Bruce Bond

Dream Vision from the Book of Dogs

A man was talking to a dog
in a voice that threatened to consume
them both: but this is a metaphysical poem,
he said, not an erotic one,
at which the dog cocked its head
with the look of bewildered worship,
as if the words were all one high whistle
out of the sky, when finally
I could no longer contain myself
and said, but wait, what of the poetry
of Israel and Persia - though in truth
I hardly knew what I was saying,
and it felt a little selfish,
interrupting like that - what
of the tradition of poems for dogs
whose erotic fantasies are all about food,
like the one where god appears
as a hamburger and sayeth unto the hounds,
come, come closer my little ones
and repeat after me . . . no, wait,
ouch, please don't eat me, not here,
not now, there's more, I promise . . .

James Ragan

The Mayor Boils a Speck of Dust
FOR THE "YOU KNOW" GENERATION

One day we are walking in the desert,
the next, entrancing on a verb.
The mayor asks us for a speck of dust to boil.
The rain has moved to Eastern earth.
We had never missed the water,
reason being absent in the West.
North and South our hands had mimed a language
for the tongues we mottled in our mouths.
But while the words are thinner,
and sentences are worse;
the subjects, once agreeable,
now disagree on course. Syntax bows
to "you know," and simile to "like."
And while the mayor boils dust
to gain a speck of water,
we will talk, you know, into the desert
and verbalize, like, you know, our verse,
and dust will fill a fossil
for the law Pascal our mayor quotes,
that while the pressure in a fluid
spreads equidistant to every border,
dust will be rationed coast to coast.

Bob Priest

Soiree Magics

1. Gather

Under spell of which bee witch
did B. fall down deep into
trance-like sleep, he who ate
the wicked chocolatier's cake
enlarge stomach
but ensmall civility
to friends, stuffing shit
past lips till folks go ‘way
after foot doesn't fit
to north or south of mouth?

2. Begin

& under which good B. witch did he waken
to fiddle-diddle jigs
by straight-up Celtic girls
blue skirts floating up fast
flashing blue panties
scissor-motion long legs, faces fresh
with movie star smiles,

hearing light hands, a brown haired lass
in dreadlocks, pitter-pat on djembe,
the penny-whistle, the hammer dulcimer;

to memories of sport fans’ stamping feet
& his mother's metronomic taps
keeping time on his head sixty years past?

3. Send out

& under which bee witch will he
slap knee with tuned left hand
new risen from frozen stupor,
he who’s determined to defy
dead brain cells
with spirit-dopamine?

Wilhelm Muller

Irrlicht Will o' the Wisp

In die tiefsten Felsengründe
Lockte mich ein Irrlicht hin;
Wie ich einen Ausgang finde,
Liegt nicht schwer mir in dem Sinn.

Bin gewohnt das Irregehen,
's führt ja jeder Weg zum Ziel;
Uns're Freuden, uns're Wehen,
Alles eines Irrlichts Spiel !

Durch des Bergstroms trockne Rinnen
Wind' ich ruhig mich hinab,
Jeder Strom wird's Meer gewinnen,
Jedes Leiden auch sein Grab.

Into the deepest mountain chasms
A will o' the wisp lured me;
How to find a way out
Doesn't worry me much.

I'm used to going astray,
And every way leads to the goal.
Our joys, our sorrows,
Are all a will o' the wisp's game !

Through the mountain stream's dry channel
I wend my way calmly downward.
Every river finds its way to the ocean,
And every sorrow to its grave.

Susan Botich

Perhaps He Found His Own Passage

He stares blankly over the crevasse
that gapes between us.
This cave seems infinite.
I cannot place from where it was born
or estimate when its mouth formed:
Danger – Condemned
I am not sure how either of us came here,
to this dark.
But we stand on either side
of the snaking abyss
and wait. I hope
for something to happen, some miracle.

I brought my own water,
drawn from the spring just outside
the cave mouth, above us.
He did not. He gulps
from a rotten smelling cup
the rancid oily remnants
of who-knows-what, complaining.
He always shouts about the dark –
how it’s cold and empty
(yet, full of treachery, he says)
and how it tricked him
into moving farther from the light.
I see how he shivers.
I just do not know how to tell him
leaving is not dying.
So, I turn from the ragged rift
and follow my own footsteps back
to the light,
the wind and the greens that breathe.

Sometimes I visit the mouth of that dark,
lean into and peer down its throat,
call down the vortex stair,
listen for his ache.
Carried on the choked gusts,
only silence returns.

Robert David Michael Cerello

Speed Merchant

Claim'd a splendid young scientist, White,
"I can travel much faster than light!"
So he set off one day
In a relative way
And returned on the previous night.

Taylor Collier

Lubbock, Texas

1.
At first Lubbock was angry—
Columbine outweighed their tragedy.
Church-camp bus accidents aren't as exciting.

No one speaks of the six Greenlawn girls.
They get younger every year.

2.
Sgt. Kevin Cox dies of a gunshot wound
to the back of the head. (Friendly fire.)
They name an obstacle course after him.

3.
Who's heard of the bone thin Joanna Rogers?

Raped, diced, zippered into a Wal-Mart suitcase.
Two years later they found her in the landfill
only after a confession.

4.
Their native son, the one who wrote so many songs
about love,
his plastic glasses cast narrow shadows
on the cotton fields.

Somehow it is always February, 1959.

William N. Thompson

Play Ball

I've already got two strikes against me
And I havent even come to the plate
So please dont throw me a curve ball
I need a pitch that is honest and straight

You are way ahead of the batter
With one or two pitches to waste
I guess you could throw me a brush off
But be cautious dont act in great haste

I'm still diggin in for one swing
Not looking for a free ride or walk
Just a chance to make a good hit
no Texas leaguer, no bunt, not just talk

I'm a team player, a loyal benchwarmer
A pinch hitter who's called in the clutch
And already the odds are against me
For the great play that I need so much

No illusions of homers or grandslams
just a chance to be safe at first base
So serve me a pitch I can handle
The one chance I'll make sure I dont waste

Casey was the hero of Mudville
But three times mighty casey did yield
I'm not dreaming of any heroics
I'll take my glove and my turn in the field

Eyes steady with full coordination
I'll step in and give it a fling
We've gotta be thinking of teamwork
Do your part and I'll make the swing

So the woods in my hands and I'm ready
And I'm walking up to the plate
I've already got two strikes against me
I need that good pitch, I'm ready, and willing to wait.

Elizabeth I. Riseden

Magnificat

Sierra and Sage stand
on the upended blue tub
beneath fluttering crab
apple blossoms
arms reaching, harvesting.
I rush, mold quick cookies
to celebrate Mothers Day.
Why don’t I stop? Honor small hands
picking, worshiping apple pink
outdoors more than indoor
seduction of sweet?

Distractions; barrel, blossoms,
gray day warm enough to pick;
oven, sugar, fat, flour
chocolate, stirred in a frenzy
of forgetting that we work
in fragility---shaping, mixing, picking---
essentially female
while the kids’ war-
deployed Daddy could be dead
tomorrrow.

Activity---meditation, 4H, lawn
planted, borders grounded,
top soil smoothed by clouds
in rain of spring, no life but what
we accomplish, no hope but our
nurturing. Movements among tears
between outbursts, angry or
defeated. And, from my age,
how do I abide, plant hope
within this destruction?

Octavio Quintanilla

Four Fears

1

I dreamed you were an elephant.
Someone had taken your tusks, tucked
them under a sweatshirt. You begged
for me to get out of bed and look for them.

2

I thought I saw my mother’s ghost
when I woke up to drink water. You sensed
I starved for your arms and held me.
You told me my mother was not yet dead.

3

The night before we married you
dreamed I had abandoned you the day
of our child’s birth. I dipped my hands
in your helplessness and promised.

4

Our newborn slides deeper into sleep
as you sigh that something’s been spent in you.
I know what it is, and I silence the urge to tell you
that I have evidence of where to find you waking.

J.M. Bauge

Fear
After Zbigniew Herbert

Our fear
Quietly stalks homes
It does not pry us open
Instead, enjoys us softly
For many nights on end
It does not recognize doors or keep score
Our fear
Is a vagrant who stands outside
holding a cigarette. It watches
for complacency,
elbows into our thoughts
Fear
Is not made of words but sighs
Heavy breathing and ticking clocks.
It is an elastic disease.
It takes the shape
Of a son in his mother’s eyes
It is the drugs in his arm
Her insomnia
Our fear strikes at our faces
As though it were smoke
or air recently expelled
from a neighbor’s lungs
We don’t want it
We can’t avoid it

Adam Henry Carriere

Queer Quadrille








Aloof, Voltaire would advise looking
for someone less like a character
in a book; Goethe agrees, adding,
'Though a little less re-writable,
or less so than I.' Genet shouts,
'I want a boyfriend!'. With anxious nod,
Forester peeks open his journal
writing, "He can look like this...
bare, often, warm in the dark, soft
to the touch." Myakovsky growls,
'Zapadniks!' and seizes a quill,
scrawling, "Short, sweet-smelling
hair, fingers to glide over ice,
my heart, nipples for erect tongue
to caress." Isherwood raises a gloved
hand. 'What about, "Lips tight over
closed eyes that picture him always,
out-of-fashion movies unremarked
by the Society page." Hm?'
Fugard claps politely. Greene sneers
perfidiously. 'Veneration doesn't propel
boys into refuge. The wind does.
"Let the West Country breeze hide
with him in my soul." That sort of thing.'
Ludwig und Richard leave the city.
Hiding under the buffet, Kundera
tosses a note onto Schiller's lap.
The German reads it skeptically.
"A near-perfect banquet that isn't
a black grave." La Rochefoucault
pours more wine. Da Ponte and Schikaneder
carouse duetically. 'Pulsating with the blood
of love, coursing through our exchange,
beloved and immortal!' Williams scurries
out through the back door. Mishima
takes his bread. Goddard scribbles
on the tablecloth, "Captured in silver
dust, framed in gold, the boy makes
the man one." Stone drunk, Fitzgerald
approves; Gertrude demurs. Tchaikovsky
begins a seventh symphony on the spot,
but cannot decide what to call the piece.
Balzac, smelling of cognac, proves no help.
Marlowe begins to bicker with DeVere.
Yevtushenko wins a drinking contest
with a bitter Hemingway and takes the floor.
'A man's love is voluminous! Glorious! Victorious!'
Seeing Mandelshtam hasn't yet arrived, he weeps.