Randall Rogers was born in 1961, the second of two brothers. He grew into a small but strong young lad, and excelled at swimming. At eleven years of age he won four gold medals in the regional junior Olympics. But at twelve he could not compete with the size of the fourteen year olds and lost interest in swimming and turned instead to writing and books. He currently lives in Thailand were he edits The Beatnik Cowboy. Send submissions to: [email protected].
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Abbie�s Blues
By Randall Rogers
The energy fades
Dick no longer stands in the air
The hair sprouts from everywhere but the head
The joints turn to tendrils of pain
But the eyes keep shining
And the brain thinks it�s still twenty-one.
The news is always the same
Seen it all done it all
Things that used to bring immense pleasure
Now are but a sideline if a line at all
Coming isn�t quite the same
Women are no longer to be obsessed over
But still the yearning goes on
The impulse to save the health fades
The impulse to smoke increases
Anything that stabs the ennui is
Welcome
Problem is fewer and fewer things are new
And the energy to start something that takes
Years to learn well fades
Still the body wakes up for another day
Is it any wonder Ginsberg said he was
Relieved when they told him he had
Terminal cancer?
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Mingling Juices
By Randall Rogers
All semblance of order
Has vanished
Under her tutelage
She leaves me weak
Open-mouthed
And wet from her kisses
If like fine wine she should
Age better
the truth
My love for her
Is saliva-based
And something more animal like
Than human.
***************
Looking Down From Above
By Randall Rogers
I read with glee
That the man had died
Then I remembered
To my regret
That that man
Was me.
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Been Together Too Long
By Randall Rogers
I wish I had a chance
To show someone how much I love them
To shower someone with kisses
And write poetry sing songs
Of my perilous love for her/him
Oh I wish I had someone
That I could hold and enter
And be as one with
Til the grey in my hair goes white
I wish I had someone
Like you
Liking me
And wishing for the same.
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All In A Day�s Work
By Randall Rogers
One time I picked up a man in my taxi and he had a
little log of shit wedged between his ankle and the
inside of his shoe.
He stunk to high heaven and from the smell and the
stains on his pants, it�s lucky he shat anything solid
since obviously he�d just been soiling himself and
peeing in his pants, for quite some time.
I picked him up when he was clean, well groomed, at
the County Detox Ward a week or so before.
How he�d fallen in the space of a few days�
The other drivers eventually took a vote
Everybody agreed we wouldn�t give him a ride anymore.
He smelled so bad.
We too had a twenty dollar fine policy
For when someone puked
And if we could
We always tried to get the puker back to the office
To clean up his/her own mess.
And save us the hassle
Of hosing out our cars
Me, I stuck to my crystal methamphetamine
And whatever confronted me
I motored on through the night.
FALL 2008