A. D. Winans is a native San Francisco poet, writer and photographer, whose work has appeared internationally, and has been translated into eight languages. He is a graduate of San Francisco State University and a member of PEN. He is the author of over forty-five books and chapbooks of poetry and prose, including The Holy Grail: Charles Bukowski and the Second Coming Revolution (Dustbooks). A collection of Selected Poems was just published by Presa Press. He is the former editor and publisher of Second Coming Magazine/Press. He edited and published Second Coming for seventeen years, where he met and became close friends with the late Bob Kaufman, Jack Micheline, and Charles Bukowski. In 2005 a song poem of his was performed at Tully Hally, NYC. In 2006 he was awarded a PEN National Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence. He can be contacted at: slowdancer2006@netzero.com.

The Sound on the Stairs

 

People are coming up the stairs
They are coming from here
there
and everywhere
I have not been out of the house
for a long time, but I know it’s winter
by the heavy boots their voices wear

 

 

News from the V.A.

 

The Vietnam amputees defeated
their Iraq counterparts by a score
of three-to-two when the
first-baseman for the losing team
dropped the ball allowing Jimmy Jones
to hobble across the plate with the
winning run the
president wired his congratulations

 

 

Angry Hermits

 

angry hermits sit in fertile trees
beating on ancient warrior drums
like mad men attacking the evening air
while down below societal bloodhounds
thrash through knee-high grass
sniffing for hungry clues
to their existence

 

 

For JW

 

I entered your body
an animal seeking refuge
from the storm of yourself
a creature running down the
depths to escape the fury of anger

I entered like the mountain
coming to Mohammed,
darkening the sky of everything
but the awareness of strength
the gales of my winds
stealing voices from your soul

you entered the body of my mind
soft
a lady in white
sharing no banner
other than that of the moon,
pitted one jewel of light
which the sun would not reach

You entered
like a frightened bird
fleeing the hard lands of winter
the winds of my heat
bore you aloof.
together
we entered
the body of our poems

 

 

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