May 2009

VOL XVII, Issue 5, Number 193

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

   David Sparenberg
      GESTALT OF THE DIALOGUE

CONTENTS

   Steven Fowler
      angel of milk
      the true story of a man I met in thailand
      the second great bear 

   David Woodward
      MY EARTHWORM EXISTENCE
         A Tall World
         Earth and Sky
         Sexy Darwin
         The Distinct Heads
         Revelations
         Bonus Poem: Stupid Doors

   Peycho Kanev
      Liturgy
      through the fence
      black and red
      bruto!bruto!
      the secret
      it's time

POST SCRIPTUM

   David Sparenberg
      MADONNA

David Sparenberg


GESTALT OF THE DIALOGUE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We cannot talk about greening
without talking about peace
We cannot talk about peace
without talking about justice
We cannot talk about justice
without addressing injustice
We cannot speak of injustice with integrity
without talking about the problems of injustice
such as race and poverty, exploitation
and so on.

We cannot talk about the problems
without talking about indifference to suffering
We cannot talk about indifference to suffering
without examining the labyrinth of violence
We cannot speak of violence
without talking about hatred
We cannot talk about hatred
without talking about fear
We cannot talk about fear
without addressing the mutuality of vulnerability
and the given condition of relatedness.

We cannot talk about greening of the planet
without talking about egocentricity and greed
We cannot speak honestly of this awareness
without acknowledging the bitter fruit of arrogance
without recognizing the healing significance of humility
and compassion.

No talking of self
without talking with otherness
No speaking of where we should be
without embracing where we are
No words about the play upon the world stage
without coming to terms
with the global village players
No emotional exchange with our players
without an emotional attachment
to the playing field
No meeting here with our masks on
no falling into the fatality silence
For it is paramount that we speak of greening
and short of extinction
that we talk of peace.

3 April 2009

Steven Fowler
 

angel of milk
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

jasmine, I carry books
twenty six, that is my limit
I enjoy reading poetry
I would rather read poetry
than do nearly anything else
not more than everything else
jasmine
if you understand me

I hate the pear shaped body
worn limbless granite bodice
nubs and bulges
welcome to the city of worn out duffel bags
of giant worms
of men who do better with japanese girlfriends
of water slides in camouflage trousers
of over reaction
recommendation
specially made plastic baggies for dogwaste

dry my tears, boney cat
make time for me, surgeon
university wasn't a waste of time utterly
I made a list of everyone I met
and drew ten thousand christian fish
it is a long, dry list
as arid as a desert that forces
snakes to have murderous venom
famous I am for my venom
but not through teeth does it seep
you know from where I weep
jasmine

jasmine, you are like the swordfish
silver, and true
muscular dreary eyed fish
undiscovered in underground volcanic cave systems
that is how it felt
when I came across your luxuriant coat
as though the rich had emerged from their lairs
after the revolution
and the radiation has softened
it couldn't be
a creature like this still lives
and then I had you
I could have lived a hundred years on all the whitefish I saw
was I bloody blind before?

beards have become fashionable again
but come on
watch your fucking kids
jasmine, its a supermarket carpark
near a busy road
I don't even want to imagine

you are gone
like gold down the plumbing
I wish I could scream I missed you
but I wasted my life
with you
I should've stayed with the other one
what was her name?
pear? lilith? dolores?

she would have borne me sons
and typed my envelopes neatly
cooked for me
obeyed my orders, held my hands
you
you smoking fifty a day
yellowed sour hag hypocrit
I'm glad you're done

how terrible that you fell so freely
smashed your head dainty head
on the concrete stairs
of my publicist's apartment complex
like a pumpkin you burst
though pumpkin's aren't completely empty
I miss your thumb
when it massaged my prostrate, jasmine
but nothing else

enjoy silence and indifference
I'm going to abuse your daughter
sell your sculptures
buy a new wife from brazil
I'll have a doctor inspect her
make sure her hymen is unbroken still
we will name our pekinese
jasmine
it'll watch our rabid coupling

the wheel breaks its muddy spokes
who would have thought it?
I died too
even after all that surgery
maria assis de andrade
survived the car crash
80
a race with a white porsch
and a concrete lamppost

I have my legs back in hell
I regret nothing, I whisper
so they let me play cards
everyone cheats and you have to do
   horrible sexual things if you
                                 lose

smug angel babies tell me you're in heaven
its quiet there
you look as you did when I met you
a wyndham lewis painting
a weimar haircut
those nixed teeth and black spectacles
you were so small
white skin and a tiny waist
I hoped I would break your back!
it never happened
well, farewell, enjoy your lonely victory
jasmine
angel of milk



the true story of a man I met in thailand
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

on a holiday in the wetroads of thailand
before the water breaks broke their breeches
before the red shirts rose in staggered horse formations
before it became a safe place to give recitals
when fellows of my plane were there to have sex with children
when you might be kidnapped like a portion of chicken
what was the oriental motive?
to relax the foreign devils so as to get at their bears
with coats of silk and teeth of silver they are more luxurious
than the thai bears who have rickets and a remote sense of intrigue
I met a deformed man at a bar I had recently ceased working for
as a doorman because I was attacked by randy american sailors
and they slashed my back with the chain of a tack motorcycle
he was disturbing an australian girl who made my prick
singe when I saw her brown teenage calves and the freckles
on her shoulders smelling as she did of soap that
was inappropriate in that bar she was scared so I
took the bullet with a wink and bought him a drink
he confessed immediately that he had stolen a ancient coin from
the british museum thailand was his getaway and he was drunk
most of the day on spirits that ran generator fuel close for shape
two fingers later I had forgotten the girl
he told me his father would bugger him with a table spoon
he held his fingers apart a good two inches
the size of the spoon at its widest reach
stitches, he couldn't sit at school,
they couldn't have cared about bloody stool
caulk me hoot hoot like an owl
the song sung straight from the morphine gate
we acted as though we were on a romantic date
he had severe psychological problems and
his eyes bulged out of an awful forehead
they looked in opposite directions like he was a blind man
and he clearly wasn't born this way they were scars
from hitting his own head against the walls
I replied to his touches with blunt questions
to hear the details of his devastation amidst tender fatherly
hunting trips and comas and cancer and buggery
he wore a scar like a tapeworm about his left wrist
leaning closer to my face he would twitch and fitch
spit and shout switch into love again for me a countryman
a fellow runner, could I help him find a buyer for the fucking coin?
I became scared he cleaned the tips of my shoes with a bar rag
conjoined attentions crowded my breathing and embarassed me before
my former work colleagues and that girl who reappeared
two more drinks he was poisoned pink like a burning pyre of figs
so I left him in a gulley outside the bar
filling slowly with water I looked to the sky and the sound of asmodeous
and asked for him
let the man drown, he has floated quite long enough
a man is not a cutlery drawer



the second great bear 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

O handsome bear!
stand and fight
in your pocket
burn that children's hair
break her spine
cluster pain that stands
like you, a bear!

that lights the sooty human mine
that racks and slices care
o man o war! The bear
the beetle tries to bed you
and eat your hair
as though it were black bread and olives
roar! fear! fight! scare!

Do not weaken under the sun
do not let them tell you of your dirty claws
and nail you to sails
to make you all but a seal
who barely stares and hoots and shits
in its own nest

you are precisely
a bear! do not forget it
you bellow dignified and queer the air
you defy sickness! you bull boats
and build imperial houses
your line is not dying
you are proud
terror in their eyes
for they see you. a bear!
the awful thing



David Woodward
 

MY EARTHWORM EXISTENCE
 

A Tall World
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Everyone is so tall.
They tower over me
like mighty trees;
they grow taller and taller,
until they can grow no more,
until they can feed no more.
Cool heads in the blue sky
they begin to sprout outward;
tall and horizontal,
they shade me,
an unseen earthworm
eaten up by the shadows
of their almighty limbs.



Earth and Sky
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
I live a horizontal existence.
I am an earthworm.
Earnestly, I dig out my tunnels
to places where no one goes.
Between intervals of digging
and earthly meals
I peer out,
skyward,
to see what the vertical beings are up to,
but mostly,
I keep my indistinct head down,
in the brown,
an earthworm going about its business
inside the ground.



Sexy Darwin
~~~~~~~~~~~

They say Darwin was fascinated with earthworms,
or was it barnacles?
Earthworms or barnacles,
I know what he means.
I believe he was interested in things
of a sexual nature --
which worm (or barnacle) fancied the other?
what makes an earthworm beautiful?
The earthworms I know
don't give a rat's ass
about the vertical beings' beauty.
We have both sexes.
We can be male
when it is time to male;
we can be female
the rest of the time.
You should be so lucky.
The earthworms I know
think Darwin a madman.
I don't know what the barnacles think,
or believe,
for I am not a barnacle.
I do so hope he thought of me though,
and studied me;
oh, if only I had been born a barnacle,
perhaps then I would have been etched permanently
inside of him.
Personally, I think he was a chimpanzee,
and sexy,
and I take his annelid fascination
as a compliment --
a chimp of a man,
he was.



The Distinct Heads
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As an underground dweller,
an earthworm,
I take my isolated existence
seriously.
I despise the light,
blue is the very worst colour,
the tall beings' distinct heads
always in the frightful blue light.
I don't mind green so much
for I transform it into
you,
mush,
my favourite fodder.
My own father
was a mother,
my mother,
my father,
she and he and I
would lose contact with another
often
following conception;
it was a game we loved
to play;
it was only a game,
I think;
perhaps it explains a few things:
hated of light,
deep blues so far from browns
and blacks _
a touch of grey is okay
but don't go too far to blue
and those dreadful distinct heads,
just like father,
just like mother.



Revelations
~~~~~~~~~~~

I found a vertical being
the other day.
They really aren't so tall;
they really aren't so blue;
their heads
not so distinct.
I found it in my garden;
I was digging for weeds
at the time
of discovery.
I investigated the body
like it was a great
archeological find,
my garden
the original archeological site.
Accidentally, I threw up some earth
upon my new friend --
I am far from a professional,
you see.
Some of my old friends stopped by
to say hi.
Jealously, I wanted to hide
my new friend.
But they had arrived too many,
too fast,
a vast fleet of tiny round warriors,
and I was unprepared,
an unsuspecting fool,
a mere archeological tool.
When my old comrades caught sight
of my new comrade
they delighted with cheers
and slaps on my old wrinkled corpse,
their slaps, body slams,
cell slams to be precise.
Outnumbered,
more organized than I,
working together like ants --
a far superior tool --
they took over.
I watched for a while
as they undertook alterations upon my new companion,
modest modifications;
but I didn't mind,
I knew I'd be back;
it was, after all,
my time --
the transformation
all mine.



Bonus Poem:    

Stupid Doors
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hate doors that won't close
more than I hate doors
that won't open;
perhaps I just hate
doors period



Peycho Kanev


Liturgy
~~~~~~~

the circumstances of the survival,
the circle called life,
from me and you,
the rotation and the way
and everything else.

one woman's name
like a drill in my brain,
one woman's face put a stone in the heart,
one body-
lost a long time ago.

I open my eyes-
in the TV, one creature
in red clothes and feet and breasts
everything:
I am not there

what about the truth? what about
the way she was doing it?
the meaning was somewhere
within.

... and as my thoughts circle around
one city old enough to be dead,
my eyes fly on the streets.

I found her

the small body walks next to another 
in this rainy-wormy Monday.
and I say its o.k.
I know that it's going to be like this
until the last woman.

one thought 
one memory
one room
one bed

one moment.

the music is over
the summer has burnt.

I was a man
somewhere 
there
and
then.



through the fence
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

fistfuls banging on my door
and somebody scream:

hate is love!
hate is love!

and after that is quiet
again.

I get up from the chair
and go to the window

through the fence I watch
the insane men in the madhouse

they play baseball.

when I am sad
the heaven dies a little bit.



black and red
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

the roses colour slowly
in red

as the old men play chess
in the park

somewhere a child is dying
somewhere somebody beats his wife
somewhere in this world starts a war

somewhere someone falls in love

as the old men play chess
in the park.

the sun goes down

one spider spins his web...

....the fly is buzzing.

the old men put the chess pieces
back in the box and go.

the blood is dripping upon 
the roses
red
red
redder.



bruto!bruto!
~~~~~~~~~~~~

he looked around for his new victim
and saw her squat in the dark
he approached silent and inescapable
like death and
attacked...

she saw him approaching and
did not do anything,did not moved
she gave herself,allow him to tie her
with barb wire and to take her to his
cave...

he wasn't expecting such a behavior 
he surrender crushed and awaiting his
future with fear...

now he is working every day,give her
the whole salary,doesn't  drink,doesn't  smoke,
doesn't hang with his boys,take care of the kids,
generally he is exemplary beast.
he even loves her a little.

she is the new master of the world.



the secret
~~~~~~~~~~

everything is relevant 
everything is justified 

if you tear up the wings of a fly
you dreams will hunt you like a mad bear

everything is here
now

the night
the music
the quietness 

and I kneel and 
nod at the dark.



it's time
~~~~~~~~~

dark hidden within
the dark

quiet music
empty soul
fingers reaching toward 
the lips of the grave

bones dancing among 
the stones
cemetery dance
and just one voice
above
to tell us
where to go.

David Sparenberg


MADONNA
~~~~~~~

Fruited Madonna of the Earth
lays naked in a meadow of wild flowers.
A thousand and one honey bees
have alighted on her swollen abdomen.
Like fuzzy, pollinated angels
they gather in droning chant
to celebrate the coming of life.
(Her child will inherit sweetness
as a power over death.)

First milk, miniatured to resemble rivers of light,
is hotly sucked from heavy breasts
by a smiling sun.  Her
lips part, in panting breath, as
her womb, in mantic rapture, opens.

Another dream of God contracts, is pained with revelation,
and moistens the virgin beauty
of her fire-brown eyes.
Fingers dig and fists clench tight
compressing threads of grass.  Here
will grow an altar of vines.  And there
in leafy mounds
a pilgrim-shrine to venerate Our Lady
of purple grapes and gold-red apples.

19 Feb. 2009

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.

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