| |
|
|
Winter 2004
Dislocation
On waking you find yourself: Elsewhere.
Head turn to the left: No clock.
To the right: No window.
Foot of the bed: No door.
Shrug.
Sleep.
On waking you find yourself: Alone.
The curve of the next pillow: Empty
Morning noises from above: None
Bathroom gargling: Absent.
Worry.
Sleep.
On waking.
Jump out of bed, startled
again the dream, just a dream
The treacle-run tells of sheet-tangled legs
Where?
A largely hidden door reveals: first landing.
Worn carpet.
Shared bathroom.
Somewhere else.
A dainty, 30's tiptoe brings stubbed toe cursing
Fuckingshitbastard fuckowowowowow
Who the fuck left that there?
A lawnmower.
On the landing
And slothlike memory bestrides the blades
and brings back smells and sounds of later days
"That smell is the lawn's thankyou for a lovely haircut"
and smiles wreath your pain as you catch up quickly on the day
and the circumstance of lawmowers on the landing
Gauche critic
Copyright © 2004
Photogenic
Mother sketches a calendar of color,
pencils in a blossom schedule.
From crocus to chrysanthemum,
rows carefully arranged by height
as to never block one's view.
Bee balm and butterfly bush quiver
with life, lambs ears wait to whisper
soft stories to the cheeks of children.
Pachysandra willingly creep the hill
that other plants refuse.
Don't encourage him she scolds
glancing over my photos of the ugly display
of decay, cob-web corners, cracked clay drains
and broken wood stoves that stand in ambience
since Nana moved from town.
Wooden handles of sickle and scythe,
darkened with sweat stains remain.
Pop can find them when his spirit returns.
Down at the barn I wait for the right light,
catch rusted gears of the cement mixer.
Along the white fence, lavender,
spiked chives and feathered asparagus
breathe and sway in a soft breeze.
Still I focus on broken spokes, discarded
corn cobs and dusted windows warped by time.
Jennifer VanBuren
© 2004
Why do I keep her?
Who else will?
majestic first
who would dare
ask her to leave without me-
she who never left without me?
hidden nights coasting down
Sumneytown hill, lights off
invisible against asphalt darkness,
stars reflecting off wax shine hood
flying silent, blind.
Jennifer VanBuren
© 2004
Reliquary
Like frost on a morning sidewalk,
The white envelope bounces window-strewn sunlight
And stops my movement through literature.
Tucked in a long abandoned book
A letter from you
Dated February 5, year unknown
Sending me warm regards,
While ending our love with unspoken words
Savored long and sadly, and written
Deliberately, intentionally, but kindly.
As the winter light vainly tried to thaw the ice
Before the darkness hit for good,
These writings moved me
Directionless for months, until I put them away
In a shrine of poetry.
I wonder if I should keep such a relic around
And slip it back in between the pages of Frost,
Or Tennyson, or Dickinson,
Where it will sit, enthralled in dry, cool, darkness,
Until, one distant day, light will fall on it again
And I will once more reflect on what was
A pilgrim to a saint, long cold, but
Sanctified by sacrifices of love, once warm and fresh.
The envelope, long empty,
Still holds words
Now in silence.
Perhaps it is what is not in shrines
That always brings the most healing.
Peter Kalnin
12/6/04
"A Relic Regained"
There, in the archive,
boundbook cliff face;
cracked leather holds
parchments, pressed
tightly, aligned neatly.
But for this one page
torn
out,
fallen,
then
floored,
then
left.
Cryptic script, in the archive, on the floor,
on the parchment:
undusted unread unknown.
Black ink greys. White page frails.
This page (this very page) now lifted.
An old man's hand. Visible veins.
A thumb, a forefinger, these two digits
steady the page as eyes scan
side to side.
Now, differently digitized, newly scanned
and sent, by binary, this page (this very page),
like a fallen bird, lifted and renested.
A restoration. A relic regained.
The dead dusted. The real read.
The rest reminded.
G.M. Reihman
© 2004
"Bluejeans Effigy"
Favorite, lucky pair
faded, kneeless
rotted at the seams,
but still
sewn with care.
Patched seat
red, stitched in white.
An all-state track star
caught on fences
escaping dogs
and girlfriend's husbands;
the latter, worse in bite.
Another, over-mended crotch,
for witchy girls,
cast itchy spells
on a cocksure
been there done that,
know-it-all.
Holes in pockets
made for pool
or watches;
losing time,
being aimless
absent-minded.
Tide, bleached-out
"Let me die!" in bluejeans,
a retro effigy
of apathetic youth
sometimes wasted,
but naively, well spent
Jamison Landry
Copyright © 2004
|
