hey joe

by horace p sternwall

hey joe, where you going with that cactus plant in your hand? i am going to cincinnati to bury my head in the sand i don’t think you are really going to cincinnati at all i think you are going to indianapoiis to shop in its famous mall why do you always torture me, and doubt my every word? you know that i am not one of the common herd i wake up every morning before the break of dawn and before the wide word is astir i get my mojo on i sit all day in jake’s cafe and no one ever looks my way but if they did they might be surprised at the epics unscrolling behind my eyes poor joe, locked in the arms of fleeting time if hopeless dreaming was a crime he would spend a thousand years in alcatraz but carlsbad new mexico is all he has

82325

by hotrace p sternwall

my brain is not what it used to be it used to work more efficiently when i was young and wild and free and wrote poetry beneath a tree i tried to write a happy song but the universe did me wrong and all its blind inhabitants never gave me a fighting chance i had a message for humankind locked within my burning mind but when i let it loose upon the air i realized there was nothing there i am sorry to take up your time with this meandering rhyme i have nothing better to do though i know my heart is true

walter

by nick nelson

walter went back to the womb king tut went back to the tomb box went back to the boom robin hood rented a room the sheriff was on the trail of a man who told a tale his name was prester john he was the child of the dawn there’s a house by the side of the road you can enter with a secret code in the basement a treasure is hid that belonged to billy the kid when the roll is called up yonder wise men will be left to ponder civilizations’s detritus what was all the fuss? who was walter? you ask he never wore a mask or a blue suit with a yellow tie in the sweet bye and bye but he took his lumps down in the dumps where the mermaids wear plastic and trip the light fantastic

chair

by dog e relaford

i woke up this morning with a feeling of despair it was time to get up and sit in my chair and look out the window all day long and scratch my knees and sing my song i was once a pirate bold an arctic explorer braving the cold an adventurer with a hundred names and a master of all tricks and games an angel with a flaming sword a barbarian who was never bored a conqueror with a heart of steel a condemned man eating a last meal a dog waiting outside a door an elephant wandering on the shore of an ocean with a billion waves washing over a trillion graves of my enemies in the cool breeze in the endless deep i go back to sleep to wake in the morning with a feeling of despair with my clothes piled neatly on my chair and my shoes under my bed in my head