November 2001 | back-issues, fiction, Michael W. Giberson
When my dog talks to me
I know that he is discussing
Quantum Physics
From a different
Perspective…
When he dreams
I know that he does not exist
In this world
While he dreams…
His incisors
Are perfect utensils
For cutting meat…
He allows me
To take his temperature
Rectally…
When I sing
He harmonizes
In fellowship…
When I scratch his belly
He starts his motorcycle,
And I never ask,
“What’s in it for me?”…
November 2001 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry
i give you a dress
a stone
a handful of broken glass
nothing that’s ever
enough
and i catch angels
with my bare hands
i pull their wings off
and leave them to bleed
and the days pass slowly
and forcibly
like poured concrete
like rust
two years now
since my father died
and i give you bones
and white light
and a dozen reasons to cry
i drive down
deserted country roads in
the last fading minutes
of the day
i put knives through
the throats
of crippled children
i wait for a sign from
any god
November 2001 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry
and if i say [i]november[/i]
maybe you picture a grey sky
hung low over darker hills
and maybe this time you’re right
and what if all i have to offer
are these carefully chosen words in
a world full of the sick and
the butchered?
there are worse things than
hearing you are no longer loved
there are reasons men give
for raping their daughters but
none of them matter
and i am tired of being damned
by the fools who want to
force god’s cancerous weight
between my ribs
i’m sorry for tyranny and for
the ignorance that leads to hatred
but i am not the cause or
the cure
this is what i
want my son to understand when
we no longer speak to
each other
it’s what i never understood
about my own father
a coward
is not necessarily a
villain
a starving dog in the right hands
is a weapon
left alone it will only die
or devour the world