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She came in the rain offering a ride, hair wet  the day I left Vietnam. “Get in, I’ve been expecting you.” We rode on, smoked cigarettes. Someone in back was sleeping. She stopped in the long green grass, clasped my wrist and crowned my lips— “The thirteenth part has run.”

The girls left for Columbia, Tired looks on their faces. I turned out the lights, Put my head on the pillow. I heard breathing. The dazzler from the Maple Leaf Was hot on me In her thin-knit top. Her mouth was moving, “Stay in my music baby, “Stay in the music.” I could hardly breathe. I shifted with a rush of adrenalin— She slid off. All was still. No spirits to commune. No spirits.

I threw a tantrum at Starbucks today The barista put foam on my latte. I clearly ordered it without Written right on the cup. I told her she was stupid. “Fire her,” I told the manager. By the end of my tantrum She was sobbing in the backroom. The manager apologized and Personally made me a new drink To calm me down. I took it and accepted his apology. I must go back and beg her forgiveness, I haven’t had a shower in three days.

I cracked her door on a wintry day— Waist-high rotting piles Spread beyond all hope. We drove away with a crooked mouth Her eyes on me like a galliard tree Descanting Ulysses, Joyce and more. Read me sad poems, she softly said, Crystals, rings and virgin parchments I have seen all these. Late, I brought her home and She held me close with an opera she knew— Pratzel’s closes at two! She fell down dead Day after Christmas. I ate a bagel this morning.

Woman who lived, died a recluse will be mourned. By Bill McClellan ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH Sunday, Jan. 07 2007 "She is wearing rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters, and the sun pours down like honey on our lady of the harbor." — Leonard Cohen from "Suzanne" Most of Betty Wynn's bed was covered with trash, but there was a little corner in which she could lie down. That was all she needed. She was not concerned about the things that concern most people. On the day after Christmas, her brother, Sam Lachterman, got up first. He is 85 years old, six years younger than his sister. He has long white hair, an unkempt white beard. He has a doctorate in mathematics, and he never married. He has lived with his sister most of his life. He was in the kitchen when he heard her call out from the room that had once been a dining room. She was on the floor, which was, as always, hidden under mounds of trash. He almost stepped on her. Then she rolled over on her s

In a warm-lit St. Louis night You drew me into a flame. Monday at BB's Your loose-knit top Stares me in the face, White-velvet In a black-silk cage. I call for Monk and a tango. Catherine D. Snow Comes up fast— You're hot, girlie! On an afternoon of morning, The dark is rising. They’re here. Do you feel it? Here is your card, The Second Child. He is the reason. You’re tired. It won’t be long.

The first stanza is really nice and a very solid image. In the second stanza, the images move quickly and become more personal. On the third stanza, the details about Arlene seem to center the poem and where it the poet is at his most confident. Some symbolism is presented to the reader, and life and death seem to be the likely code to decipher. It seems to parallel with the ‘The second Child/He's the reason’. Whatever the case, I feel a balance is trying to be played, between a personal observation and deeper philosophical insight. To thread these concepts together can be difficult I give credit to the poet for trying his hand at such a difficult endeavor.  —Kent Walker, my writing coach a. R ichard upon hearing of her death, suggested that Arlene was ‘a flame of exuberance’. A rlene’s voice struck some listeners as ‘unattractive’. I don’t know if you’d call it ‘pushy.’  So full of life, s he would burst out of her body,  her skin seemingly unable to contain her. A force of na

Wassup your butt, Beta? Thing from Miletus fits guys in one place. Borrow your thing? Baby got no bread. Baby Doll got no bread? Kick it to the Rock. Who's playing? Santayana & the Four Realms. Put on your pads, color your lips, agitate the gravel. Yer bazooms flatter the bums.

Lysistrata ("Army Disbander") is a Greek comedy by Aristophanes, first performed in Athens in 411 BC. Spunky Lysistrata is on a mission to end the war between Athens and Sparta with a sex strike by the women.   Beta—2 nd letter in the Greek alphabet. A young woman. Her girls ’ night out could play a part in a modern rendition of the play. She'll be soon back in the saddle enjoying it more, having made the point. Person Two—a young woman Thing—a dildo Up your butt—an expression or metaphor. Miletus—a Greek trading post on the western coast of what is now Turkey, known for dildos. Rock—the Acropolis in Athens,  a religious and civic center . W omen were generally not allowed there , but  they had  temporary access to specific parts of the  Acropolis  during certain festivals or religious ceremonies . Bazooms—they’ll crash the Rock by showing their tits. There is some precedence.  Phryne was an ancient Greek courtesan active in Athens, best  known for her impi

Barry’s roadster pressing vapors and clouds, foggier and doggier. Silver stanchions lamp-lit the stage. Coronas, dreamy signs billboards— The Arch bathed in blue light. Hearing your voice out of the fog, I wish I tasted your eggnog laced with whiskey, long sips…

Amidst old smoke and stale perfume of a broken night, a seraphic voice posed a question in the dark— to tremble to hear a moan to sink into unguent warmth in a sacred retreat. In the green room, yellow gloves lay on a coffee table. She lit a cigarette and gazed at the fine rain I took her scent and felt her breath her nostrils flared an arabesque veil of smoke drifted into cloudy gray-green eyes. “Have we spoken?” A hot blush came to my cheek. “Your blood is warm.” “I read Bishop Sheen.” She forced a laugh and blew a jet  from under dark lashes. “I adore Coblenz. Kiss me. ”   She tasted of tobacco and stale mint. I slid fingers to her nipples her bosom swelled a tremor crossed her face. “Would you like a trip to Greece?” That’s where I want to go: White-velvet breasts C-section painted nails, on a cold-hard floor. I woke to a curving figure  in a wide-brimmed hat staring in a mirror, black-spike heels, cigarette, eye-liner, headlights in the drive shouts at the front door.

Pythia arose from The Education of a Young Gentleman , a nonfiction short story which tells of the late-night encounter between a 19-year-old boy and a 29-year-old married woman in a highly charged sexual atmosphere. She is fixed and unattainable at the conclusion of the poem, like the characters on Keats Grecian urn. I used Pythia to say something I wanted to say about the strange magic of the woman and the encounter.  My style tends to be sardonic. My words are on the definite side, they don't caress each other. My first sense of literature was from the 19 th century writers. My introduction into culture and politics was high school Latin.  Pythia owes much to Catullus and Lesbia,  Thackeray and Vanity Fair, Eliot and Prufrock.  Why poetry? A poem is an attempt to take the human, the historical, and the finite to the realm of the universal and infinite, which, on the face of it, is impossible using the materials of this world. Yet I try to distill feeling, emotion, what it

WHY I LIKE IT: Poetry editor Hezekiah writes… Pythia is a short, epic, poetic quest for two, not to be missed. Charles Jacobson is promethean in this intimate, imagistic, incidental encounter-conquest. Who’s the muse who writes his stuff?—I goda get in touch. “…to sink into unguent warmth” “ I took her scent and felt her breath.” And maybe the best line, “An arabesque veil of smoke drifted into cloudy gray-green eyes.” I was riveted by his words and the amplitude of the scene as it transcends to the divine and lapses back to the banal.(Spacing and font size are poet’s own) HS Senior editor Charles writes: What you are about to read is consummate poetry by a consummate literary artist. Just as mesmerizing as ‘Pythia’ are the author’s extensive notes and footnotes. Once settled on the page,, he is both sculptor and archeologist. Exquisite word choice and rarefied technique put this poem in a class by itself. Five stars.   Pythia owe

When it finally happens and it's over, As you stand there and think— Something so mutilated can't be human So it was dead enough without this But even here there is beauty A small flowered patch of ground, a bird's call And the grace of a butterfly Frustration and disappointment Become a laughable thing But always the conflicting emotions to smile Or say the hell with it and cry —SP4 Bob Jackson. The Hell with It. (1970)   In early December, we left Firebase Jamie with orders for a combat assault. Artillery subjected the LZ (landing zone) with high explosives to flatten the jungle. CS (tear gas) was not used. A Huey gets you to ground where there are no roads or rails. The next morning, five Hueys landed thirty feet apart on Jamie's dirt strip and began inserting us into the LZ, not too awfully far away.   Landings are high speed—choppers touchdown barely a few seconds before lifting off. We scrambled out and made a bee line for the wood line, forming into platoons