• traffic – Rex Butters
• Earth – Denise Roman
• Abbot’s Habit – David Busch
• Venice canals – Samuel Oliver Kuhr

———–

traffic

By Rex Butters
glimmer

too many cars
on Ocean Park Blvd.
trying to run a simple errand
it’s taking up too much
of my day
off
Patti Smith sings
Helpless
melancholy accordion coils
through the car

outside
bright sunny socal breezy
buds popping
shiny new green growth
from last week’s showers
light the yard gardens

on the sidewalk
young couple kisses
tender gentle affection
he black hair slicked back
shades
red shirt
she blond bobbed
plaid skirt and sweatered
left knee bent
shoe dangles on rising foot
maybe if young love
still blossoms on a Spring afternoon
the banks can fall
the malls be shuttered
the government murders
the ice caps melt
drought war and famine take over
people driven crazy by
Morgellon’s
Monsanto can’t be stopped
feed lots feed cattle
dead house pets
and it won’t matter
maybe we’ll make it anyway
if young love
blossoms on Ocean Park Blvd.
on a bright sunny
cool windy spring day
the spectacle rages on
blathering
dithering
dying for the moment
it’s ignored

————

Earth

By Denise Roman

Should I cut my rain-forest hair for you?
Should I spit geyser melancholies at Yellowstone Park?
Or, should I dress in an asphalt cape
hemmed with Route 66,
wear a pointed hat the shape of Popocatepetl?

I’ve lost my children in Thailand,
I’ve eaten my wolves in Siberia,
soon I’ll finish my Caspian soup.
I’m in a bad mood these days.
Watch out, I’m Medusa Gorgona!

I’ve depleted my oil-lungs,
my whale-tongues and my jungle-ears, too.
My volcanic mouths have turned into navel vertigoes,
my dolphin-eyes have dried.
You’ve made me human, too human.

————
Abbot’s Habit
(This poem was delivered to the Beachhead written on a cup.)

I am a tree (cup) here
On a Planet DYING
for too much
death

in the air
too many claws
and
hacksaws in
the Amazon
and too much consciousness gone

from Venice

For the smiling “hipsters”
of
No Love!!
except for themselves — and their
paper cups.

–David Busch

———-

Venice canals

Pure silence,
the water is still
birds and ducks flying everywhere.
As you look at the water,
you can see the waves gliding
like an ant water-skiing.
This is the beauty of the Venice Canals
You hear the crow here and there
you hear them everywhere
As I look over to the right, then left,
I see the pure beauty of the canals.
As I look in the water,
I see the reflection of everything in sight.
We walk off the bridge
We are led into a beautiful neighborhood
filled with joy and enlightenment
that is the true beauty of the Venice Canals.
The ducks zoom in the water,
like a jet plane ready to crash.
As the ducks come closer and closer,
I see the scars
from different battles they’ve survived from.
The boats are abandoned
like a father will do to a son.
The wonder, the beauty,
the patterned rocks on the side
like a Mexican patterned blanket.
I hear the birds chirping in the distance.
The Venice canals,
Oh the Venice canals.
Pure beauty in my eyes.

– Samuel Oliver Kuhr (11 years old)