So Here’s My Work Day – krista schwimmer
Parturition – Ronald McKinley
Bamboo – Mary Getlein
The Old Vine – Majid Naficy
A sample from 2008 – Roger Houston
Beauty is the Outcome – Tyler Uhlenhake
Chemical World –
Humberto Gómez Sequeira-HuGóS
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So Here’s My Work Day
by krista schwimmer
There’s a British man
who walks in first
wearing a puka shell necklace.
He says he can only afford
the $20 to $30 range & sits down.
I plunge into
the card reading & sure enough
he is satisfied, nodding me on.
The day fills up
& soon the usual crowd is waiting
as I read one person after another.
Two young women come in.
I start on the woman
in the white pants outfit
(who picks the High Priestess
as herself).
She claims I’ve read her before.
I don’t remember. The other woman
with long, brown hair rushes away
to put quarters in her meter.
She returns holding her left arm.
A car hit her while
she was crossing the street.
Now why didn’t I read her cards first?
She’s alright, just shook up
& soon we are looking for
marriage in her cards. They leave laughing.
I stop for lunch, go upstairs
& get into a conversation
about swingers & such.
Shawn from the mailroom sits in the background
grinning. Men love hearing women
talk about sex.
Now it’s back to
the cards & a lovely lady in her 60’s
who relishes her reading. As she leaves
she sees my last name, “schwimmer”, posted on the door
& exclaims its rightness, how I am like a trout
coming up & up & up.
I almost start to cry
when Sami appears.
He is the last client
but just as we are delving
into his father’s death & small acts of revenge,
I hear a scream behind me.
I pull back the rain-ruined curtain
to see a toppled wheelchair
with arms waving side to side.
For some reason this woman decided
to take the two stairs
in her wheelchair. Wrong door.
It takes three of us to turn her upright
while she cracks jokes & waves
her right arm spastic-ally at us.
Jo stands before her
like a heron fishing, helps her with water
& takes her to the bookstore itself
where wheelchair girl is given a free book.
Finally the day is almost over
with Sami slouching towards
the gated front door. He decides
to tell me how the orgasm of a pig
lasts 30 minutes. Did I know that? & please
don’t tell your husband, he concludes.
I count $210, pack up my dolphin
table cloth & call home.
Yes, indeed, the life around a card reader
is something to remark about.
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Parturition
By Ronald McKinley
The unhampered motion of being and thought
Infused with pleasure and passion
Cycled like a quantum wave
Smell and palate change form
Sight, hearing, taction evolve
The space-time continuum breaks and mends your bones
The caress of measured events
Particle by particle emerge
Secure the loop of existence
Vision and sight don’t always synchronize
Lost to some ego by-pass
When all is one
The singular focus of a love driven existence
Religion will become obsolete
——————————————–
Bamboo
There is a grove of bamboo trees
outside my window
When the wind blows,
They move with the wind
a hummingbird shows up every now and then
he hovers around my home made mobile
When I see him, my soul lights up
Oh yeah – there’s that cute little hummingbird
reminds me of youth and fairy tales
when animals could talk
and people could understand
The sun shines strongly through the window
I look for the bird
but he’s not here yet
The bamboo remain to wave with the wind
All is well again, all is well
– Mary Getlein
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The Old Vine
by Majid Naficy
There is a green fence
Between death and me
Covered by an old vine.
When passing by
I part the dense leaves
To see the other side
But the sun blinds me.
I pluck a single leaf
And like an old palmist
Stare at its cryptic lines
Asking myself in silence,
“Who has planted this vine?”
And before people point at me
I brush the dust from my clothes
And go on my way.
—————————————–
Beauty is the Outcome
by Tyler Uhlenhake
Her soul dims and brightens as her heart peaks and shallows
Wondrous the sight, battling the sallow
The universe calls on her, she replies with all she is
The total evokes a voice singing louder than a thousand
violins heavenly sent
Searching, but not forever wandering, the truth vies
Not known to her, Known to those who surround
That her triumph moves in a way
That present, past, and future hope is never spent
Beauty is the outcome, and such beauty is bliss
——————————————–
(A sample from 2008, hecho en Venice) 23:43 Friday, April 11, 2008, 5th and
Vernon, Venice Beach ….. A quiet spot, parked here, behind Suzanne, With iron
fence perimeter; I plan On a long contemplation, to compose Some fitting
testament. Well, I suppose I understand how Leonard Cohen felt With her, on the
Saint Lawrence, having dealt With fields of trash and flowers long ago. Inside
my feverish brain, perhaps I know The answer to the riddle. Tasted salt, And
sailor I became, as all the fault Was held aloft for judgment, ’til up rose That
resurrection son. Therefore, I chose A vision all my own, and so began My
careful study, parked behind Suzanne ….. Roger Houston, (Venezian-in-exile,
just checking in. See you on Abbot Kinney Sunday. Ciao)
——————————————-
Chemical World
We are the solitary inhabitants of the subconscious world generated by neurotransmitters. Our sensation of living is the intermittent reaction we exhibit through opposite emotional expressions when extraneous agents stimulate our mind with simulations of desirable pleasures.
In the world excited by the selfishness of the prime rate, we are the serves of an estate demarcated with warning signs of private property and punishment. The regime that protects the estate is trademarked by bankers who use it to compete in the market for profits and instigate the fabrication of war as a good investment product.
The life we live is the effect of the balance of power, poverty and friction. The tax and prefixed value of our labor in the market controlled by speculators are the conduits and end of our freedom. We are separated by the equality of ambition and competition under a law enforced through the exercise of the fear of the Landlord performed by his army.
We live in a state of illusionary motion watching the spectacle of delightful living—animated by clowns, magicians, contortionists, and entities of bizarre appearance—projected through our naked retina by the architects of deception on TV. Our mind is the precious prey of the men of god—politicians, priests and generals—who strive to capture it enticing us to surrender our will to them with promises of world supremacy, peace, and eternal salvation.
In that place—where life is a probability valuated by insurance experts—planted with ICBMs and nuclear waste sites; celebrated in war movies and victory parades; remotely separated from the root of our nature, we are the suspicious semblances of an individual existence turned on and off with the remote control operated by the lords of social drugs and illusion.
Our experience of feelings, in economic “reality,” is an extension of the brain’s virtual arrangement of the self in the flitting moments of excitement precipitated by the chemistry of desire and illusion; of life and death.
—Humberto Gómez Sequeira-HuGóS
Categories: Poetry
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