September 2008
VOL XVI, Issue 8, Number 185
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
Michael Brownstein
OUR TOWN
CONTENTS
Michael Brownstein
PERIODONTIST
POVERTY
Daniel Gallik
Pharmacy
Females And Their Ideas Of The Purposes Of Babies
The Good News On 52 Cable Channels
In Our House We Have An Automatic Shower Cleaner
You're Lucky If You Get 20 Minutes From The Medical Community
Robert Klein Engler
CAFE DENOUEMENT
JAIL BAIT
METRASEXUALS
SUNDAY PICNIC
LIKE ONE DAY AFTER THE RESURRECTION
Farida Samerkhanova
S.O.S.
A Farewell to Love.
Bliss, Interrupted.
Last week you worked long hours.
Mother's prayer.
My Secret Date.
Once a cheater is always a cheater.
Old-Fashioned Monogamy.
She had been seeing him
Tender is the Summer Day.
George Angel
Returnly soaked
Only make believe
The Covering Garden
Bethany Sewell
Untitled Beautiful
Having again forgotten what I meant to say
POST SCRIPTUM
Bethany Sewell
Attributing false attributes to thermodynamics. Gave up the Ghost. Conversion
Michael Brownstein
OUR TOWN
~~~~~~~~
Our town has one kind of man you will grow up to marry,
One barbershop where everyone's hair is cut the same way,
One candy store, one decent restaurant, one hobby shop,
One pet store, one car dealership at the edge of Main,
One swimming pool where only first stringers
On the high school football team life guard.
But it is a polite town. When you sneeze, someone says, "Bless you,"
And you feel your soul ease back into place.
Men open doors for women. "Thank you" is not an idiom.
Somehow the boys become men and learn there is warmth to a smile
And even then, when your father takes your hand,
You think of great live oak and clean well kept cemeteries.
Schools do not teach how to lead, only to arrive,
And then the way to sit quietly and wait until you are called on.
Everyone is the same luck and all of us make the football team.
For us school is the place to keep us from home too soon.
Later, when others from other places, have to make choices,
We do not. We grow up and take our father's place,
Buy our cars from the same dealership at the edge of Main,
Made reservations at the only decent restaurant in town,
And know with the sureness of rain, wind and weed
Our children, too, will eat what we order, know to say
"Thank you," and "You're welcome," and always be counted on
To calculate the exact amount of money to leave for a tip.
Michael Brownstein
PERIODONTIST
~~~~~~~~~~~~
the skin of things - Jorge Luis Borges
1.
Sitting in the dentist's chair
Waiting to find out what I wish not to know
Suddenly the poems of Jorge Luis Borges make sense to me.
The dentist will need more time and he tells me this,
Borges' volume of poetry resting on my lap like a bowl of hard candy.
2.
I saw my bottom teeth for the first time in a long time,
three front teeth like broken fingers.
No, that's not it.
Like three men, one too drunk to support himself.
No, not that.
A rook on the chessboard ready to fall,
a statue too long neglected,
the sudden tear in the landscape -
yes, that's it -
and the mule deer over there never to be there again.
3.
Dead spaces like shadow between slats of wood.
Dark spaces gutted from light.
They want from me the one thing I don't want anyone to have.
Once in a day, a year, the life span of the Welwitschia
everything goes that way.
Forces and motions no longer matter.
Packaging slows the impact of gravity.
The North Pole shifts to Chicago.
Bengal tigers come out to prey.
I am no longer coherent
forgetting before I remember
4.
and then this thick Novocain sleep_
an intensity in the strength of eyes,
the incredible noise of the cabitron,
dream streams,
popsicles of color,
skinned hands,
graying blossoms of breath,
5.
witch woman
crazy crazy
speak sneak
gentle figurine
hazel glass
implied teeth.
6.
Poverty is a rude stepchild.
7.
She said I needed this twenty years ago.
I guess I must be aging faster than my life
and I guess I must have been a tree once, too,
shallow rooted, not yet big enough to damage
water pipes, metal fencing, wooden walls.
When the dentist took the tool to pull the tooth loose,
you'll feel some pressure, he said, and I remember
the exact moment in another time two hands
grasped the thin waist of my trunk and pulled
until each one of my roots let go of its foundation.
8.
Seven Novocain shots to numb the right side of my mouth, he said. Your tongue
will tingle too and there will be a dividing point at your lips where the
tingling will mix into an indefinable line. Somehow my right nostril feels it
too and I can't talk. Drool rises up like a fountain skimming the inside
surface of my mouth. Blood marks the napkin when I wipe my lips. I am afraid
to remove the gauze stuck in the empty cavity between two teeth. I walk down
the sidewalk with my two children and tell them, I can't see. I can't see.
But I can. The soft gray of blue sky, the strong reflection of apartment
buildings in picture windows, the vibrant colors of clothing in a storefront
across the street, a thick cloud of perfume and the blonde haired woman
carrying it along. When I tell my children I cannot talk, this is true, but I
talk anyway until they become silent enough to listen.
9.
In the bathroom I feel the string of stitches,
my front teeth triangles of blood,
the gauze rich with color,
blood leaking down my throat in swallows.
Nothing has a taste.
My lips shade into a lipstick I keep wiping away.
I do not know if I can close my mouth.
10.
I'm not vain about all that much, I tell the receptionist when I call,
but I want to think I am vain about my teeth.
Blood crusts in the corners of my mouth,
coagulates itself to itself.
My two front teeth shade to reddish black,
the brackish glow of night.
Do I look OK? I ask her after I answer the bill.
No worse than when you first came in, she replies.
I take the few flights of stairs to the street before I realize what she meant:
Was I this swollen ugly when I first came in?
I try not to open my mouth on the way home,
but when I do at the library
the librarian steps back,
and the man on the computer jumps away to offer me his seat.
Perhaps there is something to this vampire business after all.
POVERTY
~~~~~~~
I have run away from money
every penny jumping from me
through open windows like a scream.
Some things are that intense:
A hole in my back grows larger,
blistered pink, its edges raw with redness
I cannot purchase at a store.
When all of your blood leaks from your wrist
- and it only takes six minutes in warm water -
all of the blood money, greed money,
easy living money, slippery and greasy money,
slides away, a gasp of air above the water,
everything filling with something else.
Daniel Gallik
Pharmacy
~~~~~~~~
I am going to catch that cold if I can.
I wanna die of one. My boss, Larry,
said, I am not going to quote you but
I am sure going to give you a big
raise. Especially if you find a way to
actually get sick at a moment's notice.
My boss jumped right on top of me
and sang songs the whole way. I
said moola and he believed me. Larry
went home singing. He had another
idea, an advertizing scheme, a name
for the drug called FRIDAYs. I
had chemicals in my head for a month.
They festered there. America now likes
my drug, FRIDAYs, and timing. I
like America, & its working antibiotics
Females And Their Ideas Of The Purposes Of Babies
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She told me she was going to tell me how we were going
to be. I said I wanted to be silent.. She yelled silence
was her fortune. I asked her, pleaded with her to get
a new car. She said I was a waste of money. Then,
she hugged me and told me I was her lover and she
wanted it right then. I told her it was sex. I told her
before she interrupted that love was a bad buy. She
slapped my ego so hard it got out a gun. You like
headlines? I said. Then, she smiled and froze my
male assets right away. We loved in the middle,
at the side, along the four corners of an old bedroom.
After midnight left us, we closed our eyes and
dreamed of tv and radio and cd's and new movies.
And food. Dreamed of thousand dollars steaks at Mac's.
The Good News On 52 Cable Channels
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Fools would say what's
our destinations." That's
what Jillbo sparkled onto
her guy'Lestermolester.'
At that impressive micro-
sec, he was stealing a car
over on 4th & Nothing Sts.
Jillbo continued, "Cross
words too are only armed
by those who are worried
over the future of Amer.'s
monstrous civilization on
this here earth." L checked
his watch and cracked, "Got
my pants' tomorrows to
worry over babe.!" "I'm
seeing that you," gummed
Jbitch, "that you got nothing
but gas in them pants, babe."
`Molester' socked her face,
"Humanity's future died!"
In Our House We Have An Automatic Shower Cleaner
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dad had left Mom 10 yrs. before
he killed 3 of our dirty cats and 2 of our dogs.
Yeah, guess he hung around a lot.
He lived over off of 4th near
the elementary's playground on 6th Street. I
never really ever talked to him.
Mom worked at the local Kfart.
I worked there too. My sis hadn't ever even
tried to find a job. She ran off
with George who had worked for yrs.
at Mill's Electric near the courthouse on 28th.
One evening Mom and I came home
from the store and spotted fire engines and
lots of other stuff. I spotted another
of our pets dead in the st. in front
of our burning two story. Dad was nearby
watching. I got out of our car and
walked over to him, and had the guts
to ask him why he likd killing animals, and
burning things. He whispered,
it's fun to watch bad things happen.
He also cracked, I still love you and Mom
and Lill almost enough to kinda kill u.
You're Lucky If You Get 20 Minutes From The Medical Community
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mom was 86. I said, hey Mom
you're dying bitch! She looked
at me lying there in her bed
at the Home, and smiled at me.
I said it again. Anymore docs
don't say a damn thing to you
like, `she's got six months.'
All are afraid of lawsuits. I
said it again to her, this time I
whispered, bitch, you're dying.
My sis had made some excuse
for not being there. Everyone
else had died before mom. So,
they weren't around. So, it was
just me, and docs and nurses that
don't say a thing but know
a hell of a lot. Of course, this
Home didn't want her to go.
They liked her 8 thou/mth. fees.
And that she layed there quiet
as the beating of mud over
an oil field. Docs smiled at her
as they walked by on the way
to their shiny, black Infinities.
Robert Klein Engler
CAFE DENOUEMENT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This old widow, more skeleton than swank,
makes the slow walk from the store to her
apartment past a sidewalk cafe in Elmhurst.
She pushes her wire shopping cart home.
When she was young, she used to pull it.
Eggs and butter weigh less than her mood
of bronze memories and embroidered solitude.
In Oak Park, there is an old woman who
rides her bike each morning to the Tasty Dog.
Before the drive-in opens, she peddles
around the parking lot to look for change
on the pavement, dropped the night before.
It's not much, but it is a find that accumulates
like the little injuries her husband calculates.
There are more oak trees in Elmhurst and more
elm trees in Oak Park than you would imagine.
The name on a grave tells little of the story.
Look at the sky, in June, behind a row of trees.
See the clouds billow before a rain. Light is wide
to the horizon, here. Hands reach for it. Wheels
peddle faster. Summer pains the heart to see.
JAIL BAIT
~~~~~~~~~
I see you pause, then look at me.
It?s my blond hair, my perfect skin.
Boys don?t change. See the geology
of flesh; what was will be again.
Bet you want to touch my lips, too.
I will say "Hi." That?s my little knife.
Then, you will say to me, "I love you."
I know it. So, I will ruin your life.
METRASEXUALS
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The train is late--half an hour.
There is grumbling.
A man paces back and forth.
On the border of the platform,
Bachelor Buttons and Foxglove bloom.
Bees slip in and kiss each flower.
SUNDAY PICNIC
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Come, let's eat.
The barbecue is ready.
I know you cant stand me anymore.
For desert we will have the cold
wound that is watermelon.
LIKE ONE DAY AFTER THE RESURRECTION
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The motive for words comes rarely now.
Who wants a poet as a lover, or worse,
who wants a poet no one reads?
They got hip-hop and don't need verse.
O shining river of desire that glides on by--
there's no difference who we love or why.
The old man ends in talking to himself.
See him on the street, then pass him by.
We can't tell where we are anymore.
I thought it was Beijing, not Rio de Janeiro.
The same walls of glass, the same stores.
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto.
Maybe there are words for what he needs--
sunlight on water, shadows on stone.
One man has a bruise another man bleeds.
Who do you forgive when you live alone?
His passion, like a great river, flows one way.
The years deepen it and give it breadth.
Sip, sip, but wait! The jug is empty, today.
Desire's inclination flees us after death.
Imagine eternity in a body new from dust--
something like a summer evening in July.
Wounds are healed, nails never rusts.
Adam mows the lawn. God stands near by.
Farida Samerkhanova
S.O.S.
~~~~~~
Old rotten twigs and logs
Make the forest look ugly.
The shore of Lake Ontario is littered
With broken glass and other garbage.
Women use scrubbing creams to rip
Dead cells of the skin and look younger.
Our souls are full of logs, twigs,
Broken glass and dead cells.
People carry this junk inside
And think they are normal.
We can stop sucking.
I know the remedy. It works.
Polluted human hearts are cured
By love almighty.
A Farewell to Love.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We met at the parking lot after work.
You said you had five minutes,
Because you planned to go
To some stores before they closed.
You had important things to do.
I listened to your decision in silence.
You were breaking up with me.
We were different people, you said.
Each of us should go our separate ways.
We were no longer an item.
On our last date (it was on Wednesday)
You hugged me and kept me in your arms,
As if you were trying to tell me
How close we were -
Physically and emotionally.
You kissed me on the cheek and left.
Our beautiful relationship was over.
I watched your car driving away and thought
That you had not given me a chance to tell you
That I was pregnant with your child.
Bliss, Interrupted.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Collector and Express are very slow.
680 News is a reliable source.
I should not take this route,
But I do. I wonder, why.
I turn to the East and merge onto Four-O-One.
Now I know why I have taken the highway:
A huge gorgeous rainbow is all over the sky.
It looks like the Gates of the Paradise.
The colours are bright and distinct.
A skilful painter created the masterpiece.
I don't mind the traffic moving slowly.
I enjoy the sight. I feel happy and smile.
I dial your number to share my excitement.
You say you are busy. You sound indifferent.
All of a sudden I realize: it is not the rainbow,
It is me that you do not care for.
Last week you worked long hours.
I was all alone most of the time.
I missed you, but you were busy.
I was upset and bored.
He called to my cell phone
And invited me to his place.
I had nothing to do.
I said I was coming over.
A woman was driving
Through the red light.
She hit two cars, mine too.
No one was injured.
The cop was doing the paperwork.
One of the drivers was crying.
I thanked the accident for happening:
It stopped me from betraying you.
Mother's prayer.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I want wars
To stop all over the world.
I want the roads
To be free of accidents.
I want the sun
To shine for everyone.
I want the globe
To be a better place,
Because my two favourites
Live on this planet:
My daughter and my son.
My Secret Date.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Your kisses are tender in the night.
You love me passionately.
My soul melts, merging with yours.
I feel like soaring in soft white clouds.
My heart belongs to you, so does my body.
I whisper silly beautiful words.
I am happy in your arms.
I wake up and refuse to accept the reality.
Another man, my husband, is sleeping beside me.
My alarm clock will ring in five minutes.
Once a cheater is always a cheater.
I neglected the formula and
Rushed into relationship - with you.
It was a huge mistake.
I thought you messed with your wife,
But you would not with me.
I was stupid. I did not see
We were on two different pages.
Tamers care for what they've tamed.
You ignored the rule and
Betrayed my trust and friendship.
You had always been fake and false.
I wish I could forgive you, but
My love would not allow me.
Now I have to crawl away
To a different dimension world.
Miserable and lonely, I will be
Licking the deep wound
Till it is completely healed,
If it ever does_
Old-Fashioned Monogamy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We met in March in a small caf‚.
I liked him at first sight.
After dinner we slept together
In a far-away motel.
Since then we've been dating
Once a month - that seldom.
We talk over the phone.
Can I call it a relationship?
I wish I had more sex, however
I prefer to wait for my awesome guy
To take me out,
Rather than see somebody else.
I'm not available for others.
Thus I live in my integrity
And respect myself. Silly me?!
She had been seeing him
For more than a year.
Yesterday his wife came to her home.
She didn't fight, just broke the news:
He was a married man with two kids.
Now my neighbour is crying in the kitchen.
She is a mess. I know it hurts.
I have no words of comfort, because
I am also dating a married man.
I knew it from the very beginning.
It is my decision and my choice.
One day I will be crying like her.
I know the truth, but it won't help.
The pain will be the same, maybe worse.
Tender is the Summer Day.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The water of Lake Ontario
Is green, almost emerald.
Closer to the horizon it's blue.
The boats with white sails
Look so romantic.
Fragile clouds bathe in the sky.
Two proud swans enjoy the day.
They are gorgeous.
If the Paradise has branches
On this planet,
One of them is at the lakeshore.
I wish you were here.
I would like to lie down
Beside you on the hot sand.
We would touch hands.
You would close your eyes.
I would softly kiss
Your bare shoulder
And embrace the harmony.
George Angel
Returnly soaked
jute in paraffin
licht leaf scars
stripping to the fork.
Pruned poison
where nutwallow
gone hard white
to the waist.
Only make believe
only make a beehive
darkness filled with scratches
knock till loosened
a purl treens, treeps,
knosp--knop--knob
up upon a stem
a blink over a dub buds,
grill of falling
grove of nestling
noctilucent up
nudged between
narrow fruits.
The Covering Garden
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Blue who
Here is the church
here is the steeple
draw a mirror
it starts with m
I saw a nun
I write around a glow worm
whirl bornliness
into snot knots
into twinings.
The joy-jolly sun shone
until a kinglet
its k like scissors smearing cut
as if a cloud could fidget
snapped off its nose,
my hand, a turd
dropped into the pond,
paste glitter on its underside
it ends with d
to try to snatch
its coiney shining.
Up the garden wall
the nut tree
tossed a chirp
i itsee bit c
out of out's o.
Wilhelmina Golliwog,
as little-wooden as
a Dutch doll drownded
in a sugar bowl
was cross.
I do wish
you would erase
the nibbled plum cake
of a princess
with the bumblebee
that splashed and scrambled.
Snip and a cloud cracks,
plump beetles, a windlass squeak
as grey as grey could be
I wipe my fingers on the frame
over the hilly world
big as a nutmeg
needed a good scubbing
the drizzle marbled
into rain spouting
coloring pitched
into the brown ravine--
ferns sketch out
over wet places
where cool golden newts
and a broken crayon
green rocks
drops in shadow
the little grey mouse wins
from the window,
mushrooms, hush
for color, drip
blow out the candles
and creep away.
Dolly Jack Tar sailors
brackle the wavery sea
beneath welkin lightning,
baby fairies rolled off a silver plate,
rags fretting their viggings
off the coast of Toy Country,
quite close to the sea
lost, adrift in the tipsy stile
of swerving, all up top
Tum Tom so hungry
so tired of turning till
a puff of summer wind
came out of the mouth
of a woman called Nothing-at-all
and the rub-a-dub tub ran abrae,
wrinkling the peppermint bulls' eyes
where the heedless needles still stitched
and paid no eye to the toy dog's barking
amid the dolls' bones that scurvied out
onto the cloth, buckle it shut
old elephant trunk of the grey sky
or tie my shoe with xs
and down the well
the moist folded sky
flooded with darkness
the sound of falling water
up in its green r,
caterpillars hold up the roof eyelid
and Uncle Dunkel sounds a star
an angel falls from himmel
burning as a fackel
on rivers and fountains
the rafters' laughter
packed away
in a tin trumpet
sleep soft shoed
above snail trails
a ring roses silver
in the schnee
hiding a-tishoo a-tissue
shuttered and afly
huff and puffed down
into the muttermilk and posies
where Jimmy-cracked corn
bends an ear to hear
bless you bless you bless you.
Bethany Sewell
Untitled Beautiful
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You, reading to me from Chomsky, explaining why
under the Geneva Convention these things we did
in Fallujah, cutting off the food supply
and aid to civilians and especially the half-million or so dead
children was criminal. And I am properly outraged. And the hospitals too.
And I get up, shaking my head, from the bed, and I
am young, and beautiful, and so
entitled to all the beautiful things heaven holds - dervishes, and Darwin,
whether they'll admit to it or no.
And on the news there's a rationing
all the news we need to know,
at Sam's Club - limit four (4) bags of rice per
visit, the twenty-pounders. We can't have
the local restaurants buying cheaply here. Oh
and there's a worldwide shortage as well. And I,
shaking my head at the state of the world and some people
am thinking how beautiful some words sound without even trying -
Geneva, for instance, and basmati - and,
I, being young and concerned, and so beautiful,
am entitled to all the the beautiful things heaven
holds, you know, the rows and rows
of unadulterated books, and as much sex
as I can muster.
And my Scientific American scientist steady fellow tells
us in the most recent issue that the greatest threat to our American psyche
currently is eliminating sadness altogether. We may
become too happy, says he, with our pills and our glad and our techniques
and what he asks in effect would be the affect
of our soul melancholy towers swaying and being persuaded to come down, synapses by synapse?
The autodidactic scraping storerooms of our memory, I bet he means
to indicate, metaphorically. And I, being young and and motivated and within my means and you know
because you keep saying so so beautiful, I am entitled
to all the beautiful things heaven holds, and taking inventory we worry
if our melancholy, beautiful towers can be seen from heaven, and remembered there,
for people we can mass-produce, souls we birth those so routinely it never cast
a shiny moment on the doctors' glasses, but our towers we must hold dear
to our hearts and their policies.
And all the beautiful things heaven can hold
look female but have no upon reflection
cunt, nowhere to enter not an anywhere among the gleam an opening
but best ever to the touch and also lost: the ground beneath your feet. But I
am young and shake my beautiful head here below where it counts for something
and protest that something really must be done. Before I can leave the room
you lift your beautiful head and tell me Ashcroft just said we self-evidently
find legality in the beautiful sounding words for sentencing foreign
generals to hard labor, because they forced where we poured
only, water down the enemies' throats.
And of all the beautifulest things heaven holds,
angels with their wrung pails
watering like incarnate gardens
parched throats of those
a few floors below,
steepled finger to chin observed
by the most beautiful we, we
find indeed to be beautiful of all,
for our concern, and agreeing heads, ever
young, and beautiful, we.
Having again forgotten what I meant to say
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am safe in your indication of repose.
From here you give the impression of great sleep.
If your love was anything other than a languorous thing I should indeed
have cause for concern.
it is fortunate, for I wild-eyed wry-fingered
in buttons missing or wrongwayed straining at their exegesis,
I coming slick down the stairs but quick remember,
flailing at the rail,
it is your voice that holds back the thousand
hands from clashing against themselves
or dropping the expensive glasses, not on sale
your car which is never in need of a tune-up
and your hair that never moves.
How formal we are.
You in the kitchen, sir, and your methodical fruit
bleeding routine punctuated by ecstasy under my nails
oh oh you stop to say are you all right there? in response I bit your lip
in the midst of the consternation bleeding oh forgive me that
was the spot, was it not,
from last night where I
well I go to find for you a clean towel
All the laundry bound and determined. Much later,
the music that is good for us, the serious kind we put on and mean to study
forgotten downstairs.
I should like to smash your car
and there among the wry wreckage and flickering tongue fuses,
dangling, pour out your carefully-conserved gasoline
gloriously, glorious. The radio in one piece and on apt music.
Really, love? Most want sterility in their fucking
Most are always disappointed in the reality of imperfection, and angry, and
perhaps the next one will have undimpled and no-scent thighs, and young eyes,
and a perfectly trained mouth, atop a complacent mind.
Ordinarily this is a universal truth. I want
smells that accumulate despite the best efforts of consternated you.
Underneath it all you bright sleek thing still you
shake your head as I laugh at your sterile scientists
wringing their bell hands and lamenting the argument
of animism, dualism, monis ars scientia? See my evident
back is turned for what I know is to wrap around your mind
my matter, and what kind of entity is encountered
there.
Bethany Sewell
Attributing false attributes to thermodynamics. Gave up the Ghost. Conversion
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The real trouble with Jesus," Anne decided, "was that he never found a nice
Jewish girl to marry and have a family with, poor thing. That's probably
blasphemy, isn't it." - M.D. Russell
Consider the Star of David you said around a sunrise smile
sunrose mile says you look you at this a new constellation for you
humanity reaches up and God swings low and so now you know
it's the mass that takes place in space instead of in between cannibal teeth
like so many cornfed Catholic priests. Now look again you say
and what does that remind you of
Consider your mouth goes on to say the Torah scroll which is holiest not clothed
but naked and all lines and curve letters exposed I get the feeling
you are barely paying attention but consider consider in your feeling fingers
consider its' being taken out and undressed and then consider the act of reading
what comes next as penetration. Eyes to lines. Mouth wide, breath
now tell me before I am lost why the faces on the shrine are turned toward each
other so that the Talmud can unshamefacedly teach that its a form of sexual embrace no consider consider what the rabbis teach what is the world the world is God, robed in God, clothed in God, the robes are God, the hands are God, the sex is God, the faces God, the faces sex, the words are God and are penetrated, the word is God and penetrates, now consider what strips away the naked and decalcifies the unclothed to be replaced with matching clothes. Grey suits. Striped ties. V-necks. Buttoned sweaters. Consider oh say the world as God and God is a spirit and God is naked before us, unwrapped, and we are in con
sider in. Consider: in.
consider what is put in rather than on. Page after page sage after page says
do put this in do not put that in but keep naked. Keep unclothed
but for bracelets and fiery stones in hair and sephardic nonsense poetry toes
and rhythm earrings and hair like water and watershed eyes and shed clothes
always, consider, consider God.
Consider the wall, all
the more naked for the cranny-nooked slips of paper weeping so you needn't. Consider that I am very new to this, and God is still naked splayed out on my bed
in my mind and as often as I can, and that if I confuse the three, I mean God and you and love, it is not because I am very young, but consider my considerable knowledge of relativity, and, droning, on the electrodynamics of moving bodies, I have this to say: love on another, as all things space and time and God and all, would very seem
to depend on the observance
of the lover, i.e., the observer
so I calls 'em as I see 'em
Consider, consider that the whole of the Torah is the name of God, and that if it takes all of that to say his name, consider what God must be. It is demanded. Consider.
Now look. The moon has set, and the Plaeides, and look, now: night.
Are you not now scandalized to be in such a bed as mine?
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 - 2008 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
