This Isn’t About Why Green Melons Are My Favorite Fruit

By Kyle Hemmings

I am going to smash a green melon over your head
and then say sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry.

I’ll say I thought you were someone else
an ex-lover who grew on me like a fungus.

Or my favorite parakeet who flew out of my
childhood. He was yellow & bald & would shit everywhere.

The green melon that I will use to smash over
your head will be hard with no soft spots.

The way Marlon Brando once thought of himself.
Marlon Brando once described himself to Jimmy

Dean as a “Method Melon-Head.” Jimmy Dean would have
been more sensitive to green melons except that

he was dating a red-headed zucchini at the time.
After Jimmy dropped his zucchini he wasn’t

allowed back in the produce section. The melon
I will use will be on sale at the A&P

for $1.000000000000000000000000000000000000009.
There are many green melons in the fruit section

that scream out from their stillness. “Please,”
they cry in unison, “take me, I’m excellent

for smashing. I will give new meaning to the empty
world of melons.” To several of the Chinese stockers

the green melon is at the heart of their concept
of beauty. Wittgenstein once warned potential

melon victims. He said don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Then, he said get your ass out of my face, bitch!

There were a lot of women at the A&P who reminded
Wittgenstein of his first parakeet.

After I smash this green melon over your head
I will buy one and make you eat it.



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Your Home Improvement Project

By William Doreski

Your house looks half-demolished.
Workmen stare at piles of lumber.
Windows blinded with plywood
suggest utter ruin within.
Chimney’s down. A palette of fresh
pink brick reclines on the lawn.
I wouldn’t have planned to visit

if I’d known your remodeling
would render your house so awkward.
Yet you prance across the lawn
like a stoned ballerina and hug
so hugely my eyes pop. Maybe
this visit will improve upon
the last, when at the yacht club

we toppled drunk into the harbor
and nearly drowned. The workmen,
snickering, pack their tools and depart
for greasy meals at the diner,
beer at the VFW, quarrels
with their wives. We enter
your torn-up house and I discover

doorways enlarged to accommodate
a king-sized bed. I flop on it
and drowse while you pour red wine,
an instant transfusion. The room
whirls and you turn out the light.
Thanks to the plywood windows
the dark is absolute. The bed

wallows and I struggle to hold on.
Wind sings in the chimney-hole.
I like your renovations. The cries
of some distant fun-loving couple
racket through the neighborhood
and we laugh because through plywood
they sound like dinosaurs mating.

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don’t remember

By Anthony Liccione

the time,
taking a bite
from the twist-warm
loaf of bread,
that you say
to have kneaded
with hot-oiled fingers
throbbing knots of dough
from the tight muscles
of my back.

nor the, I did-laying out
a fork and knife
crisscross across
the plate of loose peas
and pork,

don’t remember
the name,
shoestring or song;
stumbling into
your cleavage cut
like a milky half-moon;
the v-button down shirt
or the quarter
pink of nipple
that would slip out
in each turn or dip we did,
our movements
reflecting off
the chandelier of wine
glasses,
as we spun around
the dining room
linoleum.

this is all vague
as the
childhood coat
that shielded me
from the left side world
of my father’s fist
that sprung up
each time the liquor
went down.

don’t recall
the us or them,
nor we
at the bar or park
twelve-gauging
through an alley
to Sally’s Tavern,
and pleading in
my vomit,
the violin
in quartet
brandishing to
Lucifer’s sin
with admiration,

all this heresy
I say,
is plainly
a run-around.
Still, you tell me
after all these months
that its all true,

knocking on my door
for money;
for the child peering
up at me through
the kneecaps
of your legs.
his tender brown
eyes,
that can be seen
searching for a
father.

but I shut the door
like electricity
suddenly cut off:
the lights
the tv
the microwave
the computer,
sounds of life
sitting in the edge
of darkness

with an overdue
bill
that waits to be
paid,

but I don’t pay it.

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The art of pairing wine and mood

By Harry Calhoun

Rain clicks a morose Morse code
on the skylight, and I want to go
back to sleep but I need red wine

or brandy , and it seems too early, but
if it’s late enough for rain, then
why not brandy? I called her

and I know she’s busy
and that’s why I left a message,
but everything seems more melancholy

when it’s raining and what goes better
with melancholia than a fat spicy red wine

or a glowing warm snifter of brandy?

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dandelions

By Shannon Peil

some people
blush when their sheets
are exposed
keep them locked away
but i
write them all out
spread them
like dandelion seeds
get hard ons
when someone
picks them up

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trees sing

By David McLean

trees sing still their rancorous council
under an absent heaven, trailing gone gods
behind them like kittens carrying tails on asses
and also my burden on their fragile shoulders
to be a solitude and a wholeness.

they stand erect like sentinels under suns
full of death and the dead. they are present
through all their timeless panic torture
as knives in the hands of small children
who just ran with unintentional scissors

once, and now carry accidents inside heads
bowed to the burden of white light, and later
to gray nighttime. i have kittens instead
to carry these burdens such as the sullen
solemnity of never suffering. their mission

is to clutch at straws and miss them
because they are little. this missive
is written to nothing and meant for them,
for kittens and all the trees who plan to leave
me to dream, it is for everything that runs

with scissors and is still technically living,
for all the already dead children

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We Both Came Bare

By Charles Bane Jr.

We both came bare
to a crossing way; I think
empty arms collect
greater sprays that visitors
find, when entering a hall. They
do not see what’s gathered
and stood together in a vase
of crimson glass to dispel
the other’s shadow. It was
wise to wait until I found you
painted in reverse on grass
to bring you home. Look
what swells of light stream
into the parlor. They entered
our plain house with you.

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Approbations 324

By Felino A. Soriano

(after Sirone’s “When It’s Over”)

A blanket of dusk
cotton overcoat, hooded warmth,
rectangle sky mirage, oracle of sound.

As is, day provides
turquoise tones
on blonde sand hallucinatory play.

Into the blended emotion of end/burgeon
attitudes of arc
romanticizes compartments of 24 hours’
meaning of clichéd fundamentals.

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Lack Luster Times (or Sex Never Lacks Luster)

By Phillip Ledford

Today I wrote two poems.
Thought about masturbating
but even that has lost its luster
in times like these.

I ate 5 day old pizza from the fridge.
Accidentally broke my last beer on the floor
and stood in its cold aftermath.

Patricia called and wanted to come over.
I told her not to.
She’s a nymphomaniac.
And much like masturbating
nymphos too have lost their luster
in times like these.

Actually, on second thought, I think I’ll call Patricia back.

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Dispatches From A Proboscis Monkey #2 (Silly Humans)

By Discarded Kiwi

People look at my nose first
as if one body part makes me

so I look at you, human,
and call you a brain monkey

I may eat unripe fruit
but at least I don’t waste my time
watching TV and thinking about silly things
like philosophy and religion

Just remember, brain monkey
that we are essentially the same
except I am not burdened
with a mind that tricks me into thinking
I am a lonely person

I just sit here on Shawn’s back porch
and watch the squirrels dance
and the birds hop around

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