Protocol by Clinton Van Inman

Just two of you I need to lend a hand
First to measure the rope from base to base
Then here along the wall from here to where
The rope is tied around the ceiling post.
Careful there because all must be exact.
The tale is always in the tape you know,
Just an inch or so an inch here or there
Even one and it would be a different story.
But we can rule that out because here
Is the can he must have stood upon
For he was seen here from time to time
Once it seems to look for work I’m told,
Must have known the garage to be a quiet place,
But still it doesn’t do a business good
For this sort of thing—everything is as it should
All looks typical enough and is in order.
One last entry and my work here is done.
Thank you for your help now cut him down.

© Clinton Van Inman 2011


Clinton Van Inman is a high school teacher in Hillsborough County, Florida.  He is 65 and a graduate of San Diego State University. He was born in England.  He has had many publications throughout the years.  Recent publications are Blackcatpoem.com, Tower Journal,  The Hudson View, Winter 2011,  Inquisition Poetry, and Munyari.com, to name a few.  These poems are included in a forthcoming book called, “The Last Beat,” as he believes Beatniks like him are a dying breed.

Poems by David Michael Joseph

10:02 am

My eyes fight the light.
My mind twists.
The fumes of the midnight hour
Have resonated in my mouth.
I think I saw greatness
(Truthfully that is the last bit of liquor talking)
As the voices thundering in my dome,
becomes echoes of shames.
I press the replay button,
And it all slowed down:
I see a man who looks like me.
He is dressed like me,
He is a better me,
Making sweet love to his Jack and Coke.

Love twisted

There is an eternal struggle between the body and soul,
For both fear love,
For love is death,
The end,
The end of life as we know it.
This force has control that we cannot
taste, touch or feel
But burns our bodies like flames on the flesh,
For the heart is an assassin,
The body becomes a prison,
The mind becomes a liar,
This handicapper of the physical being,
Emotions strong enough to stoke the fire of war.
Hate is just love turned inside out.
Apathy is the real killer of justice,
The real soul breaker,
For when we don’t care we do horrible things,
Like the DMV

Fibbing Coon

I tell the raccoon he was a liar
For there is no good in this sector of reality.
He laughs at me as he digs through the refuse of man.
But to him this is a treasure trove.
His laughter makes me laugh;
I forget the world is so serious.
But I leave him and ask the humming bird the meaning of life.
She smiles and says
“On a fortune cookie from east, there is a saying
'Life is not a gift but a duty'.”
I tell the humming bird she is a fool,
She should move to the East
When the axis spins, the rain clouds back peddle.
Who am I but the son of a fool?
Yet, we all play the clown in the circus of life.
I choose to be the ringleader of this asylum.
The doors are open but the windows close.
Where are the guard dogs of the sane?
I believe another lie-sanity is a gift,
I believe insanity (is the ultimate level),
For the real world is a maximum-security prison.
Racism, poverty and gay porn
All meet to keep us in place,
For the hardest ward to escape is the mind.
But I know a trap door.
It's called fantasy

© David Michael Joseph 2011

David Michael Joseph is a filmmaker, poetry/short story author and screenwriter from New Jersey, but living in Los Angeles. He has made four short films, the most recent Shadows of Sepulveda and C.A.k.E. Have a look at a sample at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ushhxd_74GE&feature=mh_lolz&list=LLouHxZpBrpZ0

All Kinds & Odes by William Wright Harris

All Kinds

Have you ever been so alone
you shouted into an abandoned well
just to hear your voice echo back?
Or held the door open for a group
of people just to feel them walk by;
just to have another person close to you?
An old woman hording cats,
trying to build friendships.
The old man feeding pigeons,
enjoying the feeling of being wanted. Needed.
Tommy Lee Jones in Coal Miner's Daughter, saying,
"There's all kinds of lonely people in the world"
into a cold telephone.

Ode to My Guitar

Orgasms should be this pure. Your
soft maple neck, holding the same

fingers that hold you. The way light
shimmers off your glittering body

when I swing you in my arms. My
digits slide up and down your

strings, stopping at frets only long
enough to make you sing or scream.

Ode to a Greek salad

tomatoes red as achilles’ blood left in the land of ilion
kalamata olives deep as helen’s hair

cucumbers proud as pan then happily sliced
feta cheese white as the clouds in zeus’ beard

bell peppers greener than the gaze of hera
onions purple the cold lips of cassandra bent skyward

olive oil poured like ambrosia over
lettuce as crisp as the hips of gaia

held lovingly in your hand before
being thrust inside you

being needed
being loved

at once nourishing and pleasing
i envy you

Ode to a Raindrop

I am a god,

     or at least,

          a part of one.

I spiral,

     turn in the air,

          a broken tear

falling from clouds

     upon the tops

          of umbrellas.

I can make mud,

     even puddles,

          cradles for toy boats

estuaries that

     boots may

          jump into.

I am an unborn

     snowflake, a

          tiny river falling

to the earth in

     a single, happy,

          deadly fall.

Laughter

a laugh

    f u  e  s

      l  tt  r and f

                      a

                      ll

                                                   s

d

 y

  i

   n

    g

      i

       n

        t

         h

          e

          w

            i

            n

             d

© William Wright Harris 2011




William Wright Harris's poetry has appeared in Immortal Verse and Favourite Memories, online publications as Poet's Ink and Languageandculture.net, and literary magazines such as Write On!!! and Ascending Aspirations. He is studying English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Tennessee- Knoxville, and have studied poetry in the workshop setting from Marilyn Kallet, Arthur Smith, Jessie Janeshek and Marcel Brouwers. He has received the Editor’s Choice Award from Poetry.com as well as be published in  England, Canada and the United States of America.