlin

“Huh?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“It is time.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No, I mean no! This isn’t what I was taught! This isn’t the deal!”

“It is the way.”

“Listen, one lifetime is enough! I’m not going back down there and do everything over again: the bone growing, the gut hunger, disappointment all the time, brushing all those fucking teeth, cleaning house and body and taking out garbage, getting up in the morning, going to work, all those drinks, drinking, drunk all the time, depression haunting the skin, rejection from people you don’t even like, the bad movies, bad music, bad jokes … Do you hear me? I can’t do it all over again! You live the life, you survive, you die, then you get the peace you deserve – the peace you earn!”

“Shall we review your record again?”

“Oh man, not that again!”

“Peace is not earned by living a common life. Peace is forged by learning.”

“Forged? You mean beaten and shaped like a sword under flame and hammer? That it? We’ve got to take the beating to learn something, to become something? Why?”

“Your soul is like a sword, yes. Each lifetime, if you learn in the positive aspect of soul development, you come closer to the light, then, one moment in the lifetimes of your experience, you simply become the light.”

“Bullshit! Why the hell aren’t I the light right now! Do you have any idea what I went through down there? Have you ever been to a poetry reading? Have you ever sat during a one-hour sermon that seemed like a lifetime? Do you have any idea how boring televised sports are – and no one seems to realize? Do you know how many commercials you have to listen to on the radio? Don’t I deserve a rest?”

“The rest comes for those who no longer require respite. Now go. It is time. You see the tunnel? Go there. It leads to the mother. Good luck.”

“Hey, it’s dark in there, bro. You sure it doesn’t lead down, like way down?”

“Are you scared?”

“Yes.”

“You see? You still have things to learn.”

“Well … any advice this time around?”

“Sure, stay away from the coffee shop poets and TV evangelists and … try to remember.”

“Remember? Remember what?”

“Your gardener is a piece of the light. The ice cream man is a piece of the light. The librarian is a piece of the light. The woman working at the DMV is a piece of the light. The man hiding in the shadows is a piece of the light. The children starving in their mother’s arms in foreign lands are pieces of light. And, well, you too.”

“Huh? What? Then why the hell can’t I stay? You said …”

“Next time, perhaps, you will not have to be reminded.”

 

The End

 

From the Empire State Building to the Golden Gate Bridge
(An odyssey into the soul of modern America) by Luke Ritta

O America!
From Walt Whitman to Allen Ginsberg.
O America!
From The Empire State Building to The Golden Gate Bridge

A Joshua tree stands erect at dusk. A pumpkin pie is left on a widow ledge to cool off.
A husband returns home after a day at work to be welcomed by his loving family.
Moby Dick and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is read in moonlight.
The American dream.

A man dies in a park of a drug overdoes. An old women from Atlanta Georgia
has her right leg cut off as she can’t afford the operation to save it.
a lonely sad hobo sits under a cold overpass thinking about his life
Last Exit to Brooklyn and the Grapes of Wrath is read at dawn.
The American nightmare.

*

I land on the tarmac of the country who
owns the world. Wow! Is all I can
say. Wow! This is the nation
that has shaped modern
society.

New York! The rain drops fall onto my
Shoulders like bombs
Falling on
Dresden.

The city that never sleeps! I am asleep after six cans of
Beer. Why! Why! I hear you ask. The
Answer to this and to a lot more
Questions is
Six cans.

Bones, skin, pain! Legs, feet, toes, pain! I walk and walk
around the capital of this once great super power. O the pain!
I look at Lincoln; he looks at me, we both
Stroke are beards and I wish I had a
pair of new shoes.

The dog rolls on and on, and on. The rolling dog
Of my dreams.

The greyhound is my home, lover, friend, partner, cinema screen and my ride.
52 seats, 52 humans, 104 beating hearts from 50 amazing states.

A morning red sun shines over still rivers like a painting from Monet.
Stunning trees, old and new stand in black silhouette
against the sun like a photo from Ansel Adams.

New Hampshire! New England! Maine! And a bowl of steaming clam chowder.
Pain in the neck after sleeping for one hour and twenty two seconds.
Legs are stiff like roman soldiers and I now wish
I could get off the rolling dog and have a
cup of Joe.

O America!
From Walt Whitman to Allen Ginsberg.
O America!
From The Empire State Building to The Golden Gate Bridge

10 hours have passed by in a haze of loneliness. I am
as lonely as a man on death row.
I am in the deep south.

I wait for a ride, a horse, a car, a plane…..No!
A bus. As I wait I see a golden, skinny stray cat walk past
me and my heart hurts like a silver bullet has just pierced it..
I say_______? There is no word that describes what
I am feeling. William Faulkner Stands
Next to me and sighs.

Society! please do me a favour and use a condom!
People! People! People everywhere. From the
Sperm of a Greek philosopher to the
youth of the 21st century.
God help us!

I look around at the youth. It has finally happened. We
have come full circle. I cant believe it! We have
Gone back to the time of the cavemen.

Groups of boys and girls stand around and talk, act
and stand like the first ever man did. They would
Rather shoot someone at dusk, instead of reading
a book underneath a peach tree at dawn.
Please use a condom.

O America!
From Walt Whitman to Allen Ginsberg.
O America!
From The Empire State Building to The Golden Gate Bridge

Succulent chicken or a rubbery old bird?

Freshly stone baked bread or salty sponge?

Strong, mature full flavoured cheese or processed chemical slices?

24 months old cured meat or animals innards mixed with salt and water?

Europe or America? Europe or America?

Taos in the morning, eating a spicy bowl of black bean soup. Taos in
the afternoon talking about philosophy to the locals. Taos
At night, eating a Yak burger under a cover of stars
with Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson
Over stunning Taos in the desolate sky,
Imprinted on the Clouds is the Face of
D.H. Lawrence.

Oklahoma, Wyoming, Idaho. The rolling dog at night. The black rivers twinkle
From the lights of the factories. I get bored looking at a field of barley so I sit back
and start to read my book ‘Travels with charley’ I then see Benjamin Franklin
Playing baseball with George Washington, Franklin whacks the ball,
The ball flies through the night like so many convicts on the run,
and then it is caught in the hands of Barack Obama.
I then wake up from this dream, I put on my MP3
and for the rest of the night I listen to
Jim Morrison and Johnny Cash.
Amen.

Bubbly, fizzy and as dark as the sand at Omaha beach in 1944.
Root beer! It might smell of the dentist, but I
Love it. Seattle, Denver, Portland, Arizona,
beef jerky at sunrise, eggs and bacon
next to the grand canyon, red wine
next to Bukowskis grave, tears
Over Jack kerouacs
Death bed.

American Television!
O the bombardments of commodities in this land. The T.V. talks
To you, loves you and defiantly lies to your face. You
Get told you are going to die, get divorced, get cancer
Get robbed. So what do you do? You
Buy! Buy! Buy! It talks down to
You like you’re a child, what
to do? Buy! Buy!
Buy!

With out Howard Hughes and Henry Ford what
would modern life be like?

The Midwest.
The roads should be peaceful and relaxing, not in the US. You get bombarded by road signs, eat this, drink that, buy this, get that. So you buy some fast food and once finished you straight away fart. Your then back on the
road get attacked by an army led
Napoleon Bonaparte.

O America!
From Walt Whitman to Allen Ginsberg.
O America!
From The Empire State Building to The Golden Gate Bridge

California and the almighty red woods. One million and one
Trees stand in the light breeze from big Sur in the
moon light of yesteryear.

An eagle flys over head, a red squirrel runs up the huge trunk, a black bear sniffs
the pungent grounds at the red woods feet.
Bye, Bye you ancient trees, hello the
Lights, noise, madness of
Las Vegas.

The North!
Now to Montana and ghostly grey shadows sweep across the vast plains.
A hut then a old shed will pop up like a mushroom, in the
distance the mountaintops shimmer red from the
morning sun. Snow begins to melt like
life slipping away from an
injured soldier.

The East!
Huge factory’s blend into the even bigger cities, dark dense clouds
hang overhead like the next world war. Cold winds shoot
through your hair, people love each other and hate each
other even more. Great lobsters and the birth of
America in 1773.

The South!
Old trees with grey beards stand next to battered homes, music decorates the air like and insect sticks. Chicken fillets fried, corn fields paint the land, peaches and oranges
feed the people with money. An old white church on Sunday,
a blues bar on Friday, grits, steak, slaw, warm
biscuits on a Saturday.

The West!
Stuck up people, chilled out residents, red wine rolls down the hills, life is great
Life is hell. The world of movies, the world of drugs, the world of
money. A town dedicated to garlic, a town dedicated to
Sun worshiping, a town dedicated to the
beat generation.

O America!
From Walt Whitman to Allen Ginsberg.
O America!
From The Empire State Building to The Golden Gate Bridge

Bop, bop, tap, tap, bop, tap. Music is life in New Orleans. Jazz and gumbo,
Soul and a crayfish Po boy. Louisiana as the moon comes out to play,
witch doctors, voodoo at midnight, bourbon is drunk by everyone,
The tourist go to tourist spots, the real New Orleans don’t
want them, they don’t want anyone, they have the best
city in the world to themselves.
Where would I be without
the blues!!!!!!!!!

I examine the class of the new world and all I see is a cell
Phone in everyone’s hand. At a café, bar, airport, If a man-
woman is left by them self they straight away gaze into
their phone. They are a perfect target for a thief! I would
rather look at a falling dead autumn leaf.

Austin Texas, Huston Texas, Dallas Texas, steaming bowls of
Chilli in Texas, amazing beef jerky in Texas,
Texas in Texas.

Is Santa Cruz paradise or hell?
Perfect bums and firm breast bounce on the sand, suntan bodies kiss and swim in the
Salty sea. Expensive haircuts, six packs, eating lunch with daddy, going to
a party, drinking cocktails, going to sleep that night
without feeling anything in the heart. The smell of
plastic is stained over your soul.
Or
Fake tans, bad haircuts, dinner that cost more then one months rent
for a poor family. Brain dead air heads who live a pointless
73 years. The lavender colour sun sinks on
Paradise or hell?

O America!
From Walt Whitman to Allen Ginsberg.
O America!
From The Empire State Building to The Golden Gate Bridge

Time passes slowly as Mr Dylan sings. And he couldn’t be more
correct as I relax on the rolling dog.

Endless hours and seconds pass by me like an old war veteran walking
Down 5th avenue. Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky, whiskey,
and cold beer.

I look at the passenger I share the bus with and I wonder has any of them
read Ulysses or War and Peace? Dose it matter if they haven’t?
dose it matter that I have? Dose anything matter anymore?
My nihilistic thoughts are coming out of the
wood works. I need to get off this bus
and get a spicy tamale
Down in sunny
New Mexico.

Mix together in a giant pestle and mortar the following ingredients.
The brightest yellows, darkest browns,
heart breaking oranges, the whitest
of white, The redness of wine and the
calmness of green.

Scoop out and spread across the hills, mountains, and endless fields. Now
Stand back, take in a deep breath and admire the
Enchanted kingdom of
New Mexico.

John Ernest Steinbeck dominates the Californian landscape with his
pale blue eyes, protruding ears and elegant panicle moustache. His words tumble
down the lush hillsides, his thoughts glide over the trees. A bunch of his
characters inhabit, homes, bars, farms. Fruit and vegetables ripen with his
soul. From the redwoods to the pines in big Sur, the veins in
the leaves flow with the blood of the great author. The
pavements and side walks of Salinas and Monterey
are decorated with his image. Long live
J.E.S.

Walking up Columbus Avenue with the smell of books decomposing in the air, walking down Castro street with the smell of sweet aftershave
in the air, walking down Lombard street with the smell
of car fumes in the air, walking down pier 39 with
the smell of tourist in the air. Walking in
San Francisco with the smell of
America in the air.

Farewell to the negatives of the US with its ugly towns, the lack of history,
Farewell to the laws, cant walk across the road there, cant drink in
Public cant do this cant do that. Farewell to the people,
The caveman of the many youth,
the ignoramus of the South.
Farewell O farewell.

Farewell the positives of the US with its kind hearted strangers, stunning
Scenery, huge meals, great pizza slices, farewell to the women and
To the great writers and the birth of modern music. Farewell to
the land of opportunities , farewell to the 50 states.
Farewell O farewell.

O America!
From Walt Whitman to Allen Ginsberg.
O America!
From The Empire State Building to The Golden Gate Bridge
*
A homeless man plays guitar on a park bench; a wealthy housewife gets her toe
nails painted red, a Hasidic Jew scratch his beard, a Chinese man smokes
behind his restaurants, a white hick goes to church, a black child plays
baseball in the streets of Detroit, a fat politician lies his way through
Life, a drug addict holds up a liqueur store, a Mexican immigrant
gets out of a truck in downtown L.A., a young women
with red hair holds a party for her cool yuppie
friends in Manhattan, an old man with
grey hair plays the blues at sunset,
a 25-year-old poet still writes,
The stars and stripes dance in
the wind of desolation.
Goad bless
America!

white lightning by Bradley Mason Hamlin

the
thing of it is
it
should be
as pure as you
can
make it
like
chet baker’s voice
singing
or making
trumpet moan
or
a bowl of chili beans
with the exact
correct
amount of spice
the
thing of it is
you
have
just this one chance
this life
to
make an impression
to say
just the right thing
to
touch her
perfectly
one
more
time.