July 2006                                                                         issn 1488-0024                                                                        Issue 87


    So with this issue, the tradition continues.  The tradition of providing an avenue for creative people to have their works published and acknowledge.  This issue features old friends and new contributors so as always, get your beverage of choice, site back and read the screen, or print it off and find an easy lounge chair under that big tree in the back yard and enjoy.


Poetry

    Our first poet for the issue is Lea Simpson.  She sent three poems for you to read.  This is her first time contributing to this ezine, and I hope it won't be the last.   I should put one of those warnings: the following poems contains mature language and themes, viewer discretion is advised.  Still you will have a wry smile on your face as you read them:



HOW TO TELL

Relationships change and you’ll notice when they do
She’ll stop sighing “fuck me”
Start shouting “fuck you”


 I HEART NEW YORK

New York, New York
How can I thank you?
Shall I don some leather, a titillating torque
Bend you over my knee and spank you?

Or would you prefer the brush of my lips
A teasing glance
And the sway of my hips
As I ask you to dance?

I could send you flowers
Really romance you
Lie sky clad in your blustery showers
Run off and take a chance on you

It’s about time I showed some appreciation
For what you skilfully achieve
If you’re not a figment of imagination
Then next time I visit I don’t think I’ll leave



I KNOW WHY GOD GAVE ME A SMILE

In moments like these when I’m so damn chuffed
And the biggest damn smile still isn’t big enough

Like a huge damn tide coming in across my face
It’s a giant damn smile that’s all over the place

It’s like a special kind of yoga only for lips
Stretching until my dimples unzip

It’s a massive damned smile and I know without it
I would have damned surely completely ignited

I hope you like them, but if you don't, please let me know anyway.


Lea Simpson

---

 Our next poem is another first timer, S. Gormley.  This poem gives us an interesting perspective. 
   As well, the style comes through and I'm glad it was able to translate onto these pages.



Somebody's Done For
    
    i am not sure they are always there con-
    fusing me sometimes
    we seem to be each
    other
    
    as they babble away
    i overhear the incoherent
    sense of our muttering debates
    
    
    i'm tired of being
    kept awake
    
    
    we talk through one another
                                            endlessly
                                                           failing
                                                                    to real-ize
                                                                                   myself
                                                                                             within
                                                                                                      this dialogue
                                                                                                                          of
    dis-ease
    
    
    i'm sick of not-being
    able to cease
    
    
    But soon I shall put an end
    To their mindless jabber
    And plunge myself into a silent pool.
    
    My plan glitters in my hand
    I am nobody's fool.
    
    
    
    By S.Gormley

---

    Johanna DeBiase sent this poem.  If you Google© her name, you will discover she's been quite a traveller.  You can read her biography at the end of the poem.

Spoken poem

By far worse to be solemn
When you have no good reason
Crying to songs by men
Who took their lives or men
Who would beg to give you their
Heart or women who can no
Longer continue to forgive these men
Imagining yourself awkwardly
Greeting a radiant magi
Who looks into your heart
And immediately pulls out the pain
That you have spent months
In therapy trying to locate
Wondering what the secret
Password will be to open you
Back up again like when you were
A child and you climbed trees
Fearlessly, unself-consiously
And death was still a television
Show that people spoke of like it
Was important to their lives and
Your adult self is ashamed
To be American, longing for the
Invisible snufulufagus but
When you are alone all
You can do is filter tap water
And wash your feet covered in
Toxic deet and Bangkok caked
On dirt wishing you were
more artist than moody
more exotic than just a sulking
white woman in the throws of
a showdown with a boyfriend
too sensitive to let you be harsh
and crude and not sensitive enough
to let you speak soft and
meager like a shadow of a tourist
instead of a fighting foreign couple
in the midst of the night street market
on a buddhist holiday where
people throw flowers down
the river realizing for
the first time that meditation
might not be enough to heal
you this time, or travel or
poetry because you are “supposed”
to be happy and instead you are
cruel to yourself, unchecked,
uncensored, you wallow in the belief
that there is no more magic,
wild destinies or romantic
coincidences left for you-
this is it and it is up to you
to figure out how to work
your way like a worm in the
soil to the surface
just after the rain.

Johanna DeBiase, who is living in New Mexico, has taught creative writing at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks.  She has published in Hysteria: An Anthology of Poetry, Prose and Visual Arts (LunaSea Press, 2003), SNReview.com and Alaska Women Speak.  She received her MFA from Goddard College, Plainfield, VT.

---

 Another new poet is Angie Maeots.

Chateau De La Gardine

Flourished, the vintage affection of elegant talent
drizzled lightly in the exploration of a drowning yacht,
 resurfaced, only through amiable bailing,
continual, until the waves desist,
the ocean arid,
then lingers,
submerged in the dip of the shoreline.
 

The Panel Discussions.

The morning was hopeful,
hundreds of round tables,
complementary breakfast,
glorious hot coffee,
and murmurs of conversation that
vibrated in ceiling lights worth thousands.

The panel spoke confidently on
building low income housing,
and community initiatives,
then worked on empowering the people,
as they attempted to sell their projects,
flipping slides so swiftly,
one would have to buy their books.

Somehow, just around noon,
they managed to speak
on the city starving around us,
and the server leaned to ask,
how I would like my steak done.

There should have been a strategy,
while speaking to a room of a thousand people,
on how our city holds addictions,
mental illnesses, and homeless
that continue to be 'a problem, '
(there is no funding available
for social services in the district) .

There should have been direction,
but without a change of attitude,
lost will be community,
values diminishing,
as we continue
to fear our safety
going door to door.

They gave us all a vision,
but I had been sold this morning,
as I was carefully uncrumpling each bill...rapt for a solution.

---

Debora Short brings us this selections of  poetry.  She is another of the new poets to the ezine:



Evil Wears a Shock Collar

 
The animal growls
Continually, lunging
Behind that invisible barrier
At my frightened
And blind chocolate lab

 
Hurrying to pack
This trips memory
I shiver in a
Ninety degree drive

 
Twenty hours round trip
Every other week
Living out of suitcases
Leaves me feeling disordered

 
I.N.T.J.s are seldom
Good captives…
The exception,
I am not

 
Reading to pass the time...
I am struck by:
“Never shall I forget those moments
that murdered my God
and my soul and turned my dreams into ashes.”

 
I think of the neighbor
Who electrifies
His yard to keep in
A rottweiler


 And shoots at
Nutrias with a bb gun
For entertainment

 
And then, I understand
A bit better
Wiesel’s “Night”*

 
Debora Short
~ May 31,2006
Somewhere in the Smokies

 

 

 

Mowing Mountains and Weeding Dreams

 
And the sign read:

 
“Mowing mountains and weeding dreams;
I’ll get back to you as soon as I re-stall
my yoke and my mule.”

 
Known by most
As the strong one
She mowed

 
Weeds that grew
Nearly shoulder high
Such heavy burdens

 
On her shoulders
Slowly, tamed by titanium
Reinforced legs
And, an old push-mower

 

Debora Short
June 6, 2006 ~
Mountaintop Cottage, Tennessee

 

 

Fabled Calm

 
Yesterday, when I was angry
With the world
And made you cry…

 
I went and climbed
that sanctified hill
where our new dreams should begin…
and I found that fabled calm

 
Where the bluebirds come
And twitter
In that smaller thorn tree…

 
The one that looks
As if it was the one …
Where they made His
Crown of thorns…

 
Standing at the kitchen window
Our evening meal…complete
We quietly watched
The doe wander down
To feed on that newly greened grass

 
I wondered if you followed
Me back up to that sacred space...
Would those bluebirds return?

 

Debora Short
April 10,2006 ~
Mountaintop, Tennessee

Go to: poemhunter.com to download Debora Short's eBook of poetry. A hardcover version will be available for purchase at Barnes and Noble Booksllers, Amazon .com Booksellers , Borders Books and most major European booksellers in the late Summer.

---

 Our friend Taylor Graham returns with her work.  If you've never visited one of those deathclock.com sites she refers to, it might be worth your while.  The premise is they can determine the length of your lifespan as you give them your vitals.  It's probably similar to those insurance tables.  Probably not for anyone who believes a little too much in fate. 


ELEVATOR TO THE 7th FLOOR

She feels herself rising
like a throaty torch song
abruptly stopped, and then
the door trembles open.
Now, so far above pavement,
so very far from home,
she stands at the parapet
looking down. She doesn’t
recognize this world –
the tiny building blocks,
a line of palms, the beach
purple in fading light.
Farther, adagio of fog-
horns, her prospects like
a small boat ocean-bound.


DEATH_CLOCK.COM

This is not the clock I was looking for
when I clicked on the link
that popped up “the Internet’s
friendly reminder that life is slipping
away.” Actually, I was wondering

about the value of my dad’s
old striking time-piece,
the one he took to the nursing home
to mark the passing of each
eternal hour of a sleepless night.

Instead, I learn my personal Death Day
is just 676,878,739 seconds (oops,
make that 737) away.
When I wake on that fated Monday
I’ll let Morning fix my hair

and take the first of the last
deep breaths, and let my eyes go
wandering over every-
thing, everything, every
thing.

HOME ALONE, MEDITATION

The rest of the family gone to Vegas
for the slot machines,
you sit at a blessedly empty table,
staring out the window
at flowering quince, just now
a burning bush; at one speckled pebble,
seed of a zen garden; at the sun’s
swing-low chariot illuminating clouds
spun onto a spindle, silently
gathering weather in their wool.

And in all this peaceful landscape,
the shadows cast by two
strangers in white shirts and ties
striding up your walk
to give you God.


Taylor Graham

piper@innercite.com

---

 Dr. Charles Fredrickson writes to us from Thailand:

Disposable Human Garbage

Hoodwinked neighborhood under occupied siege
Unruly no man’s corrosive wasteland
Dreaded fear and hopeless distrust
Stoking desensitized raw nerve trepidation

Daytime slayings become routinely common
In once-prosperous normally quiet havens
Fortified compound gates slammed shut
Temporarily sealing off unspeakable violence

Concertina wire thwarting rogue demons
Barbed promises infecting unhealable wounds
Rumors spread like decomposing garbage
Mangled corpses sewage ditch dumped

Abandoned shops barred windows shuttered
Short-changed trading places storefronts defaced
Petrol stations running on empty
Disillusioned outcasts rescinding overstayed welcome

Remotely uncontrollable militia roadside bombs
Drive-by shootings no exit dead-ends
Phony checkpoints targeting shell-shocked convoys
Maneuvering potholes spewing upchucked asphalt

Uncivil war undermining booby trapped
Stratagem adversarial chessmen cutting corners
Droves fleeing anywhere else bound
Checkmate forcing victimized pawn moves


The World’s Longest Reigning Monarch

Royal Barge Procession

Imminence glistening under pompous sun
Ceremonial royal barge procession commemorating
Ninth Chakri’s sixty years’ achievements
Resplendent pageantry cut through time

Breaking waves rushing current slowed
River of Kings’ meandering wake
His Royal Majesty enthroned beneath
Inlaid rainbow mosaic in-spired canopy

Both mirror image hyacinthine banks
Lined with statuesque bronze loyalists
To honor fluorescent monarch butterfly
Outspread brocade wings gemstone sparkle

Chanting Royal Thai Navy rowers’
Movements synchronized backhanded gilded oars
Alternately held aloft dipped in
Unison then reaching heavenward again

Sri-Supanahongsa Brahma’s magnificent golden swan
Vishnu’s Garuda Ramakien monkey warriors
Striped tigers astride scaly serpents
Horned dragons with protruding fangs

Dusky Temple of Dawn silhouetted
Meritorious saffron robes propitious oblation
Fervent winds respectful patriotism borne
Floral flames bursting nighttide air



Uprooted Transplants

Oil slick forehead thorny crown
Branding iron creases permanently furrowed
Flexed muscle tattoos writhing dragons
Turnaround psyches resurrecting former lives

Yellowish soiled fingertips tobacco stained
Scanning Braille bumpy road blisters
Smudged thumbprints inky platinum swirls
Curved indelible ridges phalanx impressions

Mud-caked Bronze Age cracked knuckles
Split fingertips bent hammerhead nails
Cutting edge ploughshares rusty grit
Stuck in wrinkly puckered rut

Misbegotten shady canines howling at
Shivering sun’s intense demonic glare
Ghosts bodiless as gut instinct
Levitate behind unhinged trap door

Dr. Charles Fredrickson

Adapted Thai poEtpourri structural scheme 4-line 20-word write on stanzas Befitting offbeat reason without rhyme Un-author-ized style consciously punctuation free


A Swedish-American pragmatic idealist, chronic optimist and heretical believer, Dr. Charles Frederickson has wandered intrepidly through 206 countries, an original sketch and poetic impression for each presented on
http://imagesof.8k.com. The Bangkok Bard is currently spreading rejuvenated
roots and fine-feathered wings in Thailand. 100+ poems published on 5 continents. Pax vobiscum.

---

Suchoon Mo returns with a poem that appeared in an issue of Shampoo.  Shampoo is an online poetry ezine and it's very interesting. 

Zen March

In Japanese
Zen

In Chinese
Chan

In Korean
Seon

But they mean the same
permutation or not


Zen Chan Seon
Zen Seon Chan

Chan Zen Seon
Chan Seon Zen

Seon Zen Chan
Seon Chan Zen

One Two Three
Left Right Left

Left Zen Chan
Right Seon Chan

Go Go Go
Come Come Come

Yup Yup Yup
Chap Chap Chap

Egg Too Yang
Yang Too Old

Won Tong Soup
No No No

Ing Yang soup
Yes Yes Yes

Zou En Light
Mao Zee Dung

Three Fleas Jump
Hop Hop Hop

One Two Three
Left Right Left

Three old monks
Marching on

Suchoon Mo, Shampoo, Issue 22, November 2004

---

---

I get mail

 I do get letters of appreciation and thanks over the course of the years, and usually I keep them to myself.  But because this is an anniversary issue I decided to publish this letter from Si Wakesberg.

Dear Paul Gilbert

    I don't usually write appreciative letters to editors-but you did something I never thought would occur- publish a poem of mine six pages long! I not only thank you for that but for the very kind words you wrote in introducing the poem.

    That poem- "A Bronx Hamlet" has been written, rewritten, revised, done over may times since I began it maybe 10 years ago. Thanks again, Paul, for publishing it.

Si Wakesberg


Yes, rules are changing.  If you have long poems you wish to have printed, please submit.  If it is in multiple selection, let me know that it is one work so I will showcase it as one work.  As for his comment on the length of time preparing the work, I think we've all got one or two poems we've been working on for quite a long time.

Closing Words

    Another issue is finished.  I mentioned Avant Garde Times in the opening and decided to re-visit the site.  If you are unfamiliar it was a ezine dedicated to showcasing poems and other literary arts that considered on the fringe, experimental and alternative themes.  Perhaps it is a wave of nostalgia  but I was thinking that September will be a special edition of abovegroundtesting.  It will be an issue of Avant Garde Times.  What that means is its all open, do whatever there are no restraints.  To quote Prince, let's go crazy.  Remember, this is for September.   If you want a theme for August, let's think about summer fun, kicking back drinking a cool one.  Visualize pools, patio laterns and BBQ's for the suggestions.

As always, the poems are copyright by the authors, respect their rights.  Everything else is published under a Creative Commons Licence. Long live  Creative Commonism and the copyleft.

www.abovegroundtesting.com  
paul@abovegroundtesting.com