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Part 4 Contributors

 

Tony Barnstone
Willis Barnstone
Ellen Bass
Christopher Buckley
Neeli Cherkovski
Boris Dralyuk
Alicia Elkort
Mary Fitzpatrick
Michael C. Ford
Kate Gale
Frank X. Gaspar
Dana Gioia
Shotsie Gorman
S.A. Griffin
Donna Hilbert
Brenda Hillman
Glenna Luschei
Phoebe MacAdams
devorah major
Clive Matson
K. Silem Mohammad
Rusty Morrison
Harry Northup
Holly Prado Northup - In Memoriam
Cathie Sandstrom
Shelley Scott - In Memoriam
Daniel Shapiro
Mike Sonksen
Pam Ward
Sholeh Wolpe
Gary Young
Mariano Zaro


Part 1 Contributors

Rae Armantrout
Bart Edelman
David Garyan
Suzanne Lummis
Glenna Luschei
Bill Mohr
D. A. Powell
Amy Uyematsu
Paul Vangelisti
Charles Harper Webb
Bruce Willard
Gail Wronsky

Part 2 Contributors

Elena Karina Byrne
liz gonzález
Grant Hier
Lois P. Jones
Ron Koertge
Glenna Luschei
Rooja Mohassessy
Susan Rogers
Patty Seyburn
Maw Shein Win
Kim Shuck
Lynne Thompson
Carine Topal
Cecilia Woloch

Part 3 Contributors

Michelle Bitting
Laurel Ann Bogen
Laure-Anne Bosselaar
Lucille Lang Day
Corrinne Clegg Hales
Marsha De La O
Charles Jensen
Eloise Klein Healy
Glenna Luschei
Clint Margrave
Henry Morro
Alexis Rhone Fancher
Phil Taggart
David L. Ulin
Jonathan Yungkans
Lorene Zarou-Zouzounis

Part 5 Contributors

Millicent Borges Accardi
Kim Addonizio
Marjorie R. Becker
Jacqueline Berger
John Brandi
James Cagney
Carol Moldaw
Kosrof Chantikian
Brendan Constantine
James Cushing
Kim Dower
David Garyan
Valentina Gnup
Troy Jollimore
Judy Juanita
Paul Lieber
Rick Lupert
Glenna Luschei
Sarah Maclay
Jim Natal
Judy Pacht
Connie Post
Jeremy Radin
Luis J. Rodriguez
Gary Soto
Cole Swensen
Arthur Sze
Charles Upton
Scott Wannberg (In Memoriam)


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Click to enlarge picture K. Silem Mohammad
K. Silem Mohammad
Californian Poets Part 4: Four Poems
by
K. Silem Mohammad


 

 



Degenerator

the mathematician is here from America
to study pre-linguistic lasso vowels
he starts droning on in the Cantos
about new techniques to help landowners

here on the fringes everything appears
to have been reduced to
primordial auburn and
outdated Czech dollhouses
full of frozen bread dough

on the internet many people
did their research and used all
their intelligence on a plastic bag
lazy boys who lounge around all the time
and study the geometry of hands

no one is sleeping in this world
of all-male Napa office buildings
with anonymous research wineries

Simon Cowell continues to criticize bebop
Intel lights up the sky

for their generous support
I sincerely thank the futuristic robots
using terrifying technopowers
to subdue and claim our planet

I’ve been looking into buying a drone
for a project I have

or I would drift away to California
on a patch of featureless shadows



Roanoke

thank you for having me I’m on bedrock
it’s getting harder and harder to be lifted
even though it was upside down
when it happened to me

my friends and I were messing around
on the moon without my body
in a crater for no reason I think
for the first time in space history

I have a lot that when I put it in it
will not negate being in this alert state
the only way to fix it is to load up the save

red blocks off the ocean
within the permanent shadows
whether even in spots of light

the Statue of Liberty blows up
to clear a path for ghosts
in the soil patch in the grove
outside of South Knot City wherever I go
among the scenarios a loss of signal

once my commander didn’t remember anything
so he closed his eyes
and thought of power
and then he remembered something

the earth appears in front of you
a silver statue

I only see the top part of a man
or cannot see him at all



Satanic Tribes

do illiterate people get what is justice?
there’s no real market for tricking people
into thinking they are in the real world
because it is filmed in the 1950s anymore
how local real estate client retention
walks off what LA said
is interesting to new wave music

to distinguish tree punks from lake punks
in his cult this puzzle
is so true lately

wistful ballad for daily use
I want to magically disappear

obeying diviner nature
nature will in turn obey us
witches aren’t capable
for years now
but then I was like
what is the right kind of magic?
I didn’t know
but I had to find out



Caligula

today I will analyze an article on how
to prevent others from turning on

I tried to find a casebook example
but I couldn’t find the game
instead I’m into this beautiful guitar

sometimes dancing doesn’t last
after dancing begins so if ever
you forget how to defeat syrup
in a warm condition
you’re in their pockets as I’ve said

this isn’t a new problem but
it did me no favors
one thing parents cannot afford
is native support for dynamic
gender attack helicopter syntax templating

somehow I became president
of our ministerial alliance
did you have any apprehensions
yeah man, I did

I prefer indoor activities
alone time in the building
wandering the countryside
pretending to be statesmen
supported by an ocean

everyone must suffer
nothing’s more important than our volcano
what have we done to bread
when the bombs were down

I would say this is a good age
to basically smash away