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Benny the Butcher - Took the Money to the Plug's House [Official Video]

Killah Priest - Tai Chi

Styles, Pharoahe Monch - The Life

Dave Schwartz

Lets Go To The Dance

G David Schwartz 

Lets go to the dance

I don't think its in france

Just down the street here 

 Be Back In But Five

G David Schwartz 

 Be back in but five

Hope to find you alive

So please do survive 

This Is Not A Poem

G David Schwartz   

This is not a poem

This is a short essay 

Believe what I say

Cherish The Women

G David Schwartz 

Cherish the woman 

Respect all the work she does

Don't make fun of her fuzz

poems by Natalie Crick

Sunday School

Madeline loves it
And sits as Mother would.
The priest is like her Father
Dressed all in grey,

Palms fluttering with
Paper clowns,
Legs and arms spinning anti-clockwise
Like the priest's eyes slide

From side to side.
We are his for an hour
But he cannot touch us,
For we are jewels to be watched,

And, one day taken.
Nobody has ever held his hand
But Grandmother, with rings like
Little girl's warnings.

Alfonso Colasuonno

80-YEAR-OLD WOMAN IN THE INDIAN RESTAURANT

You used to be a librarian

At Brooklyn Public and NYPL

You live on Avenue M and Ocean

And you got robbed

But it was your fault, really

You probably shouldn't have kept the door open

Even if it is a Jewish neighborhood

And you like this place

But there are better places around

But you like to come out here

Cause you used to live around here

And you are heading off soon

To go to the library

To borrow a Victor Borge tape

Oh, you know him

What's that you said?

I'm sorry, I can't hear you

New Yorkers hate when I ask them to repeat themselves

You said you watched him when you were eight

At your aunt's on Nostrand

Terrible thing, he escaped from Denmark

Funny, but such an odd sense of humor

Just like my cousin

Also a comedian

I think the library still has his

What do you call them?

Yes, records.

  

FLATLANDS

If I listen closely

I think I can discern

The death rattles

of Old Brooklyn

Over here, in this little idyll

Where American flags still fly

In front of detached one families

The sprinklers turning on and off

Soaking well-manicured lawns

I can hear the pangs

In the abandoned synagogue

Shuttered pizzeria

And proceeding out of

The mouth of the old drunk

That one with the faint brogue

Leaning against the door

Of Mickey Reilly's bar

Who Colleen serving up the Guinness

Tells me has to call a cab nightly

To take him to his home

on Schenectady Avenue

To rejoin his dog, old

His wife, old

His son, grown, around on the holidays

His TV, on, the news, Letterman

I can see the decay

In the lines on the forehead

Of the fiftysomething Jew

Double parked on East 51st

Waterfalls playing on his tape deck

The model 1994 too

I can feel it wither

In the hands of the old Italian

Ashing his cigarette

By the swings in Power Playground

Hands that once kneaded dough

For the best pizzeria

On all of Avenue N

Before he sold it to the Albanians

Who in time will sell it to the Mexicans

And they still dance in their best suits

Over at the American Legion

And Greekie still serves

The eggs and toast just right at George's

But the last yachts off the Paerdegat

Will all sail off in their sunset

On their way to Jersey shores

The sons of displaced migrants

From Cork, Naples, and Riga

Displacing themselves yet again.

ON MOVING TO RURAL WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA

I’m becoming more and more like him every day

The babyface won’t last forever

And my fuse is shorter now

I’m turning into a foreign man of foreign ways

And I’ve withdrawn for the most part

I’m prone to joy

And prone to rage, just like him

I guess I’m an immigrant too

I’ve journeyed to some queer land

Where the people are odd

We’re all strange though, in his mind

Their ways aren’t my ways

But I won’t look back

He never did

I don’t incline my head in the direction of the old country

That’s just a memory to me

Just old Polaroids that have grown yellow and frayed

Still, the displacement rattles my bones

I wonder how it affects him

We all must have known it at some point

Even the wife’s Congregationalist forebears, centuries ago

I can understand them

And I can understand him

I found a new nation here

And I’ve made sure to try to blend in

I don’t speak - my accent marks me

I have my own enclave, just like him

I talk when I’m there, with my people

I tell stories about the pop of a Spaldeen off a broomstick,

Summers playing in the stream of a Johnny pump,

And how the August sun melted the chocolate cones from Joe B’s truck

I always make it sound better than it really was

I’m sure they’ll understand me out here

Just like they understand him back there

I wave, greet them with a friendly “hello”

And they don’t walk on by

It’s on 322 -

Take a left,

A right,

And place your foot gently on the brake.

FLANNERY O’CONNOR

 

 

 

 

He calls out,

stenciled on a Chinese immigrant’s tee shirt,

at a strip mall,

in a town off I-80,

and I sit down to a meal of white rice,

wonton soup,

chicken and broccoli,

and those little crunchy noodle things,

a fortune cookie,

Sprite instead of oolong tea,

this ain’t fine dining,

a rest stop off I-80,

that stencil on a Chinese immigrant’s tee shirt,

I bow my head,

take a breath,

eat and drink.

I am the co-founder and Poetry Editor of Beautiful / Losers Magazine (http://beautifullosersmagazine.wordpress.com). My fiction and poetry have been published in Zygote in My Coffee, The Camel Saloon, Citizens for Decent Literature, ppigpenn, Gutter Eloquence, Horror Sleaze Trash, Dead Snakes, Yellow Mama, Quail Bell Magazine, I Am Not A Silent Poet, Rusty Truck, Pink Litter, The Galway Review, Record Magazine, Soul Fountain, Randomly Accessed Poetics, Winamop, Visceral Uterus, Fuck Art Let's Dance, O Sweet Flowery Roses, Pretty Owl Poetry, The Milo Review, Postcard Shorts, and Farther Stars Than These. I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing from Beloit College, where I learned under esteemed poet Bei Dao. 

Donal Mahoney

A Man and a Dog

A reporter asked Wilbur once

if there were any advantages

to being deaf and Wilbur

used sign language to say

not that he could think of

except you miss all the gossip

and that’s a good thing

if you live alone in a trailer camp

in a small town in Oklahoma

but it’s not a good thing

when a tornado comes through

and everyone else hears it

at midnight and gets out alive

but they forget to wake you

and you go up with the tornado 

along with a dog 

you can’t hear barking,

two small stars in the sky.

Donal Mahoney

As Wally Explained on the Locked Side Later

Another day at the zoo and 

Wally’s new job was to feed the apes. 

Old Stanley had fed the apes 

for 40 years and loved the job 

but told Wally he was retiring.

He was showing Wally the ropes when 

Wally got hit with a coconut 

lobbed by JuJu, the oldest ape, 

who liked Stanley but not Wally.

Stanley drove Wally to a dentist 

to check the damage to his teeth

but the dentist wanted to be paid 

in advance and Wally had

no money, only a bus pass 

and a bag lunch back in his locker.

He had never had a credit card. 

The dentist looked and sounded

like Mel Brooks and kept saying

he wanted his money before drilling. 

Wally’s father came to the office

and started writing a big check 

to the plumber who had come over

the previous week to fix the toilet.

Bleeding from the mouth Wally yelled,

“Dad, write the check to Mel Brooks, 

not the plumber," but his father said,

“Wally, shut up for a change" and he

kept writing the check to the plumber.

His father had been dead for 30 years

but he and Wally never got along well  

when his father was alive either.

Donal Mahoney

Answer Me This, America

Took the wife 

to a pancake house

the other day. 

National franchise

good food 

fine reputation.

Skipped the pancakes

had bacon, eggs,

hash browns, toast

and coffee.

Wife went fancy,

had an omelette.

Grabbed the check

because the busboy 

started clearing 

the table early.

A young dervish

new to the job

swirling his cloth

for minimum wage.

Bothered me 

to realize he'd work

three hours and a skosh

to pay for the same 

breakfast, more

if he left a tip.

Reminded me 

something’s wrong

with our great nation,

how we do business.

Have both ears open.

Hoping for an answer.

Donal Mahoney

Marimba in the Afternoon

Raul is a kind man

who plays marimba

in a salsa band at LA clubs

late into the night.

Some afternoons he plays 

at a nursing home in Cucamonga 

where he was born, grew up

and dashed home from school.

He’s paid with a taco,

maybe an enchilada,

a burrito now and then. 

On Sunday a fresh tamale

almost as good as his mother

used to make after being in  

the fields all day, long ago.

Old-timers in the day room 

bounce in their chairs, some 

on wheels, to Raul's music.

Long ago they were young 

and danced all night in

tiny clubs after being paid 

a few dollars a basket for 

picking grapes and plums 

under pounding sun.

Donal Mahoney

Fly Fishing

Many years ago Miriam’s parents 

took the kids for the weekend 

while she and Jack motored north 

to fish for trout in Montana 

at Miriam's request. 

Unsteady in her hip-waders 

but casting with abandon,

Miriam lobbed a snide remark 

and the hook snagged Jack's ear.

Jack told her not to worry, 

just a tiny bit of blood.

He'd put a band-aid on it 

back at the cabin

before he fried 

the rainbow trout still

wriggling in her creel.

Decades later Jack is back

at the cabin with his Phyllis,

a quiet woman who

has never cast for trout.  

He thinks she’ll do well.

Jack’s lost track of Miriam,

who sold the house long ago.

The kids are on their own.

He still scratches the ear 

where an itch recalls 

Miriam’s remark.

poems by , John Grey

John Grey

           

RITUAL

She calls her mother daily,

lips taut, teeth cracked open slightly,

her speech restricted

to only the most mundane of sounds.

Meanwhile, her mother pulls on

her daughter's words

like hands round rope

in a tug-of-war.

She wants the truth to come pouring out

along with the small talk,

break through these unnatural barricades.

But what's on the daughter's mind is too dense.

It can't be wrenched from her head

without taking half of her brain with it.

So her mother's futile entreaties

sweat and ache, grow callouses.

But she'll telephone again tomorrow

and then the day after that.

She has this urge to sa)' little

and hold back much.

Her mother feels a duty

to nibble at the ordinary

while imagining the worst.

It's a ritual that fills a need.

Mostly, it's the need of the ritual.

JOEY AND THE MOTORCYCLE

You were drawn to the chaos,

borne around bends,

through thin, dangerous channels

or brandished above me

over trees, rooftops,

your crazy grease-stained wheels

farther and farther below,

your dying like flying across the sky.

Watching the stars,

I want to separate you

from how I feel,

awed by your untamable,

unimaginable speeds

before ice played a role,

and slid you on like water

racing for the downspout -

the grave that knew

it was only a matter of time.

  

DOWNWARD DAN                                    

A drunken brawl

that he can hardly remember

and Dan had lost half his front teeth,

found himself sprawled on a sidewalk

in Dover, Delaware,

spitting blood and molar,

a burning throb in his jaw

as if someone had connected

with a flaming arrow.

A cop came by,

thumped Dan's wayward mouth

into a smile.

Dan reckoned it was tough,

from that angle

to tell what the joke was all about.

All he could think about

was his busted face.

how long it would be

before even the ugliest of women

found it to be kissable again.

He never did locate a dentist

who would work for nothing

or a fancy lady friend who could see past

his sunken cheeks.

But there was always liquor.

It never asked for

what he wasn't prepared to give.

His gums could testify to that.

There were more brawls,

more sidewalks,

more cops

but. at least,

he never lost another tooth.

One night, a homeless woman

offered him a place to sleep

under her bridge.

And she had a bottle of rotgut

which she shared.

That's how low Dan's sunk

since we hung with him back in the day.

He eats out of dumpsters.

He panhandles.

Whatever money he comes by

goes straight to the liquor store.

Soon, his insides will go the way of his canines

and without need of an intermediary

like a punch to the gut.

Dan's the one we all consult

if we want to know more about

a downward spiral.

And his run-ins with cops

are our dispirited lecture

on the true meaning of the law.

He's also a good example

of the tipping point

when alcohol becomes booze.

And he and his toothless bride

are a willing case

of what it takes sometimes

to be with somebody.

How many years is it

since we were all in high school together?

We knew Dan before he was an illustration.

poems by Doreski, William

Greenland and Antarctica

Field ice knuckles down to the sea

and fractures. Slabs coast away

to addle container ships lurching

to New Jersey, Hamburg, Rotterdam.

I lie awake worrying that bergs

as big as Manhattan will crush

these fragile ships and deprive us

of necessities fresh from China.

Aren’t you worried, too? Your back,

as you sleep your crescent of sleep,

is a map on which I can project

new seas, new continents no one

even mildly sane has explored.

Maybe you’re dreaming of field ice

shuddering as thick rivers melt it,

climate change sickening the air

with the cries of failing species.

Maybe you’re dreaming of hiking

those ice-fields with me, crampons

groaning with purchase, ice axe

poised to slaughter pale creatures

that loom in the chilly fog. I press

against you, hoping that layer

upon layer of flesh will protect

the planet from its ugly secrets.

You stir a little but snooze away

my local effects. Antarctica

and Greenland seem so far away,

their rugose coastlines beaming

with winter sun or brooding

with winter dark. Which winter

are we? Early traffic sizzles

as the daily commute begins.

No one commutes to Greenland

or Antarctica, but the ice fields,

caught between competing eons,

simper like freshly printed paper

on which the latest scripture scrawls.

Red and White Stripes

Framed in the red and white stripes

of your six pillows your face

goes adrift, warping into places

I can’t enter without mourning

the forty years we discarded

like a cargo of empty oil drums.

The city grumbles to itself

with most of its passions muted

by the buzz of construction sites

and the criminal expressions

of cops in fresh new uniforms.

We should visit the museum

with its Dutch masters blazing

and Goya too angry to paint

but painting anyway, on and on

into black and gray infinities.

We should lunch like typical

elderly couples, late blooming

over delicate little sandwiches

and glasses of oily white wine.

In a few minutes the patter

of your bare feet on the hardwood

will present angles of vision

no one since Adam has enjoyed.

The snore of traffic will become

gossip of epic proportions,

and the stoplights will pause

on yellow for hours at a time.

The cops will almost learn to smile,

creasing their aggressive trousers.

Then you’ll fade into distance

rendered geological by habits

we hope to acquire. And then

I’ll know why the red and white

stripes of your pillows say nothing

of ordinary blood and flesh.