Monday, February 29, 2016


Junkyard Blues Slide

Door open
motor is gone.

1948 Plymouth Special Deluxe
headlights seeing tires
piled high. 

Old Rusty Model T
with  license plate
that never expired.

Blues slide across this
old junkyard and give
it soul.
 
Lily Tierney
On ‘Speck of Blue’


'Speck of Blue'
So beautifully true
The evidence is you
Her jewels
(Were read)
Red and blue

We do not fear
The tap root, dear
We have been there


*


I know you won’t reply to me
But when you get back
And make yourself a coffee
Remember what you lack

Rehan Qayoom
Gypsy 
by Alfonso Colasuonno

I first saw her down by the train station and I knew there was something about her that the other girls didn't possess and that if I would speak with her some of her magic would bewitch and I did then she took me by the hand and away from the crowds before leaving me alone where I scratched and I clawed and I grew a long marrano beard and my finest ginghams wore to their seams yet I met her again somewhere off beyond the desert we kissed like friends and made love in the sand over and over and over and I forgot to return to that train station where she had her ticket no trick of the light or dry illusion I caught my connection.
 
Halfway Across, Halfway Up
by Alfonso Colasuonno

It’s
Like
How
It
All
Flows
Out
Of 
You
On
DMT
Siren
Just
Please
Overtake
Me
And
Decalcify
I
Need
To
Enter
The
Garden
Just
Oh
God
Open
Me
Up
 
Not Going in n+1
by Alfonso Colasuonno

So what you’re saying to me
Is that no, I can’t be introduced
To the tune of “Dick in Dixie” by 
Hank Three at this huge shindig?

They’d do it on the Interstate

What? Against my image?

East coast elitism?
 
Gravedancer
by Alfonso Colasuonno

It’s 3:30 in the morning
I’m awake on my friend’s floor
Bukowski’s words in my hands
His words penetrate my mind
Human nature exposed in less than 300 pages.

And I wish that there were men these days
Even remotely reminiscent of Chuck B.
Behind some manly exterior
A layer of intuition and warmth
These things pass in time

Life will kill you
Like it killed him
Put your feet on the bar
Try to scatter your ash in the tray
And aim to find a woman tomorrow night.

 





The Water At Your Door


Could fill the bathtub of regret

Sounds hypnotic on a windless night

Might distract from the dull scissors
                        Against the stained photographs

Will wake you from shivering, drugged sleep

Should float you to a sounder conviction

John Abbott



The Bells Made Us Dizzy

The bells made us dizzy,
us college kids
woken by raucous chimes
from the highest point
on campus.
The melody always fuzzy at first,
Reaching us through a bad head,
thick tongue, all that’s left
of our revelry.
And, of course, the distance.
But as the music plays
the name drifts back
like the names of people
we met the night before
but the faces don’t always
match up
and sometimes there’s only
a composite image,
a moment which stands out.
The way a girl flicks ash off a cigarette,
one corner of her mouth
brightening
at a joke already heard, yet
still funny
or a song pouring from blown speakers
the lyrics jumbled
but the message clear:
this is the best time, these
are the best days
or at least we think so now.
So onto another party,
and then another until
the buzz is good
and so is the prospect
of going home
with someone
who will meet our eyes
come morning and
say, “Wake up, it’s time to learn.”

John Abbott
 
 




 

Helpless I do not know if good intentions prevail among the elected, among the appointed, leaving me apprehensive that the fate ...