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Adrian Manning
CMP Recommends
Concrete Meat Sheet
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CONCRETE MEAT SHEET ISSUE 11
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LIFE
Life can be
Short affair,
Can be swiped
Without notice,
Leeched away
Over years,
Can be century
Or mere blink.
Don’t look
For futile logic,
The past is
Already lived,
Knowledge won’t
Inspire clarity,
Won’t wipe
Your feelings away,
Like chalk
From cluttered board,
The letters
Too numerous,
To be read.
Life is what
It becomes,
Gruesome and gleaming,
Bright and bewildering
In same instant,
As abject as
Fate can permit,
The worm fidgeting
In desired apple,
Crack before
Pained fall,
How a heart
Can refuse fact,
Until absence
Becomes direly obvious.
The final goodbye,
Cruelly informed by
Too many years,
The most
Acid reminder,
Uttered low
Between weeps.
ENZO MARRA (ENGLAND)
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Good Company
I can get by for
months
having lived a night
like this
when the
conversation goes down
as easy
as the whisky.
words and laughter
like pillows
and with ease.
illumination within
shadow.
a roll of the tongue,
a cast
of the wand
as I talk to
myself
in the dark room
madness
hacking
at the windows and
glass.
JAMES NOLAN (IRELAND)
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Draft
When a creation is made
in the basement of a cool mind,
and dogs run the streets
without leashes or order,
the dark pint remains
unfinished on a wooden bar
of ideas and dreams,
like eyes of the untapped.
Jonathan Hayes (USA)
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IN UTERO
the sorrow is in these
rivers of whiskey
in these seas of beer,
I try to forget her,
but what I had accomplished
is that I’d destroyed my self
the way she always wanted.
now you see me-
poor and humble
and in the bed I am waiting
for the sound of your steps,
the ceiling is coming down on me,
the walls get darker
and my love is dry as
torn rose. she-
once red as blood-
now is trivial- garbage-
at the end of the hallway
of nirvana…
PEYCHO KANEV (USA)
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| DO YOU FEEL ME?
The
clear
unexpected direction
of
Satie’s piano
pleasing my ears.
Breeze blowing in open front door
mixed with sandalwood incense
reaches us sitting
in
our living room.
Each absorbed in a separate
individual activity.
Complete harmony between us
w/
no need for words.
Sometimes I feel
I
am the most fortunate man
in
the world.
RICHARD KRECH (USA)
just
decoding your carnage
and
something feels incomplete
over the
details and all these
I can't stop
thinking about
like a
strange thing to mold.
I am
perplexed by animal behavior
the
mechanical process of birth
and death,
clinging to pseudo progress
and
forgetting to trace it
and some
think that you are dead
say you are
on their side
we are
running out of resources,
no solution,
I am hoping that you
will always
at least give us bread and fish.
unlikely
that you will let me
wouldn't
want me disrupting
with beer
pong matches.
TYLER COBB (USA)
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WALKING SLOW
It’s as if
my fate is
Catching up
with me
As if my
shuffling
Along life’s
dusty hallways
Could bring
me
Back to
those turnoffs
I have
missed
I see a
child’s face
And I wonder
how I
Managed to
miss
That off
ramp
I see a
friend who is
Already a
grandma and
Still
younger than I
And I think:
Christ
I lived
through the
Free love
Disco fever
Safe sex
Days
And I
miraculously
Dodged the
bullet
Every time
Yet many of
my friends
Did not
But taking
one for the team
Or whatever
the theme-du-jour
Of the day
was
I’m the one
who lives on
Without a
family
Who is the
best known
Loner in
town
The one who
now
Must walk
slow
As if
walking slow
Would let
all my bad
Decisions
catch up with me
And let me
make the better
Choices this
time around
So I could
have a happier life
And not be
such a drain
On the world
and my fellow
Creatures
I’m walking
slow
As if
there’s any
Real choice
R D ARMSTRONG (USA)
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