A Toast to Loneliness
for Dave Kennedy

To those who drink
lonesome in taverns
smoke streets brooding
with windblown eyes
slumped shivering in alleys
under the amber moon’s
somber glow

to those wobbling
on heavenly rooftops
with cheap wine
and old friends
singing the sadness
of the stars

to those punching keys
in tenements
which are battered
worse than our souls
but still manage
to record the statements
that echo down boulevards
of the concrete dream

to those alcohol induced thoughts
wafting up into the night
creeping out cracked windows
and down fire escapes
freezing with the dogs
on the rail

we scream at the new America

Jake St. John has published multiple chapbooks and pamphlet poems and has appeared in numerous underground literary magazines around the country. Since 2007 he has served as the editor of Elephant and co-editor Flying Fish. The respected poet Tom Weigel has referred to St. John as “a neo-beat traveler.”

Luis Lázaro Tijerina was born in Salina, Kansas. Mr. Tijerina has a Master of Art degree in history, concentration being military history and diplomacy. He is a published author of military theory, short stories, essays and poetry. Mr. Tijerina resides in Vermont.