by Rochelle Ratner
Poor Kim Jong II. He'd wanted a few of the new photo iPods for
Christmas. He even had an iPod dock built into his new BMW, and
a huge iPod-only speaker system in his favored bedroom right
alongside his 40-inch plasma tv. IPods aren't made in China and
Japan refuses to sell to him. Six hundred people on his staff have
looked everywhere. They've called in long-overdue favors from
neighbors, subordinates, and distant cousins. All of a sudden even
one-gig shuffles are not to be found, even in the stores that sold
them just last week. Something about a battery recall. Something
about dangers and power.
Rochelle Ratner's latest poetry books include Balancing Acts (Marsh Hawk Press, 2006), Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, 2006) and House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003). She is the author of fifteen previous poetry collections and two novels (Bobby’s Girl and The Lion’s Share) both published by Coffee House Press). More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
ELVIS AND THE BEADS OF SWEAT
by Wayne Crawford
I see Elvis in my dreams,
his low-cut shirt exposes
beads of sweat across his chest,
each a token of love. He smears them
with his palm, raises his hand to us,
his viewers, his fingers covered with prayer.
He sings, "Let there be peace in the valley."
I see Elvis in his GI haircut.
An announcer informs us:
Elvis has left the auditorium.
I wake to coffee, turn on
the television. Barbara Bush
is asked which American leader
she has most admired during her
life time. She answers, "George Bush."
No beads of sweat surround her
familiar neck, instead a string of white pearls.
Her son, George W., speaks
from the White House,
beads of sweat stick to his upper lip. He
swipes them away with the side of his hand,
points to us, his viewers, his fingers covered
with oil, strings clearly attached.
Wayne Crawford's poetry has appeared in many journals, Sin Fronteras, Las Cruces Writers and Poets, Language Arts, and Aethelon: Journal of Sports Literature, among them. He is the Editor of Lunarosity.
I see Elvis in my dreams,
his low-cut shirt exposes
beads of sweat across his chest,
each a token of love. He smears them
with his palm, raises his hand to us,
his viewers, his fingers covered with prayer.
He sings, "Let there be peace in the valley."
I see Elvis in his GI haircut.
An announcer informs us:
Elvis has left the auditorium.
I wake to coffee, turn on
the television. Barbara Bush
is asked which American leader
she has most admired during her
life time. She answers, "George Bush."
No beads of sweat surround her
familiar neck, instead a string of white pearls.
Her son, George W., speaks
from the White House,
beads of sweat stick to his upper lip. He
swipes them away with the side of his hand,
points to us, his viewers, his fingers covered
with oil, strings clearly attached.
Wayne Crawford's poetry has appeared in many journals, Sin Fronteras, Las Cruces Writers and Poets, Language Arts, and Aethelon: Journal of Sports Literature, among them. He is the Editor of Lunarosity.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
POSEURS IN VIET NAM
by Bonnie Naradzay
Mr. Bush, bedecked in the conical hat
of a paddy farmer and Asian sky-blue
garb, looked comical and worry-free
at the Heads of Countries photo-op.
Standing next to Putin, in matching hues,
he ribbed the man once head of the KGB
who'd just decreed the death by poison
for a London-based critic of his ruthless style.
Speaking in Ho Chi Minh City, Bush praised
the country for triumphing over certain
obstacles to be our steady trading partner.
"Democracy may take a while but wins out
in the end," he gushed. And Agent Orange
still disfigures the little children born here.
Bonnie Naradzay is a degree candidate at the Stonecoast MFA Program, having earned her M.A. over 35 years ago. She has a poem accepted for publication in JAMA and has published in many online journals, including Salt River Review, Beltway Quarterly, Innisfree, Potomac Journal, and Convergence.
Mr. Bush, bedecked in the conical hat
of a paddy farmer and Asian sky-blue
garb, looked comical and worry-free
at the Heads of Countries photo-op.
Standing next to Putin, in matching hues,
he ribbed the man once head of the KGB
who'd just decreed the death by poison
for a London-based critic of his ruthless style.
Speaking in Ho Chi Minh City, Bush praised
the country for triumphing over certain
obstacles to be our steady trading partner.
"Democracy may take a while but wins out
in the end," he gushed. And Agent Orange
still disfigures the little children born here.
Bonnie Naradzay is a degree candidate at the Stonecoast MFA Program, having earned her M.A. over 35 years ago. She has a poem accepted for publication in JAMA and has published in many online journals, including Salt River Review, Beltway Quarterly, Innisfree, Potomac Journal, and Convergence.
Monday, November 27, 2006
W LANDS KURDISH MAYOR IN JAIL
by Rochelle Ratner
Mr. Bush doesn't find out about this until he reads it in the
paper. Damn aides must be holding out on him again. They
always do this as elections near. But it says right here in
the Washington Post that the mayor sent out New Year
cards with the letter W in them, and now he faces six
months in jail. Mr. Bush decides he ought to call him.
Maybe invite him to dinner at the White House. Is he in
Kurdia? Kurda? He really ought to be better informed
on foreign affairs. But who ever heard of a language with
no W? When he first took office a man in New York had a
vanity license plate that was just W and they said he
couldn't renew it. Been driving with it for years, and boy,
was he upset. He doodles a W on the pad before him, then
turns it over to form an M. There's no god damned way to
please everyone.
Rochelle Ratner's latest poetry books include Balancing Acts (Marsh Hawk Press, 2006), Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, 2006) and House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003). She is the author of fifteen previous poetry collections and two novels (Bobby’s Girl and The Lion’s Share) both published by Coffee House Press). More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage.
Mr. Bush doesn't find out about this until he reads it in the
paper. Damn aides must be holding out on him again. They
always do this as elections near. But it says right here in
the Washington Post that the mayor sent out New Year
cards with the letter W in them, and now he faces six
months in jail. Mr. Bush decides he ought to call him.
Maybe invite him to dinner at the White House. Is he in
Kurdia? Kurda? He really ought to be better informed
on foreign affairs. But who ever heard of a language with
no W? When he first took office a man in New York had a
vanity license plate that was just W and they said he
couldn't renew it. Been driving with it for years, and boy,
was he upset. He doodles a W on the pad before him, then
turns it over to form an M. There's no god damned way to
please everyone.
Rochelle Ratner's latest poetry books include Balancing Acts (Marsh Hawk Press, 2006), Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, 2006) and House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003). She is the author of fifteen previous poetry collections and two novels (Bobby’s Girl and The Lion’s Share) both published by Coffee House Press). More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
MULE MANEUVERS
by Chad Faries
--February 6, 2005: Mules laden with sacks of ballots were led into Haiti's countryside Monday to reach remote villages on the eve of elections aimed at putting Haiti's experiment with democracy back on track.
My hoof prints are cracked hearts in the pebbles and sun baked soil
that blow away in puffs of dust. I may bray. At the summit I pause
and lift one hoof in a heroic pose, seared to the sky and great distance.
Pray that I might drink of water on the other side.
I carry the messages in fat leather packs.
Freedom pokes at my guts, heavy, with every step.
I’d trot if I could. I’d love fine conditioners for my mane; my locks
flaming in the moonlight. A farrier takes my step
in his calloused hands and gives me the attention I deserve.
Instead I sleep tied to a tree with mangled rope. In my dream
it is an earthly umbilical cord of threads of gold hand picked from rays
of the sun and streaking stars pulled brilliantly through atmosphere.
But what I have done is sacrificed all that for utilitarianism.
I have a message and it is a dream that only I can channel.
I could stop and stand stubborn and bow to stereotypes but I refuse.
This is the birth of freedom, in the stride of a neglected beast
whose wildness has been bred out. It is still in me, that adolescent
precariousness and I rub it all over these pieces of paper.
I allow myself to be a pawn, dispensable, when in my soul I am brook,
I am knight and castle, and men in parks take me in their fingers and plan great
moves all in their hopes of finding a new promise and a better game.
A plane flies overhead. A truck mumbles in the distance, a mule brays;
and below, along the briny shores, emerald leaves flutter not from wind,
but from the movement of beasts with heart and machines with naught.
Chad Faries has published poems, essays, photographs, interviews, and creative non-fiction in Exquisite Corpse, Mudfish, New American Writing, Barrow Street , The Cream City Review, Afterimage, Post Road , and others. His book, The Border Will Be Soon: Meditations from the Other Side was a winner of Emergency Press’s open genre book competition. It chronicles his visits to Yugoslavia between 1995-2000 and will be published in May 2006. He has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and was a Fulbright Fellow in Budapest . His memoir, Some Houses, is seeking a publisher. When not traveling he is a carpenter and professor. He recently purchased an old Victorian home and now is planning his next Triumph motorcycle in order to solidify his artificial existence as a renaissance man.
--February 6, 2005: Mules laden with sacks of ballots were led into Haiti's countryside Monday to reach remote villages on the eve of elections aimed at putting Haiti's experiment with democracy back on track.
My hoof prints are cracked hearts in the pebbles and sun baked soil
that blow away in puffs of dust. I may bray. At the summit I pause
and lift one hoof in a heroic pose, seared to the sky and great distance.
Pray that I might drink of water on the other side.
I carry the messages in fat leather packs.
Freedom pokes at my guts, heavy, with every step.
I’d trot if I could. I’d love fine conditioners for my mane; my locks
flaming in the moonlight. A farrier takes my step
in his calloused hands and gives me the attention I deserve.
Instead I sleep tied to a tree with mangled rope. In my dream
it is an earthly umbilical cord of threads of gold hand picked from rays
of the sun and streaking stars pulled brilliantly through atmosphere.
But what I have done is sacrificed all that for utilitarianism.
I have a message and it is a dream that only I can channel.
I could stop and stand stubborn and bow to stereotypes but I refuse.
This is the birth of freedom, in the stride of a neglected beast
whose wildness has been bred out. It is still in me, that adolescent
precariousness and I rub it all over these pieces of paper.
I allow myself to be a pawn, dispensable, when in my soul I am brook,
I am knight and castle, and men in parks take me in their fingers and plan great
moves all in their hopes of finding a new promise and a better game.
A plane flies overhead. A truck mumbles in the distance, a mule brays;
and below, along the briny shores, emerald leaves flutter not from wind,
but from the movement of beasts with heart and machines with naught.
Chad Faries has published poems, essays, photographs, interviews, and creative non-fiction in Exquisite Corpse, Mudfish, New American Writing, Barrow Street , The Cream City Review, Afterimage, Post Road , and others. His book, The Border Will Be Soon: Meditations from the Other Side was a winner of Emergency Press’s open genre book competition. It chronicles his visits to Yugoslavia between 1995-2000 and will be published in May 2006. He has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and was a Fulbright Fellow in Budapest . His memoir, Some Houses, is seeking a publisher. When not traveling he is a carpenter and professor. He recently purchased an old Victorian home and now is planning his next Triumph motorcycle in order to solidify his artificial existence as a renaissance man.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
THE MOTHERS OF THE DISAPPEARED BOOKSTORE, BUENOS AIRES
by Jon Wesick
The snapshots are unremarkable
save for clothing thirty years out of date.
Some black and white, others color.
These are the victims of the dirty war. The generals,
now ghostly TV images, their faces gray as intestines,
ordered deaths by the thousands. Ordinary people
hustled into Ford Falcons, tortured. Their bodies
tossed from DC-3s into the Atlantic.
But it’s not that simple. Photos of Lenin, Castro,
and Che Guevara hang on the bookstore’s walls.
I buy a Mothers-of-the-Disappeared T-shirt for my mom
and pray it doesn’t’ become a prophecy in Bush’s America.
Outside pounding drums. Marchers with red flags.
Do ghosts of Ford Falcons still cruise these streets?
We wait on the sidewalk, while tens of thousands pass.
“Muchos gentes,” a shop owner says. I nod.
The drums – boom, ba boom, ba boom. Girls
selling socialist newspapers. Marchers
with banners wide as the Avenida de Mayo.
Lauren takes out her camera. The flash!
Rows of men with clubs bring up the rear,
their faces disguised with bandanas or keffiyehs.
We cross to Café Tortoni. Fine china. Cloth napkins.
Waiters in tuxedos. Photos of celebrities on mahogany walls.
I drop a submarine-shaped chocolate in my cup of hot milk.
Lauren sips coffee and says, “This is the best night of my life.”
Jon Wesick has a Ph.D. in physics, has practiced Buddhism for over twenty years, and has published over a hundred poems in small press journals such as American Tanka, Anthology Magazine, The Blind Man’s Rainbow, Edgz, The Kaleidoscope Review, Limestone Circle, The Magee Park Anthology, The Publication, Pudding, Sacred Journey, San Diego Writer’s Monthly, Slipstream, Tidepools, Vortex of the Macabre, Zillah, and others. His chapbooks have won honorable mentions twice in the San Diego Book Awards. Recently in Argentina, Jon and his girlfriend went to the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo Bookstore. The Madres are the mothers who protested Argentina's dirty war by holding their disappeared childrens' pictures in the Plaza de Mayo.
The snapshots are unremarkable
save for clothing thirty years out of date.
Some black and white, others color.
These are the victims of the dirty war. The generals,
now ghostly TV images, their faces gray as intestines,
ordered deaths by the thousands. Ordinary people
hustled into Ford Falcons, tortured. Their bodies
tossed from DC-3s into the Atlantic.
But it’s not that simple. Photos of Lenin, Castro,
and Che Guevara hang on the bookstore’s walls.
I buy a Mothers-of-the-Disappeared T-shirt for my mom
and pray it doesn’t’ become a prophecy in Bush’s America.
Outside pounding drums. Marchers with red flags.
Do ghosts of Ford Falcons still cruise these streets?
We wait on the sidewalk, while tens of thousands pass.
“Muchos gentes,” a shop owner says. I nod.
The drums – boom, ba boom, ba boom. Girls
selling socialist newspapers. Marchers
with banners wide as the Avenida de Mayo.
Lauren takes out her camera. The flash!
Rows of men with clubs bring up the rear,
their faces disguised with bandanas or keffiyehs.
We cross to Café Tortoni. Fine china. Cloth napkins.
Waiters in tuxedos. Photos of celebrities on mahogany walls.
I drop a submarine-shaped chocolate in my cup of hot milk.
Lauren sips coffee and says, “This is the best night of my life.”
Jon Wesick has a Ph.D. in physics, has practiced Buddhism for over twenty years, and has published over a hundred poems in small press journals such as American Tanka, Anthology Magazine, The Blind Man’s Rainbow, Edgz, The Kaleidoscope Review, Limestone Circle, The Magee Park Anthology, The Publication, Pudding, Sacred Journey, San Diego Writer’s Monthly, Slipstream, Tidepools, Vortex of the Macabre, Zillah, and others. His chapbooks have won honorable mentions twice in the San Diego Book Awards. Recently in Argentina, Jon and his girlfriend went to the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo Bookstore. The Madres are the mothers who protested Argentina's dirty war by holding their disappeared childrens' pictures in the Plaza de Mayo.
Friday, November 24, 2006
THANKSGIVING: FOUR TO SIX A.M.
by Verandah Porche
Double-take in the dark.
Sleet needles me
un-knits my sleep: it’s that tick
below think itch within speech
the tsk of task.
Ice seeps back to rain—
Won’t coat a stick
slur a wheel.
Two fluorescent hunters
cruise toward dawn
in a bronze Dart.
A hip flask loosens their intent.
The cats yowl for tinned meat
while rodents drunk on compost
snicker by the chimney.
In this sumac-red farmhouse
my young sack out
and I’m easy: la-de-dah
no axe to grind.
Day takes shape:
boughs bear globes
of pop-it beads
pretty and cheap.
Swank heat blows up
the grates: propane
Yahweh made
invisible and full of himself
comes clear from elsewhere
pricey as love or war.
Based in rural Vermont since 1968, Verandah Porche has published The Body’s Symmetry (Harper and Row) and Glancing Off (See Through Books) and has pursued an alternative literary career. She has written poems and songs to accompany her community through a generation of moments and milestones. As a teacher and facilitator, she has created collaborative writing projects in schools and nontraditional settings: literacy and crisis centers, hospitals, factories, nursing homes, senior centers, a 200 year-old Vermont tavern and an urban working class neighborhood. Her work has been featured on NPR’s “Artbeat,” on public radio stations around New England and in the Vermont State House. The Vermont Arts Council awarded her a Citation of Merit, honoring her contribution to the state’s cultural life in 1998, and a recent grant to support the preparation of poetry for publication and performance.
Double-take in the dark.
Sleet needles me
un-knits my sleep: it’s that tick
below think itch within speech
the tsk of task.
Ice seeps back to rain—
Won’t coat a stick
slur a wheel.
Two fluorescent hunters
cruise toward dawn
in a bronze Dart.
A hip flask loosens their intent.
The cats yowl for tinned meat
while rodents drunk on compost
snicker by the chimney.
In this sumac-red farmhouse
my young sack out
and I’m easy: la-de-dah
no axe to grind.
Day takes shape:
boughs bear globes
of pop-it beads
pretty and cheap.
Swank heat blows up
the grates: propane
Yahweh made
invisible and full of himself
comes clear from elsewhere
pricey as love or war.
Based in rural Vermont since 1968, Verandah Porche has published The Body’s Symmetry (Harper and Row) and Glancing Off (See Through Books) and has pursued an alternative literary career. She has written poems and songs to accompany her community through a generation of moments and milestones. As a teacher and facilitator, she has created collaborative writing projects in schools and nontraditional settings: literacy and crisis centers, hospitals, factories, nursing homes, senior centers, a 200 year-old Vermont tavern and an urban working class neighborhood. Her work has been featured on NPR’s “Artbeat,” on public radio stations around New England and in the Vermont State House. The Vermont Arts Council awarded her a Citation of Merit, honoring her contribution to the state’s cultural life in 1998, and a recent grant to support the preparation of poetry for publication and performance.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
THANKSGIVING
by Esther Greenleaf Murer
My browser is taking a poll:
What are you most thankful for?
a) turkey
b) football
c) shopping
For the turkey
whose mana we ingest
so that we too
can be stuffed
to immobility
and impotence
let us be virtually thankful.
For images of stylized mayhem
with arbitrary rules
which we can safely
watch from our roost
and pretend that
the outcome matters
let us be virtually thankful.
for the constant stream
of clutter which gives
our lives meaning
and helps us
outgrow our coops
let us be virtually thankful.
For protection from a world
with real anguish
and real mourning
and maybe even repentance
not to mention
blessings worth counting
let us be virtually thankful.
Esther Greenleaf Murer lives in Philadelphia. She has published poetry in Friends Journal, Guinea Pig Zero, Folly,and the New Verse News.
My browser is taking a poll:
What are you most thankful for?
a) turkey
b) football
c) shopping
For the turkey
whose mana we ingest
so that we too
can be stuffed
to immobility
and impotence
let us be virtually thankful.
For images of stylized mayhem
with arbitrary rules
which we can safely
watch from our roost
and pretend that
the outcome matters
let us be virtually thankful.
for the constant stream
of clutter which gives
our lives meaning
and helps us
outgrow our coops
let us be virtually thankful.
For protection from a world
with real anguish
and real mourning
and maybe even repentance
not to mention
blessings worth counting
let us be virtually thankful.
Esther Greenleaf Murer lives in Philadelphia. She has published poetry in Friends Journal, Guinea Pig Zero, Folly,and the New Verse News.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
INCOGNITO: FRONT LINES
by Kevin Hodgson
Kevin Hodgson is a sixth grade teacher in Southampton, Massachusett, and a technology liaison with the Western Massachusetts Writing Project. He has his own Weblog (http://dogtrax.edublogs.org/) in which he explores the intersections of writing, technology, education and other issues.
They published front line letters this week in the New Yorker and they arrived like missives in the night, exploding my own sense of calm from a world away with an increasing powerful detonation of fear and bravado.
As I sank down between the words, I could almost taste the fine grit of sand on my tongue and the layers of dust on my teeth. I could almost feel the dry scorch of the air of the desert days and the bone-chilling cold of the nights beneath the shooting stars. I could almost sense the tight clench of the M16 gun barrel between my fingers and the rattle of the Humvee over potholed roads in my bones.
Almost.
(But I’d be lying – I was just another passive reader in a safe house on the other side of the universe, drinking coffee and folding laundry and not even thinking about IEDs or mortars or spies along the roadside or midnight raids or body parts)
I spied in from afar on these young men writing to mothers -- young women reaching out to fathers --
friends explaining to friends --
inching towards a way of trying to understand themselves what was happening,
what had happened,
why they had done what they had done or feared what they were going to do,
even as the military censors were watching (and I was watching the censors watching the soldiers watching the roads and imagined another strange set of frightened eyes, trailing our soldiers from the darkened corners of bombed out buildings)
and I realized that these script characters on the page ultimately failed them,
powerful though they were,
the words were not nearly enough ammunition to overcome this internal enemy of theirs and might never be.
There was blood on my back and hands, and pain, too, but it wasn’t real, just images from someone else’s thoughts and I felt like the intruder into the minds of these writers emerging from reality seared with strangeness and violence.
Yet, here they were, moving across the page like armies in the dunes
– the words, I mean –
and so I gently reached out and grabbed a handful of those letters,
placing them in my pocket for safe keeping – doing my best to protect them and vowing to never forget they were there (but I do, from time to time, until my fingers accidentally wrap around the crinkled papers at the bottom of my memory and I suddenly realize that they are there in harm’s way, and I am caught again in the wave of forgetting) –
contemplating that imaginary border crossing between Iran and Iraq
where the man I knew from long ago remains steadfast at his security post,
incognito.
As I sank down between the words, I could almost taste the fine grit of sand on my tongue and the layers of dust on my teeth. I could almost feel the dry scorch of the air of the desert days and the bone-chilling cold of the nights beneath the shooting stars. I could almost sense the tight clench of the M16 gun barrel between my fingers and the rattle of the Humvee over potholed roads in my bones.
Almost.
(But I’d be lying – I was just another passive reader in a safe house on the other side of the universe, drinking coffee and folding laundry and not even thinking about IEDs or mortars or spies along the roadside or midnight raids or body parts)
I spied in from afar on these young men writing to mothers -- young women reaching out to fathers --
friends explaining to friends --
inching towards a way of trying to understand themselves what was happening,
what had happened,
why they had done what they had done or feared what they were going to do,
even as the military censors were watching (and I was watching the censors watching the soldiers watching the roads and imagined another strange set of frightened eyes, trailing our soldiers from the darkened corners of bombed out buildings)
and I realized that these script characters on the page ultimately failed them,
powerful though they were,
the words were not nearly enough ammunition to overcome this internal enemy of theirs and might never be.
There was blood on my back and hands, and pain, too, but it wasn’t real, just images from someone else’s thoughts and I felt like the intruder into the minds of these writers emerging from reality seared with strangeness and violence.
Yet, here they were, moving across the page like armies in the dunes
– the words, I mean –
and so I gently reached out and grabbed a handful of those letters,
placing them in my pocket for safe keeping – doing my best to protect them and vowing to never forget they were there (but I do, from time to time, until my fingers accidentally wrap around the crinkled papers at the bottom of my memory and I suddenly realize that they are there in harm’s way, and I am caught again in the wave of forgetting) –
contemplating that imaginary border crossing between Iran and Iraq
where the man I knew from long ago remains steadfast at his security post,
incognito.
Kevin Hodgson is a sixth grade teacher in Southampton, Massachusett, and a technology liaison with the Western Massachusetts Writing Project. He has his own Weblog (http://dogtrax.edublogs.org/) in which he explores the intersections of writing, technology, education and other issues.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR. ON THE CON-MOVE
by Bill Costley
"The con-movement is, in a sense, inanimate,
compared to 20-30 years ago, with a kind of
ideological slovenliness affecting its morale."
Given the current combination of low taxes,
high government-spending & moderate-inflation
sustaining our current illusion of short-term
e-con-prosperity, what would it take to revive it?
"Something electric, like dollar-depreciation!
Other countries no longer subsidizing our debt
would shock lots of people! Then reservoirs of
con-thought would once again be con-sulted."
Bill Costley serves on the Steering Committee of the San Francisco chapter of the National Writers Union. His epic-in-progress The Cheni@d appears here on The New Verse News.
"The con-movement is, in a sense, inanimate,
compared to 20-30 years ago, with a kind of
ideological slovenliness affecting its morale."
Given the current combination of low taxes,
high government-spending & moderate-inflation
sustaining our current illusion of short-term
e-con-prosperity, what would it take to revive it?
"Something electric, like dollar-depreciation!
Other countries no longer subsidizing our debt
would shock lots of people! Then reservoirs of
con-thought would once again be con-sulted."
Bill Costley serves on the Steering Committee of the San Francisco chapter of the National Writers Union. His epic-in-progress The Cheni@d appears here on The New Verse News.
Monday, November 20, 2006
DARFURY
by Charles Frederickson
Dark Continent lost cause rebels
Desolation and despair ember ashes
Slow burning wars singeing consciousness
Smoldering conflict mired in neglect
Where government dams bloody rivers
Blue headstream conjoining White Nile
Political frustrations percolating for decades
Oily motives shamelessly disclaiming rights
Brutal faithless ethnic cleansing campaign
Black voices silenced throats slit
Marooned in fruitless arid wasteland
Traditional means of livelihood destroyed
Cross-border refugees fleeing for survival
Attempting to escape marauding Janjaweed
Makeshift camps overcrowded tent cities
Innocents held hostage to deadlock
Meager access to potable water
Bare necessities in limited supply
Hand-to-mouth existence reliant on strangers
Incommunicado muffled cries forcibly raped
Furrowed brows creased with dust
Tribal scars dimpling ruddy cheeks
Wounds that never heal cover-ups
Festering open sores crusty scabs
Dirt poor mud hut cracks
Soiled future fertile as sandbox
Desert battered by windswept grit
Sunstroke nomads begging for mercy
Dr. Charles Frederickson is a Swedish/American/Thai impassioned observer, daring experimentalist and progressive visionary who has wandered intrepidly through 206 countries, an original sketch and poem for each presented on http://www.imagesof.8k.com. A member of World Poets Society, based in Greece, his unique poetic style has been featured in: Ascent Aspirations, Auckland Poetry, Blind Man’s Rainbow, Both Sides Now, Caveat Lector, Cordite Poetry Review, Dance to Death, Flutter Magazine, Greatworks, Green Dove, Indite Circle, International Poet, Listen & Be Heard, Living Poets, Madpoetry, Melange, Newtopia, Peace Not War Japan, Planet Authority, Poetry Canada, Poetry of Scotland, Poets for Peace, Poetry Superhighway, Pyramid, Sz, T-Zero, Ygdrasil, Ya’Sou! and Zafusy.
Dark Continent lost cause rebels
Desolation and despair ember ashes
Slow burning wars singeing consciousness
Smoldering conflict mired in neglect
Where government dams bloody rivers
Blue headstream conjoining White Nile
Political frustrations percolating for decades
Oily motives shamelessly disclaiming rights
Brutal faithless ethnic cleansing campaign
Black voices silenced throats slit
Marooned in fruitless arid wasteland
Traditional means of livelihood destroyed
Cross-border refugees fleeing for survival
Attempting to escape marauding Janjaweed
Makeshift camps overcrowded tent cities
Innocents held hostage to deadlock
Meager access to potable water
Bare necessities in limited supply
Hand-to-mouth existence reliant on strangers
Incommunicado muffled cries forcibly raped
Furrowed brows creased with dust
Tribal scars dimpling ruddy cheeks
Wounds that never heal cover-ups
Festering open sores crusty scabs
Dirt poor mud hut cracks
Soiled future fertile as sandbox
Desert battered by windswept grit
Sunstroke nomads begging for mercy
Dr. Charles Frederickson is a Swedish/American/Thai impassioned observer, daring experimentalist and progressive visionary who has wandered intrepidly through 206 countries, an original sketch and poem for each presented on http://www.imagesof.8k.com. A member of World Poets Society, based in Greece, his unique poetic style has been featured in: Ascent Aspirations, Auckland Poetry, Blind Man’s Rainbow, Both Sides Now, Caveat Lector, Cordite Poetry Review, Dance to Death, Flutter Magazine, Greatworks, Green Dove, Indite Circle, International Poet, Listen & Be Heard, Living Poets, Madpoetry, Melange, Newtopia, Peace Not War Japan, Planet Authority, Poetry Canada, Poetry of Scotland, Poets for Peace, Poetry Superhighway, Pyramid, Sz, T-Zero, Ygdrasil, Ya’Sou! and Zafusy.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
BUSH TO VISIT INDONESIA TOMORROW
by James Penha
Shaman slits
the throat of a goat,
collects its blood in earthenware
holding already the flesh of a red snapper
for this nation is sea and soil
and must be saved
all of it
from pollution.
Shaman wears a Muslim peci on his head
but these are dangerous times,
he says, and the sooth of our ancient archipelago
from many mouths must be heard
against black magic.
He listens to the bowl,
quaffs its eerie contents
and chants spells
so to bewilder the terrible Wizard in our midst:
that his alien abracadabra will fail
ever again
to bemuse the water and land.
James Penha edits The New Verse News from Indonesia.
Shaman slits
the throat of a goat,
collects its blood in earthenware
holding already the flesh of a red snapper
for this nation is sea and soil
and must be saved
all of it
from pollution.
Shaman wears a Muslim peci on his head
but these are dangerous times,
he says, and the sooth of our ancient archipelago
from many mouths must be heard
against black magic.
He listens to the bowl,
quaffs its eerie contents
and chants spells
so to bewilder the terrible Wizard in our midst:
that his alien abracadabra will fail
ever again
to bemuse the water and land.
James Penha edits The New Verse News from Indonesia.
Saturday, November 18, 2006
DISCOVERY
by Mel Waldman
We stopped searching years ago after dreams were obliterated
during our metamorphosis, when darkness came to us and
swallowed our light, and we gazed into the broken mirrors of
our shattered souls and saw only shadows-nothing human.
We lost much, especially our innocence, and after the devastating
emptiness, we were filled with something familiar but alien-
emerging from our darkest dreamscape.
We stopped searching years ago and some no longer asked: “Where
are the other human remains?”
The recovery effort ceased. And reconstruction began above sacred
ground, where ghostly secrets were buried in the catacombs of ground
zero.
Yet now, when hundreds of human remains have been discovered, we
must question why we stopped.
What is more horrific: that we now know terror or that in this intimate
knowledge of evil, we stopped searching for our own?
What discovery shall we make, when looking back, we see the Void of
human omission?
And if we are offered redemption again, in a second metamorphosis,
somewhere in tomorrow’s treacherous landscape, shall we search the
catacombs of our souls and never stop, or shall we fail again, when
facing evil, giving up before the final discovery?
Dr. Mel Waldman is a poet, writer, artist, and singer/songwriter. His stories have appeared in numerous literary reviews and commercial magazines including Happy, Sweet Annie Press, Children, Churches and Daddies, Down in the Dirt, New Thought Journal, The Brooklyn Literary Review, Hardboiled Detective, Detective Story Magazine, Espionage, and The Saint. He is a past winner of the literary Gradiva Award in Psychoanalysis and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Private Eye Writers of America, American Mensa, Ltd., and the American Psychological Association. Who Killed the Heartbreak Kid?, a mystery novel, was published by iUniverse in February 2006. It can be purchased at www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/, www.bn.com, at www.amazon.com, and other online bookstores or through local bookstores. Recently, some of his poems have appeared online in The Jerusalem Post.
We stopped searching years ago after dreams were obliterated
during our metamorphosis, when darkness came to us and
swallowed our light, and we gazed into the broken mirrors of
our shattered souls and saw only shadows-nothing human.
We lost much, especially our innocence, and after the devastating
emptiness, we were filled with something familiar but alien-
emerging from our darkest dreamscape.
We stopped searching years ago and some no longer asked: “Where
are the other human remains?”
The recovery effort ceased. And reconstruction began above sacred
ground, where ghostly secrets were buried in the catacombs of ground
zero.
Yet now, when hundreds of human remains have been discovered, we
must question why we stopped.
What is more horrific: that we now know terror or that in this intimate
knowledge of evil, we stopped searching for our own?
What discovery shall we make, when looking back, we see the Void of
human omission?
And if we are offered redemption again, in a second metamorphosis,
somewhere in tomorrow’s treacherous landscape, shall we search the
catacombs of our souls and never stop, or shall we fail again, when
facing evil, giving up before the final discovery?
Dr. Mel Waldman is a poet, writer, artist, and singer/songwriter. His stories have appeared in numerous literary reviews and commercial magazines including Happy, Sweet Annie Press, Children, Churches and Daddies, Down in the Dirt, New Thought Journal, The Brooklyn Literary Review, Hardboiled Detective, Detective Story Magazine, Espionage, and The Saint. He is a past winner of the literary Gradiva Award in Psychoanalysis and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Private Eye Writers of America, American Mensa, Ltd., and the American Psychological Association. Who Killed the Heartbreak Kid?, a mystery novel, was published by iUniverse in February 2006. It can be purchased at www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/, www.bn.com, at www.amazon.com, and other online bookstores or through local bookstores. Recently, some of his poems have appeared online in The Jerusalem Post.
Friday, November 17, 2006
BOMB
by Doris Henderson
We are sitting in a darkened room,
inert, like a drawing in charcoal.
A thief waits outside the window.
He swallows dreams, memories.
There is a bomb under the couch.
No one is trying to remove it.
We sip red wine, comment on
the inevitability of the explosion.
Then we stop talking about it altogether;
it becomes an impolite subject.
We play music, tell stories
to soothe our jangled nerves.
Today is the Official Celebration of Hope.
We wear bright colors,
pretend to love each other and the fate we share,
pretend safety, solidarity, high purpose
pretend we have time.
Doris Henderson's work has appeared in Sagewoman, Black River Review, Calliope, Comstock Review, Window on the World, prior issues of New Verse News, and other journals and anthologies. "Bomb" is about those things --- too numerous to mention --- currently "under the radar."
We are sitting in a darkened room,
inert, like a drawing in charcoal.
A thief waits outside the window.
He swallows dreams, memories.
There is a bomb under the couch.
No one is trying to remove it.
We sip red wine, comment on
the inevitability of the explosion.
Then we stop talking about it altogether;
it becomes an impolite subject.
We play music, tell stories
to soothe our jangled nerves.
Today is the Official Celebration of Hope.
We wear bright colors,
pretend to love each other and the fate we share,
pretend safety, solidarity, high purpose
pretend we have time.
Doris Henderson's work has appeared in Sagewoman, Black River Review, Calliope, Comstock Review, Window on the World, prior issues of New Verse News, and other journals and anthologies. "Bomb" is about those things --- too numerous to mention --- currently "under the radar."
Thursday, November 16, 2006
WOMAN ARRESTED IN THEFT OF MULE HARNESS
by Rochelle Ratner
When the XXX videos no longer excite her, when the
whips and handcuffs in the window of the sex shop
no longer seem like enough, she goes for a drive,
alone, along dirt roads, past farms and houses
patched with tar paper. She turns country music
stations on, then off, then on again. She spots two
mules in a field and pulls over to watch them,
plodding along side by side, tails brushing against
each other. She watches so long that the sunset
turns rows of corn a sort of scarecrow-black. She
watches the farmer drive the mules into the barn,
sees him leave a half hour later. She parks on a
nearby hill, waits till the lights go out in the
farmhouse, then drags that double-harness over to
her car, already halfway to orgasm.
Rochelle Ratner's latest poetry books include Balancing Acts (Marsh Hawk Press, 2006), Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, 2006) and House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003). She is the author of fifteen previous poetry collections and two novels (Bobby’s Girl and The Lion’s Share) both published by Coffee House Press). More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage.
When the XXX videos no longer excite her, when the
whips and handcuffs in the window of the sex shop
no longer seem like enough, she goes for a drive,
alone, along dirt roads, past farms and houses
patched with tar paper. She turns country music
stations on, then off, then on again. She spots two
mules in a field and pulls over to watch them,
plodding along side by side, tails brushing against
each other. She watches so long that the sunset
turns rows of corn a sort of scarecrow-black. She
watches the farmer drive the mules into the barn,
sees him leave a half hour later. She parks on a
nearby hill, waits till the lights go out in the
farmhouse, then drags that double-harness over to
her car, already halfway to orgasm.
Rochelle Ratner's latest poetry books include Balancing Acts (Marsh Hawk Press, 2006), Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, 2006) and House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003). She is the author of fifteen previous poetry collections and two novels (Bobby’s Girl and The Lion’s Share) both published by Coffee House Press). More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
THERMAL SIGHT
by Luke Welch
Late at night is the best time,
after the baked streets cool.
Then people appear
as bright constellations
moving about in the dim world.
Even their footprints
are incandescent trails
in the dust.
It is hard, in this light,
to discern enemy
from noncombatant,
a basket of bread
from a bomb.
Women and kids as radiant
as men of fighting age.
A pregnant woman
shimmers like a nebula
in my scope.
Far too easy
a target.
Luke Welch has published recently in Pemmican and Centrifugal Eye. He works as a sign language interpreter in northern Illinois.
Late at night is the best time,
after the baked streets cool.
Then people appear
as bright constellations
moving about in the dim world.
Even their footprints
are incandescent trails
in the dust.
It is hard, in this light,
to discern enemy
from noncombatant,
a basket of bread
from a bomb.
Women and kids as radiant
as men of fighting age.
A pregnant woman
shimmers like a nebula
in my scope.
Far too easy
a target.
Luke Welch has published recently in Pemmican and Centrifugal Eye. He works as a sign language interpreter in northern Illinois.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
A SHORT CONVERSATION
by Robin E. Sampson
Did you see the news today?
Which news?
There are so many
and so few
versions now
and all the news is old,
older than time.
Robin E. Sampson, born on the east coast, raised on the west coast, now back on the east coast, is a writer of poetry, fiction, and even some non-fiction, at least when she’s not avoiding the pen. She’s a member of the CT-based six-woman poetry performance troupe Shijin. Her publishing credits include their chapbook We Shijin, Book 1, Wicked Alice, The Bitter Oleander, and several anthologies.
Did you see the news today?
Which news?
There are so many
and so few
versions now
and all the news is old,
older than time.
Robin E. Sampson, born on the east coast, raised on the west coast, now back on the east coast, is a writer of poetry, fiction, and even some non-fiction, at least when she’s not avoiding the pen. She’s a member of the CT-based six-woman poetry performance troupe Shijin. Her publishing credits include their chapbook We Shijin, Book 1, Wicked Alice, The Bitter Oleander, and several anthologies.
Monday, November 13, 2006
BAGHDAD
by Charles Frederickson
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
Shortchange 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
Dr. Charles Frederickson is a Swedish-American-Thai 4midable, 10acious, cre8ive 1derer who has wandered intrepidly through 206 countries, an original sketch and poem for each presented on http://www.imagesof.8k.com. This maverick uniquecorn is a member of World Poets Society, based in Greece, with 100+ poetry publication credits on 5 continents, such as: Ascent Aspirations, Auckland Poetry, Blind Man's Rainbow, Both Sides Now, Caveat Lector, Cordite Poetry Review, Dance to Death, Fullosia Press, Greatworks, Green Dove, Indite Circle, Language & Culture, Listen & Be Heard, Living Poets, Madpoetry, Melange, Newtopia, New Verse News, Planet Authority, Poetry Canada, Poetry of Scotland, Poets for Peace, Poetry Superhighway, Pyramid, Sz, Ya'Sou, and Ygdrasil.
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
Shortchange 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
Dr. Charles Frederickson is a Swedish-American-Thai 4midable, 10acious, cre8ive 1derer who has wandered intrepidly through 206 countries, an original sketch and poem for each presented on http://www.imagesof.8k.com. This maverick uniquecorn is a member of World Poets Society, based in Greece, with 100+ poetry publication credits on 5 continents, such as: Ascent Aspirations, Auckland Poetry, Blind Man's Rainbow, Both Sides Now, Caveat Lector, Cordite Poetry Review, Dance to Death, Fullosia Press, Greatworks, Green Dove, Indite Circle, Language & Culture, Listen & Be Heard, Living Poets, Madpoetry, Melange, Newtopia, New Verse News, Planet Authority, Poetry Canada, Poetry of Scotland, Poets for Peace, Poetry Superhighway, Pyramid, Sz, Ya'Sou, and Ygdrasil.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
URBAN STORY: A SYNOPSIS
by Jan C. Snow
There are only two characters.
One has more than the other, therefore
one has less. One is taken from, one given to.
Each begrudges the other’s lot.
One strikes, the other retaliates.
Hard envy and hot anger well between them.
There may be a robbery, perhaps a killing,
no more or less brutal than any other,
although not necessarily a murder.
One is the victim, one the perpetrator.
Repeatedly, one flees, the other pursues.
Injury is strewn like grimy litter on a spring sidewalk.
What we cannot know is,
who holds the gun?
Jan C. Snow teaches and writes in Lakewood, one city west of Cleveland on Lake Erie.
There are only two characters.
One has more than the other, therefore
one has less. One is taken from, one given to.
Each begrudges the other’s lot.
One strikes, the other retaliates.
Hard envy and hot anger well between them.
There may be a robbery, perhaps a killing,
no more or less brutal than any other,
although not necessarily a murder.
One is the victim, one the perpetrator.
Repeatedly, one flees, the other pursues.
Injury is strewn like grimy litter on a spring sidewalk.
What we cannot know is,
who holds the gun?
Jan C. Snow teaches and writes in Lakewood, one city west of Cleveland on Lake Erie.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
GERANIUM SCENTS
by Wayne Crawford
In the lower cabinet
near the oven, a bloated
mouse has expired in a trap.
I scrape particles of its
hind leg from the metal shelf.
A truck driver enters
the exit lane of Interstate10,
crashes into a van, kills
one, hospitalizes two others;
third time this month someone
has driven the wrong way.
Our country is at war again.
I wonder if the demand
for geraniums will slacken
their scent of funeral homes
already hanging in the air.
Wayne Crawford's poetry has appeared in many journals, Sin Fronteras, Las Cruces Writers and Poets, Language Arts, and Aethelon: Journal of Sports Literature, among them. He is the Editor of Lunarosity.
In the lower cabinet
near the oven, a bloated
mouse has expired in a trap.
I scrape particles of its
hind leg from the metal shelf.
A truck driver enters
the exit lane of Interstate10,
crashes into a van, kills
one, hospitalizes two others;
third time this month someone
has driven the wrong way.
Our country is at war again.
I wonder if the demand
for geraniums will slacken
their scent of funeral homes
already hanging in the air.
Wayne Crawford's poetry has appeared in many journals, Sin Fronteras, Las Cruces Writers and Poets, Language Arts, and Aethelon: Journal of Sports Literature, among them. He is the Editor of Lunarosity.
Friday, November 10, 2006
PRESIDENTIAL DREAM
by Donald Illich
Sometimes I dream FDR
rises from his wheelchair
turns our ship back to harbor,
while we tie ourselves
to masts, so sirens adorned
in glitzy suits and watches,
don’t keep us from the shore.
In the same fantasy I hear
Lincoln laughing behind me,
pointing to the Liberty Bell
healing its crack, while
an elephant stomps past me
chased by mice dancing to
echoing peals of joy.
Then Nixon apologizes inside
a pool of Agent Orange,
Cowboy Reagan ropes
himself to a nuclear weapon.
The mediocrities of our present
are stuffed with mines that’ll
explode if they try to speak.
A map of my country grows
beneath my feet, and I mix
separate and unequal cities
with a quick stir of my hands,
welcome the cheering crowds
massing in buildings and parks,
waving their arms like flags.
Donald Illich has published poetry in The Iowa Review, Fourteen Hills, Roanoke Review, and New Zoo Poetry Review. His work will be included in future issues of Passages North, Nimrod, LIT, and The Sulphur River Literary Review. He received a Prairie Schooner scholarship to the 2006 Nebraska Summer Writer's Conference.
Sometimes I dream FDR
rises from his wheelchair
turns our ship back to harbor,
while we tie ourselves
to masts, so sirens adorned
in glitzy suits and watches,
don’t keep us from the shore.
In the same fantasy I hear
Lincoln laughing behind me,
pointing to the Liberty Bell
healing its crack, while
an elephant stomps past me
chased by mice dancing to
echoing peals of joy.
Then Nixon apologizes inside
a pool of Agent Orange,
Cowboy Reagan ropes
himself to a nuclear weapon.
The mediocrities of our present
are stuffed with mines that’ll
explode if they try to speak.
A map of my country grows
beneath my feet, and I mix
separate and unequal cities
with a quick stir of my hands,
welcome the cheering crowds
massing in buildings and parks,
waving their arms like flags.
Donald Illich has published poetry in The Iowa Review, Fourteen Hills, Roanoke Review, and New Zoo Poetry Review. His work will be included in future issues of Passages North, Nimrod, LIT, and The Sulphur River Literary Review. He received a Prairie Schooner scholarship to the 2006 Nebraska Summer Writer's Conference.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
RIFLING IN THE RANKS
by Carol Elizabeth Owens
“President Bush announced Wednesday that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is stepping down from his post.” – CNN.com [Nov. 8, 2006]
hunting
season’s open
republicans can duck
for some proverbial cover
yet there isn’t safety
in the bushes
these days
you’ll see
leaves camouflage
a natural target—
the nation’s biggest bird of prey
its call tends to carry
abroad – it kills
quickly
before
firing off
a succession of fresh
rounds – those security details
are pure peacockery
but truth shall hit
the fan
squatters
have just mounted
an attack on foreign
policy – watch capitol hill
closely as the feathers
and fur begin
to fly
Carol Elizabeth Owens is an attorney and counselor-at-law in Western New York (by way of Long Island and New York City). She enjoys technical and creative writing. Her poetry has been published in several print and virtual publications. Ms. Owens loves the ways in which words work when poetry allows them to come out and play. The poem "rifling in the ranks" is written in a form called eintou (which is West African for "pearl," as in "pearls of wisdom").
“President Bush announced Wednesday that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is stepping down from his post.” – CNN.com [Nov. 8, 2006]
hunting
season’s open
republicans can duck
for some proverbial cover
yet there isn’t safety
in the bushes
these days
you’ll see
leaves camouflage
a natural target—
the nation’s biggest bird of prey
its call tends to carry
abroad – it kills
quickly
before
firing off
a succession of fresh
rounds – those security details
are pure peacockery
but truth shall hit
the fan
squatters
have just mounted
an attack on foreign
policy – watch capitol hill
closely as the feathers
and fur begin
to fly
Carol Elizabeth Owens is an attorney and counselor-at-law in Western New York (by way of Long Island and New York City). She enjoys technical and creative writing. Her poetry has been published in several print and virtual publications. Ms. Owens loves the ways in which words work when poetry allows them to come out and play. The poem "rifling in the ranks" is written in a form called eintou (which is West African for "pearl," as in "pearls of wisdom").
COWBOY SONG
by Robert Emmett
medicine hat drifted into town
with a black cigar and
the brim pulled down
droning not the flood
but the fire
snuck up behind
the hair-trigger beast
slipped a stone in his pocket
whispered now you’re released
and blew a spark from the fire
the beast rolled an eyeball
on the back of his hand
saw razor lightning jump
from a tattooed sand
as he bellowed his curse for the fire
incandescent shapes
rose from the dead
wove a horse-hair noose
all ‘round the beast’s head
chanting now you’ll be with the fire
so he slung his fear
in the face of the stars
but all the king's mountes
couldn't bank on the scars
of an ever-erupting fire
the smell of his sweat
put a singe in the air
he snarled and he spat
and jumped for his lair
then spun as he hissed in the fire
when the stone did drop
and the stench did rise
red medicine hat
loosed her disguise
for none could see through the fire
Robert Emmett writes where the north wind howls at his windowpanes in the woods of Michigan.
medicine hat drifted into town
with a black cigar and
the brim pulled down
droning not the flood
but the fire
snuck up behind
the hair-trigger beast
slipped a stone in his pocket
whispered now you’re released
and blew a spark from the fire
the beast rolled an eyeball
on the back of his hand
saw razor lightning jump
from a tattooed sand
as he bellowed his curse for the fire
incandescent shapes
rose from the dead
wove a horse-hair noose
all ‘round the beast’s head
chanting now you’ll be with the fire
so he slung his fear
in the face of the stars
but all the king's mountes
couldn't bank on the scars
of an ever-erupting fire
the smell of his sweat
put a singe in the air
he snarled and he spat
and jumped for his lair
then spun as he hissed in the fire
when the stone did drop
and the stench did rise
red medicine hat
loosed her disguise
for none could see through the fire
Robert Emmett writes where the north wind howls at his windowpanes in the woods of Michigan.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
ELECTION DAY
by Mikhail Horowitz
Crossing the bridge, the
river’s brightness abides,
for the moment it takes
a Japanese car to span it,
outside of history. This,
despite the memento mori
of an oak leaf, brittle
as an absentee ballot,
affixed to the windshield
wiper. On the far side,
an already antique cluster
of campaign signs—losers all,
including the winners—is
buffeted by the wind. The
sugary maples fade with no
sense of defeat; the sumacs
redden, but not with any
shame. How deeply do I
wish that I and we
could say the same.
Mikhail Horowitz is a poet and performer who lives in the Hudson Valley. He and his performance partner, Gilles Malkine, recieved an award from Sullivan (County) Peace and Justice in 2005 for "furthering progressive causes through the arts."
Crossing the bridge, the
river’s brightness abides,
for the moment it takes
a Japanese car to span it,
outside of history. This,
despite the memento mori
of an oak leaf, brittle
as an absentee ballot,
affixed to the windshield
wiper. On the far side,
an already antique cluster
of campaign signs—losers all,
including the winners—is
buffeted by the wind. The
sugary maples fade with no
sense of defeat; the sumacs
redden, but not with any
shame. How deeply do I
wish that I and we
could say the same.
Mikhail Horowitz is a poet and performer who lives in the Hudson Valley. He and his performance partner, Gilles Malkine, recieved an award from Sullivan (County) Peace and Justice in 2005 for "furthering progressive causes through the arts."
Monday, November 06, 2006
CHENEY TO GO HUNTING ON ELECTION DAY
by Rochelle Ratner
along with his younger daughter, Mary, the same one outed
by the Kerry bastards, the daughter he had no choice but
to bring along on the campaign trail after that. Maybe
she’d help draw the liberals, his advisors told him. And he
supposes it didn’t hurt. Whatever, he’s glad not to be
running for anything this year. Delighted that reporters
will have enough other things to focus on, get off his back
for a minute or two. He can just walk in the woods and
trust his staff to keep him informed of how the voting goes.
Maybe catch himself a few grouse while he’s at it. Hunt
and peck is how he thinks of it, fondly recalling how he
used to type his school reports, looking up and seeing his
mother standing beside him. His fingers are more than a
little arthritic now, like his mother’s were. The doctors say
exercise might even be good for his heart. And he needs to
plan more days alone with his family. This time it will just
be the two of them.
Rochelle Ratner's latest poetry books include Balancing Acts (Marsh Hawk Press, 2006), Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, 2006) and House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003). She is the author of fifteen previous poetry collections and two novels (Bobby’s Girl and The Lion’s Share) both published by Coffee House Press). More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage.
along with his younger daughter, Mary, the same one outed
by the Kerry bastards, the daughter he had no choice but
to bring along on the campaign trail after that. Maybe
she’d help draw the liberals, his advisors told him. And he
supposes it didn’t hurt. Whatever, he’s glad not to be
running for anything this year. Delighted that reporters
will have enough other things to focus on, get off his back
for a minute or two. He can just walk in the woods and
trust his staff to keep him informed of how the voting goes.
Maybe catch himself a few grouse while he’s at it. Hunt
and peck is how he thinks of it, fondly recalling how he
used to type his school reports, looking up and seeing his
mother standing beside him. His fingers are more than a
little arthritic now, like his mother’s were. The doctors say
exercise might even be good for his heart. And he needs to
plan more days alone with his family. This time it will just
be the two of them.
Rochelle Ratner's latest poetry books include Balancing Acts (Marsh Hawk Press, 2006), Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, 2006) and House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003). She is the author of fifteen previous poetry collections and two novels (Bobby’s Girl and The Lion’s Share) both published by Coffee House Press). More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage.
THE SNOW JOB
by Lucille Gang Shulklapper
Tony Snow lives up to his name, playing that slick political game, whitening Delay’s, and Foley’s corruption, denying allegations of the war’s disruption, claiming victory to Bush’s no plan, in a voice that asks in straight deadpan, what do Democrats strategize, when Michael Fox and Webb might tell us lies, Snow seems to ask with perfect diction, what is real, and what is fiction?
It’s Snowing all over Capitol Hill, from the President’s secretary, his personal shill, like Cheney’s “no brainer” endorsement of “dunking”, no apology needed, just one for Kerry’s “debunking,” those who are truly shafted, not those eligible to be drafted, for if there were a universal draft, Americans would quickly craft, a Snow plow to clear, that old and tired fear, of the terrorists in Iraq, of shock and awe, awe and shock.
Lucille Gang Shulklapper is a workshop leader for the Florida Center for the Book, an affiliate of The Library of Congress. Recent and forthcoming work appears in Still Going Strong, Oasis, The Mona Poetica Anthology, Poetic Voices Without Borders, and Gulfstream. Three children's stories have also been accepted for publication. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks: What You Cannot Have, The Substance of Sunlight, and one mini-chapbook, Godd, It's Not Hollywood. Recent awards include honorable mention by the Rrofihy Trophy Award, Common Ground Review, and The National League of Pen Women.
Tony Snow lives up to his name, playing that slick political game, whitening Delay’s, and Foley’s corruption, denying allegations of the war’s disruption, claiming victory to Bush’s no plan, in a voice that asks in straight deadpan, what do Democrats strategize, when Michael Fox and Webb might tell us lies, Snow seems to ask with perfect diction, what is real, and what is fiction?
It’s Snowing all over Capitol Hill, from the President’s secretary, his personal shill, like Cheney’s “no brainer” endorsement of “dunking”, no apology needed, just one for Kerry’s “debunking,” those who are truly shafted, not those eligible to be drafted, for if there were a universal draft, Americans would quickly craft, a Snow plow to clear, that old and tired fear, of the terrorists in Iraq, of shock and awe, awe and shock.
Lucille Gang Shulklapper is a workshop leader for the Florida Center for the Book, an affiliate of The Library of Congress. Recent and forthcoming work appears in Still Going Strong, Oasis, The Mona Poetica Anthology, Poetic Voices Without Borders, and Gulfstream. Three children's stories have also been accepted for publication. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks: What You Cannot Have, The Substance of Sunlight, and one mini-chapbook, Godd, It's Not Hollywood. Recent awards include honorable mention by the Rrofihy Trophy Award, Common Ground Review, and The National League of Pen Women.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
DEMOCRACY
by Luke Welch
My town hunkers low
beneath a troubled sky.
There will be a parade today,
weather permitting, and I will run
with the Democrats, smiling
past the houses and heavy faces
of my Republican town.
The new one is better
than the ass in there now,
and I am not a politician
but I will run with one's name,
like a rock star's on my chest.
I will smile at my neighbors
and ask for their votes.
I'll keep my place between the clowns,
circling in their funny cars,
and the high school marching band,
which despite the occasional stumble
and missed note, does an excellent rendition
of the Star Spangled Banner.
Luke Welch has published recently in Pemmican and Centrifugal Eye. He is always a father, often a poet, not often enough a political activist and for a living works as a sign language interpreter in northern Illinois.
My town hunkers low
beneath a troubled sky.
There will be a parade today,
weather permitting, and I will run
with the Democrats, smiling
past the houses and heavy faces
of my Republican town.
The new one is better
than the ass in there now,
and I am not a politician
but I will run with one's name,
like a rock star's on my chest.
I will smile at my neighbors
and ask for their votes.
I'll keep my place between the clowns,
circling in their funny cars,
and the high school marching band,
which despite the occasional stumble
and missed note, does an excellent rendition
of the Star Spangled Banner.
Luke Welch has published recently in Pemmican and Centrifugal Eye. He is always a father, often a poet, not often enough a political activist and for a living works as a sign language interpreter in northern Illinois.
Saturday, November 04, 2006
POLITRICKS
by Charles Frederickson
Democratic Republican Socialist Cocktail parties
Bridge soiree get-togethers stimulating 4-play
Tables superstitiously turned bathtub direction
North East West South NEWSmongers
Underhand sneaky peeky casual side-glances
Double-dealing from bottom of deck
Missing few cards shortchanger cheats
50 state pickup cutthroat shuffle
13 original star leopard stripes
Country club acquaintances diamond friends
Spadework domino effect chain-reacting gangs
But nobody is keeping score
Auction bridge contract trading places
Red hearts finessing black minds
Well-suited alphabetical order of merit
Royalty losing face Aces pipped
Same as whist but different
Variation of one-upmanship gone overboard
Tournaments run according to Hoyle
Competitors vying for Master Points
Politricks overbid unmakable Grand Slam
Fear jeer smear outrank trumpery
Vulnerable teammates one rubber up
Knock on Blackwood conventionally flouted
Dr. Charles Frederickson is a Swedish-American-Thai 4midable, 10acious, cre8ive 1derer who has wandered intrepidly through 206 countries, an original sketch and poem for each presented on http://www.imagesof.8k.com. This maverick uniquecorn is a member of World Poets Society, based in Greece, with 100+ poetry publication credits on 5 continents, such as: Ascent Aspirations, Auckland Poetry, Blind Man's Rainbow, Both Sides Now, Caveat Lector, Cordite Poetry Review, Dance to Death, Fullosia Press, Greatworks, Green Dove, Indite Circle, Language & Culture, Listen & Be Heard, Living Poets, Madpoetry, Melange, Newtopia, New Verse News, Planet Authority, Poetry Canada, Poetry of Scotland, Poets for Peace, Poetry Superhighway, Pyramid, Sz, Ya'Sou, and Ygdrasil.
Democratic Republican Socialist Cocktail parties
Bridge soiree get-togethers stimulating 4-play
Tables superstitiously turned bathtub direction
North East West South NEWSmongers
Underhand sneaky peeky casual side-glances
Double-dealing from bottom of deck
Missing few cards shortchanger cheats
50 state pickup cutthroat shuffle
13 original star leopard stripes
Country club acquaintances diamond friends
Spadework domino effect chain-reacting gangs
But nobody is keeping score
Auction bridge contract trading places
Red hearts finessing black minds
Well-suited alphabetical order of merit
Royalty losing face Aces pipped
Same as whist but different
Variation of one-upmanship gone overboard
Tournaments run according to Hoyle
Competitors vying for Master Points
Politricks overbid unmakable Grand Slam
Fear jeer smear outrank trumpery
Vulnerable teammates one rubber up
Knock on Blackwood conventionally flouted
Dr. Charles Frederickson is a Swedish-American-Thai 4midable, 10acious, cre8ive 1derer who has wandered intrepidly through 206 countries, an original sketch and poem for each presented on http://www.imagesof.8k.com. This maverick uniquecorn is a member of World Poets Society, based in Greece, with 100+ poetry publication credits on 5 continents, such as: Ascent Aspirations, Auckland Poetry, Blind Man's Rainbow, Both Sides Now, Caveat Lector, Cordite Poetry Review, Dance to Death, Fullosia Press, Greatworks, Green Dove, Indite Circle, Language & Culture, Listen & Be Heard, Living Poets, Madpoetry, Melange, Newtopia, New Verse News, Planet Authority, Poetry Canada, Poetry of Scotland, Poets for Peace, Poetry Superhighway, Pyramid, Sz, Ya'Sou, and Ygdrasil.
Friday, November 03, 2006
COUPLE FINDS CONDOM INSIDE BAG OF NUTS
by Rochelle Ratner
He takes the afternoon off work to be with her. They drive
from the doctor's office, having been told what they already
knew: she isn't pregnant yet. On the way home they stop at
Walmart, drooling over nursery furniture that gets more
expensive every month. They pick up a bag of loose nuts
and sit in the parked car eating them, like they did in high
school. He hasn't worn a condom since the night they
married, and he wouldn't be caught dead in bright yellow.
Crinkled up inside a filbert, that's how small it is. They'll
have to take it to the police, he supposes, though he doesn't
really see the crime here. It feels more like having his
fortune read.
Rochelle Ratner's latest poetry books include Balancing Acts (Marsh Hawk Press, 2006), Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, 2006) and House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003). She is the author of fifteen previous poetry collections and two novels (Bobby’s Girl and The Lion’s Share) both published by Coffee House Press). More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage.
He takes the afternoon off work to be with her. They drive
from the doctor's office, having been told what they already
knew: she isn't pregnant yet. On the way home they stop at
Walmart, drooling over nursery furniture that gets more
expensive every month. They pick up a bag of loose nuts
and sit in the parked car eating them, like they did in high
school. He hasn't worn a condom since the night they
married, and he wouldn't be caught dead in bright yellow.
Crinkled up inside a filbert, that's how small it is. They'll
have to take it to the police, he supposes, though he doesn't
really see the crime here. It feels more like having his
fortune read.
Rochelle Ratner's latest poetry books include Balancing Acts (Marsh Hawk Press, 2006), Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, 2006) and House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003). She is the author of fifteen previous poetry collections and two novels (Bobby’s Girl and The Lion’s Share) both published by Coffee House Press). More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
NO TRANSLATION REQUIRED
by Sue Repko
In general, we do not march
Protest
Stomp our feet
For our brothers and sisters with brown skin
Crossing deserts here and there
Who speak languages we do not yet understand,
Languages that compel our silence
And why?
A cry of pain -
A cry of loss -
No translation required.
We understand two towers collapsing
We understand the wrath of hurricanes and
Learn the science of tsunamis
Apply compassion
And give and give and give.
But why are we not moved to move our feet
Unconditionally
Across the lines in the sand here and there
And raise our voices
To say
Enough is enough,
He is my brother,
She is my sister?
The bombs and rockets
The guns of the few
On all sides
Do the talking for the many.
No translation required.
Sue Repko is a writer, urban planner, community activist, and high school girls' basketball and softball coach. Her fiction has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, Bryant Literary Review, Kelsey Review, New Millennium Writings and online. Her nonfiction has appeared in newspapers, magazines and online. Her website is www.suerepko.com and she recently started blogging at www.suerepko.blogspot.com. She lives with her family in central New Jersey.
In general, we do not march
Protest
Stomp our feet
For our brothers and sisters with brown skin
Crossing deserts here and there
Who speak languages we do not yet understand,
Languages that compel our silence
And why?
A cry of pain -
A cry of loss -
No translation required.
We understand two towers collapsing
We understand the wrath of hurricanes and
Learn the science of tsunamis
Apply compassion
And give and give and give.
But why are we not moved to move our feet
Unconditionally
Across the lines in the sand here and there
And raise our voices
To say
Enough is enough,
He is my brother,
She is my sister?
The bombs and rockets
The guns of the few
On all sides
Do the talking for the many.
No translation required.
Sue Repko is a writer, urban planner, community activist, and high school girls' basketball and softball coach. Her fiction has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, Bryant Literary Review, Kelsey Review, New Millennium Writings and online. Her nonfiction has appeared in newspapers, magazines and online. Her website is www.suerepko.com and she recently started blogging at www.suerepko.blogspot.com. She lives with her family in central New Jersey.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
EIGHTH CIRCLE
A mordant Dantean reflection on news from the Middle East
by Tom Benediktsson
When we had overpassed the twisted wood,
the flaming field, the evil ditches, then
we came upon a plain of burning blood.
Gibbering through gouts of smoke, two old men
strove. Blinded, mad, deprived of speech, they
swung their gruesome clubs again and again,
their senile faces rapt with hate and joy.
I knew them, their famous names. In the red
glare of that godless place, late on that day,
I asked my guide how they still fought. He said,
“In life they warred with lies and bombs and stones;
now stones are dust, all bombs burst, lies all sped,
they wield, not broken knives or rusted guns,
but severed limbs of their daughters and sons.”
Tom Benediktsson teaches English and creative writing at Montclair State University in New Jersey. His poems have appeared in numerous little magazines and anthologies around the country, most recently in Paterson Literary Review, Journal of New Jersey Poets, and New Delta Review.
by Tom Benediktsson
When we had overpassed the twisted wood,
the flaming field, the evil ditches, then
we came upon a plain of burning blood.
Gibbering through gouts of smoke, two old men
strove. Blinded, mad, deprived of speech, they
swung their gruesome clubs again and again,
their senile faces rapt with hate and joy.
I knew them, their famous names. In the red
glare of that godless place, late on that day,
I asked my guide how they still fought. He said,
“In life they warred with lies and bombs and stones;
now stones are dust, all bombs burst, lies all sped,
they wield, not broken knives or rusted guns,
but severed limbs of their daughters and sons.”
Tom Benediktsson teaches English and creative writing at Montclair State University in New Jersey. His poems have appeared in numerous little magazines and anthologies around the country, most recently in Paterson Literary Review, Journal of New Jersey Poets, and New Delta Review.
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