Stumpland
by MARK H. GAFFNEY
I have seen the ghastly cemetery
where rainbows go to die.
I cannot walk the desecrated ground
without trembling with rage
at ravening steel and
the unspeakable perfidy of men.
Phantoms assail me,
indelicate echoes, tortured reminders
of what was
–––and what we have wrought,
indecent as a plastic Jesus or
a child host served up to Moloch
on some sanctimonious slab.
Forget sums, reason, logic.
Stumpland.
My eyes boil over, my legs fail me.
How I yearn to cast off this torn and bleeding flesh.
Heading Out
by MARK H. GAFFNEY
It’s usually a spur of the moment thing,
when I’ve seen one too many familiar faces,
and the parade morphs into so much less…
as, for example, when one of the local
born and raised herd animals
takes stupid to another level,
reminding me of the pact I made, long ago,
to go my own feral way…
or, when I can’t hear your lilting voice anymore
(or can’t get you out of my head no matter how hard I try)…
or, when I become an albatross to myself,
or, when, for whatever reason,
the strict convenience of the parts breaks down…
Then the “live factor” kicks in,
the what-the-fuck who-gives-a-damn part of me,
and I toss my gear into the back of the pickup
and head out to the Fremont,
no destination in mind,
hopefully to get lost, if I’m able,
to meet no one, if I’m lucky,
and definitely to stay gone until
I touch the wild and
return to myself, again.
Mark H. Gaffney occasionally writes poems about Oregon’s amazing outback, east of the Cascades. His latest book is Black 9/11. Check out his website: www.gnosticsecrets.com.
Every Day is the 4th of July: Mourning in America
By GARY S. CORSERI
Full Spectrum Dominance leads to washout…, Blues,
SCOTUS/POTUS hocus-bogus news, shoes
On backwards, going nowhere faster than
A speeding mullet, Superman deader than
A doorknob, heart-throb Brad Pitt in some shit
Zombie flick about some sick (sic!) almost sit-
Com, catastro-fee, end-of-world, whirled
Hurled, furled, metaphored, whored, skirled,
Simile’d, speed-freaky, spy-leaky, lie-creaky mush-
Room cloud we can’t get out of, hush, hush, hush
Sweet Charlotte, don’t you cry, the Shadow knows
And the NSA, what secrets lurk, smirk in a hose
Snaked down Guantanamo windpipes to force
Food, water, air, whatever in the course
Of human events when necessary
In this monetary, predatory crematory
To dissolve the political bands of all hands
On deck while the band plays on the sands.
O say can you see-saw from the Sands
Of Iwo Jima to the halls of Montezuma
And the beach near Petaluma,
My country ‘tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing. … Land of the pilgrims’ pride,
Land where my fathers died, land where they fried
700 men, women, children, who had been living,
Just prior to our first “Thanksgiving,”
Celebrating their Green Corn Dance, got locked into
A big old barn, set fire to
By prurient pilgrims, wrapped in the platitudes
Of their ingratitudes—
God-fearing, blood-smearing progenitors
Of all of us proprietors
Of that glorious revolution
Aimed towards this present dissolution.
“Those that scraped the fire were slaine,”
Wrote William Bradford, the historiaine.
“It was a fearful sight to see them frying
And the streams of blood quenching,
And horrible was the stincke and sente thereof.”
And to God they offered prayers thereof!
And we are they! Givers and takers,
Forsakers, care-takers, undertakers,
Makers of to-die-for myths, celebrants
Of ignorance and our own slip-shod deliverance
From everything we fear– out there…
In here… in the boil exploding everywhere.
“It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to,
Cry if I want to, cry if I want to. …”
And in our credence,
And in our decadence,
“Ave, Imperator, morituri te salutant!”
“We hold these truths to be self-evident:
“That all men are created equal. …”
All… created… equal. …
(first published in L.A. Progressive)
Gary S. Corseri has taught in US public schools and prisons, and at US and Japanese universities. His prose and poems have appeared at CounterPunch, The New York Times, The Village Voice, Redbook Magazine, and hundreds of other periodicals and websites worldwide. His dramas have been produced on Atlanta-PBS, and he has performed his work at the Carter Presidential Library and Museum. He has published books of poetry, the Manifestations literary anthology (edited), and the novels, A Fine Excess and Holy Grail, Holy Grail. He can be contacted at Gary_Corseri@comcast.net.
Editorial Note: (Please Read Closely Before Submitting)
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