Until the Lion Lays the Lamb
By I.B. Rad
Until the lion lays the lamb
I fear our future's rather slim.
Love between such dissimilar beasts
is less improbable than peace
surmounting that monumental hump
honest international unity.
And from such unseemly intercourse
what might the issue be?
Time to love enough for you and me.
Feb 6, 2009
Twilight Sky, E.R.Winkler
Twilight Sky
By Elaine R. Winkler
With the temperature hovering
around 32 degrees,
we don down coats, hoods, and
gloves. We're out the back door
into the penetrating cold
of a November evening,
breath frosty and visible,
to tiptoe across
grooved pavers
until there’s a clear view
of the sky above the trees,
check the time
on lighted watches,
verify it’s a bit early
for the 5:55 sighting.
I am certain
about the time, but unsure
which direction
to focus our eyes:
is it east, northeast?
To the south, impossible
to miss Venus, brilliant
this time of year.
Below it, a lesser star.
Eyes still directed south,
a light appears, moving
for a few seconds--
then gone behind a thin veil
of cloud. Is that it?
Distracted for a moment
by flashing lights
of an airplane, then turn
eyes east,
and yes-- there it is
for sure-- a pale light gliding
north for a few short seconds,
then out of range.
Chilled but satisfied,
for a brief interval
we have observed Mir,
not a star of the Milky Way,
but a man-made spaceship
with humans, like us, aboard.
By Elaine R. Winkler
With the temperature hovering
around 32 degrees,
we don down coats, hoods, and
gloves. We're out the back door
into the penetrating cold
of a November evening,
breath frosty and visible,
to tiptoe across
grooved pavers
until there’s a clear view
of the sky above the trees,
check the time
on lighted watches,
verify it’s a bit early
for the 5:55 sighting.
I am certain
about the time, but unsure
which direction
to focus our eyes:
is it east, northeast?
To the south, impossible
to miss Venus, brilliant
this time of year.
Below it, a lesser star.
Eyes still directed south,
a light appears, moving
for a few seconds--
then gone behind a thin veil
of cloud. Is that it?
Distracted for a moment
by flashing lights
of an airplane, then turn
eyes east,
and yes-- there it is
for sure-- a pale light gliding
north for a few short seconds,
then out of range.
Chilled but satisfied,
for a brief interval
we have observed Mir,
not a star of the Milky Way,
but a man-made spaceship
with humans, like us, aboard.
The Classic Pangs...B.Hardie
The Classic Pangs Of My Love For Tracy
By Brian Hardie
Polite weather vibrates through and around your sudden change and beautiful maybe
Conscious or no I think faulty reasoning grates the cheese the feathers
Flapping on wings above the waves crashing down in unison crying my
Name. Pathetic dresses wave in the wind by a privileged compilation of thoughts
Building blocks and patterns at last deceitful. A partner of sorts is
Fought on a plank built by choking tribes of the unexplained. My
Worries are trenched in suspicion. Bleeding the mind funneling the
Sunshine alone. Screaming while he burns. My one chance relies on this word being said in
The pause of a whisper. The feeling of how a good alarm is lifeless.
The phrase could headline the late night comedy special. The
One to laugh at, expose, abuse in a sinister drilling to the
Center. Music seeps through the cracks of historic streets. Southern
Cities I suppose motive me to conspire artisan streets
And crowded funeral homes. I closed my eyes and saw everything I
Needed to in dreams for sober softness. Drunken rustic burning
Coals blistering my flaps that endanger. Time reads my
Palm. Lines of children and weddings and debt and death,
Nicotine sedatives coat my mouth. Absolutely amazed and
Taken aback by ticking time. My eyes need shade and mascara.
Again the articles state the minds brought to me by commercial
Social circles and rampages cycling through ten past twelves.
A soft coffee conversation
About the relief of my passing. Happiness should be brought
By this convicted self. I'm falling and not listening, finding
Limbs to break as I plunge through….
By Brian Hardie
Polite weather vibrates through and around your sudden change and beautiful maybe
Conscious or no I think faulty reasoning grates the cheese the feathers
Flapping on wings above the waves crashing down in unison crying my
Name. Pathetic dresses wave in the wind by a privileged compilation of thoughts
Building blocks and patterns at last deceitful. A partner of sorts is
Fought on a plank built by choking tribes of the unexplained. My
Worries are trenched in suspicion. Bleeding the mind funneling the
Sunshine alone. Screaming while he burns. My one chance relies on this word being said in
The pause of a whisper. The feeling of how a good alarm is lifeless.
The phrase could headline the late night comedy special. The
One to laugh at, expose, abuse in a sinister drilling to the
Center. Music seeps through the cracks of historic streets. Southern
Cities I suppose motive me to conspire artisan streets
And crowded funeral homes. I closed my eyes and saw everything I
Needed to in dreams for sober softness. Drunken rustic burning
Coals blistering my flaps that endanger. Time reads my
Palm. Lines of children and weddings and debt and death,
Nicotine sedatives coat my mouth. Absolutely amazed and
Taken aback by ticking time. My eyes need shade and mascara.
Again the articles state the minds brought to me by commercial
Social circles and rampages cycling through ten past twelves.
A soft coffee conversation
About the relief of my passing. Happiness should be brought
By this convicted self. I'm falling and not listening, finding
Limbs to break as I plunge through….
Demilitarized Zones + e, K.Hemmings
Demilitarized Zones + e
By Kyle Hemmings
1. Taken by Force
In naked underbelly of city, no memory of untouched jasmine or clover cloud left standing, the C. O. announces that he thinks we have made progress in the Eastern sectors. Outside the shattered glass, bombed-out buildings rise like fingers without skin. My plutonium-90 lust works nicely in tracers across the burnt offering of sky. But now. Crouching low beneath a peephole, eyes level with the glassy yellow of a hairless alley cat, THE BULLET smashes through old wood, levitating bone. ``Sarge,'' I yell, ``I'm hit. Think I'm hit.'' ``Don't move,'' he says, as he scouts for invisible snipers on rooftops or in starburst quagmires. I stay listless and a kind of orange-metallic glow suffuses throughout my body outlined in repeatable coordinates.
2. Are you Friend or Foe?
My lungs hurt whenever I breathe the green/gray frog-breath smog. There are miles of wasted railroad track and I spot him in the distance, a boy somewhat younger than myself. He's humming some tune over and over, the words drifting like toy sailboats--Is your god, my god, his god, no god? I can tell by the scars across his eyes that he once believed in the natural world. I put down my Uzi. His armband states that he has been branded a U-K8909. His parents, prisoners of Viodin`s mute army, have sacrificed a sibling, so he could go free. Now standing inches from me, I offer him half of my peanut butter sandwich. I describe how it tastes, gooey, nutty, smooth. I make an M sound with my lips. He takes the sandwich. His hunger is e-ravenous. Chew slowly, I tell him. For water, we only have the drooling of hydrochloride striate-cumulus sting.
3. A Girl Named e Cannot be Your Prisoner
I really liked having you in my bed, falling through loops, even though in my drunken state, I must have called you by a million non-refundable names. I've spent the greater part of the afternoon, collecting empty soda bottles and pressing my lips to the fluted openings and making strange whistles. From the last skyscraper, I let the bottles fall a thousand, no, a million feet, onto empty gravel. Then, I stuffed one bottle with a note, a picture of two stick figures in the shape of e's, each facing the other, their curved backs to the edges of white despair. That is to say that I think you are so totally fucking cool in your perfect 3/4 obloid state. That is how some define the essential solitude of love. Trying to think of your name, I've forgotten mine. Then I toss the bottle as far as I can. Then I know I am made of nothing.
By Kyle Hemmings
1. Taken by Force
In naked underbelly of city, no memory of untouched jasmine or clover cloud left standing, the C. O. announces that he thinks we have made progress in the Eastern sectors. Outside the shattered glass, bombed-out buildings rise like fingers without skin. My plutonium-90 lust works nicely in tracers across the burnt offering of sky. But now. Crouching low beneath a peephole, eyes level with the glassy yellow of a hairless alley cat, THE BULLET smashes through old wood, levitating bone. ``Sarge,'' I yell, ``I'm hit. Think I'm hit.'' ``Don't move,'' he says, as he scouts for invisible snipers on rooftops or in starburst quagmires. I stay listless and a kind of orange-metallic glow suffuses throughout my body outlined in repeatable coordinates.
2. Are you Friend or Foe?
My lungs hurt whenever I breathe the green/gray frog-breath smog. There are miles of wasted railroad track and I spot him in the distance, a boy somewhat younger than myself. He's humming some tune over and over, the words drifting like toy sailboats--Is your god, my god, his god, no god? I can tell by the scars across his eyes that he once believed in the natural world. I put down my Uzi. His armband states that he has been branded a U-K8909. His parents, prisoners of Viodin`s mute army, have sacrificed a sibling, so he could go free. Now standing inches from me, I offer him half of my peanut butter sandwich. I describe how it tastes, gooey, nutty, smooth. I make an M sound with my lips. He takes the sandwich. His hunger is e-ravenous. Chew slowly, I tell him. For water, we only have the drooling of hydrochloride striate-cumulus sting.
3. A Girl Named e Cannot be Your Prisoner
I really liked having you in my bed, falling through loops, even though in my drunken state, I must have called you by a million non-refundable names. I've spent the greater part of the afternoon, collecting empty soda bottles and pressing my lips to the fluted openings and making strange whistles. From the last skyscraper, I let the bottles fall a thousand, no, a million feet, onto empty gravel. Then, I stuffed one bottle with a note, a picture of two stick figures in the shape of e's, each facing the other, their curved backs to the edges of white despair. That is to say that I think you are so totally fucking cool in your perfect 3/4 obloid state. That is how some define the essential solitude of love. Trying to think of your name, I've forgotten mine. Then I toss the bottle as far as I can. Then I know I am made of nothing.
Another Meal, S.F.Klepetar
Another Meal
By Steven F. Klepetar
We have eaten another meal, here at the eastern
shore of dreams, spoken our names to bread
and knives and tea. Rolling towards each other
words spill and mingle in the air, burst against
bottle and plate, spatter and dance against walls.
Our kitchen trembles, we touch at the border of
teeth and scent. Never has food tasted so
like jewels, opulent and hard, engorged with curry
and ghee, driven along a river of pepper, cardamom
and lime. Senses on fire, our hair tangles in this wild
embrace. How these flavors sing in our mouths,
calling ancient rhythms of spice and root, melodies
of onion, grass and bulb. Lost in our hunger’s gale,
we sail out into night. Every breath burgeons,
lingering on our tongues like the fierce taste of drums.
By Steven F. Klepetar
We have eaten another meal, here at the eastern
shore of dreams, spoken our names to bread
and knives and tea. Rolling towards each other
words spill and mingle in the air, burst against
bottle and plate, spatter and dance against walls.
Our kitchen trembles, we touch at the border of
teeth and scent. Never has food tasted so
like jewels, opulent and hard, engorged with curry
and ghee, driven along a river of pepper, cardamom
and lime. Senses on fire, our hair tangles in this wild
embrace. How these flavors sing in our mouths,
calling ancient rhythms of spice and root, melodies
of onion, grass and bulb. Lost in our hunger’s gale,
we sail out into night. Every breath burgeons,
lingering on our tongues like the fierce taste of drums.
Tutorial for a Caseworker, D.Mahoney
Tutorial for a Caseworker
By Donal Mahoney
The rattle
in the walls
would stop,
I’m told,
if the litter
in the halls
were edible.
Night after night,
tin after tin
the rats squeeze in
to feast on
their reflections.
By Donal Mahoney
The rattle
in the walls
would stop,
I’m told,
if the litter
in the halls
were edible.
Night after night,
tin after tin
the rats squeeze in
to feast on
their reflections.
Old Legs, M.Roberts
Old Legs
By Matt Roberts
There is panic in a place of work.
Some run but most stand by
in dumb frozen shock.
The gray, mature man dies
lying in paperwork. Fits and foams.
He becomes numb and watches
his feet twitch for the last time.
Thinks of the places they’ve taken him.
The little boy toddles by him
and with his tiny legs, red shoes,
he climbs the stairs of the house
that he lived in as a child.
His eyes don’t close, they cloud over
there is a peace he’s never known.
It fades to black then for a brief
moment, everything becomes clear.
By Matt Roberts
There is panic in a place of work.
Some run but most stand by
in dumb frozen shock.
The gray, mature man dies
lying in paperwork. Fits and foams.
He becomes numb and watches
his feet twitch for the last time.
Thinks of the places they’ve taken him.
The little boy toddles by him
and with his tiny legs, red shoes,
he climbs the stairs of the house
that he lived in as a child.
His eyes don’t close, they cloud over
there is a peace he’s never known.
It fades to black then for a brief
moment, everything becomes clear.
The Wolf, R.Grant
The Wolf
By Robert Grant
Tie the wolf down and trim his tail,
splay his feet across the roads of time,
his potential for carnage retarded.
His back now broken,
his paws now clipped,
no need to sharpen on trees or piss-mark what’s his,
no prowling, no growling,
no howling in the night with hairy brethren,
for they too sit silently clipped.
With reddened snout pointing towards remembrance,
This once great hunter,
fear bringing enigma,
rests silently waiting for fresh faced chicks to hatch.
As with this new batch,
he feels exhilaration.
Not for the hunt,
for they are his squirts,
all clean nosed and ready for action.
Now confining himself to the role of teacher,
Self confidence preacher,
Mistake impeacher…for these pups will be different from he.
Yet…a smile develops,
cross formerly bloodied lips,
his tail, no matter how long this lasts
will continue to wag softly,
remaining ready to return to more harrowing times.
But for now, he will sit…clipped,
in ore of memory,
for his bitch has come,
to change the night.
By Robert Grant
Tie the wolf down and trim his tail,
splay his feet across the roads of time,
his potential for carnage retarded.
His back now broken,
his paws now clipped,
no need to sharpen on trees or piss-mark what’s his,
no prowling, no growling,
no howling in the night with hairy brethren,
for they too sit silently clipped.
With reddened snout pointing towards remembrance,
This once great hunter,
fear bringing enigma,
rests silently waiting for fresh faced chicks to hatch.
As with this new batch,
he feels exhilaration.
Not for the hunt,
for they are his squirts,
all clean nosed and ready for action.
Now confining himself to the role of teacher,
Self confidence preacher,
Mistake impeacher…for these pups will be different from he.
Yet…a smile develops,
cross formerly bloodied lips,
his tail, no matter how long this lasts
will continue to wag softly,
remaining ready to return to more harrowing times.
But for now, he will sit…clipped,
in ore of memory,
for his bitch has come,
to change the night.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.jpg)
.jpg)
