VOICES FROM THE FIRE: Shane Allison
VOICES FROM THE FIRE: Roz Washington
Hourglass
An attractive embodiment of a Cream flavor
lets stream down these streets of Arizona flowing infatuation with merely the eye contact as whisk by the palm trees…
I suggest playful moments for the time we’ve allotted for each other
sinking grains of crystal situation emerging as rare elements forged in this desert that contains an oasis…
a slowdown of everything when engaged in vocals of compiled syllables we just turned a corner
she liked the momentum in how she placed herself to hold me secure in a safe place
not about to deny that affectionate energy
I just take it in
the Moon is rising
the Hourglass has flipped
now we’ve arrived to a different timespan
carnal desires reign our minds
a glide of her fingertips upon my epidermis
the driving has changed
drifted I must say…
give me the spent time with your mind and I’ll give mine
-Benny Butters
VOICES FROM THE FIRE: Tony Brewer
Morning Pages
Every time I type your name
it’s different like forms of snow
that don’t matter while shoveling
I can hear your punctuation
written out how to breathe
where to stop and start
over and over
A million notes without music
typed too fast transposing
letters & saying things wrong
edited later toward strange
meanings nattering at editors
I know who you are
grimmer & darker
negative easy when no one
tells you to frown
Make it til you break it
& burst like a distant star
gassy old brilliant
Walk through every open door
is advice I hear
unaware where I am going to
Who can parse a voice – you?
Every time I spell you out
a thing less useful conjured
slumps bidden to a threshold
while I explain how one
gets better writing
so as not to forget
VOICES FROM THE FIRE: James Maj
“you realizing Jesus watches you in the bathtub”
VOICES FROM THE FIRE: Luis Berriozabal
The Lows
The lows are too low.
The blues are too blue.
These feet can’t go on.
They get in my way.
The wind does not blow.
I march to no drum.
This cold is too cold.
It freezes my brain.
I hope against hope.
Without you I lose.
This bitter lemon
life is not ideal.
The last gap is here.
I am on my own
naked in my soul.
The lows are too low.
Bright Days
Bright days will come
when this darkness
goes to sleep. I
can only hold my
breath for so long.
Bright days will come
again when the
sun makes it out
from its slumber.
I wait right here.
The moon remains
in the sky at
daylight. I know
it will not be
there for too long
like the darkness
I feel inside.
It consumes me
and all the light
I was saving.
VOICES FROM THE FIRE: Shane Allison
All You Can Eat
Eat Eat more Kielbasa smoked sausages
More chicken ‘n
Bisquits
Drown the fries with melted cheese, spread on
Extra mayo
Carry it globed at the corners of
Mouth
Forget the napkins
Fish Almandine covered in
lemon juice
Homemade, hand-pattied hamburgers
Squeeze out the grease with spatula
Cuts of onions sizzlin’
in animal fat.
Mounds of buttered mashed potatoes with
Giblet gravy
Buttered rolls next to glistening
Mountains of stuffing
Canned stewed tomatoes in ground beef
Pork chops, breaded
Texas Hash followed by
200 calories of pound cake
Thirsty
For Beer Sunkist chocolate milk Mountain Dew sugar water
Careful heart attack,
disrupt flow of blood
Arteries, clog
Orda a pizza with the works
Deep fried doughnuts
glazed
In sugar
Twenty Buffalo wings to the couch
And burp
Too much salt!
Baby Back Ribs! Baked potato
Fudge nut brownies
Forget the salad bar.
Everyday a few mushrooms.
A mini big spoon of Mac & cheese will do
Fill the plate high
Throw in some cut up greens, cabbage
Check yr cholesterol,
Take a shot for diabetes
& order egg rolls
pack two under size
46 belt
pass out on the bed
wake up, diarrhea
up stomach of roast beef
regurgitate
binge on bacon
still chewing
ham hocks at Henry’s Kitchen
back to Piccadilly’s and gobble dumplings
by the plateful
meat wrapped in a napkin & stuffed in purse
swallow shish kabobs with Snapple
ham on toasted bun
grilled cheese on white bread
in a dorm room
steak ‘n eggs
Financial District, Sunday morning
prime example for a glutinous nation
salt sugar animal parts & stir
coffee & cigarettes, Starbucks
drop dead faster
set a place for the homeless & hungry
give ’em cornbread
in Somalia
Gumbo, Jambalaya &
sweet and sour beef
Bologna, pepperoni for the malnourished
Blacks Jews with potato salad corn on the cob
Stay thin with Powerbar
Pop anotha diet pill
Take a laxative
exercise video
Crowd in the gym
Consume & balloon to
A bigga dress size
Binge, purge
Chest pain, sweat
Make room for ice cream
High blood pressure
Consequence
For Western Civilization consumption
Houses a cookin’
Fish fries in Brooklyn
Bake sales in Queens
Here’s a beer,
Drumstick, have another
And this is a plate of cheesecake you deserve it
I’m in it for some Cock and Ass
I’m in it
For some cock
And ass
I’m in it
For some cock
And ass.
I throw the cock around.
I throw the ass around.
Bend down.
I want some cock.
I want some ass.
I’m in it
For some cock
And ass.
Talkin’ about cock
Speakin’ about ass
Lots of cock.
Masses of ass.
Lots and lots and lots of cock,
Masses beyond masses of ass
Sitting on my face.
Lots of cock coming at ya.
I’m in for some cock and ass
Now Hiring
Today I filled out an application at Pat’s Supermarket
Tony’s Quick Stop is hiring
World Class Beauty is hiring for stylists, but I don’t know a thing about doing hair
There’s a sign outside of Circle K that reads, Looking for Smiling Faces
Bob’s Auto could use a mechanic but I don’t know a radiator from a carburetor
I put in an application at Hobbit Hoagies but they never called.
Bill’s Bookstore needs a bookseller for the spring semester.
The Laundry Room needs laundry attendants.
Vinyl Fever is hiring
Lively Vo-tech is now enrolling
Bagel Bagel is hiring
Subway is looking for people to join their team
Kosta’s is taking applications
Exxon is hiring. I used to work there back when I was twenty-two but quit
Because my boss was an asshole
Wilson’s Barbeque and G & G Restaurant needs prep-cooks
Cash Register Auto Insurance need a receptionist
Stop ‘n Shop is hiring
Day’s Inn needs a desk clerk
Alberton’s needs a baker
I applied for a deli help position
I hear the breakfast cooks at The Village Inn make good money
Zewditu Mart has a help wanted sign in the window but I think they only hire Muslims.
I could be wrong but I don’t think I am
Renegade Barber needs a barber
Fantastic Nails needs a pedicurist
Citgo is hiring and so is Publix
Wal-Mart pays ten bucks an hour
Calico Jacks needs a bar back
China Buffet needs a cook
Applications at Arby’s, Winn-Dixie
Best Western needs an auditor
Border’s needs a barista
New Leaf needs a cashier
Background check at the Nail Trap
Registered at employment agencies
Resume downloaded, printed out for job fairs
I’m leaving tomorrow to teach English in Korea
Frequently Asked Questions about Poems Written about Ham Sandwiches
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VOICES FROM THE FIRE: Andreas Fleps
Causeway
The path you were on
rolled up its tongue
like a faded red carpet
and swallowed itself.
You opened your mouth
to speak of it and your
voice fell out as silence,
like a baby bird from its
nest.
You felt hope pass away
inside you, but couldn’t find
the corpse.
Maybe the rumors are true:
how beyond the hope no
longer there, another will hope
for you, or how a demon
is just an angel that hasn’t
been hugged yet.
Though you always knew
grief was a window beneath
your skin and it would shatter
open, the world rushing into you
like an intemperate gust of wind
blowing your breath away.
You also knew there was
no loss you could not house.
So you repaired your hands
and reset your eyes and realigned
your feet and reshaped your heart
back into the shape of a kiss and
carried on.
You, who knew our breaking is
malleable and bruises have sunrises
and wounds are wet clay, ready to
mold the dream inside hell’s
mind; where the air has not
been screamed to ash and horizons
are not made of smoke and piece
by piece, you built a causeway
out of your body for the light
to cross.
the greener grass is fucked too
outside my grandparent’s condo in naples,
florida, a landscaper dressed in sweat
is digging out the singed, exanimate grass
to be replaced by fresh sod,
but the sun will continue to cauterize its wounds
and clouds will forget to weep for weeks on end
and dogs will continue to piss out of remembrance,
as the greener grass from some other side
will be stunned at how swiftly the world
can siphon the color out of a face;
how even a blade of grass can perish
in an astonishing amount of ways;
how life isn’t faithful to anything for long.
to study the living
is to be an expert
at dying.
Frozen
I am starving for numbness;
the butterflies in my stomach
are frostbitten.
I freeze my thoughts in this
white page like an explorer’s
brain in a glacier
that knew it was fucked
when its vessel became
another piece of ice.
And I might have to abandon
my tongue to survive,
my voice too heavy to carry
across miles of desolate possibilities,
and my veins are bursting pipes
in a home shaped like loneliness;
in a home with hope like coughing
furnaces, trying to utter what’s
no longer inside it.
My life is a fridge that preserves
(nothing)ness,
and poems aren’t blankets, so a part
of me is always shivering like bee wings
in frigid realities,
desperate to save the hive
and some sweetness
and a god,
but my heart is as blue-lipped as the sky
I couldn’t kiss through walls of grey.
Yet a pen is frozen to my fingers,
and it keeps writing:
And then there was light,
And then there was light,
rubbing verbiage and syntax
together, as if branches
over a dry pile of breath
could give birth to a spark
the sun would worship.
I Didn’t Ask For This
Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me man? Did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?
—John Milton, Paradise Lost
I suppose in my mother’s womb,
my initial heartbeats must have been
a star opening its eyes—
Thump: This will burn.
Thump: There’s so much darkness
to sort through.
A first breath: A door opening,
all of life bursting in at once.
Birth: the participation trophy
in atrophy—
Are we born to share in the loss?
To hug what’s only ever being
let go?
To stitch unseen colors into
each other’s iris’?
To fill each other’s skies
with clearer horizons?
I wish I knew. I wish I didn’t have
to make wishes, so of course, I wish
I hadn’t been born; of course, my mother
has told me with tears becoming her lips
how love is what pulled me out of her body
towards the only light there is, both swelling
and retracting, full and incomplete like
hunger.
I’ve always had the desire to wave,
though I never knew if it was hello
or goodbye, snagged in the middle
of eternity.
Thankfully, I’ll remember my death
as much as I remember my unasked for
arrival.
And I suppose the quiet will hold my
fresh corpse like my mother first
held me; maybe kiss my head away
along with the whisper that isn’t there:
Hello, it’s been so loud for so long,
hasn’t it?
VOICES FROM THE FIRE: Mark James Andrews
Happy Birthday Mother Fucker
I’ll tell you I never liked ice fishing
and forget about going on sunny days
especially as late as the Ides of March
when JC was assassinated, the other JC
the one whacked
by the Brutus and Cassius gang
Julius F. Caesar knife, knife, knife
bad juju and damning hubris
but I committed to the ice fish trip
and Z arrives at my crib at High Noon
with a James Brown scream
and commences to chanting
his best MC5 Grande Ballroom
White Panther pantomime
Brothers and Sisters, and, and
right now, right now
It’s time to catch us some
righteous yellow perch
Mother Fucker.
Z is booming at the wheel of his Volks
reverting to his best coalbilly patois
Z always a bit tongue tied to his past life
in Pennsylvania anthracite hill country.
He only hit the eastside of Detroit
a hot minute after his First Holy Communion
a generation removed from the dreaded mines.
Z was a punk poet, roustabout and raconteur
a Wayne State University Mass Comm dropout
now working the afternoon shift reefer fueled
in a tool and die job shop called Wolverine
operating the various jigs, molds and machines
now playing hooky with me
talking his talk with his mind on vacation
and we’re off rolling on poetry and poses
Cribari Zinfandel, Tall Boys of Schlitz
thin rolled pin joints of Rat Boo
and a mess of gear of tip-up poles
spools of monofilament, short canvas stools
and his Dad’s four foot mining bar
one end of it set up to pry, the other a sharp
digging point prized now as an ice spud
a family heirloom transformed
stashed in VW Bug front trunk on route
to Moe’s Bait Shop for wax worms
to be impaled on tiny #16 barbed hooks.
Fast forward four plus decades to a meet-up
a surprise birthday party for Brother Z
all arranged by his estranged wife
on an April Sunday at the Blue Goose Inn
an Old School watering hole off Lake St. Clair
Big Band jazz playing by Planet D Nonet
Z bespectacled per usual
now more handsome with receding hair line
graying combed back and a billy goat beard
Z telling me he’s down state for a hoped for
conjugal visit in wifey’s condo also off lake
he stationed now in the unlikely confines
of a midcentury modern decked out house
in the boonies of the Michigan thumb
in a small town with a Walmart Supercenter
a town with the redeeming name of Bad Axe
and now we spoke quietly of future plans
new tales of Beatnik Glory and future poesy
Z hoping to reunite with wife in the ‘burbs
and him and me to be running buddies again
new explorations of lost urban neighborhoods
with a trio of scout/tracker pit bulls
all in matching radiation suits
Z clothed in a Super Fly suit with a gas mask
me stark naked save for a varsity jacket
last worn at a 1969 Stooges show.
About then his wife rolled up with the cake
a lone candle lit and decorated in a squiggly font
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOTHER FUCKER
with a Duke Ellington playing and we didn’t know
that within the week Z would Take the “A” Train
straight to the boneyard.
I’m not saying the ice was thin but it was warm out
enough to get springtime frisky in shirt sleeves
incongruous to my brain and balance
no ice cracking, if anything spots were slushy
but I was scared shitless despite the beer drank
and Rat Boo smoked speeding on I-75
and we hauled our shit out on the lake
the gear balanced on a red flying saucer sled
with a pull rope dragged by me while Z
stalked for the deep spot where the perch would be
with the family cherished coal bar in hand
searching for the drop off in the lake
where we fished from a rowboat in summer
Z scanning the tree line on shore for his bearings
and huzzah the spudding began
down, up, down up, knife,knife, knife
forever in the afternoon
mother fuck, this ice must be a foot thick
and then I spied not 100 feet away a grouping
of ready-made fishing holes just waiting
among human evidence of a Colt 45 bottle
and abandoned undersize perch frozen stiff
but damn if these holes weren’t frozen over
so what? just a skim of fucking ice
and Z on the task like a bird dog
coal bar clenched firmly in fist
the sheer force and momentum of his thrust
on the very first downstroke
he lost his grip
on a surprise first shot breakthrough
and the repurposed family treasure
transported from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
to Detroit Factoryland
was thrown through the ice pretending to be ice
in the small inland Lake Minnewanna
in the Metamora-Hadley State Recreation Area
to rest at lake bottom maybe forever.
VOICES FROM THE FIRE: Danny D. Ford
VOICES FROM THE FIRE: Kevin M. Hibshman
Different Day
It’s a different day.
Hope registers as a pain very familiar yet
impossible to locate.
Last night tossed aloft on a pure wave of
intoxication.
It’s a different day.
I wake up feeling strange.
Everything looks the same, but the air has shifted,
altering cognition.
I recognize the stains.
It’s a different day.
Sunshine haze filters through a venusian dreamscape,
milky-blue.
The mirror ablaze with reluctant shadows eaten slowly.
Same old room.
Four walls compete to squeeze me tight until
it becomes difficult to breathe.
Thinking of you.
Alone
My nights are bad and long.
My friends with talent have all moved on.
They left to chase the big time in populous places with
at least two airports each.
My friends without prospects are raising children,
cleaning up after their pets.
They want to talk about divorce settlements and
mortgage payments.
My old, once reliable drinking buddies only leave the
house to attend A.A. Meetings or prayer circles.
Kicking their various addictions has left them with no
sense of humor at all.
No Problem Officer
The cop on his bike glances at me rather disinterestedly.
He knows that I am only looking to harm myself.
Crying In The Rain
Cuz it’s gone, daddy, gone.
All the love in the world smoked like
a cigarette,
Reduced to ash.
The awful taste in my mouth won’t wash out.
Are You There?
Hi!
It’s crazy eyes!
What are you doing tonight?
I got the strangulation fever.
Will you resign to meeting me anywhere?
Hey!
It’s now 9:45.
I am dressed to impress.
I just need a ride.
How about getting tore up from the floor up?
Anyplace but mine is fine.
