1

Bus
by Adam Moorad

     I was somewhere outside the city when I noticed the gigantic nitrogen gas tanker five feet from my face flying 70 miles per hour south down the New Jersey Turnpike. 
     Looking out the window of a stream-lined red, white and blue bus, I realized that this corrosive, highly explosive material was traveling with extreme velocity and only just an arm’s reach away.
     The traffic was a thick combination of Friday afternoon rush hour and holiday weekend congestion.  This meant that any relaxed lane shifting or passing was impossible as each driver was restricted to a still flow that forced every driver into a strict vehicular impasse, moving but not really moving.
     Each automobile was stuck in 6 compact lanes and—together—the road appeared like a massive metal snake slithering its way south—spitting out sooty exhaust, each car a shiny tin cell in a greater organism melting the icebergs with every lumbering inch. 
     I felt vulnerable knowing that the slightest mistake from any motorist in front the bus would most definitely signify the vaporization of all its passengers, leaving me as nothing more than a pile of smoldered dust.
     No one else seemed to notice this calamity bearing down on them or—-at least—-they didn’t seem to care.
     Crippled with the impression of potential doom only a meter from my eyes, I wanted to get up and alert my driver: “Look alive pal or we’re all goners.”
     One tired swerve, one pumped brake, or one stray cigarette ash would be catastrophic.
     By now I could see it:  An ambitious driver attempts to change lanes by quickly shooting the nose of his SUV in front of minivan full of kindergarteners, forcing the soccer mom to irrationally stomp on her brakes.  Then, each motorist behind her will slam and jam their steering wheels and pedals in all directions and a 100 car pile-up would ensue: cars ramping over the wreckage of others and crashing headfirst into the flaming mounds of red hot metal, de-horsed motorcyclists soaring bear-skinned into the inferno with nothing but their helmets to protect them.  Charcoaling carnage everywhere.
     When the mass accident finally dominoes its way down the highway, the gas tanker driver will attempt to avert this unavoidable catastrophe by double-clutching down a few gears to yank-up the emergency brake.  This will give the blind driver behind him no option but to plow right into rolling bomb ahead, incinerating us all.
     I could already hear the numbing pop of the explosion that would drown-out the passengers’ yelps.  The heat that would force each little skin cytoplasm to blister-up and instantly expire as I watch with shishkebabed eyes.
     “Snap out of it,” I told myself.  “This will be one hell of a long ride if you don’t control that imagination of yours.” 
     Do we use our imagination to escape our frightening realities? Or use it to increase, enhance, and amplify what is already feared?
     I put my sunglasses on just to be safe. 

2



Unmasking Sadness by Ernest Williamson III, mixed media


3


Handle Bars
by Ernest Williamson III

amid the peaceful standstills in Augusta Georgia
1981, race stains the ground with cantankerous isms
blurted with a placid hate
but I'm 12 years old now
my bike is still black
the chain is of rust
orange
the hand bars are tokens of deceit
my hands slip with frustration
but I'm happy
I'm free
I'm alive
though I wonder if happiness and freedom and vitality
are wishful thoughts shared by the establishments
the founding fathers
of yesteryear
and the jails filled with seas of ebony
of seamless forever
will I have a motor bike in 10 years
or will I be writing about one in a room
with bars
that are too greasy
to hold on too




4


Cicero
by Shelley Nation

Standin’ in a Cicero alley lit by sunlight
Amidst Latino gang graffiti garages
Clad in black shorts, white shirt
Frank screams at the balding, big-bellied man
“I told you not to tell him!
He’s a fuckin’ two-faced Puerto Rican
With a love for Grecian Gods
And two cents to his name!”
As he borrows a lighter, throwing it
To the log being burdened by big buttocks.
The fat man screams
“You’re fucked up in the head to be
A part of his life. Don’t give me your
God-damned bullshit - Stay the fuck away
From here ‘til you get your shit together”
And tries to light a smoke against the wind
Hair screaming in the air
Wipes his hands on his grease-stained shirt
Wonderin’ why the air seems to polluted just now.
The atmosphere fill with disco-tech dance music
From a neighborhood band in a suffocatin’ garage
Masquerading as a studio
Crab-apples diving to the ground
Somehow symbolizing the lives in this town
Hitting rock bottom
Watching Mickey sleeping in his brother’s
Backyard ‘cause he fucked up with crystal white
catchin’ blood trickles on the side
evicted from his Wrigleyville apartment
wanted by the sheriff
for a car he doesn’t own
gotta get out
like the man in black and white
and the one balding with big buttocks
He needs new energy
like Las Vegas show girls
and Wayne Newton dreams
He needs a woman sent from Venus
a job he’ll call his own
but first gotta get that license
drive a taxi-cab around
spin his wheels to get some dough
stop livin’ in a stranger’s home
for two-hundred bucks a month
and someone in Cicero
needs to see some light.

5


Words for a Friend
by Howard Good

So you doubt
that the high school girl
who sulkily took
your order at the drive-
through window
actually wants you
to have a nice day.
Maybe if you told her
how things look
in the emaciated light
of late middle age.
But until then
you might as well try
to smooth out the writing
on the crumpled balls
of paper scattered
about the world.
Or did you expect more
than the consolation
of theoretical happiness?
For Chrissakes, Matt,
don’t you know
we’re like the junk cars
the fire department
uses to practice rescues?



6

Tina casually mentioned
she was a cutter
as though she were admitting
to being an accountant
 
she rolled up her sleeves
revealing two tablets
of pale scars
 
I got lots more
on my legs
she almost smiled
 
I could remember
vividly
stepping on a piece
of broken glass
outside my apartment
when I was five years old
 
since then
I’d lived my life
firmly committed
to avoiding injury
 
you don’t understand,
she sighed
 
cutting is
a celebration of experience
good times or bad
I mark my body
with what marks
my psyche
it’s no different
than your tattoos
 
yeah
but you have
a skin full of scar tissue
I have a Hawaiian girl
who swings her hips to
Howa myki kiki howa
when I flex my biceps
 
there’s a world of difference

7

For all this morning it’s been 8:56, so sayeth the clock that hangs above the coffee grinder. The timelessness mires my feet, my legs, my brain in a swamp of pudding, a pit of tar. One after the other I succumb: Claritin for allergies, Sudafed for stuffiness, Valium for neck crick, marijuana resin -- twice-smoked dope scraped from my brass pipe -- for ennui. A long shower to release my ills.

The baby is finally asleep in his crib. My neck begins to relax, relax, relax.

Maybe when I get out of the shower it will finally be 8:57. But I’m not counting on it.

8

After hours of dancing to bass-heavy techno, Bethany was seen streaking
across the fields and parking lots that surrounded the dilapidated building
in the glow of the morning.  Dressed in silver and white, as if she were
weather, she entered the fog and disappeared amidst leafless trees that
reached out with skeleton fingers.  She left hardly any traces of her
departure, except for small delicate footprints painted in blood.

9

10

We have our cake and eat it too!

Then later, we watch a movie where poverty is
victimized by capital punishment in a car park.
There's a re-trial but it becomes paralyzed while

crooning a Perry Como of life's hard knocks. Poetry
is tenderly portrayed as having startling bravado
and everyone with a camera is either a tourist or a

voyeur. The whole town becomes partly cloudy with 
intermittent light showers. Miles Davis is no cornet 
player and there's a county-wide ordinance banning 

the use of pink plastic flamingos as lawn decoration. 
After the weekly pray meeting, stage fright seduces
the fiery sermon of a secular fundamentalist disguised

as round three. San Francisco wakes up with the Bay
Bridge in its bed and then belts out a dramatic
monologue about possible conspiracy theories. Thom

Gunn has a holster or a banana glad to see us. Life
is content to be intimidated by a colossal cleavage or
the same woman in the gorilla suit. And all the while,

the rabbi insists he has a reputation to accidentally
overdose. This movie really has the power to make
people mad. And I dare you to try and find the segue.

11


Items Needed For 'Data Mining'
by Maurice Oliver

The list is relatively short. You'll need the
wealth of a shipping tycoon like China. A
signature that retains its maiden name.
The general idea that history repeats itself.
A reliable 401K which is by most accounts
considered "cautiously optimistic". Art for
art's sake. An obituary written well in ad-
vance. A couple of seersucker summer
suits. An old-fashioned rotary phone and a
phone book from '56. The uncanny ability
to mind-read. A religion that doesn't cause
heart burn. Pictures of the floating gardens
of Babylon. One lime-colored hula hoop.
A pair of genuine Mickey Mouse ears. A
guidebook to the first stop in your itinerary.
A room with a view of utopia. And at least
twenty-four hours to make your decision.



12


With Background Music & A Dance Sequence
by Maurice Oliver

War was never a good listener. But it is a master of disguises:

-Gunfire that sounds like a beating heart.

-A cave that requires an access code to enter.

-Modern conveniences found in a sleazy bar.

-Loose change that adds-up to a fifty-cent deficient.

-A packing slip that smells like sulfuric acid.

-One Peeping Tom at a glory hole convention.

-The zipper in the fly of Global Warming.

-Any of the spaces between the rings of Saturn.

-Methadone boarding a plane at LaGuardia.

-The pastoral setting in a kung-fu movie.

-House lights that remain on during the day.

-A military strategy suffering from jock-itch.



13


Sea Anemone
by Alison Eastley

Lateral fission
(in which an identical
animal sprouts out

of the anemone's side)
behind rock
solid loneliness is one

choice. The other is sea
anemone sex
releasing catastrophe...

as safety concerns
increased on July 16,
1945,

the first atomic bomb
was detonated
at Alamogordo,

New Mexico
near the poplar trees
weeping amber

tears where replication
and division
affect global warming

produced by nuclear
fission heating the sea
anemone's

explosion of strange
mutations
flowering into death.

14


Sardines and Sensible Boots
by Alison Eastley

The walk
involves unpredictable
exposure
heavier than sardine oil.

He may
or may not stick
band-aids
over her blistered feet.

Despite the fact
she wears sensible
boots like a rational
thought,

she worries 
her mind will run
without star

lights shining when she falls. 


15


The Resting Place
by Alison Eastley

Behind the fifth
left intercostal space lies the apex

of not thinking
he was satisfied

and would try
to find angst but he came back

like the connection
between the atria

and the ventricles,
different

from the silent
moment his heart is so still

his mouth
could be his belly.