June 2009
VOL XVII, Issue 6, Number 194
Editor: Klaus J. Gerken
Production Editor: Heather Ferguson
European Editor: Mois Benarroch
Contributing Editors: Michael Collings; Jack R. Wesdorp; Oswald Le Winter
Previous Associate Editors: Igal Koshevoy; Evan Light; Pedro Sena
ISSN 1480-6401
INTRODUCTION
Cheri Fry
Our Evening
CONTENTS
Sankar Roy
House of Pleasure
Truants
American Online
My Neighbor
Alana Gasser
Last Seen Skipping...
The Catch
(untitled)
We Live in Glass Houses
Tone-Deaf (palindrome poem)
Eric J. Brinovec
7 Surrealist prose poems
Mather Schneider
NO SHAME
WHY THE HELL
SLIPPED
ANIMATED THUMBPRINT
IN THE HALF-WORLD
POST SCRIPTUM
Mois Benarroch
Wouldn't it be nice
Cheri Fry
Our Evening
~~~~~~~~~~~
Our merlot seemed a cherrywarm sweet to me
as penetrating hazel eyes
hot as coals burn into my flesh
raising temperatures
to a mercury high and then you gave pause
and just as I felt I was falling back to "normal"
you take my hand
and lead me
away
where time plus space melt into a desperate oblivion
Here, there are no intrustions
just breathing and murmers
wet kisses that tentativly brush over my lips
heading south, north, east, and west
you delight me
in your practiced ways
your commanding nature
sweeping me off my feet to make blood boil
while clouds carry me
through softest azure skies
into parellel universes
where life becomes one.
Sankar Roy
House of Pleasure
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now that we have painted the walls
and distanced ourselves from anything unsightly,
we hope to spend the rest of our lives unperturbed,
sunk in the sap.
In fact, we made pacts never to sing that sad song again.
We have taken vows
before cleaning the floor with rose water
and blocked every miserable thought...
covered windows with blinds so that
the cloud cannot play its mischief.
Truants
~~~~~~~
Those who already left, no one can ask them to leave again. Their ghosts
settle in your house without paying rent.
Their photos, fixed on the wall, recap the complaints
and their eyes, hazy behind the glass, caution you of their absence.
They decline to listen to your side of the story. Their silence,
grave in your head, forms hailstones;
as if you're left in the rain without an umbrella
and their belongings feel heavy on your hand, without a forwarding address.
Absconders are like bad karma: They make you feel guilt for the wrongs
which you never committed. They're tricksters who play with your remembrance:
They bring up incidents which never took place and it feels
their wobbly images about to disappear but stay.
American Online
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I bought a devil online. Someone sold him
on eBay for twenty bucks, the shipping was free.
FedEx delivered him at my doorstep.
As soon as I took him out of the box,
he began doing things: occupying my slippers,
wearing my clothes, he started calling
his monster buddies using our phone. First I felt sad,
then my wife and I initiated a fistfight
over something trivial. Within hours,
the devil taught my children to play internet poker;
then he auctioned them off to buy himself drinks
in a virtual casino. I became genuinely angry
when I discovered that he knew everything about me
and had been instant messaging my wife
for many months.
My Neighbor
~~~~~~~~~~~
Skull, bone, spine, spleen or a trace of blood,
the boxer shorts or a torn shirt, whatever remains,
not biodegraded in the desert sand, get them.
Our neighbor, Mrs. Patterson needs them.
Mrs. Patterson, mother of Private Patterson_
no flesh, no mind, no preschool, no home task, summer camp,
baseball club, homerun, no jazz, no band, no pituitary gland,
mother of a coded number.
Time does not tick in Mrs. Patterson's kitchen clock.
It does not matter if America discovers the Internet or a Pentium_
If Bill Gates rages a raga or Bill-O-Reilly eats lamb kabob.
Someone still sends the social security checks,
Mrs. Patterson is glad and somebody
will soon knock at her door, she knows.
When he is home, he opens the refrigerator with dirty fingers
as a blue bird chirps on the front porch.
Alana Gasser
Last Seen Skipping...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Last seen skipping in hot pursuit of quick white tail,
did you find what you were looking for, Alice?
I've seen a lot -
in fact, I caught a glimpse or two of an
invisible cat
and a giant caterpillar
blowing silky smoke rings
in the blue expansive sky.
You might say I'm mad
When I tell you of crying rivers of tears
enough to fill a two-storey home -
but you see, I was
five
times
as
tall
at the time.
You might say I'm mad,
but I must disagree -
for you haven't met the
mad-hatter,
whose loose chatter rings
like tossed word-salad.
He suffered a terrible fall
trying to reach the early of gray.
Come Alice, let's play a game.
I have never played, for
the selfish queen of hearts
paints her self portrait
on her very own sleeve.
Are you well, Alice?
No, you see,
when I was chasing that bunny
I fell down a long hole
and I've been falling ever since...
The Catch
~~~~~~~~~
"Perfect", He'd said.
He'd toiled in the clay for heavy hours,
moulding everything from nothing
with His bulbous, beautiful hands.
"He'll mate and propagate, one day", He'd said.
He grinned over His creation;
and he breathed it life.
And He might have smiled as He said
"This is good",
or He might have laughed
as a maniac in a starless night,
simultaneously giving the form before him,
life and death
(untitled)
~~~~~~~~~~
refracted beams
light shines through tiny
drops of rain
from hot to cool
the lovely continuum lies
against striking blue
a sparrow song
drifts from some distance away
beyond the rainbow
We Live in Glass Houses
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can't kick stones on the sidewalk.
They bounce off tattered shoes
and shattered bottles
scratching, stabbing the street.
People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones anyway.
Over the counter,
Misfortune's hands are filthy
handling dirty cash, palm outward.
Misfortune wears a `Native Pride' hat
stained in booze and tattered with wear.
Placing a bottle of hairspray in the bag
you ignore that Misfortune is bald,
you wear the smile that says:
Have a good night. Don't you know, he won't use it on his head?
Skipping across the train tracks -
Side-stepping a mud puddle
and the empty bottle of Listerine within it.
After all, your feet are wet enough already.
Tone-Deaf (palindrome poem)
~~~~~~~~~
Teacup to hands and
feet up, placed gently in
relaxation of joyful notes
spewing from sixfold-strung guitars.
Octaves butchered, you
sing to masterful
tuned, deliciously soft music.
Oblivious, you are
tone-deaf.
Are you oblivious?
Music, soft, deliciously tuned,
masterful to sing.
You butchered octaves.
Guitars strung sixfold from spewing
notes, joyful of relaxation.
In gently placed-up feet
and hands to cup tea.
Eric J. Brinovec
1.
Someone noticed I still existed in a sprayed mist of tiny eyeballs, I drifted
in a circle, that was a triangle, sphere, and a rectangle,... all encased in a
square, walking became challenging, terror(Psychological) became overwhelmingly
terrifying, panic. I seen a man eat an equation before I could get there, it
was too late. I only grazed the frequency I couldn't and wasn't designed to hear
within my genetic category (Human)...
2.
Human-shaped, creatures comprised of eyeballs drove the molten men of steel west,
surviving on boot meat, they marched on carpets carved of unmelting ice. It
rained severed monkey hands that day as they determinedly traveled to find what
they hoped to be a better place... they looked to the sky, and a cloud of smoke
cut the moon in half, it split apart and human limbs flew out, the sun smiled,
and all the mountains howled... Blood drops curiously rained out of the ground
and up to the sky, selfish prayers were broadcasted out of the speaker towers
on the hilltops, Only a god could wish or will them the best...
3.
A headless man with one invisible hand, quietly sits in a clear, formless house,
under the hot midnight sun. He is fiercely contemplating complex molecular
adhesion... He then realized that complex patternistic complexities are the
foundation of what we perceive to be simplicity...Suddenly he shattered a block of
ice cold infinity and realized that all those pieces of infinity are eternally
infinite... A gentle but frightening enlightenment silently ensued... A floating
window pane he knew then held his invisible hand as it wordlessly consoled him...
4.
Contemplating the complex pursuit of the intellectual, and basic complex
contemplation, I walked in a dimension outside of itself, grazed a conceptual
sphere, and tripped on a visual limitation...
5.
I opened an empty box, and inside I seen a green wave cowering in the corner,
It had realized its temporary sentience, it knew its natural flow would cause
it to disperse, death for a wave of flowing particles, I whispered in its ear
"There is no death", It appeared to comfort it. Because it slowly ascended
from the box, smiled at me and fearlessly proceeded to flow into seeming
obscurity...
6.
I pointed at something and accidentally scratched a hole in the air, some birds
flew through it, then a hexagonal tornado befriended the hole, the a gust of
wind blew them away...
7.
Complex fascination in waves and fluctuations, fluctuated in a misty herd of
clouds..., soaking in a dry mass of scattered light and thoughtful inquiries,
dancing on the top of the burning sun...
Mather Schneider
NO SHAME
~~~~~~~~
Mark found a dead body by the bus stop
at Craycroft and 22nd 3rd dead
body he s found in his 3 years
driving a cab I ve only been driving
about 4 months the worst thing I found
was puke on the back seat
Mark said he threw up when he
saw the dead guy he said he threw up the
first 2 times too it s no shame
now no
shame then
WHY THE HELL
~~~~~~~~~~~~
count the days and sign the checks life insurance
guilt trips everybody selling
something I don t want to believe
the hive has entranced us nobody knows
how we are built to live why we go
madder each minute everything warped laughing like a funhouse louse soul a moth-eaten
substitute for immortality god
fucking silo of lies thermos of
blood our lives barely a moment
to the tamarind sun the bleak truth
of black space sometimes intelligence
is a place with no oxygen terrifying nexus of
self awareness insanity looking at itself in
the toilet water why the hell
are we here
SLIPPED
~~~~~~~
pole horses in my mind
pull thoughtless people
by the hair through the mud so many mouths
proud to be dumb bundles of dope-wires
crossed and bungled
and slipped there
is a sadness to everything a
falseness why have we
to suffer the believers we are
not meant to
be like
this we are meant
to be happy
ANIMATED THUMBPRINT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
the crash of a gate closing gas hikes new
orleans a watery grave a burnt out comet
kissing the ocean hurricane like a giant
animated thumbprint tell me the world
is not mad the mind is a blood
streaked mirror with a
corner missing something is wrong with a
confident person envy and
hatred roll together like alligators
with guillotine jaws at
the last minute a lag in flow
wrenches the flowers loose wolf fangs like
dripping faucets a thousand birds
fuck on the shingles the dead weight
of desert air what kind
of fool dog makes
it to the roof of
society what kind
of idiot prospers
IN THE HALF-WORLD
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I wake up with a cocaine head hating
the price and my own stupidity enchilada
pie at eleven I crack
the curtain sun a turk with golden teeth crazy Chinese woman across the alley in the safety
of her yard even insanity
is tired yawns with aplomb an unstrangleable
lion knowledge useless
as tits on a boar brackish love cavalier
as a prince I feel like a toad
speed boating through New Orleans ice cream melting
while people rot
Mois Benarroch
Wouldn't it be nice
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wouldn't it be nice
To die tonight
After the gout crisis
Just after the first
November
Rain
Wouldn't it be nice
To leave this world
Tonight
Just before my novel is published
In Spain
Just some days before fame
Just before my eyes
Become extinct by sights
They shouldn't see
Wouldn't it be nice
After all
People would say
He died on the verge of fame and success
And, me, well, from out there would say
What has success got to do with it
Success was writing the poem
Not having it read
And that happened a long time ago
Before death, just as it happens now
Before your eyes, beneath your skin
Giving life again to the bones
That were a not there before you read
This very words
Wouldn't it be nice
To die tonight
And leave this wonderful world
This very, very wonderful world
As it is without adding more grief.
2005
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 - 2009 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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