John Spalding

John is an English major at SUNY @ Cortland and can be reached at stephendobyns@hotmail.com.

Why write?

Because men have sold the blue sky and the moon

Because America lives on borrowed land

Because America is a wheel like the world is a wheel

Because wheels roll over people

Because we are forgetting about the Kaiser

Because in D.C. the men cut deals with a hatchet

Because some whores wear a suit and a tie

Because we have visionary power and a motherfucking atom bomb

Because forty five years of labor gets you a watch and not much else

Because god never wrote back to Emily Dickinson

Because my mind retains too many thoughts

Because I am naked

Because the milk of capitalism tastes like shit

Becuase a long time ago somebody thought it was a good idea to fashion a

weapon

Because a short time ago on a street corner in the holy land twenty

people were slaughtered in the name of god

Because in the name of cheap petroleum little Jimmy didnt come home

Because the poor sap who made your shoes couldnt afford your socks.

Single White Poet seeks his love...

SWP, 22, smoker, editor

in NY, maybe NYC soon

In search of foul mouthed female poet

for world domination and good times

Look into this fire welling

inside my hazel inferno eyes

You are single or maybe taken

perhaps nearly bilingual in search

of the language of poetry

and you like Eliot too..

You will will arise through words

The Majesty of Merwin, Dobyns, Plath and Blake.

O, in this land of America

somewhere you sit and read this

You can appreciate Buk and Daqueris

old records, pointing out the night sequins

as they hold still on the coat of night

the day's distant brother the keeper

of nocturnal appointments and saturday

thrills. You can hold the night like a book in your hands

I'm a Virgo... so buy me a drink and listen

to me bitch about the decline of clean cut

poets into MFAirheads churned

out of the ass of the tin men

You're a poet, I'll take your word

and fuck every letter until I am your echo

You enjoy the little things, like I do

and you have no shame in forgiving

an editor who edits his magazine

better than his life, who writes these words

in the hope you've read them.

All you need do is take your

fingers and dial

--

John Spalding