To me, the month of May is filled with celebration.  It's a time to enjoy all that life has to offer and thank God for the lives that surround me.  I am truly a blessed person and I will admit I do take it for granted some times.  Then there are the special celebrations and I am reminded of all I have and how grateful I should be for it all.    
    I am also blessed with the contribution of so many poets and artists who have enriched my life and I hope have brought enrichment to yours.  I know I try for a theme and to be honest I don't have one, so let the words within be the theme, enjoy them and use them as a means of inspiration to yourself.


Carefree Blithe Spirit
By Michael Levy. 2nd May 2003

Humm... why did that frog jump out
from that Lilly pond and onto the grass
verge, what was his purpose?
I believe he saw a lady frog
hopping around a rose bush
It is only my deliberation, of course
But I could be accurate
in my observations.
Now he has his tongue in her mouth
At least; I imagine it's her mouth
and I fancy it is his tongue
Maybe my observations aren't that clear?
I guess we can look forward to
lots of tadpoles!
I must say, I enjoy tadpoles
they seem like grown up sperm
who just have fun
and have no need
of a human body.
Carefree blithe spirit!
But one little tadpole
swam to the edge of the pond
He looked up at me and claimed;
"I was preordained to be a prince
now I will be a frog!"
Never mind I relied,
frogs don't make wars!


UNDER VISIBLE APPEARANCE A CERTAIN SENSE IS HIDDEN
 
I entered the noisy room,
Everyone was waving their hands in the air,
As if they were in Dante’s inferno
About to sink into a black, muddy river,
Or as if they were concentration camp victims
Crowed in a large hole before being buried alive
By lumps of dirt dropped from a flag-wrapped bull dozer.
Everyone was drinking light beer.
 
She in her Russian hat of blue fur came to greet me,
She, an icicle powdered with skin,
Long eyes lashes
Pasted on from bristles plucked from Amazon forest pigs.
Her pale blue eyes
Were colored contact lens covering her natural dull brown.
Her lips tinted red were tinted
From a vial she brought at the flea market.
The salesman with scars circling his forehead told her
It was the blood of someone who had died on a cross.
She was drinking a light beer.
 
I thought the hair in her wig was the most beautiful hair I’d ever seen.
I was informed that her hair, so blonde,  was shaved
From the head of a virgin who entered a nunnery in the Upper Andres
Where the snow keeps the light beer cold.
 
A bird flew into the room,
I thought it was an omen, something sacred.
Everybody laughed at me.
She, the blonde in the blue fur Russian style hat, laughed at me.
She and the other, speaking as chorus,
Said to me:
“Innocent, don’t you know that bird
Is the bird from the label of a light beer can.
 

CRUMBS OF TRUTH ARE SCATTERED EVERYWHERE

I, once upon a time, walked through the lobby
Of a fashionable, expensive hotel with colored water
Sprouting from Grecian urns in the lobby
To touch the bronze, polished doorknob
That was shaped like a California starfish.
As I turned the knob, I could feel the many bumps
On the starfish’s spread out fingers.
Such an event and its expense made me feel alive.
 
When I opened the door and entered the incensed room
That was named “The Seventh Heaven,”
I heard a crackling sound.
It was the ice crackling inside
A silver cooler with an embossed mythical bird
Circling around its contours.
Inside was an empty champagne bottle
With a label informing of the prices
If I wanted a real bottle of champagne.
I mortgaged my home and called room service.
I took my portable tape player
And recorded the sound of cracking ice.
So I could listen when I felt alone and depressed.
 
I felt so vital this night,
But in spite of the vitality
And expense,
I was still alone.
 
THE GUIDANCE OF SOMEONE
WHO DOES NOT KNOW IS NEEDED
 
I remember
I saw her in San Gimignano,
 
Only a glimpse
On this iterant market day.
 
Under an arch,
I watched her sampling Vino Santo
From small glasses lifted from raw wood.
 
I recorded  the event,
I record everything,
                              I recorded
The pin she wore,
 
A phoenix
With a cerulean blue tipping pale green wings
That fluffed
In the silk air over coral colored legs and claws.
 
When I saw her again in St. Petersburg, Florida,
I mentioned the pin
She wore in San Gimignano.
 
She puzzled looked at me, and  said “Yes,
On that same day,
I threw the pin into a well,
The pozzo
                In the city square.
It splashed, sent out three circles and sunk
Into darkness.
It reminded me of a betrayal.”
 
I said, “Since that day a long ago, I have often dreamed of you.”
She said,
              “I have often dreamed of the phoenix pin.”
 

FOR THE LACK OF TIME, I WILL NOT
PERMIT MYSELF TO DWELL ON IT NOW
 
Her shape often,
More often as I sip wine,
Returns
To tiptoe down the hallways in my brain.
It is puzzling, it is strange
That her shape never wears shoes.
Does not even wear shoes
When snow is heavily falling
During the coldest winters inside my brain.
Her shape
Always walks barefooted.
 
When she was with me
In other places besides my brain,
She always wore shoes,
Shoes that looked as if
They were cobbled
By the beliefs of the past.
When we were together
In a Piazza, San Croce of Florence,
A square in Amsterdam, Dam square,
Or in a shaft of light in the Black Forest,
She always wore shoes.
 
But her shape in my brain is always barefooted,
But the shape was changed
From the shape when we were together in the above places.
Now her shape still has the voluptuous contours,
But her shape seems the work of a taxidermist,
And her shape is filled with sawdust.
 

A POET STUDIES THE DECEPTIONS
WHICH LIE IN WAIT FOR HIM
 
My problem this Sunday morning is:
Should I move my one-armed arm chair
To the right.  No, that is where the roof leaks.
If I fell asleep in the chair, as I usually do
When after lunch I’m reading about Gilgamesh
Having problems with Ishtar, it might rain
And I would get wet.  I could move
The chair in the other direction, but this
Is where the plaster is cracked and white dust
Falls on everything near. I would have
To wipe the white dust off the page,
I have tendonitis in my elbow and such
A wiping motion would cause pain.
Now, if I move the chair nearer the door,
It would be disastrous for I could see
Where I live.  I’m trying to keep
This ugly and brutal neighborhood
A secret from myself.

Duane Locke


Bosnian Coffee

Grind beans to graphite.
'Not fine enough' Mensura says
Mohammud's chuckle rumbles 

Roast half-a-minute in the pot.
Gilded handle arches
Pot smalls at the brim 

A teaspoon heap for each half-demitasse.
'Refuge tore
the shirts off our backs
This ritual of coffee
is all we could carry' 

Add half-a-pot of boiling water. Stir.
A froth tans the surface
'Blood's not this thick' 

Add the other half.
Mohammud lights a Drina
It demures in his hand 

Secrete blackvenom into thimbles.
The oil's skin rises
into a rainbow of indigoes 

Don't let it sit.
'Bean ghosts grow bitter'
His laugh thunders
It frightens the Drina's smoke 

Place two sugar cubes beside each.
Sockheads bombed his house
They missed his laugh 

Dip the diamonds. Nibble.
War gnawed Sarajevo
His dirty jokes kept them sane 

Swig the silt. Repeat at 4pm.
Specks pepper the bottom
and haunt the cup


To Mary in Arizona #1

It didn't work
I was in love
Love slurs judgment
She galloped
Only she can tame herself
I have a hairline fracture
for a keepsake
Still love me?
 

Infidelity

Ethel I thought I'd stop by...
Henry what are you doing here? 
-Oh hello dear 

You told me
you put on your best sweater
for a lodge meeting 
-I'm having tea dear 

Tea? With Ethel? 
-Mildred
  We're not having sex
  We're having tea 

Henry
You're not capable
of sex anymore
You're capable
of tea

Drown Out

God tries to fill
a church with light
He never
succeeds 

Or maybe
He uses darkness
to accent
His point 

The windows
bleed sun
It drowns out
the pastor 

shifts focus
from the sermon
to Himself 

A hundred souls
sequestered in pews 
None listen

Each wonders
what God is doing
on His day off


For the Perfume

I thought She was woman
but She lets Her mortality slip
and I see the goddess 

Other women are fakes 
She alone
is worth worshiping

She finds me human
My praise amuses Her
My flaws are all I see dancing
in the mirror of Her eyes 

She's wrapped
in a mortal sari
Modest of Her perfections
Doesn't flaunt the cosmos
because veils drive a man wild 

She made the seasons
to show Her mood change
It's clockspins
calculated by sextant
yet seems coin flippant 

She made spring:
for the perfume
Summer:
to recall heart's swelter
Fall:
for the threat of life without Her
Winter:
a hint of Her wrath of silence 

Every kiss
is a prayer offered to Her
not just a curiosity
for the taste of Ambrosia
still on her lips

Every intimacy with Her
a sacrifice
of more than's in me 

Each worship is a devotion
to the goddess
feigning she's woman
 

-----------------------------------
All poems from 'The Year of Purple Lawn Furniture' (c2001 by J. Kevin Wolfe), a free ebook of poems in various reader formats.http://jkevinwolfe.home.att.net.

The author grants web publishing permission for free public viewing and one-time paper print rights of these 5 poems. All other rights reserved. Author also gives permission to publish his email address for reader comments. Poems have been submitted for consideration elsewhere.

Bio: J. Kevin Wolfe's poems have appeared in over 60 ezines and in a dozen print publications. His ebook, 'The Year of Purple Lawn Furniture', is the first lanchable Palm OS ebook.


MYOPIA, THE LOST WORLD

If you look through the right glasses
you see a different world. Maybe these
very lenses, sleek as an oceanliner
sailing out past the docks, beyond
the territorial waters of your father’s
latest rules – way past the miles
and miles of wheat fields where nothing
grows but Mondays; past the strip-
malls cut into birch woods
where they say wild harts used to run
so silently they ran clear out
of vision.

    If you look through the right
lenses you might see
a stag, or lobsters crawling sideways
up a rocky shore
like the first life onto land
that’s never been seen
before.


RISING

A nest of swallows, dead.
They look like baby birds alive
but without the heave of breathing,
the bright-as-a-question
eyes.

We itemize
how many things went wrong:
a storm out of season, icy rain
and then a sucking heat; mites
and ants and blowflies.

How rare
a fledging. But look,
over the pond a swoop of seven
swallows like
a miracle.


VOYEUR

What kind of bird is this in broad daylight
with slim windowed wings: nighthawk? unlikely
yet almost certain how it lifts and soars,
slips then to snap an insect – imagine how high
while I’m deep in mosquitos and green willow.

A snag across the meadow comes alive
with dying bugs down a red flicker’s gullet.
See how hunger gears this place, where I
wait here, well-enough breakfasted

but famished to watch blue sky pass over
an ambling creek, still looking for the unshod
print of a mythic beast.


VENTURE

He’s heading out
with a truckload of old furniture
bought on credit and unshakable faith
he’ll find treasure in broken junk.

No matter what she tells him,

yesterday was a quagmire
of failed years.
Tomorrow is the vanishing point
on a horizon splendid
with sunrise.

What matter, if today
is nothing at all?


THE SAME OLD CHANTY

Sailors on shore leave
stuff their omens in their pockets
as if they won’t really need
them, searching all night
for their land-legs
through every dark alley

like detectives in an empty vault.

So the tide comes in
fighting against breakwater,
before it gets sucked out again,
a sailor drawn back to ship
with his pockets empty
and his head full of omens.


LEAFLESS

His hearing’s gone in a silence
of birdsong at the edge of March,
his eyes catch only

the flicker of wings in the leafless
oak that’s gone to mistletoe, where three
woodpeckers kept their red crowns hidden

the entire week his old gray dog was dying.
At last, one of them flashed crimson
before it flew away.

Diagnostic, the woodpecker’s blood-red
crown. The old man’s almost forgotten,
he goes for more tests in the morning.

After birdsong and the brilliant whirring
of wings and the sound an old dog makes
between gruff and humming,

the doctors will tell him what’s left.
When no one’s listening
or looking too hard

into the speechless hard blue
of February air, the roots grumble
through thawing ground

like a dead dog flushing quail
in its sleep, so the covey deafens
on rising wings

and the woodpecker waits
with his crown.


-Taylor Graham
piper@innercite.com

A Miscellanae of Haiku

Richard H. Williams

Some good graffiti
buried in the midst of junk.
Can we sort it out?

Is Norman Rockwell
artist or illustrator?
I think he is both.

Maureen’s auburn hair
and her charming Irish lilt
and her stunning smile.

The old stage the war.
Young pay a terrible price.
What price victory?

We see the white flash.
The sound of thunder follows.
Light travels so fast.

Orange Juice Simpson;
legendary running back;
now in disrepute.

Tenessee Williams;
dramatist, poet, genious;
croaked on bottle cap.

Henny Youngman,
a standup comedian.
One liners---great stuff!

By starting sooner,
could have been a contender.
Now I write with haste.

Matisse---Joy of life;
Vincent Van Gogh---Starry Night;
Rockwell---Four Freedoms

The professor knew
she was ripe for seduction,
and she knew it too.

The best in the clutch;
a real legend in motion;
basketball’s Jordan.

Kerouac is good,
and so is William Burroughs.
I favor Ginsberg.

Thomas Jefferson,
brightest of our presidents,
but not the best one.

Under the moonlight,
the river stretched like a snake,
the water bubbling.

The End



Essay

    Well, I must admit that the flag that flies outside the front gate of my yard is of the rainbow type; a bit tattered from the Michigan winter, but the meaning behind it stays the same for me just as the dove with the olive branch painted within it signifies that anyone (or any beast) regardless of race, creed, colour, sexual orientation and food preferences is welcome here. 
Many of my neighbours fly the stars and stripes outside yet there is some sort of acceptable bigotry that taints the colours and meaning behind being an American patriot which I find quite hypocritical--I tried to explain this once to some and was immediately labeled unpatriotic which is totally untrue.  But, I think the following paragraph might have said it even better than I could possibly do so.

     There were some little flags missing in the neighbourhood from several houses--the kind that are stuck into the ground or a potted plant.  Thieves perhaps; the reasonings were flying as was the anger at such a crime.

    While bringing the dogs back from their morning walk, I entered the backyard and did my usual observing and pondering when something caught my eye.  Up in the fir trees were many of those tiny American flags woven into a nest by the squirrels and birds.  I don't know how or when they did it, but they sure worked hard at gathering each and every one from the block and carrying them up the into the trees, sticks and all.  I grinned and ran to gather up the accusing neighbours and told them that the perpetrators had been caught--"please follow me".
Well, the neighbours could do nothing but laugh in disbelief at the stars and stripes interwoven so peacefully within a nest, and me, well I think the squirrels said it all in a way that finally may have taught a lesson as to the real meaning behind being patriotic and accepting unconditionally one and all simply because we exist as brothers and sisters no matter what...
Like the rainbow flag, tattered and torn, some answers simply are right in front of our eyes if we just look ahead, listen and ponder instead of judging everyone...It is called learning...it is called wisdom.

Aaron M. LaFlora


Reviews

    As mentioned in the previous issue, I've got two CD's for review.  The first is from the group ALL I SEE IS RED.  This Toronto based group presents an eclectic mixture of  funk, acid jazz and rock through the interaction and intertwining of the four instruments.  It's a style that invites you to be a part, it caresses and brings you deep within it and allows you to sample the mixture in a buffet of rhythms and flow.  As I listened to the self-titled CD I thought that this is not a finished band but one embarking on an evolution of their style.  It comes together and there is still plenty of area of growth.  This is the beauty of a mixture, it is not formatted nor pigeon-holed.  This is not a group that will release the same type of CD, but I can understand each should be different and a unique presentation.
    If you want more information on the group, visit the website: http://www.reelaudiomedia.com.

    The other CD is from Earnest Woodall and is titled: "Time to Think".  It's a compilation of a number of his past CD's and allows the listener to sample a number of his works.  As I listened to the various tracks I thought I could detect styles that have been developed and styles that were discarded.  This is a good thing since some of the early works I thought had a rather tinny, almost toy instrument sound to it.  However, let me say that the few that I disliked were compensated by the number I enjoyed.  I liked the songs from the CD's "13" and "Strike, Light, Puff".  Consider this a sampler of his work and as I mentioned in my review of his CD, "Pictures in Mind", it's music that relaxes you and then he does something that grabs your attention and makes you listen to the various layers of sound.
    For more information, visit his website at: http://www.ewoodall.com.

Closing Words
    This is all I need to say, you have the poems, haikus, essays and reviews.  If anything inspires you follow the links and learn more.  If it causes you to chases those muses you have just been at the side trying to inspire you, then let this be your start.  As always, work is welcomed and posted.  The copyright belongs to the authors, respect their creativity.  If you want to quote anything I've said, just add my name.
pabear_7@yahoo.com