feel sick and dirty more dead than alive


andrew moore, ice breaker

Postcard
--by Beth Woodcome

This morning the three dogs shat
on the floor and that’s what I woke to.

Before I even woke my body took itself
in, took it in like an immediate mother would.

Not every mother, but let’s get back to you.
One dog is now sleeping at my feet.

I know how that feels, that shame.
This is my sixty-seventh postcard.

Each time, when I say
I wish you were here

I mean to say I don’t know if you’re real
or intend to hurt me by having a body I can’t get to.


A Poem for James Frey
--by Beth Woodcome

"And you altered things about yourself," Winfrey said.

When I was born, it was known that I would have to lie in order to live.
Even swaddled, we're all little myths waiting to unfold.

My father ate my mother, my sister married my brother,
the gods weren't merciful. Behind that, in the curtains,
I concocted myself out of the scraps.

This is my memory; this is what it had to be in order to survive.
I think we alter according to necessity, and the truth is
what you're willing to die with.

"Did you cling to that image because that's how you wanted
to see yourself?" she asked.

Ouch. I see myself as you see me because I'm young.
There are at least ten wars right behind your back,
but all you can do is look at me.

If I perjured myself, it's not that I truly knew I had. I swear it.
The definitions are confusing. All I know is that I held myself up
against the light, and a real image came through.


16-bit Intel 8088 chip
-- by Charles Bukowski

with an Apple Macintosh
you can't run Radio Shack programs
in its disc drive.
nor can a Commodore 64
drive read a file
you have created on an
IBM Personal Computer.
both Kaypro and Osborne computers use
the CP/M operating system
but can't read each other's
handwriting
for they format (write
on) discs in different
ways.
the Tandy 2000 runs MS-DOS but
can't use most programs produced for
the IBM Personal Computer
unless certain
bits and bytes are
altered
but the wind still blows over
Savannah
and in the Spring
the turkey buzzard struts and
flounces before his
hens.