• Who Owns The Earth? – Kitty’s Bratton
• She – Mary Getlein
• Sponto – – Liv Zutphen
• I Like –  Jasper Schubert
• Sunbeams – George Porter
• Airdrop the sequeL. – Jimmy Valentine
• In Brief – Jim Smith
• Untitled – Lynette
• Walks with Brutus – Aaron Reynauld
• America – Murray Barnett

————————–

Who Owns The Earth?

I am already buried at sea

No place else to be

Drifting and smiling under the

Cold green waves

My ancient Venice days

And ways – so long gone

Yet I linger on –

Between Ocean Park and

Venice Pier, where my

Happiest days were spent

And now I can’t afford

The rent! As far as my

Eyes can see, the ocean

Is still free, and offers

The final home, from which

I’ll never roam.

– Kitty’s (Bratton) Sunset View

———–

She

She was standing on the outside

looking in

looking in at all the brightly colored windows

yellow in the night

Beautiful houses filled with beautiful people

Never known hunger or cold or loneliness

she didn’t know how she got there

to that point in her life –

How it all seemed for nothing

She had nothing to show for her life

She trod very lightly upon the earth

They called her: homeless

but the earth was her home

the sky was her ceiling

and it went on forever

She knew she would always be on the outside

She knew she would never be invited in

to the warm and brightly lighted caves they had made

but she still liked to look.

– Mary Getlein

————

Sponto

It’s not the safest of places

It’s not being famous

A collector of women and art

A teapot clock on a chain link lock

Next door to the waitress at Piccolo

Free pot, a sink, a stove

An alien on a throne

– Liv Zutphen

————

I Like

I like Pacific sunsets and twilight

the painted skyline as the sun fall West

silver moonlight among autumn breeze hours before dawn

aroma of The Getty rose garden

as you walk through neo-classic style

admiring colours and textures of their petals

to close my eyes and hear the rolling of waves onto Abalone Cove.

I especially like the receding of it,

like tires slowly moving over loose gravel

the touch of lovers naked

eraser thin nipples brushing against my back

parted lips seesawing the curve from shoulders to neck

anticipating what comes next

Loyalty

integrity and honor

but not the innocence of youth

Truth

great and mighty

never divided

— Jasper Schubert

————

Sunbeams

If sunbeans were weapons of war, we would have had solar energy centuries ago.

–George Porter, Nobel laureate in Chemistry

(Beachhead, May 1976)

————

Airdrop the sequeL.

PaddLing Hard. Farwest is my heading. I’m shredding my bestular.

so blessed with this life yes yes yesi

Always seem to find a sweet peace o mind when my board n i cross the shoreline.

itsa fine frame o time, like tasting the sweetuLar sunshine

tapping the current, the reef, tapping the flow.

yesi! like droppin on a sik! phat bowl!

cranking the ranking bottom turn. eyes a burning. sun is glaring,

offshore is blaring.

yearning the vertical snap, i n i attack without looking back.

engaged ontha face o tha wave.

i create my space in this place of time riding on my saline rhymes.

spraying rythm n style all the way down the line.

blessed so blessed.. got these rhymes in my chest. yesi

– Jimmy Valentine

———–

In Brief

By Jim Smith

me

you

love

sex

bliss

sleep

repeat

———–

A thousand years and one summer.

Today . . .

The small wooden village church of my grandfather’s childhood,

Engraved and embellished with a vibrant history of a people,

Hidden behind rusting locks and angry steel beams,

Closed by government decree,

Condemned to the sound of silent bells.

Summer Sunday morning . . .

Pedestrians break the sanctioned stillness of Kiev,

Filing past the empty, cold market square

to the old woman’s house,

The criminals hide in her basement,

Men,

Women,

Children,

To pray before the makeshift altar,

Their tears calling on the spirit of Volodymyr the Great

to baptize a captive nation with passionate faith.

Celebrating the secret millennium.

They pray . . .

In basements,

In catacombs,

As churches stand garish museums of the spoiler’s culture,

The silent bells peal resonantly in their hearts.

— Lynette

————

Walks with Brutus

By Aaron Reynauld

It smells like home

and we walk.

We walk, we walk.

It smells like childhood

it smells like fall.

Oh, fall!

One of my greatest loves lost.

It smells like a home,

one in a world of homes.

One of many places

I call home

And music plays

and we listen.

We listen, we listen.

All of the songs,

these notes,

the melodies.

Songs drive

and drift from windows.

They pour out of restaurants.

They are never separate,

but never whole.

These songs they drive us,

the guide us,

they walk with us.

Through the streets of Venice

we walk.

We walk, we walk.

———–

America

By Murray Barnett

Look America, I’ve done as you asked.

I had my attic insulated to cut energy waste,

Sealed the windows to stop the drafts,

I even eat by candlelight.

I thought the electric company would be fair

And reduce the cost for the poor and desolate of the land.

I didn’t expect conservation to be a deceitful practice.

Look America, I take the bus to go to work,

Bought a bicycle to do the shopping,

Traded my V* for an economy model

And joined a car-pool for my vacation.

I thought the oil company wouldn’t rejoice

And make a wind-fall out of my sacrifices.

I didn’t expect conservation to be a fraudulent practice.

Look America, I’ve planted vegetables in the front lawn

And tend my little garden every day.

I didn’t expect dairies to pour their milk down the sewer

To keep the prices high.

I thought conservation could be a noble purpose.

Look America, I see Death riding a pale-colored horse

Across battle-lines drawn for your depleted resourses.

And you, unmoved, as in the past, are busy

Selling what’s left to the highest bidder.

Look America, there was a time I trusted in you

And tried to believe that conservation

Was not a fast-buck practice.

Why does the passion for wealth

possess you?

(Beachhead, March 1976)