So another month begins. I was reading some of the poems from last year and what came to mind is the sense of sadness that has become the legacy of September. What comes to mind are the events of 9-11, or Beslen in Russia, and certainly we in North America have witnessed the devastation of New Orleans. It seems that the Canadian band The Tragically Hip are not rockers but seers and prophets. They wrote a song, I believe it was on their second album, it certainly was their first hit New Orleans is Sinking. Here's what they wrote:
Bourbon blues on the street
loose and complete
Under skies
all smoky blue-green
I can
Forksake the dixie dead shake
So
we dance the sidewalk clean
My
memory is muddy what's this river I'm in
New
Orleans is sinking and I don't want to swim
Other events that are the
sadness of September is the Munich Olympic massacre, when members of
a radical Palestinian group assaulted the Olympic village and
kidnapped a number of Israeli athletes. Eventually these
athletes were murdered. I wonder why September should have this
as their legacy?
Well, we come to a new month,
the time when the colours come alive and harvest is coming to an
end. By the end of the month, children will be dressed up as
goblins, ghouls and the latest character they watch on
television.
A good diversion when you think about it, worth the effort to dress
up. I think it's my turn this year to hand out the candy, so
when you stop at my house, you better have a good costume.
I have more to say at the end of the issue.
Poetry
Our
first three poems come from Vince Gullaci, who calls himself an
aussie poet living in Italy.
Hope for more
but
our vision
was impaired
foresight
less than required
to
achieve
that clarity
of sound
and
meaning.
FORLORN
See
the insight
diamond sharp
to cut the dross
is not a prism
to
divide
the light.
MIRROW
IMAGE
I forgot
how
i wrote
about myself
you better remind me
or i might think
i
am
someone else.
vince gullaci
Yellow Pencil Bus When I'm in a boring meeting or class I pretend my pencil is a bus, a long yellow school bus and I drive it around and between my books and pads, cups and computer, careful not to crash it or drive it off the edge of the table or desk onto the floor. I've driven my yellow pencil bus for decades now, having gotten my license way way back in grade school. I recall one embarrassing time during Health Class, I was deeply engaged in driving carefully along the edge of my desk when suddenly Mr. S. yelled out, "And Mr. Estabrook, what is your assessment of the proper age for courting in suburban America?" Maintaining my license is harder these days, what with all those computers and palm pilots and cell phones to have to steer around, but I'm determined to keep driving my little yellow pencil bus as long as they keep making pencils and as long as I have to waste my time in boring meetings or classrooms which I suspect might be forever or until I run out of gas. ALICE D. CAHOON & AUNT LUCY walking with my children in the Chatham cemetery on Cape Cod; we see graves of soldiers from the Civil War and the War of 1812 buried beneath broken headstones. my 8 year old daughter is amazed that the shortest lives were nameless twins, born and died on the same day. and my son marvels at all the sea captains lost at sea. the oldest person was Alice D. Cahoon, who lived from 1883 to 1987. and on one stone is only the name, "Aunt Lucy." and we wondered how it would be to be known throughout all eternity simply as Aunt Lucy. fishing pole Do something you love before it's too late, follow your bliss keeps pecking away in my skull like a woodpecker pecking at an old hollow tree, the same thing day in and day out, commuting into work, sitting in fucking traffic, listening to dopey tunes and sad news on the radio, getting to my dirty little office and emailing, faxing and phoning my little business tasks, waiting as the weeks pass and the months and the years, until I can rest, sitting on some dusty bank with a fishing pole in one hand and a cold beer in the other which is looking really good Oak Trees and Rhododendrons Sitting with my sore back in yet another stupid business meeting in this boring board room, reviewing R&D schedules, shipping delays, communications protocols, sales numbers, and marketing plans. But there are windows (thank God) and outside I see the trees and bushes, mostly oak trees and rhododendrons, all shiny green in the pretty yellow sun, moving ever so slightly in the warm breezes, like ballerinas resting between dances. And I'm wondering, (trying to ignore the business prattle) how in the hell I got myself stuck in meetings such as this and if and when I can get myself the hell out. to me this morning. Michael Estabrook 4 Valley Road Acton, MA 01720 mestabrook@comcast.net
The HOLE AT THE CENTRE
Carcass
work
as diesel dinosaurs tear mouthfuls of a 1950's shopping
mall.
Then the site is scoured,
reduced to a pit feeding gold
sand
to a supermarket queue of trucks.
So many loads - as
if
each of its shoppers had left behind one grain,
history can
be weighed in tonnage
& that, by itself, has meaning.
Soon,
a new temple is promised -
the therapy & disease of Getting
Stuff.
"A shopping experience", those bright gods of
graphite phrases -
"collateral damage". "FOUR NEW
DEPARTMENT STORES!"
Two
plastic hoses christen the dust
as equipment punctures, bites &
shuffles.
Mall missionaries pray before malignant stalks of
cranes,
a sky with needlestick.
200 truck movements per day,
when finished 1800 more cars.
Faded curtains now hang
over
empty space, the final markdown.
This is news
as
inevitable as the next war.
Nearby homes cringe as dollars
stain
the air.
EXPLODING INK TRICK
After
the order
with sidesalad & fries
asked if I'd like anything
else.
I want to change lives.
One-day
there will be a poem
that people can blame.
Something read
but
with a dread
in doing so, as if opening one book will blind
or
blast away.
Would
people leave their homes
for poetry?
Put
me rolled in some stranger's lounge room.
To be the smoke shooting
down towards the lung -
the cough, the grin, appetite.
Me
at the corner
of the new path,
when people all do a 90.
I'd
be the thief, the victim
& the proof.
I
want fresh lies
with the paint fumes still dancing.
Surgeons
loiter in cafes
because poetry cures cancer.
I
want to be the last Communist
shrieking at 4WDs from an empty bus
interchange.
Join
a coven of readers
boiling frogs & frightening pensioners.
My
work would be the liquor of civil disobedience -
riding that one
shaft of sunlight
as it hits the police horse's eye.
Horse
bolts -
screams & chaos
glass toothpicks, the pyre
of
the late model BMW as bent little students lose it on TV.
To be
lost in my own riot
Then
poetry would be the only balm
for those injured
in the blasts
of meaning.
Don't
want autograph requests -
prefer to pass sentence
in brushed
pink judicial robes
then share it with the prisoner.
Write
for & to television
until it's old enough
to move out.
Still
not enough,
wouldn't have it any other way.
Alchemy never
worked
(though jobs were welcome in better towers).
It's the
mix,
& an explosive glimpse of
maybe.
MY BRONTE BEACH
is
the loudmouth in the waves singing "Summertime".
It's
actors, politicians
pensioners & the kids - minus all
trappings -
no status beyond "animal with soul".
It
is the dominance of birds
politely ignored by undercover dogs.
Someone
known - just out of hospital -
totters back to the sea
like a
great old turtle.
Cedars of lebanese legs copse around BBQs, 5
o'clock shadow.
A bum's washing dries on the memorial quartz
beside
buffed girls laughing like lawn sprinklers.
Over
the years it's become a community of friends,
the accretion of
small tragedy that attends every understood life.
It's my wife, on
a salt encrusted
wafer of towel, spiced
by utter quiet. The sun
disinfects.
I
write the words,
then a photographer captures me:
grey, round
and affixed as the fence posts.
We don't own ourselves
but each
one,
we all have separate Brontes.
The sand takes the shape of our need.
Les Wicks
3/105 Ebley St
Bondi Junction 2022
NSW Australia
CLAIRE WAKING
The faucet drips, irritating.
You cup
your hands to catch
the trickle, a prelate
at absolution in
first light.
Words come unbidden out of sleep,
backwoods of
the mind: FAUCET,
PRELATE, STOREHOUSE, GNATS.
Already the
mind’s night-forest
dims. WHAT GOOD IS POETRY?
loud
from out on the street.
But from the untended depths
beyond
the garden, a creature
runs from tree to tree unshaven,
shadows
at the edge of clearing.
I WILL NOT BE PRESSED comes
as
if shaken out of sleep.
Laundry, breakfast, errands.
The
wildness of your mind,
your own backyard.
FUGUE
These
are the chords that bind this morning:
the organ’s Christmas
voices and the bells,
and how crystal distances distort a
music
repeated down an icicled drain, or drifted
to the pasture
snowed over by December.
Under these colossal pipes the
morning’s muted
light stained by praise, cords of his
wrists
at the keyboard touch such chords and then
improvise
colors. The bell-ringer listens,
waits, then grips to lunge
against the rope
with numb fingers, and wring out the redoubled
one true tone; while in pairs the townsfolk
file down to
fill the church with holiday-
remembered song, while hungering for
the feast
that comes after. Of his playing, they’ll
notice
little – whether the chords strike
right or wrong. He’ll
just remember music.
A DECENT LIVING
Life goes on
like cattle to market,
she says. Fatten and feed.
Imagine
yourself a poet
among the priests of slaughter.
Just bring your
paycheck home
and don’t be late for dinner.
She’s
caught up in migraines.
Outside, the world is swirling
to an
extravagant rococo sunset,
phosphorescent bacteria emerging
out
of loam, the autumnal equinox
stacking its firewood.
How
many words for a dime?
Every poem you dreamed last
night
shortchanged. A crown of sonnets
beginning and ending
with the phrase
“I wish.” The horizon
still at the
back of your mind.
Taylor Graham
piper@innercite.com
These next two poems come from
Aleksandr Klochkov, a student of Dina Televitskaya
She
In soul was darkly,
In soul
became brightly -
At my life She has appeared!
Once again about stars
In the sky a star
-
flickers and shines
In the dark --winter sky-
Hundreds,
thousand, millions stars, asterisks.
How they are far from us,
How
are amicable and mysterious!
Many from them is similar to the
blue-eyed Earth .
Suddenly one star somewhere has departed
With
a fluffy fiery tail
Behind of itself …
Falling of her is
fine!
But only it - is her fading, her the last seconds of life
…
The fluffy tail has disappeared.
Only small spark has
reached the earth,
The terrestrial woman has inhaled her together
with air.
And soon the child was born - the girl.
And in the
sky, in constellation of the Scorpion,
Has flashed,
Modest, but
a joyful asterisk,
Which still has no name.
By
Copyright V# All Rights Reserved by Wolf Larsen
Check out Wolf Larsen’s dynamic book of poetry Eulogy for the Human Race. Poems include White Man Living in Harlem, Conversations with Red and Blue and Green, a Prostitute, I am the Poet, Jesus Christ Sitting in the Electric Chair, Florescent Lakes at the Knitting Factory, and many others. Much of the poetry in Eulogy for the Human Race has been published in literary magazines. You can now buy Eulogy for the Human Race at Amazon.com or other online book retailers.
http://www.amazon.com
Wolf Larsen is an adventurer, novelist,
playwright, and poet. He has traveled
through 45 countries in Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and
Asia. To pay for his travels Wolf worked
as a seasonal laborer in Alaska. Wolf has
lived in Chicago, Wisconsin, New York City, Ecuador, Honduras, Brazil,
and Peru. His two autobiographical novels
are Unalaska, Alaska and Travel Around the World? Why Not?! Wolf˜s
book of poetry Eulogy for the Human Race can
be purchased at Amazon.com and other online book retailers. .
They are calling this the cleanest war in all of military
history.
--Tom Brokaw, April 2, 2003
Tell that to the ravens
plucking out eyes
on the
blood-packed sand
To fathers cradling
the last of their hopes
in the torn
bodies of sons
To young girls swelling
with the unwanted gifts
of swift
strong soldiers
To mothers and wives
pulling veils of grief
over their faces
as they wash the dead
Tell the children
who wander dazed
with thirst, alone
among rat-swarmed ruins
how lucky they are
Closing the cabin for the winter
Pine shadows stripe the blacktop,
vine maples spill gold on
the road,
willows dance orange tangos in the breeze
as we drive
to the lake in late October.
Our voices skim across whitecaps, disappear.
Squirrels chatter,
dig pine nuts out of cones.
Jays demand sandwich scraps
the
year is too old to provide.
On the far shore a loon pulls down a rain cloud.
We hear the
slap of rising waves on the shore.
Lightning slashes through
steamy black wool,
insects shrill their alien tongues.
Around us the air explodes with sound.
The storm breaks over
our heads
like soup bowls thrown at a wall and I
want to cower
with the dogs under the bed.
Next morning with pipes drained, windows shuttered,
we leave in
the first sprinkles of snow.
The mountain prepares itself for
winter—
lake black in the coming cold, voices silent.
Thicket
The little girl in a red shirt
led me straight to her
Thicket,
stood outside its shrouded door,
invited me in.
Cracking my head
on a low-hanging branch
I crimped my long
body,
crept through the maze.
Hands on hips she surveyed
her kingdom—three small
rooms
pruned from the privet tangle
around an old oak stump.
On a quilt, a tooth-marked cookie,
half-dressed doll,
turned-over truck.
On the stump a cat in camouflage.
On a snag
a beaded purse.
Urged to sit, I folded my legs,
aware I might never be able to
rise,
and solemnly sipped warm water from the single cup.
She
sipped some water, too.
When the time came to take my leave
I crawled, hands and knees,
into the garden.
Looked for a wall, hauled myself to my feet
to
the sound of a young queen
singing.
Artist’s Trunk
I want to ride
in the back of Sylvia’s car,
curled
under the lid
of her trunk,
make a nest in the textiles
jumbled
there: the pink
towel with white roses
wadded against
magenta
terry,
the royal blue nylon
sleeping bag bunched
on sky-blue
dropcloth.
I want to bury my face
in the down pillow,
wrap my
shoulders
in a purple cobweb
of lacy wool shawl,
shove my
feet
into the beaded
leather slippers.
I want to ride
home to Sylvia’s studio
snuggled in
orange jacket,
crimson robe
and suck on a green
spearmint
drop
as I float
among colors like flavors,
textures like
songs,
paintings like poems.
Passport
Age 85, he strides into the fast photo place,
eyes the
young man in necktie
and slicked-back hair, announces
he’s
here for a passport picture.
Watches, with a twitch of the
lip,
the young eyes widen.
Big trip coming up? A smirk in the
voice.
The elder says, No, son,
I just want to be ready.
He
can see the lad thinking
of a round-the-world cruise
celebrating
a full century
of creaky living, says,
I also buy growth stocks
and green bananas.
Patricia Wellingham-Jones
Former psychology researcher, writer, editor, lecturer Patricia Wellingham-Jones has recently been published in Edgz, Ibbetson Street Press, HazMat Review. She is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Her newest books are Belt of Transit (PWJ Publishing) and Hormone Stew (Snark Publishing); website is www.wellinghamjones.com .
I am pleased to report the continuing evolution of abovegroundtesting as an avenue for presenting some of the best poetry and creative inspiration in the Internet today. I have commenced a podcast. Yes that's right besides the print, or should I say digital edition I am planning to produce an audio version of the ezine, or at least audio that shares the name. Podomatic.com is providing both the tools and the server to people to get on this new media expression. Since it is free I decided to take opportunity My address is paulg57.podomatic.com. So if you follow the link you can either download the program or listen to it directly. Just because the word 'pod' appears doesn't mean you have to have a iPod; in fact it will sound good coming through your computer or any other mp3 player you may have available.
I'm using the program Audacity, which is a free open source digital audio editor. I'm still playing around with it, so probably some of the next few programs will be rough sounding as I try to manipulate the controls and add things to the podcast. My hope is that many of you, some of you will make mp3 files of your poetry so that the listeners can hear you speak your own words, giving us the verbal and emotional meanings to your works. Also if you create music, then send some of those files along as well. I am also thinking of doing some interviews and post them in upcoming episodes, but this is going to take some time. This can be exciting and should open new arenas for abovegroundtesting. Again let me say, don't expect this all to happen by the second issue or third, it's going to be a work in progress so please be patient.
This does not mean the end of abovegroundtesting the magazine. I still plan to produce and post the issue each month and the podcast willl enhance each issue.
When you follow the link to podomatic, you will find another email address in which you can send the audio files. You can also send them to paul@abovegroundtesting.com as well.
All work is copyright by the various authors, respect them.
This is produced under a Creative Commons Licence.