Current online version edited by David Humphreys
This online presentation represents an archive sampling of the award winning
Stockton poetry journal. Call us at 209-951-7014                                                          First Night 2003

Vacancy Down My Spine     by Chrissy D.       Stockton

Disregard

this vacancy down my spine

it whistles

like a lonesome train

traveling tracks

that rumble through despair

A powerful giant

casting aside

etch-a-sketch memories

of frightened children

we all once were

I shall not billow

with regret

for moments of satisfaction

stolen

by a beast

that stalks my head

Instead I race reckless

to heated pathways that lead

to dead ends

where I

…STOP…

and ask myself

quivering questions

such as

"What is the color of honesty?

and What lies beneath the salt of a kiss?"

Do the answers lie in scribbles

that sleep in worn notebooks

I still carry to mask

this vacancy?

And even now

I refuse to let

the writing on the bathroom wall

be the prophetic whisper

of my demise

Over milk spilt, I will not cry

for it was satire's mistake

that brought me here

and when shove comes to push

I draw strength from the

black raven

You will find me

in her

encasing this vacancy

materializing these memories

into fleshy dreams

of primitive consciousness

that roar in the unbearable silence

We were friends          by Lisa Jones

in a booth, under the cut papers, 

papel picado--cherry, lime, orange, 

blueberry, and lemon colored silhouettes

of deer, crow, and coyote, surrounding us.  

Gilded red sombreros and painted 

wooden maracas on the walls.  

A buttery afternoon light, softened 

by the shade of the room, drunk by

pinatas and silk flowers.  Lime colored ice 

sparkled in our glasses.  Your brown eyes 

were warm, the muscles in your face 

calm, as if, in that vibrant wilderness, 

you had found something, 

the one bird that had eluded you.  

Your gaze, relaxed and steady.

I felt like water, shimmering. 

Turning straw into gold, I told you 

about my motorcycle days.  

That's when I slid to the side 

and pulled my white skirt above my knee,

showing you the purple, pink gash, 

the gravel pattern extending upward.

You leaned forward.  Then the 

colorful animals began to dance in their 

paper forests, whispering "She's got him",

We didn't notice them.  

I let the fabric fall against my leg, 

we brought our eyes and words 

above the table, but in truth, I had you, 

caught in the folds of my skirt.

Through the Round Window

Any poet is drawn to these words: bone, cut, breath, skin

and O'Keefe knew too, the language of bones:

what could be seen, in the hollow of the pelvis,

the infinite gifts of the circular window.

Her lush perception, her round

and curving lines.  The possibilities of yellow 

and green--rivers traversing our surface.

Looking back down from the airplane, 

at our expansive aging face, 

with all its shapes and shadings,

I see the beauty of both our footsteps 

and the places we did not step.

O'Keefe you walked those lines,

even bragged of your daring 

or perhaps you simply wanted us to know 

the truth that only women tell--

that there was never certainty;

that every egg-shaped view of the sky, 

every dip in to the center of a flower,

was wonder, yes, but also gall  

            --a hard-earned, wild and frightening freedom.

Untitled Poem by Chloe Schwarz

When did you forget the brother

Who shared your womb and worldly fluid

Who shared your mouth, your breast, your worldly fluid

Who shared your breath, your breast, your beating heart?

When did you forget your sister,

Who was hauled by slave ships to the Atlantic

Who ran from Soviet rifle fire?

When did you forget your brother

Who was hauled by cattle car to Auschwitz

Who was crippled under crusaders’ arm?

When did your mother weep, clutching her belly,

As her children cannibalized for her affections,

As they forgot her face?

When did your father die of grief

And abandon all hope of safe return

When you left in the dead of night in search of beer and whiskey?

With the first outstretched leg

The first tumbling fall

The first jeering laugh

Nietzsche spoke.

A Creation Of The Starving Artist by Chloe Schwarz

Cheap paint

Cracked on canvas, studiously added and mixed on

Poor cloth, ungessoed, off-white

Acrylic paint, down the drain

wasted colors blood-spattered against the studio sink

Flesh tones stuck to skin and thumbprints

Ruined brushes clotted and clogged together in a plastic cup

In a circle, facing out

A face, facing out, sketched in color with old brushes,

A failure, stretched on cloth, was

saved and buried underground for further reference

Smoke Break in Tuscany by dan guerra

            Pinch myself on the arm.

            Wake up! Wake up!

            Nah, I’m here, high in the Tuscan hills,

            With newfound friend Paul,

            (how biblical, come to think of it)

            The best ten minute smoke-break of my life,

            Perched on a balcony,

            Gazing at twinkling Florence

            As night comes down.

            Smoke up, Paul insists,

            and I grab the hand-rolled cigarette

            and take a sip of the sweet white wine.

            -we’ve still got a helluva lotta

            work in the kitchen, he admits,

            but shit! Look at this man!

            Can you believe where we are?

            Its seared into my long-term memory,

                        Clear as an alpine river.

            No need for a photo on my i-phone-

            I see it now as I type in my cottage in Santa Cruz,

            I smell the pungent tobacco smoke,

            I hear Paul’s laughter,

            I feel the unforgiving Tuscan summer heat,

                        Resilient even in the absence of the sun,

            I taste the wine

                        And smile like a dog who

                        Just busted out of the backyard

Tossed Overboard  by dan guerra

A lone seal barks in the distance,

            Shattering the stillness of the evening,

            Bristly reminder of my own solidarity.

In the morning

Raw nothingness,

A void confronted me as I

            Reached for your body,

            Drowsy with the urge to kiss you,

            Embrace, Hook talons,

            Free-fall as eagles do,

            Melt into one another and rest content,

            Oblivious to the world.

This bed is too big without you-

I drown in it like a rat

Tossed overboard by an irate captain.

I devise tricks,

Clatter my bed with books,

Clothes that I am too lazy to put up,

Empty plates, housing scrawny apple cores,

Sourdough crumbs,

An empty Charles Shaw bottle or two-

A jolly mélange bunks up with me while you’re on

Sabbatical.

I grab an empty bottle now

And sigh-

All is for naught.

The psychological effect is minimal.

These forsaken nights carry on,

A wagon crossing the plains,

Relentless;

Yes, these forsaken nights march forward,

A junk sloshing through

The South China Sea-

These forsaken nights take their time;

They cease for no one

And reduce me to a barking seal,

Moaning for my beloved.

Students, loaded with caffeine,

Headphones drilled into their ears,

Meander by in tight pants

            And ironic t-shirts.

A bum discovers cigarette butts with much delight.

Another bum is nursing a forty,

            Perhaps the second of the morning.

A third bum begs for change and I really don’t have any.

            -God bless sir.

The poor will always be with us.

A street preacher sets up shop. I wince and hasten my steps.

The young professionals,

            Whole herds of them,

Briskly pass me,

Sweet with mochas and lattes and Calvin Klein

            Or whatsitcalled by Victoria Secret,

(I can’t quite make it out-they really dart by me)

Talking rapidly on their phones,

            Contributing once more to society.

Early bird tourists gawk at everything.

Unwashed hippies offer me grass

            But I decline-I like REI hippies at any rate

            And I love the woods too.

A stray dog, rummaging in the alley,

Locks eyes with me for a moment-

I’m a bit jealous.

The sun is breaking through the fog

And making it, slashing away, dominant, gorgeous.

I walk into my apartment and hit the sack.

Maybe tomorrow I too will be making it and gorgeous.

Our beach,

            Quaintly framed by the front window,

Is crawling with people-

The sunshine is streaming in,

            Free as a bee,

            No cloud in sight.

I duck into the kitchen

            And make your coffee

            And watch my vagabond mind

Dive

Into the teal waves of the Pacific,

Then drift towards Monterey,

            Which is sprawled before me,

            Soaking up the UV rays

            Like a pregnant mermaid on the beach,

            Yawning serenely.

You’re still asleep when I return to our room,

            Snoring with less serenity,

            Warm as a toaster,

            Dreaming of Athens or The Velvet Underground-

Placing coffee on dresser

I pause before I rejoin

And muse-

Would you sail with me, past Monterey?

We could always

Open a tattoo parlor in Japan,

Or a café in India,

Maybe a record store in New Zealand.

Who knows what’ll I cook up tomorrow.

You stir momentarily-

            Its still far too early,

            Your body tells me

            (eyes don’t have to open)

            and you smile tender morning smile,

            as if to say, yes, I would-

            you know me by now- 

            but do come to bed or

            at least be quiet and let me sleep.

Marley's Treat     by Roger Naylor

(Before A Christmas Carol)

One.

Dead as a doornail

Marley a memory

Scrooge a cigar

Chimney whistle

A distant holler

Scrooge, it said

A draft was all

A visit to Marley's

A twinge of heart

A malicious thought

Jacob, ha, ha, gone on!

Grave unpretentious

Small for Jacob's wealth

Afforded better

Scrooge take a walk

Through London streets by night

To Jacob's stone

A lantern and a marvelous thought

Desecration for his pain

A pinprick hurt

Jacob most uncharitable

Even his own death cheap

Only representation from the firm

Scrooge disliked the funeral

Two.

Years bygone

Jacob the pennypinch

Exacting in accounts

The two codgers recluse

A stingy coal between them

Rich appointments for fools

Spendthrifts live like kings

Jacob like the good cigar

Splurge would intend

Then impulse quickly rescind

Pauper-like financiers

No farthing or shilling ever gave

Jacob succumb to years

Warning to misers such as they

Time only thing couldn't pinch

Jacob on his death bed

Scrooge promised him

Come to my grave on Halloween

You old curmudgeon!

Startled by the dark

Lantern sway in breeze

Weather building against stars

Cane clanking on the cobbles

Gate of yard rust-budget

Barely able to squeeze

Composite stone moss eaten

Willow over Jacob's name

Death head underneath

Here lies Jacob Marley, all it said

Three.

Scrooge with lantern

Sputtering oil said how late

Hurry, before the ghouls!

Kick Old Marley's stone

Tumble like a fallen leaf

Scrooge proud of meanness

Done with your miserable hide!

It fell with a bump, Old Jacob

A tree suddenly cracked

Wind wailed and rain crashed down

Scrooge could not believe

Home inside an hour

Huddled behind his door

Cozy fire in bedchamber repair

How spat on Jacob's tomb

Scrooge a last laugh

Head felt woozy

Into a deep sleep fell

Morning next of All Saints

Four.

Inscription on stone bother

Scrooge by daylight disturbed

Crachet not at his desk

Eat him till sunset

Belched pumpkin soup and sop bread

Marley was too real

The business too unabsorbing

Scrooge sat with his cigar

The chimney whistled

All that came in a draft

Scrooge never should have visit

Now the guilt fulsome

The fire sputtered spume

Jacob's face in flume

O Scrooge, foredoomed

I am your Fiend!

Scrooge jumped to bed

Pulled the bedcurtains

Fire all around, conflagration

House aflame--Scrooge, Just you wait!

Wait, Wait!--All he heard

Awoke to midnight chimes

Then nothing, not even the wind 

Five.

Scrooge the next day in street

Not a singe on his chinny chin chin

But a man stopped him

A man like Young Jacob

Do you have the time, Sir?

Scrooge consult his fob

It is One O’clock, Gentleman

Yes, Scrooge, when next you see me

Then your comeuppance!

Young man strolled away nonchalant

Why, I never, said Scrooge

At the young man's manner

Look down to his shoe

It had been spat on!

Sierra Bound (part of a series of SF poems set in the 1920’s)           by dan guerra

Sierra bound for the summer.

Adieu, my home.

Adieu, my city of lights.

To take leave of beggars with crooked alligator teeth on Embarcadero,

Who know that I act like I do not notice them as I pass by-

To say farewell to famished prostitutes with limp cigarettes,

Scurrying around the Tenderloin,

Longing for the money that their broken bodies can provide.

To walk away  

From shrouded, damp mornings

And foghorns crying in the night-

To abscond from the haze

Of smokey streets,

Of speakeasys,

Of crowded streetcars,

Of piss-drenched alleys-

To think clearly

And lie down in sweet alpine meadows.

I am a martyr at the pristine

Altar of my art.

I will be a monk among nature,

Disregarding the fairer race,

Contemplating among her

Trees and rocks,

Not unlike Thoreau,

With his sole

Copy of homer.

My home,

My city,

Has grown stale.

All of the women

Have grown tired of me.

On lazy Sunday afternoon

I spotted Valencia on Market,

Strolling softly in her white summer dress,

But before we could converse and

Perhaps

Share a bottle of cheap champagne

She saw me and swiftly ducked

Into O’Hara’s, like a frightened pigeon, far from my reach.

I continued walking, pretending that her poisoned tipped arrows of

Silence could not penetrate my stalwart exterior and infect my

Red blooded American heart.

I needed a drink.

After assaulting my liver with a few rounds of scotch at Wexford’s

 Jordan walked in, with her sea-blue eyes sparkling.

She hung onto Cecil McCormick all evening,

Waltzing and fox-trotting

Away from me,

Spoiling a healthy drunken night,

Puncturing

Healthy fantasies of stumbling home

Lust drunk with her,

As we did two weeks prior.

My bed,

Host to so many

Playful Eves,

Is now forced to reckon

Only with me.

The springs

Have ceased

                                To sing-

Sparks that harmlessly

Singed the walls of my room

Have long been extinguished.

I am  rotten fruit

Thrown aside into the gutter,

Waiting with saintly patience

For the rodents and insects

To devour me.

I am leaving,

Clanking

                And

                                Clomping

Out of this town with

My new boots,

Tanned and stretched,

Oiled and anxious to

Hop creeks and venture deep into Muir’s playground.

I have my leather bound notebook,

Bare as my city-polluted mind,

Begging for rapturous outpourings

That will flow from the jagged peaks of my soul,

Down through the foothills of my mind,

Past the delta of my fertile pen

To the open bay of my notebook.

I will be the river that

The Good Gray Poet

Spoke of, aching

To flood the wretched valley

Of this meaningless world.

		

	  Ricochets or Mercury        by Mike Cluff          Roberta

        Always gauging 
		the temperature of my soul---- 
		it varies too much 
		for a thermometer 
		to work 
		without shattering 
		into an environment 
		not always of my accord. 


		A creaking floorboard 
		or Indian head penny 
		will spark it off 
		with equanimity 


		as do cow creamers, 
		clip-on ties 
		and conundrums 
		cleverly constructed. 


		But 
		the degree of descent, 
		ascent 
		is mine alone--- 
		a range without wire 
		barbed or blanching 


		orbiting around 
		my impulses 
		ricochets or mercury 
		I know 
		best of all. 

        

	  Roberta     by Mike Cluff
	
	
		I sit
		still struck by you,
		of it all;
		how it adds
		and doesn't,
		up.
	
	
		The voice
		and the face
		not at odds
		when not put together
		in front of my sight.
	
	
		The clothes, the attitude
		blending badly
		almost nauseating
		at times
	
	
		but
		it does
		and really
		does not
		matter
	
	
		when the periwinkle tint
		and tone
		of your eyes
		flashes out
		anything
		everything
		at me.
	
	
		I stand,
		feeling
	
	
		and that is good
		all on its own.

AMISTAD—AMID AND AMIDST            by Roger Naylor      The Ghosts of Tomorrow

TO MOTHER: NONE ASSAULT LIGHTLY, FORMIDABLE AND IMPREGNABLE, THE LORD’S…

FOR LUCILLE AND DEZI, GRACI!

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