1483 lines
40 KiB
Plaintext
1483 lines
40 KiB
Plaintext
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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S A N D R I V E R J O U R N A L
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- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Welcome to the Sand River Journal. Our goal is to provide a proper setting
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for some of the better poetry posted to the newsgroup rec.arts.poems. We aim
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at an objective standard, if such exists for poetry, but also strive to include
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diverse voices, not excluding our own work. We regret an error made in the
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initial posting of the ascii version of this issue (labeled "Christmas 1994").
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A poem by E.L. Van Hine was inadvertently excerpted as it had first appeared in
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rec.arts.poems, instead of being reproduced in its entirety. The error does
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not appear in any PostScript document; this corrected ascii version of Issue 12
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replaces the earlier version in our archives.
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Sand River Journal is posted in ascii and PostScript formats to r.a.p and
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related groups, and is archived at etext.archive.umich.edu/pub/Poetry. It
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is composed of poems previously appearing in our newsgroup. The PostScript
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version features high-quality typesetting and is well worth printing to
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hardcopy and sharing. Poems appear by authors' permission and constitute
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copyrighted material; we claim ownership only to any poems we have authored.
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Special thanks to Jenn Hemphill and Karen Tellefsen for helping to solicit
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poems for this issue. Enjoy!
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Erik Asphaug (asphaug@lpl.arizona.edu)
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John Adam Kaune (jkaune@trentu.ca)
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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Issue 12 - New Year's Day 1995
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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-----------
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mixed media
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-----------
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I want my poetry
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written on the blue
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damned sparkling sky
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biplaned against the
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ozone while brass
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bands play anthems and
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the mayor rants on
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written wide and large
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in no wind so that
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god herself can look
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down and say
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even upside down
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and backwards it still
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looks good
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to me
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and if a letter
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drifts away on a
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stray breeze
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will place it back
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with a gentle
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godly hand
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but for now
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one of your crappy
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xeroxed chaps with
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my name on it
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would be nice as hell
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give me something
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to sell at slams
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and readings might
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even get me
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laid god
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yes
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and I do
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love your
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small
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press
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michael mcneilley
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mmichael@halcyon.com
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--------
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untitled
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--------
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She was
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no pink ostrich feather falling from a steeple
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finished but for the dust in the light
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She was
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a pickled baby in a mayonnaise jar
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no ma no ma no
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She was
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a fat whore taped shut
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by big boys
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on Saturday night
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Hey, you know,
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she had no right to be there-
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no right at all
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She used to be
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the echo of a butterfly
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Not no perfume
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lippy-sticky suck skin
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Not no
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feather falling
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fat whore taped shut
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She used to be
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a green walnut wiggly-worm
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and the sigh of a puf-puf pigeon on a fence
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Now she is a flower-
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a step-on weed flower
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Liz Farrell
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efarrell@ossi.com
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----------
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priesthood
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----------
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dreams filter into this universe of steel and grit
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breezes intrude from beyond this randon arrangement
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of concrete spires and dulled clouds
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we spurn the ancestral songs of warm winds
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and fragrant scents residues
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in the anagrams of our ancient souls
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does the priesthood of particles and molecules
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reserve for us a single choice can we not chase
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fractals and monarchs with dream-catchers
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having witnessed the precarious dance of atoms
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can we ever again
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write poetry
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zita marie evensen
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ac869@freenet.hsc.colorado.edu
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----------------------
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A field guide to birds
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----------------------
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Below the wide window of the dining room
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is spread the slant roof of the well-house.
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The previous owners kept cracked corn there
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through twenty winters, and the birds
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came to rely on it. We thought they ought
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to live more wild, and so we did refrain
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awhile. The birds came to the empty roof
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and stood about, cranking their small heads
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to look with first one eye and then the other
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into the house; had their gods abandoned them?
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I stopped by the seed and feed, and picked up
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a ten pound bag. A handful on the roof
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brought instant jubilation. Each day
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first come the juncos in their black hoods,
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perched taut and wary in the lilac bush; then
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one by one they dart for a choice bit
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and retreat, cracking and dribbling hulls.
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They are followed by field sparrows in red
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caps, and rose-colored purple finches.
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Black-capped chickadees appear when these
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have gone, and heavy-bodied mourning doves
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crash and scatter them, and bob like gulls
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on a green beach. None can dislodge the doves
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but jays: scrub and Stellar's. I tell
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the children of the habits of jays, stealers
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of eggs, bullies. The middle child hates
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injustice, and claims he will shoot the jays,
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so I tell him a story: in Georgia, when I
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was young, I watched a cat catch a robin.
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The robin fluttered and cried, and the cat
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clamped down, muscles bulked. A mockingbird
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flew low and strafed, and the cat missed a hold.
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The robin crawled off, trailing breakage.
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The cat pounced again. The mockingbird
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perched nearby, screaming. A male cardinal,
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biggest I had ever seen, parrot-bright,
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flew in from nowhere and landed, wings outspread
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almost in the cat's face, and began,
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one wing down, the dance of bird mothers
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who hope to divert cats from nestlings.
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The cat dropped the robin and went
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for the cardinal, missing by a whisker.
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This was repeated many times, but the robin
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was dying, so the cardinal had in the end
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to give it up. But I have never forgotten
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that strange unequal battle, and a bird
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that would so risk life for another species.
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The boy seems unimpressed. I add: the cardinal
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is a jay. He gets it: life is not so simple
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as its known and quantified habits. Out there
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on the well-house roof, or in our own lives,
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or anywhere, bad we can expect, but good,
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if rare, comes also, and so we scatter
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seed, and then sit by the window and wait.
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Richard Bear
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rbear@oregon.uoregon.edu
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----------
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Sandy Hook
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----------
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New York skyline,
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flotsam garbage,
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naked bathers
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in October.
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Brooklynites
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with sunburn noses
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combing sand
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for missing baubles.
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Weathered bunkers,
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missing missiles,
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cold-war relics
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in decay.
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Holly trees and
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browsed-on cacti.
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Styrofoam and
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cockle shells.
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Karen Tellefsen
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kat@ritz.mordor.com
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--------------
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Mourning Light
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--------------
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The bitter residue of dreams
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still upon me
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I weep at fading visions
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of beauty
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dan graves
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dan@skipper.berkeley.edu
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--------------
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Triangle Power
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--------------
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the cable slopes
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from oak to oak
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casts a long
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afternoon shadow
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on the shifting grasses
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treetop creaks
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with holding me
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sways in the fall's
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first breezes
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triangle's iron
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in preflight palms
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hands spasm
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in damp fear
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that precedes
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the leap
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once in a dream
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i touched thumb to thumb
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leaning fingers inward
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two triangles placed
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against my head
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i stared across the base
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into a sliver moon
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when the buzzing
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seized me
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my body hummed
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with rhythms
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of new found power
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rising from the quiet earth
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Jody Upshaw
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jupshaw@hfm.com
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---------------
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days like these
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---------------
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on days like these
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when the chatter never ends
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my son yells, "where you at?"
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and when i ask
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he tells me he's afraid of the sky
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it is too big too vast
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to keep an eye on to always see allways
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and a thistle in the weeds i pull
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draws my blood and me
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closer whispering
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it isn't only your back that remains behind
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you can't see through our sky
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Karen Hussey
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ai500@freenet.carleton.ca
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---------------
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Cats and Fishes
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---------------
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under the sumac shade
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i sit by the sun-dappled pond
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watching the goldfish break
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the surface
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feeding
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the little ones darting
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here and there
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trying to break off small pieces
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the big ones opening huge maws
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engulfing
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the cat sits hunched
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on the rocks
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tail twitching
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waiting
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watching for an opportunity
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the canny goldfish know
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that cats hate water
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Marguerite K.A. Petersen
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petersm@csos.orst.edu
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-----------------
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bugle (call) girl
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-----------------
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rings. i want real roses. silver heels.
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tap taps -- legs march -- steps stepped home.
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hips swish -- unprivate shimmy -- little girl squeals.
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composes. arms support. elbows form blithe
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love triangles. shoulders square. chokered neck
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painted face fake fake hairish stuff.
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position. set. play.
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C-E-G-C. i want fingers for my rings.
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i like F. once i had them but i lost my lips.
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i'm bereft bereft. i like lips. they part they
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close they shape 3-D. i go half-lipped. snip.
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i lost F. i lost C-E-G-C. i fake it.
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i want music. strike my notes -- resemble F but
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fall half-assed on E i dote. half of me.
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i want him to wake before i leave. maybe he will
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write or play or make his sound. he neither wore
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nor offered rings. he is many. i lack lips with
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which they taunt. but do not use. i want back
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my trumpet. whole my notes.
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back i want rings.
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Heather L. Igert
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hli893s@nic.smsu.edu
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-------------------
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The Last Hitchhiker
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-------------------
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The last hitchhiker before town,
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a pony-tailed Jesus with a sign
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wavers wickedly in the door-panel.
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*Galway, Ireland? Is that what you mean?*
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As he leans through the cocked side-window
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an inch-to-the-mile map spreads from his side
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and a long, dirty fingernail pierces a bay.
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Yes, I like the cut of you, hitchhiker, hijacker,
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you may lay your backpack inside my hatchback,
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let your sleeping-bag roll on the back-seat
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as the exhaust-pipe opens its flyblown parachute.
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One by one, the road-signs flicker by
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and we sleepwalk under the skin of a car,
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passing the lay-by, the drive-in eatery,
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the scrapyard where lifting-cranes
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scrunch up spent engines
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and a bald-headed man pursues with vigoour
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the hare-lipped, shirt-tailed assassin.
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john redmond
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jredmond@vax.ox.ac.uk
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---------------
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untitled memory
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---------------
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my earliest recollection:
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watercolors dabbed haphazardly
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about a paper napkin.
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that day the blurred horizon
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had no vanishing point - a sky of suns
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that danced in a circle,
|
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singing songs I could no longer remember.
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in my bow tie and Sunday shoes,
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I never cried when I was told.
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the birds were silent then,
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hovering above while I counted each one.
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they had no names, yet they all knew me -
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they watched while I played in the sand after dark.
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they scattered when my name was called,
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the floodlight's reflection still shimmering
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in the pool on the other side of the fence.
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inside, the halls were narrow,
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casting shadows at impossible angles.
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I stared at my fingers
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while water washed the sand away,
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a clockwise swirl against the blue porcelain.
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then, the long march.
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fighting sleep, the contours of night
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assembled behind the billowing curtains,
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laying the toy soldiers to rest.
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Paul David Mena
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mena@hydra.cray.com
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-----------
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how it came
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-----------
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it was like rain. though the writer from cosmo says
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falling in love is like falling in a puddle
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last night it was like falling rain.
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like this: it is a sunday in july and i am under an awning.
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i am dry but the yellow sky--
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the yellow yellow sky--
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it deceives me and i leave my awning to find dew
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on my skin in my hair on my eyes.
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it fills the yellow sky and i am wet.
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this is rain.
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and that is how it came.
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JJHemphill
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shilo@uiuc.edu
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----------------
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Becomes a Geisha
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----------------
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Small face finely burnished,
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Delicate glaze. Her smile
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holds forever.
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Can her jade-lidded eyes
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arrest her descent to despair?
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Thomas Bell
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tbjn@well.sf.ca.us
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-------------------------
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He Bids His Love Lie Down
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-------------------------
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I bade my love lie down amidst
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the purple amaranth
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and keep her troubled soul at rest
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from heartless circumstance.
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How gently did I wipe the drops
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of dew that were her tears
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and round her, I enwrapped my arms
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to comfort all her fears.
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My heart thus died a trembling death
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resolving not to kiss her,
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I pressed my lips into her hair and
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voiced a sorrowed whisper.
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My love, my love, weep not for us.
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Be not o'erly vexed.
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While in this life we cannot love
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We surely will the next.
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Scott Cudmore
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scudmore@peinet.pe.ca
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--------
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canon 36
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--------
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and here my trip ends
|
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and it is season for sticking shelducks
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goosefat broils and the women crouch to their hominy works
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here is sedge for the tufted marsh
|
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a throne stock for the saints
|
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where the bull mires and the magpie jags on the quickwood
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Umbria! Tuscany! last lands with hyssop for my homecoming drink
|
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caserns overrun by goats, broken pillars
|
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ruins of altars, chancel-full of snakes
|
|
terrible animals all of marble mossed:
|
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St Francis in the carob, St Justin in the bunchberry
|
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and the remnants of the masters' gargoyles of the mouflon
|
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and the horse
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and here my trip ends
|
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with behind me the forest in a soakage of psalms
|
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canticles, madrigals, and poems spent in vain marking the Delphic track
|
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villagers draft me as your washer of stones
|
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your cleaner of plinths and marbles
|
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and with a heather broom leave me cleaning after these stumbled loves
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cleaning after the butchers' pelage
|
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the revel's wreckage, the driven packs
|
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and the duels and the killings and the wayward doggery
|
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cleaning after the daydone jobbers
|
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who carol lewd their drunk homeward trek
|
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pissing on the high road once and once on the church's wall
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Edgar Y. Choueiri
|
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choueiri@princeton.edu
|
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|
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|
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-------------------------------
|
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portrait in blonde and smarties
|
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-------------------------------
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|
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i am blonde. very blonde. when i go to the sea it
|
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|
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goes white-silver. my eyes go bright blue. i have a very
|
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sexy body. i have been told i have perfect breasts.
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|
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a dyed old wedding-dress sounds purrrr-fect.
|
|
it will make me purr.
|
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okay, you don't have to shave your beard off.
|
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but you do have to wash my hair, feed me canadian
|
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whisky and read long paragraphs from garcia marquez.
|
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then you will not fuck me senseless.
|
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we will fuck each other senslessly fuckless,
|
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breathlessly staccato.
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i made a dash out to a cafe and bought strawberry
|
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centred smarties.
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i am blonde. very blonde.
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Helen Walne / Marek Lugowski
|
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marek@mcs.com
|
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|
|
|
|
-----------
|
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male father
|
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-----------
|
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|
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fully dangerous
|
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he is the hot pistol
|
|
that amazed my mother
|
|
and he is looking at me right now
|
|
laughing as i try
|
|
to find a way
|
|
to impress you
|
|
|
|
men of the life of my father
|
|
i invoke your names
|
|
in fear and distaste and respect
|
|
i am slipping again into
|
|
shotguns and dead animals
|
|
around fires and whiskey
|
|
|
|
the dream is of taking
|
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that shotgun to your
|
|
football helmet
|
|
to your aftershave
|
|
to your knives and boots
|
|
and goddamn jokes about
|
|
sex and woman
|
|
|
|
but i want another hug
|
|
furry with body hair
|
|
and caution
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ray Heinrich
|
|
heinrich@va.stratus.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
-------------
|
|
The Space Age
|
|
-------------
|
|
|
|
Bony sidewalk was our daybreak gangplank,
|
|
humming launch pad, historic surly speedway.
|
|
Brother's chalk was a hacking cough
|
|
of hieroglyphs and racing stripes.
|
|
When crayola failed us, we'd just roll over,
|
|
surprising the numb-still grass.
|
|
|
|
It was the space age:
|
|
We kept an eye
|
|
on the powder sky
|
|
for satellites and sudden flashes.
|
|
The tiniest metal jets drew rigid lines,
|
|
floating from the west--we turned
|
|
|
|
them into messages from
|
|
the rounded silver future.
|
|
We didn't read mythology.
|
|
We had our own versions of magnificence:
|
|
TV test patterns, invisible Russians,
|
|
the suburban planners' sleepless grid
|
|
|
|
and the prayers of every
|
|
white-coated Sunday morn.
|
|
Our busy boy-silences pounded the sidewalk
|
|
more superbly than any book could promise ...
|
|
Then one time
|
|
the blanketed vet across the way
|
|
|
|
dragged by in the morning orange,
|
|
a melting detonator in his head,
|
|
doing the mental math it took
|
|
to make the last 20 years come out right.
|
|
After that, he was always our library of
|
|
collected sounds, fabulist of solidest earth.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Paul Raymond Waddle
|
|
c/o erickson@library.vanderbilt.edu
|
|
|
|
|
|
-------------------
|
|
Counting Past a Few
|
|
-------------------
|
|
|
|
People puppets dangle on pretence
|
|
Hollow, wooden, mute, mastered by the hands
|
|
Who irrigate this paper world with word
|
|
And sketched pools of politic:
|
|
Boiled essence of a way to be, a line:
|
|
Countless dots drawn in a necklace
|
|
Of strung desires.
|
|
|
|
The audience sit staring through the voiceless shells
|
|
To the people within, unaware of their skeleton slavery.
|
|
|
|
A cloth of unmade rooms makes the stage
|
|
A waiting cloak ready for embrace.
|
|
These puppet players are the days
|
|
Of a strangling season, ripe with the lines
|
|
Of breathing anathema.
|
|
|
|
Caressed by the coat of darkness on their eyes, weaving
|
|
A dose of dialogue to tame their ears to sleep, bleeding.
|
|
|
|
"In all your pavement days you will meet me
|
|
At obscure distance seen through your paranoid eye,
|
|
Felt by your muffled hand. My saying herd and
|
|
Flock of looks come to shave your fields bare,
|
|
Teasing leaves from hanging hope and roots from water.
|
|
You are rough to my feel, feeling with your hands,
|
|
Dry to my taste, sucking with your mouth, against
|
|
My every grain you are the driving plough. I am
|
|
The way to live, the life to lead, the death to die,
|
|
The body of fashion, patron saint of people.
|
|
I am the one who weighs your weightless dreams."
|
|
|
|
"Drink my poison, feel my fist,
|
|
The days are never more wasted than when they live with me.
|
|
Your words wither in my barren land,
|
|
Darkness is never more dull than in my shadow.
|
|
All your knowing, all your thoughts
|
|
Turn on the spit of my scorn, writhe
|
|
In my ignorant heat. Here is hate. There is no
|
|
Learning love. I am a vacuum of reason in my glee.
|
|
I am the one who burns your righteous book."
|
|
|
|
"You are like the grazed surface of a lake to me,
|
|
Crazed and buffeted by your senses wind, whipped
|
|
Into waves of interest and fascination.
|
|
My mind is once a noose around the noise, a burial stone
|
|
Whose eyes forever watch the dead,
|
|
And once the rapids of a song, a blur of foam
|
|
Whose eyes are wasted on the world. I am a knife
|
|
Which trims the living skin from dead.
|
|
I am the all who don't see and overlook."
|
|
|
|
|
|
Matt Ford
|
|
mausr@csv.warwick.ac.uk
|
|
|
|
|
|
----------------------
|
|
Ghost of the Narcissus
|
|
----------------------
|
|
|
|
Ghost of the Narcissus
|
|
rotting in a sea-broth,
|
|
sea-weed stew ---
|
|
|
|
Ghost of aching sailor,
|
|
sea-gull who came picking
|
|
through his slaughter,
|
|
|
|
Damned upon this blank, huge
|
|
sea-broth water.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Erik Asphaug
|
|
asphaug@lpl.arizona.edu
|
|
|
|
|
|
--------
|
|
Untitled
|
|
--------
|
|
|
|
one ripe tomato
|
|
pulls down blackened frostbit vines
|
|
among fall cabbage
|
|
|
|
|
|
Michael McNeilley
|
|
mmichael@halcyon.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
----------
|
|
Olden Daze
|
|
----------
|
|
|
|
When all animals were deer, all strong drink cider,
|
|
sky was cloud and blue was yellow,
|
|
prestige was illusion and buxom obedient,
|
|
grammar was glamour and it was foolish to be nice.
|
|
|
|
Smiles forced older smirks to specialise,
|
|
all franchised meaning traced back
|
|
through flattened vowels and metathesis
|
|
to an unrecorded Swiss account.
|
|
|
|
Old deaths quelled and sweltered away,
|
|
surviving in heraldry and saws until they're dashed to boot,
|
|
dead metaphors overtaken by the waiting wolf's teeth
|
|
which became a rake, a frame for candles then a hearse.
|
|
|
|
Our heyday's lightyears from hay or day,
|
|
and either's got nothing to do with neither either,
|
|
and there never was any sorrow in sorry and only listless
|
|
opposites remind us of how things really were.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tim Love
|
|
tpl@eng.cam.ac.uk
|
|
|
|
|
|
---------
|
|
purloined
|
|
---------
|
|
|
|
i wanna be isolde. but i think
|
|
i'll be a spinster. i hide behind blue
|
|
steel bastions -- spinning yarn from dissolving flax.
|
|
i play with cats who long to be kittens
|
|
splayed on spinet keys. i named them with
|
|
alphabetical euphemisms for lost lovers.
|
|
t is for my tristan.
|
|
|
|
nine bitter lonely lives. i've wasted three
|
|
while knitting needles clink time with vinyl-spinning
|
|
vvagner. i never sang my aria. we meow instead a
|
|
blue-note chorus. knit one pearl two. we
|
|
worship yarn and nap. but i wanna be isolde.
|
|
|
|
my parapets and i know the wiles
|
|
of pining fond men and dull gnarled yarn.
|
|
so i claw rats myself -- plink my tunes
|
|
with furtive paws. but kings would call me
|
|
beautiful behind these cold cat eyes if
|
|
i were isolde. i'd flitter through noble
|
|
cathectic lovers. hey --
|
|
it's blue skies from here babe.
|
|
|
|
tristan rubs against my leg and purrs.
|
|
we share tender vittles on weekends.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Heather L. Igert
|
|
hli893s@nic.smsu.edu
|
|
|
|
|
|
--------
|
|
untitled
|
|
--------
|
|
|
|
until you look away
|
|
all that's left is weak
|
|
hold my hand
|
|
until its time
|
|
in time
|
|
i cannot even speak
|
|
|
|
touch me softer
|
|
this time slowly
|
|
i am dying
|
|
slowly
|
|
my heart
|
|
is crying
|
|
|
|
|
|
Soon Hong
|
|
hong199@wharton.upenn.edu
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
------------
|
|
fathom seven
|
|
------------
|
|
|
|
each unseen flicker fortifying his religion
|
|
he fathoms its presence, but no one yields to his seventh sense
|
|
emotionally stamped a vagrant by the surplus civilized world
|
|
he makes this pilgrimage honestly and hourly
|
|
his eyes burn with anticipation
|
|
his ears sear with apprehension
|
|
his mind charred by intuition
|
|
eventually his expectations drown in his own quandary
|
|
his reverie extinguished by the invisible ashes of his fantasy
|
|
They burn his eyes blind
|
|
They melt his ears deaf
|
|
They boil his mind numb
|
|
it is over now
|
|
alone in his mutilated pathos
|
|
he lived to die
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jason Fried
|
|
fried@gas.uug.arizona.edu
|
|
|
|
|
|
-------------------
|
|
Aux cath\'{e}drales
|
|
-------------------
|
|
|
|
Des vagues, des vagues des vagues,
|
|
Celle qui les a envoy\'{e}es du bout du monde,
|
|
Elle a pris mon \^{a}me et l'am\`{e}ne
|
|
Jusqu'au fond de sa m\`{e}re ?
|
|
|
|
La vague, vague et effac\'{e}e sur les sabres
|
|
Ils ne savent rien
|
|
|
|
|
|
\={O}hara, Kazutaka
|
|
c20229@cfi.waseda.ac.jp
|
|
|
|
|
|
----------------
|
|
Only In The Mind
|
|
----------------
|
|
|
|
rubbing gritty
|
|
tiny abrasions
|
|
a face peeled away
|
|
from a mask beneath
|
|
carbide sleep particles
|
|
eroding the eyelids
|
|
greasy soot blackening
|
|
the egg white whites
|
|
of blood shot orbits
|
|
sand papering away
|
|
the vitreous bright
|
|
too smooth clarity
|
|
with the last glitter
|
|
of broken diamonds
|
|
never to be mended
|
|
rubbed upon marbles
|
|
wanting to wear away
|
|
the delicate eyes
|
|
that never wear away
|
|
the magic lantern
|
|
of inner visions
|
|
that see her
|
|
as if she is alive
|
|
more cherished
|
|
than only in the mind
|
|
only in yesterday
|
|
only in any sandcastle
|
|
we might have built.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Bob Ezergailis
|
|
bob.ezergailis@canrem.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
------------
|
|
Premenstrual
|
|
------------
|
|
|
|
I'm so premenstrual
|
|
it's dripping from my fingers
|
|
and I really want a cigarrette
|
|
but then I remember
|
|
I quit three weeks ago
|
|
to make my body a temple of God.
|
|
All this crap of life
|
|
is driving me
|
|
unstoppable, uncontrollable, unsatisfied.
|
|
I wish my lungs
|
|
were as black as tar,
|
|
my heart as thick
|
|
as a mound of mud,
|
|
and my clothes as smokey
|
|
as my ex-boyfriend's car.
|
|
At least then I'd have
|
|
an excuse for being
|
|
so damn bitchy
|
|
instead of this stupid hormone thing.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rebecca Peatow
|
|
beckied@gladstone.uoregon.edu
|
|
|
|
|
|
-----
|
|
quill
|
|
-----
|
|
|
|
hush child
|
|
sit sit on the corner and learn
|
|
to punctuate and conjugate
|
|
be still child
|
|
listen
|
|
but do not be heard
|
|
|
|
hush child do not run about
|
|
looking for metaphors
|
|
most of them are tired anyway
|
|
drafts on first-grade lined newsprint
|
|
written with fat jumbo pencils
|
|
do not read like laser print
|
|
|
|
hush run along now
|
|
let the people of the quill
|
|
chant the mysteries
|
|
of the words
|
|
|
|
|
|
zita marie evensen
|
|
ac869@freenet.hsc.colorado.edu
|
|
|
|
|
|
------------------------------
|
|
Why Benny Went to Windsor Once
|
|
------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Between you and me
|
|
here's why
|
|
Benny went to Windsor once
|
|
it was late
|
|
the Windsors dine at eight
|
|
when Benny told
|
|
Elizabeth Bowles Mountbatten
|
|
as one professional to another
|
|
he loved her
|
|
doing the Queen Mother
|
|
and that's why
|
|
between you and me
|
|
Benny went to Windsor -- once
|
|
|
|
|
|
David Bolduc
|
|
bolduc@forsythe.stanford.edu
|
|
|
|
|
|
-------------
|
|
September Son
|
|
-------------
|
|
|
|
He came straggling up the road
|
|
after a night of lowdown and high spirits on Rat Row,
|
|
his belly full of booze and his head gone to seed,
|
|
but still good enough to drive a tractor at dawn,
|
|
the same morning my mother told me
|
|
with a look of resignation in her eye,
|
|
"Watch your ways...the Devil's afoot today,"
|
|
knowing I was ripe at the age when He comes a-knocking,
|
|
before she sought respite in church and ladies,
|
|
leaving me behind with idle thoughts and empty rooms,
|
|
the echo of mantel clocks inching toward my prime,
|
|
yearning for a taste of future wasted
|
|
within four walls and murmuring the name
|
|
of Daddy
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mark Hallman
|
|
c/o bolduc@forsythe.stanford.edu
|
|
|
|
|
|
---------
|
|
measuring
|
|
---------
|
|
|
|
1.
|
|
|
|
5 inches along the curve
|
|
or 6 when fully
|
|
engorged. you make me watch
|
|
from the corner, eyeing me.
|
|
all sixteen years of me, measured straight.
|
|
balled tape measure thrown at me.
|
|
|
|
i+m old enough to understand
|
|
your battering-ram lessons
|
|
+dirty, nasty. been a badbad girl+
|
|
nocuous rantings
|
|
+bitch. you fucking. cunt.+
|
|
incestuous innuendos
|
|
+lovely-lookin, taut,
|
|
sweet honey nipples
|
|
you like me. I can tell+
|
|
|
|
you. drive. me. c r a z y.
|
|
brother.
|
|
|
|
2.
|
|
|
|
I busy myself measuring
|
|
our tenement flat
|
|
500 square feet plus
|
|
a cubby hole i crouch in.
|
|
figure I could, if I had to
|
|
survive, bring in some food
|
|
a peach and Ouzo
|
|
enough to dizzy me
|
|
masking the sensation
|
|
of roaches crawling
|
|
in and out of holes.
|
|
|
|
3.
|
|
|
|
staying up half the night
|
|
hoping you+ll leave
|
|
half way through.
|
|
memorize your steps
|
|
the left a little harder
|
|
falling more controlled.
|
|
drags behind half an inch.
|
|
a guided missile that+s pursuing
|
|
your body.
|
|
|
|
crawl into my cubby
|
|
Ouzo. no peach
|
|
shadowless. safe.
|
|
my mind recites things
|
|
things i understand
|
|
things i+m not sure i can.
|
|
anything.
|
|
for company.
|
|
|
|
holy mary mother
|
|
of god pray for us
|
|
sinners now.
|
|
|
|
4.
|
|
|
|
crush an insect skull
|
|
who scurries my thigh
|
|
as light filters under
|
|
door jamb. flick it away.
|
|
|
|
i hear your back slide
|
|
down cubby hole wall.
|
|
i think if i look
|
|
may see your eyeballs
|
|
searing through
|
|
support beam.
|
|
|
|
now i lay me down
|
|
to sleep i pray the
|
|
lord my soul to keep
|
|
if i should die before.
|
|
|
|
lost recitation.
|
|
your voice. tenor.
|
|
+come out come out wherever you are+
|
|
your fist knocks asking invitation.
|
|
|
|
i know you measure along the arc
|
|
--I am measured straight--
|
|
i crouch further back to escape the curve.
|
|
|
|
5.
|
|
|
|
i hold plate glass
|
|
under nose to feel
|
|
breath.
|
|
too little light
|
|
i touch moisture
|
|
with fingertip
|
|
for reassurance.
|
|
|
|
6.
|
|
|
|
i think now
|
|
you are hardcooking
|
|
hungry man. meat and something.
|
|
so much of me, cubby hole me,
|
|
growls gurgles weeps
|
|
my lips moisten
|
|
from tv dinner steam
|
|
seeping through the door jamb.
|
|
|
|
i imagine you having
|
|
carrots drenched in
|
|
butter and for dessert,
|
|
chocolate pudding.
|
|
|
|
i have plate glass.
|
|
tape measure.
|
|
black and blues.
|
|
semi circle roach motels.
|
|
Ouzo. peachlessness.
|
|
|
|
7.
|
|
|
|
again i feel your breath outside
|
|
my hole.
|
|
|
|
jailer breathing hungry man breath
|
|
fogging my thoughts rubbing figure eights
|
|
on plate glass.
|
|
|
|
your breath. it eats me.
|
|
i cup my lips
|
|
(now i lay me down to sleep.)
|
|
encircle round and round my neck
|
|
(i pray the lord my soul to keep).
|
|
precariously close to abnormal,
|
|
with begged whisper i begin...
|
|
|
|
+brother
|
|
take 500 square feet
|
|
not a square foot more. leave me a small
|
|
hole. Ouzo and.
|
|
|
|
peach.+
|
|
|
|
|
|
Erica L. Wagner
|
|
wagnerel@maspo2.mas.yale.edu
|
|
|
|
|
|
----------------
|
|
Breathing Ground
|
|
----------------
|
|
|
|
The subdued dead are here.
|
|
The ground--pale ash, broken headstone--lifts and settles
|
|
with their breathing.
|
|
Churchbells ring the ancient angelus;
|
|
the dead slow their breathing, heavy with respect for the old ways.
|
|
|
|
Flags, paper ribbons, crinkled bunting;
|
|
festival trappings flap in the breezes of a late afternoon.
|
|
Children march to the tune of the Fourth of July.
|
|
To a father, the bells are quaint, out-of-time.
|
|
He takes pictures of his little towheaded girl.
|
|
She marches the grass into the bald ground,
|
|
slaps a stone marked "Goody, wyfe"
|
|
with her mini-red white and blue flag.
|
|
The severe sound frightens the blackbirds,
|
|
her high voice chanting "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere"
|
|
and beating time with her flag on the ridge of the headstone.
|
|
|
|
Quiet maple leaves swing low in the humid air.
|
|
Father steps over the grave marker,
|
|
standing, as if no one else is there,
|
|
no one bound in little worn out pieces to the ashy, scrubgrassed earth,
|
|
takes the flag from his daughter and picks her up lightly
|
|
like leaves.
|
|
|
|
The blackbirds fly low and drop lightly to the ground,
|
|
careful of the headstones,
|
|
pecking for seeds in the yellow grass.
|
|
|
|
|
|
K.E. Krebser
|
|
krebser@erg.sri.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
---------------------------------------
|
|
i will sing with the birds in the trees
|
|
---------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
I
|
|
|
|
each year the birds return to sing the same songs
|
|
yet they are not the same birds
|
|
|
|
the notes must be written in the trees
|
|
|
|
each year leaves paint the trees with the same brilliant colors
|
|
yet they are not the same leaves
|
|
|
|
since they die, is there nothing to remember?
|
|
|
|
each year my bones wither further
|
|
they promise to support me only until they find my grave
|
|
|
|
i will sing with the birds in the trees.
|
|
|
|
|
|
II
|
|
|
|
one year the birds returned to sing new songs!
|
|
look! is there not one unfamiliar feather among them?
|
|
|
|
the notes moor unstaid in the breeze
|
|
|
|
each year leaves canvass the trees with new hues
|
|
see! how far they can travel before coming to rest!
|
|
|
|
before leaving, they want something to remember
|
|
|
|
each year my heart expands to contain itself
|
|
a young heart never dies, and i believe this
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i am singing with the birds in the trees.
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III
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next year the birds should return
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unless there are no more songs to sing...
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to sing freely is the bird's only reason for returning
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next year new leaves will decorate new trees
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because even the forest cannot last forever
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old leaves give birth to new trees
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next year my soul may be a leaf
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and all of the forests could become my soul
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i still sing with the birds in the trees.
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John Quill Taylor
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jqtaylor@hpbs114.boi.hp.com
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--------
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untitled
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--------
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The odor of dark
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fur flies out at us. Twisted
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green pieces rumor
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the end. Wizened winter
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sun speaks ochre blossoms again.
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Thomas Bell
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tbjn@well.sf.ca.us
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--------------
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name me latent
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--------------
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go-train Coltrane
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sentimental loser pain
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tell me I'm a winner
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so I get a quick fix
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hand-held mind meld
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strangled with a garter-belt
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chewin' gum & gettin some
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I try another trick
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the writing on the washroom wall
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says "nirvana = clit"
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free-fell dinner bell
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separate the when from while
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salivate a little
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so the rhthym gets quick
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bland lines second times
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fuckit till the ending rhymes
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offering an answer
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so you know how I tick
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the writing on the washroom wall
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says "better" the writing
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on the wall says "nirvana = clit"
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John Adam Kaune
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jkaune@ivory@trentu.ca
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-----------------
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fear of the known
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-----------------
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if i could scrape the bedding
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from my ear,
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the flecks of tired from my teeth,
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i might have strength for dying.
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but i am older now, harder
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to combine with sleep.
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another welding into ice.
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oh, if i could open up my belly,
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let the frail out and keep just one
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illusion around my neck.
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hillary joyce
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haj2@cornell.edu
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-------
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Magpies
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-------
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From the birch, the crack of magpies
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heralds the solstice of junkie dusk.
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Each morning the world is more like tar,
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but your cold, bloody robes thin my eyes.
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St. Peter, lecherous old angel,
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waggles his staff at us
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and I pluck the down from my husband's head
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as he rocks beneath the roof.
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If I loved you, your teeth
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would tumble from your lips--
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I'd collect each dark root
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in my grandmother's porcelain cup.
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If you loved me, licks from the sun
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would steal your wife, your prior life.
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I already see the fraying ships
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stalk near, disappear, reappear
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and the torches flash
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from the reef to my bed
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and the magpies pick the flesh
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from collarless mongrels.
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Blake Kritzberg
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kritzber@ucsuc.colorado.edu
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-----------
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marble love
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-----------
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i fish a cat's eye
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out of the leather
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squeeze warm the glass
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until stiff finger's jerk open
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dropping the marble to my toes
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wriggling between over and between
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kick a little to calves
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rolling fast now
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to knees pinch and catch
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for just a second
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before letting go
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to softer white thighs
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slowing marble progress
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lost in curls
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bumping a drawn in breath
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pushing hips
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roll over quivering thick thigh
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slack rubber band skin
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rolls pink and silver
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crepe heavy restless hips
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catching belly button
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before climbing ribs
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rebounding on absorbing motion
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breast to the other and back
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following fat edge
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striking collarbone bounce
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to neck arching back
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and a quick climb
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to chin tongue catching
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glass taste just in time
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as the marble teases my lips
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and the taste of me
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of me clinking teeth
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as it slides finally
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inside warm
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taste of me
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Karen Hussey
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ai500@freenet.carleton.ca
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--------------
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No longer then
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--------------
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The city is an open grave.
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All the streets howl with a call for the dead.
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The bare earth lies like a blank page on which
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No cross or dot is ever drawn.
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Never a word, never a vowel will cross its lips
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And leak into the past.
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A stagnant pool of progress;
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Only the sewers run with the words of water pouring.
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They raised a desert from the destroyed earth.
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Suffocating in space, out
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Into the countryside vigilante suburbs sprawl
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Breathless, spitting at the sky and horizon.
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Turn any stone and you will find a spider,
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Squeeze any stone and it will bleed.
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Torn apart mechanism and
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Machinery, foreword and the following,
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Scattered ashes adrift in sand like
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A song in the radio spectrum
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Or a pale letter in the proof-reader's task.
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The clouds too thick a filter for the light,
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Too strong a censor for the sun, lamps ring in your eyes;
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Telephones with news of the street and a clear message:
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You are never alone, even in a dark corner
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Such as yourself.
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You are always alone, even your thoughts
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Are a heard heresy.
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Everyone speaks the language of traffic,
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Then in two tongues
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A beggar and a poet whine.
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Nobody will read. Nobody will notice.
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In this cemetery
|
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The corpses rot before they die.
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Matt Ford
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mausr@csv.warwick.ac.uk
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