October 2011 | back-issues, poetry
Slave Boy
We run as if an agitated earth
were breaking up behind us, and we fight
to gain our stations at the gritty trough
half-filled with corn, where each survivor’s worth
is daily measured by another’s right
to fair apportionment denied; and off
our makeshift plates of muddied, calloused hands
ensues a squealing angry vulgar rush
to suck the greasy nourishment before
there is no more, beneath the reprimands
of our possessors, who behold the crush
of vermin squirming to and fro, and roar
with ridicule at other men’s distress.
And now the furnace of the picking fields:
my sweat, like acid, so intense the heat;
the layers of my skin in merciless
assault laid bare, as one would flay the shields
of weary swordsmen crumbling in defeat.
For I am just machinery, a tool;
and I must step and lift and strip and clear,
again, again, until all hope becomes
a moment’s respite from another’s rule,
a storm-whipped seedling doomed to persevere
until its fleeting energy succumbs.
The night, at last, should be our time of peace.
Instead a tempest rises from inside
of me – my brother kneels before the fire;
and all the creatures of the darkness cease
their plaintive calls, the churlish winds subside;
to touch his breath the spirits all conspire,
as like a starry pond his amber skin
reflects a thousand beaded silver pearls
of terror; time and motion seem to pause;
a fearsome crackling – flesh explodes, the din
of horror as a scarlet vapor curls
above bewitching firelight; and the cause
of all the misery of humankind
is set aglow upon the lustful eyes
of those in witness to the spectacle;
his swelling body thrashes in a blind
contortion at the resonant reprise,
the whistlings of the lash a chronicle
of limits to endurance, or of prey
in final battle, and we both recoil
with every searing flash of brilliant white;
the wordless ritual proceeds till day
begins, and merciful the rite of toil
to shroud the distant memories of night.
The valuation: ox and mule and I
are harvesters, production’s pulse and breath;
the traders, sure as scripture of their just
and righteous task, assess and quantify,
and probe and estimate each life and death;
like seed we will be spread among the dust.
I watch my mother’s face: ’tis just as well
they hack away her arm, so great her pain;
but all her tears dissolve in scenes of mirth
and profit, as the men who buy and sell
the bucks and hands and breeders do ordain
for us a last embrace upon their earth.
Our dearest bond is cherished; as the men,
becoming restless, hurry us along.
Once more I’d like to gather a bouquet
for her, to see her smile; and once again
to drift to slumber on an angel’s song
as all my fears of darkness slip away.
Paul Buchheit’s poems have been published by the Illinois State Poetry Society, Lucid Rhythms, and the State of Nature online journal. His happiest moments are spent reading, writing, and reflecting on carefully crafted poetry. As a retired teacher, he now devotes more and more time to this blissful pursuit.
October 2011 | back-issues, poetry
Zen Dead Reckoning
a languid puff of dew
floats like a cotton bale
in air as calm and blue
as a sea we could sail
without a chart or a clue
Bathysphere
I have a bathysphere in my brain sometimes.
The bolted ball, a whale’s eye, droops on a noose
into a lightless trench where what little life exists
glows like chemo and creeps on spiny, fan-dance fins.
The pressure makes my face crack and leak.
My bathysphere has a name like an Eskimo porn sequel:
soft bipolar II — and without warning or negotiation
it will pop a Polaris, missile me heavenward then explode
in pillowy air, ecstatic, a breathless aurora borealis.
Make it a double, a triple, one for everyone.
Alas, the God-shots are short-lived; unmapped, too.
After a few corkscrews, I’ll collapse under a sheet,
thrash and drift — an interminable interregnum
on a painfully placid sea — fearing the inevitable night
when the bathysphere will again submerge me.
Nick D’Annunzio Jones received an MFA in creative writing and writing for the performing arts from the University of California at Riverside. Recently, he has taught at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, and at Lynn University, in Boca Raton, FL. Currently, he is studying Soto Zen Buddhism and enrolled in graduate work in existentialist psychotherapy at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, FL., where he’s also a care-giver at the Hospice by the Sea.
October 2011 | back-issues, poetry
Driving through Deer
I was fourteen
my dad
let me drive
he gave me
a beer
and I took
a few more
from the cooler
when he
passed out
drunk
in the passenger
seat
we were
going
to Tennessee
we were
always
going to
Tennessee
back then
I drove
straight through
the Illinois night,
into the abysmal
black heart
of it all
and ecstasy
it was easy
the vehicle
like a physical
manifestation
of myself
with one
ponderous
touch
the car
veered left
one twist
of the wrist
it sailed right
straight
into the black
heart night
of the abyss
I kept drinking
beer
throwing
the empty cans
out the window
took a cigarette
from the pack
started smoking
just ahead
a small herd
of deer stood
in the middle
of the road
they all turned
toward me
simultaneously
their eyes
burning
beaming
like gods
with one
searing
question
I hit the brights
to hypnotize
them
and accelerated
the car jumped
forward we
sped forward
through the heart
of the night
black abyss
and ecstasy
luminescent
heading
straight toward
deer
passed
right
through them
their beautiful
golden hides
all illuminated
eyeballs
and eartips
fluttering
their breath
mist
and white
tails ringing
my dad
stirred you want
me to drive
now no
I want to
I’ll drive
October 2011 | back-issues, poetry
Simulacra 889
My words do not skip, whoop, or wheel across the page
There is nothing like it when things get rolling
My father sitting in the kitchen
With a bottle of whiskey
Bare-chested and drunk
And exquisite look upon his face
An intense satisfaction that was experienced more than understood
Life was exploding around me
Blasting away at the hypocrisy
What I have accomplished in this world is meaningless
The search for a meaningful life is the utmost in futility
We only fool ourselves into believing in fairytales
This is the eastside mother fucker
Nothing here will take you back home
This is not a story of hope
We are familiar with great foolishness
Those who cannot embrace the negativity of truth
The light is found hiding in the darkness
People will find it hard to grasp the evil of the soul
The soul surpassed the mind
The soul dominated the mind and placed the mind into slavery
Thoughts become controlled by the soul
With lack of use, the mind grew weaker
she could understand everything
even when I began in the middle of a sentence
telling how things happen
three bottles of mad dog
and I’m singing merry christmas
climbing up water towers
buying 200 hits of microdot
it was then that I realized that there was nothing to fear
slipping something hot into the moon
tipping the scales
taking the blidfold off of justice
feeling her up under her robe
the two hemispheres of her brain
seeking the end with a full gaze
you have been contaminated by the luxury of five dollar ideas
another incarnation of the bottomless pit
wanting to restore all of your appetites
hundreds of corpreal miles
making love to the mother and the daughter
modulations of a freakish nature
I am squeezed out into measure
there is tension and inflation
a line of women waiting for us to finish
they both had nipple rings and a pierced belly button
in the summer they were blonde
and in the winter brunette
I am proposing the end of the soul
Religion has oppressed the history of reason
There is no reason to think when all of the answers are provided
Thus, the mind mutated into this non-thinking entity
Religion created the birth of the weakling
Each of us has one foot planted in the essential
I revive and restore
We no longer have to look backward
Our gaze should be firmly established on the future
Removing the effect of religious determinism
The absence of a horrid determination
Removing the means of the repressive productions
You were freed to be truly yourself
Not some fabricated caricature of your true self
I made you free to live according to your own wishes
Not the dictates of some manmade deity or deities
There is no utopia in heaven or on the earth
Martin’s work is solidly based on the concept of poetry as a social construction. Through our interactions with others, we create and recreate meanings that allow us to make sense out of a chaotic world full of contradictions. Martin considers the art of writing poetry as one small way of collapsing the confusion of experience into more meaningful patterns of social thought. You can find more of Martin’s thoughts at: http://martinfreebase.blogspot.com
October 2011 | back-issues, poetry
The Aforelife After Death
Winds chilled from the first fresh season of flowery green soft summer
rain;
leaves;
sky.
I’m going away from here, and still can’t say.
I’ll arrive there, though,
where it is,
this I can tell.
There I was before
birth
I sensed that, and will go there,
I once thought
but know
now.
Reflection
Hauled up in a dirty motel room,
performing brain surgery on myself again.
In a room without mirrors–
in a room constructed of mirrors.
Thank You God for letting me exist
for a short time as
one of the sane.
Thank You for letting me see what this is like.
Thank You for letting me stare at Your horrifying blue sky
without terror,
and Your hideous world without pain.
While I am hopelessly lost
in love.
October 2011 | back-issues, poetry
Eating Our Words
They ought to float
Away like cigarette smoke
To contaminate someone else’s curtains.
But they don’t.
They hover over our heads
Like filthy haloes.
Everything we think
Comes under their cloud.
How can we disperse them?
They suffuse our clothes
Like tobacco odors. Turn our fingers
The color of dying chrysanthemums.
We shout them even louder
To speed them away
Out of our mouths.
But they fly back
Insistently as silver planes
Disgorging their terrible cargo
Just when we are feeling happy
And carefree as civilians.
They know their rightful place
Spreading into our lungs like cancer
Infiltrating every future conversation,
Causing our hearts to fail.
If we try to write them off
The paper chars and smokes
Before we can seal the envelope
And mail them back
To the land we emigrated from.
Joan Colby is an award-winning author with over 900 poems published in journals including Poetry, Atlanta Review, GSU Review, Portland Review, Rockhurst Review, South Dakota Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, Karamu, New York Quarterly, the new renaissance, Grand Street, Epoch, Mid-American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Kansas Quarterly, The Hollins Critic, Minnesota Review, Western Humanities Review, College English, Another Chicago Magazine and others.
