INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Laszlo Slomovits
Alan Britt
Tolu Ogunlesi
Paul B. Roth
Gerald Clark
Dike Okoro
Jerry Blanton
Felino Soriano
Joanie Freeman
Steve Barfield
Shuta Crum
Running Cub
Odimegwn Onwumere
Duane Locke
Chris Lord
Fred Wolven
Nona Giorgadze
Bobby Steve Baker
Brandon S. Ray
satnrose
Serena Trome
Paul Handley
Kanev Peycho
George Moore
R. Jay Slais
Carol Smallwood
from up here the river is brown-
uniformed, a restless guard
dutifully separating the living
from the merely lively.
the living
is the green
of nature's turf. the lively
is everything else--
the toy cars raced by invisible hands,
the cages of steel & glass
where engines run
on blood, sweat & pride,
& the roads, clad in black;
aged referees running through
the impatient plans of the world.
diminished by desire, I succumb--
like every one of the restless rest--
to the riotous rhythms of these stands.
every now & then my gaze falls,
like a gloomy shadow,
on one of the many hands
of fate, each painstakingly adding to the stone score-
board beyond the river's edge,
the names of yet more living dead.
Tolu Ogunlesi, Lagos, Nigeria