INRODUCTION
Klaus J. Gerken
CONTENTS
DANIEL POP
Millenium
Exile
Concrete Jungle
Alter Ego
Jugendstil
Where Do You Go ?
Cold War Winterlied
Modern Times Imago
Far Away From Tipperary
Fractalia
Fugitive Hours
LARRY SAWYER
THE OTHER SIDE OF LANGUAGE
DOWNPOUR
AS USUAL
DARK ROOM
LIGHTS
HAZEL KING
Fire of Desire
Beneath the Surface
DUANE LOCKE
COMMUNICATION
CROW'S AND HUMAN VOICES
ANCESTORS
CROWS
MAGICIAN
JAY LIVESON
Praxis
Perhaps Miriam
Labrador
Deliverance
East New York, 1943
LAURENCE OVERMIRE
Sins of the Fathers
The Wall
Another Sunday Afternoon
Playground
The Dawning of a New Millennium
WARD KELLEY
Dancing in Front of the Glacier
Into Their Mortal Walks
Emily Thought to Drown
BRAD EVANS
awake, beside her
on being asked how I felt about Australia's involvement in East Timor.
his first day at school
former school peers
just like the others
like Diogenes, put your barrel where you want it!!!
DON BARBERA
MY IGNORANCE
POST SCRIPTUM
JOHN E. MARKS
The sign of the cross
Voices.
Voices we don't know, nor understand.
Voices that perplex us.
Voices cold as tempered steel.
Voices like gold or silk or smooth as lies.
Voices hand in hand with honour and deception.
Voices of truth, youth and repremand.
Voices of determination.
Voices of the eagle or the fly.
Voices of a meagre way to cry.
Voices we crane our necks to comprehend.
Voices that are not beyond us but are hidden.
Voices of the seers, shamans, madman, monks.
Voices of the mothers, children, aunts.
Voices of the family.
Voices of the empty, cold and destitute.
Voices of night, the early morning, cold and harsh, and of the day
that rips us with the noise of centries, technology and
fear.
Voices of the arguments.
Voices of insanity, and sadder still, of sanity misdirected.
Voices of the millions who have suffered their own holocaust.
Voices of the fallen.
Voices of the sacrifices.
Voices of the victories.
Voices of the wars.
Voices of the powerful.
Voices of the powerless.
Voices of the empty.
Voices of the ever smiling.
Voices of disease.
Voices of the suffering, the saviours and the cure. (No one here is sure.)
Voices of the needy.
Voices of the rich.
Voices of the multitudes; the farmers, workers and the poor.
Voices of the artisans and the performers.
Voices of the public.
Voices of the government.
Voices of the artists, poets and composers.
Voices that become our very being and our soul.
Voices that become our music, art and poetry.
Klaus J. Gerken
DANIEL POP 1. Millenium ~~~~~~~~~ As if manoeuvered by an invisible hand, Damocles' Sword oscilates and cuts it's own filament and misses the target. In front of castledoors Trojan Horses play the chess-game of the end of Millennium
DANIEL POP 2. Exile ~~~~~ Only the birds fly over the borders and escape from the soundless but inevitably closing nets. Consciousness sinks into the subconscious.
DANIEL POP 3. Concrete Jungle ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Weightlessness in the skyscraper district of the City of Cities. The reason,for the time being, is unclear. We're floating happy among luck-bringing chimney-sweeps from one building to another. Nowhere is the morning so golden as here, in the park of concrete-glass-steel fantasy. A small stone inclines the steeply rising semiconductor ladder. Slowly but concrete ... again ... gravitation.
DANIEL POP 4. Alter Ego ~~~~~~~~~ Day by day my Lyrical Self is experiencing an inner splitting that I like. Somewhere(inside) I vaguely suspect the existence of symbolic interactions, the inflection points of coupled ideas and the discreet conflict between will and power of immagination. Eigenvalue and self are searching and scanning interior landscapes for the profile of the appropriate Non-self.
DANIEL POP 5. Jugendstil ~~~~~~~~~~ The mysterious world of plants donates chlorophyll to free lizards whose lilac joy of life is vital for the speedy curved, in their own shell-house prohibited , snails.
DANIEL POP 6. Where Do You Go ? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Circles and spheres Balls and wheels Don Quichote handicrafts the mechanism of the windmillfields. In the meantime the Zoo - zone becomes quiet: Train stops. Car stops. The inner clock of the cells beats softly midnight. Only in castle towers the Gauss - bells ring: "Attention! Attention! You are leaving the American Sector."
DANIEL POP 7. Cold War Winterlied ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The rough winterwind holds at the railway - station. Freezing frozen movements haste from the tower-blocks into the departing train. Departing cars leave behind splitted zebra crossings. Above ice-rivers freezing hydrogen bridges. As if electrified Hypnos exercises his influences on outer and inner landscapes.
DANIEL POP 8. Modern Times Imago ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "If it makes You happy then why are You so sad ?" A cyclone circles and whirls the fate of all banknotes of this world. Senseless-absurd , passing pedestrians collect the floating money , the suspended - flying bills , the changeable fortune ...... Piece by piece the cosmic Wheel-of-Time rolls through the whole Eternity. Death died since years.
DANIEL POP 9. Far Away From Tipperary ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Finally. ..... Liberated, my lonely friend from the Round Table of Calmness and of Silence photographs the tranquil Infinity Column of the stars. Somewhere, much to far, much to remote, lie the coloured butterflygardens of Tipperary. Oh, in vain has time no hurry, Far Away from Tipperary.
DANIEL POP 10. Fractalia ~~~~~~~~~ The big molecules of the universe are playing the universal football-match-Finale with buckyballs under niceweatherclouds with almost infinite half lives. The new time-Internet is connecting the game all over the space with life , matter and energy. Humans and computers, nightdancers and robots, Janusheads and double-stars, White dwarfs and quasars, Man - machine interfaces, all are experiencing the immense joy of eternal life.
DANIEL POP 11. Fugitive Hours ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Eight before nine, the ring of the lemonyellow alarm-clock wakes Wirklichkeit to reality. The telephone box on the seashore is waiting patiently for burning crisscross discussions. The weather is changeble today, unpredictable. Ice-cubes clanking like glass take hold of emptiness. Through the light-and-air window of an automobile, parked nonchalantly in a dead-end street, trickles sandcoloured cigarette smoke. In the fortyonemeterband a sender brings evergreens. For fugitive hours.
LARRY SAWYER THE OTHER SIDE OF LANGUAGE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I read in a poem once that there is an other side of language. Well, I'm here to tell you that there's no such other side of language. There's only one side. You'll notice this when she says, "I'm leaving. Or when the voice on the other end of the phone says, "click" then you get a dial tone, which means nothing, at most it means that the person on the other side of the phone has hung up on you. So, it is possible that there is an other side of phones. There's even an other side of walls. Sometimes, late at night, you may hear a grunting and groaning from the other side of walls, this could be either extreme pleasure or pain, that is up for conjecture I suppose. Perhaps, the other side of pleasure could be pain or vice versa. This is getting more interesting now, I think. Maybe there is an other side of words as they appear on a piece of paper, an other side of foreign languages, a dark side to the moon. The other side of French may be Chinese to the unenlightened listener. He may be completely wrong in his assumption but he'll still walk home on the other side of the street, sit on the other side of the bus and go home to his other wife who lives with her other husband on the other side of Brooklyn. Maybe tonight is the other side of yesterday or tomorrow will be the other side of next day, we'll never really know. It is safe to say however that the other side of language is, at best, only a whisper and that we'll never understand what that voice commands. Maybe when that voice whispers from the other side of phones then someone who is listening will tape record it, play it back and apprehend those who live on the other side of the law. Ultimately, we can only hope that our perilous modern life will lead to some satisfying conclusion. But then, the other side of reality could consist of dreams, which are confusing and sometimes pleasant. If two people dream simultaneously of the same reality then they could be said to be a part of the other side of this poem, but that would be lying, which is the other side of truth. But this is what we'll talk about when we go out tonight to see the other side of cities.
LARRY SAWYER DOWNPOUR ~~~~~~~~ Imperiled is the word, she quips from the catalog. Awonder at the way the rain grazes the windows, her eyes. Now you'd like to really know for sure what happened to her. The story relates exotic descriptions of her Fellini form skating there, her image entered into by darkness, namely you. But a conclusion cannot be reached conclusively anymore. From point A to point B was always too subtle, self- defeating. Now she's done, smoking a cigarette suggestively, in front of a television. She's no one you know, the reader that is. She's imaginary and even this, though crushed by doubt, idea is faulty at best. She crushes your question between her teeth, showers and leaves you hanging. Small things occur and nothing else, as if the story were moving on without you. The theater is darkened and the kids are lost in the woods. Twenty-four seven, they say, and you agree. From her convex atmosphere of fashion, a model knowingly howls. She speaks to you like whispering thunder.
LARRY SAWYER AS USUAL ~~~~~~~~ Shadows appear and disappear at will, constellations dig their appendages inside the sky and streets narrow. Echoes resound from complicated passageways and old men are murdered along forgotten hallways. Horses exist, they gallop off across fields. A woman speaks of her dead mother and cries into an open window. Once or twice, there were even a few lonely ones, just like someone you know, sitting beneath clean ceilings drinking coffee. Just now they are getting up to walk slowly home. Even as you explain to yourself that it was just a dream, buildings collapse, withering under the weight of ordinary thoughts.
LARRY SAWYER DARK ROOM ~~~~~~~~~ photo down the blinds particularly cool I bulb eyes my room
LARRY SAWYER LIGHTS ~~~~~~ The light of her eyes as she says yes. The small orange bird, the blue of the sky behind it as it alights on the branch. The light of the islands as you me anyone spent the summer there. Lights blink red and green, (the stoplight was broken, the car crash, a man died) at the intersection. Let me light your cigarette so you can smoke as the light fades in the distance. The movie starts after the lights go out, the opening sequence (a woman comes home and turns on the lights, she doesn't see the stranger behind the door.) The head lights of the car going down the driveway taking the light of your life with them. The farmer sees strange lights in the distance and then reports them to the local authorities they pull out of the station with lights flashing. The first light bulb lights and the world takes all their candles and puts them in a shadowy place where no lights ever light. Lights every night, the stars in the sky. Your name in lights, Broadway lights up and taxis empty, off goes their lights. The man says he's a little light and asks for some change. Flash lights single file, like fire flies through the woods. A poem about lights, two pages of it now. The light of her eyes the man says and the taxis in the sky light every night where there are no lights of the islands, the car crash single file, he's a little light. Broadway lights, lights of a small town, patio lights. Let me light your blue of the sky of her eyes the man says. The light of her patio as your cigarette fades in the distance. She is light on her feet and dances, spent the summer there. And the world takes the station to the local authorities your blue of sky. Her lights as you me anyone starts after the headlights alight blink red and green, fade in the distance. The movie, the small orange bird, her sky dances, she is light, fades. The opening sequence, the authorities as you blink like fireflies, the taxis your blue of night, the stars. She is there the world and green as you the small strange lights in the distance the head lights in the movie a small light. Lights me anyone of night, blue stars and the world your summer there and the cigarette fades, the distance through her woods her eyes the man says a small world green as you smoke down the drive way and her eyes taking the first distance as lights light single file a man died a man says, lights, small ones; a small world this night and green.
HAZEL KING Fire of Desire ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You have lit a fire under my beating heart, It first began as a tiny flicker, Touchingly warm and filling a void. Then gradually the flames grew, Consuming my heart, my mind and my body, Creating an urgent fire of desire for all that you are And all you have to offer. Thinking on those things about which we spoke, Dreamily musing on how wonderful it will be To be held by you, To be touched by you, To be kissed by you, And then to be totally enveloped by you In an awesome and wonderful blending of two bodies, A molten melding, fusing two lives, hearts and minds into one An astounding combining, a coming together, an intermingling. Breathless anticipation of the wonder and joy to come, A vibrant meeting of two people who only a short time ago Knew not that the other existed. Now through a modern medium of communication A friendship has grown, Resulting in a fire of desire Which will burn seemingly out of control, Until that desire is gratified and appeased. Then slowly the flames will flicker and fade, But that which is left will be sustained From the fire of desire. 19 October 1999
HAZEL KING Beneath the Surface ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Beneath the surface, So many lies are hidden And disillusionment breeds heartfelt cries, Cries for truth and honesty. Tell only what is meant and will cause no pain. Why is it necessary to cover and hide, Building hopes in another In a vain attempt to build self esteem. The eye may not always see What the heart knows to be true, A feeling, an instinct from deep within, That this euphoric dream May not be what it appears to be. Then, as a shadow, slowly covering thoughts, wishes and hopes Gradually darkening and blotting out a beautiful dream, A niggling doubt begins, Then reality breaks through And the heart knows before it is confirmed That the dream is shattered, And the pieces of the dream cannot be retrieved. Picking up the pieces, Once more searching, Laying bare the heart, And believing that there is hope And that this time, the truth, and not the lies, will lay Beneath the surface. 1 November 1999
DUANE LOCKE COMMUNICATION ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Radiant spirits circle Around and around inside our words And collide. From the crash Specks of crippled sounds Hobble towards others' ears. The speaker puts plugs up his ears So he will not hear the pain Of his wounded words.
DUANE LOCKE CROW'S AND HUMAN VOICES ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I found words in the crows' dark sounds. The human words I possessed Put their hands over their ears. I copied on paper The words that came from the crow's dark sounds. My words that came from human beings Put their hands over their eyes. Words that came from the crow's dark sounds, Arose from the paper, Flew above the highest mountain and touched stars. The human words I had gathered from other human voices, Stumbled on crutches On the wall to wall carpets in my brain.
DUANE LOCKE ANCESTORS ~~~~~~~~~ In the photographs lining the walls, All the ancestors Closed their eyes. When the photographed eyes closed, A fork blunted its prongs, A bible became a wild orchid. One ancestor, a proud man With a sword on his lap Erased himself, became blank. A glass of wine, like the Holy Grail, Floated down the hallway to the table, Sat before a young girl staring the blankness. She gazed again at the closed eyes And blank portrait, bared her breasts, Poured the wine over her body.
DUANE LOCKE CROWS ~~~~~ I heard the call of the crows, Threw my shoes into the yuccas, So I could feel the warm sand on my bare skin. My feet sunken into sand, Felt the language of the underground streams' dark waters. I found new words, Words that came from the water's dark hands caressing my ankles. I spoke truth for the first time.
DUANE LOCKE MAGICIAN ~~~~~~~~ A magician played a red oboe, Oranges grew on the stucco tree branches. No one cared, The audience wanted some faked tricks That showed mechanical skill. They cared nothing for real oranges Growing on stucco trees..
JAY LIVESON Praxis ~~~~~~ There's a portion of the brain that smoothes movement of the fingers, allows us to switch legato to staccato, raise piano to fortissimo, slide smoothly into a crescendo or fade into a diminuendo. We stare at fingers typing out the words, translating thought into patterns dancing across the keys with a life of their own. We dare not plot which letters are apt--the fingers do their own thinking, patterned by practice, etched into this portion of the brain, that makes it work for us, the portion with the choked artery. Since father's stroke, it was hard to tell a difference. His smile was rare but even. His gait unsure, but steady. His fingers attempt their dance, thumb sweeping across the others, groping, stroking the metal in rhythmic repetition, fumbling to adjust pressure, pinch, pull. Fingers that tied complex knots so swift and smooth, stutter at coarse knobs, stumble at switches. He looks my way, grasps it in his palm, reluctantly nods as he passes it to me.
JAY LIVESON Perhaps Miriam ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Smoking exorcised overnight by prudent yellow-fingered new parents-- something about second hand smoke. Mother jerks you back up the curb, delivers an unforgotten slap-- "Don't ever do that." Careful home assignments-- name in wide circled letters in the correct corner. Father grunts approval at the grade. He rains questions on acne faced dates, erects narrow hours against their touches. Tutors absorb your freedom, to raise superior grades. While, in the dark hours, you open a secret notepad scribble thoughts on Lars who yells too much, a cat who ran away, plans changed by rain. You sketch outlines of frowns, flowers, distant hills. Tomorrow everything will work as planned. No one will even notice the white cells that swell your hidden nodes, tilting into your blood.
JAY LIVESON Labrador ~~~~~~~~ She stands against the tree cigarette in hand, ashes flicked by the wave that ripples through her as she uncoils, sends the stick into orbit above his slick black head that turns from her to follow the arc of the missile, his legs compressing, expanding--a fluid alternation as they track and anticipate the parabolic meeting of wood and grass arrive just on time to snare it inches above the ground. A minute pause shift of weight, return to lay the sacrifice at her regal feet. She stoops, inhales deeply, holding the smoke an extra delicious moment inside her, reluctantly releases the ashen vapors, the stick once again into the air to the rapturous leaps as he plots another twirling trajectory.
JAY LIVESON Deliverance ~~~~~~~~~~~ There's an age your son will swing the hammer, smash the cage of glass. Unlike Mendel's crossbred peas, that mesh their strands in mathematical symmetry, unlike Hela tumor cells , swarming clones on Petri plates, unlike monkey instinct that's triggered by a breast-shaped cushion, there’s a time when reflex and heredity come to face the demon of creativity. He's mastered the grasp, backswing, twist, spin of the hammer throw, felt the paradox under the universe, anger bubbling away innocence. There’s an age you have no choice. Prepare for showered glass. Perhaps to wipe his brow.
JAY LIVESON East New York, 1943 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Pitkin Avenue is not yet captive of the new automobile. And English is still spoken in patches, well-marinated in Slavic accents. Ghosts of Vilna, or Krakow haunt the square lined by pushcarts, where bearded men stroll along cobbled streets trailing long black kapotehs, wearing fancy furred shtraumels, preparing for yuntov. Today is market day and the square is filled with market chatter, squawking of chickens, whining of a child, crying of a baby. Laughter is absent. Scowling men protest indignantly, sleeves rolled mid arm, sputter through graying beards. This is serious business. Across from them, the wary purchasers attack, wrapped in babushkas, or bareheaded toting a baby on a hip. While pressing a tomato, pounding a melon, sniffing a fish, they sneer at the poor quality. Their clinical fingers poke and point at each item. And, like a physician, they decide its fate.
LAURENCE OVERMIRE Sins of the Fathers ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In Seventeen Hundred and Forty Nine A long ago lost relation of mine Sailed from Germany Never to return. Across tormented seas He launched his spirits Cast his dreams To set foot at last On soil Philadelphia And in the decades furling hence His blood traversed At last to me A legacy he could not foresee To be German In the twentieth century. I look in horror Celluloid clips Detached and yet Somehow connected Of mutilations, deaths Atrocities Committed by an alien hand The bony fingers stretched In accusation My blood revolts Impassioned by the faint "Sieg Heils" Still drumming through the marrow The cold hard stamp of jack boot feet The crisp salutes, heels clicking on cement Jawohl! Jawohl! Jawohl! Sieg Heil!! Awakened in the dead of sleep Sweat dripping from the chin Fingers clutch the windpipe Eyes wide in disbelief Six million lie in unmarked graves We weep our disremembered tears And in our righteous seeming fury Cry what devil hath made you German! 'Twas enough to be a man.
LAURENCE OVERMIRE The Wall ~~~~~~~~ How many years A city, a country, a people sliced in two Look back Upon a simpler time When brother met brother Sisters court with sons Mothers made of daughters Fathers to us all Look back Before the barbed wire And the guns... Before the swords Arrows, spears... Before clubs made of wood... Or jagged rocks... Before...? Who are we That thrive in isolation Nations divided by walls Men divided by choice.
LAURENCE OVERMIRE Another Sunday Afternoon ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Another Sunday afternoon in fall in Brooklyn dead leaves rustle over the cracked sidewalks mixed with the trash of careless minds the September sun is a golden orb spinning on the web of the azure sky and the sound of children laughing dapples the eager air breathe deep and feel the warmth that penetrates the bones when time is a pendant you choose not to wear... A crowd on the corner women and men idly passing the quiet hours in casual conversation I pass and there before me ten feet away no more a crumpled figure in the gutter drunk asleep?! a long and frivolous night, my friend? (chuckle softly do not wake) But then... the smooth line yes near the head there trickled, dried of blood is almost imperceptible the crowd on the corner patiently waiting for someone to take him away Another Sunday afternoon in fall in Brooklyn.
LAURENCE OVERMIRE Playground ~~~~~~~~~~ The innocence of children And the decadence of men Profoundly juxtaposed In a playground In a park All races and all colors Child-play Abandoned joy The simplicity of a wind-up toy Imagination unrestrained Wild skateboard scuffle Of a life unburdened Free While the watchful eyes of age Linger Caustic subterfuge Waiting for the opportune Stinging moment Deadly truth Crack vials In a pocket Thick with the grime Of sad decay.
LAURENCE OVERMIRE The Dawning of a New Millennium ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Another thousand years has come and gone And I am here to see the new phase of the moon And wondering where we are And why The nature of the world has changed a lot But the nature of Man has not. We are in the midst of the most spiritually desolate of times Greed is the phallic God of choice Demanding the inordinate sacrifice of virtue and principle On the altar of insouciant ego The lambs brought to the slaughter With their tongues cut out Spill their blood on the stones of our sleeping indifference. The Earth cannot long endure the ingratitude of her children The sun will not forever spin its gold across the sky Our world is not without end But do we have the foresight to alter our fatal intransigence And prevent a doom too soon Of our own petty design?
WARD KELLEY Dancing in Front of the Glacier ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If anything, the dead ones are quite persistent, or maybe always keen to arrive at something succinct -- the word, the precise phrase, the cajoling -- that will produce the correct apprehending. "If you would just consider a dance of players," the dead ones illustrate, "say, at the base of a glacier, a ballet of exquisite limbs, with purity of flesh raised in an art of physics; see them play, watch them perform, tapity tap, and then remove all the bodies from this scene . . . what is left in front of the glacier is us." But who can buy such pleasantries? As if so much importance must be placed on actually seeing the dead ones . . . such ingratitude disquiets them greatly.
WARD KELLEY Into Their Mortal Walks ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The souls of women join more easily than those of men, for see how women hug each other: their heads always, always touch, just above the ear, as though their very souls might conspire to bring a dollop of goodness to our poor plain. When men embrace it is an awkward dance, and they take many pains to make certain their heads never touch, while concurrent slapping of backs must occur even as the poor participants wonder why a handshake could not have sufficed. I never thought the souls of men were comfortable with treading our earth, and this, then, is one of many reasons they are so susceptible to a woman implanting a variation of her own soul into their mortal walks . . . so such a wondrous power, a force so easily wrought . . . yet it's potency must be seen as brief, for it's a rare man who can sustain the continual presence of the same soul, for at the very hearts of their wiry souls dwell their own dollops of change and disruption. Artist's note: Lucrezia Borgia (1480-1519), was the illegitimate daughter of Pope Alexander VI. Married five times before the age of twenty-two, and taking many lovers, Lucrezia served always as a political tool of her family's ambitions. Although historians have found little evidence to support this, she was reported to have been involved in an incestuous relationship with her father and two brothers, the younger of which, Cesare Borgia, was the model for Machiavelli's "The Prince." After her father's death in 1502, she led an exemplary life in the Ferrarese court, as the wife of the Duke, and became a patron of various writers and painters, among them, Titian.
WARD KELLEY Emily Thought to Drown ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The drowning body becomes euphoric, they say, and will even fight a rescue, as though their own good were not known to those who reach out. And so we go, always on and on, under the waters of this life, hoping for little inhalations of euphoria in our immense sea of doubts and wrongs, struggles and sufferings, waiting for the lesson where we learn it is of our own hands that reach out to us, and we must not, not ever, refuse what it is we offer. Artist's note: Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), New England poet, is one of the country's greatest poets. Spending nearly all of her life in Amherst, Massachusetts, the last half in relative seclusion, Emily came to be known as eccentric. Besides rare contacts with people outside her immediate family, she wore only white dresses and sometimes referred to herself as a wayward nun. Regarding her poems - only eleven of 1,775 poems were published during her lifetime - she advocated the "propounded word." Her word for herself as a poet was "gnome," and the poems themselves she called, "bulletins from Immortality." Her last communication was written the day before her death, a short letter sent to young relatives: "Little cousins, -- Called back. Emily."
BRAD EVANS awake, beside her ~~~~~~~~~~ sometimes I'll awaken before her and see the face of a sleeping child that she had once been.
BRAD EVANS on being asked how I felt about Australia's involvement in East Timor. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ picture a desert complete with a carcass and a flock of vultures. one greedy vulture, quite smaller, rips away the meat just as the others though this smaller vulture is a little uncertain about the bigger vultures who pose as some kind of benign brotherhood yet with one swoop could cease that little vulture's cock- sure, malignant attitude.
BRAD EVANS his first day at school ~~~~~~~~~ today Adam was led by his father's hand away from the home, the front yard, and the gap in the curtain where his mother's eyes wept. Adam's father looked similar to my father when I was led away And I noted the arm's-length distance the quick-stride keenness of Adam's joyous father as he rids himself briefly of mother's noisy pride. Adam's father is not much older than myself, but I see this cruel repeat of generations as children, worldwide, are led and fed to this ritual of mindless programming.
BRAD EVANS former school peers ~~~~~ I look at a few of them and I no longer see what was once an individual in youth, passion, & vitality. some have cemented themselves in marriage and wander aimlessly through shopping aisles in various countries and there is a knowing that 'ideal' and 'dream' can inevitably wither quicker than a fart in a breeze.
BRAD EVANS just like the others ~~~~~~~~~~ he used to drive around in his silver mercedes, stop by and sit himself down in our comfy corner sofa and begin introductions by talking about the Irish Cause or The Peterloo Massacre, while holding his palm, beckoning for silver; but I wasn't his kind of socialist so after the long hush he would end quickly with the latest situation in East Timor. later, we would hear his silver mercedes glide away easefully from the curb and I guess he must have collected from other people elsewhere 'cause he's now a senator.
BRAD EVANS like Diogenes, put your barrel where you want it!!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ there's no end to it ! I am stuck at 6.59am in a barrel going nowhere, an alarm clock that hasn't learned to shut itself off. and I am asking somebody, a terrorist, a god who understands with the magic of divine intervention to burn the whole fucking workplace down. I can smell it. it sits and waits for me, licks its chops, there's no end to it !
DON BARBERA MY IGNORANCE ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Today I am ignorant. Tomorrow I shall be even more ignorant for I will have collected another day of knowledge. It is only through the acquisition of knowledge and understanding that one realizes the depths of previous ignorance and the amount of ignorance yet to be erased. That I am ignorant, I freely acknowledge. And, I see no way that I'll ever recover before I die. There is far too much to know and far too little time to know it. If I have any qualms about leaving this life it is because my inquisitiveness tells me there is going to be a future that holds new and wondrous wheels and gears, spinning out marvelous technology and science beating back the forces of ignorance, superstition and blind allegiance. I regret that I won't be here to continue absorbing the universe. I regret that I must leave, but leave I must as we all must do. I would like to be here when ignorance is finally laid to rest. I should like to speak at its funeral where I would eulogize it as a death that was far past its time. Perhaps there will be enough room in the grave to bury all the superstitions, false doctrines and priestly prevarications that have haunted humanity since the first man found himself in the grip of the unexplained. Of course, it will not come to pass, but it is something that I wish for the world because of the damage that it does to those who are two lazy to think for themselves, for those who search for pogroms to follow and those who reject the ways of prudent reality and reason.
JOHN E. MARKS
The sign of the cross
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I make the sign of the cross, today,
the last Saturday in August,
for Jack, who died today,
and, before the Easter Rising,
breathed the air of Ireland,
knew its stories and grew great in heart.
I make the sign of the cross, today,
in the last year of this millenium,
for Jack, who knew the pains of exile,
separation and loss,
who knew what it was to be a Celt amongst Saxons,
and remembered, alway.
I make the sign of the cross, today,
for all those legions of the dead,
over whose bodies no tears are shed,
and whose memories fade quicker than their grave
decays. I make the sign of the cross, today.
I make the sign of the cross, today,
for those whose vision can not stretch
beyond the reach of minutes, hours, days,
weeks; for those, too, whose gaze is fixed
so firmly on the grave that their grasp on life
just crumbles, fades from sight.
I make the sign of the cross, today,
for those whose laughter is the day's clear light,
but who, during the watches of the night,
when fleeting hands sink softly from the sight,
and opacity invades the avenue of days,
lie silently appalled, as silent as the grave.
I make the sign of the cross, today,
for all those myriads of human hearts,
clogged with the fearsome need to appease
expectation; for those for whom desire has become
a hydra-headed beast and death a stranger at the feast.
I make the sign of the cross, today,
for cussedness,
for bloody-minded perseverance,
for refusing to bow to shibboleths,
to icons, images and to all this empty world
of fact.
I make the sign of the cross, today,
and bow my head. To be alive entails
a knowledge of the dead. Opposites attract,
or, to put it another way,
a mystery invades the world of fact,
and leaves it,
lying on its back.
Come one, come all! Welcome to Newsgroup alt.centipede. Established
just for writers, poets, artists, and anyone who is creative. A
place for anyone to participate in, to share their poems, and
learn from all. A place to share *your* dreams, and philosophies.
Even a chance to be published in a magazine.
The original Centipede Network was created on May 16, 1993.
Created because there were no other networks dedicated to such
an audience, and with the help of Klaus Gerken, Centipede soon
started to grow, and become active on many world-wide Bulletin
Board Systems.
We consider Centipede to be a Public Network; however, its a
specialized network, dealing with any type of creative thinking.
Therefore, that makes us something quite exotic, since most nets
are very general and have various topics, not of interest to a
writer--which is where Centipede steps in! No more fuss. A writer
can now access, without phasing out any more conferences, since
the whole net pertains to the writer's interests. This means
that Centipede has all the active topics that any creative
user seeks. And if we don't, then one shall be created.
Feel free to drop by and take a look at newsgroup alt.centipede
Ygdrasil is committed to making literature available, and uses the
Internet as the main distribution channel. On the Net you can find all
of Ygdrasil including the magazines and collections. You can find
Ygdrasil on the Internet at:
* WEB: http://www.synapse.net/~kgerken/
* FTP: ftp://ftp.synapse.net/~kgerken/
* USENET: releases announced in rec.arts.poems, alt.zines and
alt.centipede
* EMAIL: send email to kgerken@synapse.net and tell us what version
and method you'd like. We have two versions, an uncompressed
7-bit universal ASCII and an 8-bit MS-DOS lineart-enchanced
version. These can be sent plaintext, uuencoded, or as a
MIME-attachment.
. REMEMBERY: EPYLLION IN ANAMNESIS (1996), poems by Michael R. Collings . DYNASTY (1968), Poems by Klaus J. Gerken . THE WIZARD EXPLODED SONGBOOK (1969), songs by KJ Gerken . STREETS (1971), Poems by Klaus J. Gerken . BLOODLETTING (1972) poems by Klaus J. Gerken . ACTS (1972) a novel by Klaus J. Gerken . RITES (1974), a novel by Klaus J. Gerken . FULL BLACK Q (1975), a poem by KJ Gerken . ONE NEW FLASH OF LIGHT (1976), a play by KJ Gerken . THE BLACKED-OUT MIRROR (1979), a poem by Klaus J. Gerken . JOURNEY (1981), a poem by Klaus J. Gerken . LADIES (1983), a poem by Klaus J. Gerken . FRAGMENTS OF A BRIEF ENCOUNTER (1984), poems by KJ Gerken . THE BREAKING OF DESIRE (1986), poems by KJ Gerken . FURTHER SONGS (1986), songs by KJ Gerken . POEMS OF DESTRUCTION (1988), poems by KJ Gerken . THE AFFLICTED (1991), a poem by KJ Gerken . DIAMOND DOGS (1992), poems by KJ Gerken . KILLING FIELD (1992), a poem by KJ Gerken . BARDO (1994-1995), a poem by Klaus J. Gerken . FURTHER EVIDENCES (1995-1996) Poems by Klaus J. Gerken . CALIBAN'S ESCAPE AND OTHER POEMS (1996), by Klaus J. Gerken . CALIBAN'S DREAM (1996-1997), a poem by Klaus J. Gerken . THE LAST OLD MAN (1997), a novel by Klaus J. Gerken . WILL I EVER REMEMBER YOU? (1997), poems by Klaus J. Gerken . SONGS FOR THE LEGION (1998), song-poems by Klaus J. Gerken . REALITY OR DREAM? (1998), poems by Klaus J. Gerken . APRIL VIOLATIONS (1998), poems by Klaus J. Gerken . THE VOICE OF HUNGER (1998), a poem by Klaus J. Gerken . SHACKLED TO THE STONE, by Albrecht Haushofer - translated by JR Wesdorp . MZ-DMZ (1988), ramblings by Igal Koshevoy . DARK SIDE (1991), ramblings by Igal Koshevoy . STEEL REIGNS & STILL RAINS (1993), ramblings by Igal Koshevoy . BLATANT VANITY (1993), ramblings by Igal Koshevoy . ALIENATION OF AFFECTION (1993), ramblings by Igal Koshevoy . LIVING LIFE AT FACE VALUE (1993), ramblings by Igal Koshevoy . HATRED BLURRED (1993), ramblings by Igal Koshevoy . CHOKING ON THE ASHES OF A RUNAWAY (1993), ramblings by I. Koshevoy . BORROWED FEELINGS BUYING TIME (1993), ramblings by Igal Koshevoy . HARD ACT TO SWALLOW (1994), ramblings by Igal Koshevoy . HALL OF MIRRORS (1994), ramblings by Igal Koshevoy . ARTIFICIAL BUOYANCY (1994), ramblings by Igal Koshevoy . THE POETRY OF PEDRO SENA, poems by Pedro Sena . THE FILM REVIEWS, by Pedro Sena . THE SHORT STORIES, by Pedro Sena . INCANTATIONS, by Pedro Sena . POEMS (1970), poems by Franz Zorn All books are on disk and cost $10.00 each. Checks should be made out to the respective authors and orders will be forwarded by Ygdrasil Press. YGDRASIL MAGAZINE may also be ordered from the same address: $5.00 an issue to cover disk and mailing costs, also specify computer type (IBM or Mac), as well as disk size and density. Allow 2 weeks for delivery. Note that YGDRASIL MAGAZINE is free when downloaded from Ygdrasil's World-Wide Web site at http://www.synapse.net/~kgerken.
All poems copyrighted by their respective authors. Any reproduction of
these poems, without the express written permission of the authors, is
prohibited.
YGDRASIL: A Journal of the Poetic Arts - Copyright (c) 1993, 1994, 1995,
1996, 1997 & 1998 by Klaus J. Gerken.
The official version of this magazine is available on Ygdrasil's
World-Wide Web site http://www.synapse.net/~kgerken. No other
version shall be deemed "authorized" unless downloaded from there.
Distribution is allowed and encouraged as long as the issue is unchanged.
All checks should be made out to: YGDRASIL PRESS
COMMENTS
* Klaus Gerken, Chief Editor - for general messages and ASCII text
submissions. Use Klaus' address for commentary on Ygdrasil and its
contents: kgerken@synapse.net
* Pedro Sena, Production Editor - for submissions of anything
that's not plain ASCII text (ie. archives, GIFs, wordprocessored
files, etc) in any standard DOS, Mac or Unix format, commentary on
Ygdrasil's format, distribution, usability and access:
art@accces.com
We'd love to hear from you!
Or mailed with a self addressed stamped envelope, to:
