I
When the store was empty,
I sang “The man in one nineteen
takes his tea all alone”
while my boss
was in the backroom
doing who-knows-what.
He drank Diet Coke,
and I drank Vernor’s.
He ordered pizza when we sold
more software than the other stores.
He bought See’s Candy
at Christmas.
I baked a carrot cake for Jenny
when it was her first year married
and her husband [...]
“The Garden”
by Wesley Ann Johnson
The mercury sun swells
Looms
Hits the dust
Etching and polishing
Shaking the collisions of the blue
Ringed spiral sky
Making it smolder
Making it hum
Dashing lines
Green with bottoms
Deceitful and possessive
Of the silent rising fog
Drifting
To the valley
Of the yellows
Of the reds
Beasts creep from the corners
When Dusk drops
[...]
I need to give a warning to my own mind
as I sit here with a pen in restless hand
tapping, nodding, thinking, frantically worrying
what is coming up tastes like vomit but smells of smoke
it’s coming out on this notepad I stole
I remember stealing it
it was from the store where you had worked
I remember it being fucking [...]
Sally remembers the Haight all too well
She burnt out years ago but she remembers how it felt.
Her husband left her some years ago
For him love was too free.
You can download the MP3 of Michael Harper reading his poem at this MediaFire link.
In the still, crisp hours,
Dark, circled eyes staring down shoes,
Pushing against quiet, forsaking boredom,
Panged stomach, demanding crackers,
Dark, circled eyes staring down shoes,
Reliable, white canvas, worn rubber,
Panged stomach, demanding crackers,
Licked lips, suggesting cigarettes,
Reliable, white canvas, worn rubber,
Pushing east, away from home,
Licked lips, [...]
When I was a kid I made art like a hurricane
but these days it just falls past my lips
like the shells of dead beetles.
I paint stick figures on bar napkins,
blow lopsided smoke-rings,
and write the same damn haiku a hundred times.