Cave
by David Lawton
Cave
“One cave inward” — Jack Kerouac,
Mexico City Blues, 16 th Chorus
This is the space we escape to
A cavernous hiding place
From what passes for reality these days
From the blasphemous lies
Of both imam and preacher man
Entrenched bicameral partisanship
Bloated imperial powers and
The thin blue chalk outline
While our heroes are dying off
The music on the radio’s just
An audition for a car commercial
Every place so thick with product placement
We struggle to come together as a tribe
As once we did without even trying
This place pops open its jaws
Like a cold blooded reptile at lunch
And takes us in
Huck Finn, Tom and Becky Thatcher
On the run from vengeful Injun Joe
Without a blazing torch to light the way
God gives us the potential
For both good and bad
But you must struggle in the dark
To find the balance you can live with
The lights go down on our sense of control
And two soccer moms kiss each other
With their tongues
Churning organ meat grinder
Stirs underworld metalloid rumble
Constant ship bell’s toll in my inner ear
As the ghost boat’s deck begins to sway
Lean necromancer shadow climbs the wall
Purgatorial lounge singer slick with oil
Primordial drip dropped in brackish water
The bituminous beat which repeatedly throbs
A girl with her tits out descends the stair
So graceful our gazes turn vastly demure
While Little Fats lap dances his closeted guy
Stalagmites and stalactites both endure to make a point
Battering ram of galvanic brutal sound
Misty light that’s stained with blood and wine
Dank skin extrudes a brimstone stench
Of highway exit thunderclap
I stomp the blister out on my toe
Adhesive press-on fiberboard
Tramp black tar magma pothole patch
Straight down to China if I can
My lost love echoes from far off
I can’t tell if I give a frack
Our host is filled with sweet contempt
Throws up the house to bring us back.
Instruction for Wanderers
by David Lawton
Instruction for Wanderers
for WG & BT
Hit the road, and hit it hard
Spread your feet across cracked asphalt
Trudge composted fields
Inhale that moist interstate hot top vapor
That the union brothers laid down for you
Feel the rush of air that follows swift departure
The anxious desperation offering no looking back
Find the hum in the thrum from rumble strips
Let your thought beat box to the pulse of Bott’s dots
Spray of gravel shakes your bones
Til you call out your grandmother’s name:
Something is starting in your brain
That is destined for the tip of your tongue. Let it wander!
Gravity
by Paul Pines
Isaac Newton
wanted to burn down the house
his mother slept in with
her second husband
after abandoning him
to his grandmother
spent much of his adult years
in a wooden shack attached
to his room at Trinity College
trying to distill gold
from dross
decoding the shape of space
in the algorithms
of Ezekiel’s description of the old temple
in Jerusalem
measurements
to clarify laws
governing the character
and origin of
motion
a digital man in an analogue world
likened an apple to the moon
and fell too soon before
there was language
sufficient
to his thought
Spectral Lines
by Paul Pines
I dream symmetries
moving from seen to unseen
the invisible patterns that sustain
falling leaves
the currents in stone
water and air
sacred geometries
pooling in the dark cave
I prepare for
in the calculus
of autumn