by David Meltzer

Ah, ego
wants everything
all the time
& spaces
silence or blank
page lays splayed
apart for whatever words
pass as art’s moment
despite words’ deep
inability to work

•

from: A Slew of Blues

blind blues
open eyes to unsee
reach sound but
nobody’s around
except who’s inside
& that’s not me

•

blues dues
punch my timecard
eternity won’t quit

•

perfume of where you were
before you shut the door

•

wine or whiskey
gin or cognac
can’t empty empty

•

go nowhere
yet give directions

•

slip & slide right out the picture
new old empty scrapbook

•

marry & bury blues
& watch the sun rise

•
griot to earth’s end
heaven’s edge
hassle w/ spirits
defy death
back down &
she’s gone
doesn’t even leave a goodbye note

•

woke up this evening
on the floor
the door still open
not even the mutt
sleeps w/ me anymore

•

nobody knows
nobody cares
you’re on your own
so die already
that’s the way things work

•

uptown or downtown
lowdown is my town

•

move over Sinatra
your crooned moon
not my shotgun smashed loon

•

2 world wars
infinite doors
closed or smashed to bits
who knows boundary
w/out passport or visa
an old world terror
new worldly via zip
strip through ATM slot

•

by Roxie Powell

Crystalline child
Trying to hot wire
Your dreams,
Electric throbs
Pulse your brain.

With surprising grace
You fold off a window sill
Having been placed there
By a sister’s will, and she
No Albert Schweitzer,
Passes you by.

Life astounds,
Harsh as secret hurts,
Yet you strip away sludge,
Quote Horace and
Find new connections
To radiate our minds.

by Roxie Powell

One must put things in perspective
One must understand that the gaping
Hole in one’s middle
Will go away
Soon be history.

First, reaching down with
Your hands and doing what
You never could have imagined —
Pulling yourself together,
Then waiting for the arrival
Of paramedics
Who dispose of your gaping situation
With expertise and detachment.

Next you want to wash your hands
But there isn’t time
A doctor gives you an injection and you’re
Sent to surgery where somehow,
Unbeknownst
You are fixed — sewn up
And excavated.

Later you see yourself
in the mirror from a new
perspective,
one which sees what it
no longer feels.

by Roxie Powell

Sure, I remember you
Like an eclipse or aurora borealis
You come when you exist —
Yeah, you did a number on me.

Sure, I remember you sliding
On my sheets, leaving my pipe
In a mess at the center of the bed,
You got up and left me
I remember you, sure as hell.

You got down
And said my tingle white panties
Were the only thing that ever
Turned you on, you said it was
The way they felt on your nose

More than the smell
And mostly you waited
To bring me off because you
Worshiped me, and I did you
No wrong,
You only wanted my heart – sore
Ass to be a part of you
For as long as it took

Sure, I remember you.