Luis Felipe Ylloa
POR UN MOMENO DE PAZ
David Hopes
THE ANNUNCIATION
IN WINTER
A LOVER'S CONTRACT
A DEDICATION
A CEREMONY FOR THE FIRE
Terri L. Ford
SWANNANOA BRIDGE
Ellen Cooney
BALLAD OF A YOUNG VICTORIAN VIOLINIST
WINTER NIGHTS, UNIVERSITY OF HEIDELBERG, 1390's
AT A MASS IN RAINY LONDON 1559
TO SIR THOMAS MORE
D. Castleman
BLOODY MOONS HATCH IN A SPECTACLE OF INNOCENCE.
David J. Kelly
BLUE LIGHT LIKE A WATER PLANET
William Borden
AT THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
R Bartkowech
AT THE SAG OF A LEAF
EAST NOW
Alan Lupack
CLASSICAL LAMENT
Jim Wanner
WORKS ON PAPER AND CANVAS
GUERNICA TOO
Jerry Ratch
SONNET 56
Margaret Flanagan Eicher
ISMENE
VAN GOGH IN ARLES
Joseph Farley
FIRST BORN
D. Nurkse
BLUE LIGHTS
Sanford Pinsker
THE DOM, AT KOLN
Tom Hawkins
BURIAL BY FULL MOON
Kurt J. Fickert
SUNDAY PAINTER
William J. Vernon
YOUNG MOTHER IN A PUBLIC PARK
Suzan Cartune
10 AVENUE AT 57TH STREET
Dan Gribbin
PERFECT PITCH
John A. Youril
HIEROGLYPH
Walt Phillips
THE DANCE EVOLVES
LOVE & THOUGHT
APARTMENTS
VAYA
Christina Zawadiwsky
THE NIGHT IS TOO LONG FOR ME TO REMEMBER
IN THE DARK WITH THE SNAKES
Allan Morris
THE BLISS KAPLOWITZ LETTERS
Marketta Laurila (translator)
FOR A MOMENT OF PEACE
Notes on the contributors
Illustrations:
Margaret Anne Cleek
Walt Phillips
Cover Design:
Margaret Anne Cleek
In this
Northern Annunciation,
do not
anticipate conflict
between conviction
and observation.
To be dreamed is to be done.
The rainbow hilarious archangel
warps the floor with real weight.
The Holy Ghost descends like a
circus dancer on a golden wire,
smaller than doves in life,
as if to affirm the miracle
survives a carnival of externals.
Mary says her lines upside-down
for His convenience.
The agent
of a bashful love,
the angel
brings her lilies,
smiling sweetly at it all,
ear half cocked to the tramp
of kingdoms
in the lily's throat.
The Testament, an afterthought
cut in an incidental floor,
holds this
jewel, this sky-larking up.
Snowplain
blue under the moon.
Stars, oh
yes, like flowers
in a poor
field than can afford but few.
Gulls huddle on the frozen river,
stupidly, or steadfastly,
shaking
their white heads, dreamless.
You know
where I have wandered,
how appled
from this garden
when you
were Abel yet among your toys.
But I have further news:
The bad of
that tale is for once only;
the amazement, everlasting:
that we should want so much in dreams
and find by day so little is enough.
I who
wanted Zion
by the
thunder of my voice
will be
content to stand
where oak
shoots up its pillar of strayed sea;
where streams braid from the mountain
like lovers' fistfulls of bright hair;
where to lift valerian heart-high,
sun's spent from a purse of stars.
I who set
out to steal the sun
tell my sobered heart to be
an outlaw star by night,
purple, many-pointed, spinning,
crying It is simple here
O my bones. Become.
Listen.
Hard angels
hover lance eyes above the town.
They scare good children homeward.
They hollow the faces of the lost
with the
unforgiving diamond of streetlights,
seal night streets in a dream of dreaming.
I walk
between those spirits
setting and
more fiercely rising: east, west,
angels ruling over fire and air,
the hungry ones in conflagration
between starlight and the dim squares.
Whatever they were to me they are no more.
I tell you,
child of my heart,
as I tell
my heart, sometimes
in this
world to wake after madness,
after
night, after dreams of death
and dreams
so dark the dreamer prays for death,
sometimes to inhale a first dawn breath and be
is gift past grief and longing and revenge.
I vow the
power
of
thunderbolt pronged
between us,
whether fuse or divide
what matters is intensity of fire.
At first
cry, first fist
fretted at the bars
I'll torque
to twist you free.
Hours toll, doves winnow
from the tower, forgetting
how they longed to rest,
belled to a white haste,
exile and exultation
borne on the deep same sound.
Speak once
in terror and
I jag
darkness to refute,
as in a house storm-struck
flame processes inward,
as soul
moves like a candle
through
aisles of stone,
lighting,
enshadowed, lighting again.
Cry for
lone times back:
I carry
forfeiture in a crown of rain.
Those jade
eyes lidded, overcome,
out of gleam dissolving
from the world's edge
I steal this courage, this coda
exquisite and incomplete:
the
revocation of appointed night.
I heap with
hands open. Back away.
I set ban
as binding
as a child
plays under waves-
fin-floor, roof of thunder-
as a child
sea-godded hurries out
untouchable in living crystal,
once loved, each tide-turn lost,
as wild
thing hugged to wildness, safe.
Nobody
shall be beautiful but you beside the willows.
Nobody cut like this, a bird that is
blue and dark and almost part of the water.
Nobody ascend as you:
a stillness
moving, like those feet
beautiful
with good news upon the dome of Zion.
I will give you a ceremony for the fire.
Dig among
the graves for tinder of Eve's hair,
meshed now to metal in the ground,
a lode like
diamonds crushed to elemental gray.
For fuel take this book in which the arts
of love and poetry are set down
to blaze with a musk of blood and roses.
For altar I
lie with my back on stone.
To the spark an idiot will lead you.
He saw where light dropped from heaven
like a burning bat.
Undigestable
eyeballs sizzle in the ash.
When flame
blows translucent purple.
When the
hair of our mother snaps and dances.
When the idiot comes too close
and goes up like a panic of gold birds,
and the fat of the altar boils,
flesh and fire one adornment
alone of
all things shamelessly to be worn,
lean forward and be warmed.
1.
January
thaws in the culverts off the expressway,
running its sound between banks. Dark spires shine
in hills that are as dimly cut as bowls
in blue distance. Jail workers slouch,
grin on the
bridge's rail, saluting
girls and each diesel truck.
Young men
badged and creased, rifle-strapped,
stiffly pace before them: in the sun,
the gleam of the guns.
2.
Three men,
same bridge, swinging lanterns
over weighty snow. They'll find the body
before night is through. Imagine
it is your body, that soundlessly
you plunged
from your car
for that
deep, wet white. Or maybe,
in the
unwatched moment, as you were reaching
for a coffee cup, the ravine
seemed to
swing lushly, rushing up
its whole
length at you; and when you plummeted
from the bridge, the body
seemed to
sing without time.
Imagine
that someone, for you,
is swinging
a lantern between his gloved hands,
in winter: a man who sees his breath,
maybe whistles under it.
they said
the morning after
a soldier
took him to dive
the bloody
heap was unrecognizable
as a gentleman once alive
my body
still fresh and new to me
between the tall Cambridge men
still fresh the music of Bach
Handel Mozart and Haydn
with sopranos
in white dresses
silver born with flowers
sherry
arias and kisses passing few
exams in many languid hours
till one
afternoon in a silver pitcher
I saw their silly smiles and heard
their shrill chatter and all was
shattered by their trivial words
and I
longed again for my tall Cambridge men
gone now to the wars with armor and swords
to return the lily on St. George's Day
to rightful lords
yet instead
of brother knights I found
hardly a gentleman
instead of
smiles and tokens
love was coarsely given
one evening
a young blonde soldier
with intelligent blue eyes
opened to
me his Greek Homer and at last
I felt favored with a prize
but when he
finished his gin
flew high
on the table coarse
was his laughter and away
he pulled
me with great brute force
my body
still fresh and new to me
between the tall Cambridge men
still fresh the music of Bach
Handel Mozart and Haydn
he piles
himself on top of me
bringing warmth from the taverns
and warmth from his women
their
coarseness breathing through
him into my ear
their deep
lusty voices warming
the soprano ladies of my dreams
under their silks
hic est
enim corpus meum
then
Aristotle is piled on
top of
Vergil on top of Euclid
on top of all of us
revelling
in the heat
of the
disputation
now at
fifty and again alone
my lady dead
my children
gone
and no
longer with murderers
or martyrs
of either Realm or Rome
do I communicate yet not
today shall
these old red boots muddy off
to the ale house for through
these things I lean here still however
weary in this Sunday hour
on whatever stone floor there is
under whatever sun there is
within whatever love there is
that Tallis still makes true
do you
remember old neighbor
how we used to split
and toss our ideals
back and forth like so many
juggler's balls
before you
held fast to the one
tyranny
over the others
but you do not remember
because of
your death I let fall
all of them and bitter and old
I died old neighbor
still hearing your footsteps
on the riverbank your laughter
ringing in the oak your spirit
coming as the Lamento to the feasts
the bitter
underflavor of poisoned wine
the hairshirt under common wool
Bloody moons hatch in a spectacle of innocence.
Splashing
round our edge of understanding
those angelplumed mists so coil about us,
deepening as into one holy ring
surrounded by holy rings past notice.
Beyond are
unknown clouds of dwellingplace
beasts invest with a divine mythology,
as contemporary bias and race
decides
who'll be dwelling there, who'll not be.
No human
home or tongue lacked a favorite
picturesque absolute to be honored,
with gods
abhorred, and gods of cleanest light
whose eyes awakened worlds and wept and bled.
--For each,
one's fellow is the lesser martyr
vaguely preliminary as was Christ,
and each one is Judas, born to barter
substance too real for a substance of mist.--
Blue light
like
a water
planet, spinning
through twilight, an owl's
first glimpse of the pale
eyed cat: this
rapture swims toward
a skyless range,
dust-white corridor
from here to the moon.
Eyes strain against
the change of form.
In my destruction
I free a host of
shadows, each shadow
a desire to alter
other shadows, free only
to change themselves.
Owls knife the dark
for mice. The cat kills
slowly, without guilt.
Their claws etch lines
between dead air and
living skin. Alone
with a fading dusk,
I find signatures in
moths, fireflies,
anything
that floats in air.
Stars disconnect,
fireflies
sputter, dead mice
sprout wings and bats
flop around, confusing
moths and owls alike.
As much as I want
to sing
this light alive,
whatever colors the moon
dreams up its own
enchantments, makes
things fly as if by
anarchy. My shadow drowns
in larger shadows,
a mind that can't see
beyond its livelihood.
Blue light blacks out.
Night scavengers disperse
in cold air, and every
thing I've tried to say
falls down. Ten o'clock.
The moon's curve is a
raptor's talon and offers
even smaller consolation.
A breeze moves around me,
smelling faintly of rain.
Winged creatures
have fed upon this air.
The owl and moth
have blessed me with
their eyes. I am waking
toward midnight, slowly
grateful, knowing
every body has its own
peculiar light, its
loops and
dives, its evening
desperations. In whatever
ignorance I walk, this
light also has its body.
I rise, and the shadows
presumably take their place.
Enthusiasts
of post-impressionism stroll
through the garden, eye meaningfully Lipchitz'
Mother and Child II, but do not look at
me, Borden Seated.
I don't
know why. I'm
not without
aesthetic
possibilities.
They
saunter toward Picasso. Motherhood
thrusts stumps of arms
at the blue
Manhattan sky. She seems to be
in exultant agony. The fountains froth
gaily, and the art enthusiasts snap pictures.
Another man, looking a little down and out,
slumps on the other side
of
Motherhood. He snoozes
in the
afternoon sun. His head drifts
down, jerks up, drifts. We are
necessary elements
in this
composition. We have yet to get
our finishing touches, but our rough
edges can be polished yet.
His winds
gave poor collection
For this orphan night;
At the sag
of a leaf he sat
With shiftless bygones
And
unknowns of life alive living
Never crossed the open field
Although
fingers of the highest branch
Curled to beg the sky
For a flight of hand.
His step
upon nothing
Is a
dangerous caution
And with the
unprotected mercy
Of each dripping kiss
Comes a
running chance of dreamsmoke circles
Spiralling off
Between
closed-hand fingers.
His upside
now exposed an eye
Of him
To wild
variants of nightcrawl fire,
Moss-dregs moist smoldering;
While the inside lightening
Strikes
thundered sunvapors
Into the
givegive of laughing dwarves
Lying secretly
Below
life's alive living horizon.
This is the hard of it all--
The wreck
of a night-stormed wind
On its
knees before the bleeding
Stillness of his captive becomings.
At the
blade of a thought
He stumbled
into the opening words
And sliced
off a phrase that he seeded.
The wandering backwards place
In which he still remained
Showed his empty face once again-
His hands were mixing the sweat
Of a necessary alibi
But all he
got was the crumble of now
As his wandering walked on by.
At the
squeeze of a candle
He squinted
into the closing lights,
Under his nails the hot wax was flowing.
He stuck his feet in the earth
And prayed for the womb of change
And with the rain of his tears
He made another attempt at growing:
The bending wind of moments
Enclosed him in an endless sphere
And the sunseed shrieked
In a leaving voice,
"There
will be no growing here!"
Too much
tomorrow passing
And not
enough now gone by,
Behind the
curtains the actor is choking.
The mad dog's ears are tied
To the bells of another chime
And if a movement comes
It's got to crash a way through time.
Leaning against the anchor-wall
His weight
has sunk his smile
But when
his he-filled sun comes up
He'll be pushing off
Into the
many-a-mile.
Easy now--
I'd give me
everything
If I only knew me how.
An urchin
untutored by Aristotle
takes aim with an Aegean rock
and, scorning ideal images
that can't withstand a stone,
knocks the nose
from a
towering telamon.
We look at
the scarred statue
and lament
the hubris of the hurler-
we who have seen Odysseus
become Outis
and who are
ourselves
only a
stone's throw
from a
similar fate.
These are
naked,
some say
with the
error of the idiot
masquerading
as de civitas Dei
profane,
fertility
goddesses
bellys shining
not breasts
in blood fervor,
pagan priests
as dogs
being tamed
taming
what
in her
arms,
face etched
now
so eternal,
and legs
spreading
the future
in what
world
wills
to be.
His head
was bloody and red
from a
beating against the wall;
it would have made a nice sight
had it been painted
by Picasso
but he was
dead.
and the
rest and the others erect a little king
driven on shaken impelled to be bold and daring
listening to the other hearing the other star steered
elder windpipe elder reed or flute ever always
ever to say yes two sweet altered red lips
make their
notorious mark on the forehead
on the
viable neck historians by now have condemned
many many lamentations many wailings
blue green
yellow red the rib is a fiction
to both the
founder of Britain and the assassin of Caesar
make up
your hopelessly great mind
clay and
earth moved while you were away Ulysses
o you for whom the stars seem to have waited
as if the golden
fact of your birth unwalled them
She
said--Antigone--it is the dead
Who make
the longest demands. Antigone
Is dead.
And my two brothers, the buried one
And the
left to rot, are dead; and Oedipus,
My father,
who maimed himself to blindness, dead;
Jocasta, my mother, self-destroyed--
How guilt
comes down from them like sacrifice smoke!--
And Creon's son, Haemon, Antigone's
Love, and Eurydice, his mother, dead
By their own doing. Gods! I should go forth
And from a hilltop temple cry their names
Till they rolled like wind across the land, like tides
Seaward and back, that souls unknown might weep
With me at such a slash of death's long blade.
Creon, my uncle, lost his wife and son
and sister, but we have no tears together;
He would not bury death but with more death.
And yet--Antigone! She would not yield.
Oh, I am weary of people with a cause,
Pushing it hard though others fall like grain
Around them; it may seem only just since they
Die too. But it is harder than she knew staying
Behind in echoing life among the dead's
Longest demands. Antigone was hard
As our rocky ways. She would not let me die
With her at last because I would not die
At first, nor yet say me a kind farewell.
Creon is living, but what have I to do
With the living? Antigone holds me
With the least relenting hand of all the dead.
In Arles
the mistral runs low
through the
wheat,
parting it
as if a
small animal scurried through it.
The gold
and reds are still there, blue green,
olive green,
forming the
county background
for genius,
typically
impoverished--mad--
suicidal,
honor
enough
years later
to be too
late for him.
I died on the
altar of Baal
before I was two months old
a sacrifice, a sign of love
and obedience--
for my
parents were too poor
to buy a
slave baby as substitute
my fire cracked body lies
in the heap
of debris behind the temple
the dead hill.
Who can
criticize the will of God?
Who can
judge custom-and man?
For I took
you to the temple of Baal
where you sacrificed your first born.
Baal will understand and God will forgive
but will man?
Rhiannon
was found guilty
of killing
her children
and
sentenced to be a pack animal
and carry others on her back
for the rest of her life.
You carry your burden well
and lift people to their feet
carry them
with you as long as you can
hope they learn to stand,
but you dream of the baby
with the beautiful pink lips
small and choking near you
burnt by the salt that's killing it.
The nurse comes to save you,
takes the pillow presses it down
on the
fetus.
This is the
dream that plagues you
at Christmas--
did it
happen that way?
Only you
know and you will not say
as you lift me to my feet once more
and chase away the shadows
of paradise.
Dawn window
rain
each drop
prolonged
a little
past itself.
Your breath in my body
and you in his bed.
My hands still
talkative
in a language my mind
now knows is gibberish.
By evening, they will be
two small
walls against desire.
In Koln,
the Cathedral towers over everything:
its Roman
ruins and post-war streets,
the Rhine
snaking its way like an afterthought.
Standing by the Dom, I thought of Lawrence
and his obsession for gothic arches,
the way they reached for life beyond the Self.
What he would later turn into blood-consciousness.
Dom did not mean that for me. On the day
before
Passover, I remembered Egypt and the Plagues.
My father fingering out the first drop
as I drifted off, the sound of "blood" in my ears.
I was asleep before we got to Machos B'Koros.
There was a red spot on my plate, an omen
more would follow. This, too, is blood.
What binds the generations to each other.
Isaac cowering under the patriarchal knife knew
that lash their sons to themselves
and God. That is what I told my son
as we stretched out on Koln's square.
among the hawkers and chalk artists-
all under the Dom's watchful eye.
I buried
you the night you died
under the
first tree you ever climbed
from which you displayed your
twin moon-gold eyes
minted fire
bright between the leaves.
You ascended into air
with your
magic and your life.
Each day
you lived you made my day;
you made possible the night,
your temper,
and your
angelic wit,
your game
of tag, your hide-and-seek,
your discoveries
and
disappearing act,
moling
under the covers of the bed
and
appearing behind me from thin air.
They put
you in a little cardboard box,
the terrible weight,
recognizable
in my hands as your face,
precisely right.
The bottom
of the box
still
warmed me with your last warmth.
I chopped
my way into the ground
cutting roots with a pruning tool
into that hard air of clay,
where you must climb,
where I lay
you to rise
to some new
meeting of our minds.
We are pieces of one life.
You can't
tell what it represents?
the sun
swimming in the ocean?
a Datsun
drowning in a puddle?--
That's the
twenty-five cent banana split
at the soda
fountain on my seventh birthday.
That's roller-coastering, tensing
with every curve and plunge
and shuddering with delight
as the ride rumbles to a halt.
That's arm-in-arming through a tree tunnel
fragrant with a June night tangle of honeysuckle,
Lifebuoy and Shalimar perfume.
That's flesh that I anointed with rare
ointments and exotic oils
and brushed with my impassioned breath.
Lioness
after a hunt, relaxed
while her cub plays and the pride
eat the rest of her prey, she
purrs to her friend about nothing,
seems to
loll half asleep. But
this is the city where enemies
hide in the most innocent guise,
say of those lovers sitting back
to back on
the grass. Look again
and you see the mother's muscles are
taut, that the green metal rungs cup
her torso, that her wraparound cuts
red C's on
her knees, that her feet
are so
squared that her toes grip
the earth.
When the two-year-old drops
handfuls of dirt on his head, she
moves with
grace, brushes him clean,
pats his
behind. All of her breath sings
about him. But her eyes dart around
watching strangers on benches nearby.
"It
ain't the melody it ain't the music,
There's
something else that make: the tune complete."
I was
struck by rhythm today, waiting for the light.
The trombones and highhats hit first,
as they
strutted from my speakers,
shaking off
crystal soot, looking around.
Syncopating out the windshield,
making all
the street-crossers swing from the hips,
they merged my madness with the city's sass.
I switched as I waited, and from
QXR
Mozart
suddenly materialized,
to
orchestrate the walkers through a more refined crossing.
Gliding obligingly through the purple-gold grid-lock,
they gave me gifts of gargoyles and finer times.
I pushed
the button to BGO
where a
dripping sax poured out the engine,
smudging my car with sludgy blue ooze.
Pushing
people easily, sleazily,
across the
block and into the bar,
it quelled
my qualms with fog and Four Roses.
But now
comes KTU to evaporate the lazy state.
Its pulsing
bass shakes the street like an earthquake,
making people run, hurry, hide, hang-on, dance-
but all while wearing wild colors.
The drum
pounds so hard it makes the light turn green,
causing my car to crescendo quite quickly.
Poetry, too, like jazz through the
windshield,
plucks
colors and pulsebeats to animate the gray state,
merging my madness with the rhythms of the writers.
let it hang
out
there
in red
you said
precisely exactly what I mean
i've left
the canvas up
but words like colors cool
and
it pleased
me better what we played
before I penned it down
In what
darkness do your sullen dreams hide
Brooding on the blood-splattered day and pacing
the deserted rooms of eternity.
The silence
here is unnerving, pacing, lurking in
the shadows and waiting out the sun
Your
thoughts are a frost that kills in the night
and vanishes before morning
The rain
comes and goes without reason.
Where are
you now, this minute, this one single
instant in all the dead vastness of time.
What have
you found that is worth the forgetting
What plans that will crumble to the ground.
The years
we have spent together are like dull
dreams waking in anguish
And the
whole oratory of half-spoken words
discovers in itself a meaning.
One day
more in the wilderness
One more
evening thought to sleep with.
seated on
the upper porch facing west
the visitor
the undertaker and the carpenter
the dark-shingled new england boarding house
is buffeted by strong winds swirling tree bark
the two don't ask him about california
not realizing he had ever left
in the
nearby post office work goes on as usual
and the clerks have begun to look like each other
on the boarding house sidewalk the dance evolves
several children and a secret adult
wearing a huge pumpkin head mask
and a cloak
the visitor
wonders whether it's here
or california
for the
rest of the puzzling scary show
her eyes
are fixed
on
something distant
something non-existent
like her
like me
like
everything
according
to several
of many
non-existent
texts
are those
slim fingers
caressing the puppy?
he slowly
turns the pages
listening
at the
mission
he
discovers
the secret
of life:
walk on and pray
find
no
religions
find
only
mysteries
walk with them
talk with them
prayer enough
for any life
The stones
stand in the cemetery
over
something that likes having been buried for years.
You sit
staring at the ghosts in the television
as animals
hear their bones split in dark foreign countries.
And back and forth something moves and moves,
passing and re-passing ancient windows.
A damp, receding corridor winds into the future
as you wind wool around your fingers.
Needles of reality pass through your body
like sudden or forgotten love, like the roots of fig trees
unearthing themselves and toppling everything,
toppling hope and useless pain.
Rising from
your memory is the thread of a spirit,
a spirit
who always spotted four-leaf clovers in the rain,
the one who knew how to turn your heart into a wind chime
that sang true songs of euphoria and purity, the sweet purity
of nothing ever being straight or clear,
a new butterfly crawling out of its shell,
a woman sunk in her pregnant dreams,
a crack in the box you call your home,
a window to open and close again.
The stones
sleep in the cemetery
and your
life continues, to you always a mystery,
from
distraction to distraction a passionate reunion
with sanity, a little girl jumping up to kiss a screen
because beyond it she can see bright birds moving.
Something always flies away, something is always there
to eliminate or control, something always awakens
little bits
of love that lie sleeping behind your eyes,
your blue
eyes, the only parts of your body invisible to you.
Small animals clinch and re-clinch and sometimes burrow,
they break apart like colored balls in a game,
the slightest scent of joy shatters and misleads you,
a moment in another's presence rearranges your bones.
Ghosts pretend to kiss in well-lit countries,
their illusions as real to you as the supposed reality
of your own
name. Somewhere, sometimes, there must be someone.
Under the ground, behind a garbage can, a stranger
you meet on the way home.
But the
stones stand still and call out their names.
One is
heavy and never had a chance to run.
One likes
to watch and watch without retrieving anything.
One drew a heart on his enormous body but chose
not to mimic the other within. One crept up to a house
with huge windows and watched as the inside
burst into flames. What was inside there to begin with?
An animal that tried to stay eternally young.
A steel trap that collected teeth and needles.
A garden of forgotten fingers and faces and the actions
of those without a tongue. Every day they all rise
and pretend to worship, every day they blind themselves
with the
suns of higher knowledge and unanticipated feelings,
strange combinations of milk and terror.
And you sleep just as well as anyone.
Angels are
covering their genitals, crying
and
confessing how everything scares them.
Soon the cow will come and lick your wounds,
and
Methusalah will sing in a voice rising with passion,
the seahorse
tattooed on his left arm twisting and swimming.
The bed smells of sorrow, and your perfume
is caught on the raw borders of happiness,
your face swollen against the freezing window.
Coming together while falling apart.
A bright
cut rose rises out of the gloom
and a
purple jewel glints on your finger.
The devils
are laughing as they roll with the mice
through the dirt in the subway, scattering
like a game. You cry a dark rosary
of tears,
and your prayers are the moans
that keep
the night oiled. Another old timer
asks for a quarter, but he means a quarter of
time, blood, and tribulation, not the money
that will turn his nightmares into flames.
Lightning
holds down its electric arms,
begging you
to jump into the sky. The oldest female saint
steps down from her painting, rustling in elaborately
folded clothes. The cacti on the plain turn into
white crosses, the berries on your hat roll down
and root themselves in the ground. Cherries
are for children: your pain is for everyone.
Soon the cow will come and lick your arms,
the fish will swim into the river of joys and demons,
the gold will flake down from their sides
and fall down on us like rain.
Dear Allan Morris:
I am returning your story, "Demons Beset Me Muchly," although I like it a lot and, with some judicious rewriting here and there, I think it would fit FULCRUM's format. Unfortunately, FULCRUM #5 is filled to the gills and already typeset, and God knows when I'll get the money to put out FULCRUM #6. If your piece is not out with some other mag at that time, you might want to resubmit "Demons" in the Fall when, hopefully, we'll have the bucks available to publish again.
Sorry about holding "Demons" so long, but things have been very hectic and upsetting for me lately. I have never claimed to have a very strong grip on reality, and lately the threads have been getting tenuous. Also, I was recently married, and have spread myself a bit thin--all of which wasn't helped one bit by my having to check into the hospital for a week last month to take care of this minor, but unpleasant, "female complaint" (as they used to say). In short, I am worn out and run down, and between all this and my desire to publish FULCRUM on some kind of regular basis... it has been very hard.
Have you ever seen FULCRUM? It's a very subjective, personal thing. It's basically about my life, and the people I come in contact with. I liked your story because something like it recently happened to me--in reverse--and it struck a sympathetic note somehow. And also, I love the way you wring comedic content out of the subject of suicide without ever descending into bathos or bad taste and like that. That's got to be incredibly hard to do, and yet you pull it off brilliantly... with reservations, of course.
Anyway, if you haven't seen FULCRUM before, incredible as this may seem, its's--are you ready for this?--it's on sale at no less than three bookstores in New York. How's that for a "little magazine" that's based in Wisteria, Wyoming of all places? Anyway, since you live in Manhattan, try the Groovy Oeuvre on St. Marks Place, or if they're out of it, Conchita's Alternative Literary Salon in Soho near Canal Street, or Schreger's Greeting Cards in West Village (across from the Christopher Street Pier, I think). The only problem is FULCRUM changes in format with each issue and looks different all the time--so whatever issue you pick up (probably FULCRUM /4) won't actually be representative of anything but itself. Still, I'd like to have your opinion since the book's so much a part of my life, an extension of my very being actually.
As I said, I really liked "Demons Beset Me Muchly," and would dig using it in FULCRUM. You write well in a sort of black comedy genre which really isn't black comedy at all, but wholesome and gross at the same time, kind of, and that's pretty tricky to pull off. Well, you don't pull it off all the way, but the piece is mendable if you don't mind basting and stitching and patching a little before you resubmit. (That is, if you care to resubmit; I mean, maybe when you see FULCRUM you'll think it's not quite the right showcase for your stuff; FULCRUM's a terribly interpersonal little mag, you know.)
Anyway, to get back to your story (I'm terribly tangential, as you may have gathered; it's my curse), it struck me that with the simple expedient of changing Sol to Sal (I mean their sexes, not their character), you'd have a more logical portrayal of what's eating at Sol (who'd then be known as Sal--although you might consider name changes for both characters--the similarity is confusing to the reader). What's interesting is that Sal (who'd become Sol if you accept my suggestion--which you are of course perfectly within your rights to say, screw that, Bliss Kaplowitz!) Wait! How did I begin the previous sentence? Oh! Anyway, Sal (as she is currently constituted) is such a ballsy bitch, all she'd need is a scrotum and you-know-what to become the perfect male protagonist--or protagonist/antagonist, actually.
Also, after all those terrifically funny references to Sol's suicidal estranged wife, I was puzzled that the humorous part of it kind of ran down to a trickle after she finally found the wherewithal to do away with herself. Don't you think this is inconsistent? It sort of leaves the reader up in the air; here you've been preparing him (her) all along for Laura's "attempt" with this wonderful series of literary sight gags, then when Laura finally does O.D. successfully, there's this pall of gloom that drops down over the story, like a shroud, kind of. It doesn't quite work, Allan. And it wouldn't take more than a judicious bit of re-writing here and there to pull the pieces together. I mean, you write so well and "Demon's" has so much to say so effectively about contra-personalization that, rewritten, the piece could really be your Open Sesame to a lot of establishment recognition. I mean a Pushcart Prize maybe, or an O'Henry Award selection; maybe even Beat Short Stories. Of course, this is the only piece of yours I've seen, but I can tell you write real classy.
But hey!--I gotta go. Listen, hang in there with your writing--you've really got the goods. And let's see what you can do to make "Demons" just a touch more viable. And, oh yes, do glom on to a copy of FULCRUM when the spirit moves and let me know what you think.
Yrs.
Bliss S.
Kaplowitz
Editorial Director
Fulcrum Press
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Dear Allan:
Dynamite! Whatever small problems I may have had with "Demons Beset Me Muchly" on your first submit are a wipe out now. You've really got it together. Especially the marvelously inventive way you switched sexes with Sal and Sol and turned Laura's suicide into something like the closing production number of a Busby Berkley movie musical. The Sal and Sol switcheroo was really an inspiration! Talk about creative rewriting! Wherever did you get the idea? As I said ...dynaaite! Anyway, it's going to be a little tight, but I think I can squeeze "Demons" into FULCRUM #6 now that I've got some bread from the Wyoming Council of the Arts--God bless 'em! It'll be a crunch, since I'd more or less planned to give over the whole issue to these sex poems I've been writing so compulsively the last few months. Well, maybe I'll plunk your piece right in the middle of the issue as a kind of, you know, intermission for the poems.
Ah, yes--the poems. Why poetry? Why now? Why the sexual thrust to all of them (although I don't go in for graphic detail or anything like that; masturbatory substitutions are not for this kid!)? Well, in case you're holding your breath waiting for the definitive answer, I'm not exactly sure. Possibly it's because Jock and I are not together anymore. A month or so ago (I've blocked out the exact date), Jock out out and I haven't seen or heard from him since. No farewell note, no phone call--nothing. He simply wasn't there when I came back from the bank one day (I'm chief teller at Lycoming National; thank God I didn't give that up when Jock moved in and married me--although predictably, being the male chauvinist pig that he is, he was all gung ho for my staying home and keeping house--the bastard). He could be dead for all I know. Or care. And he was a loser to begin with. Go fall in love with a failed physics professor! And he wasn't all that great even at you-know-what. And he was twenty-five years older than I am, and looked it ... and acted it. Still and all, there's a big fat bole in the scenery--you better believe it! And in this town, you don't easily come up with new meaningful relationships unless you're ready to turn so square you're practically a trapezoid. So there you have it: Bliss Kaplowitz, Girl Malcontent and Sex Poet.
Well, it's bound to work out for the better, I'm sure. Being unloaded by Jock has to be for the better, a blessing in disguise. But in the meantime...
Hell's bells--enough about me. Thanks oodles for filling me in on you! I think it's just super how you pulled yourself up from your bootstraps after your wife died, and started right out re-ordering your priorities and focussing in on felt needs within minutes after the cremation. Pretty gutsy stuff for a fifty-six year-old CPA with grown daughters and a heart murmur. And what's great about it is that it's.. .working! You write like a dream, Allan. Marvelous! You can never tell, can you? Well, you're an inspiration to us all--me in particular. And I can't wait to see more of your stuff.
Who knows, maybe we'll meet one of these days. Sympatico types, each with his (her) own tragedy to get over and live down. Does your business ever take you near this part of the world? You know where to reach me if it does. But...
HOLD ON TO YOUR HATS! Mousy, repressed, intellectually curious Bliss Kaplowitz is about to break out one of these days. And I don't mean with hives. Now that Jocko's flown the coop, yours truly is gonna start spreading her luscious little wings again. And don't you be surprised, Allan Morris, if you get a call one of these days and it's Blissful Bliss announcing she's wheeled all the way over to the Big Apple for a taste of culture shock and some big-city living. But meanwhile...
...keep those stories coming, Mr. Talented.
Affectionately,
Bliss
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Hi, Allan!
Just a quickie to let you know how much I appreciate your comments on FULCRUM #6. You'd be amazed how seldom anyone bothers to tell me! Contributors? They're the worst... the absolute pit&. (Present company excepted of course.) All they're interested in is compiling credits--making sure their stuff's in the issue and their name is spelt (spelled?) right. But not you, sweetness. You really did take the trouble to read the book from cover to cover, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate that. God! ...it's such a drag publishing in a vacuum. You bust your b--ls digging up the scratch and pouring through mounds of pure crap that comes in everyday (you'd be amazed how much there is!), and making sure the damn magazine gets typeset and bound and mailed out to a list of anonymous people that's no larger than the population of one of the more important settlements on the Moon. And then, silence. Except for the nasty notes from the bitchers whose copies are late or lost in the mails.
That's why I really appreciate you comments on FULCRUM #6 and the way you were spotlighted in it. You didn't mind being swallowed up by all those sex poems, did you, Hon? I mean, it was either that or wait God knows how long for issue #7--provided I'd ever be able to get the gold to finance it from God knows where. I can't tell you bow tickled I am that you liked the poems. Well, yes, they are a little more graphic than I said they would be. But, you know, if you're going to write truly sensual poetry you can't scrimp on your feelings, right? And if you're living alone and still have the hots down "there," well, better to put it all to productive use with words than to fool around with a lot of auto-erotic self-indulgence, right?
God!.. .why are you saying all this, Bliss Kaplowitz--you naughty girl! Probably because there's safety in distance--you think? Or what? Hey, listen--I hope you don't think it's all a kind of epistolary turn-on or something, Allan. I mean, God!, we've never even met, or even know what one another looks like. Well, from your stories, I can make a good guess, love--and I truly hope it doesn't turn your head.
Which brings me to the new stories... Hey!, this was supposed to be a quick-note-in-passing!.. .Well! Talk about graphic! Your new stuff makes mine read like a Child's Garden of Verse. Now, who's turning who on? Or is it whom? Well, hell--what counts is that they're beautiful. Dynamite. I mean, it's truly evocative stuff with God knows how much to say about the human condition (whatever that is). And they're so beautifully plotted. I mean, the big slicks would gobble them up in a second--it you could clean up your act a little and imply instead of inferring all the time. I mean, a lot of the new stuff stops this short of raunch--which is great because you're saying things that need... desperately ... to be said, and saying them so dreadfully, dreadfully well...
The only problem is I'd be out of business in a flash if I used any of them in FULCRUM. I mean, the Wyoming Arts Council would cut me off without a farthing, for openers. But that's the least of it. It's what the town fathers down here in brackish old Wisteria would do to me when they saw your red-hot stuff in my pages--that's the rub. They'd have me out of biz in a sec--including, not incidentally, my job at the bank. I mean, hell Allan, this town still has stocks for punishing wrong-doers. I'd probably be stoned to death before I could whisper, "Henry Miller."
So I'm returning these pieces herewith (and forthwith too!) lest the cleaning lady get a gander of them and expose me (as it were) to the Wisteria Women's Literary Society.
So, by all means send more, Allan dear, but either clean your stuff up a little or limit your submits to what is only just gently graphic (like my poems; they don't seem to mind them--or are quietly coming on to them, one or the other--who knows?). I know you can do it, dear friend. I mean, you write so well; don't fritter all that talent away on ... you'll forgive the expression ... filth.
Listen! I mean, listen! ... I'm sorry to be such a mean Jean, but I'm fighting for my life down here. No one's replaced Jocko yet, and the fob's a downer and I'm always fighting the financial shorts and the place is a f--king cultural wasteland (forgive the expression again)--so I can't afford to do anything or run anything in FULCRUM that will lose me the battle all together. Well then, you might think, f--k Wisteria! Move somewhere else where the climate's more compatible. Easily said, my friend. Hard to do. I mean, this is where my roots are--and if I move away, they'll just whither away. I mean, look at Solzhenitsyn. What's he done that's worth shit since they kicked him out of Russia? And Bergman, he hasn't done a decent flick since leaving Sweden in a huff. Even Faulkner dried up whenever he left Mississippi to potboil Hollywood scripts and like that. So, I don't dare leave Wisteria, even if Wisteria sucks!
But there I go again, p--sing and m--ning and carrying on. Sorry to bore you, good friend. One of these days, when I finally make it to the Big Apple I promise to be good. Just jolly old me. No self-pity or pathos-gratification and like that. Listen, when you send your next submits, throw an old Polaroid of yourself in with them. I'm dying to see if my mind's eye matches the true you. And fill me in on what life's like, now that you're hatching it again. Maybe I'll glom a clue or two from it on how to handle my alonehood in this dreary place.
All Best,
Yr. Faithful Bliss
++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++
Allan, sweetie...
Hey ... are you ready for this? In the immortal words of Rodgers & Hammerstein (but paraphrased slightly to suit the circumstances), "I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love with a ... hang on to your hat, Alan... I'm in love with a w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l ... G I R L ! !"
There! I've said it! And I'm glad, damn it, I'm glad. But you're the one I've said it to first, Allan. Now, if I can only muster up the courage to say it to Gail. God! Do I love that woman! And I know that in her heart of hearts she loves me too. Anyway, I think I do. She hasn't declared herself and neither have I (except to you, dear friend--and kindly button your lip). But since she signed on to be associate editor of FULCRUM, we've had such a marvelous empathy, it simply has to be more than mere friendship. Can you imagine finding such a treasure in the Wisteria Literary Society of all places...this delicate flower glistening in the gentle dew among those oaken ladles with acorns for brains and varicose veins?
The trick now is to find a gentle way to get her to declare herself without frightening her away in the process. She's a fearful creature, my little Gail is. Fearful of that bastard husband of hers (Jock's clone if I ever saw one!) ... and a mother the size and shape and demeanor of a bull dyke in drag. Will we ever consummate our love, much less declare it to one another? The question's almost too painful to ask, my loins ache so. And I have this insistent, under-the-skin fear for the worst, that it can't, won't, work out.
Listen... I have to stop now ... urgently... before the tears well, flow, and smear what's here. More later...
Your distant confidant, B.
++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++
Dear Allan:
Thank you for you letter of the fourteenth and the new batch of submits. I think you're on the right track with these stories and they should find voice in one publication or another. But I can only accept one for FULCRUM- "COME--QUATS" (We'll have to change that title, of course)--and am herewith returning the rest. I plan to use it in FULCRUM #9 which may not be out for a year or so. If this is a problem and you want the piece back, just let me know (and enclose another SASE, if you don't mind; grant money has practically shrunk to zero in Wyoming and most of FULCRUM's financing's coming out of my own pocket--which is pretty empty to begin with).
Listen, Alan--I hadn't planned to say this, but I guess I'd better: no more questions about what's become of Gail, o.k.? I know I made a big deal about her in a letter to you awhile back and all that, but that doesn't give you a proprietary interest in my private affairs--understood? My privacy's very important to me these days.
Well ... suffice it to say I had the good sense to dump that rich bitch before declaring myself to her. I'm sure they'd have clapped me in the slammer had I so much as hinted to her what I had (and thought she had, too) in mind. Anyway, she and that dumb bastard of a husband of hers seem to be actually empathetic ad nauseam. Can you imagine? In short, Gail is actually straight, goddammit. Count on yours truly to misread the obvious. It's the story of my life. Strife. With Jocko, Gail, my mother, my lovers--and all the rest. And anyway, I've still got eyes for men as it turns out--so it isn't a total loss, right? At present, I'm keeping company with an officer of the U.S. Postal Service in Laramie. Clark's around your age, and also a widower. And a grandfather of multitudinous kiddies, for God's sake, and no great adonis, and he's very, very quiet. But the compassion shines through nevertheless and for Bliss Kaplowitz at this stage in her life, compassion's the name of the game. Hence Clark. Well listen, Allan, it's better than being alone. And I don't recall getting any invitations from you to hop on a Trailways and head for New York, and a girl (Girl? Ha!) has got to have some companionship in her life.
Anyway, I don't mean to sound snotty. And I really do like your stuff more and more and I think it's neat that you keep sending me pieces even though you're getting into Redbook and Paris Review and Samisdat and classy rags like that.
How's your sex life, by the way? It doesn't seem to be showing up in your stories the way it used to. Opting for celibacy, are you, or have you settled down with one chick? Please advise.
Best regards,
Bliss
++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++
Allan,
Sorry I've taken so long to reply to your letters, but as you can see from the letterhead I've had, as it were, a change of address. However, don't let my shaky handwriting fool you--I really am making progress in this place, and with a little luck, and time off for good behavior, so to speak, the gauleiters who run it could see their way clear to letting me leave in a month or two, or three. They don't like to be pinned down to definite timetables. Medicos tend to be like that; they draw power over you from obtuse, but deliberate, imprecision ... a kind of occupational ego play, I calls it.
Anyway, what triggered my stay in this place was a little bit of double dealing by Clark that just happened to coincide with FULCRUM's sudden folding, the elimination of my job at the bank and a classic case of galloping insecurity. With grant gelt gone, I just couldn't back getting FULCRUM out anymore. And then the literary ladies, sensing at long last they had some kind of iconoclast in their midst, dropped me like a steamed yam. I think Gail must have told them I was some kind of sexual pervert or something ('though, how would she know?). And then the manager of my branch called me in one morning and announced he'd been ordered to shave costs pronto, and that one of the shavings was to be the chief teller's job.
Well, o.k., at least there was Clark to turn to, whatever his shortcomings. Except that, sub rose, old silent Clark, no doubt fearful of getting in too deep with such a crazy, young chick as I (relatively speaking), had already begun courting some lady of a Certain Age with an army of grandbabies of her own and a comfortable down-home disposition suited to a tee for the mute likes of Clark Kent. That's right, that's his name--Clark Kent--you heard it here first. No, dummy, not the stolid fellow from Krypton with the split personality--dust a middle-American schlepper with the character of a sloth and a like number of redeeming qualities..
Well, with all of these things happening more or less at once, I began to have an attack of the frenzies you wouldn't believe. And then I came upon this stash of seconals that Jock had left behind--and, well, you can fill in the blank spaces. As you can see, nothing dreadfully bizarre; just a case of too much, too fast, too bad. I'm planning to survive though. It's just a matter of figuring out how. Deep down, underneath all the mess, there lurks a yen to prevail.
Well, onward and upward. Sorry FULCRUM folded before I could get a chance to publish "COME-QUATS" (Where did you find such a dreadful title for such a dynamite piece?), but I'm sure you'll find a place for it somewhere. I'd send it back to you, but I swear I can't remember what I did with all the mss. that had accumulated by the time I flipped. The old box number must be stuffed with angry inquiries from the usual assortment of frantic contributors. Well, f--k them. I assume you were resourceful enough to keep a carbon of what you sent.
Anyway, I haven't seen the light at the end of the tunnel yet, but cool breezes are beginning to play on my skin, so it must be close at hand. Maybe I'll start a new mag. Or get the hell out of Wisteria while the getting's good. Or both. Or better still, stumble onto a new lover ... any sex will do. But I'll tell you what I'd like to do first, 'cause it's been sticking in my skull ever since you shipped "Demons Beset Me Muchly" to me many moons ago. What I'd like to do at long last is take a jitney to New York to see the sights and grab ahold of some new perspective and try to get a handle on what to do next, so as never to sink into the abyss again. Ever. Maybe you and your new bride could put me up for a few weeks. I make a terrific house guest--always doing the beds and offering to do the dishes, and like that. I'm sure I'll be out of here by late Fall, so drop me a line as soon as you can so I can get my reservations ahead of time.
Affectionately,
B.
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Dear Mr. Morris:
In response to your recent inquiry, while it is our policy here not to divulge the forwarding addresses of former guests, we wish to inform you that there is nothing in our records to indicate that a Bliss Kaplowitz had been registered with us at any time during the past twelve months. It is not uncommon, however, for guests to be registered here under assumed names, and this may have been the case with Ms. "Kaplowitz." If you have her prior address, may I suggest that you write to her there, with "Please Forward" instructions on the envelope.
Yours truly,
Marvin
Bakelite, M.D.
Associate Director
++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++
Dear Mr. Morris
I am returning herewith your submission entitled,
"Come-Quats" with apologies for having kept it so long.
Although it is not quite right for New Fulcrum, we hope
you will be successful in placing it elsewhere.
Sincerely yours,
(Mrs.)
Bliss Kaplowitz Davidow
R
BARTKOWECH has won awards nationally and abroad for poetry
and fiction. 2, a fiction chapbook, was recently published
by Center Press. He has received a full Montalvo Residency
Fellowship and is listed in the current Pushcart as an
outstanding American fiction writer.
WILLIAM
BORDEN has published poems and fiction in numerous
literary magazines. His novel, Superstoe, was published by
Harder & Row; and his plays have been produced in New York,
Los Angeles, and elsewhere.
SUZAN
CARTUNE is the author of The Complete New York Guide
for Singles (Macmillan). A former musician based in Boston,
she moved to New York, became an advertising copywriter, a TV
commercial actor, and a freelance producer. She has just
completed a novel and a book of poetry.
D.
CASTLEMAN was born 11 July 1949 in British Columbia and
schooled in Northern California. For money he drives a
lumber truck. He lives in a shanty in a redwood grove.
MARGARET
ANNE CLEEK is an Industrial/Organization
Psychologist born in San Francisco.
ELLEN
COONEY was born 23 June 1948 in St. Louis. She has
published in many little magazines and has three books of
poetry: The Silver Rose, The Quest For The Holy Grail, and
House Holding, with Duir Press.
MARGARET
FLANAGAN EICHER lives and writes in Saratoga
Springs, NY.
JOSEPH
FARLEY was born and raised in Philadelphia and is an
editor of the Axe Factory Review. A chapbook of his poems
will be published shortly entitled January by Axe Factory
Press.
KURT J.
FICKERT is Professor of German at Wittenberg
University. He is the author of several volumes of literary
criticism and has published poems in numerous literary
magazines.
TERRI L.
FORD grew up in Duluth, where she was born in 1958.
She is currently an assistant editor with Sing Heavenly Muse!
and teaches poetry courses through New Thoughts, a division
of First Learning Corporation.
DAN GRIBBIN
teaches English at Ferrum College, and is a
poetry editor of Artemis.
TOM HAWKINS
has been publishing poetry and short stories
prolifically in literary magazines since 1964.
DAVID HOPES
was the winner of the 1981 Juniper Prize (The
Glacier's Daughters). He teaches literature and creative
writing at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.
DAVID J.
KELLY writes poetry and computer manuals in
Raleigh. He is the editor of Peloria Press and an associate
editor of Loblolly. He has a chapbook, Werewolf Poems.
MARKETTA
LAURILA is an Assistant Professor of Spanish and
Spanish Literature at the University of North Carolina at
Asheville. Her primary area of interest and research is
contemporary Latin American literature.
ALAN LUPACK
is a native New Yorker currently living in
Nebraska, where he edits the The Round Table: A Journal of
poetry and Fiction. His poetry has appeared in numerous
journals. He also writes fiction and essays, and is a
regular reviewer of literature for The Polish Review and Senior Life.
ALLAN
MORRIS has published over 100 short stories and
satirical sketches over the past decade, mainly in college
publications and the little press. A native New Yorker, he
lives in Manhattan with his wife--a teacher, artist, and
book illustrator.
D. NURKSE
received a 1983 fellowship in poetry from the
National Endowment for the Arts.
WALT
PHILLIPS is a poet and artist and has published
hundreds of of works in dozens of literary showcases. He
has creations slated in a forthcoming anthology on the "Beat
Generation". To support himself, wife, and tyrannical cat,
he labors as an amusement park flunky.
SANFORD
PINSKER is Professor of English at Franklin and
Marshall College. His poems have appeared in a wide variety
of magazines.
JERRY RATCH
lives and works in Berkeley. His tenth book of poetry
is forthcoming from Illuminati Press. He is
currently writing a series on Impressionist painting. He is
a fanatic.
LUIS FELIPE ULLOA is a poet living in Nicaragua.
WILLIAM J.
VERNON is an ex-Marine, long-time teacher at
Sinclair Community College, and an addicted jogger.
Samisdat Press has published three chapbooks of his poetry.
JIM WANNER
teaches philosophy and literature to art students
at the Pennsylvania School of the Arts in Marietta. He has
studied at the the University of Virginia, Dai Bosatau Zendo,
and the Catholic University of America.
JOHN A.
YOURIL is a writer and artist currently living in
Asheville, North Carolina.
CHRISTINA
ZAWADIWSKY is a past recipient of National
Endowment and Wisconsin Arts Boards awards and fellowships in poetry. Her fourth
book of poetry, The Hand On The Head Of Lazarus,
will be out in the fall of 1986 from Raccoon Press,
and she's currently working on a book of short stories entitled The Differences
Of Men And Women and How I Came To Ignore Them.
Let the
world stop!
Don't you
hear me?
Let the war stop
A moment,
no more
A moment to
proclaim and to Be
without mortar
without
mines in the ports
without the mercenary AKA
without widows
nor orphans
nor mothers
in mourning
nor brides sobbing
Let it
stop!
World:
Order them
a moment of Peace
(It's
getting late)
because only with that
the Nicaraguan
people in their greatest victory
will have with one attack
defeated hunger.