CAREERS
by Janann Dawkins

I don't know if I'll go
be a cashier around here.
This area is scarier
than the place where I was raised.
The strangers are dangers
as are the neighbors. Cars
rust into steel-shaped dust,
with hoodlums in them
rusting, too. Every few
days a woman pays
her crack dealer; smack
also sells well.
I hide inside
my rented room, spend
days pondering ways
to make money. Take
hooking, or booking
lottery numbers. Very
poor ideas. But I'd rather do those, or
panhandle, than handle
the cash drawer of a store.
Even if the place had every inch of glass
bulletproofed to keep safety inside, I'd
still have a chance to be killed
if someone stuck a gun
through the cash window and smashed
my spleen or spine to smithereens.
I'd much prefer such
action as giving clandestine satisfaction
in the back of a car to some jack
who would let me, and want me to.

HOLY SEDONA
by Gary Every

I visit the beautiful chapel,
and afterwards feeling calm and serene,
I take a hike;
strolling through the Mystic Hills.
There are the sounds of nearby cars,
the roars of automobiles rising and descending
along the rolling roads.
The songs of hammers and saws fill the air,
the busy sounds of commerce and construction.
No wonder the red rock of Sedona
is considered the home
of the New Age Harmonic Convergence,
it has everything an aging, fading, baby boomer needs; natural beauty,
sacred spaces,
and easy access by automobile.

MINIMUM WAGE PARKING LOT POEM #3
by Kenneth DiMaggio

Drunken white fraternity
boys

looking for $10 hand jobs
and more from prostitutes
who will fast food your sex

on an air mattress in the back
of a rancid meat smelling van

But mostly
it's just baby powder that college kids
for a cocaine thrill will get

for their Saturday night
post bar closure tour

of the minimum wage parking lot

And here comes the ambulance

But because it is going
behind the Stupor market
and the neon fast food bunker

must mean

that somebody OD'd or left
pieces of their body
or their baby at the loading dock
or in the dumpster

And a crack vial's throw away

from where suspicious meat and overly sweetened
food product that no longer has
a shelf life gets dumped

is a dead car lot
of wrecked vehicles
that have all sorts
of multi purpose
illegal uses just

make sure you pay the big
tattooed guy called
Crocodile something
in cash

or something
narcotic in kind

before you get into one of "his" autos
to shoot up to go down or just to go--

and deep enough with no memory

so that you can sleep
even if it is only temporary

But the plaza with
a store front Pentecostal an
Off Track Betting Parlor and
a 24-hour Bail Bondsman service

never shuts down

there's always just enough

frayed human wiring

to jump start this dead battery

and light up enough
of the corruption

to let the other folks know

that all of the usual
suffering and waste

is open for business today in Hell