Aug 2006
VOL XIV, Issue 9, Number 162
Editor: Klaus J. Gerken
Production Editor: Heather Ferguson
European Editor: Moshe Benarroch
Contributing Editors: Michael Collings; Jack R. Wesdorp; Oswald Le Winter
Previous Associate Editors: Igal Koshevoy; Pedro Sena
ISSN 1480-6401
INTRODUCTION
Guido Monte
AHA n.3: gwyrlen (garland)
AHA n.2 : burel
CONTENTS
Charles Frederickson
Why do THEY hate US?
TICKING TIME BOMB
American XS Overindulgence
David Sparenberg
NEW REIGN OF TERROR
CRUCIFIED CHILDREN
DOVECOTE & TOWER
MASS FOR A GREEN MILLENNIUM
SHARING THE ROAD
Richard Lung
LUNATIK
GRUB STREET
ZONDIK SPEAKS
Alison Eastley
Her Laughter A Tickle
The Woman With A Thick Black Luxurious Moustache
Hospital Corners
Felino Soriano
August Occurrences #34
August Occurrences #35
August Occurrences #36
Christopher Barnes
FASHION SHOOTS
WAR STAY-AT-HOMES
THE PAN SCRUB GAME
HEALTH CLUB STEPS
WINDSCHEFFEL AND STRIDE'S DAY OUT
DURING GENNERY AND POISON GAS
Marie Rennard
Night wears apace,
Roses never blossom on dry rainbows
Sharps and flats on the wave
Welcome.
A dreamer
She could hold the moon in her hands
Everything has to go to an end.
I could see her in the circle of light
DuaneLocke
E MAIL TO DAMNISO LOPEZ 86
E MAIL TO DAMNISO LOPEZ 87
E MAIL TO DAMNISO LOPEZ 88
E MAIL TO DAMNISO LOPEZ 89
E MAIL TO DAMNISO LOPEZ 90
POST SCRIPTUM
Guido Monte
Aha n.4: the end
Guido Monte
AHA n.3: gwyrlen (garland)
Sappho, Halewy, Neher, d'Olivet, Swinburne
1 (phaisi dé pota Lédan uakinthoi
2 pepykádmenon euren oion -
3 et la terre existait tohu wabohu...)
4 God: 'ayyekkâ?'
5 Man : "hinnenî, mais je n'espère pas
6 dead winds' and spent waves' riot "
7 God : 'sed etiam Nomen meum
8 intra ossa tua serva,
9 sed etiam Nomen meum
10 intra rahamin frementes tuas serva -
11 y esperad todavia'
12 Man : "mais je n'espère pas"
[(once Leda was said to find
an egg inside the blue bells -
and the land was left barren...)
God 'where are you?'
Man "here I am, but I don't hope,
dead winds' and spent waves' riot"
God 'and still keep my Name
inside your bone,
and still keep my Name
inside your stirred up bowels -
hope a little longer'(vi>
Man 'but I don't hope' ],
AHA n.2 : burel
Paradise lost (Milton), Tristia (Ovid) ,my babbles (me)
in the beginning, out of Chaos,
nihil est nisi mortis imago
only death's faces
no light, but rather darkness visible
sed inter tenebras the mind...
in itself can make
a heaven of hell,
a hell of heaven
orbis ultimus here it's the last world,
the palpable obscure
et quocumque and everywhere
the void profound of unessential night
et for evil only good, eu cad
where all life dies, death lives
into the heart of an immense burel...
a black dungeon
through the void immense to search
with wandering quest a place foretold
being covered with darkness
and tears that would not fall
and Parcae: the new age was asked a change...
everybody, everything, you, I, all that exists
Charles Frederickson
Why do THEY hate US?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
US versus THEM bombastic confrontations
Mucky environment pitting drastic extremes
Absolutely good versus relatively evil
Pure white abysmal black dichotomies
Divisive hypocritical double standard contradictions
More farcical tragedy than strategy
Think tank running on empty
Losing side out of gas
Globe neatly divided into categories
Perceived adversaries or feckless friends
No neutral ground sinking quicksand
Where wronged left is right
Warped false truths destruction bent
Unintended consequences facing innocent victims
Intimidation humiliation desperation root causes
Poverty versus greed hapless powerlessness
Violence begetting more senseless violence
Dichotomy between enlightenment and darkness
Lunar phase disk half illuminated
Counterfeit promises passing the buck
Avenging angel creating worldly hell
Haloes versus horns derisive put-downs
Does black-and-white color blindness represent
Moral clarity or sheer madness?!
TICKING TIME BOMB
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If lies got any more
Honest they'd be unbelievably surreal
Cooked up tenderized suet concoctions
Swallowing leftover false truths whole
Queasy bellyache acute gastric distress
Pain in the assumed guilt
Feigned innocence oaths committing perjury
Grievous sin justifications rarely convince
Blowtorch peeling off hypocritical layers
Faded enamel coating chipped away
Spitfire outburst restraint on hold
Tamperproof matters of fact verified
Battened down hatches dire straits
Disjunctive thoughts hiding behind mendacity
Nebulous guarded self gone overboard
Caution stumbling over consequential fibs
Memory's fixative loosening firm grip
Opaque fabrications slipping into oblivion
Trust growing impatient misled astray
Credibility gap teetering on edge
American XS Overindulgence
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mythical American invincibility manifest omnipotence
Precipitated undertaking ill-conceived crusader missions
Blowing democracies up demolishing infrastructure
Afterwards spending trillions for reconstruction
God doesn’t only bless America
Granting exclusive VIPer preferential status
Nor does paramount military confer
Moral invincibility unconscionable abusive depravity
Capricious bullyragging pious self-righteous warmongers
Intent on full spectrum dominance
Nowhere on e-earth where fearsome
Washington DCeption doesn't rule Supreme
Gamester fantasy of American invincibility
Shatterproof illusions shot to Hell
On baseball diamonds basketball courts
Dream Team all-stars lost glitter
Tax cuts for least needy
Social insecurity health scare powerty
Obese fast food junkies suing
Vested interest mega-corporations for overeating
Planetization envisions borderless interconnected wwworld
Spreading unity by encouraging diversity
Taking principled stand for humanity
Same colored lifeblood environmentally integrated
Suffering from rhymetoid authoritis cramps
Chip write-off sluggish righter block
Pensive thinking fountain lite-rate flow
Rhetoric fever know holds barred
David Sparenberg
NEW REIGN OF TERROR
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The bullet from the terrorist gun, manufactured anywhere in the industrial
world, has your name on it. Sometime during your life time, it may end your
life. End you without warning. When the bullet rips into your flesh, it will
already be stained with the blood of others murdered before you. But this is
Russian roulette. At some point, your number is up.
The terrorist's car bomb, aggressively thirsting for the blood of your
children, will again explode. At denonation, the razors of shrapnel, flying
like butcher's knives throught the viscid sweetness of honey, through soft
tissue of butter, will bear, with flaming metals of hatred's heroes, the DNA
of other kids, dismembered before your own. Perhaps of those on the second
school bus? The bus that went the detour and reached the intersection at the
moment of settling a score.
There can be no doubt that humanity is a family in crisis. The Earth is in
crisis too. There can be no doubt that hatred is spreading faster than
love, fueled by the black liquid apostles of reptitian memories. Will we
go down as victims of the dinosaurs' revenge? There can be no doubt that
we are going down.
But what the hell! What the hell, I say. Other generations have suffered
through boils and bouts of plaguing madness. Yet we continue to appeal to
somehting outside of ourselves. As if there were some public conscience
after the individual witness has been dismissed.
The Death Squads of state terrorism are out hunting. Worse than a pack of
maurading wolves, they are ever on the lookout for a fresh kill. For someone
to rip and tear and sink their sharp teeth into. If they have not yet
reached you, don't feel secure, don't relax; don't think that you are
forgotten. Believe me, you are not forgotten. In an hour before dawn, you
can hear then (listen!) pouinding on the door of a stranger, on one street
over from your own, somewhere at a distance, in the country of oppression,
in the land of occupation. Where bodies are routinely dumped like sacks of
garbage. When they reach your house--because who dares to call any place the
safety of a home?--they will drag your family from sleeping beds. Some will
be shot then, while other wait and are forced to watch. This is not time to
be a woman, with that hollow jewelry tucked between the thighs. Certainly
this is no time to be a child, unless a child is born blind.
When the satan's fire devouring the sky; and yes, the sky if falling and
yes, there is a progressive, unfolding apocalypse in pandemic slow motion--
such and such an hour in Iraq, such and such a time of death in Dufar; when
the hell fire and brimstone tick-tock down like decimating excrement from a
screaming fighter jet, marked with the insignia of a terrorist nation, don't
pretend that you are waiting for a late arriving starship to wisk you away to
another gallaxy. Don't start making excuses. That falling fire is planning
a barbeque and you too are invited. Even should you refuse your invitation,
your refusal will not be accepted. Do you really believe that when death
burns down from heaven the arsonist cares who is on the ground? But tell me,
since you are likely fond enough of animals roasted, how do you think human
flesh smells through the chimneys of history, or when grilled on a highway
stretching half way across a radioactive desert? What is the odor of burn
offering? Of holocaust of civilians--colaterial damage?
There can be no doubt that what the political bosses tell us about terror,
terrorism and terrorists--that they have no conscience, no boundaries or
borders and can and will strike anywhere from anywhere, day or night--that
all of this true. And that the truth is damning. Does this then mean that
a truth seeking is a terrorist? Or whoever joins the games loses by the
exacting nature of the game? Does this condition render the odd man out,
the peacemaker, no better than a daydreaming fool? Go and make peace with
yourself, if you believe in the power of confession! When there was something
you could have done, you did nothing. When it still did not touch you, skin
for skin, as the adversary sneeringly says.
You know, even a democracy, turned to empire, with its head screwed
backward and regugitating the propaganda of possession, can excuse the
terrorist tactics of torture and mass murder. And you know too (or do I
really need to remind you?) that the one thing that all victims have in
common is silence. Terrorists fornicade with the whore of silence, birthing
Legion and genocide into the world. And there can be no doubt that this is
a time of cursing, an age of violence, a new reign of terror, when catastrophy
compounds catastrophy. And the death count is broadcast in the daily news.
But what the hell! What the hell, I say. Other generations have suffered
and survived their nightmares of psychosis. And since the messiah has
already come and gone, leaving us instead with cadres and battalions of
heavily armed men, who is there to turn to to drive the devils out?
If the defining choice of complicity has not yet reached you--to join one
camp or another, or to continue as a designated target of any and all--wait,
your choosing will not forsake you. It is coming around. The darkness is
descending. How hard everywhere is the fall; how harrowing the grisly howl!
Terror stretches out in every direction. It hunkers down in the unknown and
drinks the cold sweat of fear.
There can be no doubt that we are all in the valley of the shadow and evil
is no stranger to us. Only we are with a psalm. Our eyes are wild with
anxiety. Our hearts beating so hard they are about to explode.
28 June 2006
CRUCIFIED CHILDREN
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hezbollah
Lebanon
Israel
Santa Maria
Jesus our Angel
Song of a Human
Virgin Madonna
Red Rose
White Lotus
Crown of Thorns
Field of Crosses
Mohammed Mouthpiece
Tongue of Apostles
Father Abraham
Moses
of Commandments
Lord of Thou Shall
and Thou Shall Not...
throughout the world
we are the blood-
crucified children
small
in these faces
mothered
as orphans
withered while tender
husks
in our greenenss
see--we are bleeding
San Angelo, little
San Angelo
child of burned wings
hurried to heaven
Jesus the Martyr
Red Rose
White Lotus
Lilly of Crosses
stained with the murderous
Crown of Thorns
throughout our life times
we are the tattered
tattered and torn
pray for us often
tonight
and tomorrow
soul's in hell's ovens
flaming madonnas
Seal of the Prophets
Fire of Apostles
slaughtered
and slaughtering
Moses
forsaken
Rachel forlorn
Jesus
Jesus a Manchild
hanging eternal
our Mother of Ashes
martyring angels
small in these faces
Abraham - Abba
in the bloodbath of lambs
O Santa
Maria! Santa Maria!
Lord of our grieving;
Lord of those taken.
Sarah the Childless
Mary the Virgin
Mary conceiving
Hagar now pregnant
woman a moonscape
man in his dust
Moses
a seraph
Jesus-Mohammad
Mohammad the Voiceless
Jesus the Scapegoat
nailed to men's evils
O Santa Maria!
Son of a Daughter
Mother of Sorrows
Cross
of Blood Roses
crucified children
weeping White Lotus
pray for us human
now and hereafter
pray for us often
O momma
momma Maria!
DOVECOTE & TOWER
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In the old dovecote of peace that no one visits, the white dove of serenity
sits with wounded face--and weeps.
In the pure blue sky, far above the dirty clouds, swept together by human
greed, the white swan of the worlds first dream wings toward her father's
embrace--and weeps. Weeping in a voice that is a woman's voice. No one
listens.
In the white stone tower, housing dusty webs and bleary shadow; with its
glassless windows like blackened eyes, facing where the fields once were and
fruitful orchards; hides the world's first homeless sigh. Weeping like a
frightened child. A child who is abandoned --and hungry.
Nowhere on the roadways are there angels. Nowhere between stars and distant
planets.
In the ancient dovecote, hearts of our eldest lie broken. On the tower, the
walls drip red with blood.
Between truth's shadow and time's tension; between dread lightning and
crule thunder; a naked child, forlorn and slender, runs toward her lifeless
mother. Nowhere on the roadways are there angels. Who could tell the
difference if there were.
MASS FOR A GREEN MILLENNIUM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Earth,
eat me, as you would the small wild daisy. For I bear the suffering
to be beatitude in the flesh of humankind.
Water,
drink of me, as you would the honest tears of rain. For I bear the shame of
many lives and life times.
Air,
pray for me, as you would each particle of light. For I am in much need of
forgiveness. And wrongs I have not done do not excuse wrongs I have ignored--
from lonesome heartbreat and inflicted hunger to the wasting of innocent life.
Fire,
receive me into the body-flame of your universal church, that I may be worth
of the sun, or sun-spark, of immortality. And view, even in the shade of my
branching and leafing tree, the flowering shadow of my immaculate soul.
Dream,
takes these dancing bones, wash clean, and cast them into the river of eternal
play.
You four or five guardians of space and place, assist me; I am vulnerable in
willed simplicity. Even though I cannot be as you are, before my gathering
again into the dust of atomic recurrence, yet I can do as you do: bear seed
and see cycles through to fruit, dissolve and flow, be brisk, open handed,
easy hearted, float, and burn with a love that gives without asking what will
be given back.
Too many live from greed; greed is their root. We know the Earth hurts.
Blood cries against blood's letting. Let this offering be little recompense;
my reward no more than humility. And the courage to offer humbly again, and
again and again.
5 May 2006
SHARING THE ROAD
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You have not been here only. I have been here too, living beside you.
Walking the walk. Sharing the road.
These are my hands. Look at them. Once the hands of a child, now those of
a man. My hands, like all other hands, grow old. They are weathered with
work; they are creased with story lines. By my hands have opened often to
the embrace and caress of love. Yet they have clenched, far too often,
because of injustice and the spikes of pain. Or even an error in judgment.
These are my feet. They have earth-traveled the longest mile in the
dew-grass of seasons of spring; in flower fields through suns and moons,
fragile, tender, fragrant of summers. In the play of autumn leaves; crisp,
rustling rainbows touching ground; and the solemn purity of winter snow.
Far too often my feet have grown calluses, my soles hardened by pavement
laid down lifeless, like the laws of attrition of ungrateful men. Men and
women much the same as us, who believe in greed and selfish ambitions. But
who name their ambitions "progress" and their greed call "a right guaranteed."
This is my chest. Behind the skeletal frame and living flesh, my heart
beats. Even as the heart of the Earth, beneath the Earth's skin of colors.
This Earth is not a white man's ghost. She is a tawny woman, brown, or
sometimes black, or in some places red, and fertile. Earth is a not a slave
to be worked to death, a whore to be tought and sold. Earth is Mother. Do
you honor her?
Here are my eyes. Eyes that have seen near and far. That have looked on
hunger, joy, sorrow, on the hell of destruction through madness, on the
heavens of freedom through trust. On the blessing of birth. On the crimes
of war. These eyes of mine keep looking, as years condense into memories,
searching still for peace. Peace. A garden for an earth-walker God. A
promise. A dream.
These are my lips. My fingertips are raised to touch them, pulsing in
sun-heat, wet when it rains. Lips that have spoken, tasted and kissed.
That have shouted bitterness and blasphemy. That have whispered sweetness
and intimacy; choked on ugliness, sung for mercy. That babble wildly or
smile sublime. My mouth... mouth that knows the truth of breathing. That
my soul has taught to cry out in lamentation and to recite in the hallelujah
of adoration. That my heart; the dancing primitite that never stops beating
the red drum of poetry of life; instructs in the the language of simplicity
and in the power of forgiveness. Do you forgive me, as I forgive you, in
our negligence and estrangement?
Here I am. This presence is me, the all of me. Yesterday, getting here.
Today, being here. Tomorrow, arriving still. What has been, is, and what
may be.
Becoming; being human. My self, my self betrayal, my ambiguity.
You have not been here only, no. No you haven't. I have been here too
living beside you. Walking the walk. Sharing the road. Going my part, at
my pace, going my way of the pilgrimage, through this living place. Surely
you must love as I do? Is that now why we are here together, even in
synocaption? Surely you must forgive?
Earth is the one home, even if only in the one moment. Do you love the one
moment? Do you see me now, as I see you? As I break the pride of my knees,
like the fear of a nation, a race, a generation, a religion, kneeling in
prayer. We are here! Here between stones, earth-bones, and stars, galaxies
of discoveries; between temporal crucifixion, choices and eternal communion.
Dust of the road, smelling of ancestors, species and mortality--and
friendships shared, recognitions, these are our only possessions. All else
that is spoken of is idleness, isolation, illusions. Like bubbles on the
surge of froathing ocean. Like mirages in the deserts of dishonesty. Not
even solitudes that guide toward oases. But more so fearsome, fearful spaces
of despair and desolation, where demons prophecy and men disguise themselves,
diminish, die, as hostile and alone.
Walk the walk. Share the road. Do not be ashamed to share the truth. No
one of us is bigger than the boundaries of humanity, not even by the casting
of a giant shadow.
Richard Lung
LUNATIK
~~~~~~~
Where the moon-sized blur of Hyakutake
in all that firmament of frozen flakes?
The misted moon took on an earthly smear
in the reeling sickness of a fox
run to earth, or the stricken deer.
"The moon looks a bit off-color
but where the blazes is the comet?"
I reflect, the Grand Lunar eclipsed
not half so much as my benighted homage
arrested at the crime of this apocalypse.
GRUB STREET
~~~~~~~~~~~
The bridge of the car roof
is under a lake of dew
that sports looping wakes
from which are made
the legends of monsters.
Kiddies' fingers follow
the squigglers' puzzle trail,
like a Chinese plate from in
to out of the garden gates.
Who is, or what,
the anonymous author
of these frolic signatures?
Doing press-ups on a train
of stumps, a paper dragon rears
uncoiling humps' hooped ribs
that storey the pagoda snout
of a rocket stage, shed,
flying out at its Ygdrasil,
to again be sustained on
leafings, for gentle re-entry.
ZONDIK SPEAKS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Turbulence strip-teased the air blue then white
and back, dark red. The fluorescence
dropped into the aura of James Cook
from Runcorn, 1957.
He hears himself bid: "Come aboard. Jump,
dont step, on the ladder, the ground is damp."
In the brilliant entrance, he was told:
"Take off your clothes. Put on plastic over-alls.
This craft's electric field wont work well in damp
atmosphere and not at all in outer space."
He steps into a further craft with a score
of giant hominoids from the planet
Zondik in an unknown solar system:
"The inhabitants of your planet will upset
the balance of the universe if they persist
in using force instead of harmony
=2D- warn them of the danger."
'But no-one will listen to me,' Cook pleaded.
"Or to anyone else..," the space-man snapped.
Cook's ship's no lecture tourer, no red light area.
Under the blue lamp, he tells his tale,
before going back to a quiet life.
"CFlying Saucer Review" finds burnt left hand-back,
he forgot to remove from the ladder,
before his feet touched the moist earth.
( Sources. Len Ortzen: Strange Stories of UFOs.
Paul Devereux: Earth Lights. )
Alison Eastley
Her Laughter A Tickle
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Psyche paces the floor. Alone in the
dark silent accusations fall like icy
water. Psyche wants to know why
the woman's laugh tickles the man's
idea this is not a joke. They talk
in a lowered voice about this day
and that night the man and woman
play. You'd think Eros would fly on home
instead of the space between the bed
where Eros elbows in, digs the man
and woman in the ribs, his famous
bow and arrow thrown under the bed.
The Woman With A Thick Black Luxurious Moustache
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
doesn't have a place in the story.
She was shoved in one Saturday
early in the afternoon
when he said he'd like to take her to bed,
then added, out of courtesy
only if she felt amenable
that is, would she mind if he undressed
her in natural light, her hand
on his shoulder as he bends,
slips off her jeans
after she lifts her arms
for him to remove the top half of her clothes
and then of course,
he holds her hand and what follows
next depends how bad her back is.
Sometimes she's passive
to avoid what happens every morning.
She doesn't want to talk
how much it hurts
so she questions without him
knowing the answer is beauty
less the conventional pick
of what a woman is.
He's attentive and kind and he says,
a woman with intelligence,
keen insight, a woman who wants to know
who the hell he is
is sensual
if she happens to have
what he can't describe
except to opine the word mystery
will have to do
and not only that, her mystery
has to be held at first sight,
then discovered to be deep.
So deep
possibilities take flight
when he says a hairy woman,
say, a woman with more hair of her chest
than him is OK.
And when he imagines a woman
with a thick black luxurious moustache
he says he may consider a hint
or two
regarding removal.
As for clothing,
a woman can wear whatever she chooses
as long as these questions
aren't about her
because he enjoys looking
when she tempts him to remove
that pretty green top. The fabric
reminds him of India
and because the cotton is thin,
perfume escapes the same way
her hair falls on his face
when she sits on top of him.
He's never been to India
even though he knows Ganesha
is an Elephant god
and if he was forced to choose a religion
he'd be a Hindu and if
he was a Hindu, he's have to wash his feet
in the stinking river where the risk
is rife.
And this is what it is like.
The pain in her back
has her searching for compromise
she imagines an Indian bride
in bold red would wear
in a portrait shot in a book
about beauty found in ordinary places.
Hospital Corners
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The scent of wind
stays in sheets pegged to the washing
line.
Small leaves from a nearby Camellia
blow in her hair
while she stands,
removing the sheets
and carrying them, her hands
as neat
as the habit
of tucking the bottom sheet
into hospital corners
from the time she worked
as a nurse
and now, after four winters,
each one different
and each one the same slow
ache.
She thinks winter doesn't change,
that the frost
on the lawn will never thaw.
Frozen
despite the chicken vindaloo
piled on jasmine rice
steaming the kitchen window
like as a half remembered
dream.
She eats. She drinks.
She swallows a slow release tablet
of white morphine,
turns off the lights before lying
on her back,
her hands by her side
because if they covered her breasts,
her arms across her chest
it would look
as if she's waiting
for mourners
instead of another cold
morning that isn't bad
and isn't sad. It isn't normal
either. It's chronic
as nurses
take their evening meal in the hospital
canteen
where they can talk
in private
before returning to check wounds,
gently cleaning
suture-lines with normal saline
which has the same amount of salt
as tears.
It doesn't sting.
It often feels warm and kind,
different
than a pinched nerve
causing numbness or pins and needles,
loss of balance.
Falling to the floor,
her body contorts
while she waits
until it's safe
to walk tentatively to bed
resting between the scent
of wind
and dead Camillia leaves.
Felino Soriano
August Occurrences #34
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I held breath
closed eyes
descended
decaying
stairways leading below
to pier's precious non-decaying colors, inhaling indigo
within waves' crashing, oncoming cold. Pasted across
a dark brown pole pounded with salt’s thick season,
a starfish, fresh, pallid in its vocal image, its calling
toward my shivering due to temperature drop beneath
shade’s argument with sun. This starfish adorned
with clusters of crystal, with offerings of dripping
seawater, did not attempt escape from my eager,
naïve hands, hands that have never clutched this
form of aquatic beauty beneath pier's guarding
body.
August Occurrences #35
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unable to be shapeless, faithless
clouds climb human implanted
barbed, spiked, fenced-in pastures
of imagination, guarded heavily
by obese monsters
of the orchestrated and fake.
Unable to be shaped
until the intellect
willingly adapts
to the shaping
faithful, often forgiving
for being forgotten clouds
congregate across eyes,
epiphanies open even wider
the once closed
aggravated
blundering existence
to newness, to never-before,
the silvery, slivering rain
descending
atop the forehead.
August Occurrences #36
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The wooden hallway of my dead maternal
grandmother’s wood and brick handmade
home holds golden frames of black and white
photos of family and friendships. The wooden
hallway, the long path of distress from dragging,
dependent footsteps requires adequate stopping
and sobbing: death in open eyes, death in black
in white, in this combination of developed film
cannot hide the deceased. An infant cries.
A great grandchild. This paradigm of pain,
this evidence of young life revolves,
will conclude
in many centuries
with a golden frame across a wooden wall.
Christopher Barnes
FASHION SHOOTS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Shandi bowls along dragnet sands,
sails a pose, anticipates.
A foam bubble shatters.
The cave is pumice.
Armenians hula-hula.
She who pursues drapes Chanel;
Coco would have catapulted
the tottery gulls.
WAR STAY-AT-HOMES
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In this village
stitch-tattered girlies
wrist their thin-fleshed
unspanked children close.
Memorial park rocks
seem muscular, torsos;
all men have gone.
THE PAN SCRUB GAME
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From thickset specky windows
he eye-balls
the tough job warp and weft
of the launchpad
as it floats itself
for the copter's sea-strip.
Then the kitchen's remodelled
- Tony bumps the eggbeater
off its base
buoying the bobblish sponge-backed slab,
hosing it into the bowl
to plane a cruddy pan.
HEALTH CLUB STEPS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's kill-time morning.
Soolie and Joolz
are pulsed by corrosives.
Botox to steroid they knee-knock.
It's a 'better sort' gathering place.
Go on make eyes at them
paddling the kerb-stone,
striking elastic fits
into the gutter.
It's morning, kill-time.
WINDSCHEFFEL AND STRIDE'S DAY OUT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tender-conscienced ones
from Graybine Hospital's storms
bounce into Summerly's Snax.
There's rifts today.
You have untingled the world through lithium,
straggled,
wished for filtered tea.
A moderato's timbrelling (or a pomegranate
wriggling at the ear). Ah sound!
DURING GENNERY AND POISON GAS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
News pools echo...
boatels plunk
limpet mines.
Mr. Bhang, the mathematician,
uncouples two twos.
A tango swerves
from wallflowers.
Cockpit windows quash.
Peewits twitch,
liver, kidneys.
Marie Rennard
Night wears apace,
And I'm sitting
A bit athwart
On the inn's roof
Grabbing the clouds.
Down in the street
An awry ox's wearing a tie
Around its neck
Just like a leash
Hold by a poor sighted bald monk
Astraddle drunk on its backbone
And singing loud a bawdy song
Arrant sort of philosophy
But that's worth mine
Maybe
Cause it's raining
The roof's sliding
Clouds have, my Hell,
Come to an end
I mean the hand
Of someone else
And I'm going
To break my skull
On the cobbles
Before the sun
Makes red snoots shine
And monks to snore.
Roses never blossom on dry rainbows
When the water's over light also goes
Who said roses need ground to grow
They long for swaying fiddle bows
And if their scent is so flimsy
Elusive, and faints easily
It's because they need a balance
To dance.
It's because too much of the light
Heats to death early drops of dawn
It's for when they feel sky's too high
Or when equinoxes come down
They hesitate, they fear the flow
They don't know between breath and blow
And when roses must bet for hope
When they're only left a may spring
They get dry, hanging off a string
Like gardeners hang off a rope
Head up, head down, and their eyes closed
On fading colours of dreamland.
Sharps and flats on the wave
Disputing the light and shadow
And only seen
When they're being watched at
With a careful ear
Moments of particles
As imaginary
As the dust in the sun
So present to the eyes however
As much
As imperceptible
Variations
In a random design
Of a could have been shape of tree
Missing data
Can fail a theory
A missing note
Can kill a symphony.
Welcome
~~~~~~~
Pale faces are glinting beyond electric blues
Etherealities lightening on the screen
Their sad shades of sad souls.
Sometimes, a smile rushes a sinuous elsewhere
Spreading through the brains web of the boys who gather
A whole planet of loneliness
Sharing flashy silent despairs
Into random explosions of music
Somewhere in their bellies
All linked to the machine.
Welcome to our world my boy
You were not expected to be microprocessed
I thought you were my flesh and blood
Not my tears and sorrow
I was hoping laughter, red flowers and green grass
Showered with happiness hatching on your long lips
And when I come across the sight of your night eyes
I feel the weight of your unsleeping soul
Wish you were a baby and we could start again.
A dreamer
Is walking barefoot
On the flowered side of the moon.
His song echoes
On the edge of a cloud
Where a wild smiling crow's
Calling upon south winds
For a revenge of sands.
A dreamer is walking
Barefoot
In dewdrops
Reeling in the heavy perfumes
Oblivious
- Who smells flowers knows paradise
And forgets about the devil.
The crow's red eyed and in his tail
Is rising a shiver of hate,
And his malediction
Now yells out open wings
Spreading shadow
Quiet and low enough
For the dreamer to taste
A blind last breath
Of divine clover pinks,
Before the moon is upside down.
She could hold the moon in her hands
And play with the shadows of trees
Wanderlust imaginations.
Her laughter was pure energy
Dark hair, dark eyes - as much as coal -
And her white body was a dream
Bathing in yellow circle light.
-I was in love with a fairy -
She could whip out with sight alone
The boring face of real,
Throw stones away to teach them how to fly
And turn the reek of fear
Into a bunch of scents
Her walk was dance
Her run was flight.
I was looking at her,
Wallowed on a large lily pad,
Between two sighs
Dreaming frogs' dreams.
Everything has to go to an end.
This is true all along for daylight
For love and for hatred, life and death
For kids, so eager to grow up
For dogs, barking for wanders in the grass
For the rain, that falls into despair
On cold grounds in winter
For the songs we whisper in the dark of the night.
Lovers believe they are seeking for truth
They're eternal liars to their hearts and their cores
Lovers just try to know the colours of relief
Forget it's got an end as well as a delight
Try to play everyday "if it were, if it were"
If it were different, would lovers play it twice
This game of I'm longing for sparkles in your eyes.
Everything has to go to an end
We all know, and all want to escape
And love, hatred, kids, songs and wanders
- If all the world was green-
And crossed sighs, are no more than poor toys
To play tricks to our minds or to play with belief
To stand the idea we won't get a relief
But just pain and just joy
And wanders in the rain
And the poisoning thought obnoxious certainty
That in spite of the lies
Everything, everything
Has to go to an end.
I could see her in the circle of light
Her waist held tight in a scarlet girdle
Black ink and mercury
Shining a flow into her eyes
And the red of her lips softly kissing the glass.
My brain was wandering
Along her twisted hair
To the nomadic curves
Blooming under her skirt.
The glamour of her skin
Glinting cream in shadows
All upward her long legs
Made me feel
Lascivious, filled with the lust of night.
When she walked towards me
Skimming over my breath
I could smell the fragrance
Of heaven melt with hell
Fainting along my lips
While she disappeared.
Duane Locke
E MAIL TO DAMNISO LOPEZ 86
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was,
Was,
The age
Of the revived harpsichord,
The cord of wood,
Of the rediscovered carpets
Of Thomas Jefferson,
Blank spots worn by the press of his heels,
Of the much exhibited annotated travel brochures
Of Charles Darwin,
And the age of Japanese jogging, and the search
For arrow heads
In Florida cypress swamps,
A search that resulted in
Local museums
Being overcrowded
With ancient empty oyster shells.
It was the time that audiences stood in long lines
At pop art lithograph shows to see
Comic-strip dots becomes assertive
While cardboard grow pale and fainted.
At five o’clock in the afternoon,
A sit-down comedian sat on the sidewalk
With his arms folded in front of a tin cup
Or the Holy Grail,
Promised to tell jokes about egg yolks,
Although the folded-arm, sit-down comedian
Never
Spoke.
So,
So,
So, so,
So.
E MAIL TO DAMNISO LOPEZ 87
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Her hair, shoulder-length,
Beauty-shop gold twists,
Was once
Monumental Jerusalem columns, blow-dried
Into aleatory spirals,
Now post-modern para-styling
Her hair, through manipulations of the hair stylist
And the press
Was transmogrified into having breath
And a Heidegger annotation.
The hair’s breathing was declared
By a critic in New Haven
To be the beginning
Of a highway to truth
That depends for its existence
On a leap of faith,
An arational, illogical outlook.
Her hair’s breathing found a tongue,
The tongue wriggled to articulate words.
Her hair became an utterance,
It spoke.
My lips kissed
The well-planned amorphous structure
And disjunctive arrangement
And heard
A new found post-modern speech.
E MAIL TO DAMNISO LOPEZ 88
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After I left
The Buddhist monastery,
I
Continued my non-discipline approach
To live by
Non-determined concepts.
With a yellow bell pepper
In a window-pane sunlight
On a purple and gold mat
And with cognac in a blackish, opaque glass,
I had a vision
Initiated by the synchronicity
Of a female cardinal
Tapping
On my glass door.
I visualized Tristan Tzara wearing an opaque monocle
Listening to
The sound of popcorn popping in my
Gold-trimmed black microwave oven.
But I was not certain;
Certainty is for cretins.
It might have been Icarus in my kitchen,
Thinking about
How absurd and false
Are the realities that people believe in.
But it might not have been Icarus,
It could have been Dr. Johnson,
For I heard him say to Alexander Pope
(It might have been Boswell):
"A definer who circumscribes poetry
By definition will only show
The narrowness of the definer."
E MAIL TO DAMNISO LOPEZ 89
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I walked on mud,
Surface, greened with
The covering of seeds,
I felt the soft, shiny, moist dark mud
Sink beneath my feet
And touch my bare ankles,
I was going nowhere;
I felt emancipated
From predetermined destinations,
I felt freed from a belief
In the consensual reality
Of exterior stability.
Then, out of nowhere, a
Branch with
Three yellow flowers on its tip
Bushed against my forehead.
I
Saw
A
Damselfly--gold, ivory, segmented, body
On a knob of blond bark.
I no longer
Felt an urge to
Master or explain,
The remnants
Of frames and focuses
That had enter me
Unawarely,
Become voids,
Beautiful voids.
I feel the joy
Of being a circumstance,
A circumstance
Of a lost circumference,
A lost center,
A Lost Circle.
E MAIL TO DAMNISO LOPEZ 90
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The
Cryptic Content,
Dichotomies,
Contradictions,
Nothing resolved,
No statements,
No arguments,
Even aporias
Of a damselfly's eye,
Its defamiliarization
Impinged
Upon my perception
After Buddhist breathing,
One-one, two-two, three-three,
Now, I have suffused within
An alternative aesthetic;
Since
I do not know what my aesthetic is,
I am liberated,
Emancipated,
Consciousness-altered
To write
Fired by the knowing-not knowing,
The ignorance-erudition of the mystic.
I was freed from fashion,
The formulaic rhetoric
Of popular epiphanic writing,
Deep images, symbolic
Correspondence etc., their
Commodification of the sacred
For prizes, mistresses, and reputation.
So I situate myself
In a new realism,
Have a new valorization,
And not the realisms
Cherished, admired, defended
By the past.
Guido Monte
Aha n.4: the end
(Eugenio Montale, Heraclitus, Guido Cavalcanti)
So che si può esistere
non vivendo,
tu epilanthanoménoy ei e odòs ághei
tanto è distrutta già la mia persona,
ch'i' non posso soffrire
(anápaula en tei phyghei) -
la morte
mi stringe sì, che vita m'abbandona
ai psykaì osmontai cath' Aiden
[I know everyone can exist
without living
forgetting where the road leads
so much I'm destroyed inside me
that I can no longer suffer
(that’s the solace in exile) -
death is so running short
that life deserts me,
while souls get a whiff of Hades below]
notes
The author thanks Giusy Chirco,Tom Di Liberto and Viviana Fiorentino.
The Sanskrit term “aha” embraces all the letters of the alphabet in her
depth, symbolically embracing the whole universe.
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 - 2006 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.
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