Inspiration, J.S.Ryversson

Inspiration
By Jakoba Sandra Ryversson

My muse
No one has had such a fine muse
On her perch
At my ear
She changes
She creates
Shifts
Morphs
A terrifying beauty
Sometimes she is a coconut
Sandy hair
Skin so white it shines
Sometimes she is frightful
Mad
eyes
and mad
hair
Talons dig in my shoulder
Uncompromising
lipsonmyear
molten
breath
courses
on my
neck
Bloodpulsesasourexcitementgrowsclimaxnear
and then the satiated
lull of
the end
Of the story, that is.The Man Said He Was German Irish From The South

Because of Don't, B.Derby

Because of Don't
By Brian Derby

Don't tell me not to cry
Don't tell me to say cheese
I'm crying
I'm singing
I smile because I feel fine
Cigarettes are okay
The decision is all mine
Don't tell me to lose weight or watch TV
The decision is up to me
Is that why I'm so anxious all the time?
Too many suggestions
Too many lies
Opinions forced on me
Unfree to create mine
Is unfree a word?
It is now
Don't tell me its not
It's mine.

Cross Road, R.Riekki

CROSS ROAD
By Ron Riekki

When I got to college
after Desert Storm
I decided to become a Religion major
because the little glimpses I had of war
made me scared as hell
of Hell
so every course I took in my first semester
was in my major
even though they told me to take the core courses first
but I didn’t care about math or English,
I wanted to figure out why the hell
I had to see a seven-year-old
with a caved-in head.

One of the first classes I took
was entitled “Witchcraft, Magic, and the Occult”
and my teacher was Dr. Hough,
a Harvard grad
who hung out with Mary Daly
and is even mentioned in her book Gyn/Ecology:
The Metaethics of Radical Feminism;
I’d go to his office
and he’d tell me stories
like how he cheated on his wife one time
with a witch,
an actual witch,
and I’d be riveted like I’d never even had a life of my own.

He asked why I was studying theology and I said that I wanted to be more like Jesus,
more like the Buddha,
more like Martin Luther King
and he told me everybody wants to be like Jesus except nobody comes close
and the ones he’s met who most wanted to be like Jesus
were the biggest assholes he ever knew
and he told me that instead of Martin Luther King
I should read Malcolm X
and he gave me a copy of the Alex Haley biography
and an old tape of Robert Johnson
and Charles Bukowski’s South of No North
and pulled out a bottle of moonshine as clear as water
and told me that God is all about letting go.

Grit, H.Peterson

Grit
By Harrison Peterson

On my toes and on the verge
My mind thinks ahead of words
Grasping for a chance
Past is past and laugh
Through the wondering toil
My pizza in tin foil
Laughs because
Another day will come

The Man Said...G.D.Schwartz

The Man Said He Was German Irish From The South
By G David Schwartz

The man said he was German Irish
Form down in the south
and he spoke from out his mouth
And all the children who went to school
Looked at him as such a fool
He spoke in spools
And used his British tools
But he was not yet bald
so his good wife called
and she said a word or two
Which were not heard by you
And I am so so sorry lass
That I man unable to repeat the toast