Vibe is located at 909 W. 23rd St. in Cedar Falls on the second floor of Bought again Books. Persons needing access accommodation should call 266-7115 by the day before the event. For more information, contact Jim O'Loughlin.
Now Available from
Final Thursday Press
Laugh. Damnit.
Poetry by Ahkos
Feeling pretentious? Walk away now. The poems in this collection target poetic self-importance with humor and a bit of an edge. Formed in (and in response to) Boston's open mic scene, "Laugh. Damnit." will make you smile, or else.
$1.00 16 pgs.
Bad Men
Microfiction by Jim O'Loughlin
Four short short stories that made their debut at the Final Thursday Reading Series. They weren't originally intended to be part of a collection; it just happened that way. Find out what happens to the lounge lizard, the ex-con, the slacker student, and the serial monogamist.
$2.00 18 pgs.
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Muse
by Vince Gotera
I'd like to tell you she comes to me in Greek
robes, translucent and flowing, at two a.m.
bearing poems more luscious than golden apples.
Or tell you her name is G - L - O - R - I - A . . .
Gloria . . . five foot four from her head to the ground.
Rock 'n' roll diva plucking tiger's eyes
from Marlboro smoke. Or should I say my wife
Mary Ann is my muse? Her hair a shower of gold
cascading through indigo sky like Northern Lights?
No. My muse is gone, baby. Invisible.
A female Titan trapped in a deep crevasse
between the frontal lobes of my brain. Her breasts
swing, larger than oak trees, every time
she slams her body against the crystal walls
of the chasm. I don't even know if she is a she.
Is my muse a boy, ten years old, barefoot
in a rice paddy? His back aches from bending
down, down to plant milagrosa seedlings.
All I know is tonight at 2:37
the muse arcs lightning into my fingers.
Words glide, click into place, smooth
as Tetris on my computer screen. This poem
emerges out of my subconscious like
Geryon spiraling up through dusky air
from Dante's abyss. Basilisk. Chimera.
Leathery wings flash like sparks in the night.
Pterodactyl spirals up, up toward heaven.
Honor, 1946
by Vince Gotera
In birdsong my father strolled the Presidio
of San Francisco, a Filipino in the U.S.
Army, sharp in parade dress, lieutenant's
bars riding his shoulders like sun cresting
clouds. A corporal in dingy fatigues walked
past my father, snickered, kept his right
hand by his hip. "Hold it right there, soldier!"
my father barked. "Where's that goddamn salute?"
The corporal smirked, looked him in the eye and said
nothing, but my father could read it in his face —
I'll be damned before I salute a little brown
monkey who ought to be climbing a fucking tree.
My father growled an order. The soldier jerked
to attention. My father slipped off his jacket, draped it
on a hedge. The rainbow of ribbons reminded him
not of crossfire and the soldier he saved on patrol,
not of the forced retreat to Corregidor,
not of the weeks evading Japanese capture,
not even of the Bataan death march,
nor of the concentration camp. Instead
he recalled the American jeep that tried to run
him down in a rainstorm. Get out of the road, monkey!
My father said, "You might not want to salute me,
young man, but you will salute this jacket, these bars.
Do it!" Birds sang. "Again." Sun shone. "Again."
The corporal's arm swept the air, a wiper blade
trying to swipe brown mud from a windshield.