BareBack Magazine
Poetry March 2012
Pornocupia
by Howie Good
It’s fashionable
to die young
and be pessimistic.
I myself prefer
a Vicodin
to the present,
until later,
when we’re anointing
the bed,
your breasts
floating above me
like the pink
and green
sunsets
found only
in Ireland.
BareBack Magazine
Poetry
BareBack Magazine
Poetry
BareBack Magazine
Poetry
Duffle bag in a house of tin,
Poetry, pad and a fine ink pen,
Need something to keep them dry in.
It’s not the first part or the end,
The best of life is lived within,
The boundaries of the two of them.
To drop my ink pen down the drain
Would be a sore and pitiful shame,
It would really go against my grain.
A journal of what is rare I keep
Of rhyme and poetry, so sweet,
In them I write dreams, discreet.
My life has had a lot of sorrow,
But better than no life tomorrow,
To live I sometimes beg, steal, or borrow.
Life is all about our choices,
Don’t blame lies on inner voices,
Own up to all your loudest noises.
A prophet I dare say, I’m not,
But that one just now hit the spot,
Do we control more than we thought?
Lift up your head and look inside,
And sing a child-like lullaby,
Hush, little baby, don’t you cry.
Write My Wrongs
by Jacqueline Marie Applewhite
Marie: wedding dream
Kevin Thornburgh
I looked down. Red chopsticks. Marie
Had told me of red chopsticks used for
A bride’s wedding. She was not teasing
Me, she was dreaming of her day.
Marie was in her twenties, as was I,
A little older than she had envisioned
Being at marriage time. She wanted
No arranged marriage - she wanted
To love her husband, she said, “Like
The sandpipers that usually travel
In prayers”, meaning “pairs”.
She would not have the bound
feet of old, but she still
wanted to ride in a sedan chair
through the countryside with
the musicians playing their
horns like geese flying
through the woodlands of
Hong Kong. But she knew
She might be one to live
The solitary life, and I was
Sad because I had hoped
She would marry me and
we would travel this once
Gold Mountain, drinking
The wine and eating the
Food only the opera singers
Would have had in China.
What Makes A Grown Man Cry
by Kim Wilson
Women and men whom are accomplished, as you weather the storm trying to build a nest,
but being mediocre and plain, to explore your creative ideas would be insane.
A role model is a strong black achiever, but in you your family is not a believer,
so the act is to disappear, and instill in them a real fear.
Martin Luther King spoke, “I have a dream” out loud, a dream that drew an enormous crowd,
that day still rest in my mind, though the facts are sometimes hard to find.
All Afro-Americans are great and notable, a grown man cries when his life is unsuitable,
caught in a world not innocent, sometimes omitting what’s flagrant.
Aiding in providing for the essential cause of the family, you think the world owes you something,
you’re taking a gamble see; for what once stood for respect of the next man, now stands for less for the blessed at hand.
What makes a grown man cry,
is what makes a grown man lie,
soon makes a grown man die,
some resort to getting high,
on whom can they rely.
laying, Portraying.
Gift
by Brian Byne
We dance naked,
twirling like drunken ballerinas.
She talks too much tonight,
So do I.
She leaves her shit in the toilet the next morning,
It smells like mine, only worse.
My Dinner
By Nemoi Enpoj
Forget formula,
Abolish math,
Watery Soup. Soft white radish. Stale scentless onions. Slimy mushrooms.
Recipe.
Like this, like this, like this.
Crumbling charcoal.
Dead penis.
Numb vagina.
Too much to drink.
This is my dinner
This is our lives.
