we're gonna find the meaning
of feeling good
and we're gonna stay there as long as we think we should


Paul Fusco, RFK Funeral Train, 1968

A Vision for the People of America
-- by Kenneth Patchen

The poets with death on their tongues shall come to address you.

The fat nonsense will end.
You will drown in your rot.

The poets with death on their tongues shall come to address you.

The slimy hypocrisy will end.
You will go down in your filth.

O the poets with death on their tongues shall come to address you.


The Luxury of Sitting
-- by Chris Stroffolino

As if life is the box at the wharf
for those who need surgery to feel--become splendid
and grateful as the wave's happy sacrifice.
Ah, the power we have when the water recedes!
No more the voyeur borrowing moon
now that the jackhammers have peeled our clothes
and the rooster's caught redhanded
by the sun that seconds its smile
if you stoop to think about it
near the grass factory where invitations incubate.
On the other side, no one can see you.
The reason: they think it's their duty to be attentive
and cannot live the lie of laziness.
We are animals in search of whiffs or flames.
The precise ants and out of tune bulls.
Dualism sends urgent warnings, reminders.
A fool is a formletter but there's a still hill somewhere
and it takes two or time to find it.


Publication Date
-- by Franz Wright

One of the few pleasures of writing
is the thought of one’s book in the hands of a kind-hearted
intelligent person somewhere. I can’t remember what the
others are right now.
I just noticed that it is my own private

National I Hate Myself and Want to Die Day
(which means the next day I will love my life
and want to live forever). The forecast calls
for a cold night in Boston all morning

and all afternoon. They say
tomorrow will be just like today,
only different. I’m in the cemetery now
at the edge of town, how did I get here?

A sparrow limps past on its little bone crutch saying
I am Frederico Garcia Lorca
risen from the dead–
literature will lose, sunlight will win, don’t worry.


Rabbit of Lil
-- by Will Oldham

I drew you
from a pile of rabbits
your face framed in
rotting rabbits
like a saintly giant
buried to her neck
in the earth

you had freckles
and a wide face
light hair
and mottled hills
were crumbled in the sun
behind you

you looked
terribly innocent
so much
that i wanted
to eliminate you
from everyone’s memory

little little thing
made by the same
hands as me