January 2009 page 2

One Poem by DubbleX DubbleX has been writing his entire life and playing music. His artistry helps keep him sane. DubbleX teaches special education students in public schools. HIDE AND SEEK! by DubbleX Thing get lost in my one bedroom apartment I think somewhere there must be a hole I have lost my toothbrush and flash drive I stroll around the house and wonder where they went My apartment is not big mind you about 650 square feet a place to eat, a place to sleep, a place to peep and a place to leak so it is quite the strangest thing when things just disappear until I suddenly realize there must be a hole some where How else can it be explained that in such a small place so many things can remain unclaimed To put it plain it’s a hide and seek game that is slowly driving me and my lover insane why just today all the lighters were gone This includes two long black and red kitchen lighters A light green and a dark green bic lighters A Philips screwdriver, two nail clippers my lovers left blue croak two cartons of sidewalk chalk Bob Marley talking CD A million times one of the three remotes to plasma TV has gone missing, still can’t find my flash drive and my ipod disappears for weeks my pens and pencils at least a squad and Now a large sharp kitchen knife is gone for two weeks Make me wonder if my lover wished to be my legal wife or take my life in a fit of strife Two weeks later the knife reentered the apartment in the refrigerator In a salad in the vegetable compartment my protein-shaking cup is gone plus twenty bucks Joy’s make up disappears and a piece to my melodica is gone With a Marijuana oz of exotica Lately this game has gone deeply strange My toothbrush appeared on the sofa in uncooked turkey meat I was about to eat I had to look all over then the usual piece of paper with a phone number I have given in to this losing thing roll And have step up my search for the hole One Poem by Judy Leftow “Poet Laureate” of Washington Heights, Joy Leftow is a double alumna at Columbia University and has her second Masters from CCNY in Creative Writing. Joy’s style is - in your face reality. When Joy is not busy doing people & cat rescues, she meets her muse & reflects on relationships with more sarcasm than you’d get in an entire season of Seinfeld. ALIEN PLANET OF LESBIAN LOVERS by Joy Leftow SHE lived under the delusion that SHE was the Queened Princess of an Alien Planet of Lesbian Lovers. All the rules SHE lived by and all her behavioral responses provided evidence of this. Much of my life centered around helping her live out this fantasy, painful as it was to me. Besides, my Catholic guilt forced me to accept the proposition that sacrifice nourishes and purifies our soul. Still, I was not so locked in to my servitude that all other devotions were excluded. I met Sue May as I was attempting to crawl from the claws of the newly crowned Queen from the Planet of Lesbian Lovers. But I kept losing energy in my battle to escape. When I came upon a new route, the Queen would crack her whip, blocking me. I could not break through. I was lost in the spheres locked between fear, time, and oblivion when I met Sue May on the F train. I was carrying my sports jacket, an attache case and a shopping bag, while balancing a coke in one hand and my shades in the other. I sat down next to Sue May, also known as, The Speaker From The House of Discreet Charm, and proceeded to reorganize myself. My jacket slipped from my hands and I gripped it tightly to prevent its fall. As I grabbed it to crush it closer, I heard a highly toned, cultured voice, "exx, exxcuse me." I turned and looked her in the eye, "God," I exclaimed, catching sight of my hand clutching her knee in my peripheral vision. "Sorry, I thought that was my jacket." SHE smiled the way Speakers from that House do, completely disarming me, compelling me to do her will. So I offered her an early dinner as SHE was wont to do. Sue Mai thought SHE was Speaker of the House of Representatives from a small mid-western state where manners meant everything. The Speakers from this house pretended to live in a time when discreet words and charm, and all behavioral nuances were aimed at serving the vast quantities of man's needs. YES! But behind that sweetly beckoning smiling face, and in perfect rhythm, was the firm grasp of her delicate hand. It was hard to see that Sue Mai possessed the same determined sharp focusing of energy as the Queened Princess. And I realize now, both were bent on making the world, and especially me, think of nothing else, but meeting their needs.At the time I never realized this. I don't mean that the thought never entered my mind that I was allowing them to control me. But of course now in retrospect, I realize that I have realized this many times. But then, I was just so much Under the Influence. I have always lived Under the Influence. It's that way because I have always loved women, holding them in the highest regard. And I kept searching for the one for me. Not just the one for me, you understand, but the one who would save me from the Queened Princess and serve my needs. Now I had the Newly Crowned, Queen Princess from the Alien Planet of Lesbian lovers in conflict with Sweet Sue May, Speaker from the House on Discreet Charms befitting maidens from places like Kentucy and Tennessee. Sad to say, they couldn't get along at all.There was just too much conflict of interest. Both were invested in controlling my subconscious. For the Lesbian Queen I preformed sacrifice upon sacrifice, submitting to her will, making her wish my command. I lived under her delusion that this would provide peace to her Alien Planet of Lesbian Lovers and to me. Meanwhile my sweet and tame Sue May exerted her control by doling out her loving commands, their sole purpose to provide her pleasure. I devotedly applied myself to make her every wish my command. All for naught. Between the two, there was no respite. The Queen and The Speaker hated each other. But the truth was, that didn't matter. What did matter was, that ultimately, between the two, I was left with no energy to serve myself. Two Poems by Nabina Das Nabina Das lives two lives, shuttling between Ithaca, NY, and Delhi, India. Her short story “Tara Goes Home” has been selected to appear in a winning collection of fiction by writers from India as well as around the world (Mirage Books). Her poetry has appeared in the “urban” poems anthology SHEHER (Frog Books), in Kritya poetry journal, Lit Up Magazine, The Toronto Quarterly and Muse India. Earlier this year, she was declared one of the winners of the 2008 Book Pitch Contest at Kala Ghoda Literary Festival in Bombay. Nabina is also a 2007 Joan Jakobson Fiction Scholar from Wesleyan Writers’ Conference, Wesleyan University, CT., and a 2007 Julio Lobo Fiction Scholar from Lesley Writers’ Conference, Lesley College, Cambridge, Mass. A Town in Catskills Summer by Nabina Das Standing maples Perhaps singing Next to white houses lined up on a hill crest where trees shouldn’t grow Whistling hems Likely swinging Foxtrot on silken roads that belch loneliness where footsteps fall and melt It’s a variable sky Somewhat pale of hue Unlike the indigo noon she knows where heady mogras motion themselves There’s a corner park Where old folks sit Munching seeds with bubblesome coffee come from a faraway falcon land Brownstones sneeze Snooze in a sedated sun Forgetting tongues they spoke when froths subsided from the Eastern Seas Rusty pick-ups dream For the corn season to dawn Time they can leave silent streets, head for forgetful yawning rural roads She sees a sad steeple A couple of plaques Houses with people, alien saints with fern-faces and gray everlasting seams She spots a lively yard Kids hop scotching as if Nothing mattered after the last of the extant cargo trains had puffed and left A gracious sidewalk Holds her weary bags – This is it, not so other, she says, walks in the surprised woods as the sun melts. Essence of Exhibits by Nabina Das Most of the canvases – gouache or oil – are Wide to the point of distraction, left or right Most of it a rainbow garden or just too apparent One appreciates them better with closed eyes The terracotta is always standing, spirited Arms or sabres raised, hooves high in the air Ceramic orbs sport slithering lights on silken heads After a while they too melt in our infinite stare There are of course those perky glass forms, bright Like our eyes scanning them, not seeking at all They grow like vines on walls or kitschy pedestals Forced to wait, until we finish skimming over the rest. Two Poems by Don Schaeffer Don Schaeffer established Enthalpy Press and has published 5 chap books including "Time Meat" and "The Word Cow and the Pig O' Love." ISBN series: 0-9687017 Recent poetry has been published in The Writers Publishing, Lilly Lit, Burning Effigy Press, "Understanding Magazine," "Melange," "Tryst," "Quills," and others. His first book of poetry, Almost Full" was published by Owl Oak Press early in the summer of 2006. He holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from City University of New York (1975) and lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba with his wife, Joyce. The Hope Laughter Dynamic by Don Schaeffer He seems very playful today and everyone wonders why with things going on in his life that make younger people sad. Does age give them some kind of immunity from feeling? The younger people ask. I would be a little put off by that. If you take away hope, he tells us eventually, you are in toyland, in a flippy care free game. If none of the broken parts of life can be repaired, you are free. Hope is an easy sacrifice to make as the screws of life begin to loosen; and freedom lays before you along a laughing path. Jackie by Don Schaeffer The ambassador passed from table to table mending wounds and carrying Transcona honey balm, sweet especially in Winter. Family miracles danced side by side past the doors toward the outer snow, singing names, sugar plums. A Gratuitous Insertion by the Editor the herd by Bernard Alain it's the fear of being found out that makes a wild horse run, I'm not sure what the tame ones have to lose and I couldn't put a number on the soirees of 'drop by soon' and 'great to see you', where the snapping point for etiquette was 'how about Friday' followed by a short lapse of vertigo I always thought that if you meant it you should say it, be draconian, and that timing was a matter for old engines and carburetors in constant need of tweaking, and if you didn't mean what you said you were an asshole for presuming and not asking I knew eventually the herd of purebreds would break loose like they did, escaping to the safety of the mountains and pockets of green pasture I think about them from time to time I don't worry about how or what they're doing, knowing most of them live roughly in the same neighborhood, in roughly the same houses with roughly the same cars and I can imagine roughly what they'd say if I dropped in to say 'hello', never doubting for a moment they already imagined on my behalf