Bombay Gin

Here's some of the work you'll find in Bombay Gin 1999...

Anne Waldman
From Marriage: A Sentence
By Candle's Light A Bedouin

 

Say "tree" say "on the hill". Say "game" say it is "over". Say "the hand marks the seconds". Say "the hand marks the hours". Say "the horse in the harness." Say "insatiable appetite". Say "tuning fork". Say "came off the desert looking for water". Say "the messenger's narrative". Say "thirsty for home & hearth". Put your feet up take a load off. Say "marriage is always timely". Marriage was on water clock time. Stops one from always moving around. Are you still an umbilicus? No, a roving spirit, a free agent, an independent entity, a marvelous conglomeration of tendencies, a hairy bag of water, a water carrier, a carriage trader with flute & flask before city sidewalks were wood, trains run through me hear them at night? Two-note Sally, mule train Sally, ghost of a fickle lover, a small time settler panning for gold. I am also the combined spoils of war. This is market time. To make a deal, a fair exchange. This is market time. A gin fizz rupture. Psyches pitted against each other for the spoils of war. I am a slave trader & she's my sex slave, a party girl, an old flame in transit. And to mark the time for Cold War objectives. Is marriage timely now? Musical partitions separate the girls from the wives. Jazz is her sex religion. Notes in frazzlemind. Say "radio" say "comes on a wave". Say "singing voices". This is five minutes away. This is an hour. This is long. Come here. Touch me. Do you want me? For keeps? Turn over the pages in the brain. This is paper. Put it in writing, a contractual nuptial. This is magic. This is something borrowed. This is what you can say is "god". Shift the load to the Lord. No this is something needs a Marxist blessing.

M. Regan
ROPE

she is slim
bleached grass

narrow in her wants
restless silent quail

she takes still photographs of the lesions
on the heart

veins
cells filled with cooking wine

the graceful aorta
the lamplight slipping

over the surface of the pond
sheer muscle of legions

she is a boneless wanting
just beneath the skin

a thirst of mirrors
an impossible faith

Michelle Albert
LEFTOVERS

He was in town for a week. We met and had lunch on Monday. I only ate half my sandwich. Now he's back east, 2,000 miles away. The other half of the sandwich is still in my refrigerator. I should throw it away. I should.

©