briefcase

by chuck leary

it was dark i was lost i was despised and i had lost my briefcase when my brother and his stuckup friends showed up i left the hotel room and went down to the news stand to find the latest best seller but they didn’t have it in stock i bought a pack of gum instead when i left the news stand most of the lights in the city had gone out there were a few lights n the distance but i did not think they were the hotel’s i started walking i realized i did not have my briefcase did i leave it at the news stand? did i leave it at the hotel? i got loster and loster i thought of how awful my whole life had been and how everybody laughed at me and despised me and barely tolerated my existence and what a failure i was it got darker and darker finally i ended up at a police station i was told to take a seat on a bench against the wall when i tried to ask sone questions the young woman at the desk told me in no uncertain terms to be quiet finally she summoned me over tapping on her keyboard she asked wearily all right, what exactly was in this wonderful briefcase?

2 poems by 2 poets

solitary walker by ethan emerson "grandpa" sternwall i lived my life and it is coming to an end i never had an enemy i never had a friend no one ever cared what i thought of this or that i walked the roads alone and never wore a hat i walked in the sunshine i walked in the rain men viewed me with suspicion and women with disdain the world will no more notice than it did when i was born when my number has been called and my ticket has been torn

chicken by wiggly jones, "the little hippie boy" the chicken sandwich you ate today was once a living creature and walked in the sunlight examining reality’s features how it loved to see the sky as it awoke to each new day now it rests on a sesame seed bun because that is humans’ way

proposition 233

by f. flynn

illustrations by danny delacroix

here’s another story about some aliens. where this time? some place starting with a t - a long name. where’s that? i don’t know - i could look it up. don’t bother. will they be coming around? it says that emissaries will be sent all over the globe. so if i went out to wendy’s i might see some emissaries ? maybe. it doesn’t say exactly where they are going. what are they up to this time? let’s see - they got some kind of vote, they want humans to vote on something. i did that the last time. well, you can do it again, if you want. i might, if it’s not too much trouble. it’s called proposition 233. * proposition 233 reads as follows: the ambassadors of the empire of b————— offer a pair of pills to the “humans” whom we have determined to be one of the dominant life forms on this planet. the fifth most dominant, to be exact. the two pills must be taken together or not at all. the entire “human race” must take the pills or not. a vote may be taken, in which any human who wishes may take part, to determine whether the entire human race will or will not take the pills. we, the ambassadors of the empire of b———————, will be happy to administer this vote. there will be one vote, and it will be final. the effects of the two pills are as follows: pill “a” will change the outward forms of humans. all humans will have the same form, the same “color” (according to human perception), the same weight and height at birth, the same weight and height through five clearly defined stages of development, and identical facial features at each stage of development. “sex” will be eliminated. pill “b” will change human brains. humans will no longer see the world in binary terms. there will be no more “us” and “them”. there will be no more “debates”, “arguments”, “controversies”, etc. humans will perceive the universe as civilized beings do - as one. the combined results of these pills will be to eliminate so-called war, hatred, racism, injustice, inequality, oppression, exploitation, alienation, competition, survival of the fittest, and other ills. it will also eliminate separate "cultures" for different groups of humsns. a “yes” vote on proposition 233 will signify a desire to take the pills, a “no” vote to not take them. if “yes” wins, we, the emissaries of the empire of b——————, will be happy to distribute the pills and oversee their administration. if “no” wins, we will be on our way, and wish the “human race” all the best. in either case, we may return in the future, with other propositions for other inhabitants of this planet. * the vote was taken. of the 20 billion human inhabitants of earth, approximately 9 billion voted. the final vote was 8.5 billion to 0.5 billion. * do you think that a) 8.5 billion voted “yes” and 0.5 billion voted “no” or b) 8.5 billion voted “no” and 0.5 voted “yes”? how would you have voted?

2 more poems

by chuck leary

heisenberg and st basil of cappadocia play gin rummy apprehending the benediction of contraindication despite the emptiness of flowers growing happily in the interstices of jellyfished kineticism the loose matriculation of narcissism overflows the percipient quagmire in the ruins of a snow-covered tower under the vertiginous wasteland of the expanding yawning zeitgeist but the zeitgeist has no amanuensis as barracudas chomp the debris of the empire of the forty graves

slender i hate poetry but i love slender volumes of verse i used to tell myself i was not a voyeur i didn’t understand porn or want to look at naked bodies at flabby boobs and dicks and asses or stand in the dark in the wind and rain looking through lighted windows at unsuspecting humans doing - what? but naked souls that is a different matter i admit it now i am worse than the sad peeper seeking a glimpse of ass or boob everything pales beside seeing naked souls i always thought stand up comedians were the bravest people in the world nobody could be more naked in front of a crowd with no cover and no excuses they either “killed” or “died “ of course i never had the guts to try it myself but if you can’t do standup or performance art or read poetry out loud what you can do is write poetry in slender volumes forget zines and anthologies where the naked ones can huddle together and hide behind each other no, it must be a lone slender volume the distillation of a single naked and lonely soul the fewer words on a page the better nothing is more naked than a book of bad poetry except, perhaps a book of ordinary poetry ?

2 poems

by chuck leary

something i always thought that someday i would find something somewhere on a dark highway on a rainy street in a dimly lit cafe on a lonely road on an empty subway car in milwaukee a motel room in las cruces new mexico standing over a juke box in manitoba or tokyo at a bus station in vladivostok something maybe not love or peace or illumination or divine revelation but something something i would only know when it happened

suitcase i was not worried about losing the group even though my black suitcase wth my new novel in it of which i was so proud was in the group baggage being taken to the bus downstairs under the curved marble staircase when the old woman with the round lined face leaned over to me and whispered “you are quite a character” and laughed softly she and another old woman began talking in french but so softly i could not understand them when i went down the stairs the bus was gone but i was not worried because “i knew the area” wide polished vistas in gleaming red and orange and white porcelain tunnels with a hint of rain and the cafeterias were closed i kept going in circles but was not worried except a little bit about the suitcase with my novel i was never in a dream which was more obviously “just a dream” but when i woke up i was surprised