January 2018 Vol. III No. I
Not your ordinary poetry magazine!
If good coffee (or just the concept of coffee), great books, sharp wit, and great authors excite you, we are for you!
New Poems by Anthony Uplandpoet Watkins
If I Had a Norton
I don’t want a motorcycle
anymore than I want a gun,
but if I wanted a motorcycle
I would want a Norton
A 1969 Norton Commando
Not a ‘67, by ‘69, when risk of fire was reduced, though, as with many British motors,
carburetors were forever in need of a tinkering, often as not, outright replacement.
Though I
would never ride it,
one set ought
to keep me.
And I would
keep it in a dusty shed
that smelled of gasoline
and straw
and motor oil
in Earle, Arkansas
and in the afternoon
the light
would filter through the slatted door.
Maybe I would sit in the dark
and smoke hand rolls
or Pall Mall Reds,
probably not.
I don’t want a horse
I have no interest in riding them
But I used to want a mule,
a white one, but now
I realize a black one would do.
I wonder if there is
a donkey big enough
to carry me?
I like black donkeys
I could keep a donkey in the country in Florida,
It’s only the motorcycle
I would need in the delta.
...from his just published collection Old Copper
Hard Okra
​
I’m leaving
mywordstogether
as your path
crawdad holes
mosquitoes
slow motored boats
dusty green smell
old ponds
hanging moss
at hard okra
and seed pod trees
you stand like
on a bronze star
where I stood
and smelled woods
smelled dewberries
still alive
no snakes, tomatoes, coffee
no Texas
little bronze marker
​
Cottonmouth Boy
Hershey kiss tattoos
up both arms,
eats cowboy bread,
hums a bar of
Red River Valley
before losing the tune,
Then says “red lights
are just lights
that used to be yellow.”
He has no bars
around his mouth
only around his brain.
Green-cot-night
-fan-pulls-mugginess
in the room
on cricketback
​​​​
​
It All Depends on a Grape Ne-Hi
Sitting in the cool dark
air of November,
I realize I love
old ladies, babies and dogs
of any age and sort.
I used to love old men,
but there don’t seem
to be many anymore,
ones that are don’t suit me,
just cusses,
not the sweet grandpas
to take little ones fishing
or to the store for
grape Ne-Hi.
I haven’t seen a Ne-Hi
in a long, long time
maybe they buried them all
with the old men
maybe I just became my own
old cuss and they gonna have
to bury me with a cup
of black coffee
as the Ne-His
have gone.
My doctor
don’t want me
drinking no sugary drink.
Though dead, I could
have whatever
I wanted, unless I want
Ne-Hi, which is,
of course,
what I want.