Patricia Carragon | You Bug Me

You Bug Me

You bug me,
you ugly piece of insectum,
you overgrown cockroach,
you grotesque hemiptera!
Insecticides will kill me first
before you go to bugdom come.

How dare you invade my place,
crawl under my bed,
make me sweat
after taking a shower?
Do I toss shoe boxes, books and rugs
for your pleasure?
You think you can’t be outsmarted
by your escape to the ceiling
while I crawl in my labyrinthic quest
to destroy you?

I grab my trusty vacuum,
attach the pipes –
return for the attack.
Varoooom, varoooom, varoooom,
I draw near, armed with Windex
to subdue you with safer chemicals
before suction eats you up.
Then, I squirt upwards,
once, twice, thrice
and more…
my finger, still on the trigger –
ammonia and vinegar
rain on my face and hair.

You scamper in panic –
a bit slower, but flee from the pipe
that follows your direction.
And then, in one gulp,
you descend into the darkened pit
of the Hoover canister –
trapped…ha ha.

I take the vacuum outside,
remove the bag from
the belly of my robotic beast,
fearing you’d do a second coming
like Jesus.
But you are like Jesus –
back from the dead
inside the opened canister.

Slam goes the cover!
I carry the vacuum downstairs
and make my exodus to the street.
Outside the gate,
the canister’s reopened
for you to repeat
what you did upstairs.
I kick the vacuum,
watch you run along its hose
until you hit the pavement
for my sneaker to smash you
in one unholy squish.


by Patricia Carragon



Patricia Carragon is an ad executive who moonlights as a Poet at night. Poetz.com, Rogue Scholars, Poets Wear Prada, Clockwise Cat, La Luciole Magazine, Flutter, Up the Staircase, Times Square Shout Out, Kritya and Soul to Soul have published her work on-line. Her work can also be found in the following journals: Mobius The Poetry Magazine, Clwn Wr #41, Inscribed, Live Magazine, Tamarind, Riverfront, Nomad's Choir, the Park Slope Poetry Project's Erato, SOS ABC NO RIO's Stained Sheets, Poet-To-Poet's Medicinal Purposes and Asbestos and Where You Live, What Happens Next 29, 30 & 31, an annual magazine anthology of poets and artists. He first collection, Journey to the Center of My Mind (Rogue Scholars Press, 2006), was showcased at Poet's House, New York City in 2007 during National Poetry Month. Her work has been anthologed in The Ice Road Poems (Fierce Grace Press, 2007) and by the The Yuki Teikei Haiku Society. Her Haiku poems can be found in South by Southeast, vol.15 #2. She has work forthcoming in Dinner with the Muse, a Green Pavilion Poetry Anthology (Rays of Ra Press), due out later this year. She hosts and curates the Brooklyn reading series, Brownstone Poets, at the Fifth Avenue Restaurant in Park Slope and at The Fall Cafe in Carroll Gardens. She is the editor of the annual Brownstone Poets Anthology.


© Copyright Patricia Carragon 2007

Bruce Weber | Silencio

SILENCIO

he could hear the scratch
against the sidewalk
when a cat rolled on its belly,
the whir of windmills
in a picture book
detailing the early mechanics
of energy production
in amsterdam ,
the crash of tremendous evergreens,
the whispers of lovers
in a ground floor apartment,
though he lived in a high rise,
on the 21st floor,
inside his head a gong went off
every time he breathed deeply,
when he coughed his ears rang
like 20 repeating rounds of
a semi-automatic weapon,
his hearing was so sensitive
he could guess 9 x's out of 10
the actual size and position of bugs
inside the walls
of his dwelling,
could hear their movements
inside the plumbing,
the rustle of their mouths
when they chewed
the remains of toothpaste
off brushes
in the cabinet
above the bathroom sink,
he punctured his eardrums
with a long screwdriver,
but it didn't help,
he bought a summer cottage
in the nevada desert,
but the sound of scorpions
skittering across
the dry sand
disturbed him,
even the wind made him nervous,
and the only way
he could make it stop
was by sticking
45s in his eardrums
and pressing the triggers,
till his brain exploded,
splattering over floors,
walls,
and
windows,
now
everything
was quiet,
the cemetery gardeners
cutting down weeds
didn't wake him,
or bouquets placed
softly upon graves

by Bruce Weber


Credit: Jackie Sheeler

Bruce Weber is the author of four published books of poetry, including These Poems are Not Pretty (Miami: Palmetto Press, 1992), How the Poem Died (New York: Linear Arts, 1998), Poetic Justice (Icon Press, 2004), and The First Time I Had Sex with T. S. Eliot (Venom Press, 2004). His work has appeared in numerous magazines, including in recent issues of Long Shot, Chronogram, Lips, Saint Elizabeth, and A Gathering of the Tribes. His work was also featured in the Downtown Poets Anthology, The Second Word Thursdays Anthology, and, most recently, in the anthology Up is Up, But So Is Down; Downtown Writings, 1978-1992 (New York: New York University, 2006). Bruce has performed regularly in the New York area, both alone and with his group, Bruce Weber's No Chance Ensemble, which incorporates poetry, theatre, music and dance, and has produced the CD Let's Dine Like Jack Johnson Tonight. He is the organizer of SOS: Sunday Open Series at ABC NO RIO, the editor of the broadside Stained Sheets, and the producer of the 14 years running Alternative New Year's Day Spoken Word/Performance Extravaganza. Bruce is also Senior Curator, 19th Century Art at the National Academy Museum. His book Paintings of New York, 1800-1950 (San Francisco: Pomegranate Press) appeared in the fall of 2005.

© Copyright Bruce Weber 2008

George Spencer | Romance Or Ars Poetica

romance or ars poetica

we've all interrupted the sex lives of city cucarachas
sweating like engine room workers burning high fat calories,
poor souls tormented by cleanliness
roach motels
and florescent lights
their rays zapping eros's moody undulations.

the less adventurous never leave the woodwork,
dream of flowing gowns, magnolias and bridal showers
in their linear land of syntactical rectitude and the weeping i.

by George Spencer

George Spencer graduated from Harvard (he says when it was still easy to get in). He lives in Ecuador 6 months out of the year and has read his work at Cafe Libro in Quito as well as at various venues in NYC. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in 63 Channels, Asinine Poetry, The Brownstone Poets Anthology, Caveat Lector, Clwn Wr, Nomad's Choir, Poetry Midwest and Rain Tiger. He is working on a new chapbook titled The Obscene Richness of Our Times.

© Copyright George Spencer 2008

Michael Graves | Like Insects

Like Insects

Two faces,
Kissing,
Trying to merge,
Glued,

Wrestling,
Struggling,
Striving
To loosen the mutual grip;

Clear lenses, frightened and wanting,
Two insects, clutching each other…

Disgust and the memory
Of your eyes.

by Michael Graves

Michael Graves hosts the long running Phoenix Reading Series in NYC. His most recent collection is Illegal Border Crosser, a chapbook from Cervana Berva Press was released earlier this year (2008). His first book-length collection Adam and Cain was published by Black Buzzard in 2006. An earlier chapbook Outside St. Jude's originally released by REM Press in 1990 was re-issued as an e-book by Rattapallax. His poem "Apollo to Daphne" appears in Gods and Mortals: Modern Poems on Classic Myths (Oxford University Press, 2001). Other publication credits include The Classical Outlook, European Judaism, James Joyce Quarterly, The Journal of Irish Literature, Cumberland Poetry Review, nycBigCityLit-New York Edition, Writer's Forum, Rattapallax, The Hurricane Review, The Hollins Critic, Archipelago, and Salonika.

© Copyright Michael Graves 2008

Mary Orovan | Millimeter

MILLIMETER

Yes, it pierced as an arrow, here,
the pain
in my heart, Cupid

Yes, I glowed—a little pinker,
blood refusing
previous quiescence

Pheromones long on hold
             long for release          
Twostickssparks
             flames

But on the park bench,
the millimeter between us
hung in air

I saw two butterflies, one a Cabbage,
mon petit chou, the other, Yellow Sulfur,
stuck together for perhaps illegal lingering

Unmatched butterflies
shouldn't play with fire.
Neither should friends

By Mary Orovan

Mary Orovan was Features Editor of US Camera Magazine and taught at Polytechnic University. "Millimeter" was previously published in Hidden Oak, Fall/Winter 2007. Her chapbook Feathered Trees is due out later this year (2008) from Poets Wear Prada.

© Copyright Mary Orovan 2007

Sarah Sarai | Two Dreams Hovering Insect Wings Above Me

Two Dreams Hovering Insect Wings Above Me

First I lie across your lap
for everyone to see, for comfort.
Second, we kiss, I pause, you touch my hair
and wave good-bye in one graceful sweep.

I wonder who I am in either dream,
talk myself through the threshold of another day
archived by winged beasts who know memory
as a slow volant flash of something close to pleasure.

by Sarah Sarai



Sarah Sarai writes poems and short stories in New York. Her work has appeared in South Dakota Review, Antigonish Review, Tampa Review, West, Raven Chronicles, Webster Review, VerbSap.com, Stet, Zyzzyva, Fine Madness, Frigg Magazine, Stained Sheets, Threepenny Review, Weber Studies, Minnesota Review, Potomac Review, Tipton Poetry Journal.

Visit her at myspace.com/sarahsarai

© Copyright Sarah Sarai 2008

Lisa Cowley | Skimmer

Skimmer

Every summer I play God
hold the miraculous blue net
save the hundreds of bees, beetles,
ants, dragonflies, gnats, wasps
& ladybugs, that crash-dive the pool.

They emerge from the chlorinated water
like victims of a shipwreck
half-drowned and soaked to the core.
Surrounded by many casualties of the swim
they gasp the air, dry their wings for flight
and gaze around half-dead, examining the others' plight.

The recent divers fly away unharmed
yet some have been in there all morning.
You have to breathe on those to know they are still alive
sensing the world around them.

I wonder whether any are missed
back at the busy communist hive
or whether dragonflies overhead at dusk
are searching for friends
who weren't lucky enough
to reach my grace.

by Lisa Cowley

Lisa Cowley, of Long Island, NY is the author of Noah's Dove, which was published by Writer's Ink Press in 2003 as part of The New Scene Poets Series. She has always been fascinated by the lives of insects as well as all living things and has saved many bugs from drowning or being squashed throughout her life. "Skimmer" was originally published in Noah's Dove.

© Copyright Lisa Cowley 2003

Charles Pierre | The Reflecting Pool

The Reflecting Pool

An invisible insect breaks the sheen
of a forest pool, as widening rings

move out from the center to awaken
the April images reflected there:

buds, flowers and leaves rippling in circles
to the rhythms of spring and single touch

of an insect, whose one insistent note,
heard deep in the woods, pierces the mild air.

by Charles Pierre

(Originally published in the Fall 2006 issue of Avocet)

Charles Pierre is the author of two poetry collections, Green Vistas (1981) and Father of Water (2008). Over the past 30 years, his poems have appeared in numerous literary journals, including Appalachia, The Ledge, and Rattapallax.

© Copyright Charles Pierre 2006

Mindy Kronenberg | Catching Fireflies

Catching Fireflies

In the heat of summer evening, a boy
crouches with a glass jar
twice the size of his head, eyeing
the miniscule, momentary flame
of insects that burn out
and glow again. In the last light of day

he watches for the brilliance
he longs to keep, and rushes to
sweep it from the air, his small hands
reaching and missing its flight.
Sparks dance all around him,
igniting and dimming

beyond his grasp, his mouth
curled in pursuit of their magic.
His old man, clutching an amber bottle
by the neck, slouches on the ground
and cajoles him, shouts to the boy
with a yellowed grin:

Over there! Over there!
and bellows each time a firefly
escapes. He knows the tragic
quest for dreams—has felt
a glimmer of delight
die inside him again and again.

But the boy, young and callow,
feverishly runs in circles
blurring the world.
The jar, flying from his grip,
lands in un-mowed grass and
catches the last bright beads of dying sun.

by Mindy Kronenberg

Mindy Kronenberg teaches at Empire State College and has published poetry, essays, and crticism in journals here and abroad. She edits Book/Mark Quarterly Review and is the author of a poetry collection, Dismantling the Playground.

© Copyright Mindy Kronenberg 2008

Mark Terrill | A Poem for Those Who Mean Well

A Poem for Those Who Mean Well

There's a big black bug with curved wiggling feelers brown filigree wings & long angular legs crawling across the inside of the kitchen window looking for a way out & not wanting to find myself trapped in a crippling stasis of voyeuristic entropy like John Wieners in his poem "A Poem for Trapped Things" I quickly grab a water glass & a beer coaster & gently & efficiently capture the bug & open the kitchen window & watch him fly out across the pasture toward the canal where some watchful-eyed hungry stork or insatiate bullfrog will probably snap him out of the air before you can even say the words voyeuristic entropy.

by Mark Terrill, Germany

Photo Credit: Moon

Mark Terrill is a native Californian and former merchant seaman living, writing and scraping by in Europe since the early 1980s. Recent books & chapbooks include Something Red (Plan B Press), The United Colors of Death (Pathwise Press) and Bread & Fish (The Figures). Visit him online at http://home.arcor.de/markterrill

© Copyright 2008 Mark Terrill