INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

Alan Britt
Shutta Crum
Jumoke Verissimo
Las Slomovits
Richard Kurtz
Lyn Lifshin
Duane Locke
Serena Wilcox
Jerry Blanton
Dami Ajayi
Odimegwu Onwumere
Joanie Freeman
Dike Okoro
Amit Parmessur
Paul B. Roth
Divya Rajan
Kim Keith
Fred Wolven
C. Derick Vann
Al Ortolani
Steve Barfield
Jim Davis
Chris Lord
Jennifer Burd
Will Swanson
Isabel Kestner

Lisa Schmidt
Running Cub
Tolu Ogunlesi

 

THE CALL ROOM


This room, of such a spartan preserve
To have made Hippocrates proud,
Shifted across centuries and instances,
And has hardly changed.

Caged therein are the past
And passing demons
Of many nights doused in doubts and semen,
Of Zealots who picked the curse
Deluded as a fine heritage.

Emotions
Of wailing wives and waiting families
Ricochet on hard surfaces like laser
Beams, squash balls, inert gages.

You may be 47 or 74
If you leave to see tomorrow,
But live,
Live now--for there is
Nothing noble about playing God.



ROMASINDER BLUES
(for Asogbon Kehinde)


The Man with the bald pate
Is Ward Seven.  We, staffs,
Are mere gate-keepers.

Ro-ma-sin-der
Isn't that Upper Room glossolalia?
But Keke says it's a synonym
For God, the answer to all things.

The beauty of intactness
As made science God's aficionado
But bantering angels commit glitches
That seep right out of God's showroom.

Like this set of identical twins
Who need Haloperidol--halos
For pretty dolls.

Out of context is a
New differential for intactness.

But who will buy reality's wool
When silken fantasies cast silver
Spangles on man's consciousness.

Let my mind also play tricks
On me, make my wishes flagellate
Like magic wands at magicians'
Conference.  Anything but Haloperidol
For this schizophrenic dentist.

Ro-ma-sin-der
Isn't that Upper room glossolalia
But Keke says it's a synonym
For God, the answer to all things.





Dami Ajayi, Ibafo, Ogun State, Nigeria