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Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal Robert Cullen Angelo Giambra Brant Goble Michael Lee Johnson Rebecca Katechis

Karen Kelsay Joseph Lewis Lyn Lifshin Duane Locke Carla Martin-Wood Scott Owens

Sally Arango Renata Thomas D. Reynolds Ron Scott Iolanda Scripca Joseph R. Trombatore Kelley Jean White

 

  

 

 

 

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Red Moon

by Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal


The red moon
drenched in blood
opens its |
mouth and spits
out stars in
bits and pieces
into night’s
dark cradle

 

 

Unhappiness

by Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal


Beached on the shore,
spread out on the sand,
wrapped up in a net,
was my unhappiness.
 
A headless horse
without a saddle
ran out from the sea.
Its black coat shimmering.
 
An albatross was perched
upon the horse’s waist.

 

 

Dario's Cypress Tree

by Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal


Offended, the cypress tree weeps.
 
Bare of birds, the grass
dried up, and the cemetery abandoned.
There are no birds singing.  The dead
and living are gone to another land.
 
Nobody stayed behind.
Who's to tend to the cypress tree?
Destiny is a cruel thing.
Only the fog surrounds the cypress tree.
There is not one corpse in the cemetery.
The cypress tree is weeping.
 
The sad cypress tree
weeps alone.

 





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Enigma of the Frozen Man

by Robert Cullen


To my knowledge he was not enrolled,
but a figure about campus clearly he was,

on expanses of commons bordered
the old three and four-storied brick buildings,
at the bases of cement steps leading up to
the hallowed halls and under stately trees
whose sprawling branches shaded lawns
   and roof-tops alike
as they had for generations the same.

He had been in the war accounts agreed,
beyond that little was proffered.

Transfixed, he twitched not nor spoke
    for hours at a stretch . . .

    an open hand, graceful fingers,
    head tilted this way then that,
    sometimes a cap, unassuming,
    in the heat, the cold, the rain . . .

    a statue of flesh and cloth and stone.

Arriving in simple garb of white,

tambourines jingling, totting the blessed pails
   of rice and veggies,
in joyous praise their mantra singing . . .

   Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
   Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
   Hare Rama Hare Rama
   Rama Rama Hare Hare . . .

   in hypnotic waves washing over the fray.

And he moved not a muscle all the while
politicos hurled invectives, footballers
ran raucous their sacred colors
   drumbeats pounding,
frat-boy tribals held rites of passage.

I quartered the crescendos on tomes
of Western wisdom and Eastern meditations . . .

   held form an eternity of fifteen minutes
   once but surrendered to distractions,
   offerings brought this way but once,
   the frantic world burning deep upon itself.

And perhaps a water lay over the sand
floating images of date palms and dancing girls,
or a weathered sphinx in the howling wind
   with sand-blind eyes.

When summer came I slipped away,
following a curious voice in a garbled tongue.
But I had heard in the casual way of things
that work had come the strange man’s way . . .

bearing signs on busy boulevards
beckoning throngs with bargains and come-ons.

And he moved not a muscle all the while
   they passed, an endless flow,
some taunting or tooting and some even
   wondering if he were real.

 

 

At John Pennekamp Underwater Park
(off the Florida Keys, where stands a statue of Christ
in alluring waters)

by Robert Cullen


The Red Snapper are not red at forty feet
nor the yellow purple angelfish so seen
  but oddly

blue-green hues and cool shades
as they pass in schools and poke about
nibbling tidbits hanging round rocks, reefs
and whatever rises, forms, attaches sea floors
  settling . . .

a concrete buoy rest, an anchor, a plinth
of rusting iron, a statue of Christ at forty feet
call much the same when hunger calls
when shells, barnacle-crust and tiny creatures
  cling . . .

predators circle their salt-sodden turfs
while beyond them shrouded the blue-green
silence greater forms circle, sharks
hammerheads and who knows which
  lurking

a time suspended twilight tugging at chords
recessed, shuttering visceral depths,
a grouper sucks in a parrot fish, an angel
slips into the shadowy mouth of a tunnel
  secluding

whatever else secludes when reef sirens
sound danger rippling ancient membranes
  stretched abysses of memory . . .

screams my primitive heart.

 

 

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Dawn, Breaking In

by Angelo Giambra


Dawn crawls through ducts all the way
from China, the brim of his checkered

hat hidden below the horizon, his bloodied
fingers reaching through the clouds.

From their high perches, the finch
and lark see him, begin to sound

the alarm. Too late, for he’s flicked
his flashlight, the forests frozen

in that fierce glare, garish, all the
goods there for the taking.

 

 




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Fossil: Cryptic
With apologies to Michael Crichton

by Brant Goble


The Eaters of the Dead were here
            mashin
            noshing
            slurping/
                        choking
                        /\
                        d
                        o
                        w
                        n
                        \/
                        the last of their frustrations  
            waiting for a canned release that never comes
                        (wanting only carrion, to carry on
                        [lest their routine changes])
                       

The Eaters and the Dead were here
                                                (before them)
            fat/
            neurotic
                        (smelling fear [sharp]
                                    wealth [moldy]
                                    opportunity [sweet])
                        and frantic with anticipation

            (This is how you rule the world)

            /thin
            dull
                        (glassy eyed [drugged]
                                    resigned [to lives confined]
                                    overawed [by the slightest glimpse of daylight])
            lost to life
                        and captive, violent (like stunning bolts)

                       (This is how you die its victim)

The Dead within the Eaters (and the Eaters of the Dead)
                        came (to[o])
                                    (though they were barely ever sleeping)
            mumbling (gibberish)
            ambling (awkwardly and still awakening)
            looking in the mirror (in horror at their new skins)
            screaming—begging for the hunt and chase
            wondering where their axes went (and atlatls, as well)

            (Who knew that skeletons and animals could hide
                        in these small spaces—
                                    the [in between] tentacles
                        that tangle thoughts together—
                        only to appear at such inconvenient times?)

The hearts within the Eaters and the Dead
            (and the Eaters of the Dead)
            still pump
                        (I think)
            something warm and viscous
                        (and probably heavily advertised)
            (Its formulation broken-up and scattered
                        in secret places)

So many craving something carnal
            but what of it?
            Cruel amusements are cheap enough
            and the impotents' best distraction

From where does all this viciousness come?
            Is this a universe of new monsters
                        (demanding paper lords to prolong
                        death with taxes)
            and men and beasts in need of cages
            (murderous over dried things)
            (sooting up their innards by burning sugared tallow)?

Can this be engineered away
            (or replaced by further ignorance)—
            fevered tossing on hard sheets
                        with dreams of blood and
                        scavenged roots

            and the flight of arrows?

 

 

Black Friday on Long Island:  A Comedy

by Brant Goble


Scene 1:
This is the music—
            the green hum
            (Cue lights, flickering on)
            chorus of mumblings and broken speech
            (Awaken the zombies with the hollow eyes)
            rattling locks—shake and bang
            (Roust a couple watchmen, armed with clipboards and halitosis—
            God knows we can't afford any better)

(Throw back the bolts)

Let a few in first
            (the lithe ones, with slit-snake eyes
            who can slide past the titans with their slack jaws)
but not fast enough

Scene 2:
Show the frenzy and the flying fists
            (Call all the extras—envision raging breadlines or Eisenstein's battles)

Rumble floor, rumble
            as the crowd breathes in—
            (a giant thing, heavy and weighted with cold and sleep)           

            —and out

All bodies, now pressing, pressing
            (bones and clothes and marrow turned liquid)

Man falls, tumbles, thrashed, and trampled
            (commanding a scream to curdle milk or pierce a heart through
            were any available)

Warp the metal, break the frames, tear the hinges off
            (The doors become accordion)

All leap for the heavens as they burst through
            towards a sea of shiny things and happy, happy noise machines     
            ecstatic, orgiastic, at the thought of ephemeral pleasures
            and even more shit to become obsolescent
            unmindful
            of the carpet of meat that once had dreams (and hope)
            and the babe-not-yet-in-arms
            (as blind and blank as its vessel)
            beneath their feet

Scene 3:
Send in stooges with polished badges—
            rendered impotent and red-faced
            (even they've been discounted here)—
            unable to disburse the savage masses
            but promising to watch the replay

“There will be justice for this—we'll have every foot that tread through here”                 
            (but be damned if we look any higher)

(Lower curtain)

Today men will die over childish things
            (men who live amongst angels and sunshine)

And boys will smile (with glassy eyes) while they empty
            clips (for a few hours longer) into flesh
            in the name of their God
            in a city that can't keep the Bombers at bay

This comedy's too dark for my tastes
            with the players all method, all feeling too much
            to be self-conscious or ironic
            and the aisles aren't laughing

Who authored this farce
            with its tired puns and low blows
            this opera for beggars and billionaires
            with greed and air and vitriol
            between their ears?

What is this thing?

This is the season of the Son of Man
            and all the world's adorned with plastic crucifixes

 

 

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Charley Plays a Tune

by Michael Lee Johnson


Crippled with arthritis
and Alzheimer's,
in a dark rented room,
Charley plays
melancholic melodies
on a dust filled
harmonica he
found  abandoned
on a playground of sand
years ago by a handful of children
playing on monkey bars.
He now goes to the bathroom on occasion,
relieving himself takes forever; he feeds the cat when
he doesn't forget where the food is stashed at.
He hears bedlam when he buys fish at the local market
and the skeleton bones of the fish show through.
He lies on his back riddled with pain,
pine cones fill his pillows and mattress;
praying to Jesus and rubbing his rosary beads
Charley blows tunes out his
celestial instrument
notes float through the open window
touch the nose of summer clouds.
Charley overtakes himself with grief
and is ecstatically alone.
Charley plays a solo tune.

 

 

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Because we are human and want to be loved

by Rebecca Katechis


Because we are human and want to be loved
Because we are
and to be human is to give love
Because we love and become
human in it
Because without love we are inhuman

Because as we walk
your crooked highway
as we join hands and part and
go on alone
as the arm drapes across our shoulder
and pulls us close
as the hand helps us up or
glides us down
as love makes us one or
one alone
as heat and light and
far down into
life
as mind and body struggle
for knowing and against knowing
as we crawl as we walk as we run as we fly as we
claw to the end
glorious or inglorious
because we are human we want to be loved

　





 

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Saints and Sinners

by Karen Kelsay


She was my counter-charm against his intriguing
disbelief. The one who twinkled green and gold

on holidays and shared her mother¢s religion
beneath a rose-hued lamp. He kept his mouth shut

while she dangled tinsel from his fingers--speaking
for eternity of angels and resurrections.

Between Easter programs and Christmas songs,
only his is saintly tolerance kept them in harmony
while she wept for his soul.

 

 

Beneath a Ficus Tree

by Karen Kelsay

 
Old man, I see you shuffle
from one ficus tree to the next,
shadow-hopping the relentless sidewalk.
Afternoon beats on your trash-filled cart
as you scavenge cans in the gutter.  Sparrows
scatter above your ragged image.
A teenager struts behind you, baggy pants
obscenely low, blowing past your decrepit soul,
with eyes straight ahead—I watch him spin
around and hand you his soda.

 

 

Avoiding Nettles

by Karen Kelsay


A perfect daughter eats from her plate
in a proper manner and doesn't
stuff broccoli under expensive cushions.
A perfect daughter never steals change
off her father's nightstand to buy candy
from the ice cream truck.
A perfect daughter would never volunteer
to work at the local library, then help herself
to the vouchers they awarded children,
for reading the most hours.

She would never think of smuggling
a boyfriend into the shower when her parents
were at church, or sneak to party
on rooftops with the homeless,
hide delinquent friends in the family camper,
or rip off the department store she works for.
A perfect daughter thoughtfully places
all her antics in a padlocked trunk,
in the garage, behind a mountain of car parts—
which her mother avoids like nettles.

 

 

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Waiting for Spring

by Joseph Lewis


Skeletons are easy props against a gray sky.
The pines still sprout green in the cold.
That's why we call them evergreens.

Oak and maple will have to wait until spring
when the rain replenishes our side of the world.
Now is the time when everything sleeps.

Meanwhile I wait for the flowers to return—
Daffodils growing on a hill near the highway
is a sure sign the cycle continues.

I can leave a cold room and walk in the sun,
young again as everything grows around me,
green like the pines standing in the snow.

 

 

Walking on Air

by Joseph Lewis


Outside in the air
is more pleasant than inside reading books.
Trees in full green foliage.
Purple flowers in an unkempt garden.
A bird walking in the grass.

A blonde woman is sitting in the sun
by an old church with a sketch pad.
But she's not drawing the building
and its graveyard from colonial times.
She's drawing some trees across the road.

I feel warm air on my skin today
as I pass unfamiliar faces,
all on their way to their peculiar destinies.
We're all light as air and fragile as the grass
sprouting from the ground for another season.

 

 



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Near the Pond

by Lyn Lifshin


tonight the grass is
full of fire flies, a
rhinestone quilt of
glitter, blinking
thru darkness just
like that summer
with the ex-con poet
in the leaves.
Behind my house,
sand rippled, like at
the shore or a
desert. Nights were
thick and hot. He
couldn’t stay. I knew
it tho I opened my
body, every part of me
to him mornings we
made eggs Benedict
and he read me Sylvia
Plath. Already the
days were getting
shorter. Summer does
not linger in upstate
New York. But the
glitter camouflaged
what we didn’t want
to see. The fireflies
were doing a mating
dance, a mating to death
somebody once said,
irresistible and wild as
a tarantella, dazzling
as ex con poets
hitching across the
U.S. because a poem
or photo lured him

 

 

The New Dancer, Hair Like Mine

by Lyn Lifshin


before it was blond, when it
was curls that Groucho Marx
beckoned from the stage in
Saratoga. 20 years old.  The
clothes I wore last night
in a class with her mirror a
former me when I was not
so undone by not being her

 

 

Ballroom

by Lyn Lifshin


I want to be
air and flame
 
my arms wings,
my feet beating
the ground
for take off
 
I want the
grind, the
shimmer of his
pelvis, my
 
skirt flaming,
want him to
hold me in a
frame nothing
 
wild escapes from

 

 

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On a Road of Broken Asphalt Winding up to Orvieto

by Duane Locke


What was initially, temporarily  
                                                 Perceived
To be floating on top
                                  The mirror-silver surface
Was
Soiled white ashes,
                               But upon
Circumspection
                          The debris turned out to be
Maple-leaf shapes of fragmented architecture.

Frescoed on a singular floating scrap was
An arrow head, raw-hewed made by a Roman slave.

                                 On another floating scrap
The arrow shaft,
                           Its round white wood smeared
With fingerprints.
                           Tranced by faith a woman had attempted
To pull painted wood from painted flesh.

Another excerpt from the fragments of the fresco
                                                                                Was
The pearl-toned flesh of  St. Sebastain's chest.

On the pond water floated other peelings
Of frescoed plaster:
A lock of curled hair, a toenail without a toe,
One blue eye,
These clips blown from the bull-dozer wrecked
Hillside church.

Also reflected on the evening-sun silvered water,
Six young girls,
All dressed in white,
Who stuck out their tongues,
Each pierced with a gold globe,
At a large green frog
Who was grunting a love call
From a lily pad.

 

Fallen Lighthouse

by Duane Locke


The start of my art:

A shadow-less shadow dark, moist,
                                                         Inapprehensible
Microscopic throbbed—
Life oozed,
                                                      Gulf-wave salt
Broken sea weed touched,
                                           Tossed-away wedding
Rings clogged,
                        Bits of the scraps of tore-up manuscripts
Specked,
               Ivory-slanted back of sea beetle whitened,  Sufi
Surfed coquina-swirled gulf shore sand,

                                                                Damp sand
Pressed by Gull's red feet, runic writing pressed into faint,
Dark purple,
                                          A Laughing Gull, dark-hooded,
Jagged head feathers uplifted by strong pre-storm, clenched fisted
Wind.

Nearer, surrounding, the limp, wind-bent, pale beige empty egg
Cases wriggling, silent bleached shells--limpets, whelks,
Scallop, clams, Chinese cones, and

The barnacled fragments of a fallen lighthouse.

The large, thick, circular mirror with a hole for a center
Now cracked into scattered pieces that in the pre-storm
Alchemy of sunlight
                                Sent up thin, slim, twisting trunks
With bizarre leaves shaped like spider lilies
                                                                 as if a forest

 of dim light.

My art now inside the neural corporeal cellars
Of my body will age and change like wine.

 

 

Lightning

by Duane Locke


The pre-
storm, black-smeared-through-cerulean
Sky
      Prepared
The décor, a silver-gray with dark folds
Curtain
To be a background
For a stage of ebony waves
On which
To present
In foreground, a flash of lightning.

                             The gazers upwards
Watched, suffused
                              With the agitated
Ex-
Citement of anticipation,
Waited
For a angular z-shaped flash
Of a light
That bleached from space its shape.

The anticipated occurrence had been
Fabricated
From graphic descriptions and visual
Presentations
                      From now forgotten 
Text books.  Some Ph. D. was hired
To provide education
With a learned disquisition copied
From a prior who had never seen
Lightning.

Such a scene of lightning had been never existential
In their lives,
So its anticipation was purely
And immaculately conceptual.

The two, tingling, waited
For the lightning.  Never before
Have the two been so aroused
By anticipation.

The lightning never happened.
Exhausted from rapturous anticipation
Of what  was never known,
Lightning,

The couple dozed.  When
When awake she spoke,  "This is
The way our life has always 
Been."

He replied,
This is the way everyone's life
Has always been."

 

 

Cozze at Christmas Eve at a Social Event

by Duane Locke


After the fourth whiskey,
He stuck a fork into
The edible part of a mussel shell;
After the removal of the slowly cooked,
Buttered,  white-peppered, spiced mollusk,
He gazed, intensely involved,
At the black pearl glow,
The black rainbow hues
On the interior of the curved shell.

He became transformed into a trance,
Overcame himself as an entity,
Perceptionally dissolved into a process,
Lived  for a temporal sequence
As the textures on the interior
Of a curved shell.

He felt ashamed
He had allowed himself
To enter into this rapturous,
Eudemonic state of being,
For his behavior was not
The proper social performance
That a person should present
When in the company of others.

After a long silence spoke:

"Existence comes after the utterance.
Essence is a fiction,
A species of a verbal aura
That is imprecisely conceived
And derived from a mistake
In philosophical thinking
That invented the non-existent
Called a substance.
There are no accidents,
No substances, only utterances.
You see, what we call actuality
Is always elusive and only
Barely perceived and what
Is reality is invented by and
Established by what is not
Experience, the utterance."

He paused, ordered his fifth whiskey,
And resumed:

"I see you are not interested
In philosophy.  What do you think
Of  lécriture féminine.  What
Is your opinion of Luce Irigaray
And Hélène Cixous.  I love this line
From Irigaray's  Marine Lover:
'Since no one was answering  'me,'
I felt free of all obligation to anyone,
And found myself alone
In a strange country.'  Oh, you
Are not interested."

He finished his fifth whiskey,
The small empty glasses were
Crowding the small space.

He started to speak again,
But he then realized there
Was no one speak to.
The other side of the table
Was empty.  She had come
As she had promised.

He looked at the whiskey
He had ordered for her,
Picked it up and drunk it.

 

 

What is Here
What is not Here

by Duane Locke


1.



I, a finite, temporal being (my surmise),
Knowing (If  knowledge is possible)
That words such as "eternal" and "infinite"
Only have meaning
When used metaphorically
To suggest a quality,
But are meaningless when used
Literally to express
An actually existing entity,
Such as
A form separate from matter,
For there is neither form or matter,
But a form-matter
Or a matter-form.

Actually, I posit  (My Augustinean I,
Not the false Roland Barthes I) that


"eternal" and "infinity" are empty
Concepts.
Have no corresponding, external,
Experiential, empirical  entities
As referents. "Finite" and "Temporal"
Are meaningful words, "eternal"
And "temporal" are meaningless words,
Except when used as a rhetorical
Device such as metaphor.

I feel, I sense, I think, I
Believe the reality of life
Is the result of
A tangible, super-attentive,
Super emotive, intense
Involvement with the near by,
The here,
Not with what is not here,
But the here.

The temporal and finite are
Here,
The eternal and infinite are
Not here.



2.



When what is miscalled a "homo sapien"
Is born,
He or she is not born qualitatively alive,
But born among slave mentalities
As one of the living dead.

To be really born alive, he or she must find,
Discover, become intensely involved
With the

Elusive here,

Not the here as a fact (a fact usually in
Human perception is a fiction), but
As interpretation
That is derived from empathy,
An intense, emotive involvement
That transforms
The existential spatiality of distance
To nearness.

The here becomes a reality when humanly
Intensely experienced,
Not mathematically or scientifically experienced.

The here is not known through conceptual cognition,
Its abstract schemes and equivalents
That are not accessible to everyday
And unaided human contact and perception.

The here becomes real through
An intense, emotive involvement
With the availableness of aroundness,
When felt as an existential process,
A configuration of occurrentness.



3.



Out of the demiurges of fir trees, flaked
With sparse snow, spattered
With scraps from scissored black silk
Pillows orientalized with gold cherries
Shadowed by gold twigs, gold leaves, or
Out from fire flames, cognac-colored, jailed
In soot-flaked rusty-red irregular stones,
Crawled
 
Ginza from the Gnostic gospels,

Her frozen fingertips heated the unshaven flesh
Above the upper lip

Of Ludwig Wittgenstein, quasi-dozing
And quasi-dreaming of

The lip pink, bruise-blue flesh of the embryo
Of a word.

Ludwig Wittgenstein, alone in Norway,
Had been reading a twelfth-century
Bulgarian manuscript translated from Latin.
Its polychromatic, pyrotechnic language
Had placed on the warm air a tableau:
An invisible father, a silver apparition
Blurring the raw-wood blond chairs,
His son, Jesus Christ, both observed
From an obscure corner
By a shining white Satan
Whose eyes were the colors
Of red, red roses.

"Yes, yes, yes, we must, must not speak,
Wittgenstein shouted to himself. "Yes
Or no--no--yes, we must remain, remain
Silent.

"We must remain shut-mouthed.
We must with the needle of our minds
Stitch closed our lips that desire to speak
The wild, irrational, mystic words
That are being manufactured
In our inwardness. 

"Wild words that are giving birth
To crystal pigs, Chinese slant-eyed grasshoppers,
A Viennese Salomé joyously tossing off
Her last veil to land in front of
A turquoise-turbaned bare-handed drummer,

"A backyard, barbequed-grill wedding
Of Elohim and a pregnant Edem,
NeoPythagorean numbers changing
Their names, their address,

"And a Poimandes,

"Hiding in Plato's cave from
Hermes Trismegistos and Moses,
After he had become apostate.
When falling from his black-spotted
White horse, he arose covered
With sand grains and reversed,
Transvalued his previous beliefs.
He now espoused the body is mystic light
And truth, and the nous
Is dark, deceptive, mortal
And the maker of illusions.

"We must not speak
Of what we cannot speak,"
Ludwig Wittgenstein repeated
In his soliloquy.

He shouted the statement
Over and over
To pops of red
That were heard
From the fireplace.

He looked at an ash
Whose red fringe
Was turning to gray,

"What we cannot speak about
We must
Pass over in silence."

He then spoke to a log fissure
That had in its crack
A small green growth,

"Language sets everyone
The same trap,
It is
An immense network
Of easily
Accessible wrong turnings."

The heavy snow had made
The widows white and opaque.



4.



With a bizarre clairvoyance,
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Saw himself
In the future
As being the darling of

The anti-metaphysical
Logical positivists
And the
Language poets.

But he could not control
His thoughts,
The unwanted enter.
He heard "Amens" shouted
At the round dance around the cross,
Heard Valentinius discuss
Cosmology and the curious Pleroma,
Peter Abelard read from
His "Sic et Non."
Sophia appeared in front of the fire flames.
She wore a blonde wig,
Midriffed sackcloth,
And asserted,

"I am the speech that cannot be grasped."

Ludwig Wittgestein thought, "Should I
Become a priest
And kiss photographs."


5.



I speak to the unpresent Wittgenstein,
As it is my custom to speak to the unpresent:

We must learn to speak in another way
Than how we have spoken in the past,
Or how we speak in the present.

We must unlearn what we have learned,
The present language of lies
That the people, priests, and professors speak.

We must unlearn what society
And its slave mentalities have
Forced us to belief.


We must reinterpret all interpretations,
For there are no facts, only interpretations.
(Thank you, Nietzsche for the phrase).

We have been interpreting reality
According to what is not here.  Let us,
Start interpreting from what is here.

Howling Allen, I have seen the worst minds
Of my generation
Advanced upwards
To become the most powerful influence.

 

 

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Solstice Night

by Carla Martin-Wood


Now the long, slow tango
’twixt dark and light
as another year exhausts itself
and falls away to longest night
now the winds
loosed from their four towers
conspire to bury in snow
all things worth losing

old griefs
empty chairs
joyless mornings
loose ends
tattered faith
we let them die
let them lie
beneath the icy crust
when April brings the melt
we’ll hardly recognize them
anymore

for this
we trade gold and azure skies
for winter’s grey and glower
for this
we bear the numbing freeze
for this
we share the weight
of burdened branches
that snap and creak
wet black bark sharp
against the dazzle

now counting stars we watch
faces pressed to the window
where dancing flames reflect
and burn away the old
to forge the new.

 

 

The Last Magick

by Carla Martin-Wood


You were the last magick

gone
with all out-of-season things
last rose in winter
final swallowtail stilled by frost
last hummer at an ice-coated pane

one
with things that go too quickly
cotton candy on the tongue
momentary thrill
of taking a hill too fast
that brief
falling sensation
that makes you gasp

meaningless
like other things I put too much stock in
last song I’m thinking of
suddenly playing on the radio
last person I dreamed about
suddenly ringing me up

gone
with all my brittle omens
last lucky star
found penny
cricket on the hearth
last clover
wishbone
bluebird feather
rabbit foot

one
with harbingers of grief
blue-eyed candle flame
bird trapped indoors
shattered photograph
stopped clock
chill up my spine
crow’s caw
hat on the bed.

 

 

Sam

by Carla Martin-Wood


Always a grin
eyes cornflower bright
he ransacks garbage
behind the fast food place
harvests half a burger
morsel of fried pie
slower than he used to be
hopes they don’t catch him
but easily distracted
spies a jonquil
cocks it behind one ear
winks at the rising sun
a mockingbird sings
the thousand faces of God.

 

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Tap Room

by Scott Owens


They’re all here, looking for a way
to enjoy life today and long term,
to make meaning without the weight
of philosophy or true religion.
These they take in pre-packaged parcels
whole on Sunday or years ago in classes
they barely remember, knowing it’s all
inadequate.  And that’s why they drink
Hefe-Weisse and Pilsner, Glenfiddich
and bourbon, and talk, serious talk
between men who can only understand
each other, who look deep in each other’s
eyes and talk about the ways they make
at least some temporary significance,
money and wives, golf and presidents,
children and cars and other forms
of business.  They talk and sit in judgment
of all they see or hear, sit in justification
of all they are or know to be.

 

 

Rebound

by Scott Owens


Flying west to Colorado,
patchwork fields give way
to a cortex of hills and behind
the dam’s convergence, water
spreads out where no water
should be, turning the clear
direction of streams to this
muddled mess of coves
fanning out, covering roads
that run right to the edge
and even under the edge
of water the way memory
slides beneath a blanket of obscurity.

 

 

The Difference

by Scott Owens


The only reliable difference, they say,
between poetry and prose is that poetry turns
before one reaches the end of the page,
creating a sense of emphasis, play,
meaning by the very act of ending
the line before its natural time.

At the reading I heard the sound of a rocker
creaking on a front porch beneath
the weight of one who never sleeps,
a picture in a yearbook of someone who died
too soon, the image of boys
gathering goat’s blood in tin cans,
the smell of oil paint still wet
on the thigh of a girl you loved enough
to want to touch forever,
was reminded of woods filling up with snow,
purple taste of plums, a tattered
coat, looking up in perfect silence,
the innocent behind scratching on a tree.

These things resist fading,
refuse to leave well enough alone,
hanging out in images at ends of lines.
The poet never turns but lingers.

 




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Picasso's Last Words

by Sally Arango Renata


The name lies on the page,  flat,
like paint on a road sign. 
 
Modigliani.
 
Did he turn his head?
Did the name blossom like sugar
or venom on the tip of his tongue?
 
Were his eyes open? 
Was it said in recognition?
Did he see his friend wearing
that familiar hat, dancing
on a Paris street
 
or did the name leak like rancid nectar
from fruit left in the dust
of his orchard floor?
 
Was the name whispered in sorrow,
as prayer, a mea culpa, in righteous
confession, or did the Spanish giant
finally exhale the name
of an artist greater than himself? 

 

 

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Wind

by Thomas D. Reynolds


She was the last known
inhabitant of the old cabin,
 
that which still held echoes
of my father's first cry,
 
heard on October days
when the door on one hinge
 
slapped against the frame
as if still from some duty
 
to protect what was inside,
to keep memories of all
 
those years from wandering
like children into the gloom.

 

 




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Untitled

by Ron Scott


Some kind of black gull flying round and round—
"No Time!  Gotta Go!"
4 or 5 on the water looking up like
"What's he doin?.".  Flomp chomp
of running shoes on packed dirt
and cwish-koo of fast tires.
Illuminated leaves—yellow, red, green
bespeckled behind by lake.

"We weren't really dating; I was just seeing him."
The cool grey-blue is-it-gonna-freeze sky.
"I know!"  Canoes.  One tall fast
superhero runner in black.  Gulls gone,
the still water.

A happy puppy.  Two slow walkers
crossing paths.
"hhhUgh!"
Later, a naked black tree
with 6 or 7 red leaves swaying.

 

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They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

by Iolanda Scripca


To tame a horse in freezing  winter
One plays a childish "hide and seek"
Caress  its mane with future spring
and kiss the hazel moist with love

Distract its pain with sandy gallops
Along the turquoise dreams of freedom
And while you heal the reddish wound
Recount  the legend of the horse with wings.

There won't be saddles only clouds
That sometimes shed rainbows of tears
As darkness falls on  killing fields
My soul is neighing as echoes cry...

 

 

Waiting

by Iolanda Scripca

Gifts of spring I bring
Monarch butterflies come back
Silent empty nest

 

 

Your Gift to Me 

by Iolanda Scripca


Exhaling petals in the time of need
I keep replaying the blossoming  of gardenias
by pushing buttons on my remote control
with painful fingers—reminders of lost wings.

The mini blinds are broken so I peek
Over the sterile walls mutilated  by wrong turns
I hear you calling me on a disconnected phone
I'm fine!...and you?—followed  by a timid silence.

Accidental spring brought us back together
In a building where daffodils  smell of chloroform
And angels lie flat on a recently emptied bed
As I watch windows cry in endless raindrop dances.

It's so much life outside I feel I suffocate.
I see returning swallows through your candid eyes
As panicky sirens make your heart pound in my chest...
This  accidental spring we'll finally be... forever.

 

 

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Reading the Letter
after Picasso's painting, 1921

by Joseph R. Trombatore


        I


His left hand covers his brother's shoulder
like a saddle
the colors are blurred, the shading
grotesque

His right hand is softer
the way blind children
play with moths

Coats are anchored, a camouflage of browns
the script is in sepia
thick as autumn leaves

Their eyes are mesmerized
like ears to a symphony

Any movement at this point
& the air would fill
with wings



               II


Bereft of reason
we practice the art of circumvention
thru angles of sparkling night-caps 

Thick, dark eyes
unravel appliqued fruit from antique quilts
check for signs of fraying
along an evening's edge

Twirl ice cubes with our fingers
pick at postcards from places
we'd like to be

Move about in rooms that refuse
to grow windows
frustrated as an audience
too tired for applause

 

 

Vase of Irises
after Henri Matisse's painting, 1912

by Joseph R. Trombatore


You cut them in their prime
green dripping down your arms
like blood

the colors of screams run
like a Turkey Red quilt
in hot water

vibrant, luxuriant
they compliment the scene
expand

mirrors, fill in the blanks
balance the equation
quiver

 

 

The Window
after Henri Matisse's painting, 1916

by Joseph R. Trombatore


I find the mask of walls almost too conventional

Cracks in sidewalks & the faint
whispers of pedestrians

Coffee & computer
cigarette after sex, well wouldn't you?

Lines & borders from blue to brown
a slight suggestion of gray

Pink of children
bark of dog withheld

The green of trees
always on the other side of where I am

zig zag
zig zag
zig zag
carpet burn

&
a bowl of violets
just waiting

 

 

Violin & Pitcher
after Braque's painting, 1910


by Joseph R. Trombatore


Adagio in Brown & Gray
rests on a podium, center stage
the most talented wrist to ever live
approaches

The audience has been seated
for sometime now
pre-soaked in top hats & feathers

Photogravures of all the key players
have been reproduced
in black & white
programs
in honor of the concert grand
who will not be performing tonight

This will be an evening of string
& honeysuckle

The largest single rose
of any urine drenched porch step

No single sided rendition
from a Victrola's horn

Here violin & pitcher
will battle to see
who can hold a note the longest

Bows & arrows
everywhere

 

 

Lake Annecy
after Cezanne's painting, 1896

by Joseph R. Trombatore


The birds are hiding
all in blue

distant buildings
are hushed in green

the lake is an orchestra
of leaves breathing

hills drape the scene
like a shawl

right at the edge
small bubbles rise

this is how
we learn to swim

our eyes, our lungs
begin to fill

with bits of light
like stained glass

 

 




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Kin

by Kelley Jean White


There was a gathering of siblings in meeting today,
a row of birth-right Quakers, eyebrows raised
in the same laughters, mouths bent by the same
memories, eyes varied in the same light.  We are
all of us brought into life by acts of love; yes,
many of our parents did at least once love each other,
did touch one another and in that moment may
have even loved themselves; even the woman
used worst by the world may have moments of
wonder looking on the face of her child; each,
all of us, just these moments, brought in love:
let love bear us again; touch the light within.

 

 

Last

by Kelley Jean White


you’d risk the pain of family
for this funeral, this saintly
(you say,) woman, this aunt, last
of the generation of your fathers,
and you do, you drive all night,
all day, 600 miles, and find yourself
in a kitchen, (I remember a kitchen,)
with your sisters, the cousins spilled
onto the lawn (I remember a piano,
a table, an Easter dinner, something wrapped
in tinfoil,) you say I never met her,
I say I remember, but it doesn’t matter
(I remember, it was the first year we were
together,) you tried to compliment
your sisters, said they looked like
they’d lost weight, and they cried
(I say you should know never use
the word fat in any conversation
with to a woman,) why are you always
ending up with people crying (I hold
my tongue,) I say it was good
you traveled, (there must have
been something good about it,)
you say something about reaching
the end of a road, we’ll talk about it
tomorrow, not, now, not until tomorrow
(and I’m afraid of what you’ll say)

 

 

Lord, take

by Kelley Jean White


my anger
which I have swallowed so often and wished
to force down others’ throats—
 
would you accept it, leaven it, let it be
transformed into plump bread?
 
then make that bread stale, dry,
if that be your will,
crumble it,
 
and bring pigeons
to my feet

 

 

Lost Poem

by Kelley Jean White


did it begin with a wet magnolia blossom
or a cracked linoleum floor?
 
the incessant voice of the television
or the breath of a child asleep?
 
the siren, the stuck car horn
or a thrush on a city morning?
 
or you, the truck packed, the house empty
or the smoke from a candle snuffed out?

 

 

Purple and Gray

by Kelley Jean White


You said, that purple,
that deep purple, it's good on you,
purple and gray. . .
 
( I was lying beside you
on the picnic blanket
in the park)
 
. . .all the gray in your hair,
pretty, there,
in the sunlight,
with that deep purple. . .
 
Oh:
my bare feet rub each other,
little, young, smooth,
like yours, child,
kicking
at the edges
of your bed. . .

 





 

 

 

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Sengyo (Jugijo)  Yosa Buson                                                                                                                                                                                                          Five Poems by Yosa Buson                                                translated by EP Allan   LXXXI つ　座　玉 ば　右　人 き　ひ　の 哉　ひ 　　ら 　　く Tamazuri no zaiu ni hiraku tsubaki kana A perfect girl opening at one’s side camellias *************** XXXV 北　南　梅 す　す　遠 べ　べ　近 く　く Ume achikochi minami subeku kita subeku Here    and there plum blossoms falling in the south falling in the north ****************** XXXIII 月　枯　し 夜　木　ら 哉　に　梅 　　も　の 　　ど 　　る Shira ume no kareki ni modoru tsukiyo kana The grey plum blossoms      on the dead tree come back in the moonlit night ******************* VII そ　雀　鶯 れ　歟　を も　と 春　見 　　し Uguhisu o suzume ka to mishi soremo haru Warblers or sparrows? See — it’s spring ******************** V 暮　声　鶯 に　遠　の け　き り　日 　　も Uguhisu no koe touki hi mo kure ni keri As the sun sets the warbler’s distant voice also ends                                                                                                                           Return to Contents Return to top of page