Seven Miles From Harper's Ferry
Adam Barricklow


My thoughts have been chasing me for 7 miles,
one week, and over eight thousand empty
thoughts, my beard, grown now just past
the itchy stage, and though the temperature
rests just below 20 my mind turns back to
lemon-aid stands and sprinklers,
seven miles from Harper’s Ferry, though my
back and the three blisters on my left foot
wish it were only seven feet, that ‘thing’, as you called it
that brought me here, to this trail, these woods, wishes
it were seven thousand miles, your waiting at Harper’s
Ferry, the heater on the car working full force,
wishing that myself, my footprints, and my blisters
simply hurry the hell up, that ‘thing’ tells me to keep
going, climb Kathadin, turn around and keep
walking till I hit Georgia, or simply go until my
footprints, and responsibility bring me back,
on the way home we will stop at Subway,
meatball subs, or perhaps something else from a
drive thru window, supersized with a coke
please, we will watch the land that I hiked for
a week pass by the passenger side window
as I enter back into a fast forward life, welcome
back to 9-5, breaks at 10:30 and 3:00, lunch at
noon.

Untitled
Buffy


Here’s some advice on where to live,
It doesn’t matter the address you give,
Split of Bi-level, two story or ranch,
All those things you can leave to chance,
But don’t ever live where the geese are
Concrete,
Or where the kids don’t trick or treat,
Live where there are Christmas lights
And they sit on the porch on hot summer
Nights,
Live where there are T-Ball tracks in the yard,
Where dogs have the lawn packed down hard,
Live where fireflies are caught,
Where ice cream from a truck is still bought
Live where people wish on the evenings first star,
But most important of all live where there’s a
Neighborhood bar.

Electric Jungle
Todd Ridella



The electric jungle
strip show
nocturnal whores
& sacrificial lambs

night breed
peering through wall of smoke
w/ bloodshot stare

hyenas
reflections
mutations of life
tripping
the runaway train

unknown destinations
strangers
odd faces
friends & fiends
fucking & sucking
their way on the razor’s edge

snails
slow methodical death

all are divine in their waiting

(Karma) Bitch
Joe Helbling

She used to stand there
Looking like she did
Tongue in cheek
Chewing on the tongue
Like Revelations described
And
She’d say things like:
You drink too much,
And
You’re crazy
And
You have no dreams
And even if you do you’ll never
Achieve them
And
Karma’s a bitch…



And I’d say nothing
But think to myself
She’s right about Karma.