686 lines
20 KiB
Plaintext
686 lines
20 KiB
Plaintext
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S A N D R I V E R J O U R N A L
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Sand River Journal is a collection of poems gathered from the newsgroup
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rec.arts.poems; it is posted monthly in ascii and \TeX\ formats to r.a.p. and
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related newsgroups. Current and archive issues may be retrieved by anonymous
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ftp at the site etext.archive.umich.edu in the directory /pub/Poetry. This
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archive includes PostScript versions of the formatted journal, which is
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publication quality and may be printed on most laser printers.
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Poems appear by authors' permission and constitute copyrighted material.
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Free transmission of this document (electronic or otherwise) is permitted
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only in its entire and unaltered form; to inquire about individual poems
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contact the authors by their email addresses. The editor takes no
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responsibility for the fate of this document, nor does he claim ownership
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to any of the contents herein.
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Many of the poems appearing in this issue were collected and forwarded
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to me by zita while I was traveling. Send comments and contributions
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(please reference SRJ) to asphaug@cosmic.arc.nasa.gov. Enjoy!
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Erik Asphaug, Editor
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_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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Issue 7 October 31 1993
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All Hallow's Eve
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_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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Travel Advice
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a word of advice
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there will be times
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sunrise over the Ganges
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slap of wet slap washing slap
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rams wailing loincloth devotions
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powder into your mind cannon
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arms around a backpack
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there will be no-one to touch
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no-one to tell
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the film is not important
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you must be a poet
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of the moment
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Michael J Norris
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michaeln@cs.uq.oz.au
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angels + angel, a poem for the misinterpreting reader
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today the ineffable angels press ever closer around me
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wavering, howling calls of wild electric fires
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away afar all around my cliff-dwelling.
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a different angel, an angel of unwavering kind
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summoned me, voice sullen with news, then wavered.
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did so when i said, will you still? and the angel said
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in zen: i love you. talk about communication gaps...
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it's the cold that makes the howling angels bold.
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they move closer.
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my angel's hot remorse gives off a twin sodium line sign,
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a harvest of gold a touch like the other angels' torching:
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i think i might street? should i avenue? would i drive?
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could i place? need i pee oh box? give you up for dead
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end?
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don't fret so much angel, love. look at things this way:
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an angel hasn't flickered until showered in smooth shudders,
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skinned in swarms of warmths. you have serious angel merit
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badges to pick up, angel. with a slick load-bearing groove.
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the other angels, the ones howling bone china-hard flicker
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now rising as flame over the fires of lights -- i merely
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glance at them, peripherally take them in.
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you, at you i look more closely.
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now, about that life of ours. in sin.
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Marek Lugowski
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marek@casbah.acns.nwu.edu
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perdus
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ou sont (grave accent ` over
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les sourires et les larmes the u in oU)
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d'autrefois
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comme les oiseaux errants
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de mes pensees (acute accent ' over the
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je ne sais pas second e in pensEes)
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by zita, tr. by E. Russell Smith
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ab297@freenet.carleton.ca
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Contracting
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"Well, try it again," he said, dismantling
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the second floor. He sighed, wiping sweat
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from his eyebrows, and reached
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into the tool crate for a handful of words.
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Laying two phrases crosswise, he hammered
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them to the first floor with a verb.
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And then cursed.
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Capricious nature had warped the words
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through rain and sun;
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they joined only oddly.
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No sigh this time, a real grunt
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as his tired back heaved until
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the phrases came
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loose
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and the whole first floor with them,
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a pile of nouns, verbs, adjectives
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twined like licorice. He fell, himself,
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on his rump, face reddened in the setting sun.
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He kicked a dangling participle.
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It splintered.
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"Ah, hell," he said at the sight,
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"I'm too tired to rebuild it right."
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A little dejected,
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he rose and erected
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a quick limerick for the night.
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Lee Merkel
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lmerkel@BIX.com
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untitled
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Late at night I am afoot
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amongst the flowering plants
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because I seek to discover
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where butterflies sleep
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Ronald M. Bloom
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cy092@cleveland.Freenet.Edu
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Roots
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Refusing to be my father,
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I wandered San Francisco,
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looking for streets from family stories.
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Lost in fog, I found where my grandparents lived,
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where my grandfather cut stone,
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the post office he built,
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the pool hall where he won a billiards championship.
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I wasn't sure whether I was
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my grandfather or Henry Miller,
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drinking wine on Mission Street curbs,
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patronizing Tenderloin hookers,
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reading obscure literature in the public library.
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I sat on the cliffs at Land's End
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watching waves crash over rocks--
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I was Richard Henry Dana.
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Or Melville.
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I would have been Rimbaud
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but, by the time you discover him, you're always too old.
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I was twenty-three
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when my parents visited.
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Mother wanted Chinatown, Fishermen's Wharf.
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I showed them North Beach
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where I was Kerouac.
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At the Palace of the Legion of Honor,
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Father--an Okie who laid bricks, didn't read--
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touched a sculpture,
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rounded the curve of a dancer's frozen pose.
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I saw his hands were like Rodin's
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and I knew who I was.
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Lee Duke
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duke@louie.dfrf.nasa.gov
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caveat
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do not
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teach me
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your music
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i might
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own your heart
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forever
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zita maria evensen
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bu016@hela.INS.CWRU.Edu
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Moving Song
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Let me wrap this crystal ornament in velvet, many turns
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in swaddling softness for the journey, as the setting sun adjourns
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this phase of light, this time of feeling, concentrated till it burns.
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It must be packed away in silence, cushioned well against concerns.
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On any journey, often little things go wrong.
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This is a delicate memento made of glass, reflecting glints
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of captured sun from more than one or two
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who warmed me. There are hints
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of frequent handling, careless holding,
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fracture lines and finger prints,
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but never once has fear of being broken up been this intense,
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a sense of frailty in me, frighteningly strong.
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Will you believe me when I say that you are never far from me,
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and what I put away is not your image, or your memory?
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Yet I must separate myself from this harmonic sympathy
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before these piercing, sweet vibrations shatter all serenity...
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but I will promise not to stay away for long.
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Jennifer Merri Parker
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jmparker@Ra.MsState.Edu
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milkweed
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a thousand clamourous birds have come to feed
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then rise as one amoeboid shade
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against the pallid height
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in black on white
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west along the ridge beside the farms
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basswoods raise their naked arms
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into the cherry light
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to block their flight
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a reach of sterile pool holds back the sky
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perversely so would you and I
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denying cold and bright
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the coming night
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and fearful we draw back avoiding still
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the spines of ice that creep and chill
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beneath the darkening hover
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then cross over
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when, plucked and shaken by a fickle air
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the milkweed cockles launch
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their fair intrepid squadrons back
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in white on black
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E. Russell Smith
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ab297@freenet.carleton.ca
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They Teach Children
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I am afraid of being eaten
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she said
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whispering.
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I am afraid of ravens coming to pluck out my eyes
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beating blackly as night howls of mad wolves
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and crimson jackal laughter.
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I am afraid of lightning piercing;
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a flaming sword set ward across
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my secret Garden.
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I am afraid that it will swallow me whole
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and all that is me will be engulfed
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in screaming
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and I will be glad.
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She huddled small
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a child in woman's body
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and careful drabness could not hide
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a lush and terrible wanting.
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I am afraid.
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M.A. Mohanraj
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moh2@midway.uchicago.edu
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Breakfast under Africa
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Africa is like
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washing up gloves to me
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it always has been
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shruggy why
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maybe that rubber
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smell in mornings when
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orange kaffirbooms
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are spiny and disney
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i call them my t-rex trees
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breakfast this morning
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in whos shoes and
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potato jeans was
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two oranges some coffee
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and a
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storm long
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a photographic sky
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as flashy as anger
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with beatrice the
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sexy cat
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white blowey
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on the wall
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There is foreigness
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in africa
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not slitty conrad
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deceit
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but the foreigness of
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long stretch driving past wheat
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and wimpys
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Solitary musing on the steps
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of a sky
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under africa
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never felt
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so good
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I dreamt all night
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of david.
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helen walne
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g93w5635@warthog.ru.ac.za
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Fall Magi
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There was a day when I came
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to you with gifts: a wreath
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of twisted vines, some
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pieces of cinammon bark, a
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very sticky pinecone, and a rusty
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nail.
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In return you gave only open
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open eyes and the sweet
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breath of the earth from
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your breasts.
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And now, not even with the
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tartest of lemons or
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the palest of flowers
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could I repay you.
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Corwin David Shackelford
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xdshackel@fullerton.edu
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Reliquary
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Carry me in a charm
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about your neck, a
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strand of hair, a
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tooth, a spot of dust.
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Toss me in a
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cerebral ocean, to
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wallow a few
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decades longer.
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Carve me in granite,
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pink and enduring,
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and plant me in
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a garden with
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daffodils and mud.
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Catch me in dye
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and silver specks,
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and keep me in
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a frame upon the
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window sill.
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Scan me into one
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hundred thousand sintered
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dots, and store me on
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magnetic film.
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Do this in
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remembrance of me.
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Karen Tellefsen
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kt1@cc.bellcore.com
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THE FATHER #3
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He's told me
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that the ex-wife
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lets him take their daughter
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out alone for walks
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in their city.
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I imagine him holding
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her pink soft small cheek
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to his: large, scarred, scratchy.
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Once, walking in my city,
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I looked upon a building
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and voyeured into a window:
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a young father dancing
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with his child in arms.
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I wonder if this father
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jigs in the street,
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a music to celebrate.
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_Enjoy the trice_,
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the musicians say,
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_enjoy the innocence._
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Michael Hemmingson
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anon138e@nyx.cs.du.edu
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No room
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Since words between us come to blows
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I will send silence instead
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wrapped in small packages which speak music
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and have no room for misunderstanding.
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Ralph Wixer
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ralph@wixer.bga.com
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Im a poet and yore not
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o i feel like writing a funny poem
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but i really don't feel too funny
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and i sure as hell can't think of anything to say
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that's worth saying
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because not much is
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at least not by me
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i could talk about some deep
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issue
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some big emotional anti-abortion environmentalist
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gaggledeegee
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but i really don't think so
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i really don't give half a shit about
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that shit
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surprisingly enough,
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i thought all poets were faggety
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art-bamboozled
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gabbleblotchits on a lurgid
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bee
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see
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you can tell i'm a poet because i never capitalize
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jack shit
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and i'm allowed to say shit and shit
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because of my artistic freedom
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and i'm just too cool to ever end a damn sentence
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cuz i'm a poet and yore not
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wait a second
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check this deep shit out:
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the birds fly over ]
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the sky and
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the sky is blue and purple and pink and mauve
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damn that was deep
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alack for my deepness
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and the deepness of poets in general
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if you didn't understand it then
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you must suck pretty badly
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it's amazing how poets can get away with this foozled shit
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it sure makes it much easier to write meaningless bullshit
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it's really funny when scrubs try to say that you are
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talking about some deep shit or tried to do something deep
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people are too impressed with their intellects
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these days
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back in my day you wouldn't see a bunch of faggety-assed art freaks
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trying to analyze our poetry
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no sirree bob
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we talked about chopping wood and life on the old homestead
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and shit like that
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but mainly about chopping wood
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which is a real man's poem
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we also used to complete our sentences in my day
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and we used punctuation too.
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but nowadays
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everybodys too trickified for that crap
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cheese bubbles dominate the landscape
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dang
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hot damn
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sheet
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take it billy
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Ander S. Monson
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asmonson@mtu.edu
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_Triptych_
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Sense Her Near you
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Her Heart beats Quickly
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Trembling For you Hold her
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Love her Like the stars Forever
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Lost in the Shine In her eyes
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Caress Her face With great tenderness
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You share Smiles She holds you
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With Love With Love With Love.
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Joseph V. Bopp
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jbopp@vaxc.stevens-tech.edu
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already?
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no no it can't be
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here already
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splashes of reds and golds
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dazzling against red-rich canyons
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burning a thousand shades of green
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my summer shoes are not ready
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to be put away
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not willing to jump into piles
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of ready-for-scuffing leaves
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not ready to tumble
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into sedona tones of mellow
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pink-reds of maples
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golds of sycamore and cottonwood
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i still have crowns
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of white daisies to weave
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and billowing dresses of cotton lace
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to dance in
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on full-moon summer nights
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air so warm so
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assuringly caressingly warm
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cools like a lover's
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absent-minded kiss
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it can't be here already
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i am not ready to cry
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or say goodbye
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just not ready
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to break
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away
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zita maria evensen
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bu016@hela.INS.CWRU.Edu
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En la Plaza Dam
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La generacion de los son~adores
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Con la guitarra y el verso
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Siguio buscando las sen~ales
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Que les abrieran el universo.
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Se marcharon caminando
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Con la mirada cansada
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Recogiendo los pedazos
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Que se les caian del alma.
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Muchos no regresaron
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De este viaje misterioso
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Se engancharon a una estrella
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En un dia de reposo.
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Mas, otros siguieron las campanas
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De mil iglesias agudas
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Bebiendo las palabras
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Como gotas de lluvia.
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Y el universo se abrio
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Crujiendo como pan caliente
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Dejando un rastro de pasas
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Y lagrimas de sal de la gente.
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J.M.G-Faria
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lsijmgf@blues.upc.es
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Overrated
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Don't bother me with sex, sweet muse;
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your titillation's overused.
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Romantic love is overrated
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treacle and won't leave me sated.
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The moon in June is nice enough,
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why spoil it with that spooning stuff?
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The stars above are sharp and bright,
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why paint them with this pensive blight?
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Infatuation, go away.
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I've better things to do today.
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Romantic love is overratee
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treacle and won't leave me sated.
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Karen Tellefsen
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kt1@cc.bellcore.com
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untitled
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...she knows the colors' names
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and the hues they sing through
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i close my eyes
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and listen to her
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i can't tell
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between
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a color and a neighbor
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to talk of blue
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is to ignore
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societies
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of reds and greens
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and my smooth greys
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black to white the greys
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last all day
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so i close my eyes
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and the girl who knows the words
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colors my world
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in pastels
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(she taught me that word, pastels
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(soft . afternoon . diffusion
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Chris Losinger
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CDL0915@ritvax.isc.rit.edu
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