by Edward O’Dwyer

There she is again.
Even your unspoken thoughts
you think in whispers
as you find yourself
there once more,
another Saturday night
you’re spending in
watching the telly.

If she knew the things
you’ve thought
as she has shovelled your chips
in a brown paper bag,
your two battered sausages,
extra salt and vinegar,
predictable as rain
on a bank holiday weekend . . .

Again your eyes wait,
patiently as ever,
giving nothing away,
for the moment from now
she’ll go to the till
with your always-crumpled fiver —
their chance
to undo the bow-tied strings
of her apron,
fondle the tight denim
of her arse

with just the allure alone
of her deep fry perfume
raising your cholesterol.

by Edward O’Dwyer

Desmond died in his bed
and so was extinguished a long, misspent life,
his conscience uncleared,
amends not made with his maker.

Now he is in Hell,
where he condemned himself
in one abuse of time after another.

On his fifteen minute tea break
after a thousand mortal years of whipped labour,
he sips the smallest sips,
forcing himself.

The next thousand years await
and there are rumours the clock in the tea room
is rigged, and fifteen minutes there
is really only eleven.

His tea is bitter,
but there is no sugar — not in Hell.
There are strict rules about any kind of sweetness.

Satan, smirking, raises a milk jug,
asking Desmond if he’d like a little more,
and Desmond nods,
and Satan pours,

and Desmond thanks him
for the bubbling white liquid.
Satan starts to chuckle
as Desmond takes another pained sip.

by Mark Melnicove

We passed around poems
we had brought to our monthly
critique in my cousin’s

cellar apartment.
The more I read
the more disconnected

I felt from the fantasies
inside me, with all
those other lines

about improvised explosive
devices, strip searches,
and depletion of self.

Then that word —
peace — appeared
in the margin

of a rough draft
by an out-of-town
poet.  He’d been sleeping

on my cousin’s couch
but was moving on
in the morning.

Peace — something about it
was awfully appealing —
but he had to catch a plane.

by normal

gotta job thru manpower that day
in ’65 & was sent to a country
club outside boston where i was
given a small metric ruler & a
cuticle scissors & told to start
cutting every blade of grass on
the tennis court because poncho
gonzalez was coming to town &
for 2 days on my hands & knees
i cut & cut & cut & was pd 28
bucks which i promptly spent on
a bag of dope but the candyman
never came back so i returned
to my flat in the southend empty
handed — my lady asked where
i had been & what i had been doin
& i said “nuthin,” i said, “nuthin.”