Bruce Hodder

december 27

one day i will write down
the story of our love
and how it ended, how
ever since the world
seems colourless, and flat.
but not today. today
i have to go to work.
today i want to watch
the post-Christmas television
for a while, though there's
nothing on that would
entertain a gnat,
according to the schedules.

RIVER PIRATE

1.
My friend the gimp told me,
We were camping up
In a lightning storm,
“This place is haunted.”

Woods he’d played in
As a boy,dense and dark,
Deer flitting between trees
Lit up every few minutes
By lightning throwing its
Fiery spears into the earth.

“You’re an idiot,” I said
And struck him with
My pistol on the shoulder.

That night,underneath my
Blanket,I kept my pistol
Cocked.The spirits of the dead
Moved about me.When
I saw the Paddy bastard
I emptied six chambers
Right into his spectral form.

2.
Sleeping in the woods is fine
If you can go into a town
And clean up - sometimes.

3.
I get sweaty in this thick coat
Black jacket and woollen shirt beneath.
The best is when I’m bare-arse
Naked jumping into a mountain river

Especially from a moving train!

4.
I didn’t lose my home,
I never had a home to lose:
Brat girls in white smocks,
Boys with no shoes on
Batting balls with sticks,
Dirty shack with a tin roof
That blew off in the wind
And let in rain continually.

Always freezing,the same old
Shit to eat every day.

My old man,what a bastard.
Spent his money on whisky.
His gums were always bleeding.

The times I saw him beaten up
Begging the young lord
Not to kick him anymore.

And my mother’s martyrdom,always
Staring into the stew pot bubbling
On the stove for the reflection
Of her suffering.She didn’t have
A thing except her piety.

5.
The canals called me to them
And I went as soon as I could
Steal a few pence for my passage,
Bunked down on deck in all weathers
Freezing underneath a blanket that
Smelled distinctly of the captain’s dog.

6.
Sliding over water in autumn mist
I knew Creation as a thing of wonder,
God immanent in the whole works:
It must have been the opium I took!

7.
Song of the River Pirate

I am a river pirate.
My name you’ll one day know.
I kill the men so quickly
And I fuck the women slow.

My fists are hard as shovels.
They will pound your head to dust.
My cock has iron in the shaft.
I split ‘em when I thrust.

Go tell the parson’s daughter
To get her bloomers down.
I am a river pirate
Of fan-testicle renown!

8.
Killed some Paddy bastard in an ale house.
Got scooted out of there by the gimp
Before the locals strung me up.

Threw up when I thought about him dying
And cursed my weakness underneath a tree,
A million stars lighting up the wood.

9.
Drunk,I give my horse a slap
And wonder what will happen
When I’m old and toothless
And can’t rob or steal for bread.

As if I will live that long.
Hang me in the town square
Gawped at by hags and by traders
Keeping their diseases secret.

Give me your opprobrium,O good
Citizens of England,as I kick
And squirm against the hangman’s rope.
I’ll spit on anyone who gets close enough
And see all of you in Hell!

NEW POEM BY BRUCE

waylon and willie were the soundtrack to your youth


those outlaws presented
the perfect image
of what a man should be
to your teenage mind.

with their hair and beards,
their rough clothing
which spoke of other places
unlike middle-class
estates in england.

their songs of wild nights
and mornings in the
fresh, clean air.
they could handle bars
AND mountain lakes

and their minds
encompassed both
with equal sentimental
love. the outlaws spoke
of the loneliness of heroes

as you were lonely, tho
certainly no hero. they
made romance where your
father made only
the ugliness of duty
he never seemed to want.

your dad was squashed down
by responsibility, or
the angry urge to show
that he had sacrificed himself.
they were cowboy gypsies,
poets living out a dream

of women, drink, drugs
resistance of the hard iron
that gets into the soul
and kills it. this you knew
from watching how
he gave into his rages,
and left at dawn in
smart clothes heading
to the office, silent,
resentment bloody in his eyes.

this you knew because
he never really looked
when you showed a picture
or some writing to him.
he couldn't come back far
enough from the chilly
world he lived in, not
even to make a stab
at faking a reaction.

the outlaws set you free
from that fate, which
your road had been prepared
for. you might have those
chains laid about your arms
and legs by family, or
mortgage, but your mind
would always be your own

and always itch
to hike into the backwoods
to smoke and drink and dream
and be large, as Kesey says.

the outlaws helped you
to see your own life
as a movie in which
no one was the star but you.

every time you find
a secret path into the woods
you turn into a wounded hero
packing iron, on the run

even when you're carrying
two bags full of groceries
or heading off to work..

NEW POEM BY AUSTIN McCARRON

Stone Water

In a room of stone,
at the gate of water:
to lose the friendship of air.

The draft of love:
underneath: the heart
is a fume of sinking rocks,
delivered by water, on seaflower ends.

Time grows feet,
suffering wings, on the upturned sole.

Tongue, crimson ladder,
zipped up in a uniform of skin:

I watch its images drown.

Mouth to mouth, mouth of hell,
plate of blood, I leave it with stone,
rolled over in front of its speechless eye.

The invitation of air:
we exchange cards; air visits my room;
we drink out of glass words a mix of empty signs.

The text of motion is like water to stars.



Austin McCarron lives in London.

love story

"jesus, what does it take with you?"
i remember one very kindly said
underneath her eiderdown one night
after her right hand failed to reach me

stepped out

w/ uncombed hair
and half sleeping
still, i stepped
out to check
if it was bin
day on my street--
my neighbour's bins
are always out
the night before, so
that wd tell me--
stepped out and i
was hit immediately
by such a blast
of gorgeous, chilly
rain i laughed--
impossible to
be angry now.

God Addresses The U.S.Congress

sit down, mortals,
and listen. i've
got something to say
that's been burning
a hole in my head
for too long. and
I've come a long
way, so don't interrupt.
you people have got
me feeling all cranky.
Let me start, if
i may, with the gays.
yes, the gays. please
stop rolling your eyes.
the gays are NOT
automatically
going to Hell,
any more than you
"saved" folks have
a free pass to Heaven
it's a matter
of character,
which i actually
said two thousand
years ago, need
i remind you.
the true marriage
is love, people,
whatever form that
it takes. and while
we're at it, i DON'T
go whispering
in president's ears
about war, other
than to hint
that it's usually wrong,
especially when oil
is the super-objective.
to be truthful
(i can hardly be
otherwise) it pisses
me right off
being used to excuse
such a mortal
folly as the resolution
of difference by
horror and violence.
my way is to love.
do you know what
that means?
but ah, even i
reach the end of
my rope, though
mine unfolds back
to the beginning
of time. when i
see suits worshipping
while my raggedy
children starve out
on the pavements,
or drown in the flood
waters your negligence
let in over the
cities, when i see
that, i'm tempted
to pack up the whole
damned operation,
zap this doomed
ball back to the dust
and repair to some
virginal edge of
the cosmos
to start over,
this time giving
dolphins opposable thumbs.
but i probably won't.
why? because my way
is love. LOVE.
love is my cross.
it's what makes me
put up with you
dumb sonsofbitches.
but don't assume
it is limitless.
don't assume you
can go on
perverting my Word
and be forgiven
every time, however
heinous the crime.
that's a warning. i
can crush you.
now get out of
my sight.and give
a stranger your wallet
before you drive
home tonight.

on holiday

incense gives the dust

a scent of jasmine--

writing at the keyboard

raging drunk

LUKASH MEETS GWB

by Geoff William

In the cold doorway of dawn
lurks the one-eyed raven.
I see Lukash floating in a blue lake,
lavender blue, hiding from me your tongue.
Orchids bloom at the break of dawn,
slugs slide down stairways,
the mole digs beneath the stones.
The mole becomes a slug, a mosquito,
a locust, a rat, vermin, George Dubya Bush,
who sends the Zionists to swarm
over the Hashemites, to slaughter children, destroy orchards.
The children are neither with us or against us.
How could they know? You are either a slug
or a butterfly. But it is the slugs
who will destroy the olive trees.
Horror. Fear. Death lies in the wadi.

PAYBACK

by Steve DeFrance


I go downstairs.
My neighbor's feeding fish heads
to some local dogs.
I find my car.
The day's hot enough to
glaze pottery in the back seat.
I start the engine & crank up the air
conditioner. It's running hot.
I flip on the radio.
Bombers race toward Baghdad.
People on the street look dazed.
At the corner, a pregnant woman
stops in the center of the busy street
doing a body count of her growing family.
My knuckles grow white on the wheel.
I miss the light.

Hot. No wind.
The car's a jar with a lid.
I roll the windows down.
Try to cool off.
Trees on the street cringe
from the heat. Birds have stopped
flying, instead they huddle
in melting pools of color,
grey, brown and black,
heads bobbing slowly.
Next to me on the car seat,
a half-eaten Chocolate Hershey Bar
has exploded.

All that is plastic is devolving
into petroleum ooze.
Fillings in my teeth are burning,
touching a nerve.
Rounding a corner, the asphalt's
melting--heat ripples rise
as if from an Iraqi mirage.
High Noon in L.A.
Ahead--two sweating men charge
snarling from trucks, it's all about a parking place.
They fight in the street. Bone & flesh collide.
Under a deserted building, a lone dog wails.

I eye the ageing buildings on this
block--dying Victorians--blemished,
battered, broken & bleeding.
Dwellings filled with growing families.
Spilling over stoops, rambling down steps,
scattering into the street, where they spray
each other down with water hoses.
Lupine smiles seem to contradict the menace
glinting from their predatory eyes.

Just as it is too hot for the fat red spiders
who sit in heat shock--watching
the death dance of the web-caught flies.
These predators are not in a hurry.
It is too hot for them to dine on me.
They will dine when the sun's down.
I turn right onto 7th Street.

All in all, it's a day that causes
ordinary men to break cue sticks over bald heads.
A day so sweltering it makes
common thieves too hot & too wet to steal.
On this day--shrieking babies are being
smashed against cement walls,
and regretfully married women are sharpening long knives,
sweating and staring at the soft underbelly
of their husbands' throat.

It's a grand day for getting even,
a day for settling festering scores.
A day for payback
a day designed for vengeance.
A day to use baseball bats in alleys.
A day to swing socks filled with ball bearings.
A day for reprisals by the damned.
It's just that kind of day.

Driving by the Park on 7th Street,
I see hawks hankering for retribution,
sitting in the shade of hemlock trees
considering all possibilities.