H-E-Y!!!  Please REMEMBER that you can order
fantastic Zzaj Productions CD's from our HOMEMADEMUSIC site, at:

http://www.homemademusic.com/~zzaj 

We are in URGENT need of your
support, too, as we were caught in a "lay-off" situation (that was a direct
result of the WTC affair).

Wouldn't hurt (I suppose) if you remind them that the C-mas season is
getting near, & a ZP CD makes a very nice gift for friends who love
adventure in their music(s)

Improvijazzation Nation - Issue # 43

           spaghetti siciliana
          -------------------------------

           since you left I feel
           like an anchovy
           coiled up in a glass tube
           pickled in tears

           es

NEW YORK AS RELIGIOUS ART

How to witness it is through the eyes of depression,
cataracted at rainy twilight in Herald Square.
On every corner there are the faces of men
parrying for another day the Shelter and starvation,
dressed in day-glo tabards advertising the fantasies
of midtown clubs and the unmade, unkeepable promises
of dancing girls who twirl one step beyond
nightly tricks and the red light district
where the Pharisees of Civic Virtue have dimmed the bulbs.

In the beholder's eye there is aesthetics:
of how little has changed in these faces,
that they are Art, the Eternal: but
the specific is the screwball pageant
of Ensor's "Entry of Christ into Brussels,"
Jesus a distant figure, barely glimpsed,
wholly ignored, while in the foreground the faces
of their world bubble in rage, on holiday in a spook-dance.
Mothers scream in Spanish at tired children,
men wear "I've got AIDS" signs round their necks
like Miraculous Medals, and every face
summons rage in the beholder who sees perhaps himself,
his own swirling grief held back by the floral tie
that is his only sign of nascent spring.

Jesus Christ, age 29, flops on a park bench
before Horace Greeley's grim seated statue, obscured
by a anomalous untrimmed tree.  He's
finished off the muscatel, eyes a woman
in the distance who one time might have done him
in a doorway 'til he grew too funky to endure.
A little child passes, screams "Mamacita,
¡mira! ¡Jesus! ¡Jesus el boracho!" and laughing points
at his filthy long hair, his tarnished crucifix,
the last thing he might sell but hasn't yet
for Mickey D's and a pint of vodka.
"Bless you, little girl," Jesus slobbers, signs her,
staggers to his feet, disappears into the rush-hour crowd
to find this night's place in the subway station
where he'll sleep, undisturbed.

Kenneth Wolman

ARPEGGIOS, HERBS AND LIBIDOS

even when what may have been boiled

served on canvas with paroxysms of love,

knowledge and joy to the kitchen

carol music of mind

Choice of kitchen table

un-notated stuff with staff

stamping in garden of augmented chords

you can open can of anything

but nothing comes as expected

muted and extinguished.

IMAGERY

midnight trysts- intractable

from pillow to music remote as dream

retires to pre-owned MINIVAN

   If you could see

descending the stairs in costume

the symphony of it

simple as a folk song

that boy could blow a horn

lost in time, wishing for now

IN A ROOM OF WHITE GERANIUMS

today's selection will be alienation-angst

whine of form.

         scales & scherzos

                   Of  PURE tempo

                            rain

malevolent reverberating clockwork

scherzos perfect talking bass

          ATROPHY of composure

instruments garble folk song

         something electronic!!!

bubbling rhythm trails off

extraneous interval of / internal organs

Joan Payne Kincaid

aphrodesiac

the perfect parasite
is not voiceless
we assume our customs
to be spread wide open, yet
neanderthal camp guards
asleep near hot stones
beatnik slum lords recite
the shower curtain soliloquy
of the stylish cro magnon prince
alive with TV on his lips
bouncing anchor banter
pancake a bit too aflame
yet knowing it sounds right
while occasionally burning
upon the stones of Toledo
in units of measurement
weighed and calibrated by the
by the US Bureau of Insanity
a Rod Mchuan of Coney Island
writing fevered only rarely
(pause)
of the tribe and its loopy
cascade of antecedents
you should be rolling
on the floor convulsed
pissing your father's pants
by now
so don't try to stop me
I have many gods bowing
to kiss my holy parts
begging for another
flushed scrap of time
one of them invented
the Colt 55
and the French tickler
within minutes of each other
bless the pencil, padre

Walter Alter

Charlie is still in my mind
****************

I repeat, charlie chaplin is still inside my mind
I can not get rid of him
of that damned little man
holding a cane and wearing a black cap

I thought he died
I thought he lived a long life
inhaled his last breath
and was laid to rest.

But no

There he is again
the mere mention of his name
makes me see his face
his endless tricks;

going around and around
inside the machinery
of a dirty factory
as a human wheel,

competing with Mussolini
with the barbers seat
as Hitler
rising higher and higher.

God damn you
Charlie Chaplin
you were a splendid guy
but please get out of my mind

Antti Luode

Man of Letters

His  poems are engineered  to pull at vulvas
in a moony swoon of literary lust.
Letters stuff his mailbox, dusted with
the scented talc of  titillated spinsters.
The slightly jealous postman throws
his stash of praise a slightly dirty look
before delivering the junk mail
to his boring next-door neighbor

Karen Tellefsen

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