2 Poems
- By Taylor Graham

3 Poems
- By Tim Wells

ROAD RAGE

is our tailwind, driving
us back home, all the world
headed down the chute of
interstate on our screaming
wheels at the end of a long
hot weekend, all of us drawn
south by invisible giant
rubber bands to the metro-
polis that rocks us in our
daily week. There are too
many of us for the road,
and always the slowest up
ahead, the youngest in the
fast cars pressing from
behind in the slow lane im-
patient to catch up, horn-
ing in to get there quicker.
Brake-lights, panic of the
blind-curve pass

& now we all stop dead
on our tires waiting
in the windshield glare
while medics and police
perform their uniformed
ballet, a fire-truck w/
pirouette of flashing
red and hoses wash some
body's trip away.





EDGE

He let go right here on the last
big rise, after the road-pitch grinds
its gears out of canyon, then
breaks on a view of ridges going on
forever, beautiful lavender and hazy
away beyond pavement, so many shocked
tire-treads gummed to a panoramic curve.

In an old gray Honda with the anti-
everything bumper-stickers and bummed
fenders, with an 8-year-old beside him
and 2 younger in the backseat, trunk
full of a week's wage of groceries
that his wife won't be around
to make do with anymore,

right there he jammed the brakes
and ended up against guardrail.
Forehead on the steering
and hair in his eyes so he wouldn't
have to see. The kids scared
out of words. Whatever it was,
he couldn't say.





Taylor Graham

A Former Badman Reflects

So,

All them rich folks

In mausoleums and such.

Might look mighty fine

In Lon Chaney pictures

But don’t mean squat.

Those that’re remembered

Are flat

Beneath clapboard

And headstones.

People don’t even know

Where most of ‘em is burieds.

Rudabaugh, Cole Younger,

Ol’ Jesse

"MURDERED

APR 3 1882

BY A TRAITOR

AND COWARD

WHOSE NAME

IS NOT WORTHY

TO APPEAR HERE"

Tain’t even the memory

That’s remembered.

Nor the deeds.

Just the stories.

Higher and higher.,

Taller and taller.

‘Til Doc Holliday

Ain’t a lunger no more

And the Kid

Didn’t bleed to death

On no porch floor.

Cinnamon Girl

My Japanese friend

has learnt some bad English from me.

She says that this

is what she came here to learn.

Often,

when meaning "thanks" or "goodbye"

I say "cheers."

She uses this same expression as a toast.

Only she always mispronounces it as "tears."

I’ve never corrected her

as besides from being endearing

there is more truth there

than she knows.

OVERLORD

"…and yeah," she says,

"when I was younger I worked in McDonalds."

I stir my coffee and ask about her name badge.

"And 3 stars," she states.

I tell her Patton had 4.

Her eyes eagle to meet mine,

"He had more responsibilities.

But I could command hamburgers

on the Normandy landing beaches

…if I wanted to," she adds.

- Tim Wells