by Clark Coolidge

My name is Sydney Wallet     what time are you dead ?
were you taken from life ?     I have to go
my own way     a waffle iron     a flint chalice
reinforced plaster of Paris     all these
will come to allow me use     watch
is that a toad ?     a result of my own cruise to
Attica     let her cool     come this way please
I call this my House of Facts     Fax ?
for example here is the one who invented the shortcut
he just couldn’t stand there     The Shadow knew
but no longer     his were the more
nautical tempos     most think nothing of the kind
that’s Charley Bronson as the Man from Warwick
Keith Jarrett’s next album will be The House of Wax

by Clark Coolidge

Wow     (wow)
wait till those moon, bells run down
this church is called EI Primo
it even admits blackhats     stirred up passels
what’s the matter ?     you don’t like lead ?
enough to sample anyway     to keep my head
today’s question What’s salt’s remedy ?
it’s not paper     holy crap can’t say what I want ?
pinkster !     wouldn’t want to break out in purples
steno job doesn’t pay much     we stood
at Sinatra’s grave till the sprinklers drove us off
the best is yet to come ?     you know
the way a spider dances     a coin toss sings
just one of those

by Gerrit Lansing

          Edgy words, a discipline. The poor, with us always. Us ?  We sought the
pale intensities.
          Sunny the afternoon pasture, I love you, bookish words, temptation even
now.

          2.

          no method. The man said methodology. But the madness ? Our warriors are
singing as they go, los guerreros.   Of this and that the beaches are full, not so
obvious the eyes of cruising
men with frisky dogs.

          3.

          Oracles are everywhere Milo said, they swarm to make a witty history.
Love triangles swirling in the sand. Intransitive, what means a cloudy day ?

          Swallowing the old sun rises anew and we were holding hands in the glow
of our pooling joy.

          I pulled the card of the day and it was Valor.

by Diane Wakoski 

The stones, not Olmec.

     Break your ankle
     against saw palmetto
     a slash of brawling
     foliage, unregulated

And no one navigates this without
Spanish little feet,
without
a rubber eraser and piece of charcoal
for the sketchpad /no one
talks of the back of
legs that will no longer
portage an old body

Someone tells a story
and someone gossips,
and someone tries to lecture and guide
but like lizards, we turn our backs to this sunny
ignorance.

The Rain God,
     I prefer to think of Her as a Goddess,
calls
for silence, and She washes words
out of each tongue She touches. This
is a time when we re – consider what She wants
for an offering.

I’ll tell you: It is your empty vessel self;
it is you, emptying all containers while awaiting
Her downpour. Water

is Her language, and She doesn’t need prayers
or words, incantations, or supplications. She desires
the emptiness that She might fill.

I know this and I shouldn’t
have to tell myself this,

but I do because while I have lived for words,
I know that I do not revere them.
They are no more
than comestibles,
used up
as necessary,

always
needing replenishment.

To enter the temple at the top of the stone ladder
would not be allowed unless
a worshipper were an empty / EMPTY
container. Rain Goddess
loves the empty and to do the filling /drums
and chants
will not summon Her splash.

NOTHING but an empty container —
empty, empty, and
She might
     find you
          seductive.