Leaving the Pain Clinic

By William Brewer

Always this warm moment when I forget which part of me
I blamed. Never mind the pills kicking in, their spell
that showers the waiting room, once full of shame,
in a soft rain of hot sparks that pity sometimes is,
how it mends the past like a welder seams metal,
and isn’t that why we’re all here, addicts
and arthritics–we close our eyes completely
but the edges only blur–and though the door’s the same,
somehow the exit, like the worst wounds, is greater
than the entrance was. I throw it open for all to see
how daylight, so tall, has imagination. It has heart. It loves.

Being in This World Makes Me Feel Like a Time Traveler

visiting a past self. Being anywhere makes me thirsty.
When I wake, I ask God to slide into my head quickly before I do.
As a boy, I spit a peach pit onto my father’s prayer rug and immediately

it turned into a locust. Its charge: devour the vast fields of my ignorance.
The Prophet Muhammad described a full stomach as containing
one-third food, one-third liquid, and one-third air.

For years, I kept a two-fists-long beard and opened my mouth only to push air out.
One day I stopped in a lobby for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres
and ever since, the life of this world has seemed still. Every night,

the moon unpeels itself without affection. It’s exhausting, remaining
humble amidst the vicissitudes of fortune. It’s difficult
to be anything at all with the whole world right here for the having.

By Kaveh Akbar 

Turn off the lights

By Tyler Lockett

Turn off the lights, turn off the lights,
He don’t want y’all to see what’s going on in his life
Turn off the lights, turn off the lights,
So I can see what living in the pitch black is really like
Because my bro is in the dark and he’s been falling apart
Cause a woman that he loved he let get too close to his heart

Now he don't know where to start
Now he got a lot on his mind
Now he told me it's better if he was gone
and he commit suicide
Cause he been losing people left and right
That brought him up in life
And he been trying to live for God
But he feel like nothing been going right
So he feel like it's better if he tried to take his own life
He sent pictures to his wife of the pills he's gonna take at night
Tell her to kiss his son Liam
Cuz who knows if daddy ever gonna see him
again if he go night-night.

Turn off the lights, turn off the lights
He don’t want y’all to see what’s going on in his life
Turn off the lights, turn off the lights,
So I can see what living in the pitch black is really like
Because my bro is in the dark and he’s been falling apart
Cause a woman that he loved he let get too close to his heart

And now he's feeling lost and he don't know what to do
And there's only three of us in the crew that he really been talking to
And we've been trying to help him
But it's like he's so far gone
Taleah says he oversees, he probably feels all alone
But I don't think he sees how killing himself is wrong
But he says he's tired of fighting and he just want to let it go
So we're reaching out to him
And we're talking to him because we love him
But every time we try and help him he be feeling like we judge him
He's telling us not to judge him but just to walk with him
But if he jumps off that cliff we're gonna have to jump off and get him

Turn off the lights, turn off the lights,
He don’t want y’all to see what’s going on in his life
Turn off the lights, turn off the lights,
So I can see what living in the pitch black is really like
Because my bro is in the dark and he’s been falling apart
Cause a woman that he loved wants to let him go and start over

And now he's getting closer and closer to the edge
Explaining why he wants to off himself
So we can get it through our heads
He wants us to accept it, cause part of his life is hectic,
He's over this guy stuff
He says he's losing his direction
And we don't know what to say back
We’re waiting for a text back, because he’s eight hours away
And if we don’t hear from him, we afraid that he took the pills
And if he did, then life about to get real
And I don’t think he understands how a part of us feels
Because if he takes his own life, a part of us is going to be killed
And if he is going to be gone forever,
we’re going to have to take care of his kids

So we need to turn on the lights, turn on the lights
So he can see everything that’s important in his life
Turn on the lights, turn on the lights
So we can show him everything pitch black comes to the light
Cuz my bro's been in the dark, cuz he's been falling apart
He's been opening up, he's been sharing his heart

And now it's time for us to start showing him the bigger picture
How his sons need him
Cuz they need a father figure in their life right now
Cuz when they grow up they want to make their daddy proud
Like when they're out there playing sports they want to see him in the crowd
And as long as he's in the crowd they've got a smile on their face
And they'd rather have daddy around and not have him far away
And they don't wanna look at pictures every day and see his face
And they don't want the only time they talk to daddy be when they pray

Turn on the lights, turn on the lights
So he can see everything that’s important in his life
Turn on the lights, turn on the lights
So we can show him everything pitch black comes to the light
Cuz my bro was in the dark, cuz he was falling apart
He's been opening up, he's been sharing his heart

And I've been knowing this dude ever since the fifth grade
And it hurts so much how he says he wants to go away
He sent it to me on Friday night
And I was texting to him before I went out that night
And then I told my two bros the next day
And we was talking in a group the whole day
And all we could really say was just please don't do it
Bro don't do it you're not the only one in this world
who has to go through it
Just please don't do it bro don't do it
you're not the only one in this world
who has to go through it
But he said I'm in the dark, I'm falling apart
And we said just please don't do it bro don't do it
you're not the only one in this world
who has to go through it
But he said I'm in the dark, I'm falling apart
I gave her everything I had and she took everything that I got
And now I'm feeling lost and I ain't got nowhere to go
I'm running for my life but I don't see no end zone
And so we don't really know what the ending results are gonna be
Guess we'll have to see when he gets back from overseas
To be continued.

This poem can be heard by the author here.

Relax

By Ellen Bass

Bad things are going to happen.
Your tomatoes will grow a fungus
and your cat will get run over.
Someone will leave the bag with the ice cream
melting in the car and throw
your blue cashmere sweater in the drier.
Your husband will sleep
with a girl your daughter’s age, her breasts spilling
out of her blouse. Or your wife
will remember she’s a lesbian
and leave you for the woman next door. The other cat–
the one you never really liked–will contract a disease
that requires you to pry open its feverish mouth
every four hours. Your parents will die.
No matter how many vitamins you take,
how much Pilates, you’ll lose your keys,
your hair and your memory. If your daughter
doesn’t plug her heart
into every live socket she passes,
you’ll come home to find your son has emptied
the refrigerator, dragged it to the curb,
and called the used appliance store for a pick up–drug money.
There’s a Buddhist story of a woman chased by a tiger.
When she comes to a cliff, she sees a sturdy vine
and climbs half way down. But there’s also a tiger below.
And two mice–one white, one black–scurry out
and begin to gnaw at the vine. At this point
she notices a wild strawberry growing from a crevice.
She looks up, down, at the mice.
Then she eats the strawberry.
So here’s the view, the breeze, the pulse
in your throat. Your wallet will be stolen, you’ll get fat,
slip on the bathroom tiles of a foreign hotel
and crack your hip. You’ll be lonely.
Oh taste how sweet and tart
the red juice is, how the tiny seeds
crunch between your teeth.

vegas

By Charles Bukowski

there was a frozen tree that I wanted to paint
but the shells came down
and in Vegas looking across at a green sunshade
at 3:30 in the morning,
I died without nails, without a copy of the Atlantic Monthly,
the windows screamed like doves moaning the bombing of Milan
and I went out to live with the rats
but the lights were too bright
and I thought maybe I'd better go back and sit in a
poetry class:

             a marvelous description of a gazelle
             is hell;
             the cross sits like a fly on my window,
             my mother’s breath stirs small leaves
             in my mind;

and I hitch-hiked back to L.A. through hangover clouds
and I pulled a letter from my pocket and read it
and the truckdriver said, what’s that?
and I said, there's some gal up North who used to
sleep with Pound, she's trying to tell me that H.D.
was our greatest scribe; well, Hilda gave us a few pink
Grecian gods in with the chinaware, but after reading her
I still have 140 icicles hanging from my bones.


I'm not going all the way to L.A., the truckdriver said.


it's all right, I said, the calla lilies nod to our minds
and someday we’ll all go home
together.


in fact, he said, this is as far
as we go.
so I let him have it; old withered whore of time
your breasts taste the sour cream of dreaming . . .
he let me out
in the middle of the desert;
to die is to die is to die,


old phonographs in cellars,
joe di maggio,
magazines in with the onions . . .


an old Ford picked me up
45 minutes later
and, this time,
I kept my mouth
shut.

Blue Hair & Fortune Cookies

By Najah LaVerne

Can I get a fortune cookie?
I'll pay you $1, the homeless man said.
Why should this simple question startle the staff
of Panda Express, while making its patrons laugh?
2017 has revealed more women with blue hair
Than any other time in my more than 60 years.
I ponder: Is it magic,
Because "black lives matter,"
Or is it that politics are now flaming red?


Najah LaVerne Haqiqah is a writer and an International Poet Society’s second place winner (2008). She has published two chapbooks and she is currently completing her first full-length book of poem. She is a retired journalist and adjunct professor of English Composition. She volunteers as a docent for the Los Angeles Public Library and promotes Peace, Prayer and Forgiveness Day initiated in 2006 to inspire peace and forgiveness with regard to the September 11, 2001 attack on the USA.