the tot's red radial flyer flew across the top of the flat until the whole empty room erupted into a shared laughter & elation, a bliss, a magic orgasm, & snow got wet on the floor & froze & flew at the ceiling until it was a blizzard, whiteout conditions, a lake effect blast nobody would drive through, but the love transcended our numerology & the storm appears in the soul's almanac, & our lips shone red & wet for touch & the old man came, laughing along, fascinated with the hair on his back & the sound the wagon makes.
today on some park bench a man awoke, thumping headache, tattered jimi hendrix t-shirt, 8 inch tear in the seat of his jeans, one pill left, a week without rest in his dreams & the memories get raped for sport.
today in a notebook god lives anonymous, with loving hands on the faces of her children, sure they'll continue to fail her, watching watching watching, pulsating in thought, moving nobody pens in all her world.
"agrarian athena"
blonde athena-statuesque with all that ivory pushing undertoe past the eye.
miniaturized without acropolis, nestled most carefully atop midwest citadel.
ohio farm dirt mistress: arms empty bottle grasping with no hands equipped to feed you.
you'll speak against those with steel speech who stand in opposition to your soft golden myth.
the great agrarian society of jefferson evolved into hemmings kids writing books of lineage.
your world has seen hell, antiquated, failing in the new-world paradigm of electric nihilism.
our america has less to do with farm fields than it does with binary gospels and slight-of-light.
the earth nurtures human souls in reciprocity. the world thus is barren, hateworn.
you statue stand solemn, silent, inanimate in a place hostile to such stalworts.
yet the beauty in your womanly stoicism will not be denied. i admire you.
you're the last of jefferson's slaves blonde & lillywhite, living your sideshow grass gospel until the seasons change.
"call to prayer"
listen to the godheads and mind their meter when the wailing choruses echo making the neo-babylonians live caligula, now their turn.
because the new death won't die; too insouciant, too nihilistic, too self-absorbed to expire until you, and everyone else gets the point and put it in missals: rock and roll hymnbooks for the seeds of dissent to repeat as they age.
"for patti smith"
long lines traversed the air where i'd breathed her
words--- delicate, calculated, flawed, indigo nightmare god-refrains that told fresh flowers which way was sun.
patti, my ballerina, boogied to motown vinyl and rode rockstars until the party was love lubricant,
the people needed it.
"now kush gets her wonderbread"
cocoa-buttered elated angel on errands for matriarch-proper peers into my empty carriage in hopes of glimpsing naivetepre> that which queen hasn't ordained that which dusk shards can't make a dowry
(we're inevitably married to our circumstance).
and the little girl kept riding her bike home after i passed her at the intersection---- franklin and school streets. momma needs bread to feed a new nation conceived in a backwater, pseudo-ghetto jungle filled with lions who've been swindled.
"observations in a student union"
the eyes & the voices & the pock-marked faces & the smell of mcdonald's breakfast & the fleeting glances & complaints & a man who's shirt is too tight & tony the tiger & hipsters & loose women & hangovers & solitary people & four-legged beings & gossip & jesus & a camera & matthew john anthony estvanic & machines & laughter & marijuana & epithets & pretty lips & cellular phones & eyeglasses & sneezes & twin sisters without their twin & a striking woman & paint on the ceiling & her muslim clothes & crushed papers & sinead o'connor & the newspaper & all tomorrow's parties & matthew john anthony estvanic
"sea"
medusa new paused me into a second act of poor oxen with traveler-weary shoulders,
caused drip dripping ocean--- spilling on poor man's fine silks.
now bosom feeds soul mommy milk and cares even after our rain dance.
matthew estvanic is a kent, ohio resident and native of cleveland, ohio. he is a kent state university student. his work has appeared in numerous college publications, including, most recently. in the luna negra (a student publication at kent state university). he's also a member of the silentfusion collective.
Issue 11
Duane Locke
BELLS AND SILENCE
In a red-curtained room, A man alone, in red, Listens to the bells Ring in his wine glass.
The bells are red, Ring with a red sound. The sounds send out Red flowers to float.
Red carnations before him. Red carnations behind him. Red carnations below him. Red carnations above him.
Each carnation silent. Each carnation silent.
CROWS
A hundred black crows Fly over a black hearse. The sky is black caws. The earth, the rumple of the hearse's black tires. The crows fly past the cemetery. The hearse enters the cemetery.
INSIDE THE TEARS
The tenor's high notes Tear opened our tears. We look inside our tears, See our childhoods, See our employments, See our marriage, See our deaths. The tears stay torn open. We put on blindfolds. The performance continues.
THE CEDAR'S SONG
Under cedars, she, in green Touches with her fingertips The sway of cedar shadows.
Her eyes, a green lighter Than the green of the cedar; Her voice, pianissimo, like the voice of the cedar.
She and the cedar Sing duets together. Passers-by hear only one voice.
TWO TOGETHER IN A FOREST
The forest had white sparrows That sit on white rocks, Sing sienna-colored songs, Mushrooms that sing chryselephantine, Gold and white, under stem shadows Of star-shaped sienna-colored flowers. No others in this forest, only us.
A METAPHYSICAL POEM WRITTEN ON AN VERY RAINY DAY IN FLORIDA
The wind whirls between my spread fingers, The unseen chills the flesh of the fingers' edges, Implicating there are other forces beside myself A grip, a closed fist, obliterates space, openness. In this closure, the fingers are warmed by each other. What is outside, unknown, is excluded By inner contentment. The hand in warmness Is isolated from the wind, and its statement: There is something other than yourself, fingers Closed together in warmness are isolated from wind. Openness of hand brought a change by confrontation, But closed, the fist repeats what has been.
OPHEUS AND EURYDICE
The smell of burning cinders linger in their nostrils, These two Walk again On a dark path through snake-shook tall autumn-brown grasses. Not touching, She follows his uncertainty. Now, they are one and one,
He fully awakened, Wonders Why he charmed the demons with his lyre, But he had heard the legend Of himself, Had to descend to be the legend.
She had wings for a short stay among ambrosia and mead. Now Her Shoulders Bare.
It was not like when young, she saw his toga As A galloping white deer on a tuft of clouds.
Now, old, Orpheus's lack of breath precludes The trap and magic of high notes.
A CONVERSATION WITH A TOLERANT WINE THAT ACCEPTS MY LACK OF NOSTALGIA FOR POSTIVISTIC CERTAINIES
A storm-green sky, partially cabbage palm blocked, Lightning struck and streaked with the obtuse And acute angles of quick green flashes That in their origins aspired to be vertical straight lines, But due to inner passion became a horizontal That broke into an up and downstairs arrangements, Zigzagged patches over green vaporous irregular masses. I walked, rain-coated, hatless, through a drizzle, Wiped raindrops from my face's sides and eye lashes, Rejoiced in the sensation of having a wet hand; My joy was an epiphany that changed my direction. I was crossing the glistening brick street to visit A dark-haired neighbor, talk about our distance and the weather. Went back inside my house, dried my hair With a blow-dyer and towel, rejoiced in having dry hair. I sit down by a bucket catching the water leaking through my roof. And talked to a glass of dry red wine, Shiraz, About how there never would be a metrically theory That is logically sound, linguistically well-informed, Semiotically serviceable, and that can be empirically verified.
AN ITALIAN JOURNEY AFTER READING HENRY JAMES AND GOETHE
The hills before us, beryl, and a blurred chocolate With a cape-shaped space of a pale brown, a color Rarely encounter, but a color we knew from seeds That hang in clusters on Florida palms that were Imported with rum and the rumba from the West Indies. This familiar color among colors strange to us Was disconcerting as it spotlighted our familiar lives. For a while, the color sent a fear through us, Because we thought we were back home and separated. Soon, we drove to where the hills before us Had only unfamiliar colors and unfamiliarity consoled. We, close together, looked out the car window, Saw it was snowing during July in the Gran Grasso.
A MAN WHO LIVES IN SNOW ON MOUNT TO SPEAK AS HE CONTEMPLATES THE SHAPE OF A MANGO
To understand, Go not to parents, Professors, Priests,
But go to a patch of wild weeds, Sit Among the weeds, Concentrate on the different shapes of these wild weeds.
Concentrate On how many different shades of green these wild weeds have.
Concentrate On the insects that visited these wild weeds.
Concentrate on the winged, concentrate on the unwinged.
Then when you speak again Listen to the language you are speaking, The language you always spoke, You will find Your old language To be without meaning and a stranger.
Issue 10
John Sweet
blue
here where the streets all run blue to the river
where the needle crawls blind through forgotten back yards searching for the one true vein
every one of these houses is for sale every one of these children unwanted
and do you remember the year of the burning girl?
it never ended just spread from town to town like beauty reversed
do you remember the season of rust?
you do if your sister lost her unborn child and maybe now you drink too much
maybe you lock the bedroom door and cry while your own children scratch to be let in
there is no future so bleak it can never come to be
indian summer
or october which is the smell of wet sunlight on blacktop
which is the uneasy rush of waiting to be a father
of falling from an impossible height over some vague expanse of wasteland
everything suddenly beautiful just when it no longer matters
shaped by fire
she is less than what she was
she has been shaped by fire
has been broken down then put back together and no one is holding her
no one is telling her she's beautiful
we are all too busy turning away
in the afternoon of bitter confessions
in the season of myths i am empty
in the afternoon of bitter confessions i remain silent
these are the walls we call home and beyond them the sky is white
the sun has lost something
is warm but only faintly like an almost forgotten memory and the trees all shimmer beneath it
and the story is yours and you tell it softly
the suicide of a friend or maybe the overdose
maybe the body found shortly after midnight in any pointless upstate town
the face black the fingers rigid around something
a steering wheel or a bible or a pack of cigarettes and the air is sweet through these open windows and i am not a compassionate man
am not the man you married
my eyes are pale green my teeth white and even my smile an angry thing
i could hold you but don't
could tell you a story of my own but choose not to
i have become my father's son
desperate poem from the season of rust
a small song sung softly for this woman found raped and strangled in her bed
an empty gesture for the living to comfort themselves with
take it with you to the hill of fifteen crosses
take it to the missing girl's door on an overcast day in september eight years after the fact
tell her parents that you believe in redemption
tell them that the spirit holds more weight than the bones
realize finally how worthless your lies really are
myself a bastard son
what i give you is the world in terms of cancer
people devoured and objects destroyed and the simple truth that there is no cure
that the children next door stand on the side of the street and dare each other to touch the decomposing remains of a small animal
and this is nothing new
it's where we've come from the burning of witches and the lynching of slaves
it's the idea that democracy by itself is enough to save us
and i believe in love yes but i believe in money too
i believe that beauty can only be defined by the ugliness that surrounds it
consider that every year of your life has been defined to some extent by war
by the deaths of both loved ones and strangers
and in the kitchen the faucet drips and in the back yard a cautious version of the sun appears
the faint shadows of buildings and of trees
the sound of an airplane
the sky suddenly luminous with possibility
letter to kurt cobain, seven years dead, on his 35th birthday
fuck this idea of heroes
fuck this idea of gods of any kind
do you agree?
do you believe?
i can't hear you
the moment with clarity, but no definition
or else the boy walks into his house to find his brother murdered
his mother dead by her own hand
blood everywhere but nothing spelled out
nothing left whole or recognizable
the future enormous
faith in nothing: a confession
or the smell of slowly decaying houses in these first warm days of fall
the unthinking weight i place on april's heart
and what i can't seem to shake are the last meaningless words i spoke to this man i know before he went home and put the gun in his mouth
do you understand that i'm human?
it becomes harder to prove with each passing year as the list of people i would call friends grows smaller and smaller
and did i have a childhood?
of course but i can't seem to make any connections between the boy i was and the man i've become
and i continue to write these poems but what any of them actually say is an uncertain thing
what any of us choose to do in the face of tragedy seems irrelevant
i know i'm not the only one to accept this as truth
the age of pity, softly
this woman with a rope around her throat and her lover vanished
the shape of america pressing in on this place i call home
and distance and speed and the inevitability of addiction
a child found dead in a cage
another found dead in a closet
all of these bodies covered with cigarette burns and the constellations they form when laid side by side
the man who insists that nothing good can come from obsessing over these atrocities that define us
his belief in god which saves no one
john sweet, 34, lives with his wife and 2 young sons in upstate new york. he has spent 2/3 of his life writing, and his work has appeared in literary publications both in the u.s. and internationally. his first full length collection, Human Cathedrals, was recently published by Ravenna Press. as a rule, he is opposed to a great many things.
