February 2007
VOL XV, Issue 2, Number 166
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
April Bulmer
Freya, Norse Goddess of Love
CONTENTS
Felino Soriano
Vagabond's Vision #119
Vagabond's Vision #120
Vagabond's Vision #121
Vagabond's Vision #122
Vagabond's Vision #123
Colleen Carroll
Red Angel Wings
Black Cat
Rocking Horse
Date With the Night
Our Castle Made of Stars
Halloween World
The Ghosts
Dracula Man
Green Witch
Evil Jack O' Lantern
Gang of Werewolves
Halloween Moon
Halloween Pirate
Make Love
Kid on Halloween
Midnight Ghosts
Vampire
Halloween Night
The Witch
Halloween World is a Monster
DAVIDE TRAME
ECHOES OF SUN
GRAPHITE
NOVEL
WALKING HER
THERE.
Christopher Barnes
Chain-Mail Links
Chaplain Lusts
Contagion
Daddy
Daddy's Boy
Dan-Yr-Ogof Show Caves (percussion through rock)
Papa Osmubal
PARABLE: THE TOWN'S FOOL
EARLY MORNING. MACAU
ONE RAINY AFTERNOON WAITING FOR THE BUS
GENESIS
THE WIND
MOM
THIS GODDAMN SOCIETY
Jeffrey Spahr-Summers
April Fool
At the Table
kissing
99
Who let Bukowski in?
Nathaniel S. Rounds
Letter from the Crypt (or Crib)
AFTERWARD
BETTER THEY THAN THE SUITOR (ONE HOUR PAST THE PROMISED TIME)
Daniel Barbiero
After Some Advice of Buson's
After the Fact
Semiosis
*****
Metaphysical Interior #3
Mountain Road
Keith Nunes
Mencer Blue bids adieu
Observations from a great height
Riding Bertha
Averil Bones
Australia Day
POST SCRIPTUM
April Bulmer
The Norns--Norse Goddess of Fate
April Bulmer
Freya, Norse Goddess of Love
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sometimes we rested beneath the winter sun; he offered
me praise and hymns. I pressed myself against the old
ache of his body, kissed the blood and sea salt from his
lips. I emptied myself into his dreams and his helmet
shifted as he slept.
But one day he sailed and he would not worship, nor call
upon me in the cold hull of his ship. He rocked against the
hard bones of his vessel, but would not love me in the
damp night air.
I remembered the coarse weave of his garments, his thick
braids of hair...his ritual prayers and sacrifice under a
full-horned moon.
One day I laid down and the sun made a shadow of me:
against that tablet of earth I am a scar: a rune.
Felino Soriano
Vagabond's Vision #119
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Words created allusions
forming formations
unusual symbolic series of interconnecting
syntax, many especially singular as in "a" "I"
lingered on single philosophy breaking
attention spans
egocentric political correctness
invaded personal spaces
and they serenaded limbs of their broken
disregard for following focus alone.
Vagabond's Vision #120
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Infrequent the father-son embrace
indeed
scream!-- more
fact into a slouching eye down gaze,
his bloody boy
cumbersome verbalized
thorns tongue thrown.
Crowd of crown wearing
women collapsed atop abusive albatross
donning handlebar
mustache
moved in to delineate safety
whose intercepting leader
mother of the far off heard
undeserving
weeper.
Vagabond's Vision #121
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Noon was watered down
usually high of course clich
stretched neck double handed
and
face of every clock creates
gleam with authoritative synchronicity
today's fog coupled with
spread out gloomy sheet of misted sprinkle
outwitted light's heated dominance
where every glorious tip of my favorite
pines
were created elsewhere within
imagination
perched housing illusionary higher worlds.
Vagabond's Vision #122
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Open awake now eyes gathered seeds
dancing with weaving
artisan monarch butterfly
her mosaic species so much toward
the beauty of my never found before
the glide of shaping imaginary steps
which take eyes up into attics
inundated with crisscrossing light antithetical
to the human built attics
housing typical darkness
mourning moldy scented
treasures left unto arguing
siblings gauging life by monetary
achievement
rather than
the dance of monarch
arranging gifts for organized retrieval
methodical avalanche of musical articulation.
Vagabond's Vision #123
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The singing of silence wonderful
snow flavored swan sat
alone, contoured resting beautifully
eye mine met none
for hers closed within the palm
of devotion to sleep
dreamt I wondered if she
enclosed an answer inside
the question mark
of her resting neck
"tranquility, do I encompass?"--
stares of my straight forward
eyes caught gust of wind's quick
exhale, awoke briefly her nap
and she gazed toward my feeling
minuscule
which then adhered to my emotions
"let me be!"
Colleen Carroll
Red Angel Wings
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Her salty lips melted away,
Like butter in a pan,
And so did their love for each other,
Until there was nothing,
But the blur of Red Angel Wings.
Black Cat
~~~~~~~~~
The night was a Black Cat,
Crawling the velvet walls of darkness,
Then getting sucked into a tornado of dreams,
Into an opaque hole,
Only to be pulled out of the hole,
By a shrieking white light,
Into morning dawn,
Rocking Horse
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I climb the wall of childhood fantasies,
Through the window,
I am back in my childhood bedroom,
The yellow room surrounds me,
Like a spinning carousel,
There by my old bed,
Was my Rocking Horse,
Rocking back and forth,
Smiling at me,
For one moment to be a child again,
I hold youth in my hand,
But then it fades away,
And there is only old,
Then I wake up,
Yellow wallpaper on my mind.
Date With the Night
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I went on a Date With the Night,
He handed me a black rose,
That smelled of opaqueness,
We stepped onto his carriage,
With two black stallions leading,
We drove off into the dark sky,
That had no stars,
And we were swallowed by Nothing.
Our Castle Made of Stars
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We live in Our Castle Made of Stars,
We dance and are warm inside,
The glass snow pours down outside,
It is like cold and angry knives,
We light a fire that sparkles,
Like red rubies,
We hold each other,
And feel the warmth,
The snow whispers like a monster,
"Come out,"
The snow haunts us,
And temps us to go outside,
We are safe inside,
We hold each other by the fire.
Halloween World
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Halloween World we all wear costumes,
Like in life we all wear costumes,
We are afraid to show our true selves,
We afraid to be naked,
We are afraid others will laugh at our real selves,
We wear costumes of ghosts, vampires, witch,
On Halloween we search for candy,
Something sweet and kind to make us happy,
Just as in life we search we search for candy,
We all live in a Halloween World,
And so we search on.
The Ghosts
~~~~~~~~~~
The Ghosts circle around me,
They are weak lies,
I can see through them,
They haunt around,
And surround me in a dance,
I try to grab them,
But they slip through my fingers,
Like little dreams that will never come true,
I dance with these ghosts on a stage of black,
They are dead actors,
Then they kill me and I become a ghost,
Lost in a ghost world,
Dancing on a stage of black.
Dracula Man
~~~~~~~~~~~
Dracula Man and I fly through the night,
Searching for a young maiden to prey on,
We fly to the castle of delight,
The maiden waits by the window,
For her lovers,
She has hair like the sun,
Her lips are like rubies,
We prey upon the maiden,
She is innocent like the red rose,
We feed upon her body,
And bite with our fangs,
Into her bone, white neck,
We feast upon her blood,
She becomes one of us,
Dracula Man and I are Masters of the Night.
Green Witch
~~~~~~~~~~~
The Green Witch swims in the green sky,
She sings a Halloween lullaby,
She flies around on her broom of black,
Dracula jumps at her,
And does attack,
Dracula and the witch fight,
She turns him into a bat,
And he takes flight,
The Green Witch stirs her brew,
Of eye balls hot,
Dracula seals her in a coffin,
And she does rot.
Evil Jack O' Lantern
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Evil Jack O' Lantern,
Attacks me with its orange fangs,
It bites at me and blood spills out,
Orange like the Jack O' Lantern,
I stamp on the orange demon,
He howls like a werewolf in pain,
I think I am safe,
Then an army of Jack O' Lanterns,
Start chasing me,
They eat me alive,
I am dead and I go to the light,
Then I think I am safe,
I am in hell,
Orange Jack O' Lanterns,
I can never escape.
Gang of Werewolves
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Gang of Werewolves carry me away,
To the place where werewolves play,
Me and the werewolves we become friends,
We party on a night that will never end,
The werewolves dance in the moonlight moon,
We dance with the stars,
We sing our own tune,
The werewolves and I,
Dance under the night,
We drink our champagne of sweet delight,
Then we take flight.
Halloween Moon
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Halloween Moon,
It swallowed me,
I am locked in a cage of darkness,
And can't break free,
The Halloween Moon,
It ate me alive,
Into the midnight sky I dive,
The evil black cat it kisses me sweet,
Like a lover I long to meet,
The Moon throws me up so high,
In the Halloween world I will not die.
Halloween Pirate
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am a Halloween Pirate,
Candy is my gold,
I sail from house to house,
Kids dance by me in their costumes,
Of Dracula, ghosts, and goblins,
They dance around me,
I am king of the night,
The jack O' lanterns dance too,
Glowing with evil orange light,
The crisp breeze knocks me down,
The monsters in my closet carry me away,
The monsters are only in my mind,
I am a Halloween Pirate.
Make Love
~~~~~~~~~~~
The moon makes love to the Halloween sky,
The jack o' lanterns make love,
Glowing with light,
The witch and warlock make love,
Getting drunk on their brew of black,
The ghosts make love,
Flying through each other,
The vampires make love in their coffins,
Their eternal beds,
I make love with you on a Halloween night,
I wish morning would never come.
Kid on Halloween
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I dream candy rains from the sky,
I am a Kid on Halloween,
I wear my ghost costume,
And pretend to be a ghosts,
My dad and I carve pumpkins,
I am just a little girl,
The orange light dances in the darkness,
Like little dancers,
I go trick or treating with my dad,
He takes my little hand,
And leads me into a fantasy world,
I put candy in my sack,
It is a delicious treasure,
The Halloween moon beams down in the darkness,
I am a Kid on Halloween.
Midnight Ghosts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Midnight Ghost kidnap me,
And bring me to Ghost Land,
They rip my body off,
And I am only soul,
Now I am a ghost,
I dance with the ghosts,
In the ghosts gardens,
We have a midnight party,
And drink our champagne under the moon,
We fly around and are spirits of the night.
Vampire
~~~~~~~
The Vampire is trapped in his coffin,
In his eternal death bed,
Then he pops out and goes searching,
For a maiden to prey upon,
He finds the maiden and carries her off,
Into the night of no stars,
He sinks his fangs in,
And feasts upon body,
Like it is a delicious banquet,
The maiden becomes a Vampire,
And they lie in their coffin,
Safe as the sun rises.
Halloween Night
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Halloween Night sparkles with stars,
They glow like little orange pumpkins,
The stars fall down all around,
The vampires, witches, and ghosts,
Dance under them,
They party together on a Halloween Night,
They feast on the candy,
The vampires feast on everyone,
The sun rises and the Halloween Night dies.
The Witch
~~~~~~~~~
The Witch stirs her brew,
The brew was her dreams,
She drinks her brew,
Under the bone moon,
When she drinks her brew potion,
She becomes beautiful like a rare diamond,
Her body glows like the sun,
The warlock comes in,
And they make love,
Under the bone moon,
She rides his broomstick all night.
Halloween World is a Monster
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The smoky perfume kidnaps me,
Then the moon attack me,
The Halloween World it beats me up,
The bare demon trees smack me,
The witch pours brew on me and I melt,
The jack o' lanterns snap at me,
Like vicious dogs,
Dracula sucks my blood,
Like it is a red milkshake,
The ghosts knock me over,
Like deck of cards,
The Halloween world is a Monster,
That swallows me whole.
DAVIDE TRAME
ECHOES OF SUN
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You raised the turntable lid,
took the record out of the inside cover,
kept it by its sides, with both hands,
with only the least of it between palms and forefingers-tips,
gazed at its shine with a frown and a smile
and blew slightly on the surface, first one side
then the other, turning it with a nimble
imperceptible swirl in your wrist, like a dance step
you wanted to hint at.
You laid it on the turntable, slowly, and more slowly
lowered the turntable arm that set it off, stylus landing
on the black, glittering pool of thin furrows
with a wader's foot's touch.
We relished the instants of buzzing and crackling
like the first flames of a camp fire
then the rock guitar solo burst in and took off,
God's grass in its roar.
Yes, it's through this too that we could assess
longing and stamina in our countenances,
exchanging a few nods while listening was enough,
waving an exulting fist, feet tapping the floor,
the future a raw, puzzling star
while we pretended to be strong
with our gaze on tiptoe.
Constant rites, a longer time.
In echoes of sun.
Moulding the map where we now stand.
GRAPHITE
~~~~~~~~
Entering the redness of the autumnal hedge
you have never felt a twilight or an end
but rather a gripping, quiet closeness,
air scrutinizing your breath with lit
trusting irises
and that old request of doing your best
to learn the environment, your first
school period just started, the smell
and taste of graphite, the imprint
of all that's necessary and asks
for hue and skin.
NOVEL
~~~~~
Your hands
giving the book to me,
the front cover leaning heavily on the right,
the thick furrows on the spine
after you have flexed the binding
cracking it at each page, to have it all
in full light, to possess the words, eat them
naked, without the least shadow.
Your hands, keeping it as a precious dish,
a regal gift, your reading glasses still a bit
down on your nose.
Now it's my turn.
It could be the eternity
of stage after stage,
the horizon, the undergrowth of each season
a stare like earth sailing in our ears.
WALKING HER
~~~~~~~~~~~
Late evening, bed time.
Along the thin halo of the lamplights
we skirt flowerbeds, bushes, drainpipes.
End of another day, and all in all, you can say,
it's another accomplishment.
Each step now alone and whole.
The day's thoughts
sliding into the walk's absorbing flow.
And the day's rights and wrongs
a hushed crowd seeping into stone.
You walk her. She walks you.
Settled necessity.
The rhythm of your breaths at each step.
Feet and paws. The night silence confirmed
by this swishing, shuffling, stamping forward.
And in the silence the sense
of the infinitesimal shifts in the sea of the events
that have come down to
this routine's strength,
your end in your pocket at one end of the leash
and she pulling and panting at the other.
The sense that both of you
can be just you and no-one else.
A simple, unfathomable uniqueness
heightened by the night air,
its scattered irises hidden in the leaves,
its spacing whispers.
THERE.
~~~~~~
It never changes, the relief they bring,
the mountains, appearing on the horizon
in a break during the storm,
their presence unveiled
beyond the angry grey, swollen lagoon,
the sparse bending trees, the airport pinpointing lights,
the windows after windows of raindrops.
And your eyes are the same as when as a child
you felt your parents' smile behind you on the train,
touching your shoulder and pointing at "there", at the mountains
granting you their appearance, outlines breathing
as if angels had just swayed.
You took in the brushstrokes of white
in the furious clouds' metal grey
as the aftermath of scarves of light,
your eyes flying like ribbons
over the massive, marble-like belt.
Up there, you sensed, the storm has been really supreme,
a gods' business, far from your small irises,
and the rocks you stared at were the gods' knuckles at rest,
they had come out, freed themselves from the clashes
and were now settled and refreshed.
You wallowed in unveiled rootedness.
And you stare now, as then,
at the carved meandering of lines,
a pattern that's a marvel for just being there,
so you are relieved again
sensing the stony sinews continuing behind
like waves frozen in laughs of sky
and an unfurling of bright chains.
Christopher Barnes
Chain-Mail Links
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Having overpowered these ink-strokes
From sleep-trance in their envelope
You’ll toe the pull of their formula - Hurry!
Funeral march the room trebly
Blinking over your shoulder
At each circuit.
Clone it 5 times,
Cat's-cradle fingertips
As each photocopy's spirited out.
Mailbag it to your bosom friends,
Curtsying at the Post Office grille - don't swear-shudder
Nothing plaguey will incident you
If you oblige my passed-over warnings.
Chaplain Lusts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The test tube growled ‘drink me’.
Miss Moore's niece
and her whelp 'Squire'
in Lewis Carroll's camera
bend to dazzle
niches in the temple of fame,
crying vapours
by the bluebottle-on-roses wallpaper
after the ball was over.
Seen for what she was not,
symmetry in a tortoiseshell mirror,
the girl with thumb prints
on photosensitive skin
blushing lens
upon
lens,
a bounced glitter.
A pseudo-Liddell
the facsimile silenced
in blurred exposure-time flash.
Blots
are roads to ruin
and the staring lens
the only innocent place to hitch the eye.
Contagion
~~~~~~~~~
In the real estate of the turned loose
we're free to raise hairs.
Drugstore kissers vent,
teeth get the all-overs,
tonsils flap, wiggly.
Beatrice squawks.
Marva, Lisa, Irma & Tinsi scream.
Guy wails.
Elena sweats over yelping.
Hoover, in spite of being trousered manly
drumheads the broad
bosomed in his skull’s think tank.
As she bawls
an underskirt net hood the nation.
Daddy
~~~~~
He takes me shopping
A glitter palace
Going off at the side of road.
Through a gap
Between black belts;
The trolley at my back
Is singing its weight.
Morning. Daddy whacks
Spring flowers into air
To hide the smell mummy makes.
She is locked in, downstairs room
Thin as veins
Every move a pulse on his skull.
She breathes, a mollusc
Devouring black grounds.
You must go to school Tommy.
(Munch Munch)
Creamcakes, fruit, flour.
The clock's round eye counts.
Wash that face. Smile
If the teacher asks "how's life at home?"
I marvel at you Tommy.
You’re such a good boy.
Eat breakfast. (I can't eat!)
The window needs cleaning.
A gull screams at crumbs,
A huge break open whiting-batter wide.
Street, tape-measure long
Houses grey as gravestones
One end to the other.
Daddy in the police car
A lost look,
Mummy dead on her bed,
Still.
"Kathleen Warbuton - 54- starved to death
weighing 3 stone 13lbs even though the squalid
flat she shared with her husband & son was well
stocked with food. She had not been moved in
6 weeks." - Guardian 12/3/96
Daddy's Boy
~~~~~~~~~~~
Stagnant wateriness of outdoor swimming pool,
Tynemouth brine and English perishings.
I’ve got a sunspot dolefulness, daisy-chain tethers,
Sprung flipflops,
A fizzle of sarsaparilla on my tongue.
Listen to the clappers of love. Beneath ribbed towels
A tinny speaker throbs with spellbinding Tamla,
“finding a good man girl
is like finding a needle in a haystack”
The blur and foam rumbling tides.
Bashing swords all morning
On guard for counter-riposte -
Uncut hair,
Obstinate do-or-die clothes.
Heard it through the grapevine:
Brian Jones rang a bell,
A heatwave roasts the Melting Pot,
Taylor banns Burton.
Dad's Welsh, and furthermore,
I wish he’s worm into a ship, never come back
Like the whimpering Russian dog
They slugged to the moon.
Dan-Yr-Ogof Show Caves (percussion through rock)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Intuit strains. Earth's
Melting, each trickle,
Its composition
Animate with allegretto.
Underpinned squiggled scores,
Rust ceilings, shivering
Embellishments of marimbas,
Plonks, plinks,
Glockenspiels: capriccio form,
Liltingly fluid crags.
Nem. Con.
Songs,
Subterranean rivers
Confront malingering echoes.
Papa Osmubal
PARABLE: THE TOWN'S FOOL
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Under a tree, delivering
his usual litanies and sermons.
Nobody listens
but the birds and the flowers.
Passersby walk by, oblivious of this man
who carves words and wounds in the wind.
EARLY MORNING. MACAU
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clad in greasy clothes,
still-sleepy workers
wait for the bus.
From time to time
the cold breeze comes
with its usual whisper.
Crows, silent, and sleepy too,
patiently stand nearby.
What are they waiting for?
ONE RAINY AFTERNOON WAITING FOR THE BUS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have never seen such a strong rain
or rather I have never been so alone.
No human voice; my mind felt too empty
and silence became deep, meaningful.
I might have become a poet
had the bus not come.
I was starting to speak and fathom
the language of the wind.
GENESIS
~~~~~~~
Cain knew it through and through:
God is not a veggie
His salad was snubbed
in favor of Abel's barbecue
Holding a rock and a carrot
Cain sat underneath a tree
He's had enough
he fed Abel to the vultures
THE WIND
~~~~~~~~
Listen to the wind.
The wind has the eloquence of the trees.
The wind has the secrets of the mountains.
The wind has the strength of the rocks.
The clouds are a fine granite to the wind:
horses, flowers, and images unknown to great sculptors
Imagine the seas without the wind:
the waves and the civilizations they glided and transported.
Imagine a desert without the wind.
And imagine the wings without the wind.
Which is why each tweet of a bird is a paean to the wind.
MOM
~~~
Item, from TVB Pearl, Hong Kong: A Hong Kong woman jumped to her death
from a hotel window in Guangzhou, leaving her 3 year-old daughter alone
and stranded in the hotel.
Moms are not Superwomen that grace the wind.
Moms are not Spiderwomen with web to cling on to.
They are not sparkling snow that settles
to the ground to add up to the beauty of the city.
Moms are not like the balloon you got last Christmas.
Every time mom would walk out the door
it was for shopping and sweets and dolls.
Mom this morning left through the window.
Which is why she is not coming back anymore.
Your pains now imitate the pains of childbirth
but it will not return any happiness like childbirth does.
Today mom left through the window
to greet the sun and own a perpetual morning.
So mom is not the one sending you to school today.
When you are already a mom and alone in the world
perchance you will be able to understand all this.
THIS GODDAMN SOCIETY
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dammit, Kennet, do not tell me
you did not hear the news
about the biggest Tsunami in recent history
that hit those who were having barbeque
on the beaches of South-east Asia,
just because you were then making love.
And, dammit, Kennet, do not tell me
you did not hear about Iraq....Yes, Iraq!
What! You do not even know what and where Iraq is?
Here's the globe and that is Iraq.
Yes, that sky blue portion near Iran.
Now do not ask me why it is sky blue
and do not ask me about Iran;
this is not a geography lesson.
Here is your Encyclopedia Americana
and check it out yourself.
Do not worry, Dabya is not one of its authors.
I say, it is on Letter "I"
and don't get confused when you read
something about Mesopotamia and Babylonia there.
Dammit, do not tell me you did not hear of Iraq
being attacked and bombarded by the USA,
just because you always think of her.
She is the wife of the whole town
and just for a bottle of cognac, last Sunday, I...
Kennet? Yes, Kennet. Sorry, Kennet.
She was begging for it and I gave it.
Dammit, Kennet, break up with that blonde girl;
and know what is happening around you.
Stop wasting your time and money, and buy newspapers
we need those to keep our winter warm.
Jeffrey Spahr-Summers
April Fool
~~~~~~~~~~
Once a year something happens...
A cloud passes over April,
Something snaps in her mind
Like a dry twig underfoot
And her eyes fog like cheap wine.
She makes prank calls and laughs,
Puts sugar in the shaker
And salt in the bowl,
And the world seems a finer place.
At the Table
~~~~~~~~~~~~
They sit a sight for sore eyes,
Relentless in their talk of old times.
Four poets riding nostalgia, betting
On whose memory serves best,
Jockeying for position,
And hiding the heat
That swells from deep inside them
Like some wanton desire.
kissing
~~~~~~~
they kissed on red sheets
under red blankets
in the bathtub
on the floor
kissing and crying
in the car
the garage
they kissed naked
in a king size bed
in the kitchen
outside
under the sun
in front of the dogs
they kissed in their sleep
in front of his mother
under trees=20
at the airport
in front of everybody
again and again
kissing=20
they said goodbye
99
~~
for Lana Kay
she s a double agent
she s a doer of difficult things
she s an architect of marvels
she studies our regrets
she reports what we want to hear
Who let Bukowski in?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now the bastard won't leave.
He sits at the kitchen table in my mind
like a sous chef swilling the cooking wind,
He is cleaning his nails with a fork
"You don't know what love is..."
Nathaniel S. Rounds
Letter from the Crypt (or Crib)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To my sister in Nazareth:
Thanks for the fish box ready-made, a
Molten brew of Shostakovich-stained colors
Sealed in brooding encaustic
Over worm-ravaged pearwood.
Yea, a time capsule
Of burr-prickled, horsehair inelegance.
Inside: Your travel itinerary,
Complete with ribald poems and travel postcards.
(Why bother to color the obvious?)
Its unraveling compelled me to join you,
Which, of course, is impossible.
Instead, I untapped a full case of Madeira
And, having emptied it some two days later,
Came to find Franklin, Churchill, and Gandhi
Playing draughts inside.
Enclosed please find one gramophone,
Some sinful Cossacks in authentic garb,
And some pithy proverbs concerning
Self-preservation.
Yours in the relative sense (nyuck nyuck),
Danny the Younger,
St. Petersburg
PS
Yes, one paints what one hears.
AFTERWARD
~~~~~~~~~
Dandeliar Charles Merrill Mount,
Née
Stanley Merrill Suchow,
Kicks up a shoeshine down San Francisco streets.
His cane is a cavalry saber.
Behind him,
Wind rattles his suit pockets,
Shakes lockets of confederate generals
and
daguerreotype scowls.
Stephen Carrie Blumberg,
Malodorous savant book bandit,
Pedals up hill in an ice cream wagon.
Hack saws, glass cutters and door knobs turn cartwheels,
Steal free from the deep freeze to dance in the sun.
Emperor Norton bows to Lord Buckley,
Who,
In turn
Bows to Thursday October Christian.
They exchange cards and courtesies in synchrony
With vinyl hiccups from the Tijuana Brass.
You fold your hands and take in the scenery,
The gentle-hearted pageantry, the last Big Three
Plus two middling Merrills
In this dandelion-garbage-dump-fruit-fly Yalta.
You say the model prayer by the Caltrain railroad tracks,
Even though there’s no money in it, there’s no bottom line,
There’s no tax refund, there’s no free gas for a year,
There’s no company car, and
There’s no executive office to be gleaned from it.
You have some sense of remorse for prying the stars from their settings in
the sky.
That was a bad left turn, Mr. Juke, for the sky took sick and covered its
hurt with a long, Black cowl.
BETTER THEY THAN THE SUITOR (ONE HOUR PAST THE PROMISED TIME)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A lonely damozel, puffing frumpish hrumphs of cankered resignation, casts
her icy glare at an innocent bouquet of camellias.
Down comes the samurai’s sword! Ten snow-headed blossoms fall dead to the
floor.
Daniel Barbiero
After Some Advice of Buson's
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The first and most important step
Is simply to see things—
The long road underfoot
Potholed and rain threatening
The junked cars
On a bed of spruce needles
Where the path steepens
And the past loops forward
To supplant the present.
With eyes shut the landscape
Before the mind grows more secure
Is more vivid than the one
Before the eye—
Not a hypothetical thing
But the phenomenal place
In its purest form.
Nothing that is far
Is far in thought
Thick with time
The bamboo thick
By the road to Kisagata.
After the Fact
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alone, being with
Ourselves, takes on
The flavor of water,
The smell of plain air—
Our “I” is left out
In the world
A strange thing
Among other things
Equally strange
A disturbance seen
From the corner of the eye.
That we are not
What we confront—
Not the smell of ozone
After a rain, or
The pungency of wild
Blackberries fermenting
On the forest floor—
Is not a scandal
Though we may envy
Soil and sediment,
Self-coincident and unconcerned
With the histories we put
Upon them—
Natural histories of accretion
Low stone walls
Overlaid with lichen
Sectioning the ground
After the fact.
After the fact—
A place to which
We return.
What we once knew
Intuitively
We now know by name—
Species, genus, season
Of flowering—
No longer lived within
But understood
Nonetheless.
Semiosis
~~~~~~~~
Blue-eyed grass bends
Flat in the rain
As the white pines
Bend into the wind
By Lake Whitney.
The pine canopy
Grows downward
On the surface of the lake
The bridge beyond
Finds its double.
Thing and image,
Each mute and somehow
Equivalent, ciphers
To which meaning
Must be brought
From outside—outside
The indifference of the wood
And of the snow
Shrugged off of the spruce
Last March.
*****
That the world derives
From the mind
As an irruption
A surprise of blue lettuces
By the iron-pipe railing
Or a blockage in
Consciousness
As a pearl generated
From an irritant.
Not an invention
But a condition
A state in which
The spruces, their limbs
Sloping slack by their sides
Voice the windsound
One can easily
Take for distant traffic
When half awake--
The mourning dove’s chittering
When lifting away.
Metaphysical Interior #3
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I
Time comes into the world
Through the body
Reluctantly
Its animal awareness
Summarized in knots
Along a string.
The body moves through the air
An air present
To itself in unthought
Thickness, a kind of
Proprioception embedded
In the collision of molecules
That forms the air
An opacity graced by seeming,
A dampness set
Into the weave of the cloth.
II
The body comes into the world
As a viscous fact
And leaves much the same way
The hold of meat loosened
In the dry retort of earth.
But this is something
We will not know
Will never know
Some alien future peering out
From the stickiness of mood
Mediating between body
And world, a rock
In a stream, around which
The waters eddy.
Mountain Road
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The road up is the same
As the road down-
But this one seems
Never to descend
Grey asphalt blackening
In a sudden rain
The moss gone slippery
By heaped stone walls
Dividing non-existent farms.
One can set foot
On the same road twice
Steps separated
By thirty years and more,
Past tools abandoned
To time and the rain
Decorative junk
That worked the earth
When there was work.
The road is still here, the cubist face
Of basalt, rising on the right;
Clues appear in broken moss,
In the stunted trunks
Of crab apple, in
The traces that all things leave—
An elemental language which
Without us
Becomes itself again.
Keith Nunes
Mencer Blue bids adieu
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tonight he is playing like a train is waiting for him at the station.
Mencer Blue is his name. His wife, the raven-haired, cheerless violinist
in the third row, is robotic. Her name is Auburn. She is about to die.
She will be remembered as Mencer Blue's wife primarily because he stole
her from the viola player who committed suicide on her birthday.
Mencer Blue will kill Auburn when he finds out she has been performing
felatio on the conductor, Herr Molgol. So, the performance is over. All
stand and bow and shuffle out. At the appointed place the bulk of the
orchestra gathers for drinks and a celebration - it is the conductor's
final night. It is here, while drunk, that the conductor tells Mencer of
his wife's infidelity. It is here, in the bathroom, that Mencer
strangles his young wife to death in a cubicle while the pianist
copulates with the timpani player next door. Loud, everything is loud at
these celebrations. No-one notices Mencer leaving the bar, coolly,
calmly. Composed, he walks to the train station where the northbound
express seems to be waiting just for him.
Observations from a great height
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sharpshooters pinpoint moving targets
Grandmother looks up
The son of a bitch with the German pistol threatens
The son of a gun with a black bitch on his arm
In the Bavarian ballroom Hansel meets Gretel
In the gym Peter, Paul and Mary get it on
On board the container tanker two men fight over a third
In the cramped classroom the third equals the first two
Under the blazing sun he eats the piquant meal
Afraid his son will go unfed in the wintry north
The abundant tree extravagantly encircles the fertile maiden
The test tube indifferently harbours their hard-won first-born
Arabella dances with Juan for applause and admiration
Juan dances with Arabella because he loves her sister
The percussionist in the symphony orchestra has left his wife
The sad-eyed, raven-haired violinist three rows in front of him
At the source of the Nile the eager digger pours a whiskey
Drowning thoughts of her and reviving hopes of a book
In the end, the end comes strangely slowly for a man
At the beginning of a new start in a fresh town
Riding Bertha
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Riding Bertha, maths problems jerking my eyeballs
It's dark - the moths are puzzled
There, the moon is out, I see Bertha, who is Bertha?
The cat scratches at the window, opens the damn thing
Jumps on the bed, Bertha screams - not because of me
I calm her - the cat
Bertha dresses - she's good looking
She brushes her hair in the mirror
"I'm the only pussy around her, alright bitch," she says
Bertha's sassy
"I'm getting a drink," she says.
I can hear the fridge open, muffled like under water,
She says "no ice honey"
Cold, cold water in small squares ready for jingling and jangling
"No baby but the neighbour's cold hearted," I say
"Yeah, that's a good one," she says from the kitchen
The moonlight swarms through the bedroom
Hunting down dark corners relentlessly
The apartments around the square are lit up unevenly
Like a black and white chess board
Pieces move and lights (the squares) flick on and off
I learned to play chess with Michael Howling around the corner
We were early teens living in a neighbourhood younger than us
He had pictures of great writers and great centerfolds on the wall
I played Barbara Smythe from down the street and won
She had to show me her breasts
She never played me again
"I'm back honey, how about that, with two drinks," says Bertha
"I'm tired Bertha," I say, "I'm kicking you out, honey."
"Well fuck you baby," and she drops the drinks on the floor and leaves
I talk to the cat and fall asleep
(I cut myself on the broken glass the next morning)
Averil Bones
Australia Day
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I went to Luna Park for Australia Day
a day late to miss the crowds, got drunk
on bullets, watched the black shadows
of trains pass over familiar skins.
Later we flew, fueled by malignant spirits,
leapt Newtown's high fences cawing,
picked our teeth with barbed wire,
spun clothes lines, frightened dogs,
abandoned shreds of our clothing
that gleamed white as down
through the pitching night.
I peered through lit windows
like a vampire, looking for you.
April Bulmer
The Norns--Norse Goddess of Fate
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When the soil is dry and the limbs broken my sisters and I
bear water to the tree.* We circle the trunk round and
round, the girls and I. The Urd glances behind her and
Skuld, veiled, clutches a little bound book. While I rest
upon the shadows and the great ash, whispering the fate
of light and leaves.
*The great tree, Yggdrasil, gave the universe its stability.
The Norns packed and cared for the earth surrounding its three
mighty roots, while the evil serpent Nidhogg continually
gnawed on one of them, hoping one day to bite through and
thereby cause the universe to fall into chaos.
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://users.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.
COMMENTS & SUBMISSIONS
* Klaus Gerken, Chief Editor - for general messages and ASCII text
submissions: kgerken@synapse.net
Or mailed with a self addressed stamped envelope, to:
