May 2002 | back-issues, poetry
[b]Two sides of the same coin…[/b]
I have been the hunter
I have been the hunted
I’ve tracked down men with
the reckless abandon of a
she wolf in heat,
lusting after their hairy, fur
covered bodies
and their howls of ecstasy
as I sucked them dry.
I have been pursued,
coaxed out of hiding by
sugar-coated words:
“I’m not going to hurt you.
It’s okay to come out.”
only to feel a gun poking
in my side.
I have run in circles,
howling at the moon,
getting nowhere,
my frustration
dripping like spittle from
my mouth and
sticking to my sweat coated fur.
I have fought battles with my heart.
I have run away into
hiding and licked my wounds
until I felt it was safe
to come out once again.
I have poked my snout
into places I was not
ready to handle yet.
A paw into a snake’s hole,
I have learned from experience.
I have faced death and come out on top.
I have raised my paw as a symbol
of truce one minute
and maliciously torn into flesh the next.
I have given myself over to these primal urges.
I have been meek as a puppy
and fierce as a protective mother.
I have sought out a quiet life,
yet I have been sucked into a wild pack.
I have lived for myself.
I have lived for my brothers and sisters.
I have served a dual existence.
I have turned a smiling eye in your direction,
masked a heart full of pain.
I have loved the feeling of
wet grass under my body.
I have rolled down a hill
only to end up covered in briars.
I have searched for one who notices both sides of me.
I have curled up in a corner
and covered my eyes with my paws.
I know the beauty of dark, damp places.
I have hidden from people knowing
they only cause more of this pain,
but now.
now I hold out a paw
and wait for you to take it
knowing things can never be as they once were
[b]Barbies[/b]
First, you must understand
this all happens for a reason.
The baby bird
pushed out of its nest
by the hand of GOD,
the squirrel
that lost its home,
evicted by an angry tornado,
the raccoon
that fried on the power lines
but took the power with it for a couple of hours,
the mother
who stares into space
is asked what is wrong and says nothing.
You must understand
that everyone in the world is happy.
The man who just lost his baby,
left her on top of the car
and can’t find her now,
still smiles at Seinfeld.
The woman who begs for money,
is content on the street
but needs it to pay her Internet bill,
hums a song to herself.
The kid who failed a test,
lost his dog,
and yells at his mom
goes outside to play ball.
Finally you must understand
that none of this matters.
It’s words, on a page,
fucking each other and fucking the world,
thrust together
by a girl who played
with words instead of Barbies.
[b]What I should have said[/b]
please forgive me
if i can not always speak
and as you watch and wonder
if it was something you said
know that it was
please do not ask me what
or strive to make things better again
the damage is already done.
by Renate Moody (c) 2002
([email]renate [at] poetryuprising [dot] com[/email])
[b]Author’s Note:[/b]
Renate Moody lives in Roswell, GA with her husband. She graduated with a B.A. in English in 2001 and now seeks the perfect life and career. Until she figures it out, she contents herself with writing about the search. More of Renate’s work can be found on her web site at [url=http://www.poetryuprising.com]www.poetryuprising.com[/url]
May 2002 | back-issues, poetry
[b]Charles Town[/b]
Spanish moss curtains
fluttering in the wind
A gauzy layer over
the banks of the Ashley.
Down by the market
Ebony skin glistens
Sculpting a basket
of the reedy sawgrass.
The old market echoes
cries from the past
that trail a carriage
of modern day belles.
Sidewalks sizzling
Paddle fans twirling
down Meeting Street
people shuffle.
Over to St. Mary’s
with whispers from the tombs
over to Poogan’s Porch
Miss Zoey speaks.
Lazily sipping on the side porch
trying to catch the afternoon’s breeze.
Over on Queen Street
tantalizing smells waft
calling your name.
At the end of the Battery
regal homes stand
taking notice of
all the years.
The images pieced
create the majestic.
Charles Town
your spirit will always remain.
[b]Talk of Nothing[/b]
talk of nothing
nothing on the black double
tracks of phone line
nothing but birds
birds like crows
or blue jays squawking
birds bearing bad news
news from the Mockingbird
two streets over
news of a neighbor’s death
death by electrocution
fried burnt hair and smoking bones
talk
of nothing
but
lines
of birds
news of death.
[b]Blackberry Summers[/b]
Plump,
Juicy,
Sloe-black,
the summer fruit of mine
tempting on a vine.
Scratched,
Stained hands,
plopping into the tin bucket slowly
stretching highly and bending lowly.
Sun,
sweltering,
summer fruit,
to be savored to the last bite.
Eaten morning , noon, or night.
Flaky,
butter crowned,
crust,
displayed on the windowsill.
Dyed blue mouth getting its fill.
Ambrosia,
Delectable,
the fruit of blue-black
the memories of my youth take me back.
[b]I’ll Take Ft. Lauderdale[/b]
“New York is cosmopolitan”
Maria once
piped to me.
“Florida” is so pink flamingo-ish.”
True
but not iced in
dun tinted snow
in mid-winter.
I am loath to leave my
-aquamarine
-chlorine scented
-kidney shaped
-palm hated
pool
simply to be
cosmopolitan.
Besides
the
– portly
-Aqua Velvet reeking
-tobacco stained
man
at the air port terminal
took my new
size 10 Herringbone coat
instead of his when
airport security was frisking
my 11 year old
-peanut butter smudged
-gotta go to the bathroom
– wiggly daughter.
Because they deemed
her squirming terrorist like activities
to be a threat to national security.
Obviously they had never been on a two-hour flight
with a bored child.
so
Maria
instead of being cosmopolitan this winter
I will reapply
another coating of my
– SPF # 25
-Coppertone Bronze tan like a goddess
sunscreen
and simply stare at the
-plastic
-flapping
-one legged
flamingos
by the pool
this winter.
[b]Lunch @ La Belle[/b]
Down to La Belle
for escargot
garlic-butter gravy drippings
down Kelly’s chin
The large lady next
to us reeking of
lavender
toilet water
and adorned with a droopy
chapeau
flies buzzin’ in a craze around my crepe
exhaust filters in
the city sounds
certainly not a Monet
lunch @ La Belle
the monsieur in the tropical print
and polyester pants
belches not-so-discreetly
excuse moi
or something like that
cheap blush wine
and
tap water in a cobalt blue bottle
re-corked I believe
lunch @ La Belle
Kelly laughs
the sounds and scenery charm
her
amusant
or something like that
Lunch@La Belle
by Carol Parris Krauss (c)2002
([email]ckrauss [at] ahschool [dot] com[/email])
Carol Parris Krauss is a poet and teacher. She currently lives with her daughter Kelly in south Florida. From September to June, Carol teaches English at a local private school. She longs to return to coastal Carolina and inhabit a rustic beach cottage. Her poems are quite visual, complexly simple, and usually about the South.
[b]Author’s Note:[/b]
More of Carol’s poems can be found at [url=http://www.deadmule.com]Dead Mule[/url], [url=http://www.kotapress.com]Kota Press[/url], and The Florida Palm.
May 2002 | back-issues, Michael W. Giberson
It’s really a matter of style. A man can piss in a perfect arc if he remembers to adhere to a few simple rules. First, he must be careful not to piss upward. While this might seem to violate the concept of a “complete arc,” one must bear in mind that a “complete arc” in this context consists of any parabolic path with both upward and downward slope components that pass through a zero tangent, with an axis directed toward the center of the earth. Thus the arc stream needs only a very slight initial upward direction, before reaching maximum elevation and falling back toward the earth, to satisfy every requirement for the perfect parabolic arc.
The upward tangent of the arc must not be too steep, or the man will be unable to achieve sufficient lateral distance to keep from spraying his own shoes with the back-spatter. All men learn this early, usually as the consequence of imperfect long-distance peeing contests while they are still barefoot boys. Mothers of small male children frequently encounter the effects of this syndrome in their daily toilet-seat cleaning regimens. No man can pee in a pond without splashing. But one definition of a gentleman is a man who can pee in a pond without splashing himself – or others.
Another rule concerns fluid dynamics, which is far too complex a subject to tackle here. Suffice it to say that when two fluid streams collide, the degree to which they mutually interfere is dependent upon their relative densities, masses, viscosities, volumes, flows, shear moduli, and a host of other factors. A pee stream has much greater mass and viscosity than the air through which it flows, but a high velocity air stream can appreciably degrade the profile of a perfect urine arc. A man need not be a hydraulic engineer to pee in a pond; he needs only to know that it is poor practice to piss into the wind.
Other rules associated with peeing a perfect arc are of lesser consequence: a man must know that it is physically impossible to dodge the last drop; that he must wash his hands after peeing, even if he knows he hasn’t peed on them; that he is required to relinquish his turn if a lady needs to go first, for various mechanical and social reasons; and that an emotionally mature man is one who has finally accepted the fact that it is ok to pee sitting down…
When I was prepubescent, a girl in my neighborhood could pee standing up, right alongside of the boys (I’m not sure how she did it, but I remember that it required the use of both hands). In fact, she was perfectly willing to do so on any occasion. She was also capable of beating the hell out of any boy in the neighborhood any time she wanted. Of course, when she peed, she couldn’t attain much distance and she tended to splatter on her feet. She was definitely no gentleman…
