Poetry
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To California, Wine, Politics, Turtles, Nihilism, and My Heart, by Adam Scheffler
After Kenneth Koch
What a jumble,
I don’t know if it’s a good idea to have all of you here
Especially you wine and politics!
Though you my heart and turtles go together always
And even politics and turtles sounds good.But in any case here you all are:
I wake up and my heart is holding you all like a shopping cart
Full of hasty impulse purchasesWith California sticking out the back cartoonishly
Amidst the wine it’s known for
And politics snuggling next to but never quite touching nihilism, -
University Town by Michael Homolka
Up steep hills which crack open like pebblesthe green-black ocean wandersin the form of a human among low squat
brick facades old typewriter paperand armchairs subconsciously withinlost as all academia to self-absorption
hands in back pockets inquiringof the psychological grass whether it perceivesitself to flow uphill mostly or downJoycean that is to say or Virginian
Sorting stackfuls of family photos
most of which it plans to toss out anyway
between existences the brainy seaweedsoaks up all possible inferences
as to the ocean Whether literal or metaphoric
whatever anyone believes in whatever
way they believe it : it’s the opposite*
Michael Homolka’s collection, -
“Social Distances” by L.B. Browne
There is a manwearing dark glassesand a blue paper surgical maskin the fluorescent sun of the grocery store.Hey buddy, 6 feet!a young woman shoutsas he backs up, nearly touches her,outrageous,she does not seethe white cane he slides in small arcs at his feet,tip tapping the waydown ravaged empty aisles.
There is a womanwith a 3-day-old coughand a nasal drip that runs down the back of her throat, -
I never sent you that letter that I told you to look out for, by David Greenspan
Our heads were full of yogurt
during those years
of rain and warm rot–
We didn’t pay much attention
to the mudbleat
hiding in our chests–
We drank grapefruit juice
and watched squirrels
chase each other–
You didn’t look at me
stuffed as I was
with glass–
When milk spoiled
and winter was bright,
we talked about
the body’s coarse leak–
O the beautiful shapes
our mouths made to speak–
Anne,
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Two Poems by Emma Hyche
Precarity
My friend saidthat adjunct teaching makes him wonderwhich character from Apocalypse Nowhe is that day-
Dennis Hopper maybe, orthat Playmate emerging from the helicopterand shimmying. The onewith the cowboy hat and the fakeguns under the swingblade. I’ma palm tree on the beach
most days, keepingthe sand anchoredto the shore.
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“Quarantine” by Rimas Uzgiris
By day we count like clocks the dust motesAnd wait for the hour of maximum sunWhen the forest folds us inLike the first morning, Eve yet to meet a snake.
The passage back is through the cemeteryHaunted by the occasional humanShuffling from grave to grave,Pottering with plants and sloughed pine.
We park ourselves before electric iridescenceTrying to feel our way towards a future:Seeing only fear and desire and no Eightfold Path,
