Art by Alonzo Saunders

Poetry Shack

Welcome to the Poetry Shack.
A place where the spoken word,
is all that matters.


There is a Tree In The Woods

There is a tree in the woods
Where I like to go
I’d go there every day if I could
Life is abound but shy to show

If you wait for awhile
The place comes alive
The only cost, a little drive

All throughout the day
Crows caw in the distance
Munks scurry and play
A fox runs by
And squirrels bury treasures for some other day

I see the fawn has lost its spotted coat
A doe bawls behind me and the fawn alertly runs by me
The crows are now atop my tree
There’s so much noise you lose yourself and swear you could scream and
not
be heard
Then quickly as they came
The crows caw in the distance once again

In an instant, a flutter, a peck
A flutter and the tiny black and white chickadee rounds my tree
Picking and pecking no mind to me

A dog barks in the far off distance
Reminding me of near by existence

I see a hawk gliding the currents of air
As the munks go silent and disappear
Then without knowing it was there
All the woods go silent as a hare

Without a breeze and all the noise
The silence is so peaceful
So quite I can feel
It calm my soul
And help to heal

The peace and beauty from some great creator
This outdoor stage is my theater
My church, my sanctuary, play just for me
More exciting than any TV

Suddenly I have an encore
A stomp and a huff
It gives a loud snore
And there’s a large buck with antlers galore

He caught me here
Now frozen in place
Just about face to face
My heart so loud
I’m sure he can hear
The rush, the joy, what now I fear

I turn slowly toward him
Then instantly, a jump and snort
The mass abound, with its bright white tail
Flagging to every deer around

I come to realize it’s not his nor mine
This is OUR place in time

Visit the woods and you could see
How wonderful and exciting this place can be
Here, in the woods, by your own tree

©2000 Alfred Shuryan

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Untitled#2

this poem killed the dinosaurs
and ran off laughing.
this poem sank the ships
at Pearl Harbor
and said some other kid did it.
this poem has a bad attitude.
this poem is your neighbor's stereo
screaming through the wall,
3:15 in the morning.
you can't escape this poem.
this poem has evil intentions.
this poem will hold you up
some night with a dirty gun,
shaking in a hand that knows no no.
this poem is Jeffrey Dahmer's refrigerator
& it is hungry for your head.
this poem is an ad for a hotel/motel
management school run by Norman Bates.
this poem is every love letter
from anyone promising forever--
long since gone for good
into the loveless night.
this poem cannot help you
& would not help you even if it could.
someone cut some words out of this poem
and used it for a hold-up note
at his corner bank.
he got no money.
in utter, pitiful despair
he then used this poem as a suicide note
and jumped off the top of the Empire State Building.
he landed on a group of ten nuns,
gathered below for a prayer vigil,
killing them all.
He walked away uninjured, unnoticed,
in get-the-hell-out-of-my-way
rush-hour traffic,
loudly cursing the failures of art.

© Ted Finn 		sometimes I just got to drive away
from the radio stations spewing pollution,
everything I got to buy before I can die happy.
I know I'm driving the right way
when the stations start breaking up
into static and hum.
last words that came through clear,
"don't need anything money can buy.
just want to live until I die."

stop anywhere up high.
walk till the trails die out
like a bad love affair.
up high enough you can drink water
from the streams and not get sick.
up here Christ and the Great Spirit laugh together.
there is no separation.
you can't get a knife blade in the spaces
where the rock has cracked.

any luck at all I can lose myself
in the tangle of brush, trees, rock and beauty.
up here it's all clear, like the water, the sky-
why we must breathe deep into our lives.
I stumble off the mountain sore-legged.
I-80 down, a wild, roller coaster ride
straight to the hell world that waits below.

© Ted Finn


HALLOWEEN TRICKS

We ran fast through the city streets--
Up tenement stairs -- through the alleyways
Pirates, Hoboes, and Ladies of the Night.
Costumes that cost nothing to make,
But gave a chance to escape the cruel realities
Of life in the city.
We ran fast with pillowcases flapping in the breeze.
The faster you run the more houses and apartments
You get to Trick or Treat.
We didn't have a trick planned so hopefully
Everyone would have a treat.
My brother, seven at the time,
Struggled to keep up with us.
No one paid attention to his whining.
He tried to tell us the last house had given
Him an onion instead of the orange we pocketed.

© Joan Amberg

"I HAVE GREAT COBALT BLUES S"

IN THE HOUSE OF WORDS

said the vendor speaking of the
Lapis stones as I was choosing
a pipe of wood, of dark black walnut and
light cherry
tie dyes in the background
all round were colors
and foreground was the Mystafia
doing a reggae beat and bodies
moving round and round to that sound
looking somehow like the gypsy
and
looking somehow like a space from my past
a psycha psyhadelia
Oh, S and ... yeah
I have great cobalt blues for you
in a volume loud and clear
even to these faint ears S

incense of frankincense & myrrh
there to remind of a timelessness
words and sound words and sound
notes & notes & notes & notes
of music a heavy reggae base beat
could be the words of a blues man
speaking of a poetess
pouring out of words
as only a poetess can
a hormonal thing a societal thing
a primal thing
of light cherry and dark black walnut
the pipes
little buddha figure laughing with me
blues and poetry and poetry and blues

and oh yeah S
I have great cobalt blues for you.

© 1996 Maggie Frost 		How I struggle,
(at times)
in the house of words,
over the captivating
and grasping idea
of finding
the right word trying to
express the abstraction
of its own being.

The word
struggles
to describe
the shapes of
cubes and squares,
of melding lines
all the while the
word is forming inside the
conception of thought.

Not yet fully formed,
it struggles
to be present
at its own birth -
the thought of each
new word
and,
The word gropes
to capture
its meaning
in that
moment of time
as it quickly becomes
the next thought
in the next
moment of time
while trying to take form,
as thought leads to
word upon word,
in the house of words.

© 1997 Maggie Frost


Poetry

Some are classics others are colored
With the beauty from just a word
Only u can discover only u can uncover
The art of a poem
Because it belongs 2 you
It's not a wonder so why does doubt
Even exist within your dynasty
Tell me
Which face do you place in front of your mirror
Is it the voice that echo's before the eclipse
Or is it the elegance that speaks from
The beat
Because it never sleeps even after
The sunset
Your light must still shine
It has 2 surpass the pass
And find a new way 2 navigate
To the next poem

© Joseph N King Jr


tuesday afternoon observation

people stare across the wide city street
into the wild eyes of a man kneeling
perched on the edge of a curb
whispering prophecies
into the space between himself
and those looking --

© Justine Judway

That Which Is Missing

The Work Of Speaking

for Nena

She worried out loud at the bus station, telling
herself, or perhaps no
one,
the story of what was, and what might be.He'd left
her, two children,
strange

city, no money; just walked away. She asked how to
survive this, how to
even
live,
protect her children. What might happen? She might
survive only to bear

her wound, to remember that day the way an amputee
remembers a lost
leg,
or stares at where a hand used to be. Her children
might live as
amputees

also, and their children. And theirs. They are all
humans, the man, the
woman,
the children. And that species passes on that which is missing.

© James Lee Jobe 		You want to speak differently than you
Have ever spoken, to say things that
You have never said.

You have always wanted this, but
The reasons why have changed.

If you feel that you are empty, go
Fill yourself; don't torture us all with
Your poems! The sky inside you is
No more immense then it was yesterday.

Get out! Go be a part of the world, how else
Can the world ever become a part of you?

There are facts that you cannot change;
That the work of speaking is full of sadness,
And that you love the sadness as much you love
The work itself.

© James Lee Jobe


desire fire

predawn, dark, on the horizon
moon centered over western shore
streaks of quiet lightning brazen
bold gulf sounds, waves galore

hot windy breeze is blowing
awaiting suns eastern rise
palm trees leaves shuttering
no human dares beach surprise

low sand dunes glisten white
matching beach daylight moon
repeated soundy slap of waves
forces therapeutic calmy swoon

mindy thrill as beauty imparted
free to all, yet known by few
who claim the moments started
thrusting sun, drys morning dew

pelicans glide, search fresh catch
gaze also, looking for some desire
grand expanse, what lovely match
with god and man and nature afire

© F. Papand

The Prostitute and the Spy

Miss Conduct Goes To The Superbowl

Maybe there was a spy,
clever and green enough
aspiring to high-paid criminal mind
And perhaps a mad savant can happily
fall victim to his vices and piqures1
An aristocratic race to penurious hunger,
an aging noble Madeleine seeking
and teaching amoral famine while
Gentle, kind and smooth2 in his attentions
to every admirer whether base, lost
sallow génie or mind lying fallow
These were but some reasons why
none had been dearer to the spy.

A first talk of someone or nothing
and the starting gates flew open
a quiet flood, parlance, rivulets
of insinuating ideas resurrect
treachery-numbed minds; wary, cultivé.
The decor of pipes and papers while
quipping, quoting and serving coffee,
arms discreetly twined during
fusions of ideas and dreams of warm lips
and his engulfing hand; Warm
restfulness seeping in
anesthetic protection of an equal
Being stunted in matters of the heart
can inebriate a spy's sense of aesthetics.

Experts in sangfroid3 and trading favors
The other currency becomes too dear
For a young spy au chomeur4
and an aging prostitute in cruel career
decline in health and coeur; he is in the ether5
his pimp carves gravestones and
speaks protection in menacing prose;
an ad hoc bard, genes substance-altered
coldly deferent to the spy client.

Held at arm's length with other patron lovers
of young students and mathematicians;
Resting fidèle during the prostitute's aventures6
she sees emotions as luxuries, and admires him
for his good breeding, histoires d'amour and missed chances
They judge chocolate and exchanged glances
trusting the natural enemy; The spy
allows some detection, the prostitute nothing
but sliding-scale gifts of cigarettes and favors.

A Bordeaux Boticelli en vacance lends7
a Catholic moral dilemma and an end
Just a convenient player waiting in the wings?
What is the prostitute's real addiction?
spy refuses to break from her tradition;
she knows the prostitute does not discriminate
and her next rung's escorts will not wait;
in youth she bounds on, robust with energy
Fortified in her aspirations to clinical indifference;
she prophesied failure and made the arrangements,
But in that the prostitute was more speedy.

He is Socrates in the Apologia,8
Precious seigneur, elle médite,
lips pressed to hand in private appointment
outsmarting love until the clever, prolonged parting;
The only change is they are cross-trained,
newly and distantly beloved.
Free, thinks the spy, and shuns containment.

FIN


1piqures: injections
2gentle kind and smooth: said to be the definition of the name Terrence
3 sangfroid: lit. "Cold blood". Composure under pressure
4 au chomeur: on the dole, on welfare
5 in the ether: an allusion to the drug
6 fidèle,aventures: faithful, love affairs
7 Bordeaux Boticelli: a reference to the prostitute's other love, a young woman resembling Boticelli's Venus.
8 Socrates in the Apologia: Socrates was a teacher, sentenced to suicide by hemlock, accused of corrupting the youth.

© Trista T Genova 		It's important to take every opportunity
to tell people how much there is to hate
about the Superbowl
but really it's not going to
change the fact that everyone is
brainwashed into thinking
this is some really worthwhile event,
something truly American,
when all I think about are
pork-bellied men
gaping at t.v.'s in sports bars,
staring up at the corner of the room,
captive barflies.

The world is watching America
and America's watching t.v.

Then again it must be something biological
that extra bit of testosterone
It's like the destiny of sperm
that strive ever faster:
throw a ball real far
and fetch it
drive a car real fast
shoot a gun--
real deadly--
shoot the enemy
without thinking
shoot your load
fertilize
touchdown

© Trista T Genova

Songs for COWS & CHICKENS

Songs for GRAPES & SNAKES

1.
Walking down the summer country road
on a Sunday morning,
on my Grandpa's farm
to deliver the sunday sermon
to a 'heard' of cows.

Followed by my favorite hymns,
Separate by nothing more
than barbed wire between us,
the congregation moos softly
their chorus of Amens.

2.

Plunging thru the door
to the Big Chicken House
I pause for them to see
this is grandaughter
'hear' to help take care of them

Poise to dip the ladle in the
oats & seeds & gravel buckets
gather the eggs
glide smoothly down the aisle

Offer them the latest songs -
"I Love You Truly"
"Give Me Five Minutes More In Your Arms"
& later,
"They're Not Making The Skies As Blue
This Year...Wish You Were Here"

Very sweetly sing or
they bring
the house down
squawk their uproar
of beating wings,
no eggs laid then.

If one hen goes up
the whole house goes up.

Better sweetly sing!

© 2000 Joan Gatten 		We spent spring vacation
(my brother & I)
pruning the vineyard
for Grandpa Mac.

I study
the small clippers
in my small hand.

I think how beautifully
they're made.

My Brother spies a snake.
We call it "garter".
He catches it.

Spring smells
stir my snow-frozen
bones to life.

I sing the latest
Songs.

All along.

© 2000 Joan Gatten


Ascension from the Ghetto of the Mind

....smoke and heat rise toward the ceiling of an evening skyward fumes
and
rising falling heave exhumes from the brick and mortar helter skelter
cries
in search of shelter from self and cold of night and sirens, crimes of
stolen
peace shackled to a plan and boy from manhood hidden looking upward
which is
inward see the contours of the moon and sight the star which hints at
west
and in the breeze a whispered sentence from the fence from sub to
conscience
saying hate them enough to be strong young poet hate it enough to go
on
and following voice and celestial map and each step heavier away from
self to
second self and fighting against self to see second self and I wage war
with
my-selves as we wage war with our-selves killing, sinning and no poppy
fields
in the projects no aeropuertos in these ghettos no rifle makers,
train
company CEOs, but you know how that goes multi billion dollar
industry
unstoppable controlled by the colored’s dominican brothers outsmarting
all of
the locos at the borders and the mental meets the physical making sense
of my
cerebral and metaphors dance with crack addicts in the
alleyways and no
foreign terrorists or weapons specialists just chemical
alteration has
penetration in the urban situation and how long have I
been high on HIV
needle politicians and we have only been injected for an eye blink of
history
a moment in the dark when the moon was lost to us and the blackness
killed
our suns and I can feel the comfort of the pain after ether after
reefer I
can see my hands for the five fingered edifices and not
a banner on the
spectrum from the contrived source of illumination; the true son has no
color
only essence presence and freedom to roam the caverns of the
intellectual
tapestry sans tour-guided wickedry and go where I have
never gone the
dimension of second self without qualms the liberation from
definitions,
superstitions at the table kinky hair and slanty eyes like shades of
violet
in the gloaning skies and wise dome know the keys; salvation. say its
just a
dream your metaphor too little to understand the human plan-equation
memory
too short your title in CAPITAL LETTERS your station
below your betters
but have the faith to reach across that page see dawn when the cold
and naked
city yawns and all is infinite and yet all is one and emanating from
the
rising sun is birth anew and from the gentle hue breaks
virgin light
ascending from myself I see the way and coming into view
the western gate and
beckons me a better, brighter day.

© Ernpeace

Winter Setting

Misplaced Muse

[as printed in the Summer 2000 Tule Review]

The slow winter river, its edges laced
by white gulls about to eat salmon
or heavy with salmon.

The water itself, orange and brown, dark green
where the treeline renders itself in aquatint,
but steady gold across the broad center.

How the late light touches it,
not like a finger to stir up ruffles of trouble,
more like a palm laid along a wrist.

Behind oaks at the far margin,
the sun, still spilling, placed
so that we see, not the tumbled carton,

but the flow it looses into the floorboards.
Watch all the random empty places
as they catch and absorb the warmth.

© Tom Goff 		My need for a poem
is like my need of a tool for the weather.
When I crave it in a downpour,
the poem, my umbrella, is missing.

When I can walk well without one,
alone, needing assistance from nothing,
the poem—like my umbrella, or the clear sunlight,
or the nothing itself—

arrives right next to my doorknob
precisely when unasked,
an implement shaped to fit or

fight under my fingers. What
will I do with such a compressed fistful,
this replica of my own folded skin?

© Tom Goff


NAKED

Naked,
revealed,
on display
for the injuries
attempted to be hidden,
trying to walk away,
before I’m stripped bare,
down to the scars within.
Naked,
is exactly how
this tragic truth.
Could lie my ass off,
but the truth is written
all over me,
like paper
filled with words
and behind my back
the layers are being pulled
inch by inch,
just so they all can read
all the brutal things
written all over me.
Naked,
head to toe,
bare is given
a bad name,
and everyone can see it,
and the birthday suit,
pour ole tattered, stained
birthday suit,
is so dirty
with anguish.
Naked,
various shadows of blue,
cloud blue to indigo
painted all over me,
and the vicious writing,
that comes with it,
all mixed into
one painful ingredient
burning all over me.

© Ryan Davis

Poetic Eye

Hell in the heaven?

It is amazing that the mind can pierce through the illusion of reality,
perceive
the reality of nothingness, and identify with the sole truth by
effortless realization
of the only reality, while the drama of the willfully perplexed is
still unfolding.

The poet is blessed with the gift to savor the beauty of nature, experience
life
and fall in love with everything around, or just dream about them.
The
poet's experience is always different from the rest of us.

Poetry is nothing more or less than the poet's imagery painted from the
words
palette, through expression brush. Poetry is the ever-youthful queen of
the
literary kingdom. While all writing starts with imagery anyway, only
poetry is
blessed with the quality of music and dance.

© KRS Murthy 		Have you ever tasted the bitterness in honey?
Your blood surge by the wickedness of an infant
Looked away from the ugliness of a flower
Eyes blinded by the scorching heat of the moon

Ran away to escape the revenge of your mother
Burnt by the incessant heat of the flaming ice

Have you thrown away money as a simple colored paper?
Seen heaps of gold coins as useless metal discs

Suffered from the allergy of gold and diamond jewelry
Choked from the fresh breeze gently blowing over a flowered meadow

I want to desert the Shangri-La, and run away from everything
From everything that even a prince would not dream to be blessed

Run away to the safety of the land of the suicidal end
Without the sweet embrace of your love never to come

Why did you write me your letter in an invisible ink?
Why did you speak in a silent harsh sentence?

Why did you hear my feelings with your deaf ears?
I have already bled to death from your rejection whip

How can heaven be what it could be with out you in my life?
Isn’t a body just a corpse when the soul has disappeared once for all?

© KRS Murthy

Serape

REVISIT TO GRIMM

Six months later, and still
your scent tarries in my
serape, your pheromones
impregnating every fiber
as it embraces me in the
impotent night, surprising
me with it's constant ability
to stir that delicious sense
of all possibilities and allowing
me to experience the integrity
of obstructions, yet leaving
all my spiky anxieties transformed,
egg like, fragile and smooth,
pregnant with new anxieties soon
to be born, held within it's wool
embrace secure against the hard
reality, the truth of our relationship.

© September 1999 A.J. Heard 		You scared me.
With all your edicts
and boundaries.
Stealing my words
and hiding them in
that mysterious
pocket, high up in
the back of my
throat. Beyond the
ability of even my
talented tongue, to
dislodge them and
set them free. Sealing
them in a place
where my sublime
ability with pen and
paper could not
rescue the moment,
to create a happy
ending for this
grimm fairy tale.

© September 1999 A.J. Heard

Dying

Madness

Sometimes I think about dying
Turning off my mortal light
Comes my time to leave the earth
Sneaking off quietly in the night

It will be a silent passing
No bewailing of my fate
Simply throw the carcass out
Like leftovers on a plate

A few may mourn my passing
While I laugh from the other side
At all the foolish games I played
Clinging tenaciously to pride

Recognizing now the futility
The trivial attempts at fun
Let the overweight lady sing
My charade on earth be done

© R.A.Ditmanson 		Madness
without love
emotions languishing
Unable to express
heart empty
suffering loneliness
despair a companion
hope flickering weakly
compassion waning

simply dismissed
unnecessary
unwanted
unneeded
unworthy
insignificant
loss in darkness
no one caring
becoming less

From exclusion
comes madness

© R.A.Ditmanson

Untitled

I remember Marie (Mammo)

unrequited love

fluttering of the heart sound

an assiduous muse

your eyes

passionate with venturing willingness

mine with reserve temptation


timid

to savor our juices

of soulful love

the seduction puissant

the allure burning

two breaths afire

a mantra of

one resonant respire


yet timid

to unsheathe

the tyranny of repercussions

for savoring our juices

of soulful love

for the street dancer

© LORI JEAN ROBINSON 		(for her eulogy)

woman warrior

heart of fiery passion

hands of strength and stone

her face etched by the Mayan High Priestess

of all life’s cruelties

she battled and embraced them

with resistive

unconditional love

I remember Mammo

good times

familiar times

alive

sitting for hours

that lasted for days

around that kitchen table

where birth began

and a beer in hand

storytelling

gossiping

laughing

and

eating spanish chicken and rice

I remember Mammo

good times

familiar times

alive

and sitting around that kitchen table

where birth began…

For Marie with love Lori Jean….February 20, 1992

© LORI JEAN ROBINSON


THE HOUSE IN THOUSAND OAKS

She sits at the top of the stairs
He stands at the bottom.
Face up turned
the last words he has spoken
drift up into the air,
the sound of the furnace kicking on
seems to carry the words up against the ceiling
but still she has trouble hearing them.
He has always used words,
like tools to close her in.
Like a craftsman building cabinets
he selects the words,
the concepts, the ideas that best fit
his need, then carefully
with miter box and dial maker
he fits the sides and shelves,
he mounts the doors and handles,
he calibrates the size and matches
the latches until she is careful boxed in.
Like the ancient dinner ware
handed down from generation to generation,
she sits in the glass fronted hutch
and has no purpose but to be seen
and admired.

She sits at the top of the stairs
He stands at the bottom.
Face looking down toward him
she says nothing but the air
is filled with tension,
He doesn't not get it at all,
No matter what she does
he is unreachable,
Her tenderness is lost to him,
"I've given you everything you want." He says
and even those words repulse her,
he does not understand it is not things,
it is not the doing,
it is the never being.
The words form in her heart,
they pound in her spirit,
they cascade over the cataracts
of her unfulfilled soul but
they do not come out of her mouth.
It is like her lips have turned to stone.
For years the Medusa like monster has
grown in the soft spots of her secret places
and there is no way the walls can let it go.

She sits at the top of the stairs
He stands at the bottom.
What started today?
Neither one can really remember,
maybe it was his working late
or her crying over a movie,
maybe it was his comment about the market
or hers about Portalbella mushrooms,
it really matters little, the canyon between them
is a gulf, a chasm, a rift, it is the abyss,
it is the rich man lifting up his eyes
in hell and seeing Father Abraham
holding the beggar man in his arms.
"Please," he wails, "a drop of water
for my tongue" Sadly the patriarch
can only shake his head, "There is a gulf
between us that no man can cross."
The silence goes on forever
and no one moves.

She sits at the top of the stairs
He stands at the bottom.
He drops his head and slowly turns
he sits on the bottom step.
She watches his back until
she discerns a slight movement,
"What?" she wonders and then she sees,
he is weeping, slowing he just gives up.
He has come as far as he can
and it is no longer possible to use words
to try to reach across. He simply gives up
and lets the tears slide down his cheeks.

She sits at the top of the stairs
He stands at the bottom.
In this moment, this eternal crossing
of time and space, she is confused,
her body leans forward,
she wants to move toward him,
"is it possible?"
His voice, softly drifting up the stairs
reaches her,
"I remember the apartment in Chicago,
the place we lived when we were in school,
the one room walk up where we hung beads
around the bed and put the black light in the hall,
It always freaked out the pizza guys."

She sits at the top of the stairs
He sits at the bottom.
The miles between them are in the balance,
the moment is pregnant with possibilities,
there will be or there won't be,
it is or it isn't, no one can be sure
In the other room Ted Kopple rattles on
about something, the sound of his voice
the sound of waves braking on the beach,
of traffic in the street below,
of children in the park beyond.
but here and now.
The stairs that lie between them
are the question.
It is a moment rich with passion and
yet empty of sound or fury, even Shakespeare
does not know how it will turn out,
even Edward Alby has no clue,
even the poets are silent.
Robert Burns, Gordon Byron, John Keats,
all wait in the moment,
silent.

She stands at the top of the stairs
He sits at the bottom.
She is a freshly painted fresco
on the roof of the world,
she stands with one hand on the bannister,
a frail and colorless bird
poised fragilely on the branch
of the railing, her heart tipped slightly
to hear the faintest sound.
He sits motionless now,
the tears drying on his cheeks,
he does not brush them away.
His face-in with movement,
but his ears strain for the slightest sound,
a creak of the stairs,
a shifting of weight, a shudder of something
moving in the pantomime of direction.
His heart like a new born bird
turns upward for a tiny morsel of hope.
It is as though all of eternity has
turned it's face, like a deer in the headlights,
a thief caught in the window,
turned the attention
of all that ever is or was toward this one
moment to a house in Thousand Oaks.
She stands at the top of the stairs,
he sits at the bottom.

© Jim Harvey 2000


Wind Up

The pitcher stood like an angle iron—
Bent forward, legs spread, fist in mitt, squinting
Cap low against the afternoon sun.
He scuffed the mound with his feet.
Puffs of dust rose like wings on his heels.
Turning in a sly half-revolution
He checked the barbarian on First,
And forced him back, back to the bag
Like a wayward ram against the crook.

The pitch, like a poem, took time to make,
Years of wild throws from a small hand,
Decades of watching the sky or the far horizon.
It was made of everything: of his mother’s laugh,
And his father’s touch, transmitted through the ball
Thrown against the early summer evening stars
That hung on the blushing hem of night
With the frogs croaking their nocturnal serenade
Until the darkness covered his arm and he went in.

Then, it was finally time to come even
With the batter, who was younger and faster,
And leaner and much more hungry
For the mouth and lungs of the crowd.
The two stood against each other
And bared their teeth, their arms twitching.
Already, the pitcher had delivered chin music
And a backdoor slider that fooled the catcher.
It was time to throw his whole life across the Plate.

He lifted his leg, and drew the ball against his chest,
And sent it home from the hill with an angry snap.
It came in a great tornado wheel, a Tibetan prayer wheel,
A crackling circular barn-burner
With deadly white, quiet weather at the eye of the eddy
And spirals of leather and stitch that came round and round.
Suddenly released from fingers slippery with spit
The little knot of burning hide flew across the wheelhouse
In a corkscrew curl from a sidearm, hot
As the devil’s dangerous breath on the dish.

© 2000 Viola Weinberg

The Weight of the World

The Circle

Today, on the radio, I heard that the earth weighs
6 trillion trillion kilograms.
That's a 6 followed by twenty-four zeros, which is
no googol (10 to the 100th power),
But as second definitions go, close enough. Even
a googol isn't much
If you compare it to a googolplex, which is the
number 1 followed by a googol
Of zeros (10 to the power googol), which might
be my personal estimate
As to how many blades of grass there are in the world,
or, maybe, the number of kilograms
That get eaten up in the world-chipper of a black hole,
where the mass of seven
Suns is condensed to the size of a marble.
When I was looking in the dictionary
To check my facts about this googol business,
I noticed that googoo
Was the next word defined, and -- even though the
definition (a person who advocates
or works for political reform) has nothing to do
with what I remembered next --
The sound of it reminded me of the other day, when
a frantic neighbor up the street
Beat on my door and begged me to run him down to
St. Francis Hospital.
He had just gotten off his midnight shift at the bakery.
He didn't have a car, and his wife
Had just had a baby. On the way down, I'm running
lights while this guy I barely know
Is wiping tears from his mustache, slapping the dash,
running his hands through his hair
And blubbering, "Oh my God! Jesus Mary Joseph!
A baby girl!
They told me what she weighs. Guess how much?"
While I keep my eyes on the road,
I lift my head and make my face say, "Tell me."
"Nine pounds, eight ounces!" he says.
"Do you believe that? Nine. Pounds.
Eight. Ounces."

The Bridge, Vol. 7, #1, 1998

© John Sokol 		In October, we planted irises in a circle,
that shape -- for us -- that most resembles time,
irony-arced and forever bent on blind return.
In the Spring, they'll break the ground and be in being
the moral of our story, reminding our memories
of ourselves and of how our history is still repeating
.
Our lives together mimic perennials and history,
repeating
the forgotten beginnings of a nowhere-ending circle.
We orbit each other with memories of one another's
memories.
We decorate our days with the bruises of bad times.
We forget that a poultice lies at hand, and being
who we are, we to the same old path return.

You have left and I have left and always we return,
not for ourselves, nor the other, but for the repeating
of what we have come to know of simply being.
Again and again we reshape the tired circle;
reformers of a sagging, amorphous shape in time,
of a black hole where no light escapes, where our memories

commune in the ethereal field of all selective memories.
We choose only what reinforces our return
to what we know best, to the mercy of time,
which is not biased and does not linger in its repeating.
If we could march to the noble rhythm of the noble circle
we might find its wholeness in our own being.

But instead we plant irises, surrogates of our being,
metaphors that each year break through our frozen memories
and remind us that we too are part of the circle,
yet removed and sputtering on the outer rim of return,
fated by our faults and by our habits of repeating
failure-doomed attempts to stretch the arc of time.

But can it be that all lessons get learned in due time,
that everything converges with its ideal in being,
that only through the haze of sorrowful repeating
can we find the life that's worth our memories?
Must we remain hurled and helpless in our return
to the force that pins us to this circle?

Let us forget prior time. Let us plant new memories.
Let us opt for being glad of their repeating.
Let us true the circle and greet ourselves as we return.

Potpourri, Vol. 4, # 12, Dec., 1992, Prairie Village, Kansas

© John Sokol


The 1000th Sin

At the end of every long day

Aunt Leona Jones used to pray,

"It is better to have aquitted oneself well,

Than to have been found somewhat guilty

And gone to hell."

Brought up a Baptist

She judged and juried ancestors,

Siblings, three silent spouses and me-

Cried loudly from her kitchen and into her pots -

Hundreds of do's and thousands of not's.

She beat the sun up, dressed and ready to preach

But there were some of us she couldn't quite reach:

A Viking uncle, Columbus's brother, Polo's driver,

And a lot fellows who didn't really know one another.

The 1000th sin she couldn't abide- the capital crime -

Was being in the wrong place at just the wrong time.

She eschewed her brothers’ incantations

For odd forms of stealing and frauds -

Collection plates and imaginary gods-

Undercover cops and absent congregations.

She ignored all but her own inclinations.

"Your uncles - my departed's -

God-fearing James, Salvatore, and John

Ignored the light and missed the dawn."

Devout James - killed by a bowling ball in a bawdy house

Delivering a Gideon Bible to a third floor friend...

"He’d been better served to save the sinners in church."

Rebellious Sal - now Aunt Sally - Leona’s best friend,

Used to be sorely assertive, but now defers.

He was patient switched in a not-for-profit hospital after a union rally.

Whacked on the head by a management bat

He didn’t know who he was or where he was at.

They mixed him up with Jackson Jones

Who’d arrived too late to change the nature of his all male bones.

"He’d been better served to save the typing pool."

Gentle John, never one to deny a favor,

Startled a steep roof one rainy night

To aid a frilly neighbor - fixed the leak

Surprised her less competent consort,

Then slipped through his hands to his grave.

"He’d been better served just to nest with me."

I’d callused my knees and prayed with my Aunt

To be in the right place at the right time.

She surely wanted me to flower -

While her husbands all worked the dark turn

For the extra five cents an hour .

© Thomas Downing

RELENTLESS

Cold

Lying in bed...waiting for something to come
along...even with my
eyes
closed, I am awake...sleeping is just a notion. A
figment of this
imagination, trying to sooth the nightmares that are
real...not some
dream
consuming the subconscious. Sparks of impulsiveness
dance between the
darkest
memories...releasing the contained emotions like the
crashing waves
pounding
themselves into the shore...erroding the familiar sight
leaving it barren
and
unrecognizable. What could be left but to gamble with
what's left of
destiny...
hesitating for only a split second...leaving
life behind
grasping
for the infinite wisdom of ever after.

© Bonnie M. Mercier 		Leaving me stranded in my own little
world...standing in a fortress of despair
How is it I came to know this pain
with soldiers of misfortune by my side
Unleashing their weapons upon my brain.

I caress the final stage of my life in
a search of a way to end this strife
Leaving a world to ashamed to stay
fooling myself it would be okay.
Living this lie to save my soul..
. but all it did was to make me cold.

© Bonnie M. Mercier


The Magic Is You

The Magic Is You
I look around each day, a new way
and try to imagine a new world,
a place for forgiveness, and peace
is what we need, we truly do,
but I know, Lord, the magic is You.
We don't need another miracle
given by the best, man can give,
we don't need another gun to fire,
what we need is to see through to
The real and only magic, Lord, it's You.
For God, You are the new day, a new way
You are imagination, at its best,
O God, you are the Reason man is alive;
You are the magic, that is due,
You are Life's miracle, for the magic is You.

© 2000/NJ Horsley

THINGS TO DO IN SOMERSET, CA

REMODELING

Loiter at the Post Office.
Help chase down the neighbor’s pony.
Check the sky for smoke.
Engineer a Bucks Bar bridge
that won’t wash out.
Raise some dust on Diamond RR Grade.
See how fast you can take the curve
at Land of the Broken Fence.
Watch old men get out of trucks.
Listen to somebody’s dog
broadcast the news
from down by Sweeney Crossing.
Count jackrabbits around the garden.
Yank star-thistle out by the roots.
Wonder what’s at the end
of Moonshadow.
Check the sky for smoke.

© Taylor Graham 		New linoleum redefines the room
so we're almost afraid to walk
there. Afraid of prints and smudges
on the panels, walls that soon
again need paint. The dog patrols
against these unfamiliar smells,
grumbles at trespass. Strangers
have been here with knife
and belt and ruler. His own
warm fur-scent, his body-dents
in ragged carpets–it’s all gone.

The cat walks the new seamline
like a fence, at once exploring
and at home on teeter-toes.

© Taylor Graham

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