6.6. Ricky Garni: 3 poems

IT’S GOOD FOR YOU

I was sure that malted milk was good for you.

I am almost certain it isn’t, but I could be wrong.

In any event, one of us is wrong. Malted milk could

be good for you and I would be right, malted milk

could be bad for you and I would be wrong. Also:

malted milk might not exist, it might be one of those

things that you make up in a dream, like a girl that

comes across the room and says “A cherry danish

is what you need right now” as though she doesn’t

have a doubt in the world and the funny thing is -

you don’t either, nor does the aforementioned

cherry danish. So it could be just like that, only

where she said “danish”, just substitute “malted

milk” and add “it’s good for you” and then add

“I am your mother, I should know” and then respond

“No thank you, I thought you were someone else”

and then conclude with “he walked away quickly

without turning back, hungry and thirsty” just

the sort of thing that makes you long for more.

HHHHUUWWWW

I like the old man who doesn’t pretend it is harder to jump on his bicycle

than it was thirty years ago and instead just grunts really loud like this

HHHHUUWWWW and then goes really fast on his bicycle as though

all of it was part of the plan, which it was. Is. Getting old is a plan.

It’s super secret and fun. There’s a cool clubhouse. And a password.

No kids allowed. I have a gun.

LOST

I love to look at the picture of you in front of the watch repair store in 1951

and forgive you for not calling me in sixty years. I know it’s not your fault.

You just lost track of the time.

About:

Ricky Garni writes and draws in Carrboro, North Carolina. Over the last twenty years, he has produced thirty books of poetry, ranging from the one page A PERFECT DAY to MAYBE WAVY and OK YOU CAN STOP NOW, both of which are over 500 pages long. On the back of OK you can find the following blurb from writer Emily Cooper: “You idiot! All your poems are stupid and about nothing in particular! “

6.5. Steve Moran: 3 poems

Breda Rainey you would

hammock in the rainy box

chaps sodden from the nightdew.

Breda Rainey you wear

tiny leaves of the hedgerow

in your hair.

Breda Rainey you are,

though you heave a pushchair,

forever garlanded in box.

St Paul said it all

snail mail.

St Peter is not a tweeter

but St Mary is always online.

The father has no email,

no one can reach him

except through the son.

The spirit translates pages into any language

with comical results.

Through the open French doors,

between the woods and the lane,

a stave of power lines

with birds for notes.

I lift the lid on the piano

and start to play them.

"She is far from the land"

About:

Steve Moran is from Dublin but has lived in London for longer now. He is married with one grown-up son of his own. His day job is in software development. He has had a small number of stories and a couple of poems published. He also runs the Willesden Herald short story competiton. http://www.stephenmoran.net/

6.4. Theresa Williams: art, poem

olympia, dear jim

a lazy hot summer day making mailart with my old

olympia, broken shift key, me stamping skeletons

on everything when suddenly i get the urge to tell you

i remember kansas, a dead old place called beto

junction, a bird dog, a bull bellowing atop a tall dung heap,

sputnik, my friend steve from art school who gave me my first

brautigan, how it moved me; i had no idea how it was done.

steve, diabetes, nearly blind now, I hear, and richard, gone,

gone, gone, jim. write.

About:

Theresa Williams have poems published or forthcoming in a number of magazines, including Gargoyle, Barnwood, PLR, Seems, The Prose Poem Project, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Contemporary Haibun 12, and many others.