Cesar Chavez Tribute
THIRD SHIFT IN A FURNITURE FACTORY
Here in the factory shadows,
where the smoke seems to burn through the bricks.
My scuffed-up tennis shoes stand on the cement floor
like two bowling pins.
The forklifts do not know which direction to take,
but they are patient.
Scoring pallets and packages of furniture that might as well
be carried on the backs of the
blue collar workers who made them.
L.B. Sedlacek
Lenoir, NC
Deep Down In The Hell Of It
Murphy is at it again.
Still thinks he can be
a maintenance drinker
like me-
When Murphy is at it,
he spends most of his time
on the telephone,
and most of that time
he's calling me.
It's maddening!
Day one isn't bad.
He's all grateful
and humble
and loaded with love
for all humankind,
Day two finds him full
with nostalgia -
sad for "Ole’ Gabe,"
sad for "Wild Bill,"
sad for ALL dead heroes
of holy underground
On the third day he's dead
in blackout.
The phone calls multiply.
Sad turns mad -
mad at his mother and father,
mad at his brother and sister,
mad at his ex-wife and lovers,
mad at his kids
his cats,
his dog.
mad with mad murderous
suicidal blues,
mad until all he can do
is crawl inside himself
and look around.
That's when the crying begins.
That's when I lose him -
I refuse
to answer the phone.
He doesn't go away right away.
By day four he's leaving
nasty messages on my voice mail.
In one - a regular in his
repertoire –
he screams!
Take a good look in the mirror
motherfucker!
Can you stand it?
By day five my silence
has pretty much drained him.
I imagine him in his cheap room –
weeping/begging for his god
to save him.
Just when I think he's had enough,
and the ambulance is on the way,
I ring him up and scream!
Take a good look in the mirror
motherfucker!
Can you stand it?
Dave Church
Providence, RI
CELINE ONCE SAID THAT:
"soiling one's pants
is the beginning of genius."
and i've just read
where bukowski said:
"immortality is knowing
you are FINALLY beaten."
well, i've felt defeated
since i was just a child
since my earliest memories
have always known i was hopeless
and having met with no plausible
argument in thirtytwo years
i accepted defeat
before i even began
and just the other day
lying, dying on my old couch
just out of the hospital for chemo
i suddenly and inexplicably
shat the new, black boxers
my love bought me for christmas
so, look out! all ye big boys and girls
of the small presses!
hang onto ye literary thrones
(no pun intended)
i've been working out
with the 12,32 and 40 oz. weights
and pumpin' some "iron in the soul" too
for quite some time now
and apparently i'm really
starting to come right along!
Ron Lucas
Fort Wayne, IN
BARNEY'S RIB
He kept it
in a cupboard
next to heirlooms
and the broken pieces of dusty cups.
It dozed there in the murky
confines
of a quart Kerr jar, small and insignificant,
until he would awaken it, call it
by name,
tell the most reserved stranger
the tiniest details
of its eighty year existence.
and suddenly
i t would grow,
be covered with raw meat
moving through birth, journeys, marriage
and mishaps
until,
due to the slip
of a surgeon's knife,
it ended up
here
in a stark loom
two inches from one's eyeball. This tidy quiet bone
seemed shy compared
to its keeper, who
for all intents and purposes
embodied
a more accurate
depiction of Adam, a man who imbibed
in the garden's juice
then had his rib
removed
so that at his end
there would remain a bit of him not buried,
and a tale to tell
afterwards
when the poem
came.
Mary Rudbeck stanko
London, Canada
THE FLOOD
the rains came all over us
and brought with them the floods
and a wall of water rushed through the town
as the people gathered on high ground
oohing and ahhing and
I was one of them
and I thought: if only
one of these people would jump
then something truly interesting
would have happened --
but nobody jumped
and the waters went down
and later that night
so did I
and she oohed and ahhed
and when she came
all over me
I thought of those floods
and the crowds and
how nobody had jumped
and I thought, well, maybe I should
go back there and jump
but then she began moving towards
my center, licking
her wet lips and I
decided my jumping could wait
one more night.
Glenn W. Cooper
Tamworth, Australia
THERE ARE SO MANY BOOKS
There are so many books I have not read,
narratives in glasses and bouquets, waiting
on the shelves of so many libraries I have not visited,
vanilla pages not flipped in the hours of sorrow
as flowers blossom on my hardwood floors,
and so many cabarets and bistros unknown too,
piazzas, monuments and ice cream parlors,
there are so many ice cream flavors I have not tasted,
sweet leavings unfamiliar to my lips,
so many lips I have not kissed,
lips from the past that had wrong timing,
present lips of just friends and friends for now,
there are so many people that I have not met
and will never meet
in this little life,
absurd
and full of yearning,
roses
Marina Rubin
NY, NY
Googie's
At the north-west corner
of Pershing Square
there once stood a diner.
That was where we arrived,
fresh from the mid-west.
Our Ellis Island.
My parents could only cover
a few hundred miles a day.
Because we were hungry,
or wanted to swim--
or had to pee.
It seemed an eternity of highway:
parched plains,
tin badge sheriffs,
and the Mojave desert.
So it was a relief
to have finally arrived.
We pulled in late that night,
off the Harbor Freeway.
There was the distant roar of traffic,
that I imagined to be the ocean.
And the smell of
jasmine and dust in the air.
And downtown wasn't much
back then. My brother said softly,
"...It's not very nice here, is it?
Not like Indiana."
My mother peered out into the darkness,
gathering her coat about her.
I watched her face reflected
in the window glass.
And once again, we needed a snack.
Googies glowed like an oasis in the night.
"I'm not taking the children in there,"
my mother said. "It's full of bums!"
My father, tired from the road, growled back--
"If they get hungry enough,
they'll get used to it!"
And you know what?
He was right.
Slazlo
...by the beautiful sea
one stands,
as one should,
humbled before the ever changing,
yet ever constant,
ocean,
cleansed to the soul by its sight,
its sound,
its smell;
renewed,
as if by baptism,
for all that comes next.
Brian C. Felder
Milford, DE
GATHERING IN THE NORTH WIND
He towers over the mourners
clustered near flowers
and fake grass. Bends
his head as if listening
to others speak. Eyes focused
on his armful of child in red,
it is her tiny voice
his ear cups to catch.
One large hand tugs the red hood
over her tousled hair,
envelopes her whole head
in tender palm.
Under his jacket a toy
black cat dangles, right arm
jammed deep in his pocket.
He, of all present,
is most aware of the cycle,
the yielding up of one generation,
fragile bloom of the next.
Patricia Wellingham-Jones
Tehama, CA
PWJ Publishing
Published in Manzanita Quarterly Spring 2001
HOW I WANT TO BE REMEMBERED
the old geezers have gone mad
George Foreman, Sugar Ray Leonard
meeting at Burger King
looking for the ghost of Gabby Hayes
the old radicals have died off become
politicians or retired to Palm Springs
there's no one left to get drunk with
no one to get down and dirty with
I don't want to be remembered
this way
forget the elegy
hold a party on top
of Mount Davidson
have twelve Saint Bernards
stand by with kegs of beer
tied around their necks
hire thirteen naked women
to shock family members
a whore to fuck
my best friend
at the foot of the cross
play an old Billie Holiday song
as they stir up the
dust
A. D. Winans
POB 31249
San Francisco, CA 94131
WAITING BY THE MIRROR
I stand looking at the mirror
observing the shadow
cast by your reflection.
I wait alone
the sun has stopped shining
yet there is still shadow.
I do not understand the loneliness
that beckons from distant
street corners.
A woman with cigarette
dangling from rubied lips
asks me if I want to dance.
I stumble across her feet.
I don’t smoke I say.
She looks at me disdainfully.
I wonder what treachery
has been crossed as
I stand by the mirror waiting
hoping to see your
reflection in my eyes.
Blank stares
and personas beware
are what I discover.
The phone does not ring
despite hopes of pregnant pauses
or relevant moments together
sharing coffeehouse éclairs
something sweet that
does not wither the soul.
I wait feverishly by the mirror
hoping against hope you
will rescue my demise
from winsome strangers
wooing my heart.
I await miracles
seriously considering
converting to any religion.
My neck so weighed down
by crucifixes and stars and
trinkets from unnamed gods
I can no longer lift my head.
I kneel by the mirror
waiting slowly waiting.
Larry Jaffe
Los Feliz, CA
Larry Jaffe
IN A CEMETERY OFF WOLFSKIN ROAD
Blue notes whipped off a catgut slide
break the rain gray road with moans and shouts
of a South that believes in death and crossroads,
and the speaker crackles, Robert Johnson, Blind Lemon,
Jimi Hendrix, Dylan, Patti Smith, Nick Cave...
And the country roads deliver, spirits wash,
eight cylinders rumble, 195/75 r14 tires swish and hold,
and the pear green pastures sway down in water,
Appaloosa and Angus march windward to the East,
and the blue notes roar, the country blues howl:
Through red wine and heroin, seduction and prayer,
terror driven up from the swamps and delta
into these Georgia shacks, into these temples,
into a day where the song is a cracked lip,
dehydrating in the rain, begging, demanding...
And the car rushes by the scenes:
Nouveau redneck red brick mansions, an El Camino,
Dodge Ram, minivans, trailers, busted axles and rims,
barns from the first war tilting, still standing,
burned-out barns, fire-charred houses, open wells,
harness on a water oak, to the right a graveyard,
a church, Primitive Baptists or Fundamental,
simple worship and deliverance, itąs all the same.
A gospel of sin runs down and sings salvation,
beer bathed christenings lurk in the stream,
laughter rises on the water, and the rebirths are carved
in heavy fruited chinaberry by the ministerąs study.
Pecan tree shells itself out front here,
here by the marble and granite markers,
by the three white crosses, tall, white crosses,
and I stop and sit awhile, watch the rain and winds rush.
A stand of blackberry shimmers and shakes,
and road whispers "follow me,"
and I donąt know where to go but go wait,
go here and wait...
and wait..
Watching the crossroads, watching the dead stay dead.
Between the rain and the heat mists rise on the meadows.
She seems there: Wide hips large breasts long smile,
dark voice cool, cool across a burgundy smile,
seeing me seeing, waiting, singing dies irae,
her dark voice powered by depression and thrill,
and the devil doesnąt come to meet me, history does.
Mirror fleshed and blue veined, spirit fades in,
and fades, fade to wind,
fade to shouts in a city street,
fade to quiet on the road/hillsides,
she stands alone in the cemetery in the rain,
lingering in the dusk like a blanket upon the days,
becoming moon, becoming night, the next blue dream,
and a ghost dance churns behind a thin heartbeat,
"gotta go now, donąt speak."
And she weaves into the spray of a passing slant 6.
And the blue notes pound off a rain gray road...
H. Lamar Thomas
Athens, GA
A Truck of One's Own
Broadway on a Sunday night
The testosterone flows thick and shiny
"Eh Bebe, you wanna feel
my chrome-plated dick shift?
I could ride this Betty, Sheilah, Deborah
all the way to Fresno."
Gasoline fumes are an aphrodisiac
Armoralled, turtle-waxed, shammy-dried, spit-shined
"Eh Bebe, you wanna ride?"
The Yolo causeway on a Wednesday afternoon
A semi-truck driver looks down into my cab
and honks upon seeing my short-skirted legs
He chases me at 75 miles an hour
for 5 miles, waving out the window,
until I lose him on an incline
Two o'clock on Friday morning
Fifty men in suits sit at NASA
glued to monitors
"There she goes!"
The room roars as a small mechanical vehicle
named Sojourner Truth inches her way
over a tiny pebble on the surface of Mars
Daybreak on Saturday
He drives my truck up the dusty mountain road
Men like to drive my truck
They like to haul shit around
They like sticking things in
and pulling things out,
checking fluid and viscosity levels,
revving and swerving and accelerating
and bouncing around
But in the end,
it's always me who drives away alone
in good old Betty,
one hand on the steering wheel,
the other hand out the window
in that universal goodbye gesture
that men understand and love so well
R. L. Morrison
Sacramento, CA
SPAM
In the Season of Winter
You had rushed down the frozen stairs of yester-years while I tried to hold you back in vain, taking stock of my mineral water bottles and deciding to go down to the northern springs for fresh tear wells of sorrows. You had gone round the block to the store for provisions, condiments and pickles, fish and pizza, insanity and defeats. I just cannot take it anymore, said I, while you sedately polished your glasses against my designer stubble and blue Indian skies. In this cold and hapless season of winter you happened to be never mine.
Prasenjit Maiti
Calcutta, India
Prasenjit Maiti (b 1971) is Senior Lecturer in Political Science at Burdwan University, West Bengal, India. His print publication credits include Nightingale, Pulsar, Monkey Kettle, Green Queen, Poetry Depth Quarterly, Skald, Blue Collar Review, The Journal, Phoenix, Harlequin, Poetry Church and Paper Wasp. Dr Maiti stays at Calcutta and may be contacted at pmaiti@vsnl.com
ABOUT THE GUY WHO MAKES THIS ALL HAPPEN
Editor and poet,RD Armstrong writes poetry and fiction when he can find the time. Mostly, he's either working on his many Lummox projects (the Lummox Journal, a monthly magazine; the Little Red Book series which is published by the Lummox Press; the LSW Newsletter, a specialized "poets market" type of newsletter) or he's repairing / painting somebody's home. His most recent books are The San Pedro Poems and Paper Heart #4.
Special thanks to the Lummox Patrons: Georgia Cox, Pete Sims, Sooz Glazebrook, Greg Shield & Colleen Cunningham, Anonymous, Bonnie Bechtol, John Forsha, Back In The Saddle, Larry Jaffe and Matt Harrison. You can become a patron too. Contact RD at the email address below.
For more information please check the links listed below.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
To submit to DUFUS read on. Themes: there are no themes. I'm looking for poetry that is well-written. Deadlines: There are no deadlines. Isn't that convenient? Just email three poems, of 40 lines or less to lumoxraindog@earthlink.net and please no attachments. Also include a brief bio.
The Little Red Book poetry series is published by Lummox Press in the handy, pocket-sized format (48 - 56 pages) for reading on the go! Just $6 ppd (USA) or $8 ppd (Foreign) from LUMMOX (PO Box 5301, San Pedro, CA 90733-5301, USA). Also available, an expanding library of Poets on CDs - by a CD and get their LRB for FREE! CDs are $10 USD + $1.50 postage (US & Canada) or $10 USD + $2.50 postage (world). So far: Leonard J. Cirino reading Poems of the Royal Courtesan Li Xi; RD Armstrong reading from The San Pedro Poems; and pending: Alan Catlin reading from Death and Transfiguration Cocktail and Todd Moore.
 Links To Some Of The Other Poets That I've Published Over The Past Few Years
 A complete guide to Raindog / Lummox on the web!
John Thomas
Gerry Locklin
the Little Red Book series
The San Pedro Poems
links to other poets and more
Scott Wannberg
Comments appreciated
This site updated June 11, 2002
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