January 2009
VOL XVII, Issue 1, Number 189
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
Stephanie Kjaerbaek
Dust settles...
CONTENTS
Alex Galper
less than a second
Up to the Heavens
elementary cell
memory is a bitch
the ring snake patriot
LOVE TERRORIST
Linda Leedy Schneider
Wind, Water, Fire, and Stone
She Had Always Been Able
Five Minutes Between
Therapy Clients
She is a green pepper
The Rape of the Peony
Entela Safeti Kasi
TALKING TO THE FLOWER
NOT IN EROS NOT IN SOLITUDE
TALES
THE WHITE SNOW FLOWER FLIES ON A GEM
POST SCRIPTUM
Jerry Vihotti
Storella: "A Place of Dark and Cold
Stephanie Kjaerbaek
I.
Dust settles on edge of nigh
Through barren lines of silver
Bullets scattered on streets of gold
Carefully-drawn lines by ones who
Do as they're told
Mine is the force that lies within
Yours is the hand upon the womb
That serves time in fertile fields
That lay bare beneath the wind
Carefully stripped this year
Free of harvest on late August nights
A tranquil rest from
Fine Ariel raises his glass of wine
=2 0 And his words resonate within
Old symbols and stories jotted
Across straight, smooth surfaces
Polished instead of rough stone for jagged lines
Like the pattern of desert Bedouin
In my dreams, the landscape burns
As they fight the Hague
The surrendered cry
"Oh, the Lord of Tables is coming for his feast!"
All the barefoot crush grapes for wine
A fine shipment headed for Eastern shores
The pagans shall return to reclaim
All that they've been losing.
II.
One of those strange vegetarian types
Who walks behind his friend without words
And yet is always motioning to speak
He wear glasses as thick as Morrissey
Creepier than most of his fans
He hides behind carefully-crafted normalcy
More than happy to stalk people
And yet offended by their fur and love of meat.
I am not fascinated
By flesh from bone eviscerated
Fancy me a pound of fish
Delicately coated in saucy bliss.
III.
She'd sit around sucking on her sword
Till the edge cut the roof deeper
And blood escaped the wound
Oh, woman o' scorn should know better
Than to bleed for the bed that soaked
Up her dry tears while the ground became
Wetter from the rain how she dreaded.
Alex Galper
less than a second
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
the car in front
slammed on the breaks : halt!
i learned to keep a distance
and stop
inches away
intuitively glance into the rear view mirror
a jeep is coming
up on me from behind, fast;
the driver is on the phone
in seconds he'll notice
that i'm at a standstill
but it'll be too late.
he'll slam into me
with the full force of
rear collision
i'll be thrown forward,
driving my front bumper
through the one parked in front;
there ain't nothing to do now
will the bags work...?
i lean back and press my head against the headrest...
less than a second left.
Up to the Heavens
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Outside, on a different planet
somewhere
Arctic winds chill
to the bone
and winter bites.
But here :
in a Palestinian hole
on E2nd
it is hot: carpets, pillows, hummus, a plate of kebabs.
My friend
commands respect here
for his fluent Arabic.
A former Mossad,
he pulls on his apple hooka
smiles
at the waiter and
whispers into my ear:
"...How many o'our boys they's
killed...
how many o'theirs
I'd packed up
into the heavens!"
elementary cell
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
a beauty she strolled
into the office
demanding the state pay
for her sex change operation
since her elementary nature
her cellular being is trapped like
a caged nightingale
without a way out of
a 100% homosexual male
who's already got
the world's best boyfriend
who is to be her husband
the day after
she gets that dick
sowed on.
i listened: as the fan
pushed stale warm around
the room
i quoted Lao Tzu to her:
"are you capable of understanding
that you know nothing?"
she rushed out of the office
like a scalded animal,
shouting:
"i'll file a complaint! how dare you!
you've got some crazy assholes working here!"
memory is a bitch
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To M.R.
so it goes:
her work phone
will be
forgotten in a week,
her cell
in a month.
give it a year
and i won't remember her name.
two more,
and i won't recognize her face.
is there nothing to be done?
memory is a bitch.
the ring snake patriot
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
client Bob
a Nam vet
a junkie
is calling the office
begging for a house call:
it's a matter of life and death.
a broken mirror in the hallway
syringes all about
burned out floors and ceilings
consequences of an imaginary napalm blast
the walls bear a knife collection
in the yard a patch of dirt, a hole and a shovel.
in a cardboard box, on a pillow, draped in an American flag
is Tom the ring snake who
kicked the bucket.
tame, reconciled god's creature...
the stereo blasts the Star Spangled Banner
Bob is firing off his gun in the air,
weeping on my shoulder:
"Tommy was a real American!
That's why the Russians
Killed him
With space rays!"
translated from Russian by Misha Delibash.
LOVE TERRORIST
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AT night the phone is ringing at airport security.
Woman sobs:
--Must report a terrorist on the Moscow-New York flight!
--With a bomb?
--Enormous one! and tucked away in his boxers. . .
driving me crazy day and night!
--Contraband icons on him?
--He illegally taken most sacred -- my heart!
--Narcotics?
--You bet! Been tweakin' three days because of him!
--Generally, mam, we don't handle cases like this,
contact Amur!
But still. . . went a ahead and filled out a report,
Tip is received, so better follow through
The passenger is then thrown off the flight
His luggage ransacked
All the while
He longingly gazes out of a window at his plane . . .
gradually dissolving into
a large pond of skies.
Translated by Benjamin Zeitlin
Linda Leedy Schneider
Wind, Water, Fire, and Stone
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It is the stone in her pocket,
the rough one, with its vein of quartz,
a hidden, forever fire. She can touch
that stone, and no one knows.
It is the beat of a bass drum
that calls her body to consider rhythm,
to remember the wash of waves
that carried all forward in the march
through twilight into night.
It is that sunny day in March
that stirs her desire for more,
yet she feels suspended
like a stemmed cherry
captured in a cube of ice.
Everything circles and dances
like tongues of fire on the hearth,
like a willow caught in the wind,
like the confusion of waves before a storm,
like that stone that blazes in her hand.
*
"Through My Window: Poetry of a Psychotherapist," Pudding House Publications, 2007.,
Word Riot.
She Had Always Been Able
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
to fall down deep into a flower.
The wallpaper of the front hall
that held the phone
swirled with peonies.
She counted leaves and petals
as she listened to neighbors talk
of gardeners, the new minister,
and one fucking husband. Peonies
swirled as she heard,
"Now it's the teacher, Miss Rose
that he is seeing."
The first grade classroom
with its lighted aquarium,
gliding guppies, clean blackboards,
stacks of papers ordered by color
had been safe.
She didn't need to count leaves,
petals, or panes of glass
to settle her mind
until she strayed and listened in
on that phone call
Mr Clay with Miss Rose,
the thought made
the green walls pulse in and out.
She began to count chalk,
papers on the bulletin board.
Mr Clay had three children.
Mrs Clay, they said, was crying.
She counted and recounted
her fingers and toes
She stepped over every crack
on her way home worrying
her mother had died or
left with the postman.
She washed her hands
five times in the empty house
before going to
the swirling peonies
to pick up that black phone
again...
*
Rattle Magazine
"Through My window: Poetry of a Psychotherapist," Pudding House Publications, 2007.
Five Minutes Between
Therapy Clients
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Through my window I see
swans floating on a man-made
pond with a concrete fountain.
Look into an impressionist oil
over my desk. Lush peonies
and always the one perfect petal-- fallen
no insects, no rain, no rot,
nothing grating or grotesque.
In these minutes I see
the painting's imperfect perfection
for the first time:
after the woman who last week found
her husband naked with her sister-in-law,
and before the college professor
who doesn't know why he cries.
*
published in "Through My window: Poetry of a Psychotherapist,"
Pudding House Publications, 2007.; Word Riot
She is a green pepper
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
a globe of goodness.
She rests on her haunches
wears her favorite hat.
She blushes,
wishes to be wanted
She wants to strip for you
run in scalloped circles.
Heavy with seed,
she just waits
for the cut
of your knife.
*
"Through My Window: Poetry of a Psychotherapist,"
Pudding House Publications,2007
The Rape of the Peony
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I
She would not have taken
marigolds with their yellow
fringed faces.
She let them all keep
their trumpeting daffodils,
zinnias with petals layered
like pheasant feathers,
snapdragons standing
on each other's heads,
cosmos bowing before the breeze.
She didn't take the green gazing ball
or the roses trained to a trellis,
but when the peony buds
spilled pink petals
layer on layer of lace
and one sagged
to the soil,
she twisted --
took a stolen blossom
to her bedroom.
II
Later when she opened
her drawer. She found
the peony crumpled
like a used tissue
and a brown stain
on her pink nightgown.
Entela Safeti Kasi
Tirane, Albania
TALKING TO THE FLOWER
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As you can't keep this forgotten ray
This word bounded by flame
Cry
And the cloud of an empty sky
Falls wherever raining
And the unspoken sound of silence
Plays inside the stone
Happily that sadness, madness of verses...
So I silently go off as the raven feather
Black dress of times
And there I am falling now and then
And I just spring in a glance inside
Insider as I am, and not I.
Whispers caring that huge cliff
Of the most difficult dearest compassion
To find you in the eye's cloud
The dust of the darken mist
The highest mountain fallen
On the bird's wing
Over the frozen snow
On the lake as the down rises
The star of forgotten liturgies
The flame
Icon on the loneliness wall
Ship without an anchored
Birds are falling every where
Now and then
"We the next island" (!)
Coming with the wind
The whiteness empty page
Where the raven stays and writes his "never more"
The rings of the ivy window
The willow tremendous tear
The hoary dreaming of the sinless garden
The lost sound of veins
Whiteness lilies
Brown leafs of falling trees...
The deepest coral shines
That massive water, scared of every little drop
The lack of destiny as an empty glass
Poured by tears and prays
In the Sunday dinner
Or the lost land
When you see the next island existing
As memories
We, the deserted island...
I talk to my flower
The unsaid words of rain
The winter gets the bulbs still unborn
Spring less
The wet curly shells
Hidden in the limits of nonexistence
That watering mouth
Waves and waves innocently bone and flesh
The grown pain, ancient illness
Of gloomy steps
If I don't step there is a mirror in my wonderland
A lost inch of heaven
Into yours fallen eyes on every inch of the skin
And getting burned of the icy sculpture
I freeze outside the day
And stay
On the same soil
And plant another flower of sadness
As the wind could come
And makes it
A poem
Or a salvation
So I said everything
Naked in front of your lilies
When you say and accept
Love and death the same
The beginning of every world and all hidden worlds
But, I don't know
If the writing does not exist
Will I be ever more a woman?!
Fearless and happily a woman
So I wrote every word
Every sound of silence
By the solid drop of water
And if there is no sea or ocean
Could I stay paralyzed in any shape?!
Could I not be sad, not mad?
The most difficult tag
Song and flame
So I send you every form of cloud
Every color of that rainbow
Every weigh of sand, soil and stone
Every plant,
And all the solitude
Of words
Remaining
Not I!!!
A poem
NOT IN EROS NOT IN SOLITUDE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have betrayed
When I was looking for an abut point
In 22 Gold Lane PRAGUE, at the Astronomic time
Of the haven clock with imbues.
Like white horses of solitude
In the minute of thousand loves
Man less.
Because you are
The same land pointed
Like the walls of the house which keeps us,
Because you are a pebble made of the sea
Because you are poetry
Of the dream mosaic
And roots
Leaves of the book covering
And wooden pages
Because you are a part in my bed
Where the unsaid word is said
In absolute intimacy
Fearless
Because you are me!
Yes, in 22 Gold Lane Prague.
In the bed of central woods
As an ivy
Or like the leaves of the grape
Covered
Untouched of nothing in common
Unreal
Like all surrealists
Like the snowy nights of KORCA
In the chamber of Christmas EVE
Looking for declared words,
The denial
The holy forbidden, the sin
When you do not only love
But from the dead people you chose
And you ignore they who live,
Nights of paradise into loneliness
Fearless,
Ways where you go without people
The eyes photography
Of cold sculpture - time
Like an horizon or parallel
Never meridian,
Or pole,
The meaning of the word "Forgive me"
Like a glaze smile,
When you forget or implore as usually
There is not heart broken,
Nor apostasy
Because I have wonted the point of abut
In 22 Golden lane Prague
Not in Eros, not in solitude
At postmortems
TALES
~~~~~
Why to worry?
The dream flies blazes
And it is burned over waters.
You go silently in the world ways.
In foreign lands,
The earth doesn't give you gravity.
While birds screamed,
I didn't believe to be you!
Why this flow of my river
Hitches such ardor!
I can't hear your voice
Through havoc timber of haggard
I can't resist the pains.
Poles are abutting to one point
So, don't step by the lack
Of the man to people!
Don't worry if birds in the winter
Crowds of crowds in the earth hang on!
Endlessly
Margaritas in the garden
Used to be ugly into one night
The hoary gets
Don't you ignite!
Don't you ignite than!
The crazy woman and the witch
Go on the parallel of moments
Of this modern sin
The cormorant opened the nails so bad.
My son,
If yours unreturned solar tours
Ignites your revenge,
Some where a death waits for me
You will follow like the light
To my mortal being!
Somewhere a sorrow waits for me...
The history started
From my abdomen
To your ax
And this unspoken tale
I am telling to myself
Because the ways crashed themselves
And I don't know
If I gave the birth to you
Or you gave the life to me!
THE WHITE SNOW FLOWER FLIES ON A GEM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The white snow flower is served
Like mushrooms
With a few leaves of grasses
On a crystal plate with fish scales
Like its eyes are the book covers
Words are pebbles, plants
Like every flower in the garden of the Eden sinless.
The time like fins, firsthand
Because the night runs gloomily
We hedge off stars, havens
By direct words
Which don't make sense.
Because in the same direction is the humanity
And we lose, found by eventualities
Like red fish.
Forget the water and die!
From the disorder of the molecule
Two hydrogen!
One oxygen!
The oxygen breath by the water, with your perfect sense!
Silently sad, sinking,
Because this chaos instinctively
For gold and wars,
Battles of dirty things,
To die it is enough.
One oxygen air
For the fish,
The perfect creation of beauty
The white snow flower
Swims in the crystalline,
Where the red fish relaxes
So, the people of the Sunday dinner
Are people
Nor sea,
Nor lakes
Or water which flows.
They are not bridges!
Nylon socks for women
Like intrigue
Or red gladiolas
First class suits unreachable
From women heads
Harlots of poverty
Likely gushy moon...
If could come back the grandmother from faraway,
Within her head like the winter white snow flower
Near the lake shore she would begin the song
For the fisherman
And she would tell to the goat
The man' shorn
Jerry Vihotti
Storella: A Place of Dark and Cold
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When Johnny moved into the new house in a town called Burywater, a hundred
miles north of his beloved Bronx, since it was periodically buried by waters
of hate and jealousy and across from the swamps that were adjacent to dead
cornfields from which grew radio towers with their red blinking lights where
he would play baseball doing his thing on one leg since the Burywater doctor
had taken growth cells from the leg when he was trying to find the little
stream of water running inside Johnny's knee, where the nurse with her smile
of death would play jokes on her elderly patients who would die soon and the
boy called Arnold who was burned in a Burywater woods by so-called friends
who wanted the little "kike" to suffer like their Christ had done on His
wooden cross and after a week of he and the boy full of bandages, whose eyes
were wisps of black smoke, exchanging comic books, long silences and their
names would die and when he told the nurse he wanted to go to that better
place the nurse said little Arnold had gone to she told him he had died and
gone back to Palestine where his chosen people would do unto them what had
been done to their he had felt coldness and as he became older and his parents
closer to old age, the darker became darker still for only one light would
shine to the outside while his mother wore her sweater constantly to ward
off the dampness of the swamps as he, an eight year old with a leg that
continued to hurt if coldness or a touch happened on it, sat by the wall near
the stove where small bits of heat gushed up from beneath the floor from
smoldering coals that were half buried by ash white waste and in a very big
way this mother resented his surviving her old body that was not supposed to
bear anymore fruit according to another high priest doctor who did not want
to see anymore of these kinds of people coming into his world so saying her
miscarriage, four years before Johnny's birth, had forever imposed the verdict
of "no more babies" and she wondered if she would not have joined the good
doctor, who often witnessed children dying of hunger confirming the wish to
suffer the little children, if Johnny were naked and freezing to throw with
him chunks of spat-on wood to the direction of frostbite and she told Johnny
to go down into the bowels of the cellar and put more coals into the furnace
which he would do--yelling up to her it would take a long long time for warmth
to climb up the steep stairs to enter bones and all the cold cold rooms and
then be able to replace all the swirls of black smoke spewing forth from
factory stacks that hovered over the place called Burywater.
1-8-09
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
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Distribution is allowed and encouraged as long as the issue is unchanged.
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