SASQUATCH
by Gary Every

The forest ranger took notes, scribbling down
everything the frightened eyewitnesses said.
They saw the giant hairy ape on the edge of the forest
and for some reason the bigfoot became angry
and chased them to the bathrooms
where the frightened campers locked themselves inside.
They said the sasquatch screamed and bellowed,
throwing rocks and garbage cans
at the forest outhouse
while the occupants huddled inside, terrified.
The ranger tried not to chuckle
wondering if they had encountered
a burly, long haired, drunken Navajo,
or a barbaric furry hippy protecting his marijuana fields,
or maybe even an energetic anarchistic punk rocker
who really wouldn't need a reason for such antisocial behavior.
The forest service ranger was certain beyond the
shadow of a doubt
that there was no such thing as a sasquatch,
a tribe of aboriginal apes hiding in the rugged mountains
escaping detection from scientists, anthropologists,
and amateur enthusiasts for centuries.
He had hiked these mountains extensively
and knew for certain there were no sasquatch dens.
He paused for a moment to ponder the possibility
that these people really had encountered bigfoot
and how it might have gotten there,
had a veil temporarily lifted between dimensions,
were parallel universes colliding,
were the sasquatch disembarking from
extraterrestrial spaceships,
or were they commuting from the suburbs?
He listened to the tourists go on and on
loud and certain of their ignorance
demanding that the government
do something and do something now
(and specifically a seasonal part time employee)
do something and do something now
and the forest ranger supposed
that if he had encountered these people on a
peaceful summer evening
he might have bellowed, barked, thrown stones
and chased
them into an outhouse too.

GRIDLOCK
by Michael Lenhart

A produce truck has overturned.
Oranges spilled from boxes
went bouncing down the San Berdoo
as Subarus and Mazdas mashed
a half-a-dozen fruit rats.

Now long lines of motorists maddened by time
sit and pound their steering-wheels,
and worldly suburbanites
shriek like primates.

This is how the world will end:
not in fire but in forced inertia,
in humans neutered by their own inventions.

Now its zero mph
for the next 5 million miles,
and time is running away like a thief
with what's left of our lives in a brown sack.

It pains me to see all these lives being wasted,
to observe the spectre of so many kinsmen
helpless to affect their fates.

Then I see to my right
an intense female passenger
with her tongue in the mouth
of her charioteer;
and I open my car door
and pick up an orange.

Now I can relax, relieved:

yankee ingenuity
has not failed us yet.

THE BAD ZONE
by Elizabeth Swados

My heart
in its barricaded zone
is under siege
car bombs lift
innocents like dead leaves
through my breath
and the smoke of my breath
is fetid.
Smells of burnt skin. Smells
of singed oil, smells of
small plastic toys as they
melt in my lungs. My streets,
my veins are blocked with
broken windowpanes
A beast, mercury building up
in my cells.
The tiny artery
cratered by tossed car doors
leads to a small hunched
house where in a small room,
(in the back)
Is the black thing
that replaces my shadow.

Dead bodies
inside my body
and tiny bodies
inside them.