JOEL R. S. YOUNG

[b]at the joining of sky and horizon[/b]

the prints now left behind in sand will soon be washed away
the fires that burn bright tonight will all burn out by day
remembrance does not come for those who carve their names in stone
their memory decays and fades as even stone erodes….

no guarantees implied or written come with human birth
no standard set nor written guide can say what life is worth
one day life is, the next it’s not, the next new life begins
that life will live, that life will die – and that is how life is….
the author writes – his paper fades; and so his story dies
and who he is and what he was gets lost in seas of time
since all men great and small one day must breathe a final breath….
the greatest shame of all would be to die in fear of death….

[b]illumination:[/b]

the darkness from the light of day will leave unmelted snow
illuminations far removed leave candles left to glow
that candlelight is still romantic – so the lovers say…
but are dim lights and silent nights the proof we’ve grown afraid?

if so then those who pause to look might see what has been lost
and if in this lucidity – they choose a road unwalked…
if finally they gamble and let go of all they grasp…
they might discover candlelight can light their life at last….

[b]in the dream and what is hoped for, maybe[/b]

in the dream and what is hoped for, maybe;
i will see with different eyes.
i will walk inside your shoes,
i will live another’s life.
as maybe you would also.

maybe in my aspirations;
i’m the man i’d like to be.
i’m the hero of the story,
i’m the difference; i’m the dream.
and always living in it.

maybe in my daydream fancies;
i was things i’ve never been.
i was who i’d least expected,
giving out; putting in –
with so much left to offer.

in the dream of what is hoped for, maybe;
mirrors show me things i like.
reflections are the least revealing,
i paint truth about my life.
and there, i find my shelter.

it’s just a shame
that when it’s done,
when i must leave the world behind –
glancing back,
i’ll see i lived…

in dreams alone;
alone in life.

my nightmare then upon me.

[b]maroon and somnolescence[/b]

the words i write upon this page are thoughts which slowly fade
as time makes mind and body blend into the endless shade.
the will is strong, the dream is real, or so it seems to me
though empty glass and ticking clock is all i now can see.

fatigue sets in, and makes itself at home… like it belongs.
and till the sickness runs it’s course there are no sounds of songs.
there’s just the old ironic dream i sip from reddened glass,
the dream that i might wake to find my happiness at last.

by Joel R. S. Young (c)2002
([email]FndleMcGoat [at] aol [dot] com[/email])

[b]Author’s Note:[/b]
Joel R. S. Young poses this question: “Am i an artist? Read what i have written, and decide for yourselves.”

Kelley White (2)

What do you eat when
you’re not in love?

stones
river mud
salted straw

still I don’t grow
lean

Stacked

I have a deck
and every card
is the Queen
of Hearts. I deal
my own hand
on the bedspread
solitaire
every face up
card is her
and every back
your hair.

Cybernetic Reification

control through feedback
-your mother-
turn into a thing
spittoon crankcase bag jug
overshoot and undershoot
bitchgoddess pantywaist
give it a name whore

A “use of force” incident

S. told the guard she had been hit with a chair.
(A woman would be a victim of rape…)
The guard returned to the topic at hand.
(if she had sexual intercourse with a person
who was not her spouse…)
“He had me down
on my left side, bent over.” (by force;
or by threat of force…)
His rings cut S.’s face
and blood spurted (that would prevent resistance
by a person of reasonable resolution…)
onto
the floor (or when she was unconscious;…)
and table; S. had a history of ‘fast racing thoughts
and trouble sleeping.’ “She was a very quiet
person. When you used to give her things,
she used to clap her hands, like a little child.”
(or if she was so mentally ill and/or incompetent…)
The next morning the floor was still wet
with S.’s blood (that she was not capable
of consent.)
when prisoners cleaned the day room.

Beat

I must see three battered children
newly placed in foster care.
One is scarred.
The others’ wounds
internal.
Not seen but
bona fide.
How much can be
concealed.

Brittle

angels in the mirror
looking at me
angels in the mirror
I can’t see

angels smiling at me
with a laugh
angels glitter at me
breaking glass

look at smoke around me
look wordless
disbelieving angels
look so blessed

seek relief my angels
rose to be
angels in my mirror
laugh with me

angels in my mirror
watching me
angels without voices
breaking free

angels in the ashes
suddenly
glitter little angels
sing to me

glitter little angels
almost done
turn it to the wall
oblivion

put away the pieces
let me be
angels fly around me
set them free

angels left the mirror
just for me

by Kelley White (c) 2002
([email]kelleywhitemd [at] yahoo [dot] com[/email])

CHRISTOPHER SWAN

[b]Sunshine State[/b]

In wood gray comes
soon before falling down.
Inland Florida being no exception,
across the road a gate creaking
“Keep Out” where the rusty sun sets,
and a seven-year-old girl tore her dress
on the barbed wire fence
behind which a dirt road
disappears in a field of burrs
and weeds and nothing
ever happens.
The sun seems distant,
yet it bakes the air
from horizon to horizon;
and the moon,
when it gets close to the land,
turns maroon, turns the land
a kind of sinister shallow pale.
The three of us watch the
bonfires down the road
set by a man my mother
calls a pyromaniac.
And when my father comes home,
with his usual bright humor,
calling this place “The Ranch,”
she reminds him of the fact
that it is a shack. A gray wood shack.
The shack adds fuel to their nasty fights
this being only the latest, sorriest hole
he?s dumped his family in
along a string of failed jobs, binges,
increasingly prolonged absences
.. .until one final sun-seared afternoon
she drags two suitcases
and her three children down
the long, hot, shimmering road
to catch a bus to another life
bought by her father,
leaving behind only
a letter from a woman,
hotly disputed and in pieces,
blown and scattered on the floor…
Turning back to look, I see the shack.
Dead wood; unkindled by the sun.

[b]Early Light[/b]

If all he had was the chance
to fumble darkly toward a better end,
and grope along his unlit stairway,
he’d have gladly accepted the opportunity,
if only for the feeling he was getting somewhere.
But now he must be content to stay,
to measure out the dimensions of his heart;
Because here, a light burns softly,
even through the hooded lens of his eye;
warm, numinous. . . illuminating
and, sometime, it tells him,
he will make his way into the crowded days;
single out the faces that seek remembering;
the identifying sorrows etched in every face;
record the time and place of their passing,
like an Etruscan painter whose portraits
left the only traces of a long disremembered
people–that their eyes might gaze,
limpid with futile beauty,
into ours.

[b]River run[/b]

Time’s the river rushing on,
swallows tributary lives,
visible until they’re gone.

Push against or pull upon
–life’s the thing that just arrives-
Time’s the river rushing on.

It’s the stream where humans spawn,
wriggle through their dwindling lives,
visible until they’re gone.

Earth, wind, and fire carry on:
Drink again what life revives.
Time’s the river rushing on.

Take a look at everyone,
know there’s meaning in their lives
(time’s the river rushing on)
visible until they’re gone.

[b]Insignificance[/b]

This place has been like
Out-of-season spring
These last few days.
Something has descended here;
Silence?
Hard to believe.
I’ve heard more silence here,
Seen more empty space
than I dare to recall.
Inner and outer worlds have,
for the moment,
Become convexed and concaved.
There was no autumn here.
There will be no spring.
The ice will splinter, not melt.
No mirror needed
For silent splendor
To be turned over, and over, and over
In the machinery; as if the earth were not
a catch-all of the perfectly insignificant.
When loud Significance
Rolled its hammered rivets over everything
To conquer, entirely, the Great American Plain,
To bring
The Urgency of Cities
It left echoes, now audibly caroming
off the planets and the planets’ moons.
This urgency must of itself
burn itself out.
Time tells us that.
Let the future come.
let it come in purple glaze
Like absinthe in the mouth.
And brilliant, multicolored sand in the eyes.
Let it seize itself with its own power
Let it have its compound hour, compounded again,
Turning itself into shards of ambition and chaos.
Leaving itself nowhere to go.
Which is exactly what it did.
Went nowhere. Did nothing.
Waiting to be rediscovered!
Immolation of the known
Leaves no residue on the unknown:
World after world. . . sigh upon sigh.

[b]Walking by the Cemetery[/b]

A butterfly,
the dog and I
and, yes, Spring’s Fool,
with those who sigh
for those gone by,
now sleeping in Time’s pool.

[b]Song for My Father[/b]

So, this is what you left us:
this is your legacy-
our hair full of rain, our eyes clouded,
we look back at you, across the dead years,
across the pain and sorrow,
tracing the lineaments of our inheritance
to a glazed stare
in a cheap hotel room
and a black phone
you never rang.

[b]In Remembrance[/b]

When you died you became as silent
as footprints covered by fresh snow.
You were suddenly an unwritten letter
composed in the mind, but not put to paper.
Your clothes hung empty in the closet,
as though waiting for you to step into them;
but you are no longer you and we don’t know
who you are, or where you’ve gone, or why.
Removed so far from us you might as well have
lapsed into the silent folds of the deepsea,
or lain scribbled in an ancient poem on a shelf
in the drowned library of Alexandria.
You have joined the silent chorus of the dead.
Like winter warmth you simply emptied yourself
into the perplexity of infinite space.
You walked and sat and talked among us once;
but that no longer happens and never will.
What you have taken with you is more
than can be said or thought of in a lifetime.
So the time has come to resolutely take you back
out of the mere shuffle of humanity, prize you
in the secret details of profound, unspoken grief,
and keep you in the sealed memory of our hearts.

by Christopher Swan (c) 2002
([email]chrishmael [at] yahoo [dot] com[/email])

[b]Author’s Note:[/b]
Christopher Swan’s life reflects his poetry – or vice versa. His poetry tends to the eclectic and idiosyncratic just as his life has, from truck-loader to apprentice for The New York Shakespeare Festival to work in films. Christopher became a full-fledged journalist as a New York Correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor, later writing features and an arts column there. His work appeared in The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times many other papers. He’s written for numerous magazines.

His poetry has appeared on the Web, most notably in the Absinthe Literary Review. Chris started writing poetry for publication this past summer.

composition #2:

[b]malevich dreams of taking his own life in upstate new york[/b]

or maybe i talk casually of a
church brought down by an earthquake
until the bodies of children are
pulled from the ruins

maybe i grow tired of
the endless white space between
obvious truths and firm beliefs

of the lack of money that has
come to define my life

and what attracts us to words written on paper
of course
is the fact that they can be burned

we all claim a god’s eye of our own
and we all let the starving starve

we let pollock wade through broken glass
as long as he promises to bleed
because a person gets what he deserves

and i remember saying this about my father
two weeks before his death but
forget the reason why

i wanted to feel guilt but
everything is lost so easily
behind these grey sheets of rain

this begins to
sound like the sad
fucking excuse that it is

begged

up these stairs to
this room
and all the times
i tied you to
the bed

all the times you
begged
and all the ways your
father died

seven years now
coming down hard

windows broken
doors left open
the soft drip of
the kitchen sink

i know i’ll find you
crying

i know
every moment will
be wasted

there is no
great trick in
living the same
frightened life
again and
again

weighing the word love on broken scales

how many years now wasted
weighing the word [i]love[/i]
on broken scales?

there is no religion
to be found here
only stigmata
and the taste of dust

empty room
after empty room until
you finally reach the one
you call home

in this corner
a man shot in the face
from less than a
foot away

in that one
the woman who loves pain
screaming for the baby
she never had

you will become
one or you will become
the other and
either way
your future has been
determined

there is nothing left
but to be
nailed to it

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