by Sarah Sarai

Second Coming of a G-string
     for J. Edgar Hoover

Your chubby so–white legs,
marshmallow puffs embalmed,
plump cherries in white chocolate
plead for one more inner–thigh
flesh–press from a call boy
in the Hollywood Hills.

Even the brutal and ugly leave
the bar with a date?
Honey, you remember me,
don’t you, your soiled G–string,
pink as a Commie and aching.

Our secret stalks your casket
lined in lead, rumor is, not that it
matters when flames leap.

by Sarah Sarai

This Poem is worried you are living out your days in
A down–spiraling fascistic regime, that
Your country is a goner, something This Poem has maintained since its title.

Now This Poem attempts a rethink of its entrenched pessimism
By echoing Kierkegaard:
Is there such a thing as a teleological suspension of the ethical?

Trees have a thing going, signaling other trees.
That’s the teleology, with trees as the universal divine and
Their message as Hold your ground and resist.
And let your energy be known by many,
Although not all will be astonished or comprehend.

by Sarah Sarai

But when it comes to funking it up, Groove had no match.
                                                                  — jazz reviewer

Richard Groove Holmes lives upstairs.
He gets his own poem.
She must be thirteen by now.
It is Sunday.
He is big–bellied.
You know big–bellied men,
How solid big bellies can be.
That was him at the electric organ.
“After Hours.”
Now he’s left his apartment and
descended the stairway for
California sun.
Air about his body more so.
His body more so.
Is how it is with well–knowns.
The more–so.
Richard Groove Holmes squints
to inquire of her psyche.
The particular flattery of an adult.
This thirteen–year–old
Balancing on crabgrass.
Thirteen and white.
Her brother–in–law black.
Late afternoon, her parents
drive back to the Valley.
That new sound everyone
heard is not on the radio.

by Michael Estabrook

Real estate taxes,
gas, electric and water bills,
broken car, torn
rotator cuff, high blood pressure,
crabgrass, moles, mice,
mosquitoes, mold, woodpeckers
and a list of adult
worries and responsibilities,
cares and concerns that would choke
a damn horse, all forcing
a nostalgic reflection,
a glorious beam of light
slicing through the gloomy smog,
back to high school
with its homework, exams,
part–time jobs,
with gymnastics tryouts
and trying to get the attention
of this beautiful brunette
across the room in Miss Roth’s
Language Arts class —
a simpler, less–troubled world —
but was it, was it really?