most recent first Author Bionotes
Her Fired Hands
It started before dawn,
Into the village, looking and searching.
Shots fired randomly all morning,
here, there, by an unseen enemy,
to the unseen enemy.
Buildings searched, people questioned,
again, again, and again.
All morning long, into the afternoon.
Someone sees 4 to 5 men over there,
in that small group of buildings.
4 to 5 men with AK's.
Across that open ground, 200 meters away,
200 meters of open ground.
Put your game face on, again.
Set the trucks with the guns,
.50 cal and M240B,
ready to maneuver, already covering.
Dismounts.
We walk, staggered wedge,
up to the short road to the buildings.
No one seen.
Weapons ready, eyes searching, scanning, looking.
Thumb on selector switch, ready to do its role.
20 minutes have passed...
She fell into the fire,
helping her mother cook the bread, only weeks ago.
She was maybe seven,
unconditionally cute.
She had no fingers on her left hand,
burnt into wax plastered nubs.
Scars and disfigured skin
up to the smallest, most delicate elbow.
Her right hand, not as bad,
4 fingers and one thumb,
skin scarred, but still there.
She never stopped smiling
as we examined her hand, her arm,
messed up her crazy hair;
we shared a laugh.
This little girl, I've forgotten her name,
never her face,
never her hands.
What will happen to her?
You know what will happen.
You go home in less than 30 days,
to your comfort,
your convenience,
your health and your freedom.
You go to you future wife.
Have a daughter or son with her,
Take care of her,
Love her.
And never forget she who fell into the fire. printable
Ward Irvin
bomb
She’ll never tell him
that in last night’s dream
he was wrapping
a twine of red and yellow insulated wire
around his middle finger. “Obliterate,”
he’d whined, “obliterate.”
He’ll tinker
at his workbench for a few Saturdays
and then on a Sunday morning ask if she dares
to leave her cozy crossword
and ride along again.
She does—
though keeping to herself the link
between precarious and pray,
though pretending not to tense
when the pickup thumps
down the rutted road.
It’s only
his hobby, this hurrying to her side
at the edge of the field, this waiting
for whatever he’s rigged to burst
with a hard, ever sharper thud.
Worries often wake her— the planks
that give on the deck, his father’s hip,
those curses in their daughter’s greeting
on her answering machine. The certainty
he’ll never think that bomb
is the antonym of home. printable
William Aarnes
Fear
1.
Fear begins as larva.
Compare that to desire,
Which is born just a smaller version of what it always will be.
Fear transforms into other things, desires just get bigger.
Some like to point out that the caterpillar transforms into a butterfly.
Maggots become flies, but who pretends to notice?
Fears can become both flies and butterflies, given a choice.
Fear predicts the future.
That is how it knows where it is now.
2.
Fear has a face that disappears whenever I look into it.
Removed from the center of the world,
I am afraid, and that is the point.
Fear is a hole between two places.
Some might call it a door.
I have three fears that look like worms in a jar:
The first is writhing, gasping for breath but still alive,
the second is just there, without knowing why,
and the third is nothing to write about.
3.
The exterminator comes today, to pick up 4 fears in a jar.
I’ve added another since last time,
I’ve been surveilling.
Panic is half way in between pain and fear.
It comes with the realization that
no holes are cut in the lid.
At first, he cannot see them. I have to point them out.
When he does he says he’s never known the likes.
He’ll send them out to be identified.
4.
They have obsessed me now, like any fear will.
Turns out fears are tiny worms jumping to their conclusions.
They are much too small for their own identities.
Were an eyelash an inchworm, only faster.
Fears appear to have heads at both ends,
with I imagine no buzz, but spiked hair.
When I saw the first one folding and unfolding
its way across a legal pad, I reacted like Doctor Frankenstein,
having just brought a line to life.
5.
If not for their direction, you could not tell which end to look into.
I had to take a second glance to determine it was astray.
When I find things astray, I test them for intelligence.
I put a post-it note in its path, but it stopped in its tracks and stood on end
the way a steel sliver stands and quivers beneath a magnet,
as if to mimic a blade of grass (a worm-trick, played on birds).
It apparently tested the intelligence of those gone astray as well.
The note says the primary goal is expansion.
How I’d love for the words to just walk off the page like that. printable
J. M. Fitzgerald
The Evening Out
Things even out. Thus one must be concise
to measure time, or it takes forever.
Twenty species of hominids before humans extended
to where they could neither turn back nor survive.
I came upon Sapiens painting the wall of a cave, and said:
“Behold the word.” How their eyes lit.
They came out from the flicker to name themselves
and everything around them.
And the world was reborn, for their mouths were opened,
and they had no choice but say:
“For certain the word has been here all along,
like a flower hoping.
Heat grows cold, water levels its surface.
Surely the word was always in the world, and earth in breath.”
Thus did they know my name was Zeroth,
because I came before the first. printable
J. M. Fitzgerald
Genes
For over a year did I write certain nights when I could.
Orator for the planet with a voice like earth
and a few odd ghosts behind me.
Herein lies the testament of the word.
A statement much too much for me to bear.
It overflows me, and I am afraid.
I have no proof. I am poet and cannot explain.
I will go into the other room to drink.
My God, my love is way out of control.
All manner of loneliness I pray to.
I will be like the far thoughts of paper.
When the word existed before it was spoken. printable
J. M. Fitzgerald
Winter Yard
unsettling cysts of dark
grow in the armpits of a fence,
night hobbling across longitudes
to trap sparrows,
their wings quick
to buck the slow attack,
as they see cheetah spots in the moon,
and bend like nuns in chestnut cowls
to steal away,
leaving beer cans like torsos
below the sill of a gargantua,
metals sucking each other's dents
as they await fresh meat;
and an avid dog, eyes like pork,
yapping and chasing its own haunch,
paws like pinwheels
scrounging up a gizzard;
and a cobweb in a slain pail,
forsaken by a lost season -
anything as jovial as a beetle is dead.
only upchucked consumables,
and electrocuted widgets,
and a doll's head, and a beaten wheelbarrow,
and a neckless guitar
with a lewd split waist. printable
Chris Crittenden
Avalon
You would not have called to me unless
I had been calling to you.
C.S. Lewis, Aslan to Jill in The Silver Chair
So how are things in heaven?
There is a nice view here,
with fairies in the garden.
I offer a rose with a message,
lines from the Ronsard poem:
Je vous envoie un bouquet que ma main
Vient de trier de ces fleurs épanouies.*
The walnut trees of my childhood
grow new branches,
Anna Akhmatova appears,
opens up all the water inside me,
and I expand again.
The question creates an elliptic consciousness,
bridges past and present,
so her answer, remember I love you, blossoms.
* “I send you a wreath of blossoms
And woven flowers by my hand gathered” printable
Hélène Cardona
Peregrine Pantoum
It started with a dream,
Snowcapped mountains and rivers full of salmon.
Green rays of light parted the middle of winter,
Dancing at the edge of the lake.
Snowcapped mountains and rivers full of salmon
Echoed laughter, sonatas, and lilac hunts
Dancing at the edge of the lake.
Fairy tales beckoning days on end
Echoed laughter, sonatas, and lilac hunts,
My grandmother’s gifts of exquisite designs.
Fairy tales beckoning days on end,
Wisdom and melancholy, built fires,
My grandmother’s gifts of exquisite designs,
Engineered by elves. We slept soundly.
Wisdom and melancholy built fires,
Endless books and homes peopled by souls,
Engineered by elves. We slept soundly
On slippery roads, frozen paths,
As endless books and homes peopled by souls
And forests disclosed treasures and children’s riddles.
On slippery roads, frozen paths
Driving the maze of the mind
And forests disclosed treasures and children’s riddles,
Travels and exiles, forced and chosen.
Driving the maze of the mind,
Tales of torture rang from the lands of the gods,
Travels and exiles, forced and chosen.
While sirens and magic flutes sounded like water,
Tales of torture rang from the lands of the gods.
Green rays of light parted the middle of winter
While sirens and magic flutes sounded like water.
It started with a dream. printable
Hélène Cardona
A Deeper Layer of Reality
Riding on Montezuma's trail
I'm one with the horse,
The girl guiding me a prophet.
Let's explore new territories,
The unmanifest, a tremendous future,
Reach our full potential.
The steep journey leads into mountains.
Let God be the doer and embrace Her.
In Peru I visit my grandfather, unconditional love.
Everything stems from within,
The wait only preparation, actualizing consciousness.
We fuse wisdom and instinct. printable
Hélène Cardona
Taejon Ashram
I
From the train station, cross the asphalt
square; pass pigeon flocks
and a half-tended circle of tulips
to taxis.
Straight through this flat city in the middle of a plain.
Take the elevator up
ring the bell—
on the walls
pictures of meditators
sitting in a forest.
II
At the riverside park across the water, a TV station on the bank-sides; its satellite dishes
crown unlit upper floors. Below the city’s sod, methane worms from sewage lines up
to river air. Eyes closed, we stand, lessening range of thoughts to one point.
Back to the apartment, cars whizz wide lanes; buy ice cream for everyone. Under a maple,
lean on a boulder, share conversation in the parking lot. Up the elevator, look over a building
across the street: TV cables hang like snakes down the concrete walls.
III
Eat ramen, kimchi, chestnuts,
cherry tomatoes, soft cake bread.
Drink green tea until 2 a.m.
showering
after everyone sleeps.
Dream of a woman
with a body of stars
singing songs of light
into everyone. printable
Ian Haight
In the place of authentic art
I am watching a wondrous scene,
Where Paris strains its Montmartre
And the lazy, capricious Seine.
In a small antiquarian store
I’ve discovered a gorgeous dame
On the canvas that has been borne
Through the ages of roaring flame.
These sincere and lively eyes,
Brittle shoulders and graceful chin…
I would pay any crazy price
For the riddles you hide within!
Years, months, weeks and busy days
Don’t disturb you. You’re full at rest.
Life is over. So is the chase
For the future, your failed quest.
Consolation. Eternal joy.
You deserve it. No love. No pain.
Only I, an ambitious boy,
Try to solve your enigma in vain.
Were you evil? Or were you saint?
La Princesse? Or a filthy tart?
You have saved in the oil-paint
Your enormous, mysterious heart.
Fate’s disgusting and wicked joke
Was to let you be dying in cold.
I am taking you to New York
Like a bar of some precious gold. printable
Pavel Barakhvostov
— after it’s
said and done — at best it’s lesser influences that matter
— they accumulate like the discrete nuance of seasons
that insinuate the temperatures of their effects into tendrils
twisting to the nuisance misdirections of shadow and light
— it’s — those — that irritate a room with sweat and overwhelm
being well — well lost in the illusions of what self-control
shivers with a virus the few extreme nights that remain
memorized in the immunity of a cell’s exhaustion
— surely the accidental infinitesimal aggravations that peck
and nag at and infect the nakedness of even the best defense
amount to getting along as well as possible midsummer
with the hovering whirr a mosquito — zeroing in — finds
a pheromone in the diaphaneity — or — winter — fever
chattering like mad — inside the fires of the surrounding ice printable
Roger Desy
—
— like everything else
part of us is
here — somewhere or other
and part of us
is always somewhere else —
the part of you
that is not here
stays with me now
— in all its unknown certainty
and will be so — no matter what
— though the part of you
that is here with me
in the fields that fed our sating —
is gone — more than equally for keeps printable
Roger Desy
the brook
— thirsty the mind plays tricks — take sun-screen and a hat
and polarized lenses if handy — into a blinding sun
where unsteady air rising off heated sand can stir the image
of an undulating stillness to a tentative mirage — to see
in the refraction a reflection bent by fluid air blurred
in the shimmering of convection off the surface
seduce the self-deceiving eyes knowing it false — to anything
familiar — comfort of an absurdity — potentially dangerous
— ignoring signs — distracted by the fascination of a dance shining
a brook dappled by agitated scrub rippling a crooked trickle
in the hypnosis of a silence on the studied distance —
attempting to approach — silt sift a still sand — or only
a shadow passing overhead — and facets of bedded stones
fixed to the motion of illusion they are there dissolve printable
Roger Desy
CHURCH’LL
(The Hundred-Year-Old Woman)
she smoked a pipe
Aye, I knew Church’ll
(puff)
I was ’is mistress
We picnicked on the beaches, we
picnicked i’ the groves
an’ when ’e felt frolicsome
(often, too often), ’e
dogged me up the ’ills - o
terrorfied e’d slip
poly like a boulder
split the army ten-pins
’Itler stickin’ ’is tongue out victory-like
hisssss
But it was all kiss-kiss
no business
(puff)
Didn’ enjoy’t, really
for ’e sprayed when ’e talked
(an ’e talked)
like an ’ydrant
like sea-whips
like an ’oppin’ frothy dog
(puff)
Naught to gawk at, neither -
somethin’ like a squeezed ’alf-asleep frog printable
Rolli
Green Bottles
I lived in green bottles
To live in green bottles
a man must tempt friends
into a fire oven, shutting
the door, remorseless
He must line his children, wife
and scythe them like summer wheat
He must slough his clothes
and become an animal
He may roll in the dirt
if it pleases him
He must then scale the neck
of a green bottle
and stuff himself in, some
chimney sweep
This can be very painful
He must dwell inside for a time
and then, when the glass is dry
smash it with clinched fists
If he lives
he must find another bottle
and begin again
He must do this until he dies
or is checked by some onlooker
I do not believe in god
And yet I thank god
that I live no more in green bottles printable 3 Rolli poems
Rolli
Bonheur irrémédiable
pour Marianne et Frank
L’automne a trop d’hiver pour préserver l’automne.
Dans ma douche l’aube noircie et paresseuse
me confie qu’elle doute, donc elle brille. La bonne
planéte naine tousse et offer ses lois facheuses.
L’automne a assez d’hiver. Dansant le faux automne,
étoile coupée, l’aube noire est voluptueusse.
Le chien de la forêt secrète toujours me protège,
Grignotant l’ordure. Trempé, le bonheur m’étonne.
Toutes les saisons de l’aube hurlent leur coeur de neige.
L’automne a trop d’hiver pour préserver l’automne.
Brandon, Vermont
Incurable Happiness
for Marianne and Frank
Fall has too much winter to preserve fall.
In my shower the blackish and lazy dawn
confides her doubts in me and glows, the whole
good dwarf planet coughs, offers clumsy laws,
and autumn has enough of winter. False fall
dances. Black dawn, a severed star, is voluptuous,
the dog of the secret forest protects me now,
gnawing garbage. I’m drenched, stunned by joy. All
seasons of the dawn scream their heart of snow.
Fall has too much winter to preserve fall.
Romance del regreso
Yo grito un llanto de llantas,
ahora vuelo a la costa.
Soy mujer de dos países,
voy a las llamas del mar.
Mis hijas nacidas gringas
pero yo soy tropical
donde fruta son montañas
y chile un fuerte nopal.
Dejo mis años de rayo
para el cielo de los toros
donde jugarán con platos
de nácar fino y plata
mis tres hijas en su exilio.
Mi casa de blanca alfombra
volante gira borracha
como paloma sin brújula.
Soy mujer de dos países,
voy a las llamas del mar.
Mis hijas nacidas gringas
pero yo soy tropical.
Ballad of the Return
I scream a dirge of tires
as I fly back to the coast.
A woman of two countries,
I’m off to flames of the sea.
My daughters were born gringas
but I am tropical
where fruit are the mountains
and chile blossoming nopal.
I leave my years of lightning
for the heavens of the bull
where my three daughters in exile
will be juggling plates
of silver and mother of pearl.
My house of floating white rug
is spinning around drunk
like a dove without her compass.
A woman of two countries,
I’m off to flames of the sea.
My daughters were born gringas
but I am tropical. printable
Willis Barnstone
MESSIAEN: CINQUAIN FOR THE END OF TIME
—Tashi, for RCA Victor “Gold Seal”; recorded December
1975; CD reissue August 1989.
“Conceived and written in the course of my captivity, the
Quartet for the End of Time was performed for the first time
in Stalag 8-A on January 15, 1941…”
—Olivier Messiaen
1. Cluster: The Movements
to praise
the angel who
announces liturgy
of crystal rainbow vocalise
abyss
of birds
an interlude
the immortality
of Jesus time eternity
the dance
of who
announces end
the seven trumpets end
the angel Jesus fury time
to praise
2. The Music
Begins
with intricate
piano voicings, like
a jazz quartet three quarters put
to death;
a score
for “Twilight Zone,”
the episode in which
the sheltering conceit will thin,
snuff out;
a march
of ghosts and matched
inexorably, as
I listen, by a siren blocks
away.
He writes
that “the abyss
is Time”; opposing it
he posits birds: seraphic Grand
Guignol;
the spry
ebullient squawks
of Aristophanes’
besieged by shrieks of Hitchcocks.’ He
enquires
through bursts
of withering
melodic schism, none
the less contemplative, beyond
the Word
itself;
instead, upon
a human chaos scrawled,
between its lines, in failure; then
allows
this Word’s
harsh verities,
and none the less abstract,
its pallid “Everlastingness,”
to mount.
He says
he hears, in dreams—
submits—to “vectors,” the
“unreal.” Of “superhuman” war
what would
have Freud
construed? From dreams
to unreality…
time signatures unhinging at
time’s end.
Of Him?
A tangency
remote and warm, sans text;
a dimly atmospheric sense
of thanks;
throughout
is brought to bear
the queasy quietude
of sturdy faith put sensibly
to use.
What was
it to have heard
this piece played there and then?
What had been lately done to earn
such praise?
3. Cover Art: the Angel
To preach,
interpret, forge
translations of transla-
tions—scores and scores; the centuries
will change
this much,
transpose it, as
your nihilists’ conceits
aflame and smokeless at my heels.
What will
what will
surcease in an
apparent nothingness
contrive to mean? What will you know?
O cool
this soft
blue ocean, from
the figure of my step
irradiating! Scrawled are these
that you
will know,
these figures of
this motion, mysteries—
how many consummate within
an end
of that
which figures their
own measurement? And my
own essence is such mystery:
consumed
when solved;
consummate in
salvation; in the weak,
imprisoned by configurements
engaged
with time’s
extremity—
O then enumerate
those trumpets true! You will know what
and why! printable
Charles Leggett
